Reflection Zone

After three or so months of getting up at 4h15 am to perform in township schools across Gauteng life has conspired to give me a few weeks to recollect myself and have a bit of a break with my folks. They have a lovely house in Deneysville on the Vaal dam which I adore and it is doing me the world of good. My friend Sarah told me that she would help me edit a book if I would take the time to write it, so I have come here to start throwing down the foundations. It’s scary and all grown up to be trying to write a book and so far I’ve only written about twelve pages, but I’m really enjoying it. I get up drink my green tea write my morning pages and then, in between helping my mom lift the odd suitcase or drive her to the shops or hair salon (she’s still recovering from a big operation) I am pretty much indulging in taking a good look at myself, one of my favourite hobbies. Next month I turn thirty and it’s an important benchmark in my life. Numerous psychics, Astrologers and Sangoma’s have told me in the past that my life would come together just before my thirtieth birthday and here I am a few weeks away still waiting for that to happen.
I’ve joined the local gym in Deneysville and for R15 a day I can pump iron with a very sexy 20 year old who is a barman at one of the local bars. I find him there when I go around 4pm and he plays Eminem from his cell phone as he does his bench presses and I try not to look too gay as I do my second set of leg raisers. Most of the equipment looks like stuff you would get from Verimark and I suspect that 20 year old and I may be one of just a handful of members most of which I presume must come in the mornings when 20 year old and I are sleeping. Deneysville is quiet and villagey. The people are down to earth and quite friendly but I’m not here to socialise. My dad wakes early every morning to run his Laundromat on the main road and mom and I keep busy during the day on various projects. Other than recovering she’s currently making an inventory of all the stamps we found in old suitcases that my grandfather collected during his life. Mom does her thing and I do mine and occasionally we meet up for tea (which I keep flowing) or meals which my mother expertly prepares. It’s easy to manifest love-handles in Deneysville.
Since I’ve been here I’ve missed auditions for Grease the next big Pieter Toerien musical planned for next year and for the first time in ages I felt nothing but relief that I wasn’t able to go. I Love musicals but I don’t think I’ll be able to keep doing them and make enough money to sustain a real living. I’ve loved every moment of being a musical theatre queen but I’ve put a fork in myself and begun to realise that I’m done. There are just so many talented young actor/singer/dancers spewing forth from the universities and Colleges and it’s not really ever where I saw myself in the long run.
So, what next? I’m not really sure... I start a gig on the 29th singing opera in Melrose Arch to promote Bingo (you can’t make that shit up) and I am even considering doing the schools again afterwards if it continues to pay me enough to keep writing. Sometimes I lie in bed at night crushed by at least one of our five chubby cats and I fantasize about what I want for my life. I see my own imaginary home with comfy couches and cosy nooks that invite you to drink tea, read a book or write a wish list. I have my own cat or two roaming and occasionally gracing me with their presence as only a cat can do. Purring and sharing a spot of sunshine with me. I see myself singing to an appreciative audience, songs that I have written and in my fantasy they know the words as well as I do. I imagine spooning with a man that is a mystery but at once deeply familiar, a man with my hearts stamp of approval whose heart has stamped an approval of me, masculine and sexy, to share laughter and warm, delicious meals with. In this home I am drawing with my mind, I have a big wooden table and chairs and I enjoy food and consoling conversation over candlelight with my beloved friends. They bring their warmth across my threshold. Everything in life that is manifest must have at one point in time have been unmanifest, I entertain these pictures and hopes in my head and pray that they will all, someday soon, come into being.