Ordinary

Growing up I was taught to think of myself as different to others, more or less, the qualities or quantities of others compared, scrutinised, analysed. Being "better" I understood as a quiet assertion of confidence, an adherence to values that made belonging to my family a source of pride, a core belief. Yet as an adult, I think of myself as never quite achieving, never the best or quite good enough, choosing comfort over achievement, politeness over wild enthusiasm, reserve.

Today, I put my hands into heavy layer of warm wet worm castings to find and remove the wrigglers who'd made their homes between eggshells not yet crushed, still slippery with membranes and the residue of egg white. Two years and the shells still not eaten or decomposed, it was time to clear the worm box, but these two years I've been unwilling to touch their little pink and grey soft bodies with my fingers, their tiny tapering lengths. 

I understand that it is in human nature to experience emotions like fear and worry in advance of a challenging experience as survival strategy. And that the post-experience reflection will often be that the experience was not as we predicted, that the recall of the experience will be "not so bad after all". And that in fact we are deeply adaptive to new experiences.  Today, to just get stuck in and do the job was freeing, excitingly so. 

I could feel the heavy wet worm-made soil, scrape it from the plastic walls, catch the ends of individual retreating bodies as they plunged back into dark soil, and place them gently into ready vegetable peelings and damp newspaper. I explore the black, moist, crumbly, odourless castings like I am rubbing fat into flour, expecting smells that just aren't there. Nothing to be revolted by. It is all in my head. My pattern has been to avoid, to stay in fear and worry, adopting self-protection and self-saving as habit.What if this aversion to getting my hands dirty, a lifelong reserve, fear of risk, of messy relationships, of failure, sexual reluctance, saying what you mean, showing yourself, can be shifted with sensory practices, with the knowledge of trusting the senses, of not holding yourself as separate or different, of uninvolved, simply being like others, the same as, one of many. Ordinary. When I am ordinary, all things are possible. What if being no more than ordinary is the path to courage? 

44/67 Mandela 95 Posters at Open Design

really like the raw brushmarks here- it's remarkably difficult to make painterly marks look effortless, energetic and graphically "right" 

making type and image read simultaneously, and effortlessly - a challenge

Mandela - 95 . A Poster Exhibition at Cape Town City Hall, till tomorrow 31 August.  A small group of some of my favourites- which are very graphic and black and white- but there are some other more colourful and wonderful illustrational solutions, and from all over the world. I was drawn to the simple, typographic solutions. 
This exhibition of 95 posters is a small part of Open Design week, which is showcasing design in a fairly diverse way. Lots of product design, in the health , transport and furniture sectors, some communication design,   and service design, with an absence of fashion. Worth visiting. 

Marian Bantjies' Mandela Mandala - a meditation on the man

provocative statement teasing our assumptions about those who have served time 

understated, brilliant use of type, focal point, love how something so abstract can hold the emotion and promise of release, stepping out into freedom

visual movement, the eye follows the word perfectly logically, with a reversed twist in the final three letters

and the last one for designers talking to designers, who fetishise Pantone colors. We know how many possible Pantone colours there are, so suggesting a rainbow by inserting it into our memory- brilliant. Even though it's stormy in the Rainbow nation.

43/67 moving into heartspace

Sometimes I feel like I am a screaming banshee, an angry frustrated voice, more and more convinced of the logic of my own argument, moving closer and closer to storming out of the room, sending a reactive email, a furious text message or popping expletives out of my mouth. Why can others not see the clarity of my point of view? 
What plays a role in this? Is it menopausal hormonal swings? Is it the assertiveness of finally being over fifty and damned if I can't speak my mind? Is it another stage of growing up, of giving up being the compliant dutiful angel, and giving reign to what I really think? The more sure I am of my own rightness, the more unlikely I will be to care of others vulnerabilities or concerns, listen, or be quiet. But as sure as hell, thoughts and feelings are ripping out of my head and heart. Words are swarming in my head, as I walk. Trying to pay attention to breath and pace, I write poems of rage, assertion, counter-arguments. I pause on a crossing mid-walk, and try to imagine: what could it be like if I did not work in this environment, if I made the choice to leave and not have this turmoil of adrenalin in my body? If I could feel more peace and contentment, more stability and less uncertainty, more often?
A session with my coach leaves me with more insight: having had the space to assess what's happening, I have some options to try. A body-talk session, a hormonal test, and listening to a body talk presentation. The journey continues.

42/67 easy ride

And that is all it was... an easy cycle before bookclub and fetching Mike from the airport..
after an awful work meeting with major disappointment. I had good reason to do a massively challenging exercise session to get rid of some stress, but I was due for a lower intensity day. Tomorrow will be better. 

41/67 out of time

Thinking about time.

I woke in the early hours of this morning, praying that the previous night's story on social media that a 19 year old student had died in a fall on Table Mountain, was not true. I know his mom, as an acquaintance, and he was with my older son all through primary school, in the same grade. He was at Westerford, where Adam is, and at UCT this year. I resonate with his family's loss and feel so much for them. 

Adam on the way to school at 7.30am, pointing out the neon yellow green of new oak leaves, against the grey rainy sky. Simultaneous colour contrasts against the grey towers of the brewery buildings. Spring is not far away.

Mike, flying back from a weekend on Wasan Island in Canada, and how strange it is to fly backwards out of time and forwards into time again. How time is elastic. In his own, intact, discrete time-space, but stretched apart from each other, always six hours behind us there, always out of sync with what we were doing at home. 

And then this evening at gym, from 8 to 9pm, the latest I have ever been.  Conscious that I am among many young people. All the ones without families, who can go to gym when other people are busy with domestic routines of supper, TV, bed, preparing for the next day. I am outside that routine for a little, waiting to collect Adam from a play rehearsal. I quite like the feeling of not being a slave to routine, of being out of time. Perhaps I will try it more often. 

40/67 Yielding

In a meeting with three staff members today to try to mediate a faculty structural problem, one colleague spoke about a method she used when she found herself constantly knocking heads with another colleague, and living with huge strain as a result. Quite simply, she decided that she would yield. 

She found the space between the fixed position she and her colleague were occupying, and decided that she would focus on exploring the space, and work there. 

The interesting question : does this mean that she gave up her position, versakked, lost the battle? Not really. What she did required terrific listening and an understanding of her own and her colleague's position, not a judgement of it, in order to find the space in which she could work. Maybe this strategy isn't always going to give what each party would agree is the best solution, but it might enable movement. 

Yielding as a practice resonates with me as a coach in training, as it speaks to a way to work through stuckness. Recently when I have been feeling continually anxious, I have not termed it "yielding",  but I have accepted that I must learn sit with these uncomfortable feelings, to understand better where they come from. In doing so, in gaining insight, movement and progress happen. It is a really funny pheneomenon. It's like every time I get passionate and impatient with wanting something that is making me upset or angry to go away, or pass, if I practice just sitting with it, something eventually shifts. It seems you can't treat emotional, cognitive or somatic issues symptomatically, and wish them away. The yielding way seems to be a way forward, just not on the path you were so fixated on as the only solution. And in yielding it seems there is plenty of insight to be gained.

Spin class with Tarquin tonight was absolutely awesome. First time I manage a whole hour on the bike, and I will be back. Especially when the final five minutes play out to a soulful Papa was a rolling stone....

39/67 Spring, spring.

Officially spring begins on September 1, but late August is playing nicely. Weekend leisure, time for a walk and coffee with a good friend, cook slow food, soak up a little sun, visit family and chat a little bit about life. Wonderful.

Having already done an hour long walk today, I will do something I have long talked about, which is a yoga class. It's been on my long list of intentions, to which I suspect I may not be that committed. In taking this coaching course, I have realised that the possibilities of coaching through the body, through physical practices, is an area I must explore. This includes being open to trying alternative healing methodologies, such as body stress release, reflexology, meditation, yoga....

I did Pilates intensely,  though a few years ago, and found ONLY doing that too repetitive. My goal after the completion of my 67 days is to do a mix of cardio exercise, stretch, outdoor opportunities such as running and walking in beautiful environments, and yoga /pilates, to find the best balance and well-being, and to maintain a daily practice. Sound like bliss?

38/67 rite of passage

Tonight is a special night in my fifteen year old's life: grade dance, before party, after party, bus transport, bow tie, new shirt, favourite stripy socks and a date. 

While mothers can be involved in the before-the-before-party stuff like paying for The Shirt, shopping for the right pants, and checking that the stain is gone from the front of his brother's black jacket last worn at a matric dance, when the action happens, the real socializing, it's time to let go. I realise it is two and a bit years before he, too, will be signing off at school. And that increasingly the freedom I have been missing, and sometimes really wanting, will become mine.

Yet it is an equivocal space I am in. It is a shock to see one's boys as men, to see them grow into themselves, to hear others speak of their pleasant demeanour, and as much as one is delighted that one's children seem to be functioning well "out there",  I am grateful for the fact of teenage-hood, for the gradualness of letting go, the push and pull of this time. The rite of passage is as much mine as it is theirs. 

Okay, no more champagne for now. Thanks Lil for the sushi, and Nike for the stroll around the hood. Big walk tomorrow.

37/67 Walking because I can

Thanks for the words of love and care after yesterday's post. It feels good to be held by friends and also by people who knew Ammie. I thought afterwards how she would have gone out for dinner and drunk a bottle of good champagne, or Pongracz if she was a little skint. She might have indulged herself in a beautiful piece of lingerie, but equally she might have bought a bunch of pretty things from Mr Price, or Monsieur Prix, as we liked to joke. 

Today's 60 minutes was partially a walk in a place I love after the rains, and Rondebosch Common is gumboot land now. I haven't seen it so wet, and as it gently drops in gradient from Red Cross Hospital side towards Sawkins road, you see quite large masses of water accumulate on the mountain side. Not long now, and the spring bulbs will flower. Today, it was labrador heaven, and worth a few photos. In summer, I like to walk barefoot on the soft and sandy paths. The Friends of the Common are careful about removing rubbish, so, for a suburban wetland, it's very clean. 

And the second part of exercise today was putting on my rucksack and trainers and walking to Woolies for a few supper things. We are considering selling the gas-guzzling car, so it is something I may do more often. Suburban South Africans, as we know, love their cars. We use them for trips under a kilometer, and clog up parking lots, and pay car guards to watch our vehicles which we have already insured against the dangers of driving and crime,  so we can continue not to walk anywhere if we can avoid it. We are an odd unthinking lot.