To Be True

You don’t need years to gain wisdom you need experience.

Sometimes we have to experience the same things over and over in the form of failure to learn and evolve.

Life is about choices and we all do the best we can with the knowledge we have. I have had my share of choices, some of which were a disaster.

I started this year with only one resolution.

To be true to myself. To respect myself. To nourish myself.

I think I’ve done a fine job of it so far.

For the first time in my life I have a peace within me. That the work I am doing is in line with my hearts desires. That I can express myself knowing that those expressions reflect the soul inside me.

For the first time I can look myself in the mirror and be happy with the person staring back.

My passion for the mountains is far more than a fleeting crush. I have tested the theory enough to know this with certainty.

I’m not asking anyone to love me, or to understand me. I don’t even understand me.

I am evolving.

Things I Cannot Live Without: Music

I have vivid memories of a long gone era, when I was young and my parents were still married. When evenings were filled with music and dancing.

Some of the most special are of my father singing “Blueberry Hill” by Fats Domino or him crooning to “November Rain” by Guns and Roses. It was no surprise that most of these moments were when he was tipsy, sometimes not. He was a conservative man but through music he awakened. These were the times when he most displayed his affection, either with my mother, myself and my siblings and his extended family.

I remember going to a music festival with him when I was seventeen. Nevermind Oppi Koppi or Splashy Fen, I went to KKNK( the Klein Karoo Nationale Kunstefees – an arts festival in Oudtshoorn). Afternoons consisted of drinking cheap bottles of wine and listening to musicians, young, old, Afrikaans and English. I had to live in a tent for a week nd had to deal with my father trying to bum cigarettes off me as he had recently found out that I was a smoker. He had quit for two years, but that didnt deter him from asking. Being the good daughter I refused him a ciggy everytime.

Although I thought the trip might be boring…afterall I was 17 and a typical rebellious party animal daughter…I took the portunity to spend the little time I could with my dad as my parents were divorced and we didnt spend a lot of quality time with him back then.

Well, it is one I will never forget. Instead of watching me like a hawk he let me do pretty much what I wanted to. If I didnt want to spend tme with him I could walk through the small town of Oudtshoorn dropping in on little art shows and comedians, looking through flea markets and meeting some interesting people.

I remember sunshine and music. Blackie Swart singing “Luwe Lulu” and heaing some David Kramer and Koos Kombuis. I could barely speak Afrikaans back then, hell I stil do a shitty job of it, but it wasnt so much undersanding what they were singing about because it was about feeling.

And music is about feeling.

Music is about laughing and crying, about lifting the spirits or sometimes fueling your anger. The strumming of a guitar and the beat of a drum. A voice singing a tune, someone singing along, the clapping of hands and the movement of feet to tunes.

I remember my darkest moments, lying alone in my bed, the tears streaming like a flood; to the sounds of Pink, or Guns and Roses, or Matchbox 20 or Sara Barielles or Live. Has your heart ever been in so much anguish that you cannot breathe, your chest is caving in and in those moments you are so completely overcome with grief you feel you will die?

Have you ever been at a concert and they play your favourite song. Thousands of people dancing and singing to the same lyrics. Almost as if you are in trance. A feeling of complete elation and bliss that cannot be substitute?

It is true that I love the mountains, but second to the mountains is music. I cannot go long in this “Babylon” without it.

Mafadi – A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

Count Em All

Most of the time life blows.

If I look back on the almost 30 years of my life so far most of it was pretty shitty. I can’t lie. My parents divorced when I was young. Most of my school life was trying to fit in which turned out to be a collosal fuck up most of the time.

I was one of those kids that never quite fit in.

Even today I can count the friends I’ve kept from my school days on my one hand.

Yeah I have “friends” on facebook and other social media, but as far as us having seen each other face to face?

Hell, I see myself somewhat socially inept. I don’t know how to deal with others’ crises, I sometimes can’t even handle my own.

I guess that’s typical of a Virgo. Putting things into boxes and then leaving them to gather dust…

Or

…Over analyzing everything to death. Breaking it all down and trying to make sense of it.

I prefer my boxes. Sometimes not dealing with crap, be it mine or someone elses is better than trying to make sense of it.

I don’t know if that makes me a shitty person or friend. I can offer my shoulder, but will it do any good? We all have to dig ourselves out of those pits when the time comes.

One of my fears?

Is being a burden. It’s the constant nagging feeling that I am a drain to those around me as opposed to not being a drain?

I’ve never wanted to be pitied upon, okay, maybe sometimes, my sister knows all about those moments.
Hey, sometimes its nice to have a pity party alright?

I love being social, I love having a good time with people, but sometimes I still feel like the “outsider” looking in.
It’s sometimes easier being a recluse. Lying in bed until past 2pm, reading, dozing, just being anti social.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t question everything. Sometimes I wish I could’ve been happy with my white picket fence.

No questioning, routine, a mediocre life, a comfortable income. What more could anyone want?

Well apparently I wanted more.

And then I realize that I am exactly where I want to be.

The friends that I have, I know they have my back. The job that I have, pretty fucking awesome.

I have the most beautiful child in the world, and as much as I hate it when at almost five she is giving me shit… She is independent, happy, fiesty, questioning and kind.

Every time I see her smile I know I have so far done something right.

I’m happy to be me, just plain old me.

And yeah, most of my life has blown, but the last two years have been pretty fantastic, and its getting better.

So in those sucky moments, when things are fucking you over. Have a look at how far you’ve come.

Hey…you haven’t offed yourself so it can’t be that bad.

Count those little blessings, because, in the end, they are the big blessings.

I Knew I Shouldn’t Have Watched It

I wasn’t going to write today, I woke up with the greatest intention of NOT writing. I wanted to prove a point. I wanted to be unaffected. I wanted to hide away from the questions that had been raised and the answers that came to me. I didn’t want to face the truth. I wanted to lie and pretend that I hadn’t been kicked upside the head by a tiny little thing that took two hours of my time.

 

But I had to write: writing, for me, is breathing. I cannot not write because I need to make sense of it, even if it’s in my own crazy messed up way, and even if it is only me that understands, even when it hurts like hell, even if it exposes me to the world. If perhaps I put it onto paper, or into cyber space, that it’ll be okay. That my universe will stop shaking, that it will balance again.

Sometimes our most profound moments are our most painful moments, and our most painful moments the most profound.

And this is how it started:

“We all come from the sea, but we are not all of the sea.

We children of the tides must return to it again and again.”

 

This is how the film, Chasing Mavericks, begins.

And that’s when the tears began.

 

The film, based on a true story, follows the journey of a young man, a
young man, whose mission it is to surf the worlds’ biggest waves.

 

A surfing movie that had me in tears from beginning to end.

 

Literally.

 

And I hated it.

 

Every single minute of it.

 

I am not of the sea. I don’t have to be of the sea to understand the universal truth that was spoken in those few words.

 

My truth:

 

“We all come from the mountains, but we are not all of the mountains.

We children of the hills must return to them again and again.”

 

When asked why he wanted to go back to Everest, George Mallory replied:

 

“Because it is there”.

 

 

John Marsden, in Killing Frost wrote:

“I’m a person of the mountains and the open paddocks and the big empty sky, that’s me, and I knew if I spent too long away from all that I’d die; I don’t know what of, I just knew I’d die.”

 

You know in your heart, that when you have found it, when it resonates with your soul, that it isn’t wrong and neither is it right. It is all that you are and all that you will ever be. It is coming home to yourself.

 

I’ve looked at photo’s that have been taken of me only a few short months ago and I no longer recognize that person. I see a ghost, an apparition, a shadow of the person I am today. But that person, that shadow was a necessary evil. For if it hadn’t been for her, I wouldn’t be here now.

 

Yes, I am a child of the mountains.

 

Back to that Godforsaken movie with its’ infernal drop kicks to the psyche:

 

The Four Pillars of Humanity: Physical, Mental, Emotional and Spiritual, which we should strive to balance in our lives. If there is imbalance it may crumble.

Yes, we need to have balance, but I don’t think that all four pillars will all be the exact same size or shape at anyone given time. We can strive for balance but I think we live more in a state of compensation. If we are physically weak, perhaps mental strength compensates. If we are lacking spiritually we make up for it with physical strength. This applies to all four pillars. And I think I can safely say that we are all trying to make up for the emotional in some way or another.

It’s easy to build physical strength and you can feed your mind and build mental acuity and as for the spiritual, well we live for spirituality. Emotions are difficult to deal with.

 

Emotions are where your monsters lie, at least my monsters, and I bury them deep. It’s the current that flows below the surface of a smooth sea, a turbulence that no one can see but is strong enough to sweep you forever away.

 

The strongest emotion: FEAR.

 

It is what drives you and debilitates you.

 

Can I face my demons? Can I face what I really fear?

 

I can tell you all of the bravest things I done. I can tell you what I am not afraid of. I didn’t even have a clear image of what I am afraid of until this stupid movie.

 

I have certain fears that come and go, that perhaps I won’t be able to make the next climb, or that I may fail in a competency exam, or I get a glimpse of a spider out of the corner of my eye.

 

But those fears are physical and they are quickly overcome. The debilitating fears I have are there somewhere inside me. They stop me from doing a lot of things I may have done. They are the reason why I am only living my life now. Even as we speak they almost cripple me when I have choices to make.

 

And if I said them aloud, if I revealed them to anyone, for me that would be unleashing all the Beasts of Pandora’s Box. And I am not ready to open that up. Not yet. I am not yet ready to deal with the repercussions of a thousand demons wreaking havoc in my little universe.

All of this hurts…it affects every pillar…but for now I compensate. And if I can acknowledge that, then I guess it’s a start in the right direction.

 

I can’t stand being vulnerable. 

I can’t stand being defeated.

 

But I leave you with these words from that movie:

 

“The people who push the limits sometimes discover the limits push back”.

 

And that isn’t a bad thing.

 

My Home

“What is it that has drawn me to the mountains?” I ask myself time and again.

I have spoken of the beauty of the rolling landscapes of the Drakensberg. The sound of the winds that caress my face as I look upon the eternity of velvet green slopes and basalt faces below me as I stand rapt at the very edge of the Amphitheatre.

I am in love with the challenge, yes, but that isn’t all of it. The cold and the wet, the heat and the sweat. My body aching for the physical exertion. No it isn’t only that.

It isn’t even the solitude. Nor the fact that I am far away from society and traffic and noise and people and stress and people. That up there I am able to think clearly, that I can reflect without the interruption of television or phones or talking. It isn’t that either.

“What is it that has drawn me to the mountains?”

The mountains look upon me with no judgement, they embrace me for who I am. I have no secrets to keep from the peaks and the valleys. The mountains know me intimately, they know my strengths and weaknesses and like a lover the mountains draw out of me a wholeness that cannot be substituted. The mountains listen with compassion, they have heard my cries for absolution, they have felt my rolling tears of anguish. They have comforted me as I have stared into the oblivion.

When I am in the loving arms of the mountain I am no one else but me, no pretence, no putting on a face for the crowds. What I am in society is merely a mask but up there in the folds of earth my soul flourishes.

The mountain is more than a friend or lover, more than a mother and more than a father.

The mountain is my solitude. The mountain is my nothing. The mountain is home. The mountain is my eternity.

My heart no longer resides within this body of mine. The mountain has claimed it and will forever keep it.

My home is not of bricks and mortar but of grass and stone, wind and water.

My home is the mountain, where my heart is, where I belong.

 

Killing Frost

“I’m a person of the mountains and the open paddocks and the big empty sky,

That’s me,

And I knew if I spent too long away from all that I’d die;

I don’t know what of,

I just knew I’d die.”

― John Marsden, A Killing Frost

Natural or Silicone?

I am a little confused. I think I might be drunk, but I can’t recall drinking in the last few days. I am still trying to figure it out myself and but I think it has a little to do with the mountains and being batshit crazy.

What is it you may ask?

Well, in short it has to do with my boobs, my mammary glands, my tits or in fact the lack thereof.

When the Dear Lord was handing out those puppies it appears I was nowhere to be found and so I am without an impressive cleavage.

This has been a thorn in my side for years. Having to buy “A” size bras’ and relying on the one and only Wonderbra your entire life is not all that fun, especially when faced with confrontations with men.

And so it has been my one wish that someday I would be able to buy myself a pair of well rounded beautiful silicone breasts. Not too big certainly but enough of an improvement that no one would have to go on a search party to look for my breasts. That someday a man might actually look me in the boobs as opposed to my eyes.

This is far from a self esteem issue. It isn’t that I cannot live my life without one but simply put:

When we buy cars we “Pimp” them out. We want our cars to look good as a symbol of status. It’s part of looking good. Hell, if you can afford to drive a Ferrari would you not buy one of them as opposed to a Ford Focus. So I believed in the same principle with my body. If you can afford to improve then why not.

It had already been decided…I was going to get my babies as soon as I could afford them. There was no questioning this decision, it had already been made. Signed, Sealed but not quite delivered.

But then this morning when the idea was put forward to me, where it might actually be possible to have the  D Cups I have so desperately longed for I wasn’t moved.

Don’t get me wrong, the idea is nice. Quite like the thought of a cup of tea, which is nice. You can have a cup of tea, but you don’t have to. I can have a boob job, but I don’t have to.

In fact a boob job at this time may be more of a hindrance to me and where I would like to go than helpful.

It is no great secret that I am in love with the mountains and all that they are. And with that comes strenous exercise, rock climbing and the great outdoors. And do a fake pair of boobies belong up there in the misty mountains, in a game vehicle in the middle of the Pilanesberg, or pressed against the sheer face of a rocky cliff? They don’t belong there as much as Paris Hilton belongs in a charity store.

Nevermind the fact that you aren’t able to partake in strenous physical activity for I think a month or six weeks…and there is no way I am going to let that happen right now. I have already booked a trip to the highest peak in South Africa which just so happens to be in Six Weeks(and yes…the nervess have kicked in!)

Besides, I already have over 8 pairs of Wonderbras’ that I would have to throw out if I got my fake titties. And a Wonderbra is not cheap I tell you.

And somewhere along the way, whilst I was following my heart, finding my passion and climbing mountains(where there is no room for modesty) I became comfortable with the pair of breasts I was given.

They may not be big but they’re mine, and for me they are perfect.

 

If It Isn’t Fun Don’t Do It

Sitting here in the sun under a neon orange parasol, with great friends and even better music and sipping on rose’ and orange juice it isn’t hard to have fun.

So many of us forget that even when we grow into adulthood doesn’t mean we have to stop having fun.

We miss out on so much this world has to offer because we have to be “responsible”. Well responsible does not mean boring, responsible does not mean stop doing the things you love doing!

Life is about colour and sound and taste and experience.

Don’t be safe, don’t be an adult, your heart is young. Listen to it drumming, make it go a little faster.

Fall, fall in love, fall into faith and fall into joy. Step into the light of the sun. Never stop laughing or talking or skipping.

It’s time to nurture and look after yourself, for me to look after myself.

Don’t ever look back.
Don’t worry about tomorrow.

Follow your bliss TODAY!

 

These Mountains

“And if these mountains had eyes, they would wake to find two strangers in their fences, standing in admiration as a breathing red pours its tinge upon earth’s shore. These mountains which have seen untold sunrises, long to thunder praise but stand reverent, silent so that mans’ weak praise should be given God’s attention.”

Donald Miller

Through Painted Deserts: Light, God and Beauty on the Open Road