Bored Stiff

‘The early morning sun reaches its fingers through the gum trees, trying to touch her as she makes her way up the driveway to our house. Her gait is steady and stubborn and she is surprisingly youthful for her years and for the stories she carries. Her tasks in our home are mundane and repetitive and she has been completing them for years. She is not one to complain and will readily share in our grief and our joys. She is on the periphery of all the major milestones in our lives. She is Spongile.’

Spongile has never not been there. Her presence in our home is as sure as the comfort of a roast chicken and the warmth of a homecoming. I often take for granted that she will always be there, but I shouldn’t, especially after the things this woman has had to endure. I don’t know anyone who has been through more hardships than Spongile. She has, amongst many things, lost two of her children. And the list continues and is fairly appalling. She has survived the worst.

It has always been a marvel to me that, despite the atrocities that have happened to this woman over the years, she still manages to make her way up the road every morning to hang up the same sheets she’s been hanging up for the last twenty years. She knows our home better than I do and has worked in it for longer than I have been alive.

I have seldom seen this woman break down and it has always been rather amazing to me that she sometimes manages to come to work and complete a day when I know what she is having to deal with at home. At this point it’s important to say that she in no way forced to come to work when things are difficult, it is her choice. If I had half the things that have happened to her happen to me I would probably have to be institutionalised for a long, long, long time. Very long.

One often wonders whether different cultures deal with pain in different ways. And we do to a point – well, we certainly express our pain in very different ways. It’s interesting how psychologists are commenting on how the Japanese are currently dealing with their tremendous grief. Apparently if one is tuned into the aesthetic of Japanese expression one will see that they carry their anguish in their eyes. After hearing this I have been remarkably moved by the stories of pain in their eyes – it’s so easy to see once you know where to look. In the same light I have often wondered where Spongile puts her grief and pain.  I’m someone who carries everything verbally (its part of my culture) – you’ll know when I’m sad cause I shout it from the rooftops. I’m all about speaking pain. But where does Spongile put hers?

My family have recently gone through a particularly sad time. Last year we lost my grandfather, my cousin and a very close family friend. It is going to take a very long time to recover. During this time my Mom asked Spongile how she managed to cope with the loss of her two children. Her reply was and will always be the wisest thing I think anyone will ever say – ‘You just keep busy.’

I have been reflecting over this advice for a few weeks now as I attempt to put my own life into perspective. I went through a seriously crappy time last year, probably the worst in my life and I realise now that my depression all boils down to one thing – I was bored. My thesis is further proven when I think back to the only other time when I felt like I felt last year. In my matric year I wasn’t allowed to be in any theatre, it was a school rule, because I had to ‘focus on my studies’. Ironically my matric results are, to this day, an embarrassment to me. I completely lost all interest in school. My joy was stolen and as a result my matric year will always be a dismal blot on a very successful school career. I stopped swimming, I stopped exercising, I stopped studying and I took to eating chocolates on the benches above the hockey field so that I could laugh sadistically at the sweaty girls playing hockey. Sadly it was actually these girls who were still taking joy in being at school.

Luckily my life exploded the next year when I became a first year at Rhodes University. I rocked my university career – I was always in a production and as a result I did relatively well in my studies and I was confident and happy enough to have a brilliant time.

Last year I made some impulsive choices that probably weren’t that wise. I didn’t really think them through and I lost my sense of purpose and joy as a result. I gave up my job in Joburg and moved to Durban with no real plan, no job in the pipeline, nothing. Luckily I managed to scrounge a part time locum drama teaching job at a private junior school at the last minute. I managed to scrape by but it was far from what I needed. I taught a couple of hours a day and took on directing the school play with only a term to rehearse. It was fine, I got by. If I think of the hours I whiled away last year (normally eating something) I just get sad. When I stopped living to my full potential I stopped believing in myself.

Luckily I was in such a bad place mentally that when the opportunity to teach in Oman came up I knew I had to take it – I didn’t really have a choice. My locum was up, I was jobless again and I knew that if I didn’t do something drastic I would end up ruining my life and my relationships with the people I loved the most. And so I packed up my life, again, I said goodbye to everything and I moved to a country in the Middle East where I didn’t know a soul – that’s how desperate I was not to feel depressed.

I was chatting to a friend of mine who I teach with the other night. She used to be a Life Line councillor in South Africa. She told me that most of the people who phoned her were middle aged women living in mansions in Bishopscourt. They all had enough money to warrant not having to get out of bed everyday and as a result they had become prisoners in their own mansions. They saw no one, their husbands were absent or had absconded and their children were living their own lives. I find this remarkably sad.  

When I think back on the happiest times in my life they have also been the busiest. I pity the people whose lives stretch ahead of them like one long afternoon nap. As much as I love a good nap it’s the work that earns that nap that makes it so sweet. I look at couples who have recently retired and their depression is almost palpable. What do you do when you’ve worked your whole life in order to live out your last years doing nothing except move the sprinkler on your ten feet of retirement home lawn from one flower bed to another?  The only time my grandfather ever got depressed was when he could no longer do a full day of farming (which happened in his late eighties, I might add). We were so desperate towards the end for him to be set free because boredom was killing his spirit. He would literally get bleak when he woke up from a nap to discover that he hadn’t died in his sleep. That’s what depression will do to you.

The Bible has a lot to say on the subject of being idle – none of it good. Human beings were designed to be active and fruitful. Even if all we’re going to do in a day is iron sheets or teach the past participle. We all need a reason to get up in the morning because it’s that reason that helps us to sleep at night.

I pray that I am busy for the rest of my life, that there will be legitimate struggles that I have to face daily, that I will never be sucked into boredom again. Obviously I have no guarantee on this one but at least I’m coming to see the pattern. Everything will seem wrong if you’ve had too much time to think about it. Life is not perfect, neither are relationships, but enjoy what you have and enjoy the challenges because they remind you that you’re alive.

So thank you Spongile and I promise I’ll try and keep busy.

Crossing Over

Has anyone ever taken the time to watch an entire episode of ‘Crossing over with John Edward’? I would be inclined to rename this cult tv show – ‘the show where a guy speaks to dead people who have absolutely nothing to say to the living because they are dead.’ In watching an episode most of the interactions follow the same formula - people acknowledge each other – ‘your great-grandmother (who used to have piles) ‘s second husband (with the squint)’s step daughter’s best friend’s dog acknowledges you. And then everyone cries. And that’s pretty much it. Do we really need some guy to tell us that the people who we love but who are no longer with us in the physical world acknowledge us? The least he could do is tell us that great uncle Samuel buried treasure under the oak tree next to the river and that the combination for the lock is 65492.

Now of course this leads to the next, far more compelling and complex question, how does he know all this stuff? Now this is where things get interesting...

So I have a theory. We are all born gifted. We all have the capacity to do the phenomenal, the super natural. And here I refer to ‘supernatural’ as things beyond what we think we are naturally capable of doing. I would love to say that my supernatural gifts include being able to do a flick flack, the ability to add in my head and the patience to fix an old car, but alas, no. Now, some people do have these abilities and isn’t that a glorious thing?  What if everyone was gifted like me – the world would be full of people who can nap at the drop of a hat, who can roast the life out of a chicken, who cry easily during Sta Soft adverts and who speak in weird voices on behalf of their pets. Even the thought of a society of Emilys just caused an uncomfortable mock charge in my stomach.

So luckily God made us ‘fearfully and wonderfully’ different. We are all wired differently and we all pretty much spend our whole lives trying to work out how we should be using our gifts, some people never really figure this out (here I refer to anyone who studied a BCom or became a lawyer, with tongue firmly in cheek). Unfortunately, in this delightful world of ours many people find it far easier to use their gifts for bad rather than good. If I was born with even the vaguest sense of business acumen (which tragically I wasn’t) I would probably rather own a huge multi-national corporation than start a free trade hemp farm for villagers in Azerbaijan.  If I had the skills of negotiating I would far rather negotiate myself into a sordid amount of money than use my skills to the betterment of the voiceless. I’m starting to realise that perhaps it’s a good thing that I was born with none of these skills because I may then have turned out to be the dictator of a small African country (which, incidentally, is my boyfriend, Stephen’s, long term goal). It’s tragic really that all the things I’m good at don’t really pack a financial punch, but oh come the day when salaries are based on exercise avoidance.

Some people are born really strong and have the physical IQ to be able to run and catch a ball at the same time, or run for a kilometre without having to vomit in a bush, again, giftings that were left off my list. So these people can either become incredible sportsmen, or fire-fighters, or policemen or assassins. All these jobs require physical finesse and acute spacial ability and a certain psychological discipline (which is completely beyond me) but not all of these jobs are good. Not everyone learns that it’s better to try and find a cure to cancer than it is to invent the products that create cancer.

At this point you’re probably yawning to yourself and thinking that I’m stating stuff that you’ve known since you were six when your mom told you that you’re probably never going to be able to fly but that you’re really good at running. So I will return to my initial premise – supernatural gifting.

I have been the very unfortunate receiver and witness to the pure destruction that results in people meddling in the occult. The very frightening thing about all this magical tomfoolery is that it will always leave someone hurt, anxious or frightened. Or all three. Now I don’t for a moment doubt that all that stuff is very real and very dangerous and anyone who thinks otherwise needs a serious reality check. It’s bad, bad, bad. So bad! Have you ever heard of someone going to a witch doctor in order to put a blessing on someone else? I didn’t think so. I speak purely from my experience in witnessing what mild flirtations in this field can do to people, how predictions of the future can rob them of their present as well as their sanity at times. No one should ever be granted the supernatural power to hold sway over another person’s life, you put yourself in the position of God if you feel that the promptings given to you are coming from some undefined voice from ’the other side’ and no one is God.

So yes, just as there are giftings in every other field under the sun, some people are born with a six sense, an ability to see beyond the physical. Just as one has the choice whether to become a lawyer for criminals or a lawyer for the poor so too can one choose to use ones intuitive promptings in service of God or in service of oneself.

This weekend I met a Christian prophet. It was a profound experience for me. I have always felt that God doesn’t stop people with an intuitive link to heaven from sharing their gifts with others but I have never actually seen this kind of work in action. An important thing to know about prophesy (and which differentiates a true prophet from the others) is that they only confirm what you already know in your heart is true, what God has already revealed to you. This prophet prophesised over me and I will not go into the details of what he said to me because they are sacred and are between me and God but he began his prophesy by looking at me and saying, ‘Emily you are surrounded by music.’ Anyone who knows me well knows that music is everything to me, if music and my voice were taken away from me I would cease to be me and God knows this so what Julian said to me was merely a confirmation of what I already know to be true – I experience God through music, have done so since I was a child.

When I left the meeting with Julian there was not a trace of hurt, anxiety or fear in me. I was filled with a sense of wonder and love and sheer exultation because he had told me and affirmed what I already know is true. He spoke on behalf of God and as a result I was completely overwhelmed by the intimacy with which his words were shaped. Only God could have left me feeling that free, loved and blessed.

So yes, lots of people have an ability to access that which is unseen, but who are they doing it for? And how does it affect those around them? We are all actually born with the gift to hear God, some of us use science and logic to drown out His voice or others silence Him for us with their abuse and destruction. We all have the right to visit the heavenly realm, ‘to cross over’, when ever we want to, that is Jesus’ constant gift which perpetually reveals itself to us. All a true prophet really ever does is confirm what God has already revealed to us. Do not ever corroborate that you are unworthy of being in control of your life and your spirit by asking others to ‘cross over’ for you because you do not know who they are crossing over to.          

Jesus is our greatest gift and here even I can claim this gift. He was sent from heaven, he crossed over, to be with us, to teach us and to confirm what we already know to be true about God (but which we sometimes need to be reminded of). His death was our gift and His resurrection was our greatest gift – in opening the divide between heaven and earth he promised us that we will never have to have someone cross over for us, the gift of heaven is for everyone, all we need to do is pray. And so I would encourage you that the next time you feel tempted to go to someone with ‘giftings in the supernatural’ turn to yourself instead, just as you wouldn’t allow someone to marry the person you love on behalf of you, do not allow the words of others to supposedly speak on behalf of those on the other side. God is always there and always listening, all you need to do is trust that you have the gift of hearing Him.  



 

'When people stop believing in God, they dont believe in nothing - they believe in anything.'
GK Chesterton



The Little Mermaid

I have for a long time had my suspicions that my mom is secretly a mermaid. The evidence is fairly startling really – she practically grew up in the ocean, she once body surfed a wave with a dolphin and she still looks flippen awesome in a costume. The piece de résistance, however, that pretty much brings my suspicion home, is that we have an album at home of pictures of when my mom was sixteen. In this album are pictures taken by documentary makers of my mom as a mermaid. Trues bob. This award winning couple (who were family friends) were doing a documentary on the relationship between man and the ocean and what better a symbol than a mermaid? So my gorgeous sixteen year old mom was given a practice tail which she learned to swim in at home and then they went up to St Lucia to film the documentary – this time with an epic dark blue tail with a silver shimmer. The pictures are amazing and I spent many an hour in my childhood staring in wonder at my mermaid mom.

It was this mythological link to the ocean which resulted in my list of top three movies of all time (at the age of ten) being ‘Splash’, ‘Splash 2’ and ‘The Little Mermaid’. I also think my first love was with Eric from ‘The Little Mermaid’. My obsession with the sea was huge and I have always been a pretty fearless sea creature. Apparently from the moment I could walk I would run down to the water which made family trips to the coast not entirely relaxing. I attribute most of my freckles to endless hours of wave riding when the thought of leaving the water to get kak sunblock in my eyes was just too hideous. I would also drag my mom’s (now moth eaten) practice mermaid tail down from the attic before a beach holiday and could be found half drowning myself in the paddling pool looking much like an epileptic earthworm trying desperately to perfect a mermaid swim so that I could graduate from the paddling pool to the real ocean. I never made it.  Later on when I got bigger and braver you would find me at backline with a pair of fins trying to show off for the surfers.

It has been with growing alarm that the older I get the less I feel like having sand in my crack and the after effects of debilitating sunstroke. The once fearless sea creature seems to have turned into someone who looks like a Vaalie on the beach. I now can only be in the sun for an hour at a time, I abhor sun tanning because I think it’s vain and a complete waste of time and worst of all I’m finding that sometimes the sea looks just a little bit too rough or a little bit too cold for my liking. I like to think that it’s my womanly self preservation instincts kicking in. Instead of exploring all the hidden rocky crevices of our beautiful South African coastline with snorkels and flippers now when I look under the water with a pair of goggles the ‘Jaws’ theme tune immediately starts playing somewhere in my head. This shift in attitude has perplexed both me and my family because it really is unusual.

When I was invited last week on a snorkelling trip out to an island off the coast I jumped at the opportunity. Maybe I would rekindle my long lost romance with the sea and prove to myself that I too am a mermaid like my mom. As Sarah and Justin (who invited me) were going to be scuba diving I recruited a new friend, Linda, to join me in the snorkelling. We were up bright and early and were all loaded onto the boat for our 40 minute boat ride out to the islands around which we would then snorkel. Let me state now for the record that I take back my initial aim of doing a diving course while I’m here. Between the unflattering wetsuits and equipment that looks like you have to have won a Nobel Prize in physics in order to operate it I don’t think I’ll be signing up for a scuba course too soon. Worst of all is the backward flip one was to do in order to exit the boat, now with my appalling vertigo I can’t even do a summersault in a swimming pool, can we imagine me trying to flip myself backwards off a boat while loaded with oxygen tanks, a parachute, a GPS, a sandwich and goodness knows what else? I didn’t think so.

So while the divers became one with the ocean Linda and I were dropped off at our first snorkelling spot. The spot was on a reef next to a beach so we felt fairly secure in the shallow waters. Let’s just say I wasn’t blown away. There is something very eerie about snorkelling off a wildlife sanctuary, 40 minutes from shore, and finding rubbish on the ocean floor. It felt like I was watching the cadavers of human neglect waving at me from the one place on earth that they should not be. More astounding to me is why the operators of these diving companies don’t clean reefs like these up? There was one amazing moment, however, and that was when a shoal of tiny silver fishes suddenly surrounded Linda and I and began darting and jumping all around us. They continued to swim with us for the rest of the snorkel. They were spectacular.

Now one can only snorkel the same spot of reef for so long – especially since jelly fish were making other parts of the bay unapproachable. So Linda and I decided to take a break and retire to the beach for a while. Now if you are unfamiliar with the terrain of beaches in this place please reread my entry on the other beach trip I took a few weeks ago. To recap in a sentence – no shade, lots of sun, melanoma central. Add to this equation the following scenario – lily white skin, no sunblock, no water, no clothes. So we were left on this beach for an hour with nothing except our flippers and a snorkel. By the time the boat arrived with the divers I felt like Tom Hanks in ‘Castaway’ (or whatever that movie was called). Add to this my own personal phobia of having to sit around in a wet costume and one will get the general idea.

We were then given rolls to eat (how amazing does a roll taste when you’ve been exercising in the sun?) and then we started making preparations for our next snorkel. It was at this point that we were put onto another boat with a different captain. Our captain...hmmm...ok... you know when you are teaching young children the difference between people they can trust and those who could possibly turn out to be serial kiddy fiddlers one can sometimes describe that uncomfortable ‘I wouldn’t trust you as far as I can throw you’ feeling to them as a ‘no no feeling’. Lets just say the captain of our new boat gave me the ‘hell no’ feeling. He had a shirt wrapped over his face and was wearing sunglasses and yet with his entire disguise he still made me feel like he was thinking very ugly thoughts. Added to that was his inability to speak any English which made things all the more pleasant.

The divers were dropped off first and then Linda and I were taken to our next spot. Now, as I’ve mentioned before our first spot was relatively safe, in a bay, next to a beach. Our next spot was pretty much in the middle of the ocean next to a big rock and it was deep. So we jumped into the deep blue, two novice snorkelers, and away drove captain shirt face. Now this snorkelling was amazing, the real deal. It was also terrifying. There is a certain vulnerability associated with becoming a part of a world that one is obviously so ill-equipped to be a part of. It’s like being born again (excuse my tacky Christian reference). Human beings like to think that without them the word would cease to work – clocks would stop ticking, grass would turn into jungle and animals would starve. I hate to break it to us – there is a large part of the world that would be rather happy if we stopped trying to learn and exploit its secrets.

It was my time during this stretch of our snorkel that I willed the spirit of the mermaid to re-emerge from my childhood. I tried to be one with the ocean – I even did that thing when you take a deep breath and swim down towards the fishes. This, however, resulted in a near fatal ear explosion and a mistimed intake of breath. Yes, I could appreciate the beauty of being alone in the vastness of the ocean but I also couldn’t quite drown out the chilling ‘Jaws’ tune.

So when our creepy captain returned we asked him to lower the rickety metal stairs down so that we could climb up them to get onto the boat – remember that at this point we’re in the middle of the sea and so leverage out of the water is non existent, we’re also wearing flippers. He then gestured to us that this would be impossible and that he would help us out of the water. Having explained this country’s policy on flesh exposure you will no doubt be able to take in the full spectacle of the next scene – let’s just say that our disgusting boatman got to see more, no doubt, than his wife has ever shown him. We were hoicked out of the water like fat tunas while trying to get our flippered legs over the side of the boat in a dignified fashion and were left, spread-eagled, like floundering fish on the boat’s bottom. It was humiliating. So while we were doing some surreptitious bikini line damage control after our revolting boarding of the boat we went on to the next spot to pick up two MALE snorkelers. And yes, you guessed it, blow me down if the stairs are suddenly functional. A pure miracle!      

 The boat ride back to the mainland was less comfortable, mainly because I was already starting to feel the third degree burns on my legs and the hint of a dehydration headache. It was also quite disconcerting when the dive instructor had to point out to old shirt face captain the direction we were supposed to be headed in. By the time I got home I was completely exhausted and in agony – parts of my body got burnt for the first time that day.

So sadly I didn’t find my mermaid genes, I suspect that maybe they skip a generation or that we all ultimately grow out of our belief in magical worlds. I still have a tremendous respect for the ocean but it is now laced with trepidation rather than fearlessness. I do, however, hope that one day I will instil in my children the same love and respect of the ocean as my mom did in me. Children do, after all, need to believe that their parents are magical and that there is wonder to be found all over the beautiful world into which they are born.