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The house smells like jasmine,
leftover scents
of a celebration,
reminding everyone
and myself
that this is
a little like death,
a little death,
except that this time we get to say goodbye.

We get to hug it out
in between promises of
Skype
WhatsApp
letters
postcards
communication in the Digital Age.

But I know (and they know it, too)
that people slip so easily out of another's lives,
even if the knot of friendship was tied tightly,
and that suddenly one has moved along
without really noticing
the past.



 

Call me, maybe

My sister lives in a different city now, my mom isn't home often, my friends lead separate lives which only cross mine on occasion and I don't work so I don't speak to colleagues. Therefore I have no one to talk to in the everyday. I'm looking after our neighbours dogs, so I talk to them. Or to the doves and hadedas in the garden. Well, I don't really talk to the birds, I kind of shout at them to stop shitting everywhere. And hadeda poop is this big black stripe in a sea of white which is really off-putting on your tablecloth or chairs or next to the pool.

On occasion I say "Hello" and "Cheque" and "Bye" to the lady at the gym or the lady behind the till somewhere. But conversation has become a thing of rarity, so when I get to speak to real people I want to flood them with words and hear sentences and things that are happening and listen and speak and have a voice that is heard by a human and not merely by animals.

Sure, my mom phones me and I text/whatsapp/email with others, but not really seeing people and interacting with them makes for quite a solitary existence.

Luckily, there is my grandmother. I am not sure if she is worried about me living alone, or if she has forgotten that she called me the previous day, but I have been receiving daily calls to hear how things are going and when I am coming to visit. Maybe she is afraid I will leave and then one of us will die and then, well, we won't have had the chance to speak in person again. I don't really care about the reason she is calling me, I just like hearing a voice which tells me about silly things like the weather or her garden and asks how I am doing. Dankie ouma :)

Look at this cool cat. 

You get mistaken for strangers by your own friends

When we were little, our mom read us a book by Helme Heine called Freunde ( 'friends' in German). It is the tiniest, thinnest little book but it has captured the essence of what friendship is supposed to be better than any literary doorstop. It is about three friends: Franz von Hahn ('Franz von Rooster', von Cock somehow sounds too dirty for a children's book), Johnny Mauser ('Maus' is a Mouse in German) and der dicke Waldemar ( 'the fat Waldemar', he is the rotund pig).

Here they are:

In the book, they spend all their time together, but when they decide to sleep over, it turns out that the mouse's hole is too small, the pig's barn is too smelly and the rooster's perch cannot hold their combined weight. But although each one then spends the night in their own bed, they meet in their dreams, "because real friends dream about one another". 

I like the idea of not having to be bound at the hip to be good friends. Some of mine are closer than others (in distance, not in the way I appreciate them), but every one brings something different to a friendship. Friends are like a deck of cards : not every card is suited to every hand you play, but you need the whole deck to play a game. I know my simile is not the most complete since one could argue that some cards are never used and that the Joker is often ignored, but I still feel that every person contributes/contributed to the way each individual sees the world. 

Often, we lose sight of one another, or we go on different paths and only communicate by sending the occasional sms/BBM/WhatsApp message. We might even only spy on each other via social networking sites and stalk old friends through Facebook updates. On the one hand, it has enabled us to stay in touch and to be aware what is going on in other's lives without putting too much effort in it. But it has also made us impersonal: I should not know what is going on in your life without you wanting to tell me, without us actually communicating. Or is this the way friendship is going? Twitter updates and @friend statuses? 

I don't know. I'd rather be Waldemar and have my behind be used to stuff the hole in the boat so that the Freunde can go fishing in the pond together than to spend all my time with my electronics.   

To care

I am never entirely sure how personal I can be when blogging. Should I just consider it as a kind of online diary, and write freely? Or is there a need to impose a filter in order not to offend or hurt someone close to me?
By writing about it, could I be making something worse?

There are some situations where I don't know whether or not it would be better to sort it out and talk openly, or whether it is the wiser choice to just shut my mouth and refuse to speak. In my family speaking openly is somehow not often an option. We talk generally, superficially, but when there is an issue, I would like to talk it out, sort it out before moving on, before ignoring that something happened, before pulling the rug straight over years of tiny fights. Somehow it never happens. It is probably my own fault for then not confronting the other party. In film it always looks so easy to talk, it's the influence of series like 7th Heaven (haha, man that was years ago), and now Modern Family, that make sorting shit out seem so effortless.

In any case, here is an advertisement for the Democratic Alliance's student organisation, which has caused some controversy. I think it is quite cool, and certainly an improvement from other political ad campaigns.

via Pantheistic Symphony

For instance, I took this one outside the Greek Orthodox Church near the university. Only problem: barely anyone here speaks Greek, and it sends a message of exclusion rather than inclusion?!

3h

It is strange to think that mostly, each of us considers his or her reactions and doings as 'right' in the moment. Through our upbringing ( or lack thereof), we either agree with the morals we were taught, or rebel against them. But ultimately, don't you think that you are doing 'the right thing'?

I forget that others don't feel the same way I feel about things, that they are not moved by the same reactions, and that they also consider their reactions and choices to be correct, even if they are completely opposed to my ideas of what is right. Perhaps this is the simple reason that the world is quite a fucked up place with fighting between nations and families and corporations and friends and lawyers and spouses and children and and and. We fight because we think we are right, without thinking that the others might be right, too. 

By citing my own inner circle, I am surrounded by people who have inherited the legacy of not talking, of refusing to communicate because "these things should not be discussed", like money or sin or problems in general. There seems to be a shame attached to the discussion of things, an idea that talking about it will cause some rupture and that even uttering a word shows a lack of respect. These restrictions are just stupid to me : open channels of communication and a willingness to discuss the issue at hand calmly are what is needed. 

Letters

Whenever I send an sms or a BBM or a Whatsapp message or an email or a letter, I imagine my words to be a little envelope of me. I see myself being sent, travelling over miles and reaching you in an instant or in a few weeks only. And because some part of me has left, I expect an answer.

Perhaps that is what happens in relationships, in friendships and with far away family members: because we don't communicate effectively, because what I think my little envelope contains is not the same as what you take from it, because we can read something differently from how it was meant, because we do not all think the same way things can get confusing.

When I write a message, I am reading it out loud in my head, stressing certain parts and leaving intonations out at others. But since you cannot read my voice, I don't know how we can effectively communicate, ever.

I am/ was often accused of saying what I think without reflecting on it, of being rude because some things are not meant to be said and of being too sarcastic. It was/is probably true. I am trying to think more about what I say and how it affects others, but then I would expect the same courtesy. It is easy to judge others if one sees no fault in oneself.

Ultimately, I want you to know what I am saying and I want to understand correctly what you mean. Otherwise, what is the point of communicating at all if it is just a jumbling of meaning.

Postcarding

Back of an old postcard I found at a fleamarket in Perpignan, France, 2010. 

I like writing postcards.
I like telling the recipient of the card that they are wonderful, that they are special, that they make life better by being in it. And then I leave the postcard unsigned. Since my handwriting is rather discernible and because not many people write postcards, I guess whomever receives the card knows it is from me, but I sort of want it to be a sign from the universe.

I want you to get the card in the mail, hidden in between bills and ads for Pick 'n Pay specials. I want you to stumble onto the piece of cardboard and start smiling. I want a piece of paper to make your day. In the end, I want you to feel happy, even if it is just for a minute, and then I want you to go and place the card on your fridge to remind you that someone cares.

If you own any apple device, a (devilish) blackberry or are running Android, you can now get the "A postcard a day from Gauteng"-app, mahala ( this means for free), on your device. It is an application that sends you a pretty image from around the province daily. You can also submit your own image to the site.

Although I prefer the handwritten cards, this is a nice initiative by the province. There is so much beauty all around us and often we do not realize how fortunate we are to live here, now.


.

Glossolalia*

I think you are never able to express what you want to say as well as you do in your mothertongue. Sure, you can learn other languages and depending on how well this acquisition is you can learn to express yourself like a mother-tongue speaker, but it is never wholly natural.

Because my parents both spoke a different language with us, we grew up bi-lingually, but ( as you have probably noticed) my Afrikaans is fine when I have to speak it, but the grammar and the linguistic expressions are lacking because I did not learn that base structure at school and was not constantly practising it. Now I practice by watching 7de Laan. 

Also, I only learned English when I was 10, but I feel quite secure in my language use here. 

But today I helped a young South Korean man with his English ( basically we just talk and thereby he practices his English) and it reminded me of my time at Disney, because people assume you are not as smart when you cannot express yourself clearly in their mothertongue. When you have an accent and not quite the same expansive vocabulary as 1st language speakers, they think you are not as intelligent because you cannot always immediately find the right words to say exactly what you mean. I doubt most of them realise how hard it is to learn a new language and that it becomes quite frustrating not to have the words right there. It is annoying to have to think about what you are saying and if the expression is right. 

To some it might also be irritating when people correct you, but this depends on how it is done. Normally I don't mind being helped along because I see it as a learning curve and then one won't make the same mistake in the future, but I can understand how it is weird to be very eloquent in one's own language and not have that immediate access to words in another language. 

But then again, it bothers me when people speak a language badly when they have had ample time to learn it. Here I directly mean the politicians and the journalists at the SABC. I mean really, that jumbled mix of bad grammar and worse pronunciation is just not sufficient. If I can learn to speak other languages clearly, why can you not do the same? Especially when one must speak to the public and provide information for them. 

* it means "speaking in tongues"