Why I dislike Valentine's Day

 

Let's get one thing straight out of the gate: I don't dislike love, or even grand gestures of love, I dislike Valentine's Day.

In fact, I am a huge fan of love and probably an even bigger fan of grand gestures of love. I am the kind of guy who would buy flowers and chocolates and, if I could afford it, a diamond bracelet, to show someone how much I love them. I just find a day of canned, hammy, commercialised love irritating.

Let's start with the commercialism.
It irks me that we live in a society where some people have come to value receiving a gift on "the day of love" over the things that, I believe, make love what it is. Getting a box of chocolates has more romantic currency than a husband who eats insult after insult every day at work so that he can make enough money to look after his wife and kids.

A card and a teddy bear are regarded as more of a measure of someone's love than getting up in the morning, washing the dishes and getting the kids ready for school so that she can sleep in just once this week.

I believe in love and I believe you show someone you love them every day, even on the days that you hate them. Even when he or she stands there and shouts at you, telling you you're not good enough - even then you love them.

Now the hammy part.

I get that love can be corny. Hell, sometimes it has to be. I used to date a girl - a woman actually - who was always serious. We used to go grocery shopping together sometimes and when we were walking down the aisle and a cheesy song came on I would grab her and dance with her. Right there in front of everyone. The point was to show her that I loved her enough to make a complete idiot of myself in public just to put a smile on her face.

But that was spontaneous hammy. It wasn't contrived or planned, the first time it happened, it just did. When you have to search websites or catalogues to find a way to ham up your love for someone you need to re-think your strategy. FFS, take a risk, wrap yourself in cellophane if you want to, but please just don't do it because someone said it was the right thing to do on Valentine's Day.

Now the canned part.
Love should never, ever be canned. That is my biggest problem with Valentine's Day - a lot of it is false. It's not real, especially if it is the only time that the person who "loves" you shows you that.

Once I picked flowers for a girl for no reason other than how she made me feel. I can't even remember what day of the week it was, just how she made me feel.
 
Have I ever bought a girlfriend a Valentine's Day gift? Of course I have. Am I a bit grumpy because this year I won't be able to - perhaps, yes.

I get that some people believe that Valentine's Day is a celebration of love but here is the rub: when you love someone and I mean really, truly, deeply, madly love someone, you celebrate that everyday, not when CNA tells you to. Feel me?

Oh and finally, if you want to do something special for someone and are planning a grand gesture, do it on a day when they will least expect it. How special is your gesture really if everyone else around you is doing the same sort of thing?

DISCLAIMER: I realise that this is a bit of rant but, if you will, please forgive me. It's Valentine's Day.

A thousand butterflies

I wrote this for you, only you.

***

Today I watched a thousand butterflies fly across the sky.
And all I could think of was you.
They fluttered on the sunlight, they danced between the raindrops.
I wondered where they were going and if they would pass you by.

Today I watched a thousand butterfiles fly across the sky.
And all I could think of was you.
Their wings tipped with stardust, they clung to each other like snowflakes in a storm.
I wondered if it's true that if you touch them they cannot fly.

Today I watched a thousand butterflies fly across the sky.
And all I could think of was you.
Their souls sunkissed, their hearts rainsoaked, they floated on the wind.
I wondered what desire, what urge, they were trying to satisfy.

Today I watched a thousands butterflies fly across the sky.
And all that I could think of was you.
They billowed like a satin dress, like the petals of a thousand flowers.
I wondered if heaven is where they go to die.

Today I watched a thousand butterflies fly across the sky.
And all that I could think of was you.
I swear I heard their voice, heard them whisper.
I swear I heard them say: "Why don't you try, one more time, to catch a butterfly".

***

What I want for my birthday

 

 

 

 



Remember how, when you were young, people used to ask you what you want for your birthday? My fondest birthday memory was getting my first red Duster BMX. I was probably 9 or 10.

I loved that bike. It was one of the only things I can remember really wanting for my birthday. I made so many memories riding it around the neighbourhood with my friends growing up. To steal a phrase: “it was not about the bike”. It was about being happy. Tearing down the hill of Scheepers Street in Parkside, dicing my friends was when I was at my happiest. How simple it was then just to be happy.

When you get to a certain age, people stop asking you what you would like for your birthday and to be honest, that's cool. That is how it should be. When you start earning a living, it's easier to get the things you want for your birthday yourself. Case in point. This year I got a new tattoo.

I haven't asked anyone for anything for my birthday for a very long time. I haven't had to.

I would like to change things up. This year, 2014 ... baba, I would like to ask for something for my birthday. It won't cost you any money. It's not a #neknomination or a random act of kindness, per se. It's just a request to put out some positive vibes into the universe.

So here's what I would like for my birthday. I want you to make someone happy.

Anyone.

The beggar at the corner. Your wife. Your husband. Your mother. Your father. Your daughter or your son. Your neighbour. A stranger. A friend.

Call that girl you know with cancer and tell her you love her. SMS your friend who is going through a tough time, a divorce, a break up or who has lost a child, and tell him or her that you are there for them if they want to talk. High five a stranger on the train or bus, or in the taxi on the way home. Tip your waitress a little bit extra tonight.

Plait your wife's hair and ask her how her day was. Put on one of your husband's shirts and wait for him to get home from work. Tell the moody girl at work how pretty she looks today. Tell the guy who struggles with his weight how thin that shirt makes him look.
Ask your girlfriend to dance, in the grocery aisle at Woolworths.

Just for today, I would like to know that, somewhere out there in the world, someone is being nice to someone else because I asked them to. It's not that difficult.

It's as simple as riding a red Duster BMX down a hill when you were 10.

DISCLAIMER: Fellas, if your wife or girlfriend is waiting for you at home in one of your shirts this afternoon I really only have one thing to say to you: It's my absolute pleasure.

Finally it's not just my birthday today. It's also Bob's and no-one said it better than Bob.

 

This ... is 2014 baba!

I have two major confessions to make. The first is that I stole this picture. The quote is from a motivational speaker named Eric Thomas. He is also known as the Hip Hop Preacher. I have been listening to clips of his work for a while now. I am not like the rest of you. I need to listen to motivational speakers because I struggle to motivate myself.

The second confession I have to make is that I had a bad week, last week and lost sight of my goals for this year. I fell back into behaviour patterns that I want to change including beating myself up psychology for doing just that. But, they say, that if you really want to make a change in your life you can't simply give up at the first hurdle you face. I nearly did. I nearly forgot that I want to be better this year.

I have started writing quite a few blog posts in the last month but the majority of them have ended up on the scrapheap. Too much rambling, not enough substance: they have all been characterised by this flaw.

Then bam - a shit weekend. Well a shit night anyway. And I failed. I failed to live up to the promises I had made to myself at the start of the year. Not all of them, just a few.

Then I remembered something.

This ... is 2014 baba! Twenty-thirteen was last year.

Some people believe that if you really want something, part of getting it, is speaking it into existence.

If you want to something to happen, you have to say it is going to happen. I think it is a teaching which is common to a lot of belief systems.

ET says this but he has caveat - only speak it once, then shut up. Then do it.

So here it is. I am going to say it once and then I am going to shut up.

This is what I am going to do to make my life better. This is what I am going to do to make myself better.

*****

Let go of the past: It's gone. It can't be fixed. Stop obsessing about it. This is probably the hardest thing I will do all year.

I am an emotional hoarder. No more of it. Let it go. Let go of the rejection you felt. Let go of the self-doubt that comes from that mistake you made. Let go of the anger that comes from not getting what you want. You are human. You have and will make mistakes. Not letting go of these things will bind you to your past and prevent you from finding your future. Trust me, I know.

Forgive yourself.

Do what makes you happy: Enough of doing the things that you think people want you to do. Resign from that stupid committee if it adds nothing to your life and instead puts unnecessary pressure on you. Feel like checking in at the gym EVERYTIME you are there? Do it. Like someone who people tell you is out of your league or who will never like you back? Screw it - maybe they are wrong.

I am typing my letter resigning from the complex's board of governors today. I don't need people slipping rude notes under the door of my home, disturbing my solace. It no longer makes me happy, so it is gone.

In my last year at university I used to wake up every morning and put Frank Sinatra's greatest hits on blast. I used to dance around in my towel in the lounge before I got dressed and hit lectures. It used to make me happy. I am going to do that again.

Also, I am going to write poetry this year. A lot of it will be bad, very, very bad. Sorry.

Change your behaviour: If you want different results you have to do things differently. I realised that - to great personal expense - last year.

I'll explain. I met this amazing woman and after months of trying, we finally got to a point where we decided to see what would happen if we explored things.

So we went on a few dates. Then on date three (of this particular sequence of dates) I did what I always do and got distracted. It was December, everyone was partying and I didn't want to miss out. So instead of prioritising her, I prioritised the jol. Doos manoeuvre.

We went for sushi, I had to have a little lie down in the restaurant because of my monster hangover and by the time we got to her front gate we had gone from kissing, holding hands and looking Kentridge drawings to: "I think we should just be friends".

I won't lie, it was pretty kak.

I had a long hard think after that and I realised that, while I dig the jol, it has to come second when I dig someone more.

So I am doing things differently. I am putting the jol second - bugger that - I am putting the jol third, because if I don't I will perpetually be where I am now - trapped between looking at Kentridge drawings and wondering what if.

I miss her. I should tell her.

Just be positive: Let's not lie, I bitched a lot last year. I got into a space where the entire world was against me - at least in my head - and I couldn't see a way out of it all. To say that I reached an all-time low emotionally is no stretch. Not this year.

This year I am going to try to be irritatingly positive. I am upgrading myself every day. I am training my mind and my body to be the best possible version of me.

While I am at it I am going to take things a lot less seriously. This blog has been an exercise in self-indulgence for a while now. Enough already: More stuff about dresses and about being grateful.

Things will go wrong this year but its how you deal with them that matters. This year there will be no more feeling sorry for myself and no more relying on what others think of me as a measure of my happiness.

I choose to be happy and I will work at being that every day. If I forget, remind me.

Build a passion project: I have friends in Cape Town who built a passion project and now it's a business and they are starting to reap the rewards. I get the feeling however, that when they built the Wonderland Collective it was motivated by love and not necessarily ambition. Now that passion is their everyday life. Imagine the joy of actually doing what you love, every single day of your life. Sounds dope.

I have this idea for a mentoring and writing programme for young, black male writers in South Africa. It's really in its infancy and I still need to write a plan for it but the idea would be to provide a safe environment where aspiring writers in schools in impoverished areas can share their ideas. They will be mentored by black men who are published in various formats and these writers will talk to them about the things which affect them the most. Hopefully it will help them tell the stories that they think no-one wants to hear. Now to build it.

Smile, breathe, be happy... This is my mantra. I used to say it a lot last year but if I am honest I never really lived it. This year I will.

So that's it. I said it and I have spoken it into existence. Now I must do it. Talking is just the first step.

If you have made resolutions or big plans for 2014 you need to realise that people will expect you to fail. Some people will mock you; some people will place barriers in your way - consciously or subconsciously. I am under no illusions that my happiness and realising my goals is going to be very hard work. If anything last week showed me that. The funny thing is that this year I am ready to do the work, because Lord knows I cannot afford another 2013, and neither can you.

This ... is 2014 baba!

DISCLAIMER: I promised Whaley I would send him my stuff to edit. Whale I will send the next one, promise. Also I have a whole lot of other shit I plan on doing but I didn't want to bore you with it. This is just the important stuff.

 

Knitted fingers

I wrote this for a friend. She just found out she has Cancer.

Knitted fingers

It's dark.

We know. We see you.

It is light where we are.

Reach out your hand.

Knit your fingers with ours.

Here, is where it is safe.

 

It's dark.

We know. We see you.

The sun is shining where we are.

Squeeze our hands tighter.

Knit your fingers with ours.
We will pull you towards the light.

 

It's dark.

We know. We see you.

You can breathe where we are.

Give us your weight.
Knit your fingers with ours.

Don't let go.

 

It's dark.

We know. We see you.
You can be fragile where we are.
Trust us.

Knit your fingers with ours.
Let us carry you.

*** 

It's no longer dark.

We know. We see you.

You are safe now.

Open your eyes, breathe deeply.

Knit your fingers with ours.
You are in the light.

 

 

I met Audrey Hepburn

Zebula is in the middle of nowhere. I mean, it's in Limpopo but it's really in the middle of nowhere in comparison with where I was coming from. On the way there, on a sweltering Saturday afternoon, I stopped at one of those quintessentially South African road side shops.

You know, a bottle store, rusted old shells of what used to be cars on the lawn and an old bath - rusted on the outside filled with soil and bright blooming daisies on the inside.

I walked in, bought some suppliers for my weekend (read; beer) and then looked up and there she was. Audrey Hepburn, framed, in black and white, her eyes fixed on me, that sly familiar stare taking stock of me, measuring me, asking me questions. Are you man enough for me?

I couldn't resist. I had to have her - she reminded me of someone. So I asked the cashier how much, told her to ring it up and put her in my car.

I met her...

in a place like this.



When I was younger I never really understood what all the fuss around Audrey Hepburn was about. I mean I'm not blind - the woman is flawlessly beautiful - but as a kid I was more a of Kylie Minogue kind of guy. Then in high school I was more of a Nicole Kidman kind of guy and at varsity, a Renee Zellwegger kind of guy. But standing there, in the middle of bloody nowhere, at 34-years-old, I finally got it.

I finally understood what all the fuss was, or even still, is about. She is flawless. Alabaster skin, raven hair and the most melancholy eyes I have ever seen. That's what got me - the eyes.

I once wrote about the Algea. I think a lot of people thought I meant algae at the bottom of the ocean. I didn't. I meant the Greek Goddesses of Suffering.

There is beauty which comes from surviving pain. That beauty - the one that comes from hurt - is found in a person's eyes.

I don't know when I outgrew Kylie, Nicole and Renee but it's a good thing that I did because if I hadn't I wouldn't have been hit by a lightning bolt while standing in a farm stall in the middle of nowhere.

Perhaps, as I have grown older, I have grown to appreciate the beauty that lingers in the eyes of a woman who has experienced life. A woman who has taken the best, or worst, life has to throw at her and emerged at the other end of her struggles more confident, more radiant, more flawed and as a result more flawless.

Perhaps, that is why in recent times I have found myself more drawn to Audrey Hepburn and why my taste has changed. Perhaps, that is why I get it.

Or perhaps, as usual, I am just over-analysing everything and it simply dawned on me how beautiful she is.

I don't know. What I do know is that I get it. I get the fuss over Audrey Hepburn.

Anyway I don't have that picture anymore. I gave it to the person it reminded me of. She has eyes like Audrey Hepburn.

 

Heroes never die

I woke to a nightmare on Friday morning. Our hero had died. But on Friday night I knew I would rest easy, because heroes never die.

***

Heroes never die

I was 10. An old white man was on TV talking about unbanning political parties - among them the ANC and he said something about Nelson Mandela going free. Who were these people, I remember thinking and why all the fuss about this Mandela character? I also remember someone shouting about the AWB saying "hulle ook".

I was alone in my parents living room when I watched De Klerk make that speech and it was the same when I watched Madiba walk free - his fist raised in the air in triumph.

I was 10 but that day was the day I became politically aware. It was the day that I began to understand what it is that makes this country so different to the rest of the world.

My parents never were political people. They were more content to live their lives the best they could and to provide for their children. If anything my sister and I are the political ones. Me probably more so. I was the revolutionary in the family - the rabble rouser - the troublemaker. That was thanks to Nelson Mandela.

To be honest it was hard not to be politically aware growing up in South Africa in the nineties.Like so many other South Africans who grew up in that time, my life was dotted with vivid memories of Mandela.

The speech at CODESA where he chastised De Klerk - an ominous warning that this proud, tall black man who was willing to negotiate was not someone to be messed with.

The Rugby World Cup - a uniter of people whose gesture brought together a nation still divided by its past.

The numerous occassions where he would put a child on his lap and relate a story to him or her as if the entire world and its media were not watching.

These are things that shaped my opinion of the man. For other's there might be different occassions which stick in their mind and shape how they remember him.

There were so many moments of greatness, humility, strength, kindness, leadership, integrity and inspiration that it would be impossible for all of us to have the same experience of Mandela.

As South African's many of us developed a deeply personal view of  Madiba and his significance. That he will be remembered as the most important man in the history of this country there is no doubt but the man, - the human being stripped of being a politician or the leader of a liberation movement  - will be loved and admired differently and for different reasons.

As such we all will have dealth differently with his death.

People grieve differently. Some of us dance and sing, some of us retreat into ourselves - we become reflective and choose to remember the person we have lost in a much more personal way.

I chose to wear black today. I hoped to make it to the stadium to pay my respects but it is not the only reason I did so. Where I come from it is fitting to wear black when you are in mourning.

I prefer to grieve and mourn alone.

Even now as I write this I do so away from the crowd which has gathered around the TV to watch his memorial. I find their prying eyes intrusive, the celebrity-spotting annoying. I would prefer that they sit in silence and allow this moment to pass with reverence and respect. It's a vain, selfish attempt to hold onto some sort of personal piece of a man who meant so much to all of us.

I know someone who went to Mandela's house in Houghton to grieve but what she found there made it impossible to do so. Instead she found a minute on a quiet park bench to pay her respects to a man who had meant so much to her on a very personal level.

Long after the noise has subsided and the singing has stopped, I too will sit alone in a room and remember the man who shaped my sense of self as a black man in South Africa.

I will remember the revolutionary who wore his hair in a sidepath, his lips pursed in defiance of those who sought to jail him for wanting to be their equal.

I will remember the slightly greying man with his glasses fixed to his face, standing up tall in that assembly hall, chastising the leader of those who oppressed his people for hundreds of years.

I will remember the smiling man, who adopted the sport and colours of those who oppressed his people and revelled in their success on the rugby field because he believed, above everything else, that they were his country men.

I will remember the man who cracked a joke at his retirement - the jester in a court full of clowns telling us "Don't call me. I'll call you".

I will remember the man who loved us all as if we were his own children.

I will remember Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. I will remember our hero.

Hamba Kahle Tata. Enkosi kakhulu