Tain’t What You Do …
You can make the most wonderful plans, with the most wonderful ideas in the world, but sometimes you just have to wait a little longer to see them come to fruition. Sometimes the stuff of life gets in the way of your grand schemes and you’re stuck dealing with the immediate problems of paying bills, securing your property, surviving the price of petrol and the fact that you need to eat; when you know your time, your talent and your vast experience should be getting put to far loftier use than simply earning a crust in the most immediate manner. I imagine that most people, at some or other stage of their lives, experience having to make do with, put up with, compromise a little on, or delay future plans and dreams, in order to maintain their present survival. At such pivotal moments you have three choices:
1. Give up, curl up in a ball and become a stress to, and a burden on, your loved ones.
2. Abuse alcohol or any other substance; keeping the hours of a nocturnal animal, whilst bemoaning the annoying fact that noone in your city is intelligent enough to rush to your door and beg for your magnificent abilities in exchange for buckets of dosh, in between criticising every talentless cretin who is earning more than they’re worth in jobs you could do much better than them … then become a total bore and burden to your loved ones. (Sound familiar? Anyone with an Arts degree knows someone stuck in ‘choice number 2′ … and most of us have, even for a fleeting moment, been guilty of this.)
3. Uncurl, get up before noon, zip it and get a job. Any job!
I am extremely lucky to have come from a family of strong, independent women who ‘ just get on with it’. My grandmother ended up suddenly widowed, destitute and with five minor children (four of whom were grandchildren whose parents were killed in an accident) when she was in her fifties, having not worked since she married my grandfather in her early twenties. She ‘got on with it’. She got a job at John Orr’s in Durban and, being an excellent seamstress, made evening dresses and wedding gowns and covered lampshades after hours. Even in her eighties, Gran continued to be industrious; sewing and knitting clothes for two orphanages in Durban. My Aunt’s, husband cast their high-brow family into ruin and she ‘got on with it’; starting by selling motor oil and eventually ending up as one of the country’s top estate agents. My sister’s life as a divorced mom, living with fourth stage cancer, was one of constant getting up and ‘getting on with it’. When she was unable to generate income from her promotions business, due to the energy it required, she sold jewellery on the side, whilst continuing her costume-hire business with our mother. And my mother, in her 60′s, suddenly the full-time guardian of a teenage boy (my nephew), became an estate agent for a while, before buying the shoe shop she now owns. (When my nephew began University this February, she had some ‘free time’, so she re-upholstered the lounge furniture herself ; two couches and two chairs.)
As you can see, idleness and ‘wallowing’ of any kind is simply ‘not done’ in our family. Thus, when I succumb, for brief moments, to such idle wallowing, as is most tempting during times of monetary absence, I waste an awful lot of time and energy beating myself up for my sloth and failure … before I uncurl, getup, zip it … and get on with it!
The beginning of January, 2012, was just such a time of self-flagellation (figuratively, not literally – I have never been into physical pain; self-inflicted or other). After an expensive December and two work projects being moved later in the year with no warning, there was very little available debt standing between me and the Sally Army. I did spend a bit of time considering joining a nunnery or having myself committed – the Salvation Army not being an option due to my lack of ability in brass instruments. I even researched the procedures involved and how long it would take before I was sent to prison, should I not be able to make my monthly payments. I was nowhere near having legal action taken against me, but I wanted to be prepared! Just in case!! Plus, my lack of work and my ‘wallowing’ tendencies for a couple of weeks were making me feel like a criminal. Then, one day, my partner took me to a nursery to buy plants and things, which led to all sorts of landscaping and hands-in-soil-therapy and other good things that you can read about here. The sun, soil and hard labour did me the world of good. I started this blog. Then, one morning, I leaped out of bed with genetically-strong determination and did what I needed to do to get a job – any job – that would get me immediate cash.
Having a few degrees and half a life-time of fairly specialised, professional experience kinda puts one out of the market for lots of “odd-jobs”, but I persevered. Then I saw it: “Part-time swimming instructors required immediately. Training provided.” My Natal Biathlon Team past was about to pay off. So, with delightful irony, two weeks after I began my blog, “Doggypaddling”, I was teaching people from ten months to forty years old, to doggy-paddle!
Even though I was doing a job a twenty-five year old ex-surfer with no qualifications nor experience was also doing; even though I was earning way below my professional hourly rate – I gave it my all. I acquired a great tan and got nice and fit from the laps I’d swim between or after lessons each afternoon . I enjoyed the immense satisfaction of helping people learn a skill that could save their lives and give them immense fun, too. I 
got my daily dose of toddler hugs and little thank-you pictures from pre-schoolers and laughed my head off with the adult class. I tookl some cool underwater photo’s (two of which are featured in this blog post). I earned some bucks! Most importantly, though, I got to feel good about myself again. And that, my friends, is positively priceless.
Activity attracts more activity and my work-year is, thankfully, getting better and better with each month. I’ve established some constant streams of income in Durban and have done some incredible projects in Joburg and Cape Town. I won’t be going to debtors prison or the Sally Army. I still have a decent tan … and once again my life has proved to me that giving one’s all is the ONLY way to do a job – any job. As the old adage states: “It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it”. Take it away, Ella:
Like this:
One Bite at a Time
I once asked my sister how she managed to continue on continuing on. How could she get through a week of being a single parent, running a business, dealing with the side affects of chemotherapy and the pain and stress of cancer? She answered:
I can’t even imagine being able to get through a whole week of all that! But I can get through the next five minutes. Right now that means getting up and going to the loo. Then I’ll brush my teeth and turn the shower tap on. I can manage that. Then, I’ll tackle the next five minutes.
I guess it’s like the old African proverb: How do you eat an elephant? Answer: One bite at a time! Just another way of doggypaddling …
Bury the Bastard!
My late sister dispensed many pearls of wisdom over the years. Sometimes businesslike, usually creative, often hysterically funny, her advice helped me through many a tough decision, got me through many bouts of depression and helped cure many a hangover. The day I left for University, my mother told me to have a lovely time and “always take a jersey if you go out at night”. Jenny walked me to the gate and muttered into my ear, “Bugger the jersey – take a toothbrush!” Years later, as I drove to another University, one I was working at, I had my cell phone on hands free as Jenny coached me on how to manage a stressful meeting involving a massive problem with the show I was directing. In the meeting I followed her advice to the letter. The problem was resolved and I got what was needed, without any of the drama I’d been anticipating. I could go on and on about the times Jenny’s wisdom and support helped me, but I thought today, instead, to share some wisdom that she intended to share with the world.
When I returned to South Africa, from California, near the end of 2004, Jenny was trying to wrap up her second divorce. The good guys so often don’t ask the clever, pretty girls out, so those girls frequently end up with chops. This is what happened to Jenny … twice! I had spoken to her and listened to her tears so many times over that past year, when I was still in CA, that I was somewhat surprised to see how strong she was when I moved back home. I was also rather astonished to hear her refer to her soon-to-be ex-husband as “my late husband”. She explained to me that being divorced once was pretty normal, five or six times – sexy and interesting. Twice divorced, however, was just plain pathetic …………… but widowed!! So she buried the bastard (metaphorically of course, although I would have liked to have done it literally) and whenever she mentioned her late husband, she would add a reverend, “May he rest in peace”. If anyone said anything bad about him, she’d dab a tissue to the corner of her eye and say, with dignity, compassion and a hint of admonition, “We must not speak ill of the dead.” Thus, she healed and moved on; making me weep with laughter frequently as she did so.
Her journal contains some passages about this process and some ideas for a book on surviving a divorce/dumping, that she entitled: “Bury the Bastard!” Underneath the heading she notes that this book would not just be for heterosexual women, it could also be for straight men (“Bury the Bitch”) or for gay people of either gender (“Bury the Bugger” and “Bury the Butch”). Remember that when one is ‘burying’ the cause of one’s pain and heartbreak, it is neither necessary nor appropriate to be polite or politically correct about said cause. Here are some of the passages of notes that she wrote. Enjoy:
When my husband left me I cried for six months. I needed help and kept trying to get it, but no-one was there for me. But now he’s dead to me and I’ve buried him. I feel much better.
I sat on the beach on Mauritius, looking out over the reef and decided I had to do something. Enough was enough. He was in my head, in my stomach, eating away at me from the inside. I hated him, I resented him, I focused on him. I wished he was dead. So I killed him. And buried him at sea. I watched his fat bulk disappearing beneath the water and sliding under the waves.
Her next entry is in the form of notes and ideas for advice to give her reader:
Give him something to die of. This must be something you didn’t like about him; something that irritated you. Something that really grossed you out. Mine died painfully. He was just too fat. There must be something you can find. Maybe he just had lousy taste in women, so he left you and it killed him.
I’m not suggesting you actually kill him. Don’t. That would bring a whole heap of baggage of its own along with it. The idea of this book is to help you rid yourself of baggage. So don’t kill him. Just bury him. (Alive? Dead or alive? Up to his head in the sand and the ride comes in. Smeared in honey for the ants to get him.)
Have a funeral if you must. Picture it all, sing your favourite hymn to yourself loudly and move on. Get a couple of friends to bring goodies for a funeral tea. Have a wake. Stay up all night and get pissed. Bury the bastard. Buy a new outfit to wear to the funeral. I love being a widow – I look stunning in black! Don’t, whatever you do, have a eulogy. Yes do. Have a eulogy. Remember his good parts. So sad that he’s gone. But he is. He’s dead to you. He’s like the Monty Python Parrot. He has ceased to be.
Weep, mourn and at the end of the initial, yuck week, bury him. Muslims get it right. They bury him before sunset.
Man oh man I wish she’d lived to actually write that book. Just seeing the notes she jotted down makes me chuckle, remembering her solemn, respectful widow’s expression as she spoke about her “late husband”, dabbing her eye with the tissue. Boy do I miss that wicked, dark sense of humour and how she could make me laugh till my sides literally hurt! I am still in awe of the way she could just keep going, without cracking a smile, quietly and ‘sweetly’ causing everyone else into the room to dissolve into hysterics. I will share some of those moments with you in future blogs, as I continue honouring Jenny during her birthday month of February.
Like this:
“I Will Survive”
Writing about my sister, Jenny, throughout her birthday month of February, is proving harder than I anticipated. There is just so much to say. So much emotion to revisit. 
She was my best friend, my mentor, sometimes my tormentor, always my cheerleader … she was my big sister. Some of my friends have complicated or toxic relationships with their siblings. I am so lucky and feel so grateful to have had such a wonderfully close relationship with my sister for 37 years of my life. Way too short a time … but a lot more than many people get!
I have two of her journals that she kept in the last couple of years of her life. As I read the few entries that she made, I am struck by a number of things. Firstly, the fact that she was jotting down ideas for books. Jenny was intellectually gifted and a brilliant writer. Had life not dealt her the challenges it did, perhaps she would have written those books. I would love to have read them (her journals were more just short thoughts jotted down). Secondly, her love, concern for and pride in her son, David, creeps into virtually every entry; even when she is writing about other things entirely. Thirdly, and for me right now, most significantly, I am struck by her will to live; to begin new things and to look, positively, to the future. This is an admirable quality in anyone, but in a person who has advanced metastatic breast cancer (fourth stage), is the single mother of an eleven year old boy and is dealing with a stressful and costly divorce from her second husband (a veritable chop!) … well – her fighting spirit is just downright inspirational!
Read for yourselves:
9 January 2005: New year. New Energy. This will be a good year and a disciplined one. I’ll make it good and bring a bit (a lot) of discipline and routine back into my life. Late’ish Saturday night. Davey lying in bed next to me in white t-shirt and silky boxer shorts. He got into bed wearing black, white and red swim-shorts and was packed off to change into more suitable attire. Stormy weather. So much rain this season. Couldn’t write diary last year because of too much emotion, angst and worry. Got over that, but still need finances settled and divorce through. Radio on and Gloria Gaynor belting out “I will survive”. Me too.
And she flipping did! For much longer than any medical professionals thought likely! (But not long enough for us.)
Rest peacefully, my darling sister: February 3, 1965 – November 6, 2006 x x x
Still Got My Health
Today my sister, Jennifer, would have turned 47. She died in November, 2006; aged 41 and nine months. Next month I will have lived a whole year longer than she did. I am older than my older sister will ever be.
I intended dedicating the month of February to Jenny. I planned to share memories of her wit and wisdom and celebrate the inspiring, beautiful, brilliant and hilarious person she was. I wasn’t going to focus at all on cancer or her death. Today, however, I found out that a friend of mine, another beautiful young woman in her early thirties, is entering round two of her battle with breast cancer. Coincidentally, Jenny used to go for tests at this time of the year, too, and many times her birthday was the day she received bad news. So it would be difficult for me to write about Jenny today and not mention cancer. I could just remain silent, but I have such an overwhelming feeling inside me right now, that I have to share it.
My blog is about doggy-paddling when necessary; doing what it takes to remain buoyant in order to survive and, hopefully, enjoy this game called ‘life’. Over the past weeks where I’ve been battling to keep my head above water financially, I have managed to remain buoyant (pretty much) by working in the garden, walking my dog and writing this blog, in between doing the things necessary to create work and income. I’ve been eating healthily and getting better at exercising regularly and keeping my thoughts positive. Yet I’ve still often felt stressed, unhappy and a bit hard done by. Not having the money to have the lifestyle I would like right now has been on my mind a lot and I have struggled to not allow it to affect my day to day well-being.
Nothing like remembering how my sister lived with cancer for ten and a half years, and the news that a friend is about to embark on a second battle with the disease, to give me a kick in the old gratitude pants! Sure I’ve had a tough few years. Sure it’s stressful foraging for work right now. Sure my life’s not perfect. I’M HEALTHY! I don’t have to wonder whether or not I’ll be here next year. I have as much chance as anyone of not being hit by a bus or lightning bolt in the foreseeable future. Some days I feel a bit tired and I have the occasional ache and pain, but I am always able to run if required and to shout and dance and get myself into and out of a bath. I have all the physical necessities to recreate my life from day to day. I have the luxury of worrying more about losing my medical aid, than about losing my life. I have the one asset that no amount of money can buy: I have a fully-functional body, free of disease. How lucky am I? 
So, what started as a bit of a sad day, has become a day of celebration for me. I have all the compassion in the world for everyone who is battling any kind of illness, or physical challenge. I honour them by expressing my gratitude for that which we so often take for granted … till it’s not there anymore. Work-schmirk. Money-shmoney. Stress-schmess. As Cole Porter so wisely wrote: I still got my health, so what do I care?
<br>http://lyrics.stlyrics.com/lyrscroll.swf?page=http%3A//www%2Estlyrics%2Ecom/lyrics/beaches/ivestillgotmyhealth%2Ehtm<br><a href=”http://www.stlyrics.com” target=”_blank”>Lyrics</a> | <a href=http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/beaches/ivestillgotmyhealth.htm target=_blank>Bette Midler – I’ve Still Got My Health lyrics</a>
Growing Things
They say that whatever you give attention to, grows. We all know that worrying and fretting about things only makes us worry and fret more. We also know that thinking positive, happy thoughts and smiling pleasant smiles increases our warm, fuzzy feelings. I assume that most of my readers are completely familiar with this knowledge and the ancient and current wisdom and theories – scientific and woo – that support this fact. But heck it’s great to see this stuff evidenced in nature! (So great, in fact, that I felt fully justified in using both ‘heck’ and ‘stuff’ in a sentence.)
A few years ago, after my sister died, I inherited some large terra-cotta pots (planters, for the American readers). I purchased a small, ornamental citrus tree and planted it in one of them. I gave it good potting soil and yummy fertiliser*. The attached sticker stated that the tree liked full sunlight, so I positioned it in a warm, open corner of the yard I watered it and pruned it and for four years the little tree grew steadily. Each autumn it produced small, yellowy-orange citrus thingies, that I could name if I had paid attention to what kind of fruit tree I’d bought. Each winter I’d prune it back, so that it would continue to grow into a lovely round shape. It did.
Then I moved down to Durban …
For a year and a month the poor little no-name tree stood, in it’s large pot, on the pathway outside our downstairs gate. A slither of sunlight hit it for a few moments each day and rain was its only source of water. I would pass it guiltily on my way in and out, but never stopped to move it into the sun or give it some water. As the months wore on, the leaves dropped off and the branches died. Eventually, only one limb remained; stretching out hopefully, in the direction of the slither of sunlight. The little tree valiantly produced one round orange fruit, which only added to my guilt. It was virtually crying out for attention with what meagre resources it still had.
I went on holiday.
Enter 2012! A new zest for life and a strange pastoral urge upon us, my dearly beloved** and I headed for the nurseries and came home laden with soil and seedlings; tomatoes, lettuce, rocket, parsley, strawberries, green peppers, aubergines, baby marrow. Basically we were starting a farm … on our deck! Now how could I start caring for new, young plants, when I had a dying tree outside the gate? I couldn’t. So, I went down and proceeded to drag the heavy terra-cotta pot along the path and up a flight of stairs, onto the deck. As I dragged, I spoke to the little tree … or rather, the little twig. I apologised for neglecting it so badly. I thanked it for bearing the one small fruit it had, last year. I told it I was going to put it in its place in the sun and feed and water and nurture it properly again. I apologised for scraping it along the wall on the way up the stairs and breaking off a branch! My neighbours gave me strange looks, but I kept going until the tree was in its new place, in the sunniest corner of our sunny deck. Then, with explanations and apologies to the tree first, of course, I cut off all the dead wood, leaving just the one branch, with its few leaves, that had grown out the side in search of sunlight.
That was four weeks ago. Look at it now! 
With just a bit of love and attention – regular water, some plant food, and daily verbal encouragement and gratitude (yes, I talk to plants, get over it) – this little twig has produced a ridculous amount of new shoots and leaves. Now it’s really thanking us by bursting into blossom, promising a bumper crop of … I really must find out what the heck it is.
Paddington says: “If this is what just four weeks of daily attention and nurturing can do to a plant, imagine what it can do for dogs.”
Indeed Paddington … and just think of what it could do for humans!
*Please note: my phrase “yummy fertiliser” is based entirely on supposition. I DID NOT taste the fertiliser!
**I acknowledge being drawn to the use of the phrase “dearly beloved” to describe my partner because of its congregational connotations. This alludes to my secret, life-long yearning for the pulpit.
Enough
Some days are just easier than others. Days that begin with relinquishing one’s laptop into the realms of suppliers and services for ‘up to twenty-one days’ can be challenging. They tend to unfold with wrong turns onto strange highways, parking in parking garages and realising, too late, that one doesn’t have enough cash to pay and thus validate the ticket that will get one out of there. One is only going to take another wrong turn and end up on the Phoenix highway again, once free, so why worry about the ticket money in the first place? But one does. And one worry leads to another and one annoying wrong turn leads to another and pretty soon it’s lunch time and one is hungry and bemoaning the fact that one’s available balance on all of one’s bank accounts is currently zero. And one dwells on the hunger and feels resentment towards all the tempting restaurants and fast food outlets as one goes about one’s errands for the day. The bad, bad, miserable day.
But then one might notice someone with no shoes, picking through dustbin bags, looking for a morsel to eat or something worth salvaging. And one might realise that although one is a bit hungry right now, one will soon be home, to a fridge full of food. And one pulls oneself together and stops making wrong turns!
And that was how my day started out. Fortunately a beggar made me get my shit together and my day continued productively and ended splendidly, with a gorgeous walk on a perfect beach with my loved one and dog. And somewhere along the beach we stopped for a while and Paddington (the dog) looked at me and in his eyes was this message:
I have everything I could possibly need in this world. I have two people to love and care for me. I have food and water and a soft place to sleep. I have birds and cats to bark at and a sunny deck to lie on in the morning. I have walks in the park and on the beach. Sometimes I experience the miracle of biltong or cheese and the sublime joy of a dog butt to sniff. And all I have do to get this abundance is love unconditionally … and bark if someone enters the property.
Seriously, we can learn a lot from dogs.
Like this:
A Lesson in Acceptance
I believe that life constantly offers us opportunities to learn and grow. I also know that people all have different learning styles. Why, oh why do I have to be such a flipping experiential learner? Why can’t I be one of those visual learners who can read a book, look at some pictures and *boom* lesson learned? Oh no – I learn my Universal truths and life lessons from full-immersion, live-action, multi-dimensional, experiential challenges. Which is all very lovely and I’m grateful for all I have learned, blah, blah, blah, but enough already!
Which is why I decided to consciously change my learning style. This year I have resolved to become the kind of person who learns from books. No need to go through all the personal sturm and drang when you can just read someone else’s wisdom, right? And it seemed the Universe was supporting my intentions, when an executive coach friend of mine lent me Deepak Chopra’s “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success”, the other day. I figured I’d study one law a day and, by the end of a week, I’d have all the tools I need for abundant affluence and joy.
“The Law of Pure Potentiality” made good sense. I need to meditate daily. Cool. Thanks for the reminder, Deepak. I like “The Law of Giving”; keep the flows of energy moving and all that. “The Law of Karma” always makes me wonder what dreadful crimes against humanity I must have committed in past lives, but conscious awareness and choices are fab – I’ll work on that. “The Law of Least Effort” – aha … now this is getting interesting. This is a law I can happily enforce in my life; especially the age-old Vedic Science principle of “do less and accomplish more”. When I read the bit about “ultimately you come to the state where you do nothing and accomplish everything”, I was hooked. And so, this morning, I decided to study Chapter 4 in detail, so that I could learn to apply The Law of Least Effort as soon as possible.
The basic premise is that we are part of nature and seeing as nature’s intelligence functions with effortlessness, so should we. The trick is to figure out what exactly it is that you are naturally meant to do/be (find your “true self”) and then do what you do with love and for the greater good of the Universe. Then, according to Deepak Chopra (and the many sages he refers to), you can harness the power of love and use that energy creatively and effortlessly to manifest and experience affluence in all its glorious forms. Oh – you also have to get that pesky ego out of the way first and get rid of all fear. Ok. Fair enough. I reckoned I could work on that. And so I read further, with stronger conviction and greater evolutionary intent.
There are three components to The Law of Least Effort and the first one is acceptance. You need to simply make a commitment: “Today I will accept people, situations, circumstances, and events as they occur.” I read that when you struggle against accepting the present, no matter how yuck it is, you are actually struggling against the entire Universe. It certainly feels like that sometimes, doesn’t it? So, I repeated the commitment a few times to myself and, sure that I had now learned and accepted this universal truth, I switched on my computer serenely, ready to open myself up to all the work that was about to flow my way once I’d sent my CV to more people.
Ok – so I had learned my lesson about acceptance. They didn’t tell me there was going to be a test!!!!!
Here’s what I’ve accepted today:
- The laws of the Universe do not necessarily apply to computers.
- Even though the very nice man from the Dell centre in. Bangalore assured me it wasn’t a hardware problem that is causing my laptop to crash repeatedly, I accept that he is wrong.
- I accept that it took me an entire day to back-up my files and restore my system to factory settings only to have it crash again.
- I accept that I will have to return my laptop to Dion Wired in the morning and that my job-creation plans will be delayed a bit more.
- And I also accept that if I do not receive joy from the nice men at Dion Wired, I might commit a violent crime. I will then accept my jail sentence.
Did I pass the test, Mr Chopra?
A Fear of Green Drinks
Ever since a friend’s mother gave me a big plastic jar of barley leaf supplement that shall remain nameless, I have had a fear of green drinks. I don’t mean Creme Soda, which is horrifically bad for you, but oh so yummy and refreshing after a day on the beach. And I certainly don’t mean green alchoholic drinks. Mojito’s rock and I have some very pleasant, if somewhat patchy, memories of peppermint liqueur immersed in mugs of Black Label draft beer. Thus saying, my memories of Depth Charges at the Berea Inn, purchased with money from the Clarke Road digs’ “swear jar”, pre-date my green, foamy, grassy health drink scarring.
On the oustide of the intimidatingly large plastic container was written:
Paddington says: Do you know why dogs eat grass? To make ourselves vomit. (We can learn a lot from dogs.)
“Just add water” the nonchalant instructions encouraged. I did. It foamed. I stirred. A bubble popped, making a sound too similar to a human burp. I drank. I wretched. I took my chances with my health and nutrition for another couple of decades.
And then, tonight, it happened again:
My dearly beloved and self-appointed custodian of my alimentary well-being (a role I’ve been happy to hand over to a willing and excellent cook) produced, as an after-supper healthy treat … a foaming green drink!
Let it be said that when one reaches a certain age, the desire for health and vitality can be strong enough to override one’s past traumas; especially when, after a particulary stressful year, one’s va-va-voom va-va-vent. Love is also always a strong motivating factor, so I bravely poured myself a glass of the green stuff. It didn’t burp, thankfully, but it did foam and there were some lumpy bits that perturbed me. A need to please and the desire for optimal health prevailed. I gave it a stir. Still no burping sound – this was promising. The lumps disolved easily. Somewhat comforted, I lifted the glass to my mouth, adopting my adjudicator’s face.
To those who have never adjudicated: An ’adjudicator’s face’ is the expression one learns to don when judging Drama festivals, or marking prac exams. It consists of a pleasant smile and a slight tilt of the head, to suggest friendly encouragement and approval, whilst masking any number of internal experiences, ranging from extreme boredom to abject horror, that talentless children – or worse still, their mothers – must never know about.
So, with a pleasant smile to my dearly beloved and a slight tilt of the head, I sipped. It didn’t taste like a freshly mowed meadow at all. I swallowed. I sipped again … and then I gulped it all down. Yum! I can confidently say that I am a step closer to being cured of my twenty-year-long fear of green drinks.
Apparently more green concoctions are on the way and, honestly, I can’t wait to drink them Delicious and insanely healthy – what more can one want? “The recipe, the recipe! Give us the recipe,” I hear my dear readers implore. Well since you asked:
Spinach; 2 naartjies; 1 apple; 1 pear; ice; 1 floret of broccoli; water; Put it all in the blender (sorry – I’m not very good at quantities, figure it out for yourselves 
)
Before you dive into your fruitbowls and switch on your blenders it might be worth noting that my dearly beloved was heard to say, later in the evening, “I’m not sure about the brocolli. I just added that myself.” Er … yeah.
To healthy living and lots of chlorophyl, phytonutrients and other unpronouncables that do you good: Cheers x
Doggy Paddling
A very wise woman once gave me some advice. It went something like this:
“When you find yourself in the middle of a flood and the waters are sweeping you away; don’t try and swim upstream – that’s futile. Don’t try and strike out to swim to a bank – the current is too strong for you. Don’t waste energy looking around, hoping for a boat to rescue you or a log to come floating past for you to grab onto: Doggy Paddle! Do the very least that is required to keep yourself afloat … just Doggy Paddle.
Pretty soon the flood waters will begin to abate. You will start to feel mud between your toes and you will begin wading. Then you’ll start walking through shallow water. Then, before you know it, you’ll be running and skipping and jumping again. But, while the flood waters are sweeping you along – Doggy Paddle!”
This advice has helped me keep my head above water and remain buoyant during some extremely tough times. It is something that I have to keep reminding myself to do, whenever I find myself engulfed in one of life’s ‘floods’. I have wasted much time and energy trying to swim upstream, or waiting for a life raft. I have come close to drowning, on occasion. But, whenever I remember to simply Doggy Paddle for a while, sure enough, the waters do subside and, after a bit of wading and some mud, I find myself on dry land again, free to journey freely into a world of new possibilities. And still alive!
R.I.P. Jessica Radin PhD: incredible therapist, wise woman and life-saver
