In my foolishness I forget I have followers making this space more about just dropping in when I can, really... What a surprise to get a message asking me: "when do we get pics with your blog?" I have toyed with the idea but never really thought of implementing it, so now I'm in debate as to what it will be: a yes or no or perhaps a culmination of both.... Yes No Maybe Oh well...

Dear Universe
I have left it in your hands.
 Regards
The Blogging Non-Blogger


In the hecticness that has been the past weeks I had an interesting conversation with a musician about our various crafts but more specifically what music does to the listener and how it can heal... I take my hat off to those who can relay emotions in a note, carry and build it up only to have it taper off in a candle whisper...

For a while I have not called myself a writer, ok maybe a lot longer than a while but hey... When I sit with musicians, those who can play instruments or those who sing, I find my spirit missing the conversations one has with an audience through their medium of choice for sharing.... Damn that's blessed. There is nothing more beautiful than a crowd taking in what you are giving and being moved beyond words as to where you have been in that moment, we all travel through space and time drinking from the same cup.
 Dear people who art
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you do.
Signed
A fan of what you do

Creativity is a wonderful space that the imagination inhabits bringing to life thoughts becoming the realm of possibility...

lessons learnt through listening

State of affairs is rough, this has been one emo' year snap....

There are so many deaths, every weekend there's a burial. Has one thinking where do we stand with God, us who remain behind? What are you doing for those that are around you?

Sometimes even a smile warms away three winter months wrote someone, I can't quite remember but whose words seem to ring truer with my growth each day. Too many friends and fam' have gone this year.

Death aside there have been wonderful moments in this year too....
A friend gave birth to a beautiful baby girl and another got married this past Friday on her birthday(we'll get back to this wedding for it's pearls of wisdom).  Another friend has started her nail business and some friends have found love and are sustaining it so well with God as their third person in their relationships...

We all seem to be growing spiritually and that is so blessed. We're finding that with each day in growing older we become wiser through the lessons experience taught us and will continue to teach us going forward.


Back to to my Girl's Wedding, this is what i picked up:

• The Pastor unpacked what being unfaithful is:

1. You can never look or touch another person other than your spouse and still be unfaithful
2. When you lose faith in your spouse, you become unfaithful
3. How to remain Faithful:

          - Remember to celebrate each others strengths 

           (focus on the good aspects each of you bring to your relationship)

         - Believe that one event does not corrupt a person's character

         - Have faith In GOD
           ( when you come to moments  where there are hurdles and mountain like obstacles that you
             can't handle then leave them with God.)

• #weddingwisdom ( the wisest old woman spoke & it made sense to my yet to be married self):

1.     Don't compete with your husband, men are afraid of competition.     
2. remember Love is not giving a spouse a comfy bed nor is it a plasma TV... 
3. People may say this marriage was made in heaven but remember that it is maintained here on earth
4. Ask your partner what they precisely meant from a statement instead of assuming
5. In your relationship do not listen to people wanting to tell you about your spouse's irregularities. Stop them in their tracks as they begin telling you stories or gossip stompies. 
6.  You and only you will know your husband!

 I grew up at this wedding realising that I had already somewhat come to these conclusions in having dated. If you cannot work through issues whilst you are dating someone and learn from each other's mistakes then i'm afraid marriage will be hard to live through. Be it a relationship or marriage throwing in the towel before you've tried working through issues is a no, no, no for you don't fully learn the lessons that come with each experience.

 Be yourself but remember that in a relationship as much as there is you or him (visa versa) as individuals that there is also a unit called us which encases each of you as one entity and within it the best solutions come from love, trust, faith, commitment, compromise and a willingness to see the union flourish into a beautiful flower or tree one day.

What is it with hell no's and attractions

So last night my girl and I are at this gig in a dodgy-ish tavern-ish / shebeen place where music was on point except for some random american-ish high note pulling stunts from a local chikita... now this girl was singin' old school sophiatown classics in keys that just did not match the songs....

But any-who the main act, could belt a mean ass tune in the tiniest body I've ever seen. Her legs would not make not even one of my very own legs, yeah I said it. Tjo!! Ok mara mosadi o, roko la hae...  ja ne... extremely tiny and dancin' on stage then... oh wait for it: she lifts up the already tiny creeper-upper black number. Another lady sitting with us asked what happened to class? Somebody behind our table said something close to ooh yikes she's showin' us her knickers... did i just see that?

Great night out all that aside the main attraction's voice is uber talent infested, God and the universe and those that came before her in her blood line done blessed her well.

So we decide to have a drink to end our night, first and last for that night.... then some random bloke says hi to a sister, ok i... bathong mona e o starts mackin on some your're beautiful, sister:thank you , ok. Hawu dude then proceeds to tell friend, in the background, she's the one I was telling you about, girl has blank look but greets friend... Next thing dudes are still chattin' so no drinking our drinks in piece damm.... sister to okes ok bye then dude turns aroun' to his scruffy-dirty-artist friend n says ka si zulu  hawu seyang xosha manje... dude turns back to a sister n says I coulda bought you your next drink, manje lomntwana uyang xhomela. No chick chatting to him side kick say ya uyaxhoma vele..... huh?! 

He e man dudes need to go back to school and learn how to mack a sister and dammet NO is NO... N just cause I said hello back to you does not mean I want your sorry ass mack.... Go back to school or go follow some gentlemen on social networking sites and learn etiquette for cryin' out loud.

what we take in

I've seen animals slaughtered under ten times in my life and it has irked me out, I must say... but that said it has not deterred me from my meat eating tendencies.

When I was younger we travelled for something or other to one of our family homes in the EC where live stock was to be slaughtered for feasting... I got to see the final moments of a sheep, suffice to say that, that sound it made upon it's last breath was and still is blood curdling and yet I still ate it's meat when it had been cooked.  It disturbed me to see that.

This year I was invited to a ceremony and before my eyes a chicken was knifed, blood splattering into an enamel bowl placed in the centre of someone's home, part of me couldn't look and part of me could but then again it made me ill to watch this, that was occurring in my presence. It made me uncomfortable but you know what: I still love my chicken!!!!!!!


I love my meat so much so that I could never become a rastafarian, vegan or any other thing that requires me not to eat meat, ok. Once a cousin of mine decided to go see how hamburgers were made, well upon her witnessing it she became vegetarian and wanted us to follow suit to go check it out, I refused.

On an Oprah rerun I watched this guy said: if you don't know how it is made you should not be eating it. Makes sense, yes, no, maybe... Reality is though that not all of us want to know how our meat is slaughtered and veganism is not for everyone but that said I do agree that we should be concerned with how living things die and that it should be stress-less. Healthier eating habits do need to be acquired. I'm finding healthier take away options and more and more greens making it onto my plate when dining out...

One of these days I might just be the salad ordering girl.....

penned

Sometimes I forget what it takes to do this blogging thing and other times I merely tire when I think it has to be done... Sharing your thoughts with the world or even five people to one is a major exercise...
I struggle to breathe my gifts sometimes.


" For Africa to me... is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going 
   unless  he knows exactly  where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place. " 
   - Dr Maya Angelou 


Dr Maya Angelou is one of my favourite writers and when I saw this quote it struck a nerve with me. There are so many things going on in the world, wars are being waged and marches staged, death tolls rise daily from various causes and poverty is still undefeated....

What is Africa to me? Who am I?


This question rings true through so many debates I happen to read through on twitter with discussions becoming overly heated as each person perceives their truth in being just. Amazingly though if you had to ask some Africans to participate in their own rituals they would out right refuse any partaking in such....
I don't know if I'm alone in wondering what is so wrong or unjust in the practices of our forefathers...

Yet I seem to wonder what on earth are we preserving as indigenous people of Africa of our heritage?
I am African because my umbilical chord is still attached to the placenta of this continent... I read something or a tweet, can't really remember where I saw this but to paraprhase and take liberties it said: I am African kuba xana ndizithutha ndizi tsala emva imvelaphi yabant aband'zalayo... my history is told in their existence, where they were from to where I am now, that resonated well with me.

I love my continent and I was born at it's southern most tip living at its edge...

Camagu

I would much rather
Speak earth affinity
Than to be political
Whilst people die
Of that which is
Considered taboo
I'd rather live with
The title of miss taboo
Than die ignoring
My existence
And what it was birthed for
Pretending truths don't exist
Doesn't at any given time
Make the truth untruthful
It makes it disappear
Only to reappear
Much stronger
And more vested
In ousting itself
You see truth knocks kindly
@ first
But after being denied
It begins to rudely intercept
That lie(s)
Becoming even more pronounced
With skeletons coming out to play

love letters

hello blog world it's been... hasn't it.
Well when last did you receive a letter, conventional or otherwise? the otherwise being an email or text notes...

Something that does not happen often these days is communicating. I watched The Talk the the other day, SA's a bit behind season wise, anyhow on this day the ladies of The Talk discussed how they communicate with their spouses via email or texting, one of the ladies said they used it as a tool to fight with their hubby, whilst some said they enjoyed the occasional email or text like enjoy your day or how is your day so far...

Yesterday what made my day is that i saw a tweet on one of my all time favourite songs by Mbongeni Ngema, that every black person calls ithambo lam lekentucky which is one of the lines in the song, the actual title being: Stimela sam sase Zola... the tweet was saying that every man should sign off the letter like that...

I listenedd to the song that flooded my early life partly due to the women of my family, Note: this was the time of cassette players and turntables, so my aunts had a cassette with one song recorded on it that song was Mbongeni Ngema's Stimela sam sase Zola...... #beautifulmemories of growing up

That song is such a beautifully articulated vernacular love letter in song....
talks of the woman being his umbrella shielding him from the sunshine... to saying i love you even when you"re spitting fire( ngikthanda nom uvutha baby).... He then says  you touch me and i rise like selfraising flour (wangthinta ndakhukhumala)... the song speaks of resting on her derrière after  a hard day's work (NGIYOPHUMULA KUWE EDAIRY)....

I sat listening to this song realising that it was one of my first ever love songs in vernac that i had heard as a child and just how i enjoyed listening to it playing  non-stop courtesy of the aunts whose favourite song it was at the time. I move to today's time and realise that men don't speak in this currency of value, appreciation is minimal of the women in their lives that said i don't believe all men are like this either.
i used to write letters and i miss that intimate space but more than anything i believe letter writing still has a space in this world of technological comm's....

Take time out and write a love letter to someone, it doesn't have to be romantically inclined but it could come from a place of love and filled with softness and kindness and good thoughts.