Nick and I have a tradition: whenever we travel somewhere interesting and unfamiliar, we take photos out of the car window as we drive… and call this our “Drive-by Shootings”. Later, we look back on the photos and drink it all in. We have hundreds of drive-by photos… from Cuba, Haiti, Nigeria, Zambia, Kenya, Mozambique and more… and I can’t bring myself to delete…
Recently, a friend of mine recommended a book to read on practical ways to deal with adult ADD (which I am utterly convinced that I have!). The book was written by a doctor (who also happens to have ADD) – and I liked it because it was different. It didn’t go into all the technicalities of what ADD is – and all the blurb and hype surrounding the condition… it simply assumed that if you were reading the book, you were either ADD or close to someone with ADD – and thus offered a whole bunch of practical ideas to manage your daily life.
Now… you may (or may not) have noticed my very SPORADIC posts on this blog! This is for a number of reasons… firstly – I have (as usual) spread myself too thin (as usual) by trying to do too many things at once (as usual) because so many different things interest and excite me (as usual).
The blog you’re reading now is but ONE of my blogs. I also try to (at least fairly regularly) update this blog… and this blog. I’ve given up on this blog.
I also have Facebook pages! My personal Facebook page… my Facebook page for WOODO… my Facebook page for Beautiful Life Project… my Facebook page for VENT!… and my Facebook page for Tapestry of Dreams!
I have managed to delegate the WOODO page to Jo… and the Tapestry of Dreams page to Roz (which helps).
I also have a Twitter account!
I also have newsletters!! I send out newsletters via Mailchimp to everyone interested in WOODO (Women who DO!) or in Beautiful Life Project! Crickey!
And all of this is just my SOCIAL MEDIA… it’s not even my Real Life! In my Real Life… I also have 2 small children and a husband… and a home (which we want to fix up and sell)… and adventures on the horizon… and my various projects… and a book… and my artwork… and my stories…. and my music… and, and, and….
Aaaak!
So. That long winded explanation was just to justify my sporadic posts on this blog. I have not fallen off the face of the planet… I’m merely trying to get a grip.
And now I’ve forgotten about what I originally wanted to write in this blog! *sigh* Oh yes! – adult ADD and how that book has been helping me sort my brain out (or, at least, to some degree).
Trouble is… there’s some quotes I wanted to share with you in that book… but the book is on the Kindle app… which is on the iPad… which is flat-flat-flat… and I don’t know where the power supply is. And I’m currently too lazy (and cold) to remove myself from my warm duvet… on this comfy couch… next to the heater…. to hunt down the power supply and charge the iPad.
So the ADD thoughts that I had – shall have to wait… until my attention is sufficiently focussed enough to continue!
Sorry ’bout that – and chat soon! X
I have visited my fair share of “3rd world” countries over the years – and without hesitation, I can say that I have learned more from the “poor” about grace, humility and generosity than I have from the “rich”. My experience in Mozambique (a year and a half ago) was no different. I was there on a trip with Could You?
Today, my kids decided that they wanted to create a Birthday Party in our front garden (right on the sidewalk). They were joined by their friend, Zahra (from next door). I just love how kids can get excited and have fun and create games, stories and adventures – with no money… and very little “stuff”. I think I need to learn a few lessons from them – on how to live differently.
Making "cakes" on the sidewalk...
Close-up of Morgan's "cake"...
Joah "baking" a new cake...
Zahra (friend from next-door)...
"Birthday Party" on the sidewalk - woo-hoo! Complete with chocolate and gums!
Yum!
Party "decorations"...
My sister is a Life Coach. This occasionally comes in handy… and especially when I’m trying to spring clean the clutter in my head. She has a way of asking me unnerving questions, and twisting my words around (in a good way) to force me to look at my (many) issues from new angles.
Two nights ago, we shared a chimichanga and a cappuccino in my lounge… and I spilled my guts about how I was undergoing an identity crisis of late (may also have something to do with me turning 40 this year… and other recent events).
Anyway – this blog you’re reading used to be called “Adventures of a Creative Social Entrepreneur”… but, after this and this – I’ve kinda figured that I’m NOT an “entrepreneur” (here’s why)… which surely means that I can’t be a Social Entrepreneur either… can I?
So… what am I? What do I do? What do I want to do?
Well, for a start…
Problem is – I’m not brilliantly awesome at any of the above! I’m not the world’s best artist – my cousin’s girlfriend paints stuff I couldn’t even imagine painting. I’m not the most fabulous singer or musician… I can sing fairly well but not magnificently… I can hold my own behind the piano – but nobody is going to hire me as a professional musician (and besides, everything is ‘by ear’ – I can’t read a note of music!). I can get-by with my writing and blogging – but I am definitely not a Writer’s Writer…. and so on.
So, even though I am – by definition, a Creative Creature, and I’m able to do lots of different things… I don’t think that I am particularly, amazingly STRONG in any of those creative disciplines.
So, my sister’s next question focussed on my passions. What am I passionate about?
But also – let’s not forget that my deepest passion is, of course, my family: my husband Nick and my two children, Morgan and Joah. Wherever they are – well, that’s “home” for me. It is hugely – HUGELY important (for me) to create a life full of beautiful, meaningful moments, memories and experiences with my family and friends.
These experiences don’t need to be HUGE and wow-some! They don’t even need to be expensive. Sure, I love travel, adventure and holiday’ing with my family – but that’s not what defines a beautiful moment. Beautiful moments can be something as simple as the four of us snuggled up under a big blanket in front of a our log fire in Winter time. Or… the kids playing in a big, self-made mud pool in our back garden… creating a variety of mud pies… while Nick and I swing on our hammock nearby, sipping something cool and discussing our dreams.
I don’t want my work / duties / responsibilities to rob me of that which, for me, is the most important – and that which makes me come alive.
And isn’t that exactly what happens in life? There’s SO much To DO! We have soooo many responsibilities, duties, errands, administration… our lives are choc-full of things we “must do” and “ought to do…” and things we “really should do…” – but at what cost? What cost to ourselves? What cost to our families? What cost to our dreams?
I dunno. I want to live differently. Nick does too.
And living differently is going to mean a whole bunch of things. If we are to re-define what it means to LIVE… then there’s a lot of things that will need to be re-defined. Everything from how we live… where we live… how we educate our kids… how we eat… what kind of work we involve ourselves in… all of this will need to be re-thunk.
There’s still loads to write on this particular topic – and this blog is already a bit long… so I will just leave you with some food-for-thought:
Just a few days ago, we enjoyed a mini-break in the Southern Drakensberg at a place called Lake St. Bernard. It’s actually a place where the fishing fundi’s go to fish for trout – which is quite ironic, since none of us have much of an interest in fishing.
We went with our good friends, Rogan and Tracey – and their two children, Matt and Erin (who are similar in age to Morgan and Joah).
This is what I loved most about Lake St. Bernard:
Here are some pictures of the setting….
If you take all the photos above… and mentally stitch them together side-by-side in your mind, you’ll have an idea of the vista that greeted us from our cottage stoep.
Sonja Fahn was my best friend in primary school. We met in 1981, when we both attended Putfontein Primary (or Putties for short).
Sonja was shorter than me and slightly built. She had shoulder-length strawberry-blonde hair which was usually scooped to the side in a side-path that was very un-cool for the eighties. Her pale skin was dusted with freckles and she had a wide, naughty grin. Like me, she was creative and loved to draw. Also like me, she was a tomboy who was far happier getting up to mischief outdoors than playing indoors and behaving.
Sonja had a younger sister called Erika (nicknamed Skilpad or Skilly for short). Skilly was the same age as my sister, Suzanne, and so – they too became natural friends.
The Fahn sisters lived a couple of roads down from The Plot in a squat old farmhouse with huge rooms, creaky wooden floors and a piano in the passageway (which boasted real ivory keys). I was terrified of their mother, Aunty Betsy who clearly believed in the Biblical proverb that if you spared the rod, you spoiled the child. She kept an ominous wooden paddle for this purpose, which took pride of place, hanging in a special spot on her gloss-painted kitchen wall. Printed neatly across the paddle were the words: ”The Persuader”.
Aunty Betsy never used The Persuader on me, but witnessing her using it on Sonja was more than enough incentive for me to be on my very best behaviour whenever Aunty Betsy was in the vicinity.
I’m due to turn forty in November. Forty. Even the sound of the word… forty... conjures up images of tired, middle-aged women. Like my mother… when she was forty: Very tired, very middle-aged and very unhappy.
Years later, she told me how she had lost herself during those miserable “middle-aged” years. “I had become someone-else’s-mother and someone-else’s-wife”, she told me, “and I had pushed aside everything that made me… me”.
Although Mom has since transformed her entire life, and now, at the age of sixty-something, is finally free, happy and doing what she loves… I can’t help but imagine what could have been – if she didn’t spend twenty-odd years of her life, floating around in a pointless fog of dutiful-nothingness. And I wonder what could have been if she didn’t kill off all of her dreams in her thirties and forties out of a misplaced sense of duty towards her husband and her children.
Killing her dreams wasn’t healthy for her – and it wasn’t healthy for us either. We reaped her sadness during those years. As much of an attentive and loving mother she was, she could never hide that deep sadness from us. Suzanne and I always knew that she wasn’t happy – even though she made a point of never crying or moping in our presence. Even though she loved us dearly and was always in “Good Mother” mode.
And, possibly because of how my mother’s life has affected me, I have an almost irrational fear of becoming what she was at age forty: someone-else’s-mother and someone-else’s-wife … and nothing else.
Many women fall in to that space. Even as I sit typing this, I can easily think of so many women I know who’ve channelled all their energy into becoming “Good Mother”, “Good Wife”… or even “Good Daughter”, “Good Friend” or “Good Employee”… yet… neglected their own beautiful dreams in the process and have chopped off the parts of themselves that yearn for… more.
I don’t want that to be me.
I so desperately, desperately don’t want that to be me.
And my deepest fear is that I’ll become exactly that which I’ve been running from for most of my life.
I am the woman who yearns for MORE. And although I’m intensely grateful for my life, my beautiful family and my many blessings… I yearn for MORE.
More of LIFE… more of LOVE… more of my FAMILY… more of PASSION… more of the things that make me come alive! More ADVENTURE… more TRAVEL… more RELEVANCE… more BEING THE CHANGE I wish to see in the world… more PEOPLE… more JOY…. more!
I want more. I do. I want it so much that my body aches for it… my spirit longs for it… my brain invents ideas and schemes of all the various possibilities… my heart is giddy with expectation…. I am desperate and sick with longing and yearning.
Yearning for more.
Here’s a picture of our VENT! promo packs… I’m distributing them to people who could help us take VENT! to the next level. It includes a 30 minute documentary about VENT!, a music CD with 4 songs (created by our participants, of course)… and a little booklet with photos and info.
I’ve given up trying to explain VENT! to people. I figure they really need to watch the doccie and then they will ‘get’ VENT!
Those of you who know me… know the following:
I do not have the capacity to “sell” this idea to the corporates and the people with access to funding. I think it’s a great idea – but I cannot… cannot… cannot sell or promote stuff (especially not my stuff)…
I wish I could collaborate with somebody who is great at approaching people (read: corporations or funders)… and who can confidently share good ideas! Where-oh-where are the people who are good at selling?
Where are the professional Fundraisers (who are not secret Amway agents)…?
How does one get a good project or idea “out there”… when one loathes the process of marketing-the-idea or *horror* pitching!??
VENT! Promo Pack...
PS: If anyone is interested in watching the VENT! doccie online – here it is:
There, I said it.
I once vowed that never, ever again would I be conned (and the word is very definitely conned because Amway sales-people never, ever, ever say: “I would like to invite you to an Amway presentation” – they always, always always use a staggering array of manipulation tactics to get you to attend).
The first time I was conned: A relative whom I hadn’t seen in a long time visited completely out of the blue to discuss an “idea” with me. Now, I like this relative – and I like ideas too. However, it was not an idea… or even her idea… it was an Amway Presentation – complete with a slideshow of grinning white people with big hair, posing ostentatiously next to mansions, sports cars and speed boats. Eww.
