Ma Wa Gray

Yesterday I sat beneath a cathedral of green trees next to the chocolate Tugela river and I said goodbye to my childhood friend Neil. For those who know Neil or who have been following my blog you will know that Neil had cystic fibrosis.  Today I sit in my chapel of a bed while my children eat Wheetbix and I bid farewell to my Lent commitment of blogging every day for 40 days.  Something happens when you know that you have a deadline to find meaning and beauty in the every day things.  You actually start finding them.  Yesterday I listened as countless people spoke about a boy who, living with a death sentence, lived and loved with more intention than most of us sitting at his memorial. He made every relationship count. He made sure people knew that they were loved. And the last thing he told his two best friends on his death bed was ‘Don’t stop believing.’ In these past 40 days I have lost three friends. My blog has allowed me to honour and grieve them meaningfully....

1. Get dressed. Pay absolutely no attention to face. Mask wearing will be essential.  2. Wonder if makeup has an expiry date.  3. Arrive at function.  4. Try to recognize people you’ve known since you were born.  5. Realise how much a year of socially distancing and letting oneself go can age people.  6. Allow first greetings with people like your class 2 Sunday school teacher to be super awkward because you’re still trying to work out ‘the vibe’.  7. Offer your elbow to the first four people you see.  8. Spot your oldest friend in the world who has been going through a very tough time. Hug them tight.  9. Notice the four who got your elbow glaring over their masks.  10.  Sit a socially distant length from family members who you have just eaten breakfast with.  11. If you’re attending a funeral thank your lucky stars that you’re wearing a mask because A. you forgot to bring tissues and B. it gives you an opportunity for the first ti...

Seed pods drip onto hardened land The fruits of summer stuck in thirsty sand.  The grasses ripen from emerald to gold As the veld thickens in apprehension of cold.  Migrating birds have long left telephone wires Departure means they miss the ice and runaway fires.  Odd bursts of blossom speak of colonial powers  The arrival of outsiders documented in cosmos flowers.  Sleek coats fluff up and heffers thrive The last moments of calfhood before winter arrives.  The natural world so intuitive and old Knows that seasons must change long before we are told.  We lock things in calendars, months and plans When the truth of time is found in our lands.  A farewell to summer - life abundantly free - The death of what was, in anticipation for what will be. 

Several years ago I lived in a very hot foreign land (which I don’t care to name because their surveillance makes other intelligence agencies look like a baby sitting service). The time I spent there was, to date, the most terrifying and painful experience I have ever faced. I felt like every part of what made me me was at war with the belief systems of that place. I underwent a very intense spiritual battle within myself and with the forces around me in order to survive. It is a time I thank God for daily because of how near He was to me and how hard He fought for me. How He changed me during that time was nothing short of a miracle.  One of the ways He showed me His support and care was the very small circle of friends He surrounded me with during that time. One of my very special people was L (who I will not name due to the nature of this post). She too was teaching English at a school, she too was South African, had dark eyes and brown curly hair and she too was completely appa...

I think one of the hardest things about being a Christian is being able to explain the intangible concept of grace and forgiveness. One of the easiest ‘flaws’ used to poke holes in our faith is the idea that we can do something wrong, ask for forgiveness, do it again, ask for forgiveness, do it again and so on and so on. It’s an eternal cycle of clean slate-ing and repolluting. And I totally understand why this spiritual tenant can be criticised and why Christians use it as an excuse to continue committing sin.  As I’ve mentioned before I’ve recently lost some weight. It has been hard work and required sacrifice and self-discipline. I’ve cut out all my comfort foods and have exercised more than I have in years. I’ve lost 7cm around my waist and am a kilogram of my goal weight. Apart from shaving off the fat I’m feeling better than I have in years. I am energised, feel far more positive about myself and am determined to keep to this change in lifestyle.  Yesterday I was treated...

Ok so I'm actually going to use this post as a form of processing, therapy, because I don't know how I feel about the subject yet but I need to hash it out. Call it a stream of consciousness.  So as a teacher I have had to teach some pretty torrid pieces of literature - both novels and plays. One year the set works at one of my previous schools included 'The Kite Runner', 'The Smell of Apples' and 'Disgrace'. That's a lot of hectic subject matter blitzing its way around a classroom. This year one of our matric setworks in Drama is 'Tshepang'. If you are unfamiliar with these pieces Google them because I don't have the emotional capacity to go into any of them.  I am, by and large, probably more sensitive than most. I feel things more intensely than most and if it is an issue that affects children there are no bounds to how I respond. I feel it to my core. It's why I chose to work with children in the first place. I know a woman who is...

Some days you just wake up and immediately start crying. Today’s was that day for me. The loss of Neil has hit us hard. I suppose part of what makes it hard is that it wasn’t a surprise. We have known for the last month that he was battling. And we’ve known for 32 years that every day of his life was a gift.  And so I have moved straight from the usual shock that comes with unexpected deaths and I have gone straight into appreciating who Neil is and how much he has been loved and supported by those around him. Because there is an element of distance with my immediate connection to him I am able to reflect on and pray for all of those who have to face their day to day lives without him.  And I think that this is a special kind of grieving one can do for people. Many cultures have professional grievers and I get it. I think that we can carry people by using our empathy to draw alongside them. We will never fully be able to understand someone else’s grief, even if we’re grieving ...

I find it hard to fathom how it must be for a parent to bring a child into the world and discover that they have a potentially fatal disease or illness. If it was my child I would probably not cope very well, if at all. The poor child would be cloistered and pandered to and would most certainly find it a challenge to convince me that I should let them do even the most mundane of things. And the level of anxiety at which I would function would probably make it very hard for anyone close to me to live a normal life.  This evening I heard the news that a beloved childhood friend, Neil, has passed away. He had cystic fibrosis. When one loses a childhood friend so many snatches of the past suddenly reveal themselves again. I can hear Neil’s beautiful raspy giggle above the sound of his nebuliser. And I can see the dust motes of a four wheeler against the light of the setting sun. And I can see the big ass fish that he and his brother Ken cultivated in their swimming pool - they were the...

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iFS5wGnUHI

As a language and speech specialist one of my personal bug bears in life is when people address their children as if they are cretins. I find it particularly off putting when fathers, who I know to be eloquent, reasonable people, heighten the pitch of their voices and talk in the vocabulary of a three year old to their three year olds. They also adjust words to make them sound cuter which must be incredibly confusing for the child. And then everyone wonders why the child needs speech therapy.  As much as I find it annoying as a person who works in education, as a parent I completely get it. Some parents aren’t particularly physically affectionate (and that’s ok) and some people aren’t good at spending endless hours piling small pebbles on top of each other (I fit into this category) and some people don’t always pack perfectly balanced lunch boxes (also ok) and some people find that the best way to express their love for their children is through the way they talk to them.  As ...

When we were little and going on holiday somewhere we had a delightfully annoying tradition of chanting ‘We’re nearly there, we’re nearly there’ for the final leg of the journey. If we were visiting my Gran in Umtentweni the chant generally began the moment we spotted a sliver of sea at Queensburgh. We would go strong until Pennington, the chant would transform into a strangulated whisper at Hidderdene and then it was action stations by the time we passed Sea Park.  I remember heading off with a gang of Round Table families to camp at Mapelane one year. It was unknown territory and so we naturally assumed that the moment we turned off the tar road onto the dirt road our arrival was imminent. What transpired next spanned the equivalent length of the film ‘Gone with the Wind’. By this time it was getting dark, we were hungry and due to the bumps in the road the Hall’s stash of milk had spilt all over their tent in the boot  - a legacy of smell which would last for the entire hol...

Because food is one of my top five passions I’ve always wanted to write a list of ‘food movements’ that revolutionized the way I ate over the course of my 37 years. Many of them are very old news now but each of the following foods or dishes were truly a new and novel eating experience for me at some point in my life. They are things that I remember not having in my food dictionary and then sudden having them.  Here they are in no particular order -   White bread Olives Pizza Baby tomatoes Sweet potatoes Olive oil Basil Philadelphia cheese and sweet chili sauce Cabbage and Noodle salad Carpaccio Eggs benedict Basmati rice Roasted vegetables  Pepper Dews Wraps Basil pesto Tai Green Curry Mozart cake Processed crumbed chicken Cous cous Coconut milk Smoked chicken Creme brulee Pork belly Ina Paarman's spices Oven baked chips Jus Beef Wellington Sushi Carbonara Tomato and basil sauce Ciabatta bread dipped in olive oil and balsamic vinegar  Quinoa Coconut Oil I'm hun...

As part of the introduction to Drama for grade 8 and 9 boys we start by exploring rituals. The earliest known ritual evidence has been found in the Tsodilo Hills in Botswana dating back 70 000 years ago. It is some 30 000 years older than the oldest evidence of rituals in Europe. The cave is so hidden that archaeologists only discovered it in the 90s. It contains a rock which has been hand carved to resemble a huge python - with scales and everything. Behind the huge rock is a little niche where the Shaman would hide and so when the python would ‘speak’ it was actually the Shaman speaking. He even had a secret exit through the back of the cave so that no one would know that it was in fact his voice issuing from within the bowels of the snake. The remains of thousands of arrow heads have been found at the base of the python’s head. They were carved from rock found hundreds of kilometers from the cave and were burnt as ritualistic sacrifices. This suggests that this cave was a very signi...

I think we can judge a lot about a person by what they chose to do when they don't have to do anything. The other day a friend of mine was faced with the truly rare opportunity of having a whole morning at home to herself over the weekend. Her kids were going to be with cousins and her husband was working. She literally didn't know what to do because she could not remember the last time this magical alignment had happened. She asked me what would I do and I too was completely flummoxed.   In the end I decided that I would sleep in, eat an enormous breakfast, watch my TV during daylight hours and then nap again. A few years ago this would have been the norm on a weekend and would have been seen as completely uninspired but these days time alone in my own house never happens. There are lots of more noble things I could have said - like going for a run, reading a book, sorting through unwanted clothes and donating them to some charity - the list really is endless but I ultimatel...

  When I was in my early 20s and my desire to procreate and make smaller versions of myself was thwarted primarily by my very picky taste in men I remember constructing a mental list of what I was looking for in the father of my children.  The list was inspired by a moment I had seen on the side of a rugby field somewhere. Picture it - one of the hottest, most rugged men I’ve ever laid eyes on was standing cheering the game on with a baby strapped to his chest. It was every nesting woman’s dream come true. He looked like the kind of guy who could win the Iron Man marathon, burp a baby and talk about his feelings all in one afternoon. From that moment on I knew what I was after and he had a name - The K Way Dad. The name really encapsulates it all. Fresh faced, outdoorsy, good looking, rugged and natural. My first K Way Dad set the bar pretty high because to me he was the package deal. And I’m ashamed to admit it but my first searches for husband material were based solidly on ...

Some days are about lunch boxes and hunting down school uniforms. They are about making three different breakfasts for your daughter (who may very well end up being a fruitarian one day). They are about accidently feeding the puppy twice. And forgetting to feed yourself. They are about high heels in wet grass and chipped nail polish. They are about staring into the freezer for a good ten minutes trying to work out what to cook for supper. And then telling your husband he is on supper duty. They are about undrunk cups of tea and stale cracker bread. They are about sunblock and extra murals and putting petrol in the car. They are the battles between Wild Kratts and Coco Melon and dividing the last piece of banana bread equally. They are about bath water on the floor and three bottles before finally going to sleep. They are about reading the Creepy Crawly book for the 74th time. They are about watching reruns of old tv comedy series despite everything Netflix has to offer. They are about ...

Today I spent some time comforting myself with this image- What does Marie Kondo (queen of decluttering and OCD sock draw organiser) do when she has to go through clothes her children have grown out of? I like to imagine her in her iconic kneeling position in the middle of an explosion of multi coloured children’s clothing clasping hundreds of items screaming ‘It sparks joy! It sparks joy! Touch these clothes and I will strangle you with these colour coded shoe laces’ And then a bit of spit dribbles out her mouth.  You see, I have been putting off doing the next purge of Eva’s wardrobe. It takes me about three weeks to pluck up the courage to do it. One might surmise that it is laziness that prohibits me but in this case it isn’t. I just really hate parting with my children’s clothes.  So Kondo encourages one to to say a proper farewell to clothes if you’re going to end your relationship with them. Once you’ve decided that they don’t spark joy anymore you have to thank them an...

In a stroke of hilarity I am sitting in a maths revision lesson. The boys have work prepared for them and a very professional video to watch made by one of their maths teachers. I am literally just pressing play.  I am, however, listening to what is being taught and it is literally giving me a slightly hysterical panic attack. I suppose this is a valuable lesson in empathy. I think standing up in front of a whole lot of people and talking to them is as easy as getting dressed in the morning. Doing the simplest maths sum, however, would literally be physically impossible for me. Even if I had a gun held up to my head.  Some of my students probably feel like that when I make them perform a monologue in class. I must remember this.  As I sit here listening and watching the following clip keeps coming to mind. Contains some foul language... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rO_yMgnX5Tk

  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MZa-N-qEKpA

I gave blood yesterday. I always feel a bit special when I give blood. A super hero if I must go there. I have O Negative blood which makes me a universal donor and so the Blood Bank people always remind me how important it is that I donate blood because of its life saving capabilities. I know my blood type is just a genetic inheritance from my Dad but I'll take whatever heroic bones that get thrown my way.  I'm actually not wild about giving blood. I don't mind the needles but I do mind the feeling of the plastic cord of red life that runs from my veins against my arm and into the receptacle. I don't like how warm it is. I don't like that I am feeling the warmth of my body outside of my body. I actually mustn't think about it too much because I might kotch.  While trying not to look at my arm yesterday I was reading some of the literature about blood donation. Apparently if you donate blood your one donation could save three lives. 1 = 3. That's a lot of li...

One of the activities planned this year for the Kearsney Centenary celebration  that wasn't scuppered by the blasted virus has been the continuous reading of the New Testament from beginning to end. We started yesterday and in an epic relay of reading we read through the night into this morning. The reading slots were 10 minutes long and could either be read in person in the chapel or online from home. People from all over the world with some connection to Kearsney participated and at 13:00 yesterday the mammoth task of keeping the word of God continuously rolling from Matthew to Revelation began. I was both a reader and part of the team who took turns to manage an hour of reading slots during the night. I ended up reading twice during the night. I wasn’t supposed to read twice but a scheduling error saw me come on off the benches. An impact reader if you will. Before I started my reading I prayed that God would reveal something to me in the passages I ended up reading.   My f...

All our school chapel services are currently being prerecorded by our chaplain because we can't all be in the chapel together. As a result we are unable to worship and sing together either. Every Tuesday morning I sit with my little tutorship group in my bleak classroom and we tune in to chapel. Its a very odd experience. Because we cannot sing hymns our chaplain, Kym, plays beautiful worship music videos during the service. As I was watching a particularly lovely one this morning it struck me that most of the Christian music videos that I've watched share a similar feature - most of them contain images of nature in them. Whether it be a heaving ocean, or a vast forest scape or the galaxies in flight the general choice of background imagery in worship music is the natural world.  When I first met Stephen I discovered on his Facebook profile that he described himself as an 'outdoor deitist'.  Now that I know him slightly better I realise that this statement  is the close...

A few days ago I met up with an old Varsity friend for coffee. We hadn't seen each other in years. He's all grown up and going on expeditions to Antarctica and I get stoked when Skip detergent is on sale. Despite living very very different lives now we still have so much in common. We can still laugh about how we both felt the week of O-Week at Rhodes when we found ourselves on a field full of people of the opposite sex - we both went to single sex boarding schools - what a mind blowing experience that was. I get the feeling Nic probably capitalized on the sudden burgeoning of females more than I did with all the males.  We reminisced over a trip to Settlers Hospital with a paranoid friend in tow. It turns out that her first experience with the green stuff didn't quite agree with her psyche and the only way I could calm her down was by taking her to the hospital. Poor Nic got a knock on his door because he was one of a handful of people who had a car, a classic old Merc, an...

And on the seventh day God rested. And I shall do the same. 

As Gray gets older I have taken it upon myself to introduce him to the iconic books of my childhood. Every time we go up to my childhood home on the farm I pilfer a book or two. There is something deeply sentimental about reading the exact same pages that one read as a child to ones child. We’re not quite ready for Narnia and the like but I have found that Roald and Enid do a good job of bridging the gap between the colourful, picturesque books Gray is used to and the spartan, black and white books he’s going to have to get used to. Both these authors dangle a carrot every so often with a sketch every four pages so at least Gray has something to look at occasionally.  I have, however, encountered some problems. Roald is hundreds. His stories are so delightfully left of centre that, if anything, he affords us the opportunity to be creative and playful and magical. Enid, in the other hand, is actually slightly appalling.  I know that she was writing at a very different time in h...

I made reference to our Drama matric set work, 'Waiting for Godot' in yesterday's blog. It is very much on my mind at the moment because every day I have to dip down into the existential landscape of the play with my matrics - who also currently seem to find themselves in an endless word of waiting. I suppose it's the nature of things at the moment - our lives are controlled by the Godot of Levels. At present we know we're on level 1 but we don't know what the new level 1 entails because we are waiting for the new protocols to be published. And at some point we have been told that there will be a third wave and again we will be left waiting for instructions on how we will have to live our lives then and at what level. For those of you who are not familiar with the play, 'Waiting for Godot' has been described as a play in which nothing happens, twice. It is about two tramps waiting on the side of the road for Godot to arrive. And he never does. During the...