Ma Wa Gray

I recently read a novel based on the historic facts of the Siege of Malta. In it a small group of knights and native Maltese people held at bay the might of the Turkish empire. Many chapters revolved around desperate peasants and slaves rebuilding walls which were blown up by the relentless cannon fire of the Turks. No sooner was a wall rebuilt (with a couple of slaves being blown up in the process) then it was demolished again by cannon fire, and rebuilt again, and so on. This continued for several months. It totally perplexed the Turks who assumed victory would be a done deal in a matter of days. Eventually those feisty knights managed to outfox the Turks and they turned their galleys around and headed back East. They were triumphant but they also had to fix a helleva lot of walls in the process. Many accounts of sieges are similar. We had our own in Ladysmith over a century ago. They don’t sound that kiff. It’s not easy manning the stations when there are no reinforcements. ...

Tonight approximately 2020 years ago an anxious man went for a walk in a garden. If you have a garden maybe you too  just took yourself out for some reflection time to make sense of the announcement that the South African lockdown has been extended for a further two weeks. The man was facing the unknown. He was facing something he knew he had to do, something he knew would change the entire destiny of humanity. He knew that he was going to make the hugest sacrifice of all to save the lives of mankind. You too know that this has to be done, you do not have a choice in this and your sacrifice of personal freedom will potentially save the lives of thousands. The man was so anguished at what he was about to face, at the burden he was about to take upon himself that he wept blood. And tonight the bills you have to pay, the mouths you have to feed, the salaries you have to somehow find, the employment that you have lost, the debt you will never be able to repay seem to be so i...

This evening I watched a jogger go through a certain kind of grief. He was saying goodbye to the open road. There was a poignancy in his fevered gallop. Like some kind of passionate love affair ending. As chance would have it Gray came down with tonsillitis overnight forcing me to break several days of isolation to brave it in the tense last minute shop of far too many South Africans. In my quest to get antibiotics  in a crowded shopping centre I felt the very real collective pulse of this nation. And there is a spirit amongst our people, and indeed in the world, that I can’t quite put my finger on. It reminds me of my jogger - we know that something is coming to an end, that a huge shift is underway, that the things that have been as certain as the ground beneath our feet are going to change. And we don’t know if we’re going to be able to run anymore. We are approaching the holiest times for two faiths - Passover or Pesach. For the Jewish faith Pesach marks the time when...

A Prayer For Families In this liminal time between the known world and a rapidly changing universe - May your marriages be saved, May love return to your home and remind you why this union is worth fighting for. May you find passion in your shared spaces. May you always have enough food on your table. No matter how humble, no matter how bland, May the mouths in all homes find something to fill them. May your walls swell, may they stretch to accommodate the hours, the games, the laughter, the homework, the house work, the anxiety. May they become big with memories although small in boundaries. May there be moments of respite where those within your walls can be alone, can retreat, can be still, can know. May your children always remember this as a time of love, of resilience,  of gentle routine, of growth, of family. May their memories be painted in the joy associated with kindred. May they thrive, may they learn through boredom, may they separate from screen a...

At the beginning of every year it is policy for the teachers at my school to set goals for themselves. And then at the end of year when it comes to our appraisal with our head we reflect on how we have faired over the year.  This year I have set myself some goals which I hope are realistic but will also push me, but in the quiet recesses of my soul my real goal is a simple one, ‘Survive’.  I have no doubt that there are countless people who, for their own particular reasons, have a goal similar to mine. Maybe it’s because, like me, you are a mother of small children with a very stimulating yet demanding career. And you just don’t know how you are going to function at a level that is a reflection of your capabilities while at the same time leaving you with enough reserves to be the mother you promised God you would be.  Or you are staring down the barrel of illness - your own or that of a loved one. Or financial distress. Or marital trauma. It really could be...

I've always been a little bit 'hard of hearing'. My mom used to think that I just daydream too much. If you are driving a car with the radio on and I am sitting in the back behind you there is 100% guarantee that I won't hear you. I am prone to be away with the fairies in noisy environments. And I'm also very loud. A few years ago in my early 20s I went for a hearing test and was told that I was battling to hear higher sound frequencies. I said 'cool' and moved on with my life. I got degrees, directed plays, found a soft spoken guy, settled down... And started teaching. And this was when my hearing loss became more difficult. I couldn't work out where sounds were coming from in my classroom and found that I was spending more and more time watching people's mouths and body language to see what they were saying. This became crushingly obvious when I watched a play which was about a group of people in a room when the lights go out. Most of the pl...

The country is in crisis. One too many horrific stories about the shameless disregard for the bodies and lives of our women and children. And in my little microcosm a little boy builds Duplo houses for racing cars which he has to continually move around the carpet because his podgy bottomed seven month old sister has somehow found a way to maneuver her way across the floor, demolishing all signs of construction with fat crab fingers. And the little boy doesn't know that he will have to walk through the quagmire that is gender politics as he is still just dreaming the dreams of knights and horses named 'Jackson'. And the little girl doesn't know that I am going to devote my entire being to making sure that she doesn't feel like she's a victim of her gender. But for now I make 'dippy egg' for supper served with a slice of white bread for 'bessert' and I mash bananas with my fingers and feed them to my open mouthed song bird. All the while ...