Ma Wa Gray

 No Forest, it’s not like a box of chocolates - unless  they’re the new Quality Streets which have left the soul of South Africa very perplexed at Christmas time. Remixing packaging and leaving the fruitier flavours out has left many guessing as to what they’re gonna get…but no, life is like a game reserve.  I wouldn’t say I’m a game reserve fundi. I don’t go all ‘when Harry met Sally eating a sandwich incident’ when I smell the unique aroma of thatch and bedspreads that haven’t been updated since the 80s and immediately fall into a reverie imagining lamb chops on the braai at Satara.  I also don’t need to stop my vehicle for every brown bird that comes along. Give me the big show birds like a secretary bird or a kingfisher or anything with flashy colours and I’ll say, ‘That’s naas.’ And move on with my life. I have, however, had the uniquely South African experience of growing up in a country littered with game reserves. Travel a few hours in any direction and you’l...

  I had a delightfully funny digs mate who used to tell me a delightfully funny anecdote about how she used to spy on her baby brother after he had been disciplined. She says her beautiful, curly haired brother would sit cross legged and weep in front of a mirror, stroking his reflection saying, ‘Sorry Lawrence, poor Lawrence.’ It was the perfect pity party. I am actually envious of his balls to the wall sympathy for himself. If we ever found ourselves feeling a little sorry for ourselves she and I would stand in front of our bathroom mirror in our little digs pretending to wail, stroking our reflections saying, ‘Sorry Lawrence, poor Lawrence.’ I think it’s important that children learn to self regulate and deal with rejection or disappointment or making mistakes in a way that helps them to recover and move on. There’s nothing wrong with the occasional pity party, there is, however, something wrong if at some point you don’t pull yourself towards yourself and walk away from the mir...

 This weekend we have escaped to my in-law’s beach cottage at Bazley. It’s the kind of beach cottage that makes no sense. Rooms lead onto rooms and the toilet has the best view of the beach. It is old and has no tv. The frangipani flowers annually block up the gutters and most of the furniture would probably earn a fortune on Antiques Roadshow. The path down to the beach crosses the ubiquitous railway line and has a smell I will never be able to describe other than the fact that it is one of nostalgia. I love this place.  We have been joined by my cousin and his family. Their daughters are my goddaughters and could very easily pass as children of my own. Their eyes are framed with meters of black eye lashes and their hair curls in the sea air. Flesh and blood, mine.  Yesterday we ambled onto the beach at twilight. One must always amble onto the beach at twilight after a cup of tea. The children must all wet their clothes despite being told not to and, if you’re a Stockil,...

 Some fourteen years ago we lost almost our entire farm in a runaway fire that I can only describe as demonic. It was a truly horrific day.  On that day a baby burnt to death on her mothers back and the young mother was left with scarring over her entire body after months of skin grafts and agony.  Entire farms - buildings, livestock, pets, equipment, homes all disappeared in minutes. Houses with thatch roofs did not stand a chance and were obliterated into nothing.  Winterton was declared a disaster area and rightfully so. It was shambolic. The day started with two runaway fires - one on the other side of Winterton and one three farms away from us. The wind was incredible. I have never known wind like that. It was the kind of wind one could lean into. And I distinctly remember a moment in the chaos when I found my ancient grandfather discarding his walking stick as he stumbled out of his home to survey the chaos. The wind held him up. By midday the farm was empty. O...

  This afternoon I found myself in a coffee shop summoning up the courage to have my second Pfizer jab. You may well know that I am all for vaccinations but I got covid the day after my first jab and haven’t exactly bounced back yet. I’m not sick but a lingering fatigue and chest pain has remained. It has left me wondering about timelines for the second jab despite my consulting several reliable sources. Anyway, so while I was girding my loins in the coffee shop I became enraptured by a conversation taking place at a table nearby.  A beautiful woman was having a full on conversation with someone via her laptop. But the whole thing was happening in sign language. I could have watched her all day. As a Drama person I can honestly say that few people in this world nail facial expressions like those who speak in sign language. At one point the woman was telling her friend about breastfeeding and a crying baby and what looked to me like the biggest letdown of breast milk in the his...

 Yesterday Gray and I had some time to kill at Gray’s previous preprimary school while we waited for Eva to finish school (as it is her current school). Gray started at the school when he was one and a half and left last year at the ripe and mature age of five.  He took me onto the field that adjoins the little school where he and his two best friends spent many an hour doing whatever it is that little boys do. He ran off to a far side of the field to a random little tree and then came running back.  ‘Mom I went to check and there is a place for you to sit, it’s a bit spikey. Will you come and see where me and David and Matt used to play?’ - David and Matt have also graduated from preprimary school and all three boys are at different schools now.  I oblige and arrive at a fairly average little tree with an even more average, definitely spikey, tree stump next to it - I perch on the stump and engage my core for the first time in six months. Gray then shows me a pock m...

 As we all emerge from the perimeters of our gardens, a little shell shocked and promising that the next time we are caught in a riot we will not be caught with one litre of long life milk, icing sugar and a frozen loaf of bread bought in 1997, there is a very silent conversation going on. A conversation that I can guarantee 90% of us would never have thought we would have to have. A conversation we are all too scared to start, one I would imagine that is akin to admitting to erectile dysfunction or saying that your wife’s food is indeed better than your mothers. It’s the conversation that starts with admitting that maybe we need to consider other future options outside of South Africa, if not for us then for our children. The emigration conversation.  And do you know what? I’m going to pop that festering boil right now. We need to have this conversation and we need to not be ashamed by it because, like I said in a previous blog, there is a very clear line between being resili...