Amanda Palmer

Ramblings at a bar

Hello blog,

I am at Spier Wine Estate in Stellenbosch, looking forward to a gig by Amanda Palmer. A bucket list event that I am insanely privileged to tick off. There have been lots of thoughts going through my mind and now is as good a time as any to get them out 🙂

There was a tragic shooting in Parkland, Florida, United States on Wednesday. 17 people were killed. I have been blown away by the response of the teenagers affected. I am not afraid for the next generation. We just need to not fuck things up too much and then support them in their actions and problem solving. Teenagers and young adults blow me away.

I have been thinking a lot about grief lately. How it becomes a part of you. How the nature of the pain changes to be less engulfing, and then now as I write this. I miss my dad acutely. There is a rugby match on the television in the wine bar and I miss my dad. We often watched the rugby with him. I have barely watched since he passed on. It hurts too much, it brings in some acute grief.

South Africa got a new president on Thursday. I am glad that the Democratic Alliance didn’t force a secret ballot. I am not a huge fan of the DA at the moment, it would be lovely if they stopped grandstanding and did some work. I wonder if crime is going to improve under Cyril Ramaphosa…I wonder if Jacob Zuma knows the number of people murdered on his watch. I wonder if Cyril Ramaphosa will. I wonder if we will become less angry as a country. I wonder if our politicians can pull together to defeat DayZero in Cape Town. The people are doing well. I am impressed at the water saving efforts at Spier hotel. I do think pilots / flight attendants should make an announcement about the drought on landing in Cape Town. Reminding people to save water.

I worry about the inhumanity to one one another and am glad to see small acts of humanity and connection.

I finally saw wild dog on our trip to Kruger National Park last week. I am saddened by how inaccessible our national parks have become…they used to be much more affordable. But I was given hope (which is the thing with feathers) when I saw two black teenage girls posing for a photo in front of a statue of three old white men who founded the Kruger National Park and when I heard a young white lady speaking fluent Zulu in the shop at Skukuza.

I took two taxify’s today (A South African alternative to Uber). I love chatting to cab drivers, such interesting perspectives. I stopped using Uber because of their failure to care for their people in the US. When I chatted to my drivers today both of them felt like the company’s didn’t care about them. Only about their commissions. One of the drivers drove for both Uber and Taxify. He thinks that neither care about their drivers but Uber is safer to drive for, allowing drivers to cancel more trips and showing whether the pickup is a cash pickup or not. I did my first cash trip today when the driver was panicked about not having enough petrol to get back from dropping me at the airport. We spoke about kasi boys and kasi girls, he said he didn’t think he wanted a relationship with a kasi girl and said thank you for not judging him. I told him I don’t have enough energy to judge that type of thing. I suppose there is an advantage to having been so sick.

It’s half-time in the rugby now and I remember my dad commenting on how he preferred the much shorter interval in rugby compared to soccer.

And that’s some rambles done 🙂

Love and rambling,

Trisha

Women who have shaped me

Hello Blog,

Over the past little while I have spent a bit of time reflecting of what has gone into the cauldron that has shaped me. Specifically, the women who are not necessarily close to me, who don’t know me, but who have shaped my views*. Last week Saturday I went to an evening function and needed to choose an outfit. One of the outfit’s that I tried on, was a form fitting beaded black dress, and while I was looking at my reflection and tucking in my tummy, the thought crossed my mind: “Venus de Milo, didn’t tuck in her tummy, and I don’t’ have to”. This thought allowed me to shift my mindset and acknowledge that the dress was very pretty. (I chose to wear slacks and a different pretty blouse, but I did not feel ugly or fat when I was wearing the beaded dress). I credit my shift in mindset of becoming a kinder, more gentle person to myself to a number of woman who I don’t have a reciprocal relationship* with but who have collectively broken through a societal narrative that beauty falls within a very narrow ambit.

The women and the messages that I have specifically, been thinking of are (in no particular order):

Amanda Palmer, from whom I have taken the message to live authentically as myself, knowing that not everyone is going to like you but that you will still be safe in your tribe. (I think the words of the Ukulele Anthem are words to live by)
Marian Call, on embracing my geekiness, and whose song “I’ll Still Be A Geek After Nobody Thinks It’s Chic” often pull me back to myself
Kim Boekbinder, who has in little ways reminded me to believe in myself. She is not a hugely famous rockstar, (yet), but a fiercely independent soul whose art (both music and words) has helped me heal myself in ways that I cannot quite describe, nor know that I needed to be healed.
Samantha Smith, on embracing my “inner bitch”, and not being afraid to be assertive when I need to be. This was the most recent piece of the puzzle for me, and I have become a much happier person, for not believing that I need to be nice the whole time. (I was lucky enough to meet her when I went to a Supernatural Convention in San Francisco last December and she was an amazing person).
Karen Walrond, who inspired me to look for the light when I was experiencing a major depressive episode and whose insights I collect and they pop out of my head at the most opportune moments.
Jennifer Lawson, the Bloggess, who lives openly with an autoimmune disease and some mental health issues, and probably helped me handle last year’s brush with Hashimoto’s better than I would otherwise have, and who gifted the world and me with the mantra #depressionlies.

These are some of the woman who have helped me become who I am, and who I am incredibly grateful to.

Love and reflections,
Trisha

*There is an entirely different collection of people who do know me and who have also put a lot of ingredients into the cauldron of who I am, but this post is not about them…it is about the people who I don’t have a two-sided relationship with.

And when I get to the wizard, I’ll ask for courage

I think the Universe is trying to tell me something. A while ago I sorted through a collection of my mom’s books that my dad had put aside to be passed on. I simply kept one of the books with no hesitation because it contained an inscription in the front cover.
“ To Kay, August 1972 from Susan B” From this I inferred that the book had been given to my mom from her dear friend Sue for her eighteenth birthday.

Today as I walking past the bookshelf I noticed that there were two pink flags sticking out of the book and so I was curious as to what my mom had flagged, and so I opened up the book and found myself reading a section entitled: “Courage & The Conquest of Fear”.

It’s interesting to note that over the past while I have been reading a great deal about courage and vulnerability. I just finished The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer where she shares her reflections and connections that she has made about relationships and connection. At one point in the book she says that Brene Brown in Daring Greatly basically wrote her book from an academic point of view, and so I have started re-reading it. (Not that I really need an excuse to re-read Brene Brown). But any way, at the moment I am battling to let go of control and just trust.

I have a dear sister in law who is quite similar to me (if you believe in astrology it might have something to do with the fact that our birthdays are 4 days apart) but any way, she so similar that if she does something that annoys or irritates me I need to think really hard about whether it something that she did or it is something of myself that I am seeing and not liking. (It is sometimes useful, sometimes a pain, but always what it is). But either way, I digress, she wrote a blog post about leaving things behind and in it she included the serenity prayer, which I find interesting because in my mother’s copy of light from many lamps she has a flag (one of only two in the book) on the page which includes the passage:

“Dear God, give us strength to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed. Give us courage to change the things that can and should be changed. And give us wisdom to distinguish one from the other.” – Admiral Thomas C. Hart

At the moment, I am struggling to find the courage to accept support and accept that my occupation being mom is enough and that I am not a drain or a burden. That there is value in what I do, that even though I am unsalaried, I am not unemployed.

I am not sure what the message is that the universe is sending me, perhaps it is a gentle reminder that not all acts of courage roar, that sometimes the act of showing up and doing the mundane over and over is actually an act of courage itself.

I paged back to the beginning of the section on courage. I guess in someways courage will always be hard. Courage is the antidote to anxiety. Courage is letting go of the need for control and just actually doing something. The first story recounted in this section is titled “This, too, shall pass away”. It tells the tale of an ancient eastern monarch who called upon his wise men to invent a mantra that must be wise, true and endlessly enduring, words by which a man could be guided all his life, in every circumstance, no matter what happened, and the mantra needed to be concise enough to be engraved on a ring. Eventually, the wise men returned to the monach with the words:
“This, too, shall pass away.”

This story inspired Paul Hamilton Hayne to write the poem: This,Too, Shall Pass Away.

Art thou in misery, brother? Then I pray
Be comforted. Thy grief shall pass away.
Art thou elated? Ah, be not too gay;
Temper they joy: this, too shall pass away.
Art thou in danger? Still let reason sway,
And cling to hope: this too, shall pass away.
Tempted art thou? In all thine anguish lay
One truth to heart: this, too, shall pass away.
Do rays of loftier glory round thee play?
Kinglike art thou? This, too, shall pass away!
Whate’er thou art, where’er thy footsteps stray,
Heed these wise words: This, too, shall pass away.

Meeting Amanda Palmer: Melktert and Unspoken words

So on Saturday I went to Amanda Palmer’s book signing at Exclusive Books in the Mall of Rosebank. (It has been beautifully revamped and is now an absolute delight of a shop). It was amazing despite the fact that I had one of the worst panic attacks that I have had in ages when I was trying to buy her book. (Long story short I had left my wallet in the car, had less time than I thought and I thought that I had lost my wallet and driven to Rosebank without a license. Incidentally FNB wins over Standard Bank for allowing you to get money from an ATM without a card, and using Standard Bank’s website on a mobile phone is close to impossible…the Standard Bank has still not downloaded on my phone since I tried installing it before 12 o clock yesterday. But I digress.)

So after I finally managed to get money out of an ATM through Riaan’s help, I rushed back to Exclusive Books. The queue for the signing was insanely long. And the reading had already started. I bought my copy of the Art of Asking and reclaimed my platters of mini-milk tarts. I initially stood in the queue for the signing while Amanda was reading but then decided to rather go and sit on the carpet up close. It was amazingly reminiscent of childhood storytime. It was intimate and amazing to find out that I was not alone in my admiration and connection towards this woman. I am an insatiable crowd watcher and so I sneaked glances around me, and perhaps my favourite person to be sneaking peaks at was one of the kitchen staff who was shyly leaning out of the kitchen and listening to snippets of stories.

After finishing reading, Amanda got up onto the counter at the coffee shop and played ukulele for the first time in the mall (fittingly and by request she played ukulele anthem). On Facebook the other day Amanda had mentioned her new love affair with rusks and had invited people to bring rusks along to the signing and the gig the night before. I had responded that I would bring milk tart (when another fan had said we should turn it into a South African tea party). I walked up towards where Amanda was and one of the event co-ordinators asked if the milk tarts were for Amanda and I said yes and for her fans. The co-ordinator had said to just put them down next to Amanda but kindly Amanda said that by the time people get to the front of the line they are pretty focused and so Amanda grabbed a milk tart and said into the mic that milk tart was coming down the line and so I got to connect with a whole collection of Amanda’s fans. It was interesting and intimate, and I did not feel rejected when anyone said no thank you. I got to share lots of little collections of South African happiness with my compatriots. And my milk tart has now been endorsed by a rock star 🙂

I then joined the queue and spent about 2 hours with my new friends, sharing stories and book recommendations. Finally we reached the front of the queue and then…

I managed to stammer out a Thank you to Amanda, but I did not manage to say all the words that I wanted to. I did not manage to tell her the stories that I would have liked to. In a way she is really intimidating…not in a bad way. But in a way where in that moment she is giving you all of her attention and it is intense. It is not bad attention, it is far from it, it is just really intense Jedi like focus, that in that moment where she is holding you in her gaze there is no doubt that she is truly seeing you, and when you have made it a practice to be introverted and blend in, and the art of avoiding being seen, it is disconcerting to be looked at so intensely.

I did manage to stammer out about how when I am having a crisis of confidence I channel my inner version of rock star Amanda Palmer and that helps. She reminded me that it was bullshit and just as insecure as the rest of us. (I don’t think I managed to explain how that is why it helps, by seeing her be brave I am able to be brave too). I did not manage to tell her how by living and loving so openly she has given me the courage to be vulnerable and to become gentler with both myself and those around me. I did not manage to tell her that by living openly she gave me the courage to come out about my mental illness, about living with depression, and so have people share there times of darkness with me and know that they are not alone. I did not tell her about the fact that ukulele anthem and a bootlegged version of her Cat Steven’s cover of if you want to sing out, sing out were on my birth playlist (which I never used during Lucas’s birth, but that I have played countless times since) or that it was once part of my morning ritual to put on that same youtube video while we were living Costa Rica while waiting for the kettle to boil on the stage. (Incidentally she has a photo of that gig as the parting shot in her book). I did not manage to tell her about how by her living openly and making mistakes she has given me the courage to make my own. But you know what, the encounter was intense and amazing and in some ways, I think she saw at least some of the words that I did not manage to say.

Love and melk tert,
Trisha

Small Actions, Consequences and the Art of Asking

Somewhere along the lines we have started believing the message that strangers are dangerous. That we should believe the worst in people, that we should be alone and afraid in the cave…silent, ignoring our fellow pilgrims.

What if the young girl did not take the risk to put a couple of coins in the hat:

What if everyone else was too afraid as well? Courage is not the huge actions. Courage is the small actions. Courage entails asking for help. Or giving it…unconditionally. Giving and receiving unconditionally are some of the most difficult things I believe.

We have become to believe that everything is a transaction – where favours must be repaid. I don’t believe that it is the true nature of the world, nor do I believe that most transactions are economic.

The truly valuable transactions take place on a level where the exchange is invisible to most people outside of the transaction. For instance, my most profound moment of self acceptance came compliments of Amanda Palmer. It was the week of my sister’s wedding and I had flown back to South Africa from Costa Rica (early February 2010), but I still had not managed to find something to wear.

I think I can speak for the majority of the female population when I say the change room is a nightmare. The fluorescent lighting is far from kind and amplifies our insecurities, and it is not helped by the constant marketing messages in store, the ones that tell us you are not good enough, you are not beautiful, but buy our product and you may be.

I was in an upmarket mall and was in shop five-hundred and twelve and seriously starting to get down on myself, and I was battling to find something special and on budget. Finally I found my way into the shop where I had started and I saw a dress that had caught my eye, but that I had thought made me look fat and ugly.

But I decided to go into the change room and try it on anyway. In the change room I had one of the most profound moments of my life. It was a moment where I turned around and said, “Fuck it! I like me and I like this dress!” and that moment came compliments of me channeling my inner Amanda Palmer (who I had only recently discovered via a blog post by Neil Gaiman). My inner Amanda Palmer allowed me to be confident in and happy with who I was in that very moment.

That transaction was completely invisible. The only other person who I had discussed it with, before now, was Riaan.

Just because another person does not see the transaction does not mean it is not valuable – it can be argued that the most valuable things of all are intangible.

The thing is that transaction, that moment of connection between me and an artist who a year previously I had been completely unaware of was intangible and invisible. The knock-on effects of the transaction have been real, I have answered her call when she has asked for help, not because I am keeping score, but because I want to. Sometimes the help has been purchasing her music from her directly (musicians need to eat too ), sometimes it has been by joining a conversation.

Our economies and ourselves need to realize that their is no shame in asking…or offering:

Love and ramblings,
Trisha