It is the season of Lent - fasting, discipline, dust and ashes, reminders of mortality, all those unpleasanr things. And it has been a bad time for this country too. A time of horrible shocks: the brutal rape of Anene Booysens, and yesterday, the arrest of our hero, Oscar Pistorius, for murder.  This country is an evil place., a violent place, a dangerous place especially if you are a woman. Why then do I love it so? Why would I not want to live anywhere else?  Am I crazy?

Thinking about this question carefully I come to the following conclusions.
Firstly, I am blessed to live amonst so much beauty. Driving along the coast this morning, I fall in love again with False Bay, the mountains, the beaches the sea, the fynbos, the birdlife. Can anywhere else cpmpare?  But, as Hopkins says about Wales "only the inmate does not correspond".  But is this true? Newpapers paint a picture of corruption and violence, but personally I  find myself surrounded by people who are decent and kind. In fact some of them are good and wonderful people.

Then: Good things are happening all around us, if we only look about us and keep our eyes open to see them.  The general outrage at poor Anene's fate is one. Another is the generosity of ordinary people. Appeals for help for victims of flods and fires are always heeded although these disasters are so very frequent. Another thing that gives me hope is the number of very good articles I have read lately furthering the cause of equality and justice for women. And many of these written by men!

To go back to the subject of Lent. I have been reading what Isiaah says about fasting.  Basically he doesn't think there is much pont in it if you just go on living the way you have been, pursuing your own interests and ignoring the needs of others. Doing without pleasures, giving up one thing or another and making yourself uncomfortable and often irritable and quarrelsome too,( Isiaah points out that this is often the result of doing without food) is not much use if nobody else benefits.
What does he think is pleasing to God?
"the kind of fasting I want is this: Remove the chains of oppression and the yoke of injustice. Share your food with the hungry and open your homes to the homeless poor. Give clothes to those who have nothing to wear......Then the darkness around you will turn to the brightness of noon.

I am ashamed at how little I do to lessen the darkness around me.

How did I manage to lose this blog again? Perhaps I am just impatient and if I had waited after typing in the blog name it would have appeared as it has in the past.

However, I seem to have got here at last and am ready to enter something new.
What is occupying my attention at present is the problem of what to do with what I write.  Of course, like most writers I know, I write for myself first of all.  A story, a poem,  or perhaps a memory, cries out to be written down. (This is what happens quite a lott of the time.) but once committed to paper, you want to share it. Belonging to a writing group is very satisfactory. The others in the group are obliged to read your writings or else to listen to them being read aloud.  The flipside of this is that you are, in turn obliged to read or listen to theirs.  These sessions are very pleasant and were quite suffieint for me for a long time, but then I had a story published on the net and a piece for children published by an NGO.  This was heady stuff. I felt as though a I was becoming a proper author! And then-- to my amazement, after attending regular poetry workshop fo a while, I was approached by a publisher!  Can you imagine! Actually approached! This lead to a little book of poems seeing the light of day and to a few invitations to read at gatherings of like-minded people.   It was scary but great.  I felt like a celebrity. (almost)

Now after several years of writing almost every day, I have quite a large collection of unpublished short stories and  poems.  I have not been entirely unsucessful in placing them. A few poems have been published in journals and a few stories in internet magazines.  I have also given printed copies of my children's stories to my grandchildren and to the grandchilren of friends.  I wondered about puttiingtogether another collection of poems, but I have had second thoughts about this.  I asked my publisher how the book had been selling. She told me that sales had almost covered expenses.  That doesn't sound very wonderful to me. Althoug she sounded positive about publishing another book, I can't see that there is much in it for her.  I think I must be content with belonging to writing groups and attending poetry readings.

CANOEING

Canoeing
This evenng I noticed that my shoulders felt itchy. I rubbed them and some skin peeled off. What's happened to my shoulders? I couldn't make it out. Then I clicked. I haven't been swimming for years and among all the many things I had forgotten, I had forgotten what sunburn does. I must have got sunburnt when I was in a canoe on Sandvlei lagoon. Perhaps forgetting that incident was rather Freudian. I hardly covered myself in glory that day. In fact it was  rather embarrasing.

My friend, Geri had been promising me a canoe ride for some time and last Monday when I gave her a lift back from Writing class she suggested I come and have lunch with her. It was a perfect day, not a cloud in the sky and just a slight soft breeze to ruffle the water .  Geri took me to a little wooden jetty where a canoe was moored. It was small but solid and stable. She held it still while I scrambled into it. While Geri prepared lunch and set a table out on the patio overlooking the water I set out for a paddle round the vlei. I didn't want to go too far so I went upstream towards a  little bridge instead of taking to the main stream of the river.. I was delighted to find that I had not lost my canoeing skills. The canoe glided smoothly over the water. I watched weaver birds building nests of grass and saw a yellowbilled duck with a family of ducklings only a few metres away from my boat. There were numbers  and numbers of coots  amonst the reeds. I let the canoe drift gently towards the opposite bank of the creek.  I could have stayed there all afternoon, but I didn't want to go too far, so I turned the canoe and started back. Up to then I had been drifting with the current, but now I was paddling against it.  What is more, the wind had got up and was blowing the canoe backwards.  I battled manfully, but made very little progress. In fact I seemed to be going round in circles. My arms were aching and I was tiring fast.  I was never going to make it back to Geri's house. Instead I  just gave up and let the wind carry me to the shore. I was able to guide the canoe onto a slipway where I could get out easily. Then I rang Geri on my cel phone and gave her the sad news. She walked along the road until she located me. We didn't know what to do. We didn't want to leave the boat, but neither of us was strong enough to get it back home.  But Geri was resourceful. She approached two men, I think they were builders on their lunch break, and offered them R10 to take the canoe to her house. They were quite willing. So while they travelled by water, we ran along the road to get there first and wave them to the right jetty.

I really enjoy canoeing, but am going to let Geri get over this escapade before I approach her again. Next time I shall go in the opposite direction so I can let the wind blow me home.

Orange-breasted Sunbird

Should writers behave like celebrities

Writers as celebrities.

The latest trend: writers becoming a celebrities of the type and calibre of Madonna or Bieber.  Authors like Rowlings and Junot and the Green brothers, are mobbed at book signings and revered like pop stars.  This kind of hysterical reaction by adoring fans tends to be scorned by the serious "literary' author, but the truth is that the days of the shy retiring genius scribbling in an obscure attic and known only by his or her writings is gone forever. Today self promotion is the name of the game.
Anyone embarking on a literary career would probably do better to take a course in advertising or public speaking rather than a degree in Eng.Lit or Creative Writing. Looking good and talking well is what is needed to sell your product.

Facebook, Twitter etc. are probably to thank for this state of affairs. It is incredible to me how, in my lifetime, first computers and then the Internet has changed the world. Dire profesies about the demise of books and the loss of the ability to read are just not being fulfilled. It seems to me that people are reading and writing more not less. They are just doing it differently and more publicly.  

Being forced to sell oneself  as well as what one writes may be hard on modern authors, but like most readers I find it interesting to get to know the personality behind the books that I enjoy. Getting out in front of one's readership is just something that modern writers have to come to terms with.

I must say, having listened to the recordings of some poets, even famous ones, reading their works, I have thought that the odd lesson in what used to be called "elocution' when I was at school would not have come amiss in their early education. 

TATTOOS

Loving the Moon

Once upon a time there was a fat hairy caterpillar who fell in love with the moon.

 

“Moon, Moon, beautiful Moon,” he called to her. “Come here to me.”

But the moon just looked down coldly at the caterpillar from high in the sky and didn’t answer him. 

 

“How can I get the moon to come to me?” wondered the caterpillar.  

He went to the forest and there he saw a tree.  It was so tall that its branches seemed to be brushing the sky. 

 

“Tree, Tree,” he said. “Give me your tall trunk so I can make a ladder to climb up to the moon.”  

“Even the longest ladder will never reach the moon,” said the tree. 

“No,” said the caterpillar. “But when the moon sees me climbing up so high to get to her, she will know how much I love her and she will come down to meet me. ”

“I can’t give you my trunk,” said the tree. “It has already been promised to make a telephone pole.”  But the tree felt sorry for the caterpillar and threw down some small pieces of bark and a little of its soft creamy pollen and the caterpillar picked these up and put them carefully away.

 

Then the caterpillar went down to the lake and there he saw a kingfisher, hovering over the water. In the sunlight its blue wings looked like little blue flames. 

“Kingfisher, Kingfisher,” said the caterpillar.” Give me your wings so I can fly up to the moon.”

“Even the strongest wings will never reach the moon,” said the kingfisher. 

“No,” said the caterpillar.” But when the moon sees me flying so high to get to her she will know how much I love her and come to meet me.”

“I can’t give you my wings,” said the kingfisher. “I need them, because I have to fly all day over the water to catch my dinner. Fish is scarce these days”

But the kingfisher felt sorry for the caterpillar and threw down a few bright blue feathers and the caterpillar picked them up and put them carefully away.

 

Then the caterpillar looked up at the sky. It was evening and the setting sun had coloured the clouds all pink and mauve. 

“Sky, Sky,” said the caterpillar. “Give me one of your clouds so I can get on it and float up to the moon.”

“Even the lightest cloud will never reach the moon,” said the sky.

“No,” said the caterpillar.” But when the moon sees me floating up so high to get to her she will know how much I love her and come down to meet me.”

‘I can’t give you a cloud,” said the sky. “They are needed to make rain to fill the dams. There is a shortage of water everywhere.”

But the sky felt sorry for the caterpillar and threw down just a little bit of pink cloud and the caterpillar picked it up and put it carefully away.

 

“If no one  will help me,” said the caterpillar. “I’ll just have to help myself.”  So he took some thread that he always kept in his mouth and twisted it round and round himself to make a cocoon, the way you make a ball of string by winding it round your hand.  Inside the cocoon he set to work.  He took the fluffy pink cloud and the papery, brown bark and the shiny blue feathers and the fine creamy pollen and he mixed them and put them all together to make the most beautiful wings. Then he took the wings and fastened them onto his body.

 

When he was done he broke open the cocoon and stepped out.  He spread out his wings and they shimmered in the moonlight.  Then he flew away, up, up towards the moon. 

 

Now sometimes if you go out at night you may see him fluttering excitedly round a street lamp.  He is happy because he thinks it is the moon, come to meet him at last.