In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Doubters Alert.”
Social media is social.
It’s not. It helps me keep connected to my family and friends far away, but it’s definitely not social.
To be social is to be with someone or others in person and to be able to look into their eyes, be in their presence and connect with them.
Yesterday I updated a post to include a school photograph taken when I was eight. I was taken aback at the few things that stood out for me. I have written before about how unhappy I was at moving to a new school, and right before me was the evidence. It looks like I was scowling, and turned away from the camera as if I didn’t want to be there (which I didn’t).
Also, the other thing that seemed so normal to me at the time was the demographics of the class. I was brought up in the height of apartheid-era South Africa, and captured in the photograph was a testament to that. My children in Australia attend the local public school, and in their class they have children of all races.
I became especially aware of the politics of the country when I went to a convent at the age of 13, which was allowed by the State to include children of all races. My best friend turned out to be of dark skin, and we became the best of friends. This was from the year 1987, when apartheid was still strictly enforced. My friend was not allowed to catch the same bus as me. We were not allowed to have coffee in a coffee-shop together. But we looked past all that, and enjoyed the friendship that we had. It was just how it was. We are still friends today, even though I am so far away. What it taught me is that friendship is color-blind. Policies can dictate, but love overrules.
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Mouth Drop.”
My jaw dropped on the evening I gave my husband-to-be a bowl of ice-cream, and he enjoyed it so much he licked the bowl (we were still in the getting-to-know-each-other phase). And then all was explained when we visited his mother a few days later (bless her!), and she did the same! I was so shocked and horrified I couldn’t stop laughing, and I’ve never seen them do that again. It’s a big joke now between my husband and I.
How good is this ice-cream? Bowl-licking good? bwahahahahaha 🙂
Lovely Beth at Designer Sophisticate surprised me yesterday with this award. Beth’s blog was one of the first few I started reading when I started the Daily Prompts a year ago. The Daily Prompts were so helpful to me, and really helped me to write. There are so many wonderful writers I used to read on a daily basis, but I and a few others fell off the grid this year due to the repeat prompts that were being posted. I really miss the community feel and those I used to read daily. So when I was surprised by Beth yesterday, I felt that I would like to honor her nomination and participate in this award. I will be doing so on a no-obligation basis, but thought I would like to share the blogs I used to enjoy as part of the Daily Prompt, and please forgive me for leaving anyone off the list.
The Rules for the Blogger Recognition Award:
1. Select fifteen other blogs you want to give the award to (I will limit to ten)
2. You cannot nominate yourself or the person who has nominated you
3. Write a post to show your award
4. Give a brief story of how your blog started
5. Give a piece of advice or two to new bloggers
6. Thank whoever nominated you and provide a link to their blog
7. Attach the award to the post (right-click and save, then upload)
8. Comment on each blog and let them know you have nominated them
9. Provide a link to the award post you created
My blog was created at the end of October 2013 for a few months (movingtowardsthelight), and then became dormant (because I didn’t know what or how to write). I revived it in September last year as a means of therapy. And I started doing the daily prompts every night. I would stay up until midnight for the daily prompt to be released (my time AEST), and then challenge myself to write something within half an hour so I could go to sleep. I did this religiously until the beginning of this year when WordPress started recycling the prompts. And since then I have been trying to prompt myself.
The advice I would give to new bloggers is to be authentic and true to yourself. Every person has their own unique voice, so allow that voice to be heard.
Here are a few blogs I started reading in September last year (in addition to Designer Sophisticate). Some of the blogs are award-free blogs, so I will be listing them here, and if the author would like to participate, please feel free to do so. (I took these from the grid today, a year from when I started reading they are still on the grid, it is so encouraging!)
Pepper Connection
lifelessons
Just Writing!
From Balderdash to Epiphany
The happy Quitter!
No Talent For Certainty
Flowers and Breezes
Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss
Vexing Point
Serendipity
To all the wonderful WordPress writers, thank you for your help, encouragement and friendship in the past year!
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “First Crush.”
My first crush was a boy by the name of Paul (middle row third from left, age 8). I was standing directly to the left of him. Not looking too happy in my new school. I had a crush on him from the age of twelve. My mother suggested that since it was now 1986 and not the dark ages (#feminism), perhaps I should invite him ice-skating. (Advice I would never give my daughter, men must take the lead!) So I called him (his older sister was friends with my sister so I had access to his landline). He put me on hold so he could go and ask his mother. She said no. At school on Monday he joked about it with the others in the class. (I asked him out, how dare I!) I learnt my lesson well.
Advice to my daughter:
No asking boys or men out! Attract them if you must, but they must pursue! End of story.
I’m a dreamer
And a writer
I’m a lover
And a mother
I’m a loner
And a joker
I’m a worker
And creator
But above all these
I am
This evening I fell off a chair.
I was in my class (wk 6 of 10) when the lecturer nearly tripped over my umbrella.
So I leaned over (as one does) to move the umbrella.
The rather flimsy chair gave way and toppled over.
Placing me unceremoniously on the floor.
With a sprained thumb.
I was six turning seven when I started school. We lived in a little town an hour from the main city Johannesburg. My best friend and I had grown up together, we lived around the corner from each other and we were ‘family friends’. Her name was Angelique and we were best friends forever. Our personalities complimented each other.
In those days we used to walk in a group to school. Even from first grade, we would walk by ourselves without adult supervision. I loved my school. I loved my teacher. I had my friend Angelique and we would run amok and have as much fun as we could. I was the first child to be able to read fluently. So my teacher Mrs Van Wyk used to call on me to help with reading groups. I was really confident. And happy.
The following year my parents decided to move to the city. We left the week after my eighth birthday at the end of April. I started my new school in the middle of the term, was introduced to the class first thing on a Monday morning. I was never able to embrace the new school fully. I was always looking back.
This morning I saw a group on FB. It is a school group of my first school. They celebrated their sixtieth anniversary last year. A couple of people in the group remember Mrs Van Wyk. It seems she really was as nice as I can remember her.
And I realize we scar in our lives. And sometimes time doesn’t quite heal those scars. Even now over thirty years later I find myself looking back. I can enter into those feelings. I wish we hadn’t left. I wish my parents hadn’t removed me. From a place where I was happy and confident to a place where I never quite fitted in.
The rain started to fall. Softly at first. You know that quiet calming hum of raindrops falling. And then the thunder started. I lay in bed surrounded by pillows, and allowed myself to be comforted. By the world crying in harmony with my own tears. The rage of the thunder matching the rage of my own heart. I felt at one. And even though I knew my world would never be the same, even though I would have to find a new way, I knew, yes I knew, that everything would be okay. That once the storm had passed and my tears had dried, that I would find the strength to rise up again.
I write to be free
I write because there are words inside of me
I write for comfort
I write for love
I write for joy
I write for peace
I write for me and if it can be a help
I am glad if my words can grow their wings
And fly to be where they need to be
Poems and Petals 