Just Dance

Identity is a complex thing. Expressing the complexity of identity is nothing short of convoluted.

A few weeks ago, I had to construct a 3 minute contemporary performance piece that reflected the person that I think I am in nothing but movement. No music. No speech. No pen. Now I know that you are all probably thinking “3 minutes? This lazy midget”. But I urge you to try to dance 19 years in 3 minutes. Then come back to me.

Don’t worry, I’ll wait...

...

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It’s not easy. It opens up your eyes to the fact that you know very little of yourself. It’s easy to write about the person that you think you are. It is easy to listen to a piece of music and make the conscious decision that it not only speaks to you but also defines you. Sketching your life in pencil across a blank page is simplicity defined.

But what happens when you have to negotiate yourself around a room in an attempt to find the exact points that will show the world the stages of your life? Panic, sweat, shortness of breath and, ultimately, tears –that’s what happens. Coming to the realisation that you do not know yourself at all shakes your world.

We underestimate the importance of the body as a form of expression. We walk around life’s dance floor in a haze of self importance. We disregard the most basic form of articulation the moment we become well learned in the social constructs we refer to as language. Moving is the most fundamentally human thing next to breathing, yet we know the least about it.

You walk before you speak, that much I know. So why is it that when I have to create movement I am stumped? I walk, I jump, I skip, I plank, I dance every weekend, I bop my head to music on a daily basis. So why exactly is it that I can’t move around a room for 3 minutes and show the masses who exactly I am? It’s a question that I cannot answer.

As I said, identity is a complex thing. Identity expressed through movement is somewhat impossible. But I have to do it. And so I will. It is the fact that I have to try so hard to do this that is a bother to me.

I should not have to learn how to negotiate my body to my soul. I should not have to trick my feet into abiding to my heart. Mind, body and soul should be able to work as one whenever I prompt them to. But because the mind has grown to govern the body and the soul has collapsed onto the mind, it takes me 2 hours to learn how to move for 3 minutes.

The Integrated Web Cam

The integrated web cam is the devil. This is a sentiment that very few are willing to express.

The devilish nature of the web cam is very well disguised. The prevalence of social networks has turned even the most self-conscious creatures into Tinkerbells who whisper “I do believe in photographs” while they lean into their laptops at just the right angle.

Photographs have taken over the world, yes. But that is neither here nor there. Believe it or not, the endless stream of badly photo shopped pouts and “peace” (I somehow believe that two fingers held up now represents something other than peace) signs is not the direct result of my above expressed sentiment.

I say that the web cam is the devil because I have been lured into its demented web of lucid obscurity. It is always looking you in the face. Unblinking. Waiting. Beckoning. From the moment you open your laptop to type that already late essay to the moment you take a break 20 minutes later –the web cam watches you. Lures you. Entices you. Teases you.

“Let’s have a silent conversation layered in false smiles and well constructed surprise photographs,” it whispers. It probes your wandering eye and, to the shock and abandon of your keyboard, binds you under an instant spell of self timed poses and hair flicks.

You cannot escape the integrated web cam. The integrated web cam will always find you.

The integrated web cam is a dangerous device that has the potential to bring diligence and focus to unforeseen ends. From what I have experienced, one hardly ever runs to their computer to take a picture or two. One usually has a camera for that.

One is overcome by the strong impulse to utilize the alluring web cam when one is seated in front of one’s laptop with a week’s worth of assignments to type up in 12 hours.

The integrated web cam blind sides you.

And because I am fast becoming aware that this is beginning to sound like a conspiracy theory, I will stop. But when you sit in front of that laptop with your eyes begging Qwerty to save them...remember this post.

Remember this post and look away from the sophisticated Cyclops.

The case of the Skinny Jeans

There will come a time when they will stop making skinny jeans because they will read as the cause of death on somebody’s file. That somebody will, with all probability, be some unsuspecting girl in a popular retail store’s fitting rom. How do I know this? I was almost such a girl.

The issue of the hazardous nature of the skinny jean was brought to my attention after a shopping trip with my mother. I went into the fitting room. Grunted in there for what felt like half a day. Felt water down my face and made a mental note to inform the nice lady at the door that there was a leak in their roof. Came out of the room looking very satisfied with myself (I had won the battle) only to be greeted by my mother’s frown.

According to her, I looked like something out of a Tim Burton movie. Sweat tracked its way down my face (which, it turns out, was the “leak in the roof”) and my hair, each dreadlock pointing towards its own direction, could have given Ursula a run for her money. My mother, as she never fails to remind me, thought I was having a heart attack or something of that nature.

You see, I have nothing against skinny jeans. I love them actually. They hold you tighter than any of your childhood teddy bears did. They, believe it or not, leave you more room to breathe than most bras do. They can be both casual and semi-formal if worn with the right shoes and accessories. In fact, I will go as far as to say that they are to the 21^st century young adult what those hideous Green Cross shoes are to the aged.

With that said, the things are a mission to put on. This is especially true if you have hips that stick out to greet your waist and a butt that is so far from the rest of your body that it is, quite literally, your own personal bodyguard. Now I am not saying that this picture I paint is of me. It is not. My butt leaves much to be desired. Hips I have. And it is these hips that send me into would-be panic attacks every time I have to try on a pair of new jeans.

Most girls will know what I am talking about. Because the skinny jean is meant to hold you tight, a size 30 might as well be a size 26. So the routine, when trying them on, is something that even the people at Cartoon Network couldn’t come up with.

Firstly, you bring about three pairs of the same jeans into the room with you. Different sizes, of course. It is what I like to call a safety measure. Secondly, you pray your hardest that the stall at the very end of the row of close knit rooms is free (you would rather be the only one to hear your panting and inevitable sighs of distress). Finally, you take a deep breath and put you first leg through the death trap elegantly disguised as a fashion statement.

This all sounds a tad dramatic. I understand. But I need you to understand that it is anything but. What follows that first leg is a progressively aggressive series of kicks, jumps and pulls. It is a wonder the material doesn’t rip after the first three minutes (yes, it sometimes takes longer that a minute to put them on). It is an even greater wonder you do not fall short of breath and corpse in the middle of the previously mentioned popular retail store.

The truth is that I very well could have been having a heart attack on that shopping trip with my mother and her frown. For all I know, I passed out for a few seconds and came back to kicking my way into style. I am almost certain that I had to stop to take a few breaths during my private performance...

The skinny jean almost killed me. I am sure of it. But be that as it may, I will not stop wearing it. Even if it means that I stop at the door of cardiac arrest every time I put my pants on.

My first real vent: A tangent, if you will

You never really realize how much time you spend with people until you have to be alone for a while. Me? It’s been less than a week. Five days, to be exact. In that time I have exhausted an unmentionable amount of airtime calling my mother just so I could hear a friendly voice. I have gone through a shameful number of wine bottles. I have done a number of things that any psychologist would win a prize for analyzing.

We all get the point. And if we don’t, what I’m saying is that being alone in a house could drive a cartoon to venture into a puppet show. You laugh, but I am dead serious. I eat to keep busy. Do you know how bad that is? Eating non-stop. Stuffing your face with delicious food. Watching heaps of sugar melting onto warm, freshly baked goods…

No. Wait. I am making this sound desirable. It is not. It is not desirable and it is not a substitute for human contact –that was my point. My waistline is expanding at a rate that may inspire me to move to America just so that I feel normal (yes, Americans are fat…that is exactly what I’m saying).

The fridge is my only friend at the moment. It opens its doors to me. It listens to my tangents. It gives me unhealthy advice when I need it to. Granted, the advice is in the form of Ultra Mel custard, but who cares? The apples stare at me in judgment and disgust, but again…who cares?

It is a problem, people. Some of you may be wondering why I do not just go home for vacation like my peers have. To that, I say don’t ask difficult questions. I also say that that, my friends, is a story for a different day. I have done bad things; stupid things that have to be remedied before I can walk through the familiar doors of home.

So until that happens, I am stuck in a studentless student town. Oh the depression, the agony, the loneliness, and yes, the drama of it all. At least I have my scrambled eggs, bacon and cheese to wake up to in the morning. When those leave me…I fear for the worst. Keep me in your thoughts.

The heart is the home

Where I come from, the phrase “home is where the heart is” has no meaning. To us, the heart is where home is.

When I think of home I think of coffee. I think laughter. I think laughter induced tears. I think winter days in front of the television. I think failed compliments and successful criticisms. I think of toothy smiles and hopeful frowns. I think of voice cracking anger and 007 movie marathons.

I imagine gravy drenched dumplings and awkward embraces.

I think of strenuous tolerance and effortless endurance. I think star gazing and rain dancing. I think country music Sunday mornings and daily pranks. I see my mother’s face and smell my sister’s perfume. I feel my nephew’s gaze (sometimes a shameless stare) and hear my mother’s voice. I hear unvoiced I love you’s” and taste the poetry of emotion.

I feel the warmth of my mother’s bed and understand unconditional love and unadulterated compassion.

The way I see it, home does not have to be a place. My idea of home is rooted in feeling, space and experience. My family has a house in at least four locations, and if I were to base my understanding of the notion of home on site alone I would have to consider myself a nomad of sorts. A drifter. Place is irrelevant to my conception of home.

As far as I am concerned, if I live under a rock for the rest of my days with my family around me…that rock is home. If I have rubbed my mother’s feet and knelt before her while she plaited my hair under that rock, that rock represents home to me and the ants should start packing.

Home is conversation. It is insanity, it is sublime nonsense, it is memory.

My earliest memories of home are not of a house or a fence. They are not of landscapes and doorknobs. My earliest memories of home are of shared laughter under clear blue skies. My fondest memories are not of buildings, sandpits and train tracks. They are of advice in the guise of my mother’s anecdotes of past mistakes.

Home is a feeling. A sense of belonging.

My home is wherever my family is.

My home is where my mom’s smile is, it is where my sister’s non-embraces are and where my aunt’s actual embraces are, it is where my cousin’s voice is.

My home is everywhere my family is, and I’m ok with that.

Raise your weapons

Whenever I'm feeling sad, I crawl into the comfort of my headphones and wrap this beat around me.

"Ripping my heart was so easy. Launch your assault now. Take it easy. Raise your weapon. One word and it's over. Ripping through like a missile. Ripping through my heart. Rob me of this love. Raise your weapon and it's over. Love your ego, you won't feel a thing. Always number one. The pen with a bent wrist crooked king. Sign away our peace for your war. One word, and it's over. Dropping your bombs now. On all we've built. How does it feel now to watch it burn?"

 

The lyrics are a weapon and the rest is the battle.



Forget what you've heard about music Dubstep, it is life to those of us who care for expressing the conventional in unconventional ways.

Vanity is Sanity

“Vanity is sanity”. I remember reading that somewhere and noting that there is absolutely nothing wrong with knowing that you are beautiful. Just as there is nothing wrong with letting people know that you are very much aware of your beauty.

I have had it up to the tips of my hair with people who shun vanity. The most aggravating thing is that the people who look down on those who spend more time looking into their mirrors than they do cultivating young minds (or some equally pretentious cow dung) are the very same people who encourage self-confidence and the likes. Why should it grate your nipples when I acknowledge my advantage over the masses...when you are employed to encourage the attainment of such knowledge? Honestly, I am stumped.

Why should the fact that I am one with my benefits bother you so much that your very existence has the disappearance of my smile as its sole purpose? We often say that beauty should be celebrated. When did the world decide that the condition is that the one who holds the beauty should not be the one who celebrates? And really, what difference does it make? Beauty is beauty is beauty, regardless of who shows appreciation for it. If you cannot bring yourself to love the very features that make you attractive...go sit in the dark corner with the others until the sun finds you and burns some self-importance into you.

The world is filled with people who loathe themselves and expect the rest of us to either pity them or fear them. Good on them. They can, and should, stick to what nurtures their souls and let the rest of us decide what to do with ours. We only get one shot at this thing called life and I, for one, will be damned if I allow the insecurities of others to have an impact on the extent to which I take pleasure in my overall awesomeness.

If you have a beautiful face, I grant you permission to look into the mirror until either IT breaks...or YOU die. If you have a beautiful body, I urge you to wear as little clothing as you can wear before the world declares you naked. If you have a beautiful mind, do not feel obligated to dumb yourself down for the rest of us. Use your big words until your memory fades.

If you have all of the above, I beg of you to e-mail me. :p

Hand it to the Man

It  is  never  a  good  idea   to  consider  it  wise  to  grab  a  Xhosa  woman’s  buns.  One  heavily  imbalanced  Zulu  man  had  to  learn  this  a  tad  more  painfully  than  most  people  do.

Before  all  else,  it  should  be  clarified  that  the  Xhosa  and  Zulu  cultures  suffer  a  great  deal  of  cultural  differences,  a   majority  of  these  being  centred   around  the  fairer  sex.  Our  (Xhosa)  women  are  boisterous  peacocks  whose  voices  can  never  be  silenced.  Their  (Zulu)  sisters  are  more  inclined  towards  calm  and  submission  -and  it  is  this  submission  that  the  men  thrive  on.  This  may  seem  to  be  a  biased  stereotype  on  my  part,  but  I  have  lived  in  both  sides  of  the  world  long  enough  to  have  painted  a  fairly  balanced  portrait.

A  picture  I  had  never  conjured  up  clearly,  however,  was  that  of  the  Zulu  man.  To  me,  he  was  just  the  regular  Joe  from  next  door.  He  walked  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  his  shoes  mirrored  the  sky  and  there  was  always  a  matchstick  greeting  the  world  from  the  corner  of  his  mouth.  Of  his  attitude  towards  life  and  women  -especially  women-  I  knew  nothing.  Life,  however,  is  a  prominent  teacher  and  she  speedily  addressed  the  issue  of  my  ignorance  towards  this  man.

Reality  thought  it  best  to  shake  the  blanket  from  my  eyes  while  I  was  still  a  snot  endowed,  thumb  sucking  darling  who  lived  for  ice-cream  trips  with  her  Shero.  It  was  on  one  of  these  trips  that  one of our  Zulu  friends'  (we  will  call  him  Dim)  hand   reached  to  explore  Shero’s  buns.  Needless  to  say,  my  dear  Shero  -already  agitated  from  having  to  sweat  over  boiling  tar  just  to  buy  “cream  in  edible  cardboard”-  was  anything  but  amused.

From  where  I  stood  they  sketched  a  rather  comical  picture.  Here  was  Dim,  rocking  on  his  heels  and  sporting  the  most  satisfied  grin  known  to  man  while  in  front  of  me,  my  Shero  had  turned  to  match  his  beam  with  the  hailstorm  that  was  brewing  inside  her.  I  would  have  laughed  were  it  not  for  the  thunderbolt  that  struck  Dim’s  fleshy  cheek.  There was a role reversal. Dim grew a uni-brow. What had just happened was unacceptable.  No   self-respecting woman would lay her hand on a man.  In  his  mind,  he  was  the  king  of  the  concrete  jungle  and  Shero  needed  to  be  put  in  her  place.                     

                                                                                                                                                                                          What followed was a “don’t  try  this  at  home”  moment.  Having  grown  up  in  a  family where  equality  reigns,  the  showdown  before  me  was  to  be  my  first  exposure  to  that  extremity  of  violence.  Never  being  raised  to  bow  down,  Shero  readily  rose  to  the  challenge.  She  threw  her  impressive  amount  of  punches,  moulding  hills  of  black  and  blue  across  Dim’s  now  clouded  face.  Being  the  stronger  of  the  two,  he  managed  to  pin   the  battle  -and  my  Shero-  down.  To  see  a  man  pound  his  heavy  fists  onto  a  woman’s  body  like  that  is  a  trauma  that  no  child  should  ever  have  to  suffer.  Even  scarier  than  watching  your  Shero  fight  for   her  life  is  seeing  people  with  the  power  to  make  it  stop  just  stand  by.

It  was  in  the  5  minutes  that  it  took  my  Shero  to  claw,  bite,  and  kick  Dim  off  of  her,  that  my  respect  for  Xhosa  women  (and  any  other  woman  who  would  have  put  up  a  fight  like  that)  grew.  Seeing Shero  go  through  that  much  blood,  sweat ,  and  tears  was  my  moment  of  epiphany.  There  was  no  opening  up  of  the  skies  or  a  philharmonic  mass  of  angels,  but  the  sound  of  the  men  cheering  all  around  me  was  an  effective  substitute.  It  took  three  teenage  girls  to  tear  Dim  off  of  my  Shero  and  heave  what  was  left  of  her  back  home.  Her  right  arm  did  not  survive  the  battle,  but  neither  did  Dim’s  pride  and  manhood.

Life  lessons  on  cultural  differences,  abuse  and general  respect  can  be  learnt  from  Shero’s  episode –and  they  were.  Respect  those  around  you,  and  give  as  good  as  you  get.