Screw You, Marie Claire!

So there was a time, not too long ago when I really wanted to write, badly. 

But, here's the zinger - I didn't want to tell anyone. I was scared and embarrassed, I mean shouldn't I have already published a novel or something? Also, what if I sucked balls? 

So my usual M.O. was to secretly submit things that I had written to any publication with open submissions. I submitted this boo-hoo fest to Marie Claire in the hopes of exorcising my demons and finding a 6-figure book deal. Alas, not a word from MC (I am still holding out for the book deal), but hooey, here I am, I'm gonna self-publish this biatch because it hurt and it is important, albeit cringey to me. 

I think I wrote this last year in winter.

When my father died I was nineteen. My aunt told me what had happened and without strength I wept into her shoulder. All language mutes in the presence of grief. Well, that’s somewhat true, as I later learnt the simultaneous futility and satisfaction of a multitude of four-letter words. 

I remember the bizarreness of that first day that I had found out. How it hadn’t really sunk in, so I could still joke, albeit meekly, and smile as though my very own Atlas who had stoically held my world together hadn’t shrugged off and left me. I often think that my occasional smile must have seemed cruel and perverse, but it was all that I could muster, stupefied by the audacity of the universe. You see, I had always thought that my dad’s presence was a non-negotiable. My mother had died before I could remember her and I naively thought that the universe was a strict score-keeper meaning that I would be exempt from any future pain. Oh ha-ha, how that theory has been proven wrong. Seriously Universe, you are fucked up!

In the beginning, when I had just found out, the only time that his death really punched me in the stomach, quite literally, was in the bathroom. Alone with only the mirror to remind me of my feeble mask, I tried to understand that my daddy, my darling daddy was dead. When my mother had died, I didn’t have to think about how to deal with it, I was two years old and I don’t remember anything about her or her death. The rivers of pain that were to follow soaked my childhood with tears and loneliness, but I was just a child so I didn’t consciously navigate the grief or pain. I just felt the pain and let it colour my tentative picture of the world. 

However, as a nineteen year-old I was at a total loss. I had lost my dad, my compass, my home and I didn’t know how to deal with it. Technically, I stress, purely technically, I was an adult and as an adult, sadly, you are meant to lose your parents, so why did it feel so four-letter word, four-letter word, unfair?

The pain I felt was overwhelming and confusing. It screamed for attention like a bludgeoned wound. Yet, a part of me felt that I wasn’t allowed to feel so bad. I was a big girl now, I better act like it, right? So I tried to mourn with faux dignity, to only cry enough to lightly moisten the tissues in my purse. I now laugh resentfully at all of this. What to mock first? When I was a child I would always stubbornly say that my mother had died, she didn’t pass away or worse, I didn’t lose her. She died. I half-heartedly invited the awkward silence that inevitably followed my blunt statement as proof that the pain that I felt wasn’t insignificant. I found the whole dilly-dallying of words insulting. Why should I dress up death? It only looks good in black anyway.  

The days following the passing of my dad were some of the worst days that I have known. The person that I would have turned to in a crisis or even for a quick gossip was the very person that I was mourning. I stumbled around with my pain as though it were a septic limb that I couldn’t get rid of. I pathetically tried to be ‘normal’ with my friends and I attended lectures. I was genuinely surprised when I was granted an extension on all of my examinations, prior to that the world had cruelly continued to function as though nothing had happened. I found this all infuriating and I wanted to tell anyone who would listen that my world was falling apart, yet in reality I couldn’t say much and I reserved my feelings for quiet moments alone in my flat or as I’m now embarrassed to admit, while walking the busy streets of Cape Town. 

I remember the first time that it happened. I was walking down Long Street, a place that I had first discovered with my dad, and overcome with anger and sadness, I cried and cried, my collarbones collecting my tears. Looking back, I think that I felt so alone in the sea of faces and I knew that no matter how many people I saw, my dad would never again be one of those people.

Now five years later, I think of those early days without my father as a turning point in my life. As I slowly and stubbornly realised that I could be happy in spite of his absence, I became braver and more decisive; after all, what could the world possibly throw at me that could be any worse? I still miss him every day and I desperately wish that I could just hear his voice or see his sad blue eyes, but I now know that I am luckier than most. 

My father, John Clancy, loved my brother and I so intensely and doggedly that even five years following his death I still feel his love swimming in my being as though I had just spoken to him. I once read that real love is like fluoride in the water, it makes us stronger without our knowledge, this is certainly true. I know that all those years in the sunshine of my father’s love have given me more than enough strength to face the beautiful, terrible and wonderful world without him. I wish I could have told the nineteen year-old me sobbing in the street that although I won’t see him again in person, if I looked, not even very hard, I could see his love everywhere and sometimes that will be enough.

Love & Magic in the Future & Japan

First things first, you gotta watch both of these movies if you haven't already. Watching them is like being spooned by the universe. If I was a useless doctor I would prescribe these movies like a tonic for the sad and lonely. I sometimes want to be a doctor, for the money mostly, but also because I like helping people and stuff. Anyway, this is my contribution to the happiness quotient of the world. Watch these two movies and feel better. 

But why?

Well, they are both ridiculously good, like ten-outta-ten vibes. They are also both deliciously life-affirming which is strange given the presence of a Catbus (see here) and an intelligent operating system that with the perils of Vodacom shitty network coverage and airtime, seems maybe more unbelievable than a fucking Catbus. 

"Her" the top one if you didn't already know, is so beautiful to watch that it falls into the category of movies that you can absolutely enjoy on mute. But that doesn't mean that the dialogue isn't amazing, because it is... Intelligent, interesting and beautiful, the dialogue is still swimming in my brain, albeit bastardized by my poor memory. Also, I really, really loved the colours in the movie, rich hues of orange and brown, and the notable absence of the colour blue. The future according to Spike Jonze is actually a 1930's throwback with the presence of "close", intuitive technology. I kinda hope that he is right, I personally cannot wait to wear Opening Ceremony like it's a uniform. A movie about love. A movie about death, transience and high-waisted pants. I loved everything about it. 

Now on to "My Neighbour Totoro". Goodness! This movie just made me want to wash my mouth out with soap (in the best possible way). It presents a world that is so sweet, innocent and sincere that it made me feel like I've been a bad girl my whole life for thinking otherwise. I only wish that I had watched it when I was younger instead of being introduced to the world via the lunacy of Disney's scare tactics. Actually, just thinking about the movie makes me smile and roar "TOHHH-TOHH-ROHHHH!" 

In conclusion: now I really need to get to Japan and just get knee-deep in some Totoro merch. Also, I need to rethink my haters-hate-everything stance on Amy Adams given her great performance in "Her".

Malawi!

I never thought that I would go to Malawi, not because of any reason in particular but mostly because I never really thought about Malawi all that much.

Only a two hour flight away, Malawi feels like it's really far from home. Both a complete outsider and yet still a fellow African, I attempted to juggle my amazement and embarrassment. It seems that in my life, I constantly oscillate between the two. 

I was amazed at its quiet-loud nothingness and it's vast compactness, a small-big country with opposites and questions and silence, lots of silence. I was embarrassed by my ignorance, the worst tourist with the worst questions, I smiled a lot and tried to not to think of Malawi in American "poor but happy" terms. It was hard, they are so poor and happy... Fuck. 

Our tour guide told me that in 1966 only six tourists visited Malawi. I wondered what they thought. I saw a women waiting (maybe she wasn't waiting) by a tree with no leaves, when we left the hotel a few hours later she was still there, waiting or not waiting, just standing in the same spot by a tree with no leaves. Time felt longer there. 

I tried to remember as much as possible, I tried not to sleep in the car, I tried to not think about other stuff. I didn't remember how to say "hello". I did sleep in the car, badly. And I thought a lot about other stuff. I was hard not to, it seems that life follows you wherever you go. 

Malawi is a really special country, I mean it. Maya Angelou said something along the lines of:

You don't remember what people said or did or whatever, you remember how they made you feel (not a direct quote obviously). 

Well that's like Malawi, it sneakily touches your heart and you don't how or when, you just kinda wish it well and want to send it a card a Christmas time.

The people that I met were at times so earnest that I felt bad. My favourite person that I met was the driver, Patrick. I really wanted to show him a picture of Patrick Star from Spongebob, I don't know why. I didn't, thankfully. But he was so great, so sweet and he laughed like I'd imagine a tortoise would laugh. 

Malawi is really great, just go and feel all warm inside. 

Me and Patrick:

Travels, Dancing Babies & Stuff!

Tommy and I have returned from our sojourn in the Eastern Cape. 

Seeing a bit more of our country has made me very appreciative of my birthplace. Joburg really is the best place ever (most of the time). Travelling invariably causes two feelings for me, I feel like I want to travel more and at the same time I just really want to go home. 

In other news, how great is this illustration by Mel Stringer:

Recently, Instagram and movies have created a major NYC-shaped hole in my heart that can only be filled by a summer trip to The Big Apple. Tommy and I have seen many great cities together but Noo Yawk remains the great unknown-known frontier. Movies and series have made us believe  that we know New York, (c'mon, I've watched nearly every Woody Allen movie) but we still haven't gone. So I'm putting it out there, 2015 NYC is ours! 

I haven't been updating FOFTHEH recently because I kinda die on the internet every single day so I feel like I've read everything, seen everything, laughed at everything and nothing is really exciting. This is a terrible outlook, I know, it is mostly fatigue related to the fact that I recently upgraded from a Blackberry (lol for days) to an iPhone. So in essence, this is my internet baptism by fire. 

This week I need to wean myself of the internet and just reclaim the kingdom of my skull without the opinion of every New Yorker columnist swimming in my head. 

Even though I just said that nothing is really exciting on the interwebs, I still LOVE this:

Thank You Universe!

"The bottom line is: You're going to die. You're gonna be dead forever. It's an infinitely longer time than you ever were alive. And it's painful, but of course, the thing is, it's just intensely beautiful, too. Because infinite life, as even dogs in the street know, would be the hell that never ended. So it's this extraordinary, beautiful gift."

I've been fangirling real hard lately. But I don't feel too bad, even Buzzfeed feels her vibe deeply (click here).