A new, NEW year! - Day 170ish

Hello 2014, when did you sneak in so quickly?

I love NEW, anything sparkly and unknown. I love the new in a new year and even more the soul searching brightness of new resolutions. I like it the best that we get to start the new in the middle of summer. Feeling fresh and fit.  I mean, isn't looking forward to a newness in anything just the best? It makes me even happier when I look back at the old and find a new perspective, "Hey Chick, (I like to tell myself) check out all the cool stuff that your mind conjured up, look where your heart travelled to and look where it is now. I recon you've done well babe."

For the first new year in many, I can say I have a clean slate. I've dusted off the baggage, worked through the mind mess and well, here I am. As sparkly and new as the new year itself. I normally have a knack of starting the new year with goals and resolutions that are tangible and easy to accomplish. But this year I started it off with a bigger picture, full of how I would like to see my life live. Most of the things I have presented to the universe are completely out of my control but I know are guided by Mr Upstairs. I have a full feeling of excitement and motivation this time around.

Last night after settling down into my beautiful Joburg apartment after a full two weeks in my Durban home, I challenged myself to not write down goals but words in which at the end of this year I would like to see describe how it went.

ADVENTURE, LOVE and SUCCESS were the three wordies that I see defining my 2014. I am not completely attached to the manner in which they manifest but I guess, that's really not up to me is it?

I challenge you with a simple word goal for your very own 2014. What words would you like to have described your year?

I don't think a strong belief in the workings of manifestation is needed, I think that what we want for our lives can come in many forms and whatever we call them; prayer, sun salutes, dancing naked in the rain, they all funnel into the same objective. The bottom line is, starting the year off with a positive and strong intention is the first stepping stone that we can take to motivate ourselves. Your every action is a reaction to a thought prompted by some divine subconscious goal you have set for yourself. Nothing is coincidence. You made it happen all on your very own.

So here's me wishing you a very smiley, warm 2014. May it be the best one you can imagine it to be!

Day 19 to Day 40

 Sometimes we need a push from an inspirational place.

Before you carry on with this post, I want you to take this link, let it load, patience now..

http://soundcloud.com/deadoceans/phosphorescent-song-for-zula

Are you ready..? Ok, go on, you may now press PLAY. 

The fear of having nothing good to say after so long is quite overwhelming.

What if we pretended that I didn't vanish, and what you are reading now was a simple add on to yesterday. Not 21 days ago, but earlier. That today, being day 40 is just another day.

Would you forgive me if I had a great story to tell?

21 Days is a lot of time to get up to all sorts of goodness. Being new to a city full of new things is a terribly, terrifying new experience. The newness of every corner is a new type of hype that I just can't wait to capture, like butterflies in a net.

Picture this:

It's a wintery day, but the sun is shining gloriously. There is a feeling of something different in the air, could it be spring? No surely not. But it's there - it's warm, it's a t-shirt type of day.
You decide that inside is not the place to be, so you get out, out into a field full other people, running a mock in this summery spring phenomenon.

There are dogs yapping and owners shouting. Kids are rolling down the hills and a soft breeze tangles your hair as if whispering past, "You can feel it can't you?"

As you flop to the ground, onto a soft comfort, pressing strawberries to your lips, you let your mind go. Why has it been so trapped?
You let it wonder, into the wonder it finds…

Friends of the past that have welcomed you back, mushy loves that keep you up at night and special discoveries of intellect you forgot you owned. Rewinding the past few weeks as if to relive them all over again, you really have never felt so happy.

Staring at your thoughts dancing above you, you lift your arms to remind yourself that it's all real. Look, you are touching every smile and intertwine every word passed between you, enveloped between your fingers. Suddenly you grab them, feel them absorb into your skin. Quick! Pull them tightly into your chest.

Embracing the past few weeks with responsibility and respect.

Opening your eyes,  can see those kites flying high above you? Watch them flit as your human gently unravels the string, the kites are dancing in the breeze, silly kites.

Could this be your life's metaphor?

Burnt from the rays of a summery spring type of sun, you feel alive again. Alive to write again.

And this song that's playing in your ears. It's given you hope to be again. Right?

Exactly right.

Bye! - Day 9

So this is it hey guys.

I can't actually believe it's here, after months of planning and weeks of moving the date, tomorrow finally arrives.

I always thought my last night in Durban would be tearing what's left of her tread - annihilating her soul and leaving my name as a 'just in case you forget me' souvenir. But sadly I am way to exhausted and quite frankly over the moving game to care. Instead I went to my favourite restaurant with my two favourite people. Mom and Dad.

I must say I am looking forward to the 6 hours of Jemma time. Just me and whatever sing along sound track is going to come my way. I am going to belt those tunes past Pietermaritzburg, throw a finger at a lonely cow in Escort, toot my way up Van Reenen's Pass, grab a coffee in Harrismith and speed past De Waal into the sexy smog that is Johannesburg. All with my mom in tow. You're jealous aren't you?

I am waiting for the realization of this big change to filter into my mind and say, "Hey Chick, you know this is kinda happening in a far out way?" As for now, it has sunken in as far as polystyrene on water.

Sleep.

A blended red is always a party pooper, so I am just going to leave you with this...

The manager at my favourite restaurant kinda adores me, as my mum puts it blankly, "He loves you." Anyways, many a time I have found his number on my bill and many a times I havn't called. For obvious reasons as I am moving and well, I don't shit where I eat. So as I am about to depart my favourite grazing ground, I call to him to say goodbye and quietly mention to him that I am moving to Johannesburg tomorrow. What's to follow in his beautifully home grown Irish accent are three words that describe everything I am about to do. Perfectly.

"Oh, fuck off."

A possible, possible.

It’s been the most life-changing week. I left behind all worries of ‘Making It: Self Employment’, dusted off the Durban Sigh and headed to the hills of a new little music festival called Spogweni. Little did I know that this little valley with no reception would wake me up to the possibilities of what life has just given me. And of course a story wouldn’t be a story without, yes, a boy.

                                                                                                     --------

Take away the commercialness of Splashy Fen, add 40 bands that feature on no hipsters playlist, mix in tall trees and tee pees but don’t forget the hippies and you have Spog. A festival in it’s 2nd year, but has no means reached it’s true potential.

I climbed a tree or two.
I danced until no one was dancing.
I reflected upon my life without fear.
My cellphone lay forgotten.
Hot showers, were expected but never found.
I stumbled into new friends,
And found my smile in someone else’s gaze.

I have a thing for smiles and all the happy adjectives that come with them. I heart adventure but sometimes am too scared to discover. Amsterdam, my human, that I refuse to be a festival fling changed my lightbulb and brought back my sparkle.

He had just finished a 5 month drive from the Netherlands down the west coast of Africa and arrived in his zebra-print wrapped Landy to a place not many people thought to go. He pulled at my comfort laces until they were untied with a new passion for life, for discovery and opened my eyes to the possibility, yes daily dears, the possibility that I have the power to create my own adventure.

We spoke about places WE would see with trees bigger than you or me, about African skies and passport controls. He gave me hope in my dreams that I will become everything I want to be, and most of all he made me see that I am the only one who holds the possibility.

But saying goodbye to Spog, with a mind clearer than a crystal ball only brought sadness into my heart. Not only was I saying goodbye to a human I would probably never see again, but to a feeling I know will only last as long M4 highway.

Now back in the city smog with only ‘remember when’ moments to look back on, I’ve realised that we all live a life of possibles, we just need to put in that little effort and invite a ‘It happened’ into our lives.

Next year, I am going to explore Africa. Thank you, Amsterdam.