The Curse of the Spirit Animal

So it seems I have been cursed by one of the many spirit animals I am. After many heavy insomniac nights, I have tried to come to terms with the simple fact that I am not a very good sleeper- for a Gemini-EarthDragon.

I went further to research my spirit animal. Which will be a bonus for my already hereditary African totem - the great black and white - the zebra.

My first search was many months ago, a sleepless night that got me wondering if I had perhaps inherited some animal instinct which kept me up most of my nights. I was paired with the owl. It all clicked and made sense then but not as much sense as it makes now.

The past week and few days have been nothing but hell for me. Namibia has become so unforgiving. The heat startles the country by seven in the morning, like the drunk uncle at the Christmas party who gets his kick by telling the children horror stories about Santa! The day starts to become murky and everything is labored. Tans are on special this time of year it seems, it took less than an hour to get my tan upgraded to Navy blue!

The alcohol business is booming, the addiction seemingly predestined to anyone who lives in this BBQ. The first beer in this holiday season is on average around 9am and a beer has to be, without fail, drunk within 5minutes unless of course, you are the one for beer tea!

Given this ungodly situation, I keep the days to myself, alone, mumbling away cursing the heat. If I were in the street I'd be the sister to the woman who wears the paper bag on her head pulling a trolley full of metallic abstract works of art! I struggle through the heat wishing to be nothing more than a squid or jellyfish. It crosses my mind that maybe jellyfish are sick and tired of being in the water and perhaps they float around cursing King Triton.

Anyway, as the long agonizing desert day draws to a close,  the sun setting in such a deliberate speed - only around 8pm, I slowly begin to find some of my sanity. I mumble less, think more and start a never ending battle with the African Blood suckers - the mosquitoes!

In an act of terrorism, I empty a bottle of bug spray on the thin sons of B!*%#'s and pray God has a mosquito hell.

I spend good time just trying to breathe. In the stillness of the young night i stand out looking into the darkening skies and wonder why the wind has been given a vacation. The timing of course is perfect! Not! I slowly collect some of my thoughts and jot them down in an unusual organised fashion which is a complete contradiction of my unorganized simplicity. I fight with words and thoughts and have never ending conversations with myself as the clock ticks away.

By midnight I am convinced I am nothing like the majestic owl that sits in the night hooting into the echoes of silence. Big bald eyes and a 270° spin on its head, I barely meet the wise creature's hobby characteristics.

I decided it was time for a second and third opinion on my so called spirit animal. It couldn't have made more sense when I was done. My spirit self was full of too much baggage hence the crazy act. It turns out I'm a whale, a spider and wolverine! No biggie, that makes me a
Gemini-EarthDragon-OwlEbra-WolvWhalPider.

That sounds like a medical condition… that makes sense!

Year-End Speech

Its end of year, we have reached another December. Yet again the time to start stating our resolutions, updating our wishlists and feeling proud of our our achievements thus far. I sit worrying about my year end post. What to say and how it is I should say it.

  To most, my words are nothing but rants of life from another one of the billion souls that exist on this planet. Mere doodles. To me, they are silence. Perhaps I use words that have been used entirely to perfection that they have become meaningless.  As the case may be, I have used words so ancient they translate to silence.

It is probably what is best. For a long time I have thought for a person who has been through what I have, when given a chance should be able to translate the emotions into a text that most will read and somehow my suffering and anguish would not have been in vain. It only made sense that an education to the masses of one existence would awaken a humanity that we are on the brink of losing.

I have tried, believe you me. Endless drafts sit in all devices that I use, every journal I have owned and subsequently burned. I have been searching for that moment. The beginning of self realisation. How do I start my story? Does it go back to the point I was consciously aware of the stone that sat on the bottommost of my stomach? Does it start with my unconscious memories of existing instead of living?

Imaginably there is no start. It just begins. Begins with the first memory. Life is after all not a collection of years but a collection of memories.

I have no words for a beginning, my endless flirtings with blank canvases for a start have been unsuccessful. I have barely achieved second base let alone foreplay with an introduction. That is, for all one knows, the answer. The unwritten clue.

For the new year to start, A year would have to end but perchance there is no need for a start instead, for a moment to collect with all the other moments of existence. Maybe now I can stop looking to the skies for a sign of the start  of the new year we all hope will be ''the year" for love, joys, happiness, the all out dream. The signs are and have been existing as we do-with each breathe we take and each moment we make.

So instead of the normal I'll be bold and live differently in this moment. Whomever you are, wherever you are and whatever you do…

Happy holidays and happy moments!!

Lady friend

Isn't it ironic that most often than not the one person we like is a perfect TV character, or the girl you meet a week before she has to leave the country. Or the man who is perfect but turns out married. Well, I've just walked into that same trap. Thanks universe, guess you really been lookin out huh?

Its not that I hadn't noticed her until today. Its that today I got to talk to her, exchange witty playful banter and joke about all the most inappropriate things. There were moments too when I let a sensitive detail slip into her ears. I couldn't be sure what she would do with that information but anyway. I received some of her most hidden thoughts too that provoked St Joan, the angel of true love.

Its was a normal day. I arrived after she did and I did not want to sit on my station, instead i sat with her. She smiled kindly, her eyes almost letting off how pleased she was to see me. Then again I could be reading too deep into it. I went straight for business to hide my interest. She is the cliché. The typical punch line to a perfect bad joke for lesbians. She's straight, has a man she's been dating for many years and has two kids with him. Great!

We got talking. Bad idea Joan! What are doing?

There are many moments I thought I should out her as interested in a woman. The conspiracy! A woman?

Well the day couldn't have gone slower, everything seemed to float by deliberately. More secrets, more moments. Goodbye seemed like it was off the cards. In a movie she would have come to my house, we'd share a glass or plenty of wine and sleep in each other's arms and plan to elope with the kids to Mauritius, buy a beach house and wake up happily ever after if the plane didn't crash of course. But this is earth 1.0, nothing is as Hollywood. I watched her take the bus to the small red sand town she belonged with her man and kids.

She is now a tale of human connection, a story for drunken gay parties. Another woman in my world and I've become part of the Ironic song. Thanks universe!