Like moths to flames

As my 5 year old daughter proudly opened her little hand, revealing a squashed moth laying dead in her palm, the thought struck me that maybe we are all carrying around a dead moth, loudly proclaiming that it's only sleeping.

My big dream has changed a few times throughout the years.

Once it was to play in a band in front of lots of people. When that dream came true, I fell deeply in love with a very eccentric boy and my dream changed to that of being his wife and baby mama.

When that relationship ended the dream briefly became that of dying. It was around this time I decided to take up smoking. In my mind this was the coolest, funnest way to kill myself. Little did I know that 20 bleeding years later I would still be alive, albeit much less suicidal...and quite frankly perplexed at the reasoning behind the obsession with said boy. 

If I am completely honest here, it probably happened because he knew every lyric to Radiohead's OK Computer album and could reasonably hold a note so when we sang "Let Down" accapella together one night at band practice, something cracked and collapsed inside me and floods of crazy hormones changed my brain chemistry into something akin to a merry-go-round.

 

Every horse was a photograph of his face or hands and the tune playing was his voice, reciting the poetry he wrote me. I still have a strange little poem he wrote down on a crumpled napkin one night, it had happily escaped my frantic efforts at collecting and destroying every shred of evidence that he had ever featured in my young life, when it ended.

He had purposely written the words funny, just to be silly and it made me fall for him even harder.

Wittr asie mooiste tafelservet

Voller geheime

As die voutjies

In 'n skribbl brief (opgrol)

Sy het die groenspaan 

Mooier as Sun City

Se palace

Se koepel

Se kruintjie

Se mooiste glinster

Se diepste ligskyn

My mom have often told me that her mother, my grandmother, repeatedly begged her to just please never commit suicide "because of a man". Words she diligently repeated to me when I became of age.

What about a woman? Can I end it all for one of those? One would think the phrase implies rather to not end it "because of a love relationship gone awry" which covers men, women and everything in between (in today's day and age) and yet I believe it was originally said with the onus on man and with a facial expression of disgust as you accentuate it...which of course opens a suicidal loop hole, if you may...this would have to be a whole other blogpost, possibly written entirely in Greek, arguably the mother tongue of the inventors of same-sex relationships.

Anyway, sure enough eventually the dream morphed and I soon dreamed myself onto a stage, a successful performing artist, dancing and singing and acting. This however stayed in the dream realm as my parents felt worried about this career choice and strongly advised against it. 

So I opted to study a short, biological course at Tuks which was supposed to make me rich so I can pursue my dream of the performing arts on my own dime and have a respectable back up vocation to boot.

I have been doing that job for 20 years now and am still not rich enough (and can't be bothered for that matter) to go back to studying and ironically have developed a condition called "dancer's hip" (without dancing, mind you) which would cut any dancer's career short, sending that long gone dream into flames, alas.

Music never really left me but as I am writing this, I wonder if that little butterfly hasn't perhaps been crushed in my hand on my way to show it to someone, a teacher or a parent perhaps, maybe a friend. I remember writing a song (dedicated to the one and only Mr Radiohead singer breakup boy mentioned previously) and playing it to my best friend who instead of saying anything when it ended just threw his arms around me and held me tight to his chest. And yet today I remember only the title of that song (Groot Mariko) and never wrote another song again. When did my passion for music become just another chore that I am just not that good at?

Now writing...that's something else.

When I was younger, primary school even, I started writing quirky little poems and stories but when I was 16 I wrote my first Afrikaans poem while riding on the school bus, high on the fact that school was out for the day and I had a gloriously open afternoon. As I was looking out the window, I saw the long, yellow grass next to the road sway in the wind and the words just came to me as if whispered into my ear by one of the muses.

It was called Winter Weemoed.

Dis soos Die Stilte...

die skeefstaan straal

die sonkring

wat van hul blinkhaar skoonheid

af vryspring

tot in oë

waar dit soos dou

lui vloei

deur grys bruin en blou

en gretig soos die koper halms

oor die vlaktes strek

en 'n vreemde soet

weemoed in my wek

en in 'n oogwink

soos ons vingers vleg

soos wind deur blare

is dit weg

(All my poems are published here https://ellenellpoetry.blogspot.com/?m=1)

When I read it to my parents they were delighted (yay great success in impressing parents) and told me it reminded them of Eugene Marais's Winternag. 

O koud is die windjie

en skraal.

En blink in die dof-lig

en kaal,

so wyd as die Heer se genade,

le die velde in sterlig en skade

En hoog in die rande,

versprei in die brande,

is die grassaad aan roere

soos winkende hande.

O treurig die wysie

op die ooswind se maat,

soos die lied van ‘n meisie

in haar liefde verlaat.

In elk’ grashalm se vou

blink ‘n druppel van dou,

en vinnig verbleek dit

tot ryp in die kou!

I then went in search of that poem and discovered a treasure trove of the most heartbreakingly beautiful poems I could ever imagine. 

This man seemingly felt things so strongly that pleasure and pain were interchangeable in all scenarios, which of course, led to a morphine addiction that inevitably took his life. C'est La Vie.

He was one of many brilliant (and often addicted and/or suicidal) Afrikaans poets, Ingrid Jonker, Breyten Breytenbach, DJ Opperman, Antjie Krog, AG Visser and Koos Doep.  

I felt a deep connection with these people.

I have finally found a way to journal my true thoughts and feelings but in a way that no one could decipher or decode and know my secret inner world. 

They could but feel with the tips of their fingers the braille of my heart but not comprehend the true meaning of the words they read.

I believe I was in matric when I met a friend of my boyfriend who just enchanted me to no end because he was so damn brooding. Of course being extremely brooding myself, having a side something with a friend of my boyfriend's just pushed all the right buttons. 

Danger, intrigue, forbidden love and endless self flagelation (that sounds dirty but isn't), what could possibly be better for a poet? I wrote pages and pages and pages of poetry for him and then a few about my feelings of guilt and shame towards my boyfriend (who ironically was off cheating on me like there's no tomorrow, but instead of leaving a trail of poems behind he left a string of pregnant girls. 

One other thing my wise mother told me besides "please don't kill yourself over a man" was "sex (apart from it being sinful before marriage so don't do it) causes pregnancy so if you can't help yourself for God's sake wear a condom."

Incidentally it was much later and not with mr high school boyfriend that I eventually decided to try it and finally heeded my mother's sage advice, stopping at a petrol station for condoms on my way home from wherever I had been where the bright idea of having "penetrative" (ew) sex for the first time came to me.

I had walked up to the counter and asked the bored looking sister for a pack of condoms, please. "Which kind?" she asked. I was stumped. There's more than one kind?

"The one you like best" I told her.

And that ladies and gentleman is how my first time was with a black condom.

Anyway, little did I know that poetry and later humourous blogging would stick. I still get the ol' block all the damn time but in the last 2 decades of my life whenever I have felt like a popcorn kernel, neck deep in hot oil, about to explode my guts into a fluffy snack for the gods, words on paper have saved me again and again.

I have said before that writing is a little bit like throwing up. I start by feeling pretty shitty, then very shitty but still fighting it every step of the way and then suddenly next thing I know, I am Naruto running for the bathroom projectile writing all over the wall and into the bath tub, wondering when I had carrots.

And this, people, is my latest word vomit.

May my writing moth never get crushed in my fist as I sprint for whatever shiny goal I see on the horizon next.

Feed Me, Seymore!

 

When I Was About 12 or 13, I Woke Up One Day and I Had Hips

Well, I had stretch marks on my hips—ergo, there must have been hips. Suddenly and without warning.

I hated them with a fiery passion. They made my clothes fit differently, jeans became more difficult to close, and I felt distinctly pear-shaped when I looked in the mirror.

My boobs never really came in (see previous blog post about boobs), which was a shame because, in all the knowledge I had acquired about "becoming a woman," I was looking forward to the boobs the most.

In fact, my only two understandings of "becoming a woman" were: developing boobs and getting your period. Neither of which had happened at the time my hips decided to make their grand entrance.

Folks, this was the day I first uttered the immortal words that all women know so well and are constantly muttering under their breaths like a mantra: "Omg, I am fat."

And thus began the lifelong struggle of diet and exercise.

Would you like to know what I did? Of course you do, if you’re still reading this!

I gathered information—what kinds of food are good for my body but don’t contribute to me getting fat(ter).

I found out in biology class that milk contains every single vitamin and mineral the body needs. Unfortunately, it’s also high in fat, and fat allegedly makes you fat (as suggested by the saying, You are what you eat).

Therefore, skim milk must be the answer.

I’m pretty sure the rest of my dietary knowledge came from Oprah.

Fibre = good.

Fat = Satan.

Sugar = probably not good.

Starch = definitely not great.

Anything green and disgusting = extremely good.

My meal plan soon looked like this:

Breakfast: A cup of All-Bran flakes with some skim milk

Lunch: Two dry Provitas and a diet shake (that tasted the way hamster shavings smell)

Dinner: A cup of fat-free (but sweetened) yogurt and an apple

I also had a daily, hour-long strenuous exercise routine that I did seven days a week, no exceptions.

This involved 40 minutes of high-energy cardio, 20 minutes of resistance training, followed by another 25 minutes of stretching—forcing my legs so far apart I could basically do the splits against a wall.

What in the damn hell was going on in my head at the time? What could possibly have driven me to such extreme but, let’s be honest, admirable dedication?

I will tell you.

A boy.

Of course.

Well, not really the boy, but the boy was a symbol of all the other living beings in the world I wanted to like and accept me for who I am.

This particular boy was the first of his kind, which makes him kind of special.

I met him at a party when I was about 16 and for the first time in my life, zit free (thank you Roaccutane). He was a year younger than me. We danced together—and not the awkward, straight-up, hands-on-hips kind either. I pressed myself right up against him, flung my arms around his neck, and he swung me around until my legs went flying out, all that held me up were his arms around my waist.

He asked if I wanted a sweet, and when I said yes, he leaned closer, gently pressed his lips to mine, and pushed the sugu (purple grape) he was sucking on into my mouth with his tongue.

Granted, it wasn’t my first kiss, but it was a whole lot sweeter—and less weird and terrifying. (The first was an older English boy at a party the year before, and I’d immediately thought of sucker fish when he kissed me. Couldn’t wait to get out.)

Though I hadn’t noticed this boy before—hadn’t had a crush or even a conversation with him—we clicked, and I suddenly found myself really liking him.

I was mortified that he was younger than me. In high school, a one-year age gap might as well be a decade. I’d become the high school equivalent of a cougar.

Still, I said yes when he called a few days later and asked if I wanted to "hang out" at an internet café.

We soon started spending hours talking on the phone.

And oh, how lucky I feel to have experienced the old Telkom situation—no cellphones yet, no WhatsApp. We made appointments: I’ll phone you at 19:00.

We’d chat while I baked peanut butter cookies for Veld School, doodled in my English book, or sewed buttons back onto my school uniform—all with the phone pinched between my ear and shoulder. Hence, the permanent crick in my neck.

One night, he admitted to having a longtime crush on someone else and said he’d still date her if she showed any interest.

I asked why.

He said: “Because she’s beautiful.”

Hesitantly, I asked, “Do you think I’m beautiful?”

He replied, “Not beautiful, no… but cute.”

By that time, I had been taught that the definition of cute was, in fact, “ugly but f*ckable,” which was not the look I was going for.

Did my hideous hips and stretch marks paint me in this horrible, mediocre light? Surely, yes.

Surely, if I could get rid of them, I might stand a better chance against little Miss "Beautiful". And maybe, just maybe, I could feel less awful in my own skin.

Now please understand, up until that point in my life, I hadn’t been particularly preoccupied with food—but I had always really, really enjoyed it.

I loved reading comic books as a kid and would crave whatever the characters were eating:

Obelix and his wild boar, Jughead and his cheeseburgers—even Casper the Friendly Ghost once baked fresh fish over a fire and ate it (and only now at 42 am I questioning the logic of a fish-eating ghost).

I spent lazy afternoons with my best friend, nibbling on O’Grady chips and blocks of milk chocolate, reading comic books and Sweet Valley novels, or watching Highlander until we could quote it by heart.

On holidays, my dad and I would scope out the best fish and chips place and bring home a greasy bag of slap chips to devour in front of the TV.

Food was fabulous.

But had I been wrong about it all along?

Had food been plotting against me all this time—waiting until puberty to betray me?

At 42, as someone who has had her fair share of difficulty with addictions, I can say this one seems to have taken up the most time.

And at my age, time feels like the most precious commodity of all.

One of the first things an addict does when she decides to change her life is make rules.

No sugar during the week.

Only starch on Saturdays.

Cake only at birthdays.

The second thing she does? Fail spectacularly at all of them.

Maybe not right away.

Sometimes, I’d last months.

But eventually, I’d always come crashing down—into a heap of confectionery, covered in chip crumbs.

I tried the soup diet.

Then Atkins.

Then Banting.

Then carnivore.

I once survived university on viennas and red wine. (Didn’t work so well the last time I tried it.)

I’m currently on the “Eat Whatever You Want As Long As You Loathe Yourself Afterwards” diet.

Very effective—if your goal is self-loathing. It includes regular belly-fat poking and verbal self-abuse.

The most visibly effective diet I ever tried?

Having two kids and breastfeeding all hours of the day and night for 5 consecutive years. I could eat whatever I wanted and as much of it as I wanted and I did, with gusto. I was ravenous and had an intense sweet tooth and raised many an eyebrow at braais when my kids would leave me alone for a few minutes and I would inhale a heaped plate of food and demand pudding before swallowing my last mouthful and still I was thin as a beanpole.

A very extremely challenging diet, though, might I add. Perhaps you should consider the 28 day diet, rather?

#BlessedThough #MyEverything

The second most effective diet I have ever been on was the all meat carnivore diet. What I learned very quickly on the carnivore diet is that being thin did not make me happy. Which was a huge shock because all my life I have believed that if only I could have the perfect body, everything else would just fall into place and life would be grand.

After 2 weeks of only eating meat, eggs and cheese my body was as near perfect as it has ever been and I felt miserable. All I wanted was a sandwich. And chips and chocolate and cake and soda and croissants and burgers and pizza and fettuccini alfredo with extra parmesan.

A very wise and annoying part of me realised that it wasn't so much the food I wanted but rather the hiding away in a dark room, preferably in bed, with Netflix and surrounded by highly processed carbs. I want to while away the time, numbed out by sugar, so I don't have to do anything scary, go anywhere risky or meet anyone that might hurt or reject me.

Of course, I literally can't stay in bed all day every day so I end up doing things, going places and meeting people anyway, except now I go there very aware of the fact that I had a whole bag of pink and white peanuts earlier and that I might need to, at some point in the near future, use the restroom or at the very least *ahem* pass some gas.

Why, body, why must you be so...animalistic at times?

According to Geneen Roth, author of Women, Food and God, we double our pain when we eat emotionally, because we not only don't treat the actual problem which is a kind of spiritual hunger rather than a physical hunger, but we compound our existing problems with the added problem of feeling like an out of control, gross, overweight glutton.

If I was scared of being rejected by society before, how much more afraid should I be now that I am *shudder* fat?

After the latest stint on a diet I stripped my moer, as we say in Afrikaans, and decided to follow the guidelines set forth in Women, Food and God.

The most difficult of these I find to be the eating without distractions because when my kids are home there is no such thing, I'm literally eating while sprinting between tasks. On the other hand when I am by myself during the day when they are at school and I don't have work, I desperately want to eat watching tv or reading a book. The two go together like that song in Grease (we go together like ramalamadama gedinkygedinkydonk or whatever).

I did however give it a fair shot and ended up really enjoying every meal I ate, kind of automatically leveled out on portions and seemed to forget about eating for a few hours every day, which is like magic to me. It didn't last very long but I aim to get back to there soon...as soon as I finish the chocolate cake I have in the fridge. That thing is best paired with an episode of Seinfeld, I find.

Anyway, what am I really trying to say?

I have no idea but I am busy listening to Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now and will hopefully soon find the answers within.

Until then, peace out.

The day God slid into my dm's

Back in 2012, my best friend had a new boyfriend. Bizarrely he was the first of two men she met on the internet who had only one leg.

The evening started out pretty chilled, sitting around drinking beer and making small talk but somewhere along the line things took a nasty turn and I found myself on my feet, him on his foot, face to face in a nasty battle of shouting.

I can't remember his name but I will never forget how tall he was, towering over me, spittle flying from his lips as he swore at me.

I was behaving just like the maltese poodle we had when I was growing up; she would charge at cars and try to bite their wheels as they careened past at break neck speeds. This is incidentally how she met her eventual end, poor Moppie.

Marius! That was his name. We called him VoldeMarius afterwards because just saying his name felt wrong.

I had just met Marius that night and already he had made a very bad impression on me. The way he drank (rich coming from me who also drank like a fish and used drugs at the time, of course), the manner in which he addressed my friend, the way he kind of leered at me with a mixture of lust, hatred and fear.

Writing this today I can't for the life of me remember how the fight started but I do remember standing there with my face upturned to look him dead in the eye and simply refusing to give in to the fear of him possibly swinging his crutch at my head and taking it clean off.

He was really mad and really drunk and well I guess so was I.

The fight was about my friend somehow but she seemed awfully Switzerland in the whole situation, puttering around, fixing pillows and taking empties back to the kitchen. Probably just keeping an eye to know when to phone the police/an ambulance or a taxi.

Either way, this screaming fight between me and Marius may have lasted anywhere between 10 minutes and an hour but when I finally flew out of there in a fit of rage and hurt, it was around 03:00 in the morning.

I had to drive all the way from Wonderboom to Moreleta Park, zinging from adrenaline and under all kinds of other (self-administered) influences.

When I got home I was furious and felt all alone in the world. I raged at the way men ruled the planet and if you are a single girl you just get swept up in the manness of it all and if you wanted any hope of keeping your head above water, you needed a man by your side that could be your champion. Well I did not want a man and resented the fact that I needed a champion.

I sommer decided to scream at God a little because where was He all night while Marius was ripping me a new one.

(Probably saving me from getting my head bent by a crutch, in hindsight.)

I cried and yelled at the unfair, uncaring air around me, alone in my bedroom until finally the sun came up and I was left feeling very very tired and close to being overcome by despair.

A thought occurred to me. I wanted more than just "a feeling" from God. I wanted an answer, concrete and resolute. 

I got up and went to my extremely dusty bookshelf and whipped out my super dusty Bible and did something no one should ever do, unless you enjoy coming upon a phrase in the Bible condemning you to eternal suffering, etc... I flipped it open randomly and placed my finger on a point on the page. 

I noticed with dismay that it was the Old Testament. Gosh, this was going to be brutal. 

It was Isaiah 54 verse 5 to 8 and it said: (please note that I am paraphrasing here)

"You, deeply sad and slightly unhinged woman without a husband, I will be your husband just please quit crying and screaming.

Yes I was pretty pissed at you for doing all them drugs and alcohol and marrying the wrong person, making a promise and then divorcing him and gaaning on and for a little while there I didn't want to see or talk to you but now I'm back and will never leave you again. Mkay? Will you please calm the fudge down now?"

I sat there absolutely stunned, my mouth hanging slightly open, unable to comprehend what had just happened.

Had God just spoken to me, directly, almost like a WhatsApp message but through a book written over 2000 years ago?

Throughout the years this experience has kept me coming back to faith, even when at times I felt like I was the only living being in the whole universe, even with people around me.

I jealously guarded it and told almost nobody for fear of them rendering it meaningless in their cynicism, but today I suddenly felt moved to write it down and publish it to the internet.

Enjoy!