Nocturnal Wenchy

Dear friends and other interesting creatures,

• I’m addicted to social media. I could tell you that it is evil, but I’ve met most of you here… evil buggers you are, ain’t ya?

• I love #ourtribe. These are the family I chose for myself.
• I did meet most of you either via my blog, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
• Yes, some of you are stalkers. I allow for your shady parts, allow for mine. (You know I love a good stalk in the morning!)
• Sorry guys I’m not on Grinder. 😛
• I like pretty nails, pedicures and proper hair, fantastic facial products and quality make up. I like being a girl.
• Perfume. Necessary luxury.
• Exfoliating is imperative.
• Explaining yourself isn’t. Say “no“.
• I like men being men, and doing men stuff.
• I love acoustic music. Unplug my heart.
• I sing a wee bit, and while I played the piano during primary school and desperately wanted to learn to play the guitar when my kids were young, my small hands laughed. Some buggers even pointed. Assholes.
• I will, and have used my last cents to buy books. It feeds my soul. I wish I had a large credit on Takealot. So many 📚! Books!  #LeSigh
• Sunflowers and yellow roses are my favourite. For some reason I cannot stand a carnation. I don’t know why.
• I applaud my Mammie Yvonne who somehow equipped me to appreciate and love my own company. Perhaps I was just always kinda kick ass?
• That said, she says the first day of Nursery School, I took me brown suitcase, kissed her goodbye and walked into school without looking back. As a mom, I would have cried Jewish mother, rejection tears.
• Same cannot be said for High School. I cried! The ballerinas were scary. I never saw them eat. Superpowers.
• I remember going to the Alhambra Theatre in Doornfontein on my own by the time I was 15.
• The first time I felt myself worshipping at the alter that is the stage, adoration as I watched and listening to Kate Normington. I can’t remember the show. We are friends on Facebook. This blows my mind.
• I saw “A handful of keys” at the Alhambra in September 1994 with Ian Von Memerty and Brian Schimmel. I was 20 years old.
• They both greet me by name these days. My admiration is huge. I can’t even! ♡
• That show has grown with me over the past TWENTY YEARS. I cried during the anniversary performance. Proper. Loud. Then again, is there anything I do silently?
• Btw, that is the one show I have seen with all three my husbands.
• Stop laughing.
• Wasn’t Elizabeth Taylor just gorgeous in Black Beauty?
• Always being the bride and never the bridesmaid, was not something I planned, hoped for, or aspired to. I’m not totally mental.
• I merely married everyone I had seriously dated. When I was young you did not live together, you were not on “apro” – you got married.
• You do not know my reasons for the beginning, nor end of these marriages.
• Count your blessings, you may not have been as strong as I have had to be. (My sister in law, M – from my 2nd marriage – said this to me recently and it did help the part of me who deals with my public failings by joking around.)
• Contrary to how it would appear at a mere glance, I take relationships, friendships and marriage hugely seriously. It is easier to jest, than howl in public. Neither is beyond me however.
• I do not believe that anyone gives you a gold star, a trophy of sorts, a long service award with perhaps a pen…  for having stayed married all your life, while desperately unhappy, contemplating drowning yourself in the tub at every available opportunity. We have a water shortage people.
• Life happens. People change. Priorities shift. It isn’t negative necessarily, it’s a devastating reality. It is uncomfortable, sore… but no birth is without pain.
• What I needed in my 20’s, or 30’s are very different to what I need in my 40’s.
• Be alive with possibilities. A desire to live life to the fullest. Breathe deeply and kiss passionately for no reason at all.
• Just not random people.  Do not say I told you to go around fondling strangers.
• Take every opportunity to enjoy people, places, experiences (foreign or domestic… like my husbands), be it an exquisitely indulgent Chef’s Table, or rustic baked bread and butter.
• Taste it, let it linger, for it shall not come this way, in this manner, ever again.
• No. Guarantees. None.
• No. Security. None.
• Music. Listen until you understand, regardless if you speak the language. Music transcend all details. Hear it with all your senses engaged. My Liam James taught me that.
• Children eventually leave home. They make their own lives. If you lucky they call!
• Extended family dynamics are forever changing. Do not live for their approval.
• Are you happy with who you are with, and what you are thinking at 3am? This is important.
• View everyday life, the mundane and mediocre, with childlike wonder. Yes my child. Water flows from this tap. It is not so in other parts of the world.
• Hold hands, but let there be spaces in your togetherness.
• Laugh. Dream. Hope. Believe.
• Love abundantly, as if it is never going to hurt. There is no other true North.

To be vulnerable, is to be alive. Seize it. Own it. Be authentic. You will be dead and gone soon enough. Live!

There are no promises. This joy, this dance, this song, this feeling… may not cross your path again. Dance. Embrace. Celebrate!

I wish you enough

Wenchy