There was rain today
And crystal blue was hidden by a cloudy gray
A sudden shower come to chase the sun away
Occasional rain

– Terry Callier

~

The rain was, in fact, not so occasional. There was lots of it. Not today, but earlier this week. For two days, our city and province were lashed by a torrid storm. Amid “severe weather warnings”, schools being closed and companies being urged to allow their employees to work remotely, homes were flooded, roofs were ripped off houses and whole communities devastated. Trees shed big branches. Some toppled over completely. According to a statement issued by the City of Cape Town, they were called out to attend to more than 1 100 cases of fallen trees.

Around the province, such incidents resulted in the death of at least three people.

In the wake of the storm, the official count of people who had lost their lives as a result of the violent weather stood at 10. Close to ninety thousand were displaced, many of them in the city’s informal settlements.

Traditional and social media posts highlighted how differently communities around the city and province experienced the storm. While young people surfed and sailed in flooded roads in some areas, others sat perched atop the roof of their rickety homes, waiting for redemption as rescuers raced toward them in bright yellow dinghies.

The 23 people on those roofs had been in that precarious position since the night before.

Damn the weatherman
He seems to work against me any way he can
And he's been dealing tear-drops since the world began
And occasional pain

~~

When I sat down to write this, my intention had been to reflect on returning to an old walking spot after having been gone for months… perhaps a pic or two of broken branches snapped by the storm. A video of the roaring river. Maybe a celebration of the fellow walkers who welcomed me back.

Instead my heart tugged me in the direction of gratitude.

On Monday morning as the storm raged, I had driven the national road in the direction of Stellenbosch to get to my students. I arrived safely. And despite lashing wind and rains on the way back, that evening I was safely home, huddled in bed with my little family of dogs and Husband.

Around the same time, others were seeking refuge in the homes of neighbours and friends. In community halls and churches. Dressed in still-drenched clothing. Lining up for bread and blankets.

The next day offered them no silver lining. The rain was relentless.

And then from Wednesday the sky cleared, the sun shone as if nothing had happened. Like a violent lover whose anger cycled unpredictably.

And blue you, don't believe I'm talking to you
The light is shining through you - still you will not see
Blue you - think I'm trying to undo you
When I only want to seek the Truth
And speak true

~~

As we walked on Friday morning – me, my neighbour and our three dogs – I counted my blessings as my Garmin counted my steps and beeped to mark the completion of another kilometre.

How inconsequential such metrics suddenly seemed as I found myself on the other side of a storm and realised how lucky I was to be there.

I can't tell you when
But someday soon we'll see the sun re-born again
And there'll be light without as well as light within
And occasional rain

In this Paws for Thought series I share thoughts and images gathered during my walks with my favourite girls Skyy Dogg and Swayze. Today the words of Occasional Rain by the inimitable Terry Callier were swirling around my head, so I dared to share this post with him.

I invite you to come by and stop here for a rest every now and then.

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When I was a journalism intern at a mainstream regional newspaper, I often got sent out on assignment with one particular(ly) seasoned photographer. Had he been a sailor, you might call him salty. He had the skin of a man who spent too much time out at sea. Too much time out in the sun. In another life he had been a soldier. A white man who had served a government which devised a system of laws which had brutalised my people, black and brown.

Looking back with an adult’s eyes and a more experienced heart, I feel conflicted that I learned so much from him about telling stories – with words and with pictures.

One day we were sent out to do a story about some students who had done some thing that was somehow ahmayyyzing. Blah blah, I thought. So what? Still, he climbed up high. He got down low and snapped away with his Nikon-whatever-model he had at the time. No matter how ordinary a story might seem, its accompanying picture didn’t have to be, he said.

It’s all about perspective, he told me. And one way to change your perspective when taking a photo, is to change your physical position.

Perspective
per·​spec·​tive (noun)
a particular attitude towards or way of regarding something; a point of view.

Change your point of view.

ClimbuphighGetdownlow.

Get.

Uncomfortable.

Step to the side. Look around you.

Let your subjects’ bodies tell a story. Don’t tell them to smile. Make them. Smile.

I recently read that most photos taken with cellphones look very similar because most people adopt pretty much the same physical position when photographing a scene with their handy little do-it-all. Close your eyes and picture it. You whip out your phone and hold it at about chest height. And snap snap snap. Or you whip out your phone, flip to the front camera. Arm out at five past one. And snap snap selfie-snap.

So, recently I’ve been making a conscious decision to change my perspective – both physically, intellectually … and even emotionally … I’ve been trying to look at the world with new eyes – my own and the camera’s. To really appreciate the beauty of the physical. To appreciate how sunlight can turn a drop of water into a jewel … the contradiction of the heavy smog that hangs over our city birthing a striking red sunrise. How tripping and falling brings me closer to the ground where the tiniest of creatures are crossing vast expanses of gravel.

I close my eyes and blink away a tear born from the shock of the tumble.

And in that moment I see the world through a different lens.

In this Paws for Thought series I share thoughts and images gathered during my walks with my favourite girls Skyy Dogg and Swayze – and sometimes The Husband. Today I snuck in a pic taken at home, after our walk ;)

I invite you to come by and stop here for a rest every now and then.

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What a strange feeling, I thought, not to write on a Monday. Or Tuesday. Or Wednesday. Or Thursday, Friday, Saturday. What a strange feeling to slip into a routine… to try it on for size… like it and then wear it every day.

And then not.

What a strange feeling to commit to something. To honour that commitment.

And then not.

What a strange feeling to fall in love with something.

And then to force yourself to leave it.

What is this, you ask? A challenge? Torture? A form of self flagellation?

Or is it an education in remaining unattached? Of not growing attached to something. Or someone. The learning to let go. And to accept that.

In yoga it’s one of the yamas. Aparigraha. Yamas are ethical principals.

I remind myself that I may be taking this too literally.

But just as we have to let the breath go, so too do some things in our life have to move forward without us.

Three weeks ago when I started this Paws for Thought series, the idea was to write and post words and pictures from my morning walks – every day. To reflect. To share. To settle into a rhythm – of walking, reflecting, writing, sharing.

Walking. Reflecting. Writing. Sharing.

walking reflecting writing sharing

walkingreflectingwritingsharing

Walking.

Reflecting.

Writing.

Sharing.

Walking.

Reflecting.

Writing.

Sharing.

And then I started thinking.

I thought about whether I should change my route. I thought hard about which pictures to take, how to take them … and if they’d be different enough from those I had taken the previous day. I thought about clever things to say and write. To make myself sound smarter, deeper. To take pictures that made me seem more creative. To make it seem that my eye saw much deeper than the surface.

To imagine that I tasted philosophy in everything… felt the drama of every piece of fynbos that was moved by the wind.

Well, that didn’t last long, I scolded myself as I decided to switch to weekly posting. To give myself more time for reflection, I reasoned. More time for writing. More time to prepare for sharing.

Still, by the end of the week I had simply walked, reflected, written, shared.

I had settled into walking, reflecting, writing, sharing.

Just with a new rhythm.

A bit like dancing with time.

In this Paws for Thought series I share thoughts and images gathered during my walks with my favourite girls Skyy Dogg and Swayze – and sometimes The Husband.

I invite you to come by and stop here for a rest every now and then.

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A reflection on the past week brought about the overwhelming sense that it was defined by a feeling of reconnection. A return to connection with old colleagues, old friends and a reimagining of old experiences.

Merriam-Webster defines reconnection as “the act or result of restoring a connection; the state of being reconnected”. An act or a state of being. But what does it feel like?

To me, it felt like familiarity, trust and a kind of ease that allowed me to melt into conversation without worrying what to say and how to say it. It’s about being in step with someone… understanding how their body moves and in which direction their thoughts might wonder.

For me it also felt like the smoothness of a pen between my fingers, as they guided my words to reconnection with the page… or my hands, gliding across a keyboard and back into the waters of daily writing.

I write to connect. And I write to reconnect. With story. And with the feeling of my body guiding the the telling of that story.

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I needed a prompt today. One to stir from sleep. And another to sit down and write this post. But not even the prompts would come. They felt stuck in the soles of my feet. Trampled on and left as footprints in the orange clay of the forest. The words felt washed away by the flowing river the the girl-dogs drank from.

And they felt lodged in my throat that refused to speak.

Today we will get another dog. But only for a week her spirit will spread like butter through our household. Our girls will bounce when they see her. And she will revel in the space she has to run free on our greener than green lawn.

I will watch. Silently hoping that I won’t have to scold her for digging in the sand.

You will see her. Here. I’m sure.

In this Paws for Thought series I share thoughts and images gathered during my walks with my favourite girls Skyy Dogg and Swayze – and sometimes The Husband.

I invite you to come by and stop here for a rest every now and then.

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Day breaks
And I hurry to gather its scattered pieces
Before you wake

In this Paws for Thought series I share thoughts and images gathered during my walks with my favourite girls Skyy Dogg and Swayze – and sometimes The Husband.

I invite you to come by and stop here for a rest every now and then.

psst. turn up your volume

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sun on your silence

break the rules
set the sun
on your silence
hold my hand as you
pray
let me rise in your heart
as the dawn breaks the day

In this Paws for Thought series I share thoughts and images gathered during my walks with my favourite girls Skyy Dogg and Swayze – and sometimes The Husband.

I invite you to come by and stop here for a rest every now and then.

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i write as it rains

…and who will write about the
never ending winter we had that year
the rains that rumbled from the sky
the cold that made homes 
in our bones as we
busied ourselves 
burying buckets we had caught water in 
during a drought
packing away masks we had worn
to stem a plague and 
blowing kisses at candles we had lit
in the night

1

In this Paws for Thought series I share thoughts and images gathered during my walks with my favourite girls Skyy Dogg and Swayze – and sometimes The Husband.

I invite you to come by and stop here for a rest every now and then.

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               Break the rules
Be bold as the sun
        That declares day 
                 With a single ray of light

In this Paws for Thought series I share thoughts and images gathered during my walks with my favourite girls Skyy Dogg and Swayze – and sometimes The Husband.

I invite you to come by and stop here for a rest every now and then.

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“I think that’s probably the real reason I go to the graveyard. I’m not afraid of seeing ghosts. I think I’m really looking for ghosts. I want to see them. I’m looking for anything to prove that when I drop dead there’s a chance I’ll be doing something a little more exciting than decaying.”

― Paul Zindel, The Pigman

As a child, I read voraciously. And when my friends and I read the works of Paul Zindel, we felt like rebels. We felt like we were getting a little glimpse into the (teenage) lives which lay ahead of us … getting to be part of conversations we couldn’t yet have with the adults around us … we felt like someone out there understood the feelings we thought only we were feeling.

Years later when I re-read some of my favourite childhood books, I was reminded of what a rebellious act writing can be, and the incredible art that the best writers of young adult fiction are gifted with – the ability to write for youngsters without sounding like they’re writing for youngsters. To write for young people, with the life experience and insight of an adult, but without patronising the intended reader.

The reflection by the character John Conlan, quoted above, serves as a reminder that many of us just want to know that we have purpose … and that our purpose can be exciting and fulfilling. What a powerful thing to impart to a person of any age.

***

I collate this collection of last week’s post as a pause from work during a busy day. For now, that is my purpose.

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The dogs were restless this morning. We had left them alone on Friday night. And we hadn’t taken them out walking all weekend.

Today. Just after sunrise, I pulled up to our usual spot, unlocked the door.

“Go!” I said. “Straight on to the pavement!”

They waited for me to undo the backseat hammock. And as they leapt out of the car, pent-up energy spilled all over the road. They pee’d it all over the grass. Pooped it into hidden corners away from the path.

Howled it at the rising sun.

They sniffed in the mud. Rubbed their necks through some stench in the sand. Funny that… I have a bag full of treats on my hip but these dogs think they’re getting ready to hunt. Trying to disguise their scent.

In this Paws for Thought series I share thoughts and images gathered during my walks with my favourite girls Skyy Dogg and Swayze – and sometimes The Husband.

I invite you to come by and stop here for a rest every now and then.

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When people come to my yoga studio, they are often overcome by the peace that exists in my garden. The birds. The fynbos. The flowers. The green lawn. And even the struggling veggie patch.

The Husband once joked that it may be the Yves Klein Blue effect. He knows art. I do not. So maybe it is the greener than green effect of the lawn that overcomes people. Or maybe it’s the fact that in a yard as big as ours we’ve chosen space as opposed to another room. An entertainment area. A cottage to rent out to supplement our income. Maybe it’s the hard work they subconsciously understand goes into controlling nature. Keeping it… neat.

Christopher helps us do that. He helps to keep our garden neat. Helps keep the peace in our outdoor space. And today he helped me select the featured image for this post.

“1 or 2?” I asked him … like an optometrist.

“1,” he said. “That one is beautiful.”

In this Paws for Thought series I share thoughts and images gathered during my walks with my favourite girls Skyy Dogg and Swayze – and sometimes The Husband.

I invite you to come by and stop here for a rest every now and then.

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I take care not to step on the dandelion on the path 
I know too well what it feels like 
to be trampled on, to
have parts of me s c a t t e r e d to the wind

I take care to feed the begging dog, to
greet the woman whose face looks sad, to
help the child who trips over a tree root, to
turn off the tap that's been left drip-dripping

when my body reaches its end, I think
my soul will be taken care of.
I have been good

but as I drive home
two birds 
squabbling over the mess of a dying mouse
do not make it back into the air in time
I hear a clank against the underside of my car

And I know my cycle will have to start all over again.

In this Paws for Thought series I share thoughts and images gathered during my walks with my favourite girls Skyy Dogg and Swayze – and sometimes The Husband.

I invite you to come by and stop here for a rest every now and then.

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This morning’s pace was different. Our pack had an extra member – The Husband – whom I once referred to as The Rarely Spotted Husband, to much amusement, I recall. When the girls and I head out for our walks, he usually stays home. In his routine. To make music. Watch something educational or get stuck into the creation of art.

When we get back home, there’s coffee on the stove. And stories to be told.

But today was different. Today he turned 51 and his birthday wish was a walk with his girls. A pack walk of sorts. Skyy and Swayze picked up on the change in routine.

There was a birthday. There was cake waiting for us in the car. A candle to be blown out with a wish for the coming year.

And beautiful spring flowers sprinkled on the trees like snow.

In this Paws for Thought series I share thoughts and images gathered during my walks with my favourite girls Skyy Dogg and Swayze – and sometimes The Husband.

I invite you to come by and stop here for a rest every now and then.

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I found myself sinking into mud and mess among some reeds as I captured my first photo of the day. A snail moving at it’s own pace… which is to say, of course, slowly… but somehow too fast for me to frame it and immortalise it in a perfect sequence of ones and zeros in the digital forever after.

While there was so much beauty around me – the sunrise, fynbos, abandoned spider webs and yawning arum lillies – I found myself pre-occupied with the amount of shit on the path. Left behind by dogs and horses. And hulking hah-hah-hadedas. I thought about a poem I once wrote. A love poem in which I made reference to shit.

Funny, I thought, how I was able to write about dog shit in a poem about love. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to photograph such mess.

In this Paws for Thought series I share thoughts and images gathered during my walks with my favourite girls Skyy Dogg and Swayze – and sometimes The Husband.

I invite you to come by and stop here for a rest every now and then.

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This morning the moon was still full. And bright. There was no talk of blood or shadows. Not even in whispers. There was no lens long – or wide – enough to capture its presence. And the hooting from the car behind me signalled that there was no time to try either.

Last night, as scores of people flocked to mountains, beaches and other places of beauty, to watch the moon move into the earth’s shadow1, he and I sat hand-in-hand on the couch which had been delivered to my mother’s house on the day I was born… in the backyard of the house his father had been born in more than 80 years ago.

I had recently left my job. Now we were both self-employed.

But somehow we felt rich with generational wealth.

In this Paws for Thought series I share thoughts and images gathered during my walks with my favourite girls Skyy Dogg and Swayze – and sometimes The Husband.

I invite you to come by and stop here for a rest every now and then.

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“Most of what I know about writing I’ve learned through running every day… How much should I be aware of the world outside, and how much should I focus on my inner world? To what extent should I be confident in my abilities, and when should I start doubting myself?”

– Haruki Murakami, What I talk about when I talk about running

When I was young, I wrote fearlessy. I trusted my ideas as they flowed from my head and heart to my hand, transferring to my pen as it sailed effortlessly across the page. I trusted that my words would stand happily together, hand-in-hand; and that fullstops, commas and instinctive pauses would land just where they needed to be. I trusted that what I wrote, would find a willing and accepting reader. A soft place to land.

I was reminded of this kind of fearless – and effortless – writing when recently I looked back at essays I had written for my high school magazine. Opinion pieces about the things that concern young people. Poems about love… the intense kind that easily sets fire to the flammable fibres of a teenage heart. Short stories that mimicked the dark storylines of the novels that made us feel brave to have read them.

As my adult eyes rolled back in my head and I cringed just a little, I reminded myself that one of the unfortunate things about getting older is that we become cynical. And we start worrying too much about what others will think about what we do. As we see more of the world around us and more of the fearless works of others, we may be inspired by these. But we may also start to question our own ability and our own skills.

However, if we are lucky, we may eventually start to care a bit less. Of course I do not mean to imply that care should not be taken of what we write and what we put out into the world. I only mean to caution against being so afraid that we don’t write at all.

For the past few years, I haven’t been giving enough care to the one thing which had been my anchor for much of my life – my writing. And then one day I found myself questioning whether I could even call myself a writer if I spent more time thinking about writing, than actually doing it.

Paws for Thought, a daily reflection on my walks with my dogs, Skyy and Swayze, is my effort to start flexing my writing muscles again – to share the sunrise, the sounds and scenes of nature – and to become more intentional about my photography.

This is a walk-through the past week.

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Leave earlier. Beat the crowds. Park closer to the gate.

Walk. Faster.

How many more rules do we need to enforce on ourselves during these weekend walks, I ask myself?

Then I watch Skyy and Swayze, so content to just walk wherever we take them. And whenever. Bums whipping from side to side. Tails wagging. A stop to sniff, pee or beg for a treat. For a moment they run up the embankment, disappearing far into the trees. And then they’re back. Next to us.

I swear that the words “good girl” in the ears of dogs are “come and get your treats!”

We see the Canadian woman and her Doberman. Our dogs and hers play the same game every week. They bounce at each other. Then there’s a mock chase, a playful growl before they take the obligatory whiff at each other’s bums.

Could life be so simple?

In this Paws for Thought series I share thoughts and images gathered during my walks with my favourite girls Skyy Dogg and Swayze – and sometimes The Husband.

I invite you to come by and stop here for a rest every now and then.

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This morning as I set off for my walk, I challenged myself to take only one picture. To apply the same … discipline … I did when I used film. Consider carefully. And then capture only what you really feel is worth committing to.

Of course, I took many more than one picture. There was so much to take in. So much beauty. So much that was different from yesterday.

And after all, I’m only human. And with that comes a desire to capture and own that beauty.

In this Paws for Thought series I share thoughts, images – and sometimes sounds –gathered during my walks with my favourite girls Skyy Dogg and Swayze.

I invite you to come by and stop here for a rest every now and then.

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As I lean in close to get a better look at the stone, I notice that someone has adorned it with colour. With letters. With numbers. A tribute to Roy and Mary.

I do not know them.

But I wonder – for a moment – if Roy and Mary walked here. Hand in hand. Perhaps they lived in one of the houses overlooking the path.

Perhaps they tripped over the same roots I did. Or stopped their dogs from getting lost in the same overgrowth mine did.

I wonder what Roy did in the two years between Mary’s death. And his. And I wonder if he had someone to hold his hand while he waited to see her again.

In this Paws for Thought series I share thoughts and images gathered during my walks with my favourite girls Skyy Dogg and Swayze.

I invite you to come by and stop here for a rest every now and then.

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