The List: 10 days in

The Mary Oliver anthology arrived today thanks to the miracle of Amazon, and it took every ounce of my self-control to focus on the website copy I was trying to rework instead of buring my face in Oliver’s clean, sparse verse. There’s nothing like cracking the spine of a pristine book, especially a hard cover, and inhaling the scent of paper and ink; nothing like the anticipation of taking in all of those words and savouring each one — instead of generating them yourself, to someone else’s marching orders.

The anthology’s arrival means that item 36 on my list of 50 things is half-done. And since I unexpectedly wrote a poem last week (item 22), that makes it 48.5 more things to go! (The poem just kind of arrived — I don’t often write poetry, so that was a pleasant surprise.)

What I’ve loved about writing and sharing this list, is the sense of energy and connection that it generated. So many of my friends have said, “Count me in!” or “I can help!” and so many people have said they’re inspired to do their own list, and when I think of that, it really warms my heart.

It’s been a helpful thing for me too — I love nothing more than a long list of tasks to conquer, so this has really lit a fire under me. It’s completely broken me out of the work, parent, work, parent, work, parent cycle. Just weeks ago I was lamenting the fact that I don’t have any fun anymore, and that part of the problem was that I couldn’t even decide what constituted fun. I don’t have that problem anymore. This feels like a whole lot fun to me. There is also a mild sense of panic, if I’m honest, but mostly, I’m excited, and determined to give it my best possible shot.

What I have realised, is that I need a strategy. The list was compiled in a very random fashion, and I have tackled it rather haphazardly. Some of the tasks are quick and easy to organise, others will need a long, sustained effort — and some a miracle!

Since I published the list, I’ve worked on the tapestry and blanket squares, learnt the ‘Stand By Me’ bassline (but only practised it once), planned a day for the maze, enquired about the fabric tour, and started re-learning ‘The Listeners’.

Oh! I also  booked myself in for the next Writer’s Round, which means that towards the end of April I will be singing two of my songs to a bunch of strangers, including ACTUAL, REAL SONGWRITERS and I am frankly terrified. Plus I’ve decided to transpose one of them, which means a whole lot of practice that I have to fit in.

And then there’s that task of re-learning ‘Maple Leaf Rag’, which is a b*tch of a piece when you’re good at sight reading, which I am most decidedly not. (Any piano teachers want to volunteer to teach me? *bats eyelashes beguilingly*)

So I’m making a checklist to put up somewhere in my house, to keep track, so I don’t forget everything I want to do. Then I’m going to start with all of those items that fit into the basic first rule of time management, which is to start with items or first steps that will take five minutes or less, and get them ticked off. And then I need to set myself a little timetable for the evenings that includes bass and piano practice, needlework, Xhosa study and memorisation. Oh, and then there is that bad first draft of a novel thing. And the flash mob. WHAT WAS I THINKING?!

As the cool kids say, it’s a lot. But in an entirely good way. Apart from anything else, I think I’ve set myself up for a whole lot of laughter (mostly at myself), and why not? The older I get, the more I am inclined to think that we take life — and ourselves — far too seriously, and this seems set to remedy that for me.

 

 

Frail flesh

You do not understand
What it is to be frail
Till you have seen a man felled in mere months
By wear and tear,
By the passing of years,
By the failing of the flesh that bears him.

To see that once-strong oak
Now prone, its roots exposed,
Brittle, rattling,
Its leaves and bark
A breezy tremor:
This is what it means to be human.

Frail flesh.
Bedridden.
The last ride on a rollercoaster
Where the screams are silent
In the slack-jawed sleep
Of those who linger here.
Translucent with transition,
They are skin and bone and stories.

Frail, frail flesh.
Too soon it fails.
While we rail against our helplessness
And theirs,
Fists pressed to our mouths
At how easily we crumble,
How quick our descent to dust.

Death loiters in the hallway ‒
Outside that other room for now.
But soon, too soon, not soon enough,
It will enter here
And release the spirit this body betrayed,
Set free the mind it could never contain.

One eye on the clock
We watch the seconds slip away.
Frail. Fragile. Finite. Fearful.

And we can sit and watch that metronome of mortality,
One step closer to the shuffling queue
In this inexorable waiting room.
Or we can step outside, into the waiting world,
Forge forward,
And live.

© Mandy Collins 2019

One year, 50 things

This is a big year for me – or so it feels. In a few short months I turn 50, and given that I don’t really feel much older than 16 on the inside, I’ve not been coping well with the concept of those extra 34 years.

I didn’t really fancy a party – partly because I’m tired of organising my own parties, cooking all the food, baking the birthday cake and cleaning up afterwards (feel free to play a tiny violin at this point).

But I did want to mark it in some way, and my friend Cindy gave me a great idea – to try and do 50 random things that appeal to me. So here’s my list, before I chicken out. And I’m giving myself a year, which means the deadline is 31 March 2020. And it seems apt, somehow, that I’m posting this on April 1. Snort.

Some of these feel very big and scary to me, but I figure I might as well go big, or go home, as the saying goes. I’ll keep you posted as I go!

1. Do an easy day hike/walk with friends in a local reserve.
2. Give R500 to Natasha Joseph’s RU student assistance fund.
3. Go geo-caching – do people still do that?
4. Go canoeing at Emmarentia.
5. Try horse riding (I’m scared of horses).
6. Re-teach myself isiXhosa – up to the end of my Std. 7 book at least.
7. Learn all of Africa’s countries and capitals and be able to identify the countries on the map.
8. Make a sourdough starter and bake a successful loaf of sourdough bread.
9. Organise a travelling supper.
10. Participate in a Book Dash event.
11. Self publish my first novel.
12. Finish a bad first draft of one of the three novels I’ve started. Ahem.
13. Write a new song.
14. Perform two songs at one of Alexandra May’s Writer’s Rounds.
15. Read one work of Proper Literature/Classic. (I am not much of a classical reader.)
16. Participate in a flash mob.
17. Give a TED /TEDx talk.
18. Paint something at Artjamming and hang it in the house. (I can barely draw a stick figure, so please be kind if you visit.)
19. Try to scale one of those scary climbing walls.
20. Do the maze at Honeydew Mazes.
21. Walk a labyrinth.
22. Write a poem.
23. Learn to make lasagne properly! (Other people say mine are good, but they don’t live up to what I want them to taste like.)
24. Go salsa dancing.
25. Jog around the block without walking once.
26. Visit my BFF.
27. Do the bike tour of Joburg.
28. Do the African fabric tour of Joburg.
29. Sew myself a garment of some sort.
30. Embroider something with a sweary epithet.
31. Finish the tapestry I’ve been working on for years.
32. Ditto the pink patchwork quilt.
33. And the blanket I’m knitting.
34. Volunteer at a Saturday soup kitchen.
35. Invite chef Lesego Semenya for dinner. (I promised him I would.)
36. Acquire and read a Mary Oliver anthology.
37. Re-memorise ‘The Listeners’ by Walter de la Mare.
38. Re-memorise ‘Dulce et decorum est’ by Wilfred Owen.
39. Memorise Auden’s ‘Lullaby’.
40. Memorise Dahl’s ‘Cinderella’.
41. Learn a new skill by watching YouTube.
42. Learn the penny whistle solo from ‘Special Star‘ (Eep. I just listened to it again – it might have to be a slightly simplified version.)
43. Learn the whole bass line for ‘Stand By Me’ on the bass guitar.
44. Be able to do at least one full proper push-up (i.e. not on my knees).
45. Learn to play Joplin’s ‘Maple Leaf Rag’ again. (eep)
46. Take a pottery class.
47. Try sparring at boxing (without crying or saying ‘ow’).
48. Teach Nigella Lawson to make lemon meringue (she says it’s her nemesis).
49. Try my hand at archery.
50. Learn how to spin sugar.