Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

I have the misfortune of living in an apartment above a grouchy pastor who refuses to admit that he is, at heart, a country mouse! There is nothing wrong with being a country mouse... BUT if you want to hang with the city mice, you need to adjust. Full stop.

As my younger brother once said of a clean-freak-less-is-more-chrome-and-concrete home-owner that, when 'welcomed' (I use this term pretty liberally) into his humble abode, you were expected to leave your shoes at the door and "levitate to the nearest couch." This explains my downstairs neighbour who expects an unwavering devotion to, and execution of, levitation from me, this man whom I shall affectionately name THE Country Mouse. At a moment's blink, said Country Mouse will not hesitate in slapping a R500 fine on your unsuspecting back, accompanied by a print-out of the apartment block's 'Rules & Regulations', the 'applicable' sections either highlighted or in a bright red font.

Believing very much that one catches more bees with honey (as They say), I wrote a response to the clearly desperately bah-humbuggered individual... A letter addressed to all the home-owners in the apartment block that I hoped might cure my unChristianly Christian Country Mouse of his acute bah-humbuggery. (Don't laugh. Bah-humbuggery is a very grave medical issue that doesn't get nearly press-coverage!)

Then I thought to myself that since every writer and person of opinion (of which I am if nothing else, at LEAST the latter!), gets their two cents in the Christmas stocking come year end... Why not me too?

So here it is, guys... My own non-religion-specific Chris-/Xmas address to you all... God-fearing or not, I wish you a blooming marvellous time of year and ask of you to be filled with the generosity of spirit our country demands of us, not only now, but always! (Corny, I know, but I'm embracing my inner cornster, so deal.)

To all urban tenants/home-owners

In the spirit of Christmas and goodwill unto others, I would like to raise an issue that I feel quite strongly about. No, I am not on the body corporate, but I don’t feel that should entitle me to any less of an opinion when it comes to a place I consider my home.

Communal living (or ‘apartment block living’ or whatever you would like to call it) can be a wonderful and equally trying way of life. I may not always be thrilled when my neighbours’ child howls in the middle of the night because s/he is teething or has had a frightening nightmare. That said, however, I do get a special kind of delight from hearing that same child chatter and laugh in the morning, through the walls, while I’m whipping up my first cup of coffee. I may also not be thrilled when my neighbours party till all hours of the morning, but unless their music continues to blast unreasonably till 4a.m. and this is a regular weekend occurrence, I see no harm in occasionally bearing with a bad night’s sleep so that they can let their hair down and celebrate whatever occasion it is that got them blasting music in the first place!

A second point is that I am able to appreciate that not everybody has made the same lifestyle choices as me. I am able to appreciate that we live in a country where things are no longer as ‘fixed’ as they once were. In order to be truly democratic, we have entered a time where some of us have to juggle a multitude of jobs in the hope that one of those jobs is something we love doing. Showering at 6a.m. may seem like a perfectly ‘normal’ thing for someone else to do, but I manageress during the evenings so I can write and teach during the day and still pay my bills on time. This means that when I am often getting to bed at 2a.m., someone else has already been asleep 4 hours. When their ‘being awake’ sounds wake me in turn at 6a.m., there are times when I have only had 4 hours of sleep to start with! But again, such is ‘apartment block living’.

I choose Central,  Port Elizabeth, and I choose apartment block living. I choose this African urban environment and I choose to live in South Africa because the vibrancy and the unpredictability excite me. As much as it can seem an inconvenience at times to be in such close proximity to others, I wouldn’t want it any other way. I want to experience the changes and the growth that we are going through as a nation in a manner that is ‘up close and personal’. But this again means I will have to appreciate that everyone’s upbringing and inherent culture may differ from my own and I will have to grow and become flexible within this growing and flexible environment, if I want to be happy in it. A democracy means we have to learn to accommodate each other, love each other, and take each other into consideration and this is often an uncomfortable multi-way process. I hope that we are all ready for the challenge.

On that note, a merry Christmas to all and best wishes for 2012!

Jocelyn

Keleketla! A Great Word... A Necessary Word Even

An independent library and interdiscplinary arts project, Keleketla! Libary and Media Arts was formed in 2008, with the intent of "creating access to the use of arts and media strategies as alternative education models and tools." A colliding point for local and international artists, this is just another initiative South Africans can use to warm their little hearts and cotton socks!!

The name, Keleketla!, is inspired by the Pedi word which, according to their homepage, is "a response to the beginning of a story, something that you say back to the storyteller's 'once upon a time'... an acknowledgement, a consent that, 'I am here, willing to listen to your story with active participation.'"

Of course, it is of little surprise that their slogan encourages a similar spririt of artistic and active engagement with the words: partipication - dialogue - collaboration.

Loving anything to do with libraries and storytelling, I instantly signed up on their website and was extra-elated when I received an email only a few days later asking for a postal address so they might send me some little goodies to thank me for my (free!) membership.

There is that expression: Nothing for nothing these days.

Well, apparently this is one group who haven't heard of it.

I cannot remember the last time I received anything more exciting than a bank statement or Clicks Clubcard voucher in the post, barring the occasional wedding invitation I knew was coming anyway... So thank you, Keleketla!, for the incredible work you do and for my beautiful postcards! And thanks to the collaborative efforts of David Krut Projects, Artist Proof Studio, Pony Pedro, and the artists who gave of their time to develop the super-cool graphic designs!

The bottom left design by Simphiwe Gumede is a personal 'I love!'

Follow the link to read further about the printer's project that inspired these postcards.

Practising what you teach

A second-year English student asked me the other day if there was any advice I could give regarding her studies, and in her aspirations to lecture in the none-too-distant future. Hardly the Dangerous Minds/Akeelah and the Bee moment she might've hoped for, there were a lot of  "um"s from my side. I couldn't think of anything, you know, profound. Or even particularly useful.
     Feeling quite the let-down, I gave the matter more thought.

Amongst the more obvious and practical suggestions, was the suggestion that if she wants to stand in front of a lecture hall full of students at a South African university, she might take the time to invest in local literature as well.

When I look out at a lecture hall, the faces before me are of many hues and from many backgrounds. Understanding the complexity of this country's make-up, of the grossly divergent states-of-being that were enforced within one country, is fundamental for the task.

I'll always remember once, while teaching African Literature to first years, I asked a top student which of the books had been her favourite. It was Zakes Mda's Ways of Dying. She had enjoyed it most because what Mda had written resonated with the world she knew. There is a scene in which Toloki, a self-made Professional Mourner, visits a furniture chain-store for their catalogues. Toloki, with the help of his heart's fondness, Noria, uses these old catalogues to decorate the walls of their newly-built shack and home. Intended as a gift for Noria, the reader is asked to suspend their disbelief when this action momentarily transforms the space they share as if by magic, perhaps by the magic of love. The student told me that she used to do the same with her sister, covering the bedroom walls of their shack-home in similar fashion.

This young, bright woman had floored me, and for reasons I can't say I entirely understand. I had been aware that she was the first in her highschool to attend a university. I also knew that her high grades and hardwork had afforded her the opportunity she deserved, with a bursary that covered all her studies expenses. But it's in the small things, the small and the personal, that I feel a quiet reverence in the presence of others. It is also when I feel confident in my belief that literature, that fiction, is vital to us. She had enjoyed Mda's novel not only because it spoke to her own memories of girlhood, but because she had not expected to find one of her daily 'ways of living' in print, drawn into this tender moment between two characters.

I do not have access to the same first-hand reading of Ways of Dying as many others might have. Similarly, I may not be able to relate to Zoe Wicomb's Playing in the Light as someone who knows what it is to be classified as Coloured with a capital C, and what it might mean to try and avoid that classification. The capital W afforded White-ness  wasn't the same. It did not keep any of my family members from beaches, or bus-seats, or restaurants, or door-frames. It did not separate either of my parents from their siblings. If anything, across the board, it made clear who you could and could not love. But what those who could not be classified as White experienced, that is of a different kind altogether. That said, it doesn't mean I can't imagine. Calling on my imagination is the very least I can do, I think. If empathy can be defined as "the ability to understand and share the feelings of another," then imagination must surely be the means with which we arrive at this ability.

In hindsight, though, I realised that I hadn't exactly taken heed of my own advice. Yes, I regularly read and am moved by South African literature. Recently, I re-read K. Sello Duiker's The Quiet Violence of Dreams and found myself turned inside out by this incredible novel.  The focus of my masters is also a higly personal one, invested as it is in local literature, in the ability of our fictions to alter, or make fluid, the co-ordinates of South Africa's urbanscapes. And yet, Attic Door Loves Books doesn't have a single South African book review to show for itself. Pretty shameful.

Hoping to better practise what I teach from here on out, each month will see a South African book review posted as I dive into the local literary terrain and celebrate the diverse writers this country boasts... so watch this space!

Sometimes I surprise myself

Well, seeing as the last couple of weeks have had me searching through those archives of the self, it hasn't been altogether fruitless. Surprisingly enough.

In my mini quest (alternatively read: a 27-year-old's quagmire... and nope, the word 'quagmire' never gets dull!), I stumbled upon some pretty endearing characters.

My 6-year-old self:
-- has a family of pet snails, identifying each individually by the dot of paint she's strategically planted on their shells. (In hindsight, a hole-ridden ice-cream tupperware is maybe not the ideal environment for a pet garden snail.)
-- writes (probably nonsensical) 'snail tales' detailing the lives of her favourite molluscs
-- discovers the pause button on the remote control (VHS!) and spends hours dedicated to recreating her favourite Care Bears.
-- dreams of one day being the youngest author ever. (This will soon be Blow No. 1 for young Jocelyn.)

Wish Bear was always a personal favourite.

My 8-year-old self:
-- appears to have made it halfway through an ambitious project entitled At the End of the Rainbow (okay, so it's hardly the most original title!), clearly marking her romanticised gypsy-phase and a fascination with colours that have strange names like ochre or turquoise, although the second colour takes considerably more concentration to write down.
--wishes she had ringlets (yet another word-inspired crush).
--still occasionally misspells 'said' as 'siad'.
-- dreams of one day meeting Moon-Face even though she knows that's not exactly something she should ever say out loud.

I love this depiction of Moon-Face by Durban-based illustrator, Helga Pearson!

Then I went back, not too far, to a varsity editorial I had to do once.
     Just three years ago, there she was: my 24-year-old self. Apparently idealism was one of her stronger points. And reading what she had to say, it surprised me. A 24-year-old Jocelyn never doubted that words, that art, could change the world, and in ways that were true and meaningful. And it's all the more surprising when, to think of it, she really isn't so far off from where I am now.

It's just another reminder I'm glad to have.

A 24-year-old's idealistic editorial for the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University's creative annual, Sharp! magazine:

How to answer the question that comes with the editorial, "What is Sharp!?" (It's as slippery a question as when the Italian asks that I tell her about 'my country' and I wonder what it is to call something 'mine' or a 'country'.) So I begin with what I do know, and is what I've hoped, throughout this entire process, Sharp! would not be. I hoped it wouldn't be the stuff of the Ivory Tower, because any Rapunzel will tell you that she is lonely. And I hoped it would never be alienating or intimidating. Instead, I hoped that you would find it beyond definition, because it is the 'beyond definition' that offers possibility and the making of magic.
      Our country is in the process of prising open even the most territorialised of the past's tyrannical strongholds, and our arts must carry the torch into these spaces. So if you took up this edition, expecting a theme, you will find none. It speaks only to the vibrant, quilted tongue of the proud hybrid that is often, all at once: frustrated, infuriated, challenged but excited, riveted, even beguiled. In Sharp! 2008 are the voices and visions of the African griot, the storyteller, the one who witnesses and passes the story on.
     [...] And when I consider how blessed this venture has been in the diverse scope of its artistic reach, I am reminded of African-American writer, Alice Walker, and her insistence that what is needed most in the appreciation of art, and life, is "the larger perspective," and the ability to find in this "varied world the common thread." While it may seem, at times, that we are speaking in tongues that do not understand each other, that do not share the same heart nor mind, it is this observation of Alice Walker's that might provide a point of departure in turning these pages. For the stories that we tell are not remote, are not strangers to each other, but rather pieces of an Immense Story simply torn from different cloths, strips that when brought together, make for the most dazzling of tapestries. And the tapestry you are holding is made of African, South African, Afrikaans, Xhosa, English, Irish, multilingual, multi-visual and multi-coloured thread, that weaves our Immense Story. It tells of the human spirit that is neither black nor white, nor brown nor yellow, and speaks back to power: Do what you will to my body, throw what you may at my mind, but you will not claim my song.
Sharp! Volume.6 Spring 2008

Many Selves on Many Shelves

My mother assured me that 27 is a difficult age...So did the recent death of Amy Winehouse. And for all those who found it necessary to pass criticisms on her music in conjunction with her lifestyle (as if possessing an opinion on the one entitled you to an opinion on the other), may I suggest that she's somewhere afloat the groove of some jazz-swag giving you the middle finger right now.
     Anyway as the saying goes, everyone, or at least the people my mother knows, hit 27 and become afflicted by the nagging question, "But what does it all mean???" like some irritating first year philosophy student who spends more time liberating the mind with shrooms than books and whose favourite form of punctuation is the ellipsis (probably to be succeeded in later years by the semi-colon as the grammatical mark of preference). And I,  like all these other 27-year-olds out there to be sure, try to banish the stupid ellipses-besotted fool to his/her mother's basement. (Forgive me here as my simile becomes a little undone by the question of gender, for what form of gender might a question adopt?)

Maybe the question is not 'What does it all mean?' though.

 Just a thought.

Sometimes the question feels a lot more like 'Who the bloody hell are you?!'
    And it's angry and a little confused, like  it's come home to find you gallavanting with its missis and prancing around in its initialled house-slippers feeding bits of kibble to the family dog. (This is me trying to avoid determining the gender of a question. As far as the question is concerned, it is a private matter and I wish to respect its wishes.) And confronted by the genderless, angry and confused question (by now in bold italics, no less!!), you stammer that honestly, you have no idea and you're very sorry for ingratiating yourself with its dog under false pretences. You only meant to make a friend and dogs are said to be such loyal companions. But 'Who the bloody hell are you?!!'' (and by now, only further fortified by an added exclamation mark) is unimpressed and tempted to call security. So you fling the initialled slippers (which you thought bore your own confounded initials anyway!) from your guilty feet, mouth an apology to missis and dog and make an undigified run for it, barefoot.

In a wine-induced haze afterwards, you think to yourself, Surely, was that not your missis, your dog, your slippers? How could it be you had wandered so into the house of that gender-non-disclosed question, unknowing?!

So, I've been thinking to myself, and dusting off those shelves with all those many selves, trying to piece together the clues that might make the question less formidable, that might help to remove one exclamation mark, then another, and so on and so forth, till I can switch the remaining pronoun of 'you' to 'I' and hopefully find myself closer to some answers (or, if not that, then at least closer to some more useful questions in a small and unintimidating font).

When it may feel like we're stuck in the 27-year-old's quagmire, it's nice to know there are smaller, more useful questions out there. (Quagmire... Such a great word, I just had to use it again. Quagmire. And again.) And sometimes, comfortingly, they can creep up on us totally unrequested. You can be lying in the sun, minding your own business with a library book. This is what happened to me today, pausing and reading over a line in Devil's Valley by Andre Brink. It felt like a clue, no two ways about it. More than that, it felt like a reminder of myself. I was reminded of one of those many selves from some dusty shelf, a self that marvels at words, at how they are able to constellate our experiences, or perhaps more modestly, my experiences:

They were chatting quietly, outlined against the stars splashed across the sky like spilt milk over which it was useless to cry.
(Brink 2000:129)

Maybe not everybody works this way, but in my mini quest I am grateful for the words of Samantha Vice (see links in my last blog post). And I am grateful for South African writers, and for a world of writers after that, who bring a feeling of 'I' back into focus. I might even take a page from bell hooks and lowercase it occasionally: i. Maybe then the 27-year-old's question(s) will be more hospitable in the future.

Hail Samantha Vice as Virtue

Another title for this entry might've been 'What gives?' But I was in a mood for some cheesy wordplay....

http://mg.co.za/article/2011-09-02-why-my-opinions-on-whiteness-touched-a-nerve

http://mg.co.za/article/2011-07-01-confronting-whiteness

Can I ask that we all take a moment to breathe? In light of the intense debate (I might go so far as to say 'war'!) raging around these articles, I am struggling to comprehend all this frustration...?

What Vice seems to be suggesting is some self-reflection. Although I am not religious myself, my grandfather is a Roman Catholic, and says of his belief that if it is not a questioning and at times challenging one, it is not an alive faith. I feel the same about living here, about filling in 'South African' on the dotted line next to 'Nationality' and 'Caucasian' next to 'Race'. It is interesting that in this country, the tentative and most humbled position should be the most bold, and I applaud Vice for her courage. I started this blog in a (perhaps in vain) attempt to give voice to my own 'uncomfortable' position while trying to stake a hesitant claim to love this country...Probably largely unsuccessfully, but I suppose 'success' was not really the point... I have struggled since (rather uncourageously) to muster up anything close to the boldness Vice so refreshingly 're-inflects' for white South Africans.

To Eusebius McKaiser, Samantha Vice and Sally Matthews (in http://mg.co.za/article/2011-09-12-inherited-or-earned-advantage), I raise my glass and count them as our lucky stars in the South African constellation!

So I guess the question's 'Why?' right...

A dear friend of mine (and one whose infinite wisdom I have come to admire) recounted a story that I've been thinking about a lot lately. The moral of the story was, I think, that it sucks  to be the one with social leprosy, but that  that doesn't matter because sometimes it just can't be helped. And I'd reckon most of us have been there... You're in a room full of people but the situation doesn't seem too volatile. So you relax and you share. Maybe a graffiti poem at a bus-stop genuinely moved you, and you recite it now, having memorised every line for its profundity. Or you find Ben Folds' 'Annie Waits' just so infectious you can't help clapping along... Maybe it's the ad that made you weep, that one where no one wants to hang out with the kid dressed up like two slices of bread because he isn't a Melrose cheese sandwich.  And surely there's not a person in the crowd who can't relate. Kids can be so cruel, right? But then there's the 'oh no' moment. Your earnestness has led you down the road less travelled and there ain't no breadcrumbs to help you find your way back. The faces looking back at you are dumbstruck, some darn right disgusted. You face it. In their eyes, you've just delivered a soliloquy in Klingon... Or, as my friend puts it, you may as well have dropped your pants on the dining room table and relieved yourself In Front of Everyone.
      I had My Moment the other evening. With a night-time job as a waitress, my colleagues and I had just finished up for the night, and it was time for that after-work staple: a glass of wine. There is generally chatter during these wine-drinking sessions. And with the local elections coming up, the conversation had diverted from the standard fare of where to get cheap, black pumps for the job and which beautician tweaks a well-defined brow. (And as an aside, I no longer underestimate these kinds of conversation. They are each and every one an advisable way to stay out of trouble.)
        But Klingon is a funny language. Again, I cannot emphasise this enough: it's the earnestness that gets you. Your eyes glaze over, and there's a strange feeling in your chest that feels a bit like patriotism, a bit like heartburn, and the next thing you know your soliloquy is over and nobody is impressed. Inadvertently, I had handed every single person in the room the burden of apartheid and it's not a dish best served, hot or cold or room temperature. I remembered that these are the post-apartheid babies* I'm talking to, who don't like suggestions that clipped English accents speak on behalf of colonial tongues, and that these accents mean we translate well for the white suburban families who come to eat at our restaurant. In fact, forget breadcrumbs, I'd crossed enemy lines and only an unveiling of the hottest shades for nailpolish this winter could save me now. 

So here I am, with a blog, trying to play in the light (thanks, Wicomb)  as a white South African, trying to be as honest as  I can with this English accent of mine. I hope I don't cause too much offense. It is just that I am in love with this country. Admittedly, she is as disparate, jaded, humbled, whimsical and overwhelming as any lover. But when in love, no one wants to be the cliche. Whatever the language, we look for some way to say how we feel without it sounding disingenuous. That's all.

*Firstly, I can be a selfish post-apartheid baby with the best of them. Secondly, I know and admire a great many wonderful (and white) post-apartheid babies, many of whom are my fellow waitrons.