My Hope For You

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Holding The Cards Close To My Chest

For over twenty years I've lived in various communities where I haven't been able to make a place for myself. No matter how much I did for people, no matter how much care I put into the relationships, it wasn't returned. People wanted me to do favours for them, but never wanted to be there, for me. I've been questioning if the common denominator is me. What am I doing wrong, that puts people off from me that makes them take advantage of my good intentions and not care about me as a person? I've really been working on myself the last five years, and I feel like I've grown beyond just having that stinger at the ready. Not that they'd know, or even care. I don't think they even know or care how much they have hurt me over those years. I feel like I belong somewhere else, but I don't know where that is. So how can I go, if I don't know where to go? More of a where, than a who? If my heart knows, it should step it up for me. 

Taking A Tumble

I have lived in this home for 4 years now. It is a duplex. The bedrooms and bathrooms are upstairs. For 4 years I have gone up and down these creaking wooden stairs. Sometimes I have the energy to run up and down the stairs...and sometimes I take my time going up and down the stairs. When it is slow going it is usually because I am stiff from an exercise routine! I have never stumbled on these stairs...until a few days ago! Why? Thanks to Load shedding (for those who do not know what load shedding is it is when our power/electricity supplier takes action to reduce electricity supply to avoid excessive load on the generating plant. South Africa is running out of electricity!) in this crime infested, disintegrating country of ours! I needed to go down to the kitchen and thought it would be ok not to take the emergency light with me. I have gone down those stairs often enough in the dark. So I slowly made my way down in the dark. Well, this time did not go too well. I misjudged my step at the last 3 stairs. Next thing I knew I was in the air and came crashing down onto the stairs! You know when you see a cartoon character take a fall and it shows those stars above its head? Well, I seriously saw stars!! I thought I was going to pass out from the pain as I landed on my back and slid down the last 3 stairs. I quickly got up to prevent myself from passing out. That was quite a scare! Thank goodness I was already at the bottom of the stairs. It would have been disastrous if I had still been at the top! My back hurt like hell but I could feel nothing was broken. My left elbow was throbbing from pain. I don't even remember if I hit my elbow into the wall or if it also connected with the edge of the stairs. I took some anti inflammatory pills and crawled back up the stairs and went to bed. The neighbour's were out, so if it had been serious, no one would have immediately known what had happened to me. My gosh! Next day I felt like a rugby player that has been tackled the entire game! My back had some bruising on the right side, my left buttock had a nice black welt across it and my elbow had an enormous bruise and some broken skin in the centre of it. Accidents happen very fast. I was lucky! I have heard and read of so many women that have fallen down the stairs and have died. There was even a woman in London (I think it was London. Not sure now) whose body was not discovered for 2 or 3 years!!! Today is the first day I feel no pain. Lesson learnt! From now on I make sure I have the emergency light on at the top of the stairs if I need to go downstairs during Load shedding! Today I can laugh about my fall 😂 but when it happened it was very scary.

Where Do Your Thoughts Go In The Stillness?

Things keep changing. The clock ticks, the day unfolds, trees grow, leaves turn brown, hair turns grey, children grow up and leave home. Attention drifts from this to that...the cookie is delicious but then it’s all gone, you’re mad about something for a while and then get over it, the mind races on and on and on. Many changes are certainly good. It’s lovely to watch grass and trees waving in the wind. On the other hand, many changes are uncomfortable, even awful. We lose those we love. Families drift apart, companies fail, dictators tighten their grip, nations go to war. Change itself is often stressful. When you are really open to the fact that each moment of now disappears in the instant it arises, it can feel rather alarming. Life and time sweep us along. As soon as something pleasant occurs in the mind’s flow we reach for it but whoosh it passes away right through our fingers.

Stillness is all around, a sense of the unchanging. Look for it, explore its effects on you, and sink into it. In the stillness, you can find a refuge, an island in the stream of changes, a place to sit for perspective about events, a respite from the race, quiet amidst the noise. There is that wonderful feeling when the house is quiet and you’re sitting in peace, the dishes are done and the neighbourhood kids and dogs are quiet, and you can really let go of the chatter in your mind. In your mind, there is always an underlying calm and well-being that contains emotional reactions, like a riverbed that is still even as the flood rushes over it. Wherever you find stillness, enjoy it and let it engulf you. It’s a relief from the noise, a source of clarity and peace. Give yourself the permission to be still. When your mind finally relaxes, inner stillness is where you land. From there, you can reset your life experience. The value of inner stillness, is nature's way of nudging you towards listening to your heart’s suggestions.

Inner stillness becomes like a personal elevator to your highest view and eliminates the weariness from climbing endless stairs in your mind.

Neighbours From Hell

I always thought the term "Neighbour's from hell" was a bit harsh to be said in that way. I retract that thought. My goodness the neighbour's I have are giving me a headache!! It is really getting too much for me. The thing is they are not permanent neighbour's. So when they do arrive here I inevitably say a silent prayer that they leave soon 😂 It is also a strange setup. The unit belongs to the daughter of this family that comes and stays here. The daughter lives in Mpumulanga. Well, they all do, but this last year the family of the daughter have been coming here quite regularly. The Grandmother, supposedly a Pastor, but I suspect she is more of a Sangoma (highly respected healer among the Zulu people of South Africa who diagnoses, prescribes, and often performs the rituals to heal a person physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually) than anything else from the weird chanting that she does at night. The first time she did this chanting I actually laid a complaint against her with the Body Corporate of the complex for disturbance of the peace. This silly woman started her chanting at 11 o'clock at night! I was already asleep and woke to this weird chanting and screeching and feet stomping. At first I did not know what the hell was going on because I thought she was in my house!! I live in a semi-detached unit and the walls between us are paper thin! To make matters worse she has this barotone voice! Even when she talks on the cell phone I can hear her here in my house. Anyway, after the complaint she seemed to have taken to doing her chanting in her bedroom with the door closed. It is slightly better but still annoying! Then she has this habit of doing her morning business calls while she is sitting on the throne!! I mean really! Who does that??? My bathroom and her bathroom are right next to each other! So I now have to endure listening to this lot...and she does not talk quietly. I can hear every single word! Then if it is not that, then she puts her ear pods in her ears and sings along to whatever she is listening to!

Needless to say, she soon left for a while....it was bliss! Then next thing the granddaughter was staying here with a bunch of her friends! They were a lot more tolerable than the grandmother but again, typical youngsters. They have a wheelie bin right outside their unit, but no, it does not get used! The pizza boxes and take out food and wine bottles just get tossed into the yard!!  The gardener used to clean up when he came to do the garden once a week but eventually also said that is not his job. So he stopped. Those youngsters were here for about 3 months. Then they left and the grandmother was back. The granddaughter came to visit and I could hear the grandmother reprimanding the granddaughter for not cleaning the house. I can only imagine what it looked like inside. This bunch also leave the lights on day in and day out! Those lights have been on permanently since last year March when this family arrived after the tenant who lived here for 2 years moved out. Never mind that South Africa is running out of electricity! To top it all they have not paid their water or electricity bill for more than a year!! How they do not get cut off is completely beyond me. If I did that I would be cut off immediately! I guess that must be a perk of being an ANC member. They seem to get everything for free, albeit there was a final letter of demand stuck on their gate last week Wednesday. Whether that even made any impact on them is another question. 

And now for the cherry on the cake! Some other lady relative arrived last Wednesday and on Friday another lady arrived. Friday evening the grandmother arrived. So now I have to listen to the barotone voice and one of the other ladies runs up and down the wooden stairs like a frigging elephant! Last night there was a lot of activity in the unit. The going up and down the stairs was really becoming irritating, then the chanting started, and for some reason they were in and out of the unit all night. The early hours of the morning I could still hear them up and down the stairs and they were constantly using the water in the kitchen. For some reason when they use the water in the kitchen I hear this "clang, clang" of the water pipes. Trust me, trying to sleep through this all was not an easy task!! 

The crunch came this morning, now I know this is going to sound very disgusting, but it will give you an idea of what I woke up to. I had my cat, Lucy, snuggling next to me on the bed, I started smelling this unpleasant smell and thought that Lucy needed to go poop. This is the first time EVER that I have smelt this. It was already after 6am which is the normal time I get up and let the cats out. So I let them out and came back upstairs and went into the bathroom. Now in winter I keep the bathroom door closed as well as the spare room door closed. For some reason the cold air that comes from those two rooms is unbearable in the winter that is why I keep the doors closed. Anyway, I go into the bathroom and am met by this putrid smell!! I thought there must be a sewerage problem! I checked the loo. Smelt at the drains and could not smell anything. So I then go to open the curtains in the spare room. As I opened the door this horrid stench filled my nostrils!! I nearly puked!!! I thought this is absolutely impossible for this room to smell like this! I immediately raced to open the curtains and windows and rushed out of the room so quick and closed the door. I now thought I better go check the drain outside and see if there is sewerage overflow! So I go out and look. Nothing to be seen and the air outside is fresh and clean. My mind is now boggled! I walk around the house and as I get to the back yard I look up and see the next door bedroom windows are wide open! The penny dropped...they (the neighbour's) obviously had some or other ritual in the early hours of the morning!!! Lord only knows what they cooked up or fried, or burnt....but it stank to the high heavens that they even had to open their own windows!!!! It now explains why the stench was strongest in my bathroom and the spare room because they are on the side where the neighbour's kitchen is. You may be wondering how the smell could enter my home. Well, this is South Africa. Our homes do not have double glazed windows. Actually the windows do not even keep the cold out!! On top of that this complex I am in is actually quite old! More to the point is that developers/builders here in South Africa will inevitably cut corners where they can which results in shoddy workmanship...

I was pushed to the point of retaliation! This bunch normally wakes up the same time as I do, but this morning it was dead quiet. Clearly they were now sleeping after their all nighter! So, I thought this is the perfect time to give them a taste of their own medicine! I generally do not do things out of retaliation but after a whole year of putting up with all this disrespect of other people's peace and quiet, it was pay back time! I went out to feed the birds an apple and came back inside and slammed the security gate shut at the sliding door! Trust me. That gate, if you slam it, is really loud! I then proceeded up the stairs...stomping like an elephant! I opened the spare room door and slammed it shut! Then I stomped down the stairs. I slammed all the kitchen cupboards open and shut! I put the kettle on to make tea. I slammed the mug onto the granite counter. Then I threw the teaspoon into the kitchen sink! Then I decided to sweep the floor. I purposefully slammed the broom into the cornices and into the stair at the bottom of the staircase and when I got to the kitchen table I deliberately hit the broom on the legs of the table and chairs, the legs are steel, so you can imagine the "ping, ping" sound. I moved the chairs by dragging them across the floor on purpose, so they made a screeching sound. My next intention was to put the radio on loud at 8 o'clock. I had to wait until 8am because the body corporate rules stipulate no noise before 8am. So 8am came and I went to put the radio on...only no sound came from the radio!! It dawned on me that I had loadshedding then from 8am to 10:30am!! For those who do not know what loadshedding is, it is interruption of electricity supply to avoid excessive load on the generating plant. Well, they had some shut eye until 10:30am because then I put the radio on loud!!! 😂😂😂 I know, I know, you think I'm crazy! No man. Enough is enough!! Let them see what it's like on the other side of the wall when someone makes a noise! I did notice the person that ran up and down the stairs like an elephant was a lot more quieter when they got up! So maybe they got the message LOUD AND CLEAR! That's it...my rant for today. 😄

Would We Be Able To Rise Again?

 What a beautiful Afrikaans song!!!!

Sê my is jy ok?/Tell me are you ok?

Jou wêreld vergaan om my/Your world is falling apart around me
Ek wonder is jy ok?/I wonder are you ok?
Ek kon jou voel langs my/I could feel you next to me

Jou man is hier/Your husband is here
Jy't ‘n werk gekry/You got a job
Ver oor die see/Far across the sea
Ver van my/Far from me

Ek't my toekoms aan jou belowe/I promised you my future
En als wat daarna kom sê my is jy gelowig?/And all that comes after that, tell me are you religious?
Ek't my toekoms aan jou belowe/I promised you my future
En als wat daarna kom sê my is jy gelowig?/And all that comes after that, tell me are you religious?

Erika way
Erika
Erika way
Erika ver weg van my

Sê my is jy/Tell me are you
Ook verslaan?/Also defeated?
As ons nog kon raak/If we could still touch
Sou ons weer opstaan?/Would we be able to rise again?

Ek dink ek ken nog die pad/I think I still know the way
Tot by jou huis en waar my draaie opraak/Up to your house and where my errands end
Jy't gesê ek moet liewer ry/You said I should rather leave
Maar iets van jou het in geklim en is nog by my/But something of you climbed in and is still with me

Ek't my toekoms aan jou belowe/I promised you my future
En als wat daarna kom sê my is jy gelowig?/And all that comes after that, tell me are you religious?
Ek't my toekoms aan jou belowe/I promised you my future
En als wat daarna kom sê my is jy gelowig?/And all that comes after that, tell me are you religious?

Erika way
Erika
Erika way
Erika ver weg van my

It's A Trust Fall

What if we just fall?

Picture a place where it all doesn't hurt

Where everything's safe and it doesn't get worse

Oh my

We see through bloodshot eyes

Picture a place, somewhere else far away

Where you know what they mean and they mean what they say

To us

And would that be enough?

Are we runnin' out of time?

Are we hidin' from the light?

Are we just too scared to fight

For what we want tonight?

Close your eyes and leave it all behind

Go where love is on our side

It's a trust fall, baby

It's a trust fall, baby

You and I and everyone alive

We can run into the fire

It's a trust fall, baby

Yeah, it's a trust fall, baby

Jump with me, come with me, burn like the sun

We'll talk, then we'll cry, then we'll laugh 'til we're done

Oh my

It's like we're out our minds

We've been runnin' for our lives

We've been hidin' from the light

We've been far too scared to fight

For what we want tonight

Close your eyes and leave it all behind

Go where love is on our side

It's a trust fall, baby

It's a trust fall, baby

You and I and everyone alive

We can run into the fire

It's a trust fall, baby

Yeah, it's a trust fall, baby

What if we just fall?

I'm not goin' without you

(And you're not goin' alone)

I fell so far 'til I found you

(But you know what you know, when you know)

So I'm not goin' without you

(And you're not goin' alone)

'Cause you know when you know

You're shit scared and your whole body is shaking...You go in there and you just fucking do it...Just do it...Whatever IT is...And then BOOM...it's gone...The fear is gone...

Close your eyes and leave it all behind

Go where love is on our side

It's a trust fall, baby

It's a trust fall, baby

What if we just fall?

What if we just fall?

What if we just fall?

What if we just fall?

What if we just fall?

What if we just fall?

What if we just-

Kiss Me

 My favourite song at the moment 💗

Nothing Is As It Seems

I recently watched a short video on FB about a guy talking about how nothing is as it seems. For the life of me I cannot remember his name now. Someone had forwarded the link to me. He spoke about how South Africa was already sold out in 1985. How our current President is just a puppet dangling at the end of the Puppet Master's strings. I came to this very conclusion when we went into lockdown in March 2020. Every leader in this world is actually just a puppet!! These leaders are all just dancing to the tune of the Puppet Master! Look at the "cuckoo's" that attended the WEF meeting at Davos. These nuts have all lost the plot and have an agenda to control the citizens of this world by taking their freedom away from them. I am just relieved that there are many people who are finally waking up and smelling the roses and seeing these evil elite for what they really are! A bunch of psychos!! I warned friends and family when we went into lockdown but no, I was labelled a "conspiracy theorist". Now...hmmm...now people are seeing the truth about Pfizer. Then I was sent a link to this guy in the US who has a channel on YT. When I first saw one of his videos he was using his name K W Miller. He kept on giving updates about Eskom and how the grid would collapse. He warned his fellow American's and Europeans to get out of South Africa. I kept watching his videos and he soon changed his channel name to "South Africa First". After watching the video of the other guy on FB, I suddenly thought, he has a point about Biden having a set interest here in South Africa. Which made me wonder about K W Miller. Why is this K W Miller so invested in the people of South Africa and Eskom. What does he gain? I also noticed in his last few videos that he kept saying that they are expecting violence to occur "any day now" (in his words) in KZN. I got the feeling that it is almost like he is inciting violence. When I went to his channel on Monday to check if he had any further updates, blow me down with a feather, ALL his videos are gone except for two on farming!! He posts regularly in the community section of his YT channel and I noticed people were also asking where his videos were. He just never responded. Today I see his videos are back! His latest community post reads: "South African Citizens are not prepared for what is coming". My question is...if this guy knows all this, why does he not offer a solution? Why does he not get onto NEWS channels to warn South African citizens. He is creating fear!!! The same as the lockdown created fear!!! Yes, South Africa is a shit hole and it will not get better! Our power grid will most likely collapse! This guy (K W Miller) just does not understand that there is NOTHING we as South African's can do anything to FIX this shit hole. We are 7 million tax payers FEEDING 57 million people!!! We have a government that has robbed South Africa blind! THERE IS NO MONEY to fix this shit hole!! There probably will be a civil war...who knows. Right now we are all just trying to survive each day, trying to work around the load shedding, and dealing with sitting in the dark at night!!!! If this K W Miller says the world is watching and cannot understand why we are not doing anything...then why does the world not come up with a solution??? We as South African's certainly do NOT have a solution!! 

We as South African's sit here trying to survive and then we still have to put up with listening to the crap that goes on in the rest of the world. Look at the Rebel News Reporters, Ezra Levant and Avi Yemini when they try to question Pfizer CEO. I am glad they raised very valid questions which this a-hole just refused to answer. At least they are getting it out into the world about how devious these people are and this includes Billy boy and Fraudci and Klaus!!! All a bunch of sicko's!!! What these 1% don't realise, is that they are all not so young anymore and there are 99% of us to deal with!! Grrrrrr.....this is my rant for the day!! I actually really have no idea what point I was trying to make....this world is just mad...simply put...Nothing is as it seems! Let me listen to my favourite song at the moment...I will post it here in another post.