A friend who read this blog told me to be careful as I am in the Lucy Jordan years. I said, “No, actually, I’m in the Talking Heads years.”

Marianne Faithfull’s Lucy Jordan was a victim of circumstance. She was a housewife who had never been given the tools of personal agency. That song was written in 1975. This was around the same time as Marilyn French’s The Women's Room and lots of other feminist literature that spoke of the deep sense of entrapment and loss that women were feeling at the time. Those narratives are about women not reaching their full potential, having their wings clipped by society and having no power to determine their life's path.  

This, quite simply, is not my problem. My life has more in common with Talking Heads’ Once in a Lifetime. Some of my favourite lyrics: 

And you may ask yourself
What is that beautiful house?
And you may ask yourself
Where does that highway lead to?
And you may ask yourself
Am I right? Am I wrong?

And you may say to yourself

My God! What have I done?

I am the master of my personal destiny. I have achieved more that I expected possible. I have created my life by the choices I have made. And I am not sure I like what I see or who I am in it.

But let’s put this in context. I’m not about to throw myself under a bus, leave my husband, desert my children or disappear in a haze of narcotic-infused madness.

I am facing it head on. One place is here on this blog. The other is in the numerous interactions with healer types, friends, parents, in meditation, and sometimes just alone in my car. 

This is a journey that will ultimately end the integration of the various pieces of me. Not their destruction. I am feeling fine about it. Actually, I’m feeling better about it than I have in a long time.

Got myself into an altercation today that ended with me in tears and wondering if I have any ability to protect myself on the streets of Cape Town.

There is a car-guard guy who works on my street and has done for years. It’s a kak job.

Today I saw a young guy shouting at him in the middle of the street and I took a decision to get involved. I’ve seen a number of shouting matches with this car guard over the years and this one was just too much.

It all seemed too clear to me. It costs to park on the streets in CT. If you don't like it, take it up with the city, not with the poor guy trying to make a living.

I walked up and told the young guy that I knew the man he was shouting at, and regardless of the frustration, there was no reason to talk to him like that. The guy then grabbed me by my arms and pushed me.

It was the single most violent act I have experienced in years. I know that makes me one of the lucky ones in this world but it still shook me. I left the argument in shock and walked up to my office. I was in tears by the time I got there. 

What upset me most was that I am, at 37, still unable to make decision about how to protect myself. And I’m upset that we live in such a violent, unhinged society that standing up against something I feel is wrong puts me in some kind of physical danger.

I have a few responses:

1. I shouldn't have got involved. The car guard is a grown-up and can handle himself, and maybe I was being a bit patronising, white-woman-in-Africa about defending him.
   
2. I shouldn't have got involved. I put myself in physical danger; what if he was angrier/ crazier/ drunker and I got really hurt rather than merely freaked out?
   
3. Fuck that. I will still get involved, if only to let the guy on my street know that he is seen.
   

My husband is behind response 1, my colleagues are split between 2 and 3 – and, to be honest, I’m not sure what I think.

What do you think?

The response to the last post was pretty awesome and now suddenly I am too bloody terrified to write anything.

I have started three posts so far and all of them felt a bit off so I deleted them. So to get over my fear I am just going out there with this story – of breasts and swimming songs.

I take my daughter to swimming lessons each Saturday. It’s fun. The teacher and I get in and sing, encourage and clap. For the past four months I’ve been wearing my nine-year-old black one-piece that I bought in a moment of optimism years ago when I thought I would swim lengths at the gym. 

This would be totally fine except that the elastic is going under the arms, so I live in fear of flashing the unsuspecting kids and their parents. (And, secretly, of running into someone I know.)

This Saturday I bought a new cozzie. It's lovely. It holds in my tummy, lifts my boobs and has a dash of pink that says, “Y'see, I'm not trying to fade into the background.”

Into the pool I leap with my kiddo. But just as we’re all in the middle of singing 'Wheels on the bus', I look down and see that the padding that lifts my boobs has inexplicably flipped up and twisted around, so now, rather than suggest my décolletage is that of young teenager, itlooks like a large, black mitten is reaching up from inside my costume. 

Beautiful...

So I stop singing, dip under the water and do my best, while holding my daughter above the waterline, to rearrange my padding. Elize, the teacher, keeps up her end of the singing while looking at me meaningfully with raised eyebrows. 

I went from sweet mom to crazy parent fiddling with her breasts in the middle of a lesson in one movement.

*Groan*

When I asked my gorgeous (and honest) sister what she thought of the
blog, she just went, "Ugh. Grammar and spelling need work."  So, no thoughts about content then...

Obviously my dyslexia is getting in the way. So I have employed the services of a subeditor, and hopefully you will have no more dyslexic spelling, kak grammar and missing words.

So, in light of my spelling weakness, I want to share this video with you. It’s called The Freak Factor. It’s desperately American, which means it goes a bit too far for entertainment value at the end – but you don’t need to agree with it all.

My favourite bit is when he talks about the sundial and moving it into the sun. 

Enjoy.