Friendship is Like a Tree…

…It is not measured by how tall it could be, but by how deep the roots have grown.

Life is cruel sometimes, sucker-punching you in the gut and heart. I refrain from saying ‘when you least expect it’ because nobody expects to have their heart broken. This past Friday, as has become custom, I went to visit my friends Sharon and Pete, for a weekly catch-up over supper, after which we’d watch Survivor Australia (debating who we think should go – both Pete and I were rooting for George), followed by Voetspore. Throughout, we’d chat about all sorts of things, laughing and joking, delighting in the wonderful joy of friendship.

#FamilyCruise Aboard Vessel #MSCOrchestra 7-11 April 2023: Day 4

Day 4, April 10^th, Sea Day

Jack Frost’s icy breath followed us from Walvis Bay. So much so, that I put on my body warmer, which didn’t mean much because I didn’t have long-sleeved clothes with me. Peeps, pack at least one long-sleeved item, because when the wind blows, it leaves you with gooseflesh and aching bones. I tried to smile for a photo, but my teeth literally hurt from the cold.

Having had zero luck at winning at Trivia, I decided to try my hand at something different, a fun game called Name that Tune, which involves a person recognizing the intro of a song, running to a chair, naming the song and then having to bust out their best dance moves. I won a lanyard playing the first time (on Deck 13 in the blustery weather), and a MSC cap when I played again in the afternoon in the Savannah Bar. I also tried my hand at ring toss and the sushi game. That former is exactly what the name suggests, the latter involves picking up a golf ball with two putters and carrying it a certain distance without dropping it. #easiersaidthandone The thing about all these quick activities is that they generate interaction between guests who otherwise may never have struck up a conversation with each other, and of course, the laughter that resounds across the ship because people are having oodles of fun. I’ll let you in on a little secret: The intro to The Final Countdown and Blind Lights sound almost identical.

Before we knew it, it was time for lunch at Shanghai.

A Disjointed ‘Hello’ from Me

This is a somewhat disjointed post, but an update of current events in my life.

I love this time of the year, even on gloomy grey days like today. I embrace the cooler temperatures with joy because my internal thermostat has been faulty ever since Granny fell of the bus.

I’ve been relieving in reception since March 6^th, due to the regular lady being off sick. I’m enjoying it, because I get to see the trees dancing in the wind and the birdsong is glorious. There was one calling earlier this week that had me mesmerised, but sadly, I couldn’t spot it. I’m a lot of things – an ornithologist is not one of them.

Dark, Light, Fight, Flight

Pounding head, racing heart
Anxiety, fear, continued concerns
What more will be expected of me?
Will I be able to get everything done properly?

Wracked sobs, swollen eyes
Exhaustion, sadness, depressive despair
Why is everything so damn hard?
When will something just go right for a change?

Black fog clouds my mind
The cataclysmic abyss calls
The deafening silence of the Void
Hails a ceremonious welcome

Video call, smiling faces
Happiness, joy, loving warmth
I wish I could slow time
Just to see the longer and talk some more

Hot bath, snowy bubbles
Calm, tender, relaxation
This feels like therapy
A reflective moment of me-time

Light filters into my thoughts
The awful shadows hide
The challenging heaviness lingers, clinging
But hope springs eternal

© Priscilla Anne Fick – Reflections of a Misfit

Find Something Good in Every Day

Today this rings extra true for me. I try to find something good in every day, and most days, I am successful. Moving has been stressful. Seriously, if it is ever within my ability to do so, the next place I move to is going to be a place of my own (even if it means paying a bond for 23-30 years). Parting with many of my things made my heart ache because as much as I understand it not being practical to hold on to the shirt half the school signed on my last day of Matric in 1997 (yes, I’m that old!), but I have happy memories of that day, and many others of my high school career. For the record, I ended up keeping the shirt, even though I don’t remember half the people who signed it. It’s the only example I could think of.

Eskom, Telkom, Post Office = Hellkom

A South African, USA-bestselling author with whom I went to school, posted this on her Facebook earlier this week:

“The moral decay of South Africa is ubiquitous and far-reaching.

Supporting Russia is utterly despicable. Slava Ukraini.

Businesses closing all around us, breadwinners losing their jobs, and farms in utter ruin because of permanent rolling blackouts due to corruption.

Water shortages in a heatwave despite our dams being full because there is not enough power to fill the reservoirs.

Food shortages to follow. Then violence.

The ANC is guilty of treason.”

I try to steer clear of politics and religion on my blog, but today I’m going to make an exception.

On Moving ‘n Things that Motivate Me

I must vacate The Cave by the 31^st, which is still a week and some days away, but this moving in installments has me at my wits’ end, so two angels from my day job are going to come and help me pack the last ‘kaggel kakkies’, and then we’re going to hunker down and give the place a good clean. If all goes according to plan, maybe I can finalize the move by the end of the weekend – here’s hoping!

Being a sentimental person by nature, it is incredibly difficult to part with the possessions that friends have given me, but I’ve had to be ruthless in getting rid of the excess. I’ve donated clothes and some small appliances to a family that lost their home in a fire, and I’ve put a lot of stuff in the trash, and still, I have too much stuff. I am learning the lesson now, at the ripe age of forty-something, that it isn’t necessary to have five pairs of black pants or a wristwatch to match almost every outfit or two and a half dozen champagne flutes – although granted, if I do live the life I’m destined to, I will be sipping Mimosas with my besties for breakfast, lunch and supper dahling.

Grief is Sneaky

As many of you will know from my previous post, I am packing up The Cave after living there for almost ten years to move back to my folks because Dad is ill, although coping very well – something for which we’re all very grateful.

In the clean-up, I came across a postcard that Charlie sent me for my birthday one year, while he was sailing in Alaska. It read “Hello there, from the other side of the planet. Happy birthday. I hope you get a jam-filled cake.”  I read it, smiled, reminisced for a moment, and then placed it in a bag with other papers for recycling. After all, it’d been years since our paths split. He got married last year on October 8^th Shannon, the blonde American who swept him off his feet in just three days of meeting him. He felt bad, but ‘the heart wants what the heart wants’. When I happened upon the wedding photos on her Insta (it wasn’t difficult to track her down), I finally summoned the will to delete our entire chat history of almost two years, along with his number. I felt an inexplicable numbness, a tiny tinge of horror, and a pinch of relief. I don’t know what I was expecting, but the feelings I was having, weren’t ‘it’.