3D REFLECTIONS OF LIFE

Grezelle Jansen   Thanks to facebook, many of my past students are still in contact with me. I often see their occasional post when one of them is either celebrating a birthday, getting married or even when we lose someone connected to our extended family. Then many of us would pass on well wishes or condolences, showing that we still care about one another's wellbeing.   This year particularly, my conversations with Grezelle have stepped up. This was all because of my involvement in two charity projects. The one project, Jerzy4kidz Campaign, involved knitting jerseys for the 150 children of the Steinthal Home in Tulbagh. We completed this project at the end of July.   Now, I am a participant in the TLC4Seniors knee blanket project. We are knitting a knee throw for each of 100 residents of the Douglas Murray Home for the aged in Retreat, Cape Town as part of the Christmas gift. Of course, I invited all my facebook friends to join in on the projects. Grezelle immediately...

Blouvlei LSEN's talented dancers   I wonder how many of you remember that saying: "stop the world, I wanna get off"? Compared to our pace nowadays, that expression was an exaggeration at the time.   The world is on speed dial. We meet each new day, with a hangover of our busyness of the day before. There is no time to pause, because...   From the minute you wake up , you are confronted with the big rush.   Traffic snarls past you with their occupants looking harassed and sleep deprived. Your mailbox shouts at you with sender requests to deal with issues raised NOW. Songs playing on the radio are cut short to make way for commercials or traffic updates. HELLO?   We need to start a SLOW DOWN revolution, fast. We need to learn how to channel our energies to dance to the rhythm of real living.   Let us start now.   Take time to enjoy the flowers and the trees in gardens, along the roadside and in unexpected places. Listen to the various bird ca...

It can't be easy for a parent to lose a child. It is almost impossible for me to find words to describe such loss. As I sit here, I know of two families who must be experiencing heart wrenching emotions. Sasha, my daughter, shared this heartbreaking news with me : two teenagers passed away yesterday. One was a Grade 11 classmate of Riko, my nephew and the other girl was the sister of one of his other classmates,Spencer.   This morning when I picked up my nephews for school, Riko was armed with a bunch of white flowers. These flowers were for his friend and classmate, Savannah, and for Kirsten, the sister of his dear friend. He was going to lay this down in the Garden of Remembrance at their school, Bergvliet High school.   Usually my car is bubbling with conversations of all kinds, with music blaring and we often participate in the KFM general knowledge quiz. Today the mood was subdued. My three teenager passengers were probably dealing with their own swirling thoughts. I wa...

The women enjoying their foot massages If you ever yearn to be grounded and to escape to a world of magic, do yourself a favour and go there where the real people are. Go to a community celebration and you will experience "earthing". This week I attended the Women's Day Celebrations that was held at Seawinds Health Clinic. Seawinds Clinic is situated in Seawinds, a sub-economic township adjacent to Lavender Hill. It serves the Seawinds area and the growing informal settlements to the east of Lavender Hill as well as the Capricorn sprawling township area. Here the inhabitants live side by side with T. S. Elliot's hag, Poverty. Nothing beats the feel of real grassroots community functions. People just don't have that frozen look about them at such events. Their eyes will follow your every movement and they will even turn their bodies if they have to do so to keep the picture and story in focus. They don't hide their curiosity. The best part is that the...