I’m back, from outer space

• Ok, not from outer space, but the Karoo, Bloemfontein, Johannesburg and the Vaal dam, which are pretty close. We did roughly 3000km in 8 days — and let me tell you that a long road-trip with my parents is no picnic. No accidents or mishaps but a few nail-biting moments, some wrong turns, some arm-pinching (dad’s arm, mom’s fingers) and some near-hysterical if-not-quite-screaming then certainly unpleasant raising of the voice.

• Moving on then, shall we? The audio books were great. Ian Rankin’s A Question of Blood (excellently read by James McPherson) followed by Jane Austen’s Emma and then Simon Winchester reading his surprisingly good and interesting Outposts: Journeys to the Surviving Relics of the British Empire (from the mid-1980s). I became really interested to find out more about Tristan da Cunha, especially since it’s only about 2000 km to the South of Cape Town in the Southern Ocean. I loved the description of the Tristanians as almost alien-like (and their reactions to “the houtside world”). I wonder if the Internet and satellite TV have changed them very much.

• Get back to find that my dog has been “an alien from Mars” according to my sister. Very sweet apparently, but rather odd.

• Good book-haul for Christmas: The Black Book (Orhan Pamuk); Digging to America (Anne Tyler); The Last Lecture (Randy Pausch); Cringe the Beloved Country (a satirical look at South African culture over the years); Three Letter Plague (Jonny Steinberg); and then 1000 Books to change your life (by TimeOut).

• Read two-thirds of The Orchard by Drusilla Modjeska which has me thinking about relationships, gender and subjectivity, ways of seeing etc. She’s very good on the difference between the masculine and feminine gaze. Definitely a post in there if I can rouse myself from my summer slumber.

• And then there’s the cricket. South Africa poised to beat Australia at home in a test series is practically unheard of! It’s great to see a South African team play with such passion, determination and confidence rather than arrogance. This looks to be a great team (unless the Aussies are just rather poor at the moment).

• It was very good to spend quality time with my Joburg family but it was horrible to be away from P for such a long time. She’s only back from KwaZulu-Natal tomorrow and she had a pretty wretched time. Very unexpected family death on about her 2nd or 3rd day of holiday which has meant almost no real holiday for her at all. Poor chicken. I will have to whisk her away next w/e for some pampering.

• Off to catch up on some blog-reading now. Cheers! And Happy New Year!

Best of Books 2008

It’s quite natural that I should feel a bit embarrassed about my reading tally for the year since I probably managed under 30 books in 2008. There was the small matter of a Master’s thesis to finish and also a few freelance articles to write in addition to my day-job so perhaps I shouldn’t feel too bad. But it was still a very good reading year, thanks in large part to the wonderful suggestions from my book-blogging friends. So thanks to you all, and here’s to a richly rewarding 2009.

Best South African fiction
Agaat by Marlene van Niekerk
Algeria’s Way by Alex Smith

Agaat is a massive plaasroman (farm novel) with draws richly from farming, religion, literature, poetry, history, medicine and psychology. At its essence it’s the story of Milla and Agaat, a white madam and her coloured maid in apartheid South Africa. A young wife (Milla) takes in a badly-abused abused child (Agaat) and restores her to health. Agaat becomes Milla’s domestic servant on the farm and acts as nursemaid to her beloved son. As Milla grows older and her husband dies and her son leaves for Canada, the roles become reversed. Milla suffers from a debilitating muscle-degenerative disease and is completely dependent on Agaat. The relationship between the two is fascinating and the descriptions of how the paralysed Milla has to communicate with Agaat using only her eyes are some of the best descriptions I’ve read. The hope, frustration, joy, irritation and then despair of communication. The interplay of words, eyes and body. Utterly brilliant.

The book is too long by about 200 pages (and I skipped some of the waffly stream of consciousness bits) but it’s probably the best example of South African fiction in the past few years. If I was going to suggest a South African book to read, skip right past Gordimer and Coetzee and start instead perhaps with Agaat. At a broader level it’s a wonderful portrayal of the relationship between colonisers and colonised and then, with the ending of apartheid, how the wheel has turned. It sounds serious but it’s also full of laughter and light.

Best African fiction
Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Adichie is a Nigerian author who’s lived her adult life in the US. This is a wonderfully evocative coming-of-age story which draws on Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. The themes of the personal and the political, tradition versus progress, dictatorship versus freedom are explored through the eyes of 15-year old Kambili, who grows up with a tyrant of a father at a time of political upheaval in Nigeria.

Best general fiction
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’ Farrell
The Other Side of You (Sally Vickers)
Breath by Tim Winton

As I’m sure you know, these first two explore the interaction of psychology and personal narratives in a powerful way. What stayed with me most from Maggie O’ Farrell’s book was how psychology and psychiatry can so easily disempower women within a broader culture of gender inequality. Sally Vickers’ book was particularly interesting from a literature and psychology perspective. As a psychologist-turned-writer, she provides wonderful insights into the power of narrative and the way that people are both undone by their subjectivities as well as how they can find themselves again through stories.

Best psychology-related non-fiction
Going Sane by Adam Phillips
Winnicott by Adam Phillips
Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks (neuropsychology)

Best collection of short stories
Mothers and Sons by Colm Toibin

Best psychology-related short stories
How People Change by Bill Tucker

Best biography
Lost in America by Sherwin Nuland

Best crime / mystery novel
Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers
Blood Rose by Margie Orford

zenativity

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of recessionary cutbacks and also huge extravagant office parties. The picture of a zenativity scene below (courtesy of lithotao at flickr) is a bit different from my spirituality group’s own nativity play, which we put on last night for a select audience. I was the minstrel in Ted Hughes’s The Coming of the Kings and it reminded me why I am so much happier in the audience than on the (makeshift) stage.

If you have ever had to make a tin-foil star for a nativity play. Or be the star (quite literally) in said play then you will appreciate the beauty of a zen nativity play. I would quite happily have meditated silently on the meaning of Christmas instead of hamming it up in front of my group (and significant others) last night. The others were great – really excellent – but the minstrel has to deliver the plummy lines. What a shocker! At least P shared in some of the agony by being the star. Reminded me of Stardust where Clare Danes does a very good impression of a shining star. So today I have newfound respect for actors and singers and I’m hoping to avoid all active dramatic parts for at least another 12 months. Next year I’m arguing strongly in favour of a Zen Christmas. It might be a touch Scrooge-like but at least it’s calm. Very, very calm.

Running in the forest

Enjoying reading some (of my own) diary entries from earlier this year. A stream-of-consciousness piece on the theme of “mother obsession” and then a meditation on watching cricket at Newlands.

Fifteen men out on the field at any one time
while a few thousand people
sit or stand around in a circle and watch them.
We watch each other, chatter, preen, laugh, flirt,
try and get on TV, admire the players, sun tan.
The mountain holds us in place and the Castle Draft soothes us.
The contest doesn’t really matter.
Caught up in the moment we cheer, curse, watch and wait.
And then we go home.

Here’s the start of a piece on Discourse Analysis:

Pick a book at random. Yes, that one will do: The Book of 1001 Questions and Answers 1981. What are the discursive constructions and subjectivities that are offered? Notice that all the heroes are white. William the Conqueror, Captain Cook, David Livingstone. A few women — Jane Austen, Queens Victoria and Elizabeth. Most are English. … Great Dictators – what makes them great? The First World War, Myths and Legends. Who’s to say that the stories of “fact” are no less mythical than those of Robin Hood, Jason and St George or the Bible? … “They made news” (all men) … “Death came suddenly” (but only to the leaders).

And then I like this piece on running in the forest:

The story divides and now there are two halves that need to work their way back to each other. Like two paths in a wood which meet again higher up. Circles in the forest, criss-crossing each other, here’s a bridge, left and up, up to the contour path, gravel, the sweep of green, brambles, the river-bed impenetrable so you go up higher and higher until the ford where you can cross. The bridge of stones, the mossy bank, keep going, the path through the brambles gets thinner and thinner and then peters out. U-turn, backtrack, running down the slope, blood in my ears and the dog following behind, almost there, there, a clearing, a path. It’s different here, drier, not pine trees but softer vegetation. Then the cool pines again, the well-worn trails, a smiling old man with his crooked back and stick, two girls and their dog, a blind man jogging with his girlfriend, the clearing with the helicopters, the cottages, the car and the tar, home again to rest.

Lyric Wednesday

All great moments
They go so fast
All these things that we’ve been through
Now the dreams, they come with you
Make it last
I just wanna say (say)…..

These are moments
Open avenues
So courageous
All we have to do
Lots of choices
That’ve chosen you …
(Moments by Prime Circle)

Today is graduation day and I’ll be getting my degree (with distinction for a change) after a sweaty drive to the satellite clinic. My song for the occasion is “Moments” by the SA band Prime Circle. These moments go by so fast. I’m nervous about not being good enough for my cum laude (and also not being suitably dressed) and I remember similar occasions of sitting through boring speeches while I didn’t really feel proud of myself and my achievements as much as a sense of anti-climax. Perhaps I’m a natural-born sceptic (or a misery guts). Today I’ll have a friend graduating with me and so there will be a nice sense of camaraderie. P is also braving the long drive with my parents and got up especially early so that she leave work early for the occasion.

Then it will be a family dinner at a low-key Chinese restaurant called Tai Ping. Maybe I’ll do the mental blogging thing as I’m waiting in line for my tap on the head. I’m sure I won’t have to hum to myself while standing sidewise with hands on hips (and simultaneously reading a book) Although reading a book is quite possibly the best way to pass the long wait. And it’s quite fitting that I’ve mentally been visiting Oxford thanks to Dorothy Sayers over the past few days.

I guess it’s also good to take some times to consider the choices and the paths that have brought me to this point. The choices that have chosen me. Revisiting my alma mater also brings up lots of mixed feelings. But that’s a post for another day. For today the word is: Yay!

Bad Hair Day (and a free gift)

Today is my designated shopping day so I get a break from the patients at the military base to catch up on some daily admin and Christmas shopping.

First stop is the traffic department and what a depressing experience. I stand in the wrong queue until a surly youth points me in the direction of the right one. There are twelve of us in the queue, all males, and none of us is talking to each other or looking happy. One man, it turns out, is quite content but the men around me are not. The content man has gleaming white running shoes, a white golf shirt and powerful calves shown off to good effect by his khaki shorts. He looks healthy and happy to be getting out of the traffic department.

Soon there are about five people behind me, one of whom stands so close to me that his shoe bumps the back of mine. He lets out a depressed-sounding sigh and his breath ruffles the back of my hair. I feel quite irritated by this and I wonder what it would be like to turn around and punch him in the stomach. Alternatively I could just ask him to back off a little but instead I stand my ground and resolutely try and ignore him. I think about not making a scene and how we’re all a bit frustrated about standing around in the heat and how maybe he doesn’t realise that he’s standing too close. When I eventually get to the front of the queue (miracle, the front!) I see that he looks a bit on edge. I also notice a turban and try to avoid eye-contact altogether. I definitely do not want to be picking a fight with a skinny, on-edge, turban-wearing man in Cape Town (or anywhere else).

When it is my turn at the teller, we quickly fall into a pattern of her looking disinterested and bored and my feeling frustrated in return. When she hands me my licence, I wait after thanking her for any sign of recognition and, detecting a faint nod of the head, make my exit.

Next stop is the hairdresser. Lately I’ve been erring on the cheap end of the hairdressing spectrum and the quality of the service tends to match the decor. Today my semi-regular hair-stylist is away so I have a grumpy-looking anonymous person instead. She asks for my name, directs me to a basin and turns back to whatever she was doing before. I quickly get the impression that she has better things to do than to make any kind of conversation, which naturally makes me wonder about the wisdom of coming back here in the future. At one point I am mentally writing a letter of complaint to the salon telling them why I will not be returning. But then I think better of it. Maybe the woman washing my hair doesn’t like to be told that the water is too hot. Perhaps the way I looked at the hair-stylist when I was waiting for her to leave the counter where she was engrossed by a travelling toy-dog salesperson irritated her.

After my trim, I ask if I can have a rinse, which she says is fine. Hair-washer at this point is having a sulk and so the hair-stylist has to do the job herself, which appears to irritate her a little more. Somewhat surprisingly in the light of her apparent indifference, she decides to massage my head while she is rinsing my hair. Whilst not exactly unpleasant, this is rather odd. Perhaps it would be nice if she asked me first but she doesn’t and so it isn’t. But I thank her and I pay and she asks for my surname so she can enter the transaction on the computer. I am tempted to tell her not to bother but am worried that this might be churlish and so I just give my name and leave. I still wonder what was going on with the head massage though. Maybe it’s part of the routine.

Thinking about poor service levels in Cape Town generally, I wonder about self-fulfilling prophecies. How we often get what we expect. Perhaps my whole attitude was wrong the moment I stood in the queue at the traffic department. Or maybe I’m just having a bad hair day. There’s definitely something irritable in the air. It may be the the combination of the heat and a dry South-Easter wind. That and Christmas, which is also not the best time of year around here. Or maybe it’s that I don’t generally have great memories of Christmas.

***

On a positive note, I’m enjoying a few books including a Dorothy Sayers (Gaudy Night), the Braindead Megaphone by George Saunders and I’m about to start The Orchard by Drusilla Modjeska. I’m also making a couple of Mix CDs. If anyone would like to try one of Pete’s Couchtrip Mix CDs, then leave your comment and I’ll post it off to wherever you live. First person wins. Maybe that will restore a bit of Christmas cheer. Next time I’ll post something on a reading wrap-up for the year. Happy reading.

Turning the therapeutic tables

On the way out the door, a client starts grilling me:

“Do you have kids? Are you married?”
“No, not yet. We’ll get there one day.”
“But you’re still young. How old are you?”
“I’m old already. I’m 38.”
“Oh well, you live your life the way you want,” she says, delivered with an airy flourish.
Oh great, I think. Another patient who thinks I’m gay.

Remembering this exchange today, I can’t help chuckling at my client’s curiosity. And it also gets me thinking about psychology and power. I often think that psychologists love being the ones asking the questions rather than receiving them. One psychologist I knew always answered a question with another one. [A handy tip: So what makes you think that?] It’s not so great when we’re on the receiving end of prying. Put another way, we like to be the ones wielding the power, putting the patient under the microscope and analysis. Analysis after all comes from the Greek work “analyein” which means “to break up”. The dictionary gives as one definition: “The abstract separation of a whole into its constituent parts in order to study the parts and their relations.”

He loves me then he loves me not.

So what do we (as therapists) do when it is the client who wants to break us up into little bits and to study our parts and relations? Well, we tend to become a bit defensive. We devise useful ways of deflecting the question such as: “We can talk about me if you like, but I’m wondering what that’s about for you. Are you wondering if you can trust me, if I will understand where you’re coming from?”

No, I was just curious.
What were you thinking?
No, I just wanted to know. You don’t have to answer the question if you don’t want to.

I envisage the conversation going round and round until the therapist answers or deflects the question successfully. In my own therapy, I have found it liberating to be able to discuss my reservations about the therapeutic relationship. Having inside knowledge about the process helps but also hinders here since I know it’s a bit of a game on my part. Trying to outsmart my therapist by making shrewd interpretations. I am quite restrained in telling my current shrink why it’s just not working for me and the poor man has to sit through at least another three sessions of this before I break up with him. He is at least getting a decent fee for it but it is also a bit disconcerting sitting there and talking about how he just doesn’t quite “get” me.

Most South African men I know are just not that sensitive, I tell him, so you’re starting from a difficult position. I also have a natural suspicion of doctors and therapists since I’ve been exploited in the past. (Litlove’s hospital experience also springs to mind as a good example of how medical practitioners can, perhaps unknowingly, be insensitive.) But part of me also wants to hang in there for a bit. If a lot of these feelings arise from my own projections (of previous insensitive males), then can I change the projections by working on them?

Lastly, if there are any clients out there who are wondering if they should confront their shrinks with their reservations, my advice is: Absolutely! Talking about the therapeutic relationship can be wonderfully liberating if it’s done in a helpful way.

Music Monday: Harris Tweed

My song for today is “better than this” by the South African band Harris Tweed (aka Dear Reader). The lyrics are not exceptional but their sound – the fresh, nuanced, raw, lyrical and polished musical effect of Cherilyn MacNeil and Darryl Torr – is what makes them my band-of-the moment.

Cherilyn is a Joburg girl who found the name Harris Tweed in a children’s encyclopedia. Her friends turned down the rather odd-sounding name “Ottoman And” so she and Darryl settled on the Scottish cloth instead. The Harris Tweed Authority (HTA) will tell you that Harris Tweed “is cloth that has been handwoven by the islanders of Lewis, Harris, Uist and Barra in their homes, using pure virgin wool that has been dyed and spun in the Outer Hebrides.” Right.

The Joburg-based band on the other hand are a folk-pop duo who blasted onto the SA music scene in 2006 with their debut CD “Harris Tweed: The Younger” and quickly built up a cult following. Cherilyn MacNeil is the musical force behind the band but Darryl Torr provides an excellent foil, allowing her to show off her considerable musical skills.

The HTA were originally fine about the band using the name but then decided to protect their brand. MacNeil and Torr considered anagrams of Harris Tweed such as Weird Haters, Dear Withers and Shade Writer before settling on Dear Reader. Which is rather bland but apparently uncontentious. As MacNeil rightly points out, it’s what you fill the name up with that counts.

Miles Keylock writes that their fan-base includes anyone who appreciates “well-drafted tales of love lost, dreams postponed, and hearts broken and made whole”. In case this sounds too Katie Melua-ish there are also “haunting minor key pop contusions and deceptively airy alternative folk architectures [which] actually sidestep both the strong ‘n sensitive and manic depressive female singer songwriter stereotypes.” Neither of those two are labels that you apparently want to get stuck with!

The music is powerful, honest and it connects with your feelings. Certainly works for me. But I suppose, after listening to the CD for about three days running to and from work, I guess I’m hoping their next album is a little edgier.

Pretty much all the tracks on The Younger are very good but if I had to choose three I’d go with better than this, Le Musketeer est Brave and Stuck on this Course (although Superfly, Ode to Confusion and Don’t Forget are pretty excellent too). What I got out of better than this is a sense of disappointment in growing up. All the anger and hope and confusion of being a child, and the sense of how things could have been better. Maybe a little too real and deep for a Monday morning but I love it anyway.

better than this (harris tweed)
anger builds
and this hardness holds
and it comes out in profanities unbecoming of a girl
what used to heal
and used to feel
like a remedy has eluded me
so i face it all alone

i wanted to be so much older
but i turned out colder than an iceberg in the sea
i used to burn like a fire
and it got me nowhere
but anything is better than this

turn this off
can you shut this thing off
oh i left my mind running
and i got myself lost

turning back
no there’s no turning back
all the old ways are a see-through
as a big pane of glass

i wanted to be so much older
but i’ve turned out colder than an iceberg in the arctic sea
i used to burn like a fire
and it got me nowhere
nowhere nowhere nowhere
i’m holding out for a new day
and i’m waiting for my local warming
there’s not much hope left
but there’s something deep inside me
that wants to believe like i did when i was four

i was four once