Ruth's Real Life

Respond while you have breath to prevent a catastrophe Ruth Everson Africa has potential – South Africa can move to self-sufficiency in a single generation. This startling claim was made by Professor O’ Connell, Vice Chancellor of the University of the Western Cape, at a Captains of Industry event held by Symphonia for Africa at St Stithians College recently. Symphonia’s purpose was clear, to shock and then to galvanise business leaders into becoming part of the solution to the education crisis in South Africa. Professor O’ Connell, who grew up in District 6, is passionate about education: ‘Respond while you have breath to prevent a catastrophe.’ This was the challenge that he laid down to the businessmen and women at the meeting. This is the challenge that he lays at the heart of every South African. If we are to thrive as a nation, we dare not ignore his voice or the voices of others who are calling for action. How do we do the impossible? O’ Connell painted a vi...

I Want to Restart the Beat of my Heart What are we waiting for? We stand with our toes in the ocean of our own inspiration but are afraid of the pull of the currents of our hearts. The moments that move my heart seem to happen at the most ordinary times. What my poet’s heart has taught me is to be alive to the possibility of finding the ‘extra’ in the ordinary. On an early morning walk along the Durban beachfront, I came across Bongani and his sand woman. Bongani is a sand sculptor, and amidst the dolphins, a soccer ball and the fearsomely fanged cat that he was working on, stretched a Rubenesque sculpture of a woman. I doubt that Bongani has ever heard of Rubens but like the Master, (famous for his painting of voluptuous women), he had captured in his naïve work a sensuality and grace that ensnared my heart. I want to re-start the beat of my heart The figure was of a bountiful woman, clad only in a thong, lying face down in the sand. Initially, what caught my...

Mosquitoes, Moustaches and Saddam Hussein One memorable holiday, Julia and I headed off to a lodge in Hluhluwe. It was December. In the hot, hot heart of Zululand. But this is not about the curtains of mosquitoes that obscured our view of the sunset. It’s not about the death of the generator, that awful moment when the world went quiet, except for the persistent sucking of the swamp and a collective shiver of delight from the clouds of mosquitoes, sensing their moment had come.   There were choices, of course. We could stay in our room and join the puddle made by our fridge in extremis as we melted without the air conditioning, or, we could open the windows and be bitten to the bone by vulture sized mozzies. There was one other choice. A quad bike ride to a lake to view hippos seemed enticing. After all, I have ridden camels in Egypt, climbed the Great Wall of China and once, even knitted a jersey. (The fact that the jersey was so hideous that not even a camel would ...

Start your heart-dance.   Fatter Than Life is a poem about living ‘juicy’, about living a larger life. It was written at a time in my life where I felt lost and trapped in both my inner and outer worlds. We probably all have those days where – even in the middle of the brightest day – it feels like midnight in your soul. The hook for the poem came one beautiful Karoo morning, driving that straight, long road back to Johannesburg from the Cape. There was my tall African sky that I love so much, carrying a silver and grey cloud formation called a holy mackerel sky. I loved the unusual name and it began to dance in my head as the road unrolled. The name and the clouds had a lift and a joy that I was searching for. I have been a big person for most of my life. I was sent for ballet lessons – once. I came home knowing that if I was ever going to star in a ballet it would be as the Lake and not the Swan. But I don’t have to wear a tutu, or in my case, fourfour, to know how to d...

If you're anything like me (people who know me would warn you not to be) then you have a host of passwords, usernames, login names, URLs YouAreHells and the rest. Life can get complicated. So when I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to access my Gmail account, only to remember it was actually a Yahoo account, I used the 'life is complicated feel sorry for me' line to silence the laughter. But life is complicated. It doesn't take long for a Gmail to become a G-string and then and then you're up the crack without any paddles. Well, probably just as well you don't have paddles, that could be really uncomfortable. This blog is called 'Ruth's Real Life, but with so many identities, it's hard to know which password to enter as I get out of bed in the morning. There's nothing new about searching for identity, but my blog search is new. Shakespeare used King Lear to ask: "Who is that can tell me who I am?" I'm not sure that it...