Fatter Than Life


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 dance with my heart.

Heart-Dancing is about letting go, it’s about hearing a rhythm and letting your heart follow its beat. Dancing is about showing up on the centre stage of our lives and waiting for that moment when the spotlight hits.

Dancing, on those midnight days, is about having the courage just to get up in the morning. Dancing with your heart as your partner is about knowing the steps even when others tell you that you’re out of synch. It’s about not leaving your hopes and dreams in the wings while you watch other people dance your steps.

Am I a perfect dancer? No. But there are days when I feed my heartbody with the defiant rumbleroar that’s me!
And that’s brilliant.

Leave a comment if you can help someone with their Heart-Dance, or if you just want to chat about yours.

Keep dancing,
Ruth.

 Fatter Than Life

One day when it’s not midnight,
I’m gonna dance under a holy mackerel sky,
I’m gonna jitterbug my bellybody in defiant:
Fatter than life
Got no rhythm
Can’t stop me now,
Space jumps, jetês and absurd arabesques.

One night when it’s burning bright midday,
I’m gonna love off the fat of the land,
I’m gonna feed my heartbody in a defiant:
Fill this space
Heap my plate
Can’t stop me now
Can’t laugh me now,
Enormous rumbleroar that’s me!
                                    Ruth Everson

(This poem remains the intellectual property of the poet.)

Comments

  1. Olga17 October 2011 at 12:40

    What a beautiful poem...And by the way we are not big people, just people who are too short for their weight!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lydia Craemer18 October 2011 at 04:52

    is your profile picture the holy mackerel sky ? I love those evenings when the sun sets on high clouds and they turn iridescent

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ruth Everson18 October 2011 at 13:15

    Hi Olga - I love living in my wide world.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ruth Everson18 October 2011 at 13:16

    Nuisance: No this pic was taken of a sunset in Mauritius last December. It's a great reminder of a beautiful space.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Have The Conversation

On Thursday, I was invited to discuss my poem Black and White with 90 Grade 7s. The poem is about my second mother, Johanna Rapule. At the end of the talk, the girls asked a number of questions about the poem but there is one that has haunted me ever since. ‘What would you say to Johanna if you could speak to her again?’ The easy answer would be to tell her that I loved her. The real answer would be the deep regret that, although she knew my hopes and my dreams, I never knew hers. Growing up in apartheid South Africa, it seemed normal to have Johanna living in the tiny khaya at the bottom of the garden. It was normal to have her cook and clean and iron. I was five; my world was shaped by adults. As I grew up, visionary teachers, like Maureen O’ Gara, awakened me to the injustice that kept Johanna in her place. As a student, I protested and waved placards. We ran from the police down the streets of Benoni. We wrote angry poems, smoked furiously and drank too much wine. ...
Read more

Now is the Time for Courage

Image
A new year beckons. Before you know it we will be challenged by another 1st of January.  It's time to effect the change for which we yearn. Along come all the hopeful resolutions that briefly see the light of day before dying their usual death. Don't make resolutions - again I spoke to a group of people recently and asked them if they had made resolutions for 2020, many of them had. Most were horrified when I told them to ditch their grand plans as they would cause more stress than they were worth. The 1 st of January is like some magical line in the sand – there is a vague hope that we can step across the line and suddenly be all the things that we haven’t been for the last X number of years. The right inspirational moment Things that need to get done, get done. If you amputate a finger while cunningly carving a radish to decorate a salad, you don’t sit on the couch waiting for the right inspirational moment to go to the closest casualty room. You put your...
Read more

Tear Ducts, Onions and Chillies

Image
I’ve had a blocked tear duct for at least two weeks. It looks a little like I’m keeping a giant Easter Egg under my eye. I’ve checked, there’s no Lindt or Geldhof surprise waiting for me, which is a pity. I refuse to visit the doctor for something as puny as an eye duct. When I go, I like to tick off things like back ops, neck fusions, foot reconstructions or the odd skin graft on the troublesome head. Eye will not admit defeat to something the size on a pin prick. I have tried various methods to unblock the duct. Using my powers of deduction (see what I did there?) and Google, I set about finding a solution. Dr Google suggested a hot compress. I heated up a face cloth and reclined on the couch in a tragic pose, calling faintly for tea. The compress did nothing. I’m still hoping for the tea. The next was to try an eye solution. I poured drops into my eye. Nothing helped. Julia did mention that the drops were so past their expiry date that Noah may have dropped them of...
Read more