Ruth's Real Life

Horatio - Stone of Heart & Hope “’Hope is the thing with feathers” Before lockdown, all dressed up and ready to go. I taught English for 39 years. For most of those years, I had a faithful classroom companion. My pet rock, Horatio. He became a legend. If you ask him for his story, he will maintain a stony silence, but I feel compelled to speak on his behalf and on the behalf of all unrecognized treasures that give us hope. I love stones and rocks; I have always had a passion for them. I can remember as a little girl of seven or eight, spending a Christmas holiday searching a lush Uvongo tropical garden searching for the perfect stone. There were banana trees, frangipani and hibiscus hiding ants and geckos. I adventured like a little Durrell amongst them until I found my stone, it was beautiful. The smooth surface was cool in my hand, solid and telling me stories. I washed and wrapped it. I can still see the paper, green with tiny silver stars. On Christmas morning...

I am the Captain of My Ship …of My Small Ship Snacking on a peanut butter ball and drinking coffee while cruising on a little flat-bottomed boat, the world was a distant reality. The lake was still, a new sun painted the landscape into a live Pierneef. In front of me, clouds skimmed the Waterberg Mountains, catching their slow reflections in the water. On the skeleton arm of a tree, long stranded in the lake, a cormorant curved a sharp beak to preen its feathers. As we puttered past a reed bed, a hippo, alarmed by our presence, surged to the surface. It was there and then gone in a moment, leaving us startled and laughing in delight. I imagined it, invisible beneath the surface, gliding on pointe across the muddy bottom of the lake and away from our intrusion.  I try to capture moments like these. Not just on camera but in the fabric of my soul. There was, however, a picture of me, standing at the front of the boat and laughing at the camera. I posted it on Fac...