- Part 3

Reviewing my situation

On November 16, 2019

In Cape Town, deeply personal, me on stage, show reviews, theatre stuff, writing

Cue Fagan earworm for the rest of the day.

A particularly complicated space I have managed to carve out for myself is that of reviewer in the field in which I try to have a career (word used because there isn’t a proper one to describe the all over dabbleness of what it is I actually do). It is between a huge rock of irony and a hard place of communal despair (universal and timeless when it comes to theatre that isn’t in New York City and On Broadway) that I put myself. Because I write about other people’s theatre work to get people into the theatre. And I am honest (even though it comes at a terrible price) because I want people to be able to trust me, and get to know me by my likes and dislikes.

But it is a dance, and I suck at the choreography of innuendo, and politic, and getting comps, and being part of the system, and being outside of the system, and having to rely on the same when I put on my own work, and then seeing something that is brilliant that isn’t getting audiences, and then feeling like I can’t get my own work into the spaces because I am more valuable as an external voice, and then seeing something terrible and having my heart fill my mouth and make me wordless, and then straying from the pack and doing something different that nobody sees, and appreciating the effort and hating the result of something, or seeing through the hype, or believing my own hype, and around the mulberry bush I go, mostly at 430am in the morning.

So, I am going to say it here, and test it out on myself. It’s good to be writing from meganshead again.

Money

By megan

On November 15, 2019

In Cape Town, deeply personal, inspiration, political, random things

One hundred percent of my anxiety is about money. Probably, if I compare myself to other people, with jobs, I handle my anxiety better, because I haven’t submitted myself to an endless job, ever.

Still. That is what I worry about. And I don’t get it. I don’t get this world that needs us to do so much stuff for money to live. And I don’t get the inequality of it; I don’t get how a human body that does backbreaking manual labour, fetching things out of the ground, is less valuable money wise than the actions of the man who sends them down there. I don’t understand.

I drove past roadworks the day before yesterday and looked at the ragged team standing in a gash in the earth, splitting open the platinum real estate of Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront. These men, sweating in the sun, knew what they were doing in that gash. It involved a huge pipe and other cables and big machinery. There was a (lighter skinned) foreman watching them over his giant belly. He was the one who had a hardhat on. For his more valuable head. My radio was playing an advert for ‘affordable’ retirement homes that would never accommodate me, or these people.

I get hysterical when I hear about how really rich people do not want to pay more tax, and I cannot understand it, and then I get a traffic fine that is exactly how much I have earned while my car was parked illegally and nothing makes sense at all. Money, and how we perceive it, and how we use it, and how we are attached to it and how we bring it to our lives; sometimes in mythological and spiritual ways, doesn’t feel right. And truthfully, I don’t love that this is what it takes to be in the world, to measure our success, to rate our progress.

Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility and South Africa

By megan

On November 14, 2019

In Cape Town, inspiration, political, race

It was a rewarding and intense three hours at UWC, with primary speaker, American Dr. Robin DiAngelo, and a panel of speakers. It was Robin’s final talk; she has been around the country, unpacking structural racism, (the title of her book) and why it is so hard for whites to talk about racism. I have read her book, her articles and watched her videos, so her position isn’t new to me. What was refreshing and insightful was to see her in the flesh, feel the scrutiny of her gaze, and hear her words land on a real live audience. It was also a special gift to be in a space that was not predominantly white. This meant that we could hear, maybe for the first time for some, how we are perceived as white people, instead of listening to white people whitesplaining racism. (Yes, I know that Robin DiAngelo is white. That is why Edwin Cleophas brought her to South Africa. So white people would listen.)

A lot of stuff went down. And it was mostly very strong. The rest of the panel; Dr. Nyx Mclean, Hein Gerwel, Tumi Jonas Mpofu and moderator Asanda Ngoasheng were animated, passionate and interesting, and I hope they were ‘no holds barred’. I think they were. The discussion was robust, and it was revealing – many white, liberal women in the room were particularly challenged and confronted.

My personal important takeaways from today were. 1. Humility – nothing stands more in the way of understanding and learning than to arrogantly assume the conversation is not about you. Yes, it is in fact about you, and me. We are the whiteness and we are the fragility. And the notion that it isn’t about you/me is what solidifies this notion of the individual as opposed to the system, the structure, the inevitability and certainty of everything that comes with being born white.

2. How you feel is absolutely not how you are perceived. It is helpful, no, vital to understand how you are seen before you allow your feelings, your position, your centering of yourself to steer the conversation.

3. This one is a reaffirmation of something I know, but was grateful to be reminded of with such force. Black people cannot and should not have to do the work for you. Finnish and klaar. Or as Robin DiAngelo put it; google the shit.

I heartily wish more white people were prepared to go there. I am disappointed at how few are able and willing to. So, jump on, in. Lean in, get messy, get uncomfortable and start the process of finally acknowledging how easy it is to be the centre of the universe.

Pumpkin Finds Her Queen

By megan

On November 14, 2019

In Cape Town, inspiration, writing

Off we pootled yesterday evening into the traffic of town to Youngblood in Bree St for the launch of one of my favourite actors in CT, Bianca Flanders’, children’s book, Pumpkin Finds Her Queen. And what a lovely, magical, affirming and divine thing it was.

Pumpkin Finds Her Queen is all about learning to love your unique, and especially curly haired self. And there was so much beautiful, curly, whirly, swirly, bouncy, frizzy, crazy, big and bushy hair in one room last night.

It was a beautiful party, to introduce this little piece of deliciousness into the world. A little, gentle rhyming story, with crazy and fantastic illustrations by Zinelda McDonald and every little person will love and cherish the gorgeous Pumpkin and her curly crown.

PS. Dean Balie’s music accompaniment to the live reading was an extra bonus treat.

Here’s me looking like a psycho stalker fan and the fabulous author.

Change

By megan

On November 13, 2019

In Cape Town, deeply personal, improv, world of work

I have always believed that I am one of few people who are comfortable with, or at least used to, change. Having been a ‘freelancer’ my whole life, with no actual proper job, I have gotten used to living with uncertainty. I don’t know any other way. Sometimes my days are full and complicated, and sometimes I have no idea what all those things were that I so badly wanted to do ‘when I had the time’.

Being someone who doesn’t know how the days, weeks and months of the year are going to unfold also means putting things out into the world of work and hoping that some of them take root. Some do. Sometimes at the same time. Sometimes a barren wind blows and nothing grows.

Being an improviser has been the best, and most consistent help. The improvisation philosophy of being in the present is a powerful and positive tool, and it is also the tool that has shaken me out of passive lethargy and into action; sometimes just to do the mundane stuff of exercise or housework.

So the theory is that I should be able to cope well with change. And I do. Ish. I just get stuck when things change and they are worse than they were before, and the change is out of my hands.

A good example would be the change of a board of some or other organisation – let’s say, for argument’s sake and totally hypothetically, the board of a charity I support. Let’s say I have been working with these tired and committed board members because I believe in their cause. And they have sacrificed much. And then a new board takes over, with efficient plans to save money and make money, with comparisons to other charities who do things better elsewhere. All of this is needed, and it makes sense. And they are totally gung-ho, but still, some people leave the organisation, and others stay, not totally fitting into their new skins, And the change is all over – in management style, and tone of voice, and level of commitment. None of it is wrong. It is just different. Relationships are different. And my place is different. And my voice is differently heard, and felt, and maybe, possibly ignored.

This change is so hard for me. This kind of change.

I have no idea why the feeling of this kind of change brings me to this memory. Many, many years ago now, when the passings of our old Taiwanese dogs Bayla and Gally were properly mourned and I started thinking about adopting a new dog into our home I remember seeing a pic of a dog on an animal rescue website and I became convinced he was the one for us. (I am sure I wrote about this on this blog all those years ago). They sent a man to do a house inspection and he decided that our courtyard was too small and we failed the house inspection. No matter how hard I tried to explain that we had no intention ever of keeping the dog in the courtyard, that he would be an inside dog that we would walk every day, mostly twice a day, they refused to hear us.

Sometimes change makes me feel misunderstood.

PS. I have just gone back to those old posts about that time. Yup. Still smarts.

I feel them like nagging pilot fish…

By megan

On November 12, 2019

In deeply personal, political, random things, writing

these new thoughts of nameless frustration. This is a quote from The Deep Red Sea. I love it, even if I say so myself (as my granny Janie would say).

I am surrounded by nagging pilot fish at the moment. They are the prickle of ideas that have not solidified into things yet.

They are social media and the irritating little nibbles they take out of my brain and time that I just can’t seem to shake.

They are the edgy rasp of global politics that are part nauseating horror and part nauseating almost excitement. Is the world really changing? Everywhere is on fire and people are protesting, from Lebanon to Hong Kong to Chile. People have had enough. A tide could be, may be turning as the terrifying, terrified last dictators stamp their feet and dig their heels deeper. Are people booing at the clown they made or are they distracted as Pennywise takes hold? Or are these more nagging pilot fish? Do most people in the world want to stay as they are because change is even more terrifying than the hell that is known?

I watch things on Netflix with titles like The End of the F***ing World. Imagine that. I watch same sex sex on TV while our own politician tells us to mind our own business when homosexuality is criminalised and given a death sentence by our neighbours. Twitter hate explodes, reverses, twists in on itself, hates the hater. Words bite, burn and heal.

White people deny concepts rather than things and are hurt by the ideas of White Fragility and White Tears, more than the real lived experience of black people, who must be the other every day in a country where they are not the other.

Slaves are bought and sold. Animals are food. Vegans and climate change activists are lampooned. Billionaires are crying about having to pay tax. There is a lobby, a lobby ffs, that has successfully sold the false notion that Pro-Palestine means anti-Semitism.

In the meantime a man is 3D printing limbs for people without limbs. A schoolgirl stands against grown men in the world and makes her voice heard. Chickens run to get hugs from boys. And tiny stories of love, friendship, defiance and bonding float to the surface like blown kisses.

Megan's Head

A place where Megan gets off her head.

Author: megan (Page 3 of 266)

Reviewing my situation

Money

Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility and South Africa

Pumpkin Finds Her Queen

Change

I feel them like nagging pilot fish…

Categories

Tags

Archives