SWAMP GIRL

The only constant in my life is that I DON'T EXERCISE.

Now this is not due to a lack of motivation, training or willpower. I have stacks of that. To put it simply: I just HATE exercise.
I find it pointless, boring and a complete waste of time. And then on Saturday I did a 60 minute RPM class at gym and loved it? Why? Is there something wrong with my love-meter?!

Let's go back.
I was born in a swamp (not really), but I did have this beautiful picture above on my MAC desktop and one of our cameramen said:

"Wow that's a lovely photo - where was it taken?"

"It's where I was born?"

"You were born in a swamp?"

"No. I was not born IN this picture, I was born in the area in a TOWN.”

So back to my blog: I grew up on a farm - there was no such thing as lycra tights or neon leotards in my cupboard and I had no idea that there was a word like" aerobics" or that Jane Fonda had released best seller exercise videos.. The five of us kids would just run around and chase baboons and milk goats and do all sorts of other things that happy swamp kids do.

Then I moved into the village and suddenly we went to school and had this weird class called PT - this foreign group exercise where you need to all run when someone blows the whistle and jump when they blow it twice until you are red in your face and feel like vomiting, because it's so unnatural. So in a nutshell, I never took a liking to running or scheduled group exercises.

Then came swimming - I was fine in the swamp, because there was a shallow end and I knew if I stayed in that vicinity, besides the odd underwater pothole and mouth full off water ferns, I was fine.
But at some point I was told I had to learn to swim and I was put into the deep end of a chlorine pool at about 8 and told to swim a few metres. It stank and made my eyes burn so I clung to the side and cried long enough until they told me I could get out and I never learnt to swim until I was about 13.
I did this by deciding to tackle my problem head on and join the school swimming team. I think everyone used to come and watch me because I used to swim so badly. Like a flailing lobster in a pot of hot water. I still can't do it properly with all the hair in your eyes and trying to breath and move your arms at the same time. It Just never worked out for me. But I can save myself from the basics of near drowning at least.

Then came high school and COMPULSORY SPORTS. I started bunking sports by taking advantage of a technical glitch in our high-school rules. If you were a “Sports Medic” it classified as sports. So I joined the First Aid team - instead of running large laps until I was red in the face and vomiting again, I got to go to lectures about how to give CPR to someone who had lost their lips in a fire and given practical ways to bandage amputated limbs. Not that this would ever happen to the first team rugby players that I had to attend to on the field, but all in all it was a lot more bearable than laps.

And now we come to the present. In my favour I am blessed with a slim figure so never really needed to exercise because of my weight - so the ONLY reason I can think of doing it is because it's apparently good for you - so seeing as I am clocking onto 30 and I live in a highly stressful city in a semi-stressful job - I guess the best thing is to do what is good for you.

So I think it may all be about a mindset change and doing good things to my body and even tho I had visions of having a tomato face and vomiting down the side of my RPM bike - I actually enjoyed it and felt good afterwards.

For the fan(s)

Everyone is always telling me to settle down, have a kid, do less fundraising, stop moving countries find one hobby and basically to stop being creative and adventurous.
Now I must admit that I like a lot of different things - doesn't everyone? .....I like to do whatever I feel like doing when I feel like doing it - I like writing & painting & babysitting & singing & eating & plants & reading & movies & making things & acting & window-shopping & dreaming & doing stuff & finding more interesting things to do. OK!!!! - That's just the start to what makes up the whole of me. I get it all the time from strangers, friends and family. You do too much. You're involved in too much. blah blah blah

Now ONE person gets me in life and I have known her for 5 years and she has never said "woah, slow down kiddo" and funnily enough, she is my biggest fan of my 3 chapter blog - which is another thing I recently started doing.

Her last e-mail to me was something like this: "I can't wait for the next episode of your adventure. Please let me know as soon as you write your blog, I'm fascinated to hear what you are up to next."

These words are words that writers hunger and wait for. Adoring fans to be moved by their work...

My adoring fan is my mother in law.

She recently e-mailed me while on a trip from Johannesburg to Cape Town visiting her daughter for a much needed break. What did she do when she arrived? She asked her daughter how to open and read my blog. (Hopefully after first unpacking and saying "Hi" I hope). Now I like a person with priorities and for someone in their 50's who is only just learning the ways of the interweb and a laptop - well I am so pleased that on her holiday she would make it a priority to find out how to view the URL to my blog that I mail her because she has found it so fascinating (all three posts).

Some advice to all those folks who are also told to take a breath and do one thing at a time. Bollocks - you can do much more than you can ever imagine - so JUST DO IT. Write, laugh, create, move, dance, sleep, snore, eat and do it all over again and even at the same time. If I dropped what I was doing everytime some unmotivated person tried to palm their demotivation onto me - I'd be incredibly bored by now.

Thanks to my second mum for always cheering me on. It means the world to me.
Now get busy people. Do some stuff you never ever thought you'd do. Just for the hell of it.

Oh and then of course you need to take long holidays in between episodes of busy-ness - REF: My first blog "My Melancholy Cay"