Category: Observer

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Practice Makes Habit Makes Perfect – the declutter continues

“It’s messy, not dirty. That’s an important distinction: It’s dust, not dirt.” – Louis to Joe (Angels in America, 1985)

That’s a fairly accurate description of my approach to my room; it’s not dirty, my clothes just need to be packed away.  At least that was my attitude towards the organized chaos that was my room.

But since my last entry on ‘decluttering’ inspired by attn: and Jessica Alba, I’ve started organizing the other elements in my messy cocoon.

The chairdrobe has been clear for nearly two weeks thanks to the declutter mantra, and an even bigger deal, is that I’ve made my bed every morning (even on the weekends) since the wardrobe clean up.

For as long as I’ve been old enough to make my bed, I’ve found reasons not to. I used the obvious excuses:

  1. What’s the point, I’m just going to sleep in it again
  2. I’ve gotten the pillows at just the right indentation to suit my head
  3. Who’s going to see or care that I haven’t made the bed?

All valid and true for many people, but then you find the neat freaks who quote U.S. Navy Admiral William H. McCraven who said, “If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.”

I remember thinking, “what a load…” with rolling eyes for added effect. How self-righteous, what utter bilge.

Yet here I am, telling anyone who would listen, that I have reached a milestone in my life.

I am now a bed maker.

Why did I start?

  1. I needed a clear space to put the mountain of clothes during the cupboard declutter of 2018, and I did not need a bumpy duvet making the mountain bigger.
  2. It was a nice feeling to get into a neat bed at the end of the arduous task of purging some of my clothes.
  3. I made my bed the next morning, which made my room look a lot less like a messy nest, and more like a spacious haven.
  4. The last perk, which I’m just beginning to appreciate, is that I’m more likely to read while lounging on a made bed, than on an unmade one. Strange, but there it is. I enjoy propping my pillows up against the wall, and treating my made bed as a make-shift reading nook.
    1. It’s nice to nap on a made bed; there’s just something about the crispness of the cotton duvet

So have I begun my Pinky and the Brain scheme of taking over the world?

via GIPHY

Not yet.

But I do have a sense of accomplishment at the start of my day. I still have the small battle with myself in the mornings; the lazy me warning that I would be late for work if I took on this two minute task.  And yet I haven’t been, and the waves of procrastination that used to weigh me down daily are slowly becoming less.

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Resistance Starts at 4am

Today is Ahed Tamimi’s 17th birthday. She spent it in an Israeli prison.

She is Palestinian.

And she has been kept in Israeli prison since mid-December. She’s in jail because she slapped an armed Israeli soldier who had trespassed onto her family property. Her mother Nariman is also due in court on Tuesday for filming the incident.

Ahed alleges that the occupation soldier had shot her cousin in the head with a rubber bullet about an hour before the altercation at her home in Nabi Saleh. She says she felt compelled to retaliate due to the constant harassment and violence perpetrated by the Israeli regime on her family and people. The Tamimi resilience to the Israeli occupation is awe-inspiring. For many, they have galvanized the Palestinian youth resistance.

Ahed and her mother are due in court on February 6, 2018 (my birthday). Ahed is 17. She is half my age. When I was 17, my biggest problems involved homework.

Tamimi Family at Radio 786 studios (Cape Town)

I met Ahed and her family last year when they visited South Africa as part of the Shamsaan (Two Suns) Project. You’d be forgiven for describing her as a sullen teenager, but the manner in which she took my phone for a selfie proved that while she recognized her duty to her people and her land, she was still a teenager who wants to be a soccer player and wear fashionable clothes.

But the Israeli occupation has taken away her dream of one day representing Palestine’s women’s soccer team in the World Cup. Instead, she has to contend with haphazard checkpoints instead of goalposts.

The Israeli skill of corralling, and restricting people’s movement is remarkable. Where else would you see the scale of checkpoints and military personnel, than in Israeli Occupied Palestine?

Continue reading “Resistance Starts at 4am”

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Noteworthy Penmanship

My pen ran out of ink this morning.

No more will its happy clicking trigger my thought processes at work. No more will its translucent yellow body’s inability to balance out its dainty nib inspire daily irritation.

Yet, those last faint lines it left on my notepad were met with dread.

NOW?! You’re running dry, NOW?!

It’s not that I was about to pen the most brilliant idea ever penned in history, but I knew with lightning clarity that this delay would derail the rest of my day.

Who knows, I could have written a note that would eventually be sold for millions of dollars years after my death.

Nobel Laureate Albert Einstein’s note to his delivery man in Japan has now been sold for $1.56 million. How in the heck does a hand-written note to a delivery man get sold for that much?

“A calm and humble life will bring more happiness than the pursuit of success and the constant restlessness that comes with it.”

And,

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

Perhaps it’s the wisdom of his noteworthy tip. Maybe it’s because its Einstein’s particular wisdom that justifies the note’s worth.

You may argue that it has more to do with Einstein, and his contributions to physics that justifies the price.

I suppose it depends on your worldview, and whether you place more importance on improving the self, than improving the science.

How’s that for relativity?

 

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Nothing like the Present

Smartphones have turned almost anyone into a photographer. We’re all happily snapping along, getting the best shot, and angle, with the added joy of having the option of deleting a bad picture. It’s just so easy. And don’t forget the filters, and picture enhancing features that add to our pseudo photography skills. Now those really make you look artsy.

I wonder what those die-hard photographers think about the smartphone happy snappers.

We will never know the slog of carrying the heavy bags containing the lenses that cost more than the camera, or the time it takes to develop the film.  But it’s not our fault, everything is digital these days.

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