I think it’s just the way we are programmed as humans. We remember the mistakes with greater accuracy. Often embellishing it more along the way. And don’t you just hate the continuous action replay that goes on mentally? Lol!

The irony is that I can’t really remember what I did on stage at the Joy of Jazz even though I would class it as one of my musical highlights so far. Everyone experiences a moment where they think, “Is this really real?” The entire week spent with the Gauteng Big Band felt like that.  Everyone made me feel at home and reminded me why I always dreamed of being a musician.

So even though I had a minute of “what-the-fuck just happened” at the gig last night I won’t let it replay in my head for too long. I will take the Montreux approach instead. That amounts to “shit happens and you better learn from it girlie”.

Lord knows I did not bring the house down at the Joy of Jazz festival. I was also the least experienced. And honestly I don’t give a rat’s ass about that either. Being on that stage felt so good. So instead of having a action replay of the “bad” gig….this time round I choose to think about Bra Johnny, Bra Stompie, Prince, Khaya, Andile, Hendrik, Mlungisi, Sydney and all the kids they mentor. Then to make it even sweeter I will think of just how good it felt to be home with my husband, daughter and annoying cats…lol! Nothing better…

Armand wants Louis because he needs a link to the age he is living in. How many of us do not need the same thing? I thought I too needed a Louis when I first got into the music industry. There was so much uncertainty. Hell, I thought I needed so much back then. It’s funny what you discover along the way….

Does this mean I don’t take guidance? Oh no. I always listen. The one thing being a mother taught me is that I don’t have to agree with anything just because it was said by someone with greater authority. Anyway, I have always learnt faster through experience. And that has meant falling hard on my ass at times…lol!

My husband annoys me (for a variety of reasons) but mostly because he is always listening to millions of artists. The words I dread hearing are “Take a listen to this artist”. I say dreaded because he is a weirdo and most of the music he suggests is just down right weird. Still the one thing I have always admired about him is that he is never scared to try new things. So I reckon he would make an excellent vampire. You could drop him in any age and he would adapt.

As much as we hate to admit it – no one knows everything or even that much really. At best we know little about little. The only way clarity comes is through experience or by falling short of your own expectations. And when that happens all it takes is time. Time to reflect and change your direction. Most of us find change so scary and the inability to adapt can and sometimes does kill us…

No matter what your kids get up to or how old they become – parents always feel responsible. If there is any truth to the reports then poor Lawrence must be mortified. I know I would be! I can hear some of you saying, “Well, she is a grown ass women so the choices she makes are her own.” But be serious now how would you respond if that was your kid?

Look I feel terrible when my daughter can’t keep her room clean. The site of that dirty instantly reminds me of some very unpleasant people. So I do the next perfectly understandable thing; I freak out. In order for peace to prevail in our universe, I have accepted that every now and then she needs a bit of help so I help her out. After the required screaming and preaching of course…

“I’m hoping the same magic will work for me. I’m impatient about getting well-known and having more opportunities and this seemed like a great way to get started on it.” In other words she wants to be famous and now. Lord, this is alarming stuff. “I’ve watched how successful Kim Kardashian became and I think a lot of it was due to the release of her sex tape by Vivid.

Sure, I hope that I am quoting her out of context and that she has some other exit strategies. This 19 year old, by just doing her own thing, is making us question why we value the things we do and just who we are becoming.

Now I find myself in the same dilemma – trying to convince her about the sheer genius of Dr Who. But is seems she just can’t get past the strange looking aliens or all the downright improbable things that happen to the Dr. Of course they would be improbable! The Dr is a Time Lord, capable of travelling in between time and space for goodness sake!

The thing that really makes the series compelling is that the Dr, in between preventing every kind of catastrophe, is torn between his duty (to ensure the survival of almost every living thing in the galaxy) and his own desires. Not only is he a Time Lord. He is the last of his kind. So he is doomed to be lonely and watch all those he loves die.

Does that not sound seriously fantastic? Yes, yes, I am an addict, I know this…but back to my sister. Sometimes she acts as though she is the last Time Lord in the know and unknown galaxies. Only difference is that the Dr accepts his loneliness and has as much fun as he can whenever he can.

Loneliness is a strange thing. You either embrace it or it ruins you. Loneliness taught me to appreciate the quality of my own thoughts more. Hell, I sound like a monk now! It also lead to me cultivating a curious habit. I grew to love silence.

I only fill my house and head with noise when I need to do mindless things like cleaning. I can’t write music, blog, have a great conversation when there is too much noise around. My daughter gets annoyed when I close my eyes while eating certain foods. I want to savour and prolong the experience. I wish my sister could see that…but I reckon she has to find value and meaning to her loneliness in her own time and space..

Sure the world will end and we all will die. Now that that has been established – let’s have some fun why don’t we?

Last week I finally got the chance to watch INCEPTION. My sister’s mind was buzzing all over the place as we stepped out of the cinema.  There are many theories going around about the meaning of the movie.  I prefer the theory put forward by Devin Faracio on Chud.com . The idea that the movie itself is one collective dream that we are all sharing.

Now, I love my dreams! Most of the time I don’t remember them but every now and then I have a dream that changes the way I think about everything. It changes everything because the idea itself seems so crazy. Like the one I had about being a musician years ago. I reckon that’s why I am going to buy this movie as soon as it’s out on DVD, because DeCaprio’s character was right when he said, “A single idea from the human mind can build cities. An idea can transform the world and rewrite all the rules.” It has for me…

Just this morning I woke up from a dream and said, “Shit, I hate visiting that place” Yes, I need to think about that dream or if all else fails call up my best friend who seems to know my mind better than I do at times…lol!

I could also relate when DeCaprio’s character said,” I can access your mind through your dreams.” Like I said I am going with the theory that he is dreaming throughout the entire movie. Each character is a projection of his mind. And so he learns the nature of his mind through his dreams…That movie, like this life, is the ultimate dream within a dream, within a dream…

Years ago after watching THE MATRIX, some guy ahead of me said, “What if this life we are living is not real?” I just shook my head and thought, “Of course it’s not real you fool! We are just dreaming it up as we go along” Yes, I was very tolerant all those years ago…lol!

This is why I love movies. Simply because the things we watch, just like our dreams, can give us clues to what’s going on in our mind…

The only thing we all seem to know is how not to behave. Blame it on society, your parents…whatever makes you comfortable but I reckon at some point we have to face this inevitable fact: a lot of what we think is right or proper is just someone else’s bullshit that we decided to adopt.

Maybe it’s because I was a shy child or maybe my mother really is to blame. She never once told me how I should behave or urged me to be a good girl. I was left to figure it out on my own. Yet despite that I struggled. And every day I come across people who say, “I know I shouldn’t be feeling this but….” They just don’t know what to do with how they feel.

Every emotion is packaged in some polite and politically friendly wrapping. We rarely show that we are hurt. Are too scared to show any kind of anger or acknowledge resentment. I had to learn the hard way that sometimes you have to be rough and loud or even nasty to honor your emotions.

Letting go of your conditioning is never pleasant. I find it hard sharing how I feel. So I take the easy way out instead; I write a song. Now that sounds great on paper but it is really sad. I would rather spend hours writing a song than a few minutes being deadly vulnerable with people I love.

Why can’t we just be honest and say, “I love you despite the fact that you are a crazy agnostic bitch who doesn’t believe any of the things I do.” Just the other day I told my mister, “I don’t know whether to kill you or divorce you because of your terrible taste in music!” We have come to some serious blows because of this. Trust me it is a serious matter…

Respect is important. Giving people the space to be themselves vital. Some of my friends are really loopy but why, in heaven’s name, would I want to surround myself with people who are just like me? That is seriously mental if you think about it…lol!

Years later I ditched the alter, gave away my robe and donated many of the books to a library but my love for rituals stayed. Every morning I walk around my garden and have conference calls with my “people upstairs”. Some might call this crazy and I really don’t care. All I know is that by the time I am done all the craziness I felt is gone and I can think clearly.

I don’t call myself a pagan or attach any kind of label to my spiritually. This caused great confusion for my daughter when she was asked to prepare an oral on religion few years ago. I was honest and gave her my take. This was her response, “Mummy that’s real interesting and makes sense but no one will get it. And I will get a bad mark.” She went to my mother-in-law instead…

Every now and then (especially when I am very stressed out) I will light some candles and incense. Hey, a bit of atmosphere never killed anyone! When I was still a pagan my cats would enter my circle and purr as I did my thing. They have also decided to join me on my early morning walks. Perhaps they have discovered the correlation between the walks and better tasting cat food. lol!

My life is a relatively peaceful one and I have a lot to be grateful for. Every now and then I pop into a plane and sing somewhere. But it’s the family (cats included) and friends that makes everything slot into place perfectly. I think we all need people (dead and alive!) who give great advice, allow you to be yourself and tell you when you are being a bitch. The rest of the planet can go to hell…

I once sat in the hairdresser for 6 hours! Yes, I looked fantastic when I strutted out – eventually – but I vowed to never do that again. In JHB people have no qualms with wearing weaves but if you are wearing one in CT you are most certainly not going to admit it publicly…lol!

It has a lot to do with Apartheid. If you were lighter and your hair straighter –you were more sought after – even if you were a skank with no class! This, years after democracy, is still true all over CT. Now I don’t have an issue with ladies wearing weaves. If it makes you happy then just do it! I do worry when I see a two year old screaming her head off because she is getting braids implanted or when their scalps are being burned with relaxer.

Sure, in a perfect world we would all be okay with the way we look, but this is not a perfect world and we all have issues. The media does not make it easier either. Just think of the ladies and men in porn movies, for heaven’s sake! Most of us don’t look or act like that! LOL!

There is no point spouting things like, “love yourself as you are” – again nice concept but let’s get real here. Most of us can’t do that. It’s just too damn hard. So I opt for the next best thing; we should find a balance wherever and however we can. Wear a weave or go to bed with your GHD…whatever works for you, works for you. Look, I thought I knew a thing or two about the world yet it took me years to finally accept and embrace my big boobs… lol!

I always thought that most people have integrity. I just haven’t found many of them in the music industry. If you do not fit into some kind of box you have to work your ass off a lot harder to get anyone’s attention. All it takes to make an impression in the music industry these days is this: a pretty thin girl with an average voice, trendy clothes and a big hit producer. I am sick of all of it.

Why can’t we see each other for who we are? Jill Scott, who has one of the most amazing voices, had to wait years before she got signed and even resorted to sending her demos to record companies without any picture. This makes me understand Nina Simone’s bitterness and anger a lot better. She knew just how superficial and fickle people can be.

Playing at Montreux was an eye opener for many reasons. I will be honest. We were not the best band or even the most entertaining. And lord knows we were far from experienced. Despite all that we got on that stage and played with “gees”. I did not hope or expect anything big to come from it. All I ever hoped for was that people would hear me and not be put off by the fact that I do not fit into their thin or pretty box.

And I don’t know if the audience at Montreux got it or even if the people here do. Part of me find that very sad. This is why I have few friends or don’t easily embrace new people and smile whenever I am asked to. I don’t do fakeness very well…

The people in my life who matter will always be the ones who could always see me for who I am. Plus all the bullshit, prejudices and flaws. If people who listen to my music manage to see that and past the only two pop songs on my album – then fantastic. If not too damn bad baby…

The idea that I was going to sing in front of a few thousand people was just too overwhelming to deal with so I ignored all of them – or tried to. Being in Montreux was an eye opener. I was walking and breathing in a space where Nina Simone, Miles Davis and so many others performed for crying out loud! I had so many mixed emotions that I just could not articulate at the time. People around me thought I was being a wet blanket. They were freaking out and jumping about when I remained stoically silent. I reckon some people will never understand me…lol! All those thoughts and fears dissolved when I saw Ben Harper perform. It was not only his music but how he spoke of music. In that second I was reminded of why I became a musician.

And it has nothing to do with wanting fame or validation. I just love being able to sing getting paid well for doing so. Montreux taught me many things. It showed me that I need to plan better, take greater control and be more unafraid. Now finding a way to do all that will take work but I am not alone…

I think it’s human wanting to always do better or thinking that you failed somehow. All I can do is accept that I did the best with what I had at the time. So instead of being depressed I have chosen to see this as nothing more than a lesson. One I would not have been able to learn if I stayed at home. It really is true what Bilbo Baggins said in Lord of the Rings, “Sometimes you never know where the road will take you…” and if I misquoted the old dude…forgive me…