Ok, let’s do this!
I pray for courage and simplicity to tell you a collection of stories that are deeply personal to me. Stories that have shaped me and those around me and, at the same time, I want something for all of us. I want us to discover our own stories in this journey through life. You see, each one of us is part of a much larger narrative. I want you to find yourself in this great story. I want you to find your heart.
Isn't that what we all truly want to discover - who am I?
Sitting together one night over a meal, Jo and I started dreaming again. Our words were like brushes painting something new, fresh, maybe with a little neon in it. We are crazy like that. The good kind of crazy. Words were revealing something exciting.
Jo and I had this idea and it got a lot clearer as we spoke well into the night. We continued our meal and then the paint really started hitting the canvas. Clarity or stupidity, we weren’t sure. Words were forming a picture of what each of us carried in our hearts.
I felt really vulnerable in that moment and afraid. No one really knows what will happen once you’ve shared something intimate.
‘How could we give expression to the last few years of our lives?
How could we tell some of the tales that have at times seemed too surreal to be real?
Sometimes too tragic to repeat?
How could we add our music to what we wanted to do?
We want to connect with people deeply. We were tired of the fake smiles and the cheap friendships that we see around us. We’re just ordinary, not famous, and therefore not worthy of an autobiography that graces the bookshelves of the ‘new releases’ section of the bookstore. But we do have a story to tell.’
If you’re reading this now, thank you for joining us on this creative journey of storytelling. It’s only the beginning.
I couldn’t sleep that night.
Sitting on our wooden deck, listening to the rumbling of the ocean a few hundred meters from us, we found our conversation drifting between how we survive, what’s just happened, and how to have the fullest life possible going forward. We wanted more than what we were just coping with. We didn’t simply want to get through these early years. We wanted to create and sing and dance and celebrate our way through the years that lay ahead of us.
So how did we get here?
We were living in a small coastal paradise on the east coast of South Africa. We had been married for thirteen months. We had five children. At the time our youngest was four months old. You’re trying to do the maths now, aren’t you? Five children and thirteen months – sounds interesting? We will get there. Jo embraced me. She put her arms around me as if to say, ‘I hope there’s more?'
We were renting a little home – beautifully situated on a green hill that rolled down to a small bay. We had great neighbors nearby, yet not too close to see into our windows. They became our friends. Best of all, my parents lived on top of the hill. Each morning I’d walk down the path to the water’s edge; it’s called a surf check. Coffee in hand. Early enough not to feel anything. Do you know that feeling? No pleasures, no worries, no fears, no joys. Just waking up. Those are my best mornings because for years I’d wake up with knots in my stomach. Insecurities and fears swirled around my head and doubts about what in the world I was doing with my life. Sometimes, I’d wake up and vomit from panic, hoping that my wife wouldn’t hear me.
My daily joke with myself was, 'Just wait till 9 am when the meds kick in.' Hopefully, by then I was balanced and thinking clearer?
We all act out based on our childhood upbringing and key life-altering events that shape who we are. But can we change course? Yes we can!
