The truth in another story

The way we see things

The pieces that make up the story are fragments of personal experiences, some individual and strange and others are interactions with people known, barely known, or unknown. The circumstances and contexts of encounters are ones of perspective, reflective of the owner of the narrative.

Some of that narrative might be kind or unkind, pertinent or irrelevant, the dispute arises where what is honest and true becomes inconvenient to others, either because they would rather than was not known or it paints them in some rather poor light.

Between the truth and what is told

The question then becomes what is the purpose of the truth and in whose hands should it conveyed without kneading or moulding? For the truth of one might well be the nightmare of another. Then to differentiate between the truth as a matter of perception from the facts as a matter of record from recall if there is no congruence between them.

How will one welcome a peremptory requirement to redact, to obfuscate, to rewrite, or to withdraw from publication the story as it is written? It is funny that in an episode of Murder, She Wrote, one of the protagonists that became a victim of a murder,  said to his stepdaughter, “Your play was amazingly written, but to have trashed your mother like that is unforgiveable.” By that, he disowned her. She wrote an inconvenient story and I know many of us have stories that touch raw nerves too. Would we dare tell them?

On the palate of a Zoom call

An experience to relish

Zooming into a meeting this evening after work, I got to participate in a virtual wine-tasting activity that was more fun than one could have anticipated. It so happens that with the pandemic, people have to think of more innovative ways to socialise and even meet strangers with common interests.

Capreo, a wine distributor for over 50 wine estates in South Africa had contacted me a month ago to invite me to the event on behalf of the Backsberg Wine Estate. We have visited Backsberg thrice and have always enjoyed the hospitality and professionalism of the people there, beyond which the wines are just well suited for our palates.

A participation we enjoyed

On the call, we had up to 13 participants, the moderator from Capreo, from Backsberg, the export manager and winemaker with his oenophile girlfriend and people joining from Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Belgium, the UK, and New Zealand. We were to receive by mail 6 bottles of the wines to be tasted, those did not arrive for some of us due to postal and Brexit-related issues.

Wine tasting notes from Backsberg except where indicated. 

Backsberg Chenin Blanc 2020

Backsberg John Martin Reserve Sauvignon Blanc 2019

Backsberg Pinotage Rosé 2019

Backsberg Pumphouse Shiraz 2018

Backsberg Klein Babylons Toren 2017 (Capreo notes)

Backsberg Family Reserve Red 2016

An order I had placed a month ago included Backsberg Pinotage Rosé 2019 which allowed me to participate in the discussion apart from other contributions to the general discussion about wine pairings, the wine estate, and the atmosphere at the estate.

Maybe soon in person

The session ran for almost two hours though because of load shedding issues in South Africa, Backsberg dropped off, just after all the wines had been talked about. Whilst for all of us, we would have preferred to be at the wine estate in the backdrop of the Simonsberg in Paarl, this as a second-best alternative was more than worthwhile.

I probably should have taken notes about the wines, which I did not, we would all be expected to put in an order for wines within the next week. With pleasure and the hope for a more involved experience very soon. Backsberg Cape Ruby 2017 the South African variety of port-like wine is one I would like much of, a visit is in view and the replenishment of my stock.

Thought Picnic: The scary past Facebook evokes

A past too fast

There is something I learnt a few days ago that some reflex in me immediately controlled, a brush with the past that brought back a flood of memories, but I narrowly avoided re-situating myself in that context. Obviously, I am responsible for the things that I have done especially in my childhood, even if bad, naïve, nasty, or worse, it is important I do not use that to excuse old behaviours.

As I have written before, Facebook is a psychosocial complex that unites us unwittingly with the past in so many unintended ways that could as well be destructive if we are not careful. Social media sates curiosity in ways that we would not even invite and pay a private eye to investigate on our behalf.

Schooled from the beyond

When I joined Facebook at the end of December 2009, and I had avoided doing it for years, I immediately sought out groups from my primary schools and secondary school. One invitation from Chris, my partner in the years around that time, I did not respond to until well into 2010, he passed on in November 2009.

Soon, I realised I needed to compartmentalise things, I was not going to befriend every old friend that I had not seen for over 30 years, the intervening time a complete blank to me and the person I reconnect with different in character, personality, or outlook from me. The temptation to resume friendships as if they had never broken off fait accompli is a weakness in our psyche and dangerous if one is suddenly too trusting.

Of times than person

Even before Facebook, there were friends made in different schools that I actively avoided because they represented a time in my own life and story I did not want to relive. They were an emotional burden that depicted vulnerability and failings not of themselves, even if they were not successful, but critically of myself, because I knew things about me that I could not face, I want to think that the past has been buried, out of sight and out of the mind, far from recall.

Then an old school teacher’s picture appeared on one of those pages; when we parted ways in 1975, I must have thought, that was it. There she was at 93 and I back in Primary 5. The times when I did not submit any homework which I hated and she put me in front of the class to be shamed; a version of being put in stocks and pelted with rotten eggs and vegetables in a public place. They did not ask questions about why a child's attitude took a turn then.

False claims so lame

I hated writing then, and I was to write letters to a number of teachers then, which I eventually never did. Meanings of words if did not know that I used painting pictures of family life at home that was hardly reflective of the truth. I was like the class Matilda, smart, different, inquisitive, resourceful, awkward, and sadly suffocating too. I found a book in one of the school cupboards and started teaching myself, French.

There was one incident at home that I probably would never have told my parents if my mother nursing my baby brother in the next room had not heard me. I was recovering from illness and asleep in my bed when a lady came into my room and sat on me. I recognised her because I said, ‘I will tell your husband.’ My mother called out from her room, asking who it was, but my memory went blank, there began a life of African-Initiated Church rituals that lasted through adolescence until I left home.

Child psychology misadventure

My childhood troubles did not begin then, years before, I had lost my sexual innocence to the trusted, my father’s strict disciplinarian ways with his youngest female sibling and female cousin made him distant and unapproachable, the psychological effect was to find expression elsewhere in the reckless and the imaginative. The apparent idyllic home life was anything but, the past harbours things that still make me shiver and I have not found the form of words to express.

Indeed, in a picture is a connection to a past that might not make you smile, that is a well of negative nostalgia, no longing and much loathing. Not so much of the person seen, but of the time it captured for which memories long forgotten take to life again like old dead seeds put in soil and watered. And yes, I do now remember who the lady was, crazy as the mind works.

Hark! The bleeding obvious

What you already know

Unsurprisingly, I seem to be good at stating the bleeding obvious, usually by example or analogy, maybe crude raconteuring, though, not a skill I would even pretend I possess. As many who read my blog would already know, I am a believer in voices, everyone has a voice, and except if you are an impressionist, you will generally speak in your own voice, except if you are performing.

The ease with which we breath when not belaboured by stress or infirmity is done by our need for the oxygen that is taken from the air breathed in and the need to expel carbon dioxide as we breath out. The pace and rhythm are done and regulated by voluntary and involuntary functions mainly in ourselves except if ventilated.

Where you are already going

For those who journey, they plan a course to a destination, choose their mode of transport and might resourcefully adapt to all sorts of conditions, those they choose or are scheduled, rarely changing course except for distraction, deviation, disturbance or distress, which could within certain situations be ameliorated.

What is within our control we do with much diligence than we acquit ourselves for and when met with obstacles we sometimes find ourselves better prepared for eventualities than we ever thought ourselves equipped for. Invariably, much as we cruelly measure ourselves against unnecessary standards and outmoded goals, we may not be perfect, but we are usually good, quite good enough, yet let the perfect get in the way of the good, and produce nothing. That’s a shame.

For everyone can blog, they have amazing stories to tell, in their own voices, through their own breath, on their own journeys and within the controls they exercise that no one can upend. Need I say more?

Kitchen brain over kitchen brawn

Life in the kitchen

The kitchen is a domain of the variety of life where preparations and expectations work to the satisfaction of choice and hunger to sustain now and keep for later. Be it the order of recipes that I fail to adhere to or the knowledge of experiment or experience, the ultimate result is one to enjoy and better to share.

Aroma and taste with the filling that portends the ingestion of food is without trying to be too profound, the stuff of life within which you can find happiness, laughter, and repartee at meals.

Then after all is done, there is the cleaning up to follow, avoiding unnecessary wastefulness and keeping whatever is leftover to reheating or reuse, I have a dishwasher for most of that, though not everything is suited for a machine and handwashing is required.

Pots for a gleam

A non-stick pot came out of the dishwasher with black crusts of burnt food that did not shift in the wash cycle and it probably won’t have over multiple wash cycles. Scrubbing or scouring the pot would destroy the non-stick protection. Then I remembered something I read online months ago.

I poured some white wine vinegar into the pot to cover the bottom of the pot and then sprinkled in a generous amount of bicarbonate of soda watching it fizz as I set the pot on a hot plate and left it to boil for a few minutes. Taking the pot off the heat I was able to wipe the heretofore burnt crusts off with ease and after a simple rinse, the pot was clean. A good result.

A WEIRD prism is just one perspective

Influences of significance

When my dad said over a decade ago, “You have always thought like a Westerner.” I feigned ignorance of what he implied, but it got me thinking about things that baffle me daily. How it is that my worldview on many issues and situations are so radically different from many with whom I am supposed to share a heritage.

Then again, I realise that I have also fallen into a trap and a misconception about culture and values needing to converge to a Judeo-Christian Western construct with the view that those who appear to deviate from such might not represent the best of our humanity.

How marriage changed us

Indeed, many of our international laws of trade, of industry, of life, or of diplomacy follow a broadly western model that has become a synonym for modern and civilised, we miss out on understanding other constructs, cultures, civilisations, and customs that makes other members of our diverse humanity uniquely different, interesting, and rich.

This was brought into stark relief when I listened to a podcast The West and the Rest by Matthew Syed on BBC Radio 4 on his Sideways series, which started with the observation of different psychological responses to what was studied and expected in the West to how intriguingly the advent of Christianity changed marital norms like forbidding marriage to cousins, opening clans to strangers and birthed the kind of innovation and mindset that typifies the West today. [BBC Radio 4 Sideways Podcast: 3. The West and the Rest]

Weird as we come

It begs the question about who the weird ones are, we in the west or the non-western cultures. Whilst there is no way I will pass for a WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant), I am most definitely one of the WEIRD (Western Educated Industrialised Rich and Democratic), a psychological term that was defined in the 2000 book, The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous by Joseph Henrich.

Having an audible copy of this book, it would probably give me an appreciation of why I think differently and why I should make ample accommodation for how other cultures will not converge to my worldview. This would mean we need to negotiate and agree on certain principles, attitudes, and rules for the good of humanity even if implementations will differ.

I come away with the insight that cultural divides will only be bridged with an openness of the mind and the putting away of the western hubris that has led us on spectacularly failed escapades of sowing seeds of our kind of civilisation around the world.

Read or listen

The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous [Amazon]

 

Coronavirus streets in Manchester - XXV

Taking a trek

After work today, I considered getting out for some exercise, the walking variety that I did much of over the second half of last year but have done little of this year. Getting into my garb and realising that it was not too chilly, I set out on the route I usually take.

The town centre was bustling, and I reached the outskirts, I walked by the towpath beside a church that has a Thursday soup kitchen. There on the ground crunched by footsteps that had passed along before me were many white plastic forks and spoons, though it was a bit disconcerting it was better to see that go to waste than food. If it were food, that would be scary, for I have seen rats the size of cats scurry about that path.

Scenes by the river

A girl and her mother had stopped by the river to feed the ducks as another two girls took to screaming so loud, it was almost upsetting. I said to them, I could scream too. Then a couple with their dog made so much way for me, I took the hint telling them, I guess I have a bit more work to do with my size.

As usual, everyone else was running though I could not understand how my pace had slowed to add 2 minutes to the time it took to complete a kilometre at the 4^th and the 5^th. The bane of going for long walks in the cold is a full bladder and that meant looking for a private place to ease myself. After which a man with two bulldogs taking him for a walk did the irresponsible thing of not cleaning up after one of them and he knew it because he looked back when got to the foul mess.

Care to be careful

On the home straight, I did pass by a soup kitchen and they do a lot for the hungry and the homeless, I just was no sure that the crowd with masks or any social distancing was safe or considerate. Minding my own business, I gave them a wide berth and hobbled home, under the strain of much exercise and over 17,000 steps in the kitty.