Warning: Kindness is Dope

I met someone recently who thanked me for something I did for her 20 years ago.

I kid you not.

To be quite honest, I did not recall the detail or that act of apparent kindness at all. She tells me that it came at a time when she desperately needed a strong mother figure and that young-me stepped up.

I must say, our exchanges back then never did feel like “rescue” or “help” to me. In fact, I reckon I was the one who felt good. I was the one who felt useful. I was probably the one who felt high from the endorphins that make us drunk with purpose. That’s really all I remember about our interactions ~ how lovely I felt around her.

How cool?

Her testimony has since inspired me to write some random “Thank You” notes of my own. Because the stars know that there are plenty of people who have touched me over the years. And just like that, I’m part of an energy that keeps the magical vibration of GRATITUDE in motion.

Perhaps you feel inspired to hop on the train and thank someone today too? If so, I can tell you without a doubt that the wise ones were right: It is indeed GIVING that we RECEIVE.

Try it. Thank me (29 years later).

Lee Mayimele

Chief Storyteller

“Crazy” is the new “free” (A short reflection on daring to be different)

I like “crazy” people,

 

You know the ones who sit down on the grass in a suit just because the spot is right and the grass is never going to be that particular shade of Jade again?

 

The ones who let their mascara run when a stranger’s baby takes their first steps?

 

The ones who eat bolognaise at breakfast and cereal at dinner?

 

The ones who simply say “not today”?

 

The ones who detox and retox in the same week?

 

The ones who leave all their curtains and windows open at midnight because it smells like rain?

 

The ones who collect shells, coins, feathers, and lavender even when it means their kids go Peter-from the-Bible on them?

 

The ones who have friends 40 years older, 30 years younger – some in places they can’t even pronounce?

 

The ones who have a silent melt down in the deli because they’ve run out of full fat double cream yoghurt?

 

The ones who simply say “not today”?

 

The grey ones who giggle in church, cry at sports matches and sing Spanish songs with all the wrong words?

 

The ones who dare to raise their hand and “object” when everyone around them is nodding?

 

The ones who wear clashing colours or their Wang wedding dress back to front simply because they prefer it that way?

 

I do love those people,

Because in a way 

we’re all dying to be “free”! 

 

 

© Aluta continua, as they say.  A Heart Full of Stories, 2017

 

 

Lunch Date, Wrong Spot !Caution: This story contains bad language. Parental Guidance Advised

I love peri peri prawns; I love the company of women; I love a cold glass of bubbly; I love the sunshine and when the promise of all of those things are on the cards, I dress up and show up.

Oh yes, and if this magical combo of things happens to come together on a work day, well then, I even swop my EDT for EDP.

So, I spritzed the good stuff on my pulse points. It felt so indulgent on a random Tuesday. I had been under enormous pressure at work. My special lunch date had been too.  She had also been recovering from a critical illness and I planned to tell her that I loved the fact that she still used words like “bitch” instead of offering me a passage from the bible during our chats about her health.

The word “bitch” was going to come up lots and lots during our lunch meeting. This I knew for sure. We had been dealing with a mutual service provider who I really thought should have considered a company name change. RIP: Rude, Incompetent, Pricey – Where Customers Come Last is what I had in mind. There would be total value alignment with her staff. I could not wait to share my genius over lunch.

But we had a teeny problem. My lunch date was sitting in a restaurant in one part of the city. Stupid tart!  Poor thing! She had already ordered something to drink. I was sitting in a restaurant by the same name in another part of the city, 30km away from her. I had also ordered a drink.

I had sunshine. I had prawns. I had a glass of bubbly. I was not moving.  So, I Skyped my date.

We had a blast talking about RIP!  I had to agree, I DID have a certain “way with words”.

© A Heart Full of Stories, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Lee-Ann Mayimele and www.aheartfullofstories.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Trust Issues

I walked into the room and I could tell that they had been talking about me.

The tension told me that it was not good things.

One of the girls was my friend. The rest of the people I hardly knew.  Someone said “So, how was your weekend?”

The spotlight was on me. 

I saw a few shoes shuffling, heard a few throats being cleared.  The anticipation of my response was causing shifts in the room’s energy.

I said “It was relaxed. I did a bit of reading.” 

The next day, my friend called me up and told me that she was “concerned”.

She had been hearing rumours. Over tea, my friend began to unpack her concerns.  She started with my account of my weekend.  The truth is, I had donated some money to a charity and they had published a picture of me in the local newsletter. I did not know this.  She did and the fact that I did not see it fit to tell a group of strangers how charitable and wonderful I was, was a clear red flag for her.  She ended off by sharing with me that she had spent “some more” time counselling my boyfriend. They were near a breakthrough and hopefully he would “change”.

 

I was stunned. 

Firstly, I believed in my right to privacy, especially around philanthropy. I also knew nothing of my friend and boyfriend’s Dr Phil meetings and I most certainly knew nothing of MY hand in “pushing him over the edge”.

I was seriously stunned.

Fortunately for me, that chapter ended many years ago and I was both friendless and boyfriendless at the end of it, by no proactive choice of my own.

But who knew that in my middle-aged days of nappies and botox considerations that I would have to revisit the story.

You see, last week I sat in a room where everyone was talking about someone else’s husband and she walked in.

Someone asked her a leading question. The spotlight shone brightly. The energy in the room became greyish brown. There was shuffling and throat clearing. The tension made me start peeling the gel off my nails.

I was stunned.

Although they were all complete strangers to me and I was merely an observer sitting at the next table, I was seriously stunned.

So I closed and eyes and said “Thank you” for every weed that removed itself from my garden.  And then I continued to watch the dear woman proceed to answer to her audience.

© A Heart Full of Stories, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Lee-Ann Mayimele and http://www.aheartfullofstories.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

NOT your Friend

He was 50.  I was 20.  We took the bus together 5 days a week.

I asked him questions about his wife and children. He asked me questions about my ambitions and dreams of traveling the world.

It was cool.

So, bright and early one Monday morning, just before the bus arrived, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. Someone peeking through a curtain.

It was his wife.

My instinct told me to abandon the conversation. He was just getting started telling a joke. He was very animated.

The next time I saw his wife, I said “Hello Mrs X! You must be excited about your trip”. Her husband told me that he was planning something special for their anniversary.

Her response left me cold.

She said, “Listen little girl. I am NOT your friend”. 

Friend? Who said anything about friends?

The next time I saw her husband, he was full of smiles again. He had a bunch of brochures from a travel agent in his bag. He said “I will let my wife choose the best ones and give you the leftovers, okay?”

I was excited. I reallllllly hoped she would leave the Contiki Tours of Europe one for me.

Then my dear mother (bless her wicked vocab) stepped into the soapie right on cue.  She said, “Do me a favour? Please don’t talk to those f*ckers again. You don’t need other people’s twisted views and insecurity issues in your life”.

And of course she was right.

Mothers always are.

© A Heart Full of Stories, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Lee-Ann Mayimele and www.aheartfullofstories.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

How do you know if you can TRUST someone?

My friend asked me,  “So, how do you know if you can trust someone?” and I replied “Well, if you have to ask IF you can trust them, then you already know the answer.  You can’t”.

It was New Years Eve and we were heading to a big party.  She was talking about her boyfriend. I was talking about my philosophy.

I believed it 100%.  For me, trust is absolute.  There is no room for a single doubt. And, in the instances where there was a teeeeeny bit of a doubt in my head, my heart has almost always stepped in and red flagged things for me.

The thing is, I don’t always listen to my heart.

So, I walked into the hairdresser and she looked dodgy.  She looked grumpy, hung over and barely greeted me.  I saw the client who was leaving and thought to myself “Shit, am I about to trust that tart with my hair? That woman’s hair looks fried!” 

It was a trendy hairdresser.  Trendy and bloody expensive.

I went ahead and trusted the “professional”.  My heart could wait.

I heard a timer go off. I stuck my hand up!  She took one look at me and said “Trust me, darling, I don’t need you to help me do my job”.

We both laughed. It was not funny.

My scalp started burning.  I didn’t want to stick my hand up again but I had to! That, or I would have wet my undies.

She walked over and said to the lady who was her assistant “Please wash!” and she rolled her eyes.  As the lady washed my hair, she was making sounds.  Not good sounds.

My hair had melted.  The chunks in the basin felt like spaghetti.  Mushy and white.

When my friend came to collect me, she was in tears. She barely noticed my hair.

She said “Whyyyyy don’t we learn?”

I replied “Yes! Whyyyyy do we trust people when everything in our bodies screams DO NOTTTTTT”. 

She was talking about her boyfriend.  I was talking about the hairdresser.

And, we agreed.  Once you have to ask IF you can trust the person, you bloody-well know that you can not and you should not.  (Or you will end up single on new years eve or with hair that looks like the inside of a donkey’s intestines!)

Aluta Continua, as they say hey? The road is long (for me). Hopefully, I will listen to my own advice one day.

© A Heart Full of Stories, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Lee-Ann Mayimele and www.aheartfullofstories.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Tequila Girl vs Action Girl (Choices)

We arrived in Dar es Salaam on a Friday.  It was a girl’s holiday and we were heading to the beautiful island of Zanzibar.

The scenery was magical. Turquoise water, white sand, tanned bodies, spices, sunshine and the prospect of endless cocktails.

Just when I thought that the day could not get any better, the hotel set up a solo dinner table IN the shallow water of a beautiful private beach, at sunset.  And right before I was about to die from sheer bliss, I learnt that the menu for the night included spicy prawns, grilled before my eyes.  We were in the land of spices and I wanted to cry! Haleeluuuuuia!

The next morning, we decided to go local. We ditched the tourists from our resort and went exploring.

Before we left, I met a girl in the loo.  Her face was bust up. Black eye, swollen lips, cut on her eyebrow.  My instincts told me not to trust her and NOT to make eye contact.  She said “clumsy me! Too much tequila last night”.  She told me that she had fallen down the stairs in her drunken state.  I have been acquainted with tequila a few times in my life.  Not as well as her, but still – I knew its power.

My friends laughed when I told them about her.  They had heard from the guy cleaning our room that there had been a domestic abuse drama.  “Same old story!” he said to them.

That night we went dancing. I saw the girl.  She was drunk.  She was dancing with a group of guys.  One guy had his arm around her.  I figured he was the baddie. What an idiot, I thought. 

I was glued. I could not stop staring.

When they moved to another bar, I said to my friends “Hey! Let’s go next door.  I love the sound of the music there”. They bought it.  We moved and I positioned myself strategically.

Now, one of my friends is an ACTION girl.  She is driven by her heart and when she is confronted with a situation where she feels that there is an injustice, she acts. Mostly its heroic but there are also times when it isn’t very pretty.  I did not want her involved in my movie. I needed to act cool.

Now, acting cool got hard when she saw me talking to security. She knew that something was up.  She said “What are you doing? It’s that girl hey!?” and as much as I tried to deny that I even remembered the girl, Action Girl saw right through me.  She said “don’t tell me you believe her story?”

I had zero chill.

Action Girl said :

“Look, you have two choices: 

1. I help you get to the bottom of this shit 
2. You forget about this shit.

BUT we can NOT spend our holiday with you obsessed with some drunk hooker who invents stories of an abusive husband to scam strangers, steal their money, their boyfriends and their memories of their dream holiday.

Make the choice”. 

I chose option 2.   More out of fear of Action Girl in scenes from Option 1.

I decided to honour my company and resist the pull from the drama magnet, filled with its lies and deceit.

I chose instead to order more spicy prawns and a Long Island Ice Tea (with a little tequila because I was still on drama-detox and had to slowly let go of the memory of Tequila Girl).

© A Heart Full of Stories, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Lee-Ann Mayimele and www.aheartfullofstories.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Let your “feelings” guide you home (Sister Stephanie)

I really started to trust my “feelings” when I was about 14.

I was tucked away in a catholic convent school far away from everything I knew and loved. I learnt fast to develop a “feeling” about people.  I also learnt to trust that feeling.  It was part of my survival kit. 

The “feeling” I had about my angry room-mate was spot on.  She had undiagnosed dyslexia and her anger was really just frustration.  When they discovered her wrists covered in blood, my “feeling” was that more trouble was headed her way.

I also had a “feeling” about the nuns.  One nun in particular. Her name was Sister Stephanie.  In stark contrast to her colleagues, she was full of life!  Whilst the other nuns were obsessed with discipline, routine, suspicion and punishment, Sister Stephanie was more relaxed.  She was an avid photographer and delighted in her art.  She told me that she was not a trained photographer and that she used her intuition extensively.  I knew exactly what she meant when she said “you just learn to trust your feelings, to let them guide you”. 

I got to know her when I contracted mumps.  She nursed me and I helped her sort out her printed photos.  I could not shake the feeling that sorting the photos would change my life, and once more, it took me two days to know that my “feeling” was right.  The boy I was in love with had been spending lots of time with one of my “friends”. The photos told me everything I had not known before.

The same girl offered me some new shampoo. Thank goodness that my “feelings” warned me against using it.   It was laced with hair remover.  When I turned up at the sports day with my lovely, shiny locks in-tact, she proceeded to dream up another plan.  And, it worked.  I woke up with no eye brows!  I must admit, I did not see that coming.

You can imagine my “feelings” when more than 20 years later, I read about Sister Stephanie on the front page of the newspaper last week.  To read about murder was horrible enough. To hear that she was raped too turned my stomach!  There are no “feelings” that could adequately correspond with the words I was reading.  There are indeed no words that I could use to describe my feelings either. 

I had to dig deep.  I had to find the words to write this story.  I had to learn to let my “feelings” guide me back to the words.  And I had to let the words guide me back to my “feelings”. 

Aluta continua, friends.  That road is long (for me).

I wish you well as you listen to your feelings this week, and allow them to guide you home.

© A Heart Full of Stories, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Lee-Ann Mayimele and www.aheartfullofstories.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Angel

I believe in being proactive, punctual, passionate and polite. So, I placed the order for Christmas for my top 50 clients two months before I needed them. Two weeks before the gifts were due to be delivered, I saw an article in the newspaper.  The supplier had gone bust.  My deposit and my order were in liquidation hell. I needed to make another plan.  Yes, I needed to be proactive. That’s when I got a call.  The girl sounded polite. I liked that.  She also sounded passionate about her project. I liked that too. She told me her name but I didn’t register it.  The only thing I heard was that she had a coffee table book with an African influence and that a portion of the proceeds from book sales would go to charity. I saw stars! My problem was solved. My clients would surely love me forever. I quickly forgot about the stupid newspaper article. The saleslady aka my angel and I agreed that we would meet in 2 days time. She needed to pick up a sample from the printer, who was behind schedule. She emailed me to confirm our meeting.  When I saw her name, I felt so stupid!  Definitely not the “polite” princess I fancied myself.  I knew her well but I treated her like a stranger.  I planned to give her a big hug and make up for it when we met.  I also planned to tell her about her new nickname.  Angel. I had not seen her in 7 years and wondered how time would have left its mark on her.  I wondered if she had kids and if life had treated her the way she deserved. She was the sweetest thing. I arrived 15 minutes before our meeting. She was late. Angel was losing points. I tried to distract myself by surfing the net.  I was annoyed. Being “polite” was going to be hard. I went to reception to check if they had heard from her.  They had not.  I tried her mobile, there was no reply.  I reconsidered her nickname. Seriously!  My time was precious, I thought. I went back to the email to see if I had gotten the date wrong.  I had not. She did not turn up.  Just like that I looked out for an email from her.  It did not arrive.  One day, two days. Nothing from Angel. I was not happy.  I liked being punctual. I liked being proactive.  I liked being polite but I was seriously annoyed. That evening, I received a text message.  It said “The memorial service of **** will be held at…” Angel had died.  Tragically. At her funeral, her son said “My mom was an angel. My angel”.  Then he turned to his schoolmates, hundreds of young boys all dressed in their school blazers and said “….and I am so jealous of you guys, because you still have your moms.  Mine is gone”. I burst out crying.  I cried for him. I cried for me. I cried for Angel. My clients never got gifts that year.  I figured it was destiny.

© A Heart Full of Stories, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Lee-Ann Mayimele and www.aheartfullofstories.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.