Tuesday 28 February 2012

Breaking the radio silence

“You think that just because it’s already happened, the past is finished and unchangeable? Oh no, the past is cloaked in multicolored taffeta and every time we look at it we see a different hue.” - Milan Kundera

Master's
I think it's time we part. My long radio silence has had one root: lack of progress on the master's. As I suspected when I started blogging, it is difficult to keep saying: I've made no progress. The time of silence has also taught me something important - it sometimes helps to just stop and rest. Your brain will start offering you small gifts of remembrance. As far as my master's was concerned, I'd forgotten a small, niggly detail. It came back when I started to relax and started getting well again (will blog more about that later). I remembered the day I stopped working on my master's. It was about three years ago.

I remember enjoying my topic. I was sitting in front of my old PC in my room that overlooked the garden. My phone rang. The call came from my father's phone. At the time, I thought he was trying to call me. He had a habit of upsetting me to the point where I'd get in bed and wait for the waves of nausea to subside so I could get on with my life. The life I'd refused to let them ruin. (Like everyone else, I have my sad story.) I didn't know at the time that he would never call me again. I ignored a few calls that morning, including one from my eldest half-brother. I assumed that there was some kind of family fight, after all, that's the only time when more than one of the Steyns would call me. I only heard that my father had died after my mother answered the house phone. She told me he died while I was trying to write about comedy. I just couldn't bring myself to write again.

Perhaps, one day, I'll find a new topic. For now, I'm living my life.

PS. Got my licence, still losing weight and getting fit.
 

1 comment:

  1. Greatly admire and respect your honesty!
    Hope that one day I will be able to do the same.
    You are 100% correct it is VERY hard you keep on saying…”I have not made progress”.
    I am staring down that same barrel at the moment.

    Your latest post has given me hope and motivation.

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