DREAMER on the MOUNTAIN = My ORIAH story

Living in Blouberg, which I think directly translates to Blue Mountain from Afrikaans to English kinda makes a nice creative title to how I want to write today's post. And God knows how I need to dream today, and writing is my "feel-better and alive" tool.

I have had no major symptoms from the chemo. A little miffy in the head, but not much more than one normally feels when waking up. My eyes are a little watery, but nothing major. I have the most incredible appetite and am always hungry and thirsty. Must be the steroids. I hope what I take in turns to muscle and not fat ... isn't that what steroids are supposed to do? Somehow I doubt that all the melted cheese I am consuming without exercise will turn to muscle though. I have also started getting that bad taste in the back of my mouth. This is another reason why I like to eat ... it takes that taste away. I am also very conscious when I kiss people "hello or goodbye" that they will smell my bad taste.

I have been extremely weepy and emotional, and I am sure it is too early for the menopause to have kicked in. Just wiping my watery eyes made me suddenly jolt up and think "don't do that, the eyelashes might fall out". I have been told that I more than likely will lose my eyebrows and eyelashes because of the strength of chemo I am on. Hil is the one person who can't hide how she feels to me, so I have told her that I will know how freakish I look just by the look on her face. The pressure, the pressure!!

Anyway back to the story that makes me see what I want to see. The Grace of God. So where did I get to? I was saying that I had only started doing something about my writing aspirations earlier this year. Since I committed to writing, it was almost uncanny, yet totally believable (and now expected) how the synchronicity of events have shown me I was on the right path. The doors kept opening to confirm this.

I’ve been on a formal writing course, did another on my own, have joined a writing circle that came to me quite amazingly. I was thinking one morning to form one and when I got to my office, there was an invitation to join one. Then one day, when I was at my weakest point in my addiction recovery, whilst visiting the Maynard Food Festival (with all the beer tents around), I found a book tent. Out of a million books, I found this one book that was asking to be bought because of its title. It was called "Finding my Gift". I had no idea it was a South African Author, I merely wanted to see different styles of writing. To cut a long story short, within 2 weeks that Author was my writing mentor.

I related this very story to a friend of mine adding at the end - "But you know me, this is a practice run for me – I’m now going to aim higher in terms of mentoring and make contact with my biggest unseen role model – Oriah". Only because I had to do a writing exercise on what impact my favorite author has had on my life.

As things turned out, the SA Author-mentor fell away and Oriah had no electronic presence at the time for me to find her. Except becoming a fan on some Facebook page, which (as I learned from her FB invitation to become her friend) did not belong to her. So it wasn't like a big grandiose thing that Oriah found ME, it was simply an admin error. But isn't that just how God works? The timing couldn't have been more perfect though.

The circumstances are a bit different now. Contact is not on the mentor side, but hey ... who knows what the future holds. Right now, I have had many personal messages from her, she wrote something on her wall about me that created some 50 odd comments around the world of support and prayer, and I feel blessed. That's enough for now considering the seeds I planted earlier this year. And God knew when I would need it most.

Yesterday, our special friend Charlotte, came to wash all my dishes and is now cooking us a sunday roast chicken ... spoilt, spoilt, spoilt I am, I am. And boy is my appetite ripe for it.

To hell with this "hair-emotion". I have decided right now that I am going to have all my hair cut off tomorrow. I will post a picture if it doesn't look too freakish (.)(.)