As I explained in a much earlier blog, my children continually teach me truths. On this occasion it was a combination of my youngest daughter, Kerryn (aged 10 years) and a large avo tree that provided the lesson for me.

It is a Saturday afternoon. Typical Gauteng winter afternoon weather…perfect. The children (2 girls and 2 boys all of a similar age) are playing themselves into a stupor outside in the glorious sunshine. My sister, my mom and I are looking at photos of my other sister on the laptop. We hear a creak, a crash and then the silence……followed by a long wail!

Before I can leap up, put the laptop down, disentangle myself from the cables, my mom has sprinted outside and run smack into a large avo tree branch (this branch was duly cut off by mom this weekend). I finally get to the avo tree to find Kerryn dazed and bleeding, my mom dazed and wobbly. I take charge, issuing instructions to my sister to deal with mom, whilst I go into first aid mode. Check if Kerryn can feel her toes etc. Eventually, I carry her inside, I put ice on all the swelling bits and clean up and bandage all the bleeding bits. Then try and persuade a weepy child who had a VERY late night the previous night, to stay awake so that I can monitor her for concussion.

2 days later she is absolutley fine. No broken bones, no sprains, just a graze on her face. I have gone to see how high the tree is…..extremely high. But I was not sure from where she fell. So I asked her what happened.

“I was playing I was swimming in the sea. When I came above the leaves I was coming out of the water, when I went below the leaves I was swimming under the water. I had just come out of the water and was swimming under the water when I grabbed a branch to come out of the water again then I was swimming and landed on the ground!! I didn’t even know I was falling. I didn’t fall, the branch broke!”

Three things, immediately, were apparent to me.

Firstly, she was at the very TOP of the tree, she fell FAR.

Secondly, my innate knowedge of Kerryn was not wrong. Kerryn is one of those people that just knows where she is in the world physically and has immense control over her body. She just doesn’t fall. So I had been battling with the idea that she had fallen. She doesn’t fall.

Thirdly her comment ‘I didn’t fall, the branch broke” spoke volumes about her attitude to life.

This was my learning from her and the avo tree. Sometimes bad things happen, that just happen. It is not caused by you, you are only the recipient. Deal with it. There is no blame or guilt. It just is! I think if I had been the one climbing the tree I would have said ” I am so clumsy, I fell”. Now, I hope I can look at situations more realistically and just deal with them without the blame or guilt.

Thank you Kerryn.

He actually did it!!!!!!

It seems that when the big “Four OH” looms, it becomes a time of ponder and planning, debate and introspection. No, I am not talking about deep, meaningful life changing philospohies or spiritual journeys. I am talking about the “what am I going to do for my 40th birthday” angst. We (Richard and I) started this process in April last year, preparing for October, Richard’s birthday. A number of possiblities emerged. Boating on the canals of Europe with a group of friends all turning 40 either last year or this year (me being the exception). An island trip with another couple. Europe to visit family with our daughters. A fancy rail trip to Namibia…. Nothing was quite right. Richard having Deliberative as a strength was, of course, pondering and probing everything. Nope, nothing was right. Then one sleepless night, whilst tossing and turning, head spinning, mind stressing (nothing to do with work mind you) it finally hit him like a steam train.

Richard has always had a fascination with all things to do with water and air. He is an accomplished sailor but has never had the opportunity to do much with regard to the flying (apart from be an envious passenger in other people’s aircraft). You can ask him almost anything about aircrafts, their prices, their names, details of their flying capabilities and on and on. Richard decided to get his Private Pilot’s Licence (PPL). This entails a minimum of 40 hours flying, exams, a two hour medical and of course the instruction itself.

He came very close on a few occasions to giving up. Not the physical capability of flying. Not the exams which he passed with ease. It was the emotional and mental stress of dealing with the actual fear of losing control of the plane and killing yourself.

However yesterday, the 13 March 2007, he did it. He got his licence!!!! I am so proud of his accomplishment for a number of reasons. Firstly, he was clever to identify what he really wanted deep down. Secondly, he acted on that dream and went and found the flying school, budgeted for the payment of the whole course etc etc. Thirdly, he actually started the training. Fourthly, he identified his fears. Fifthly, he faced up to them and dealt with them. And Sixthly, he achieved what he set out to do. At each of the steps he could have stalled but he didn’t. It is one thing to have a dream or fantasy - it is quite another to achieve it. Well done Richard!!!!

jen

I was telling my eldest daughter Caity (nearly 11) that we constantly learn from children. On further reflection and continuing our learning process on working and developing our strengths , I realised a very valuable lesson from my youngest daughter, Kerryn (aged 9). 

Kerryn is a petite, girly girl who loves all things pretty, pink, sparkly, fluffy and delicate. For a while now, though, she has been telling  me that she is going to be a drummer when she “gets big”. I haven’t really been taking it all that seriously, (but did use it to persuade her to save her pocket-money ” for drums” instead of simply spending it).

My mom, the very clever lady, decided that she was going to give Kerryn 2 drum lessons for her birthday. So the day of the lesson arrives. Bryan the tutor is initially confused, expecting Caity (cargo pants, big scruffy T-shirt and hair scraped back into a messy ponytail) to be his pupil, not Kerryn. He warns us that the lessons are quite exhausting so perhaps we should arrive early to fetch her.

As it happens we arrived on time, expecting her to have stopped playing a while ago. Not Kerryn!!! She is banging away, going full tilt. Bryan comes out of the sound room barely containing his excitment. Kerryn is a natural. She mastered in the first 20 minutes of her lesson what it normally takes a kid of 12, 3 to 4 lessons to learn. She, it seems, carries a metronome in her head. But the defing moment for me was when Kerryn showed us what she had learned. For the first time in her life, I saw the real Kerryn. She was not somebody’s, daughter, somebody’s sister, a struggling learner, an indifferent sportsman. She was simply yet WHOLEY her own person, being completely who she is, easily and with sheer joy and wonderment.

She knew!!! I didn’t listen.

What have I learned? My children know themselves VERY well. If I want to know who I am I must examine the inner child (in me), and believe that she knows. If I can’t find her I must look backwards to when I was a child and remember when I was in that same blissful state I saw in Kerryn.

PS. Kerryn has drum lesson every Saturday!

Yup, that’s me! Give me a problem to ponder and I am in Heaven. Any kind of problem-Sudoku, logic puzzles, cryptic crosswords, financial strategy, logistically tangles, how to find a place, how to turn a house into an office.you name it.

As a result my role in Avo varies almost from day to day. I do have key focus areas but these have also changed from time to time. I have done project management, course material writing and editing, delegate evaluations, book keeping, office management, trelli-door installations and coffee and popcorn making.

At the moment one of my focuses is chasing the money. This has its own challenges and problem solving issues. Some of my other strengths almost all have to do with Thinking. I love information, any information -and I hoard tidbits of info like I hoard my over 50 running metres of books!!!! I love learning for the sake of learning. I hate knowing I don’t know something. So I investigate and find out. This can range from bookkeeping to piano, from geology to art. I have studied and continue to study (but I find exams too stressful especially as the exam result is meaningles to me).

At Avo, because I am tossed problems to solve, my focus is constantly changed by Jules and Elaine and my days are NEVER the same, I thrive. Add to that, that my time is flexible in order to accomodate my children’s VERY hectic after school timetable Avo couldn’t be a more perfect place for me to work. The support and love that the people of avo give me is extraordinary. I am jealous at times that so many of the avos get to spend their working day with their soulmate, but Richard’s (my husband) design of the conference centre acts as a very visible tangible reminder of my soulmate.