Look around, look around! How lucky we are to be alive right now!

“A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”

The Twits by Roald Dahl

I put my hand up and confess. I’m not a very nice person. Lately, I’ve been tired, grumpy, down and tetchy. Poor Hubby has endured my moans with his usual hugs, ‘there, there‘s’, cups of tea and a bit of clowning around.

I reached a real low when on the eve of Easter Friday, one of our suppliers told Hubby that everything had gone wrong in the company “when your wife joined” – that’s me peeps.

You cannot completely cast that kind of statement away. You have to look at it squarely in the face. You have to ask if any aspect of it is true. You have to examine yourself. In this case we are talking about an angry man who I was holding to account for the job he was doing. This made him feel uncomfortable, I guess, and defensive. So yes, that statement, through his eyes, is probably partly true. We have parted ways with him. It’s for the best, but it saddens me. Relationship breakdown, for whatever reason, makes me (and Hubby) heartsore – and it happens in life no matter how hard we try.

I read somewhere that being an adult is like looking left and right before crossing the street and then getting hit by an aeroplane. Well!!

In short, I need a holiday. Thankfully our holiday is so nearby, I can almost taste the dust of the Kruger National Park on my parched lips.

The last couple of weeks, to combat the blues, Hubby and I have found a theme tune for our lives.

Those struggling apartheid sang Miriam Makeba’s Ndod’emnyama (Beware Verwoed) and Johnny Clegg’s Asim’bonanga. The mixed tribes of South Africa working on the gold mines sang Shosholoza in Fanagalo, and the South African rugby team took up the same war cry in 1995.

For Hubby and me it’s been Hamilton.

We had the immense privilege of being given (for a ‘small’ fee) two front-row-of-the-circle company-booked tickets to see our actor friend, Sifiso Mazibuko, playing Aaron Burr in the hip-hop musical, Hamilton, at the Victoria Palace Theatre.

Best seats in the house, and Sifiso did us so proud out there on the boards!

We came away with lines in our heads that we still haven’t lost.

• “I’m not throwin’ away my shot!”
• “I wanna be in the room where it happens, the room where it happens!”
• “Look around, look around. How lucky we are to be alive right now!”
• “Rise up. When you’re living on your knees, you rise up.”

These have kept us buoyed. We’ve sung (hip-hopped) these lines out loud on the walk to work. We’ve recorded a voicemail to cheer up my little sister. We’ve sneaked a few whispered choruses in the office.

We’re taking this seriously!

Here’s praying and trusting that you will find your theme tune too.

SMALL PRINT:
P.s. When no-one is looking I sometimes force my face into a fake smile. Soon, the realisation of how ridiculous I must look results in a genuine smile. The happy thoughts normally follow. Try it!
P.p.s. On the weekend following our visit to Hamilton, the show won a whopping 7 BAFTAS at the Royal Albert Hall.
P.p.p.s. Hamilton has got Hubby singing along to a musical – never thought that was possible.
P.p.p.p.s. One more gem from Hamilton: “Talk less. Smile more.”
P.p.p.p.p.s. For your viewing pleasure, a Hamilton video clip below. Give it a chance – I’m not a fan of hip-hop, but it’s catchy.