The Titanic.

We all know the story. We have all seen the movie. We all know the theme song. We can all sing our own versions of it. Someone sent me a meme a while back, saying that often, when she reads the true lyrics of a song, she does prefer her own version of it. So true. Sadly, however, as far as tragedy at sea goes, Titanic had obliviated that other great wave-disaster film, dating back to 1973: The Poseidon Adventure. Two things about that film will always stay with me. The first is the theme song, and it goes like this:

There’s got to be a morning after

If we can hold on through the night

We have a chance to find the sunshine.

Let’s keep on looking for the light.+

Maureen McGovern sang it so well. The depth of her beautiful voice pulling you down into the depth of the tragedy on screen that we were all glued to.

The other thing it succeeded in doing, was to put an absolute fear of the ocean into me. That, and of course that I grew up in a dusty little town, where there were no swimming pools, hence I never learnt to swim. Properly, anyway. One day, my children will recall, how when we went on seaside holidays, I never swam. Instead, I would walk for miles along the shore, completely in my own world. It was only very many years later, as an adult, that I was convinced to don a pair of swimming goggles and a snorkel, and to poke my face below the surface. And you can imagine! It was beautiful. Right there, in the rock pool where I was on my all fours, bum in the air and head under water, I saw tiny little schools of tiny little fish. It was a different world.

This past weekend we went for a very short beach walk in Kleinmond. Earlier in the day, one of our children who was visiting checked on the weather forecast. What would be a gusty wind, the young one wanted to know. We tried to explain the theory behind a gusty wind. Kleinmond beach obliged with a demonstration. A gusty wind is something that can knock you right off balance. It invariably will knock your hat (or beanie) right off your head at the same time and turn your umbrella inside out. It had me on all fours in the sand, bum sticking up in the air, but this time not looking at fish, but rather retrieving my beanie from behind a rock. And where was Colin in all this, you ask? Somewhere off on his own, with his nose rather close to the sand taking photos of waves rolling in while all the time said gusty wind is doing its best to blow the wave right back to where it came from.

This brings me to some wisdom that my Stoep Friend shared with me today. It is from the Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse. This illustrated children’s book, tells the story of how a friendship developed between the four characters. I was vaguely familiar with the story but have since looked at it with a bit more attention. What Stoep Friend sent me is this:

Isn’t it odd we can only see our outsides but nearly everything happens on the inside.

Interesting, I thought. A bit like poking your head below water, to realise what you always knew: there are fish in the ocean. Ahh! But you see, unless you are brave enough you will never experience the joy of small fish swimming in a rock pool. It is easy to make assumptions about others based on what we see, and not the real us, the one that is not seen. And are we not all guilty of that. Judging a book by its cover.

In conversation with a rather interesting person today, she at one point said: we are so used to you as we experience you (you of course being me!) that we forget that there is more to you.  Spoiler alert: she was surprised to discover that there is a rather creative side to me. (But then, you all knew that, right?) And this goes for every one of us. We are so focused on the outside that we never bother to find out what is happening on the inside.

The Boy and his friends gave us a few more gold nuggets. Such as: What is the bravest thing you ever said, asked the boy. To which the horse replies: “Help”. Or how about: Most of the old moles I know wished they had listened less to their fears and more to their dreams. Remind me to mull this one over next time I am awake at two in the morning, fearing something that may not even happen. Instead of fearing I should be dreaming! It is 2am, after all.

On a different note, I also fancy myself a writer of children’s stories. I have shared bits of this with some of you at some stage. Someone, once asked, after reading one of my stories, if I was not concerned that the humour in these stories is a bit “above” the interest of a child. Yes, I said to him. But who reads the story to the child? The Parent. And what would be the point of reading a story if there wasn’t a lesson in there for a parent?

I guess the author of the Boy et al. also took a leaf out from that book.

Great minds think alike.

Unless the great mind is hunched on a windy beach taking photos of waves, when he could be helping his wife retrieve her beanie. Pity about your beanie, he said, but look at this photo I took. You can use it for your next Cape Crawl.