Pond of Tears: Sad Memories

Some have been wondering asked me why I only now got into music. Well, I've been into music since I can remember....

«Over the waters I heard the wind cry…..»

While working on this piece from Petals Vol. 1  (my second symphony in 11 movements), memories of things I’ve shut from my mind since I was a little girl, came back. It was intense.
(Track available from album "Petals - The Journey")

This music became audible in my mind several years ago but I didn’t tie it to my childhood at that stage. It came in the form of a poem and melody, the poem louder than the music. It was triggered by a miscarriage and an earlier ectopic pregnancy. I was devastated that I could not have another child again.

As this song became clear in the fog, I was confronted by monsters of the past, yet also the happiness I experienced of escaping into a world of music. As mentioned in “The Old Path”, music made me strong when I was a scared, lost child.

And it kept me strong, I could face those horrors of long ago as they all marched up for their own burial.

“Donna, stop this screaming” is what an evil mother told me so often. Then I’d ‘sing’ in my head. This singing came after I could manage to work the old Hammerstein wireless with the Telefunken turntable. I found the most beautiful songs my Papa had on one of the old vinyls. Joseph Schmidt.

It might sound funny, but I then believed that one make up anything that sound like a word when you want to sing so beautiful as that man. I didn’t understand that it was the German language that Schmidt sang in. I only knew Afrikaans and English.

I couldn’t care what this woman would shout at me when I’d sing my heart out, I would just shut up as she says and continue in my head with my ‘subjects’ – the cat and the lovebird, ducks and Muscovy ducks, my dolls. The swaying of the willow tree in the bird pen, the tall eucalyptus trees down the lane where chickens were also kept, the cows and goodness knows what more that could move or make sound, and we’d have us an audience of everything silent that couldn’t move.

It was nice to spend real time with my subjects when she couldn’t hear me and I’d run away from home when she was not there, to join my ‘orchestra’.

At school we were preparing for a concert, I was around nine years old. I sang a leading role and would be dressed up as a hen. Much excitement and Dad loved the song. He remembered it all his life, even up into his 84^th year, before he died.

Mother said she was not going to make my costume and the teacher told me it is not a problem, another child’s mom offered to make it.

We were having our dress rehearsals two days before the concert and I was very excited. Back at home after school I told mother, and she suddenly shouted that I was not allowed to take part in the concert and that she was not going to take me for rehearsals, nor for the concert. I was shocked and didn’t dare cry because she would always grab me and hit me when I cry. I tried to explain that the teachers are expecting me there but had to shut up soon when I saw the thunder building in this evil woman.

Needless to say the havoc this created at school…. The only child that could act and sing my role was bigger than me. To this day I don’t know how it ended. I was too embarrassed and shy to ever have asked. I never wanted to speak about that concert again, feeling ashamed as if it was my fault that this disaster happened. Mother always blamed me for everything that went wrong, even if she causes it to, and I believed her. She would never allow me to prove my innocence – she’d rather say I must not back chat her. And if I try too hard, she’d just give me a hiding.

I was eleven years old when our school offered free recorder lessons, and supplied piccolos and recorders on loan. I was excited to learn to play this piccolo and got permission to do so. It was a reddish brown varnished wood and had such a happy sound. I learned and even played some other songs and improvised my own tunes.

Then one day, baby sister in her pram wanted the piccolo and I refused and she hollered. Mother instructed me to give it to her. Poor piccolo was bashed against the pram and cracked. I was horrified and this evil woman only smirked and blamed me.

It was terrible to go back to school with the broken instrument and explain how it was my fault. There were only plastic ones left and the teacher gave me one. It didn’t have as nice sound as the wooden one but I played it. It was not well received at home and that was the end of piccolo and I together. But its spirit became part of mine and remained with me all my life and became audible again in several of my compositions.

Some months later while traveling home on the school bus, I heard the most beautiful sound from an unusual looking instrument a boy blew on. I was hypnotized. I asked him if I may try and he allowed me. I was in love with it. I wanted it. I begged him that we can exchange things and he wouldn’t. I then offered my whole month’s pocket money which was 50 cents (ZAR) at the time. He eventually said he’ll see the money first and decide.

He loved that big 50cent piece and I got the most beautiful thing I’ve ever had. An old tatty and filthy Hohner Mouth Harp. It had two rows of teeny ‘pigeonholes’ on both sides, C and G keys.

I sneaked it into the house and inspected it, seeing how it was put together and carefully began cleaning it. I used a pin to gently scratch out the filth and then decided to dismantle it. I scrubbed the metal outer casing and used the pin’s sharp end to clean the little sound flappy things and the wooden ‘pigeon holes’. On the one side some of the wood was broken out in the front and I didn’t know how to fix that. But it was no problem to play it.

Eventually I’ve put the whole thing together and it was shining and smelling nice. I listened carefully to each note in each ‘pigeonhole’ and those that didn’t sound okay, I fixed. I understood the heart of this new little soul mate and could find each ailment and make it better.

But I’d be careful when I play it, not too much when the woman was home. I carried it with me always or hid it very well.

When I turned thirteen, I was going to high school. My mother didn’t want me to go to school near them, she rather wanted me to go to hostel around 200km away and both my brother and I can come home during holidays and two weekends during school term. I didn’t want to, I couldn’t imagine to be so far from home and away for such long times.

Then I was bribed that I may take piano lessons because there is a piano at the hostel on which I could practice. I eventually settled for this. Alas, piano lessons was only allowed for that year. End of the first term the next year my mother said the teacher said I do not practice enough and mother decided to discontinue these lessons. I couldn’t believe it, because I did so well and could also not believe that the teacher would have said that. Back at school the teacher was not very talkative and rather looked at me with pity and remorse. I decided not to find out what was actually said. By then I already knew the devious methods and lies this evil woman could brew up.

Later in high school when I was around sixteen, I was asked by a teacher if I’d like to play my Hohner in their band. I did and it was fun. Until a teacher took me to buy fancy shoes on my parent’s account to wear when we were going to perform public. I only had black lace up school shoes to wear and they wanted me to look smart for my debut. They even dressed me up in their clothes! Neat white blouse and long black skirt.

Oh goodness, was I in trouble with my mother. She took the shoes back to the shop. I don’t know if they refunded her or what they told her, but she was fuming afterwards. I wore those beautiful shoes and cannot imagine the shop wanted it back afterwards. But I never saw those shoes again and it was also the end of my playing in the school band.

Whatever my mother told whoever then seemed to have brought some knowledge to those who heard what she was telling. I found that many teachers became caring about me, some in a very loving way. Only later did I realize that some were totally fed-up with this evil mother and felt sorry for me. Our school Principal gave me my first pair of spikes from the school’s poor man’s chest when I proved to be a good athlete and somehow I also received a brand new sport outfit. I don’t know who paid for that. And it is not like we were a poor household…. My mother just never wanted to spend on me, only the very basics such as soap and toothpaste and she’d sometimes make me a new dress, what she chooses. I hardly ever had a choice, only once I can remember a fabric that I chose. It was white with blue paisley motives.

And the only time she allowed me fancy shoes was when I was having my confirmation. She decided a pair of pumps - snake skin motive with dark red and some black in patent leather to wear with my light blue dress was going to look good and be comfortable. At least the shoes were comfortable for my feet only. At least they matched another old dress I had.

During this same year of turning sixteen was also the last time my Father would give me a hiding which she instructed. Papa realized the truth of her constant lies. Many many years later he’d often remark that he should have given her a hiding since she was the only one ever deserving a good hiding. Poor Pa still cried about those days he’s be beating me unnecessarily, not knowing the truth.

One day during school holiday, he took me to buy a piano or an organ, my choice. I eventually chose an organ since I could still make use of the piano at the hostel over weekends. Alas, that organ didn’t last 24 hours in our house. When mother came home she went ballistic and shouted at Papa and me that she does not want that ‘thing’ in the house. She phoned the shop to immediately collect it. They couldn’t do it the same day but will do it the next day.

I was ordered to shut the organ and lock it, she does not want to hear it. She made sure to stay home then so that I cannot play it behind her back.

My brother wanted a guitar and Papa’s intervention at least saw me also having a guitar as a Christmas present that year. He got a bicycle when he turned 12, and with anticipation I waited for my 12^th and only received three soft toys. I can imagine the argument that must have been when Pa mentioned a bicycle for my birthday. At least then my brother gave me free use of his bicycle, even he was surprised. He always knew when I was treated unfair and it made him feel very bad each time. But he was forever motivated to protect me in everything whenever but never where our ma would know. But at least she was not cruel to him at all. I was the strong child, I could take a beating.

I decided I shall continue music after school when I go to university or college and kept this to myself. I planned on studying fine arts and anything mathematical/engineering since I loved these subjects as well. (Later years when I moved to Johannesburg and I saw all the big roads and intersections, I knew that it was that which I would have loved to design. I enjoyed building miniature roads, bridges and dams when I was a kid with my brother.)

Then, when I finished school and wanted to enroll for further studies, I was merely told that only whores study arts and drama. Mother refused me my study monies, said I can enroll at a secretarial college. Pa said he would have wanted me to go study and the money is there, but that she refuses. I didn’t want to cause too much conflict between Papa and her, since my little sister still has to grow up and I didn’t want her to become subject to the life I had with this evil woman. She wanted me to leave home when I turn 18 at the end of December. I panicked.

This caused me to enroll at the South African Police College where I’d have a roof over my head and a small monthly allowance. And I could eventually study through them anything I want. I received ZAR25 from my mother to begin my adult life. It was stolen that same night on the train as I was steaming away from my childhood home. I began my life without a single cent or anything from her but with blessings from the Papa.

My life in the S.A.P. was not a happy one. Old South Africa at the time was a horror. For the first time did I experience direct racism in the city, the evening bell when everybody “darker than white” has to be out and God knows, those awful screams at night when a domestic servant had to wait for her employer(s) to return home and they didn’t care how she gets out of the “white” area and the police catches her. We were three lady cops who’d jump into a car and help them out, hiding them under our long skirts.

Music and I got silent. I built a vault around song.

Fortunately I got pregnant and those years it was taboo in the “white” society that a single woman is with child, and I could buy myself out from the police force.

And song became audible again when I was carrying my child under my heart. I just didn’t open for it because I never wanted song to ever get hurt again. We made our music through thick walls.

Until one day early 2011 when I spoke to my mother over the phone to inform her my Papa passed away and she merely said: “So, the old man is dead and what about it?”

Song shouted and I broke down the wall. I found a method to compose music later during 2011 and I tried a few and suddenly knew I am ready for a big battle.

Music flowed back to me and began telling me the truth and then gave me space to make ready for the big fight for myself and my Papa.

Then Music asked my heart, mind and hand on 25 December 2013 and we married that Christmas morning and I began building our home…..