On walking my invisible dog

I threw my Maggie coat on over my pajamas this morning (so-called because some tourist once said to his wife while I cycled past their taxi in said coat and a headscarf knotted under my chin,"Hey, look honey, there goes Maggie Thatcher!) . A lick of spit smeared away last night's mascara and I headed out to the park. My training schedule forbids running today, but I cannot face breakfast without stretching my legs. And it feels deliciously illicit to be abroad in the world on a Tuesday morning with one's pajamas on. To a girl unequipped with the ability to do nothing, this is sheer luxury. Every other body is hurrying somewhere, and I am just drifting off to gaze at cherry blossoms. The park is full of them. Their calm beauty belies the vigorous energy seething through every stem. I am the only person unaccompanied by a dog or by one of a bewildering array of child-conveying capsules, so I imagine our dearly departed Tuffy and Stamford are with me. Stamford, a noble Ridgeback, would be placidly pacing beside me, and Tuffy (the Maltese) would be agitating among the Rottweilers. A dog is as far as I'm willing to look down Reproduction Road today. I have no desire to be pregnant now, to share my body with another, to commit to providing someone with a good life when I'm still so uncertain what a good life actually is. I do believe every human is born with unfulfilled potential, and it is good to develop and share the gifts we were given. But I confess that I feel encumbered by my promise too often, and back away from trying at all, which is the corner of myself I wish I could obliterate forever. The Scaredy Cat. She Who Shies Away. Mandela was so right when he quoted Marianne Williamson: Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened in shrinking so that others won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, its in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. But what is the key, where is the switch, that makes words leap off a page and turns them into invisible forces within us? That's what I'm searching for, in this Tuesday morning park among the cherry blossoms, and everywhere.

On a new job

My feet were reluctant to pound the pavements this morning, but the sun was blazing and I have a new pair of shoes to wear in before Marathon Day on Sunday. These were a gift from my adorable husband who took me to Runners Need in Holborn on Saturday. He may not be coming to Paris, but he'll be there for every footstrike. Never has a girl had the immense good luck to marry such a man. Truly, I think that his only fault is that he is too loving, too generous, too patient, and this makes me lazy! Wonderful men aside, I did a 40 minute loop over the Thames this morning, past the nicotine trails of recalcitrant commuters and through the drifting petals of Battersea Park's cherry-blossomed avenues. My ipod battery left me on my own, and I suddenly heard the true sounds of young Spring; the keening of a puppy on sensory overload and the overexcited barking of personal trainers, exhorting their clients to greater fat burn. And I smiled to myself while I ran through the bright morning, because I start rehearsals for a new job tomorrow. Isn't life extraordinary? Your life really can change in a moment, and don't you forget it! I auditioned for a children's play that tours primary schools on Friday, and I start rehearsing tomorrow. It is a hard job, poorly paid and entirely glory-free. But I know how rewarding it can be, because I've done it before. I played Beatrix Potter in a children's show that toured Johannesburg for my first job after drama school. It was the first money I earned as an actress, and that was surely sweet, but the faces of the rapt children was payment enough. So this job is several steps back, but right now its what I need. I've gone back to the beginning of myself in so many ways over the past couple years and I don't mind starting from the bottom again. I know how to work hard for what I want. But first I'm going to Paris for a week of running and writing and good coffee (a treat!) and to catch up with one of my loveliest friends, Dominika.

On finding the path again

I have this (half-baked) theory that goes Sometimes you need to reach the bottom so you have something to push off against... That was yesterday for me. It was an ordinary day, unremarkable from any other in the previous months, insulting in its very dreariness. But some tiny thread snapped, and I decided not to go down the well-trodden path of guilt and fear and regret, and I sat down here and bashed it all out into cyberspace instead. In a fairytale, the cloud would have instantly lifted, and I would have danced out into a bright new world full of happy bunny rabbits. Alas; I woke up this morning with the usual nagging sense that I have squandered my chances, wasted my talents and I've missed the possibility of seeing my dreams come true. And then I found that darling Uncle Rod had left me a very sensible piece of advice, and I love him for it. It said all I needed to hear. I went out for a run in the park before work, and that simple accomplishment was glorious. High on endorphins, I cycled across London (I'm still a tourist; I get a frisson every morning when I check my watch against Big Ben rearing over Parliament Square, which is usually the same moment I think Shit I must pedal faster...). I got to work, and spent the day doing a mind-numbing survey for the government but I didn't care because I had decided to finally face down my largest fear, the one that brings me out in a cold sweat...the Acting Class. I'm a member of the Actors' Centre, and I bottle out every time I tell myself I'll take a class. But somehow, not today. Besides, I had promised my long-suffering husband I would go. There, now I had to. So I went. It was a Shakespeare class, and I performed one of Helena's monologue's from Midsummer Night's Dream. It was heaven. I have found my way back onto my path again. I am never so happy as when I am in front of an audience pretending to be someone else. I can't believe I chose to forget or doubt it. The class was a room of like-minded souls. People who love showing off and hiding, and want to understand their world a bit better. How wonderful to step up and live out my dream. I have remembered where it is I want to go, and where I'm starting from. By the time I cycled home , I was singing to the dark city streets.

On fatigue

I'm so tired, and its more than a lack of sleep. I'm weary of paddling along, and feeling so hopeless. I want to wipe the slate clean of the past four awful years. Four miserable years in which I think I can count the moments of true happiness on one hand. I live behind a facade of optimism, trying to fool the world that I'm fine and coping, but behind it I'm trapped with my own self-loathing and castigation. I'm not comfortable in my own skin anymore, nothing seems to taste like it did when I was a precocious thing so sure of my own abilities and future. I remember that young brash certainty and long for its grip again. Because the world has gotten so cold and big. And I don't know my place in it anymore. I think I need to get some sleep.

On freedom in the night

I use my bicycle to get around London. Coming from South Africa, a country with no subway system, I was fairly excited about the Tube when I arrived, until I actually had to use it regularly. Its the foetid air that puts me off. And one particular journey, in which I was mashed into a malodorous armpit for the length of the Northern line... Honestly, soap dodgers should be flogged. Or at least fined. Getting held up at the lights behind a garbage truck was never as traumatic. Having a bicycle means I am free; of the masses, of waiting for buses, of paying for a journey. I firmly believe that every little girl should be given a bike for Christmas. Mine was a black and red racer and I used it to terrorize the neighborhood. It was my first taste of utter freedom. I felt the wind in my hair as I screamed silently down hills and had absolute autonomy over my after-school movements. Would I go to the clubhouse, or pop round to my friend Emma's house? And having a bike in London brings that all back. I feel like a kid in an enormous playground, that happens to be filled with incredible architecture, and some great window shopping. I confess to being a shameful traffic hazard on Sloane Street, on the stretch outside Maria Grachvogel's windows in particular. Last night I was editing late, trying to complete an audiobook by the deadline. The morning had been fine and warm and the optimist that I am had left home with a leather jacket and a silk scarf on. But the capricious British weather system had turned grumpy by eleven, and an Arctic wind was hustling up Edgeware road, rustling the burqas of the strolling women. The hookah smokers remained undeterred, of course, and the street smelled as gloriously redolent as it did the first time I rounded the corner from Oxford Street to find myself suddenly plunged into Arabia. But on this occasion I was tired and cold and longing for a warm descent into the land of Nod. On an average day, my pace on the bike could politely be described as sedate. My husband, rampant speed demon that he is, calls it other things. But now, I knew that the only way to get warm was to attempt to out ride the wind. So I did. Suddenly, I remembered my precocious ten-year old self; I flew under Marble Arch and dove across the lights at Cumberland Gate. I was invincible, a thing of light and carbon. The night streamed through my hair as I blasted down the Broad Walk in Hyde Park and weaved through the frozen traffic on Brompton Road. Is it possible that the congestion is actually worse at night? Where are all those people going? I laughed inside at their bleary eyed boredom, while they pitied my under-clad self on a bike in the cold night. Then I donned metaphoric blinkers for the race down Sloane Street and sailed through the taxis in Sloane Square. A few hardy souls were at the tables on the sidewalks. I wanted to be drinking champagne after a performance at the Royal Court, but that's for another night. Over Albert Bridge, effulgent like a Christmas tree, and through the hush of Battersea Park. I allowed myself the guilty pleasure of taking the pedestrian shortcut around the bandstand, a ghostly sentinel alight in the Cimmerian night. And then I was home. I was safe and warm, my nose was coursing. And I was far too exhilarated to sleep.

On training

I'm addicted to running. The simplicity of it. The escape. The way it turns a city into a garden. Stepping up my training in preparation for the Paris marathon in two weeks has had only one unfortunate side effect; my husband is starting to have dreams that he's a dog, trying to chase me down...

On running from inertia

My career (silly word) feels like a stalled car on the hard shoulder of the entertainment superhighway. Did I really just write that sentence? The mind reels... However, its true. I moved to England with colourful, long-harboured dreams of big breaks and extravagant success and a never-ending deluge of exciting projects with thrilling people. Like Anthony Minghella. And then I ended up working in a shop for a year, selling cashmere to disdainful Saudi women. And obsessing about the laundry. But now that we've finally moved to London, and I'm a fully paid-up member of Equity and the Actors' Centre, I have to choose to give it my all or give up. Its now or...dare I complete the sentence? As my father the philosopher says, "Shit or get off the pot." Ah, Daddy; Alfred P. Doolittle eat your heart out. So I have no more excuses and I'm too damn stubborn to give up on my dreams of being a great film actress. Even writing it seems daunting. But its our greatest fears that offer us the greatest chance of fulfilment. I know this for sure because, two years ago, the concept of running for an hour would have brought me out in a rash. And yesterday I headed out into the Sunday sunshine and ran for four.

On billionaires

I think I might be feeling the twitches of a nascent political conscious. Not being eligible to vote in any of the countries I've called home til now, I have remained distant and cynical about the sordid world of politics. But the news snippet on the Beeb this morning about the dwindling number of billionaires in the current economic climate somehow jolted me. Billionaire has become just another word in our vocabulary; a decade ago it was unusual if not downright improbable. Now we accept that such staggering wealth is perfectly normal. While we watch Africa starve. I'm beginning to think capitalism may not be the answer.

Bowling around town

I have recently started a job in a call centre. Amazingly, its not as soul-destroying as it sounds. Its really a roomful of people (artists, actors, dancers, etc) who are deciding where to next in their lives or careers while they nag people into doing boring surveys for the government. I like it because its breeze in, breeze out and I don't have to pretend that I'm doing anything other than earning money to pay for acting classes and groceries. And I can have a decent chat about Sarah Kane in the tea room. But getting to work is most fun when, like this morning, I choose to don the bowler hat that called out to me from the window of a charity shop a few months back. I swear, I could send that hat out for a walk by itself. It would come back with some interesting tales. I have people start conversations from taxi cabs, and I have cycled over Chelsea Bridge with an elderly gent regaling me with the history of my chosen headgear (apparently, they were worn by the game keepers of the landed gentry, after being initially commissioned by Sir William Coke). Of course, I am fair game for tourists when I reach Westminster. It astounds me to discover that I, proponent of fashion over function, have managed to stumble across an item of safety gear that looks good and seems to speak to an amazing cross-section of society. People seem to reserve a deep fondness for this very recognisable piece of the past. And it keeps the rain off.

On cycling in high heels

The days of cycling bloomers may be long behind us, but the urge to dress down for a trip through town on one's bicycle still seems to overwhelm most women. The things one sees beggars belief. Why would a relatively sartorially aware dame, someone who knows how to throw together a decent skirt and heels for the right occasion, feel obliged to truss herself up in lycra, hang flashing lights from her waistband and don a vest of retina-searing neon yellow? I know men like to dress this way when they get on their bikes, but when did it become a good idea to follow men in the fashion stakes? I can't understand why more women don't adopt the far more form-flattering styles of the equestrian world when dressing for their cycling trips. This at least could be passed off as something inspired by Vogue and not Cycling Plus. And if its being seen by other road users that bothers a woman, she could always opt for a cute miniskirt or a pair of white jeans, and she'll get plenty noticed.

Where are you, Tanya Graafland?

When I was a younger dancer, there was no better way to pass two hours than to sit in the velvet hush of the State Theatre in Pretoria and watch Tanya Graafland dance. She was the star of PACT Ballet, and my ideal. A birthday treat was a ticket to see her perform Cinderella. Afterwards, though I've no recollection of how, I managed to brazen my way backstage to find her dressing room, whereupon I rushed in and hugged her. She was grace personified about this, despite being molested by some crazed fan while in her dressing gown. She even signed my program. Then, a bit taller, though no less unhinged I daresay, I was accepted into the ballet company as a Graduate and suddenly I was taking daily class mere metres from her. She was my passion. Her every extension seemed to me the visible personification of truth and purity. She couldn't move across a stage without setting the surrounding air into an echoing waltz. She was utterly lovely. And terribly humble and shy. Every morning she slipped into class to quietly go through her barre with the greatest care and attention. Other dancers moaned about men and shrieked to each other about their social lives; she ate her scone alone in a corner of the canteen. Leaving late one night, on a day I knew to be her birthday, I saw a light on in the main studio and there she was, endlessly repeating the same enchainment to her greatest critic, the mirror. It was perfect every time, but I tiptoed away, knowing that she would never allow herself the peace of believing that. But, for better or worse, I modelled myself on her as best as could. And now many years later, I suddenly realise I miss her dreadfully. She's retired; I know she loves to garden, and I always try to put her in a glorious rose garden when I picture her. But without her dancing in front of me, I don't seem to know which way is forward any more.

On family

Family is a funny old fabric. We've all been wrapped in its sheltering cocoon, or smothered by its love. I've seen mine billow and fray so often in the past years and still its weave holds across time and distance, and it amazes me. I haven't seen a family member since the tearful send off at Johannesburg International, when I was a brave young woman fearlessly off to conquer a new country. For two years, I've sent back infrequent reports, trying to convince myself as much as them that I am brave and strong and don't need to hear that they're doing fine but they miss me and they're proud. Above all, proud. Because silly Pride tells me that I've given them nothing to be proud of yet. Is this the modern malaise, that infects us from billboards and glossy magazines, stuffing us full of the notion that we need to Achieve? That we're nothing without degrees and flash gadgets and awards? Because I've fallen for that, and its tastes like ash. We live in a hell where the worst thing that can happen to us is getting what we want, but we can't be satisfied until we do. And what I really want is... harder to answer today than it was yesterday. What I really want is to share a flask of coffee with my dad as we drive a long dusty road through the African veld, and have my mother brush my hair.

On wish fulfilment

I had a crazy thought this evening, as I was cycling the last mile of an hour long trip to the City and home. I had gone to a, well I've actually no idea what it was - kind of an an audition/workshop for a stage school that is recruiting new teachers. I had got there eight minutes late after getting lost in the dark in the multitudinous one way streets around Euston and they told me I was too late; humiliating and frustrating. But the crazy thought occurred to me as I wearily duked it out with gimlet-eyed taxi drivers on the way home. I always wanted this. I looked into the future as a young slip of a thing, and actually wanted to be a struggling actress. I was convinced it was romantic and character forming and exciting. I could tell that silly girl other things, but I think in many ways she was right. And I have to believe in her dreams, or choose to go get a stable, well-paying, real job and start reproducing myself. Which I simply can't. Besides, I have an audition tomorrow... for Marty, the dumb blonde in Grease. If there's one thing I know about, it must be How To Be Blonde.

On Critical Mass

On Friday evening I met my husband under a bridge. Waterloo Bridge, specifically, but we weren't alone. A couple thousand members of London's cycling community were there to play Follow-My-Leader on a leisurely pedal around the city. They call it Critical Mass. Its simply brilliant. While I waited for the husband to show up, I was solicited for a bob or two (apparently ten pence, the contents of my pockets, is beneath the dignity of your self-respecting beggar), asked to join a forthcoming climate change demonstration by a woman wearing tweed, and invited to a burlesque evening. I sigh to be the kind of girl that accepts all invitations! How exciting life could be... The husband charged up as seven approached and the hordes were beginning to get restless. The leader seemed to be a man on a recumbent with a vast pink canopy that resembled dragon's wings and an airhorn. He was closely accompanied by a gent flying a giant Free Tibet flag from his mountain bike, which caused interesting steering misadventures. And there were City suits on their folding bikes, free spirits on ancient cycles garlanded with plastic roses, young bucks on their achingly cool fixed bikes steering one handed so as not to spill their lager, and women in sensible lycra clothing (I shudder, but my views on the subject are for another day). At the horn, this whooping twinkling chattering river of flesh and metal rolled off into the night. When we reached the first red light, I marveled at being part of a force that halts all other traffic in its path. At every junction we met, the cyclists on the edge would place themselves in the face of the oncoming cars and hold them at bay while we flowed past. Its a nice change to see democracy working. But that's as far as the politics went. I was amazed at the tolerance the snarling city mustered for our ragtag band. One taxi driver felt compelled to express himself with an endless horn, but we all laughed and wished him a nice evening. Coming into Trafalgar Square, I'm not sure if it was us or the tourists getting the bigger thrill. The idea of Critical Mass is that only the leader knows the route, so we are free to follow on a treasure hunt of this glorious capital's sights. People play music from their bikes; there was some impressive rapping on the microphone linked to a bike just ahead of us, and a guy on a BMX was leaping and twirling like a happy dolphin. And most people, like us, cruise along and marvel at it all. All you have to do is show up on a bicycle - see fridaynightride.com for more info. Its a heavenly way to round off a week. And its free.