Lost Treasures
Have you ever been on a real treasure hunt? Looking for real treasure. When we were children our Dad would take us for voyages of discovery amongst the sanddunes of Zululand. Finding a campsite of the Nguni people as they tracked their way down the coast of Africa and stopped for a while in this exact spot. So excited to be part of that discovery. We scratched in the dirt for hours. Lots of bits of pottery, bones and discarded shellfish around a long dead fire of charcoal amongst the red sand behind the dunes. Nothing of fiscal value amongst that lot. A red letter day in Pat history.
A while later we found the wreck of a wooden ship amongst the newly storm lashed coastal dunes near Cape Vidal. Could it be the treasure ship the Dorothea? Excitement mounted as we imagined the Kruger millions changing our lives forever. No more collecting glass bottles to take back to the shop for the deposit money. No more would our mother need to go out to work to make ends meet. And sometimes the ends didn't quite meet at all. Sweeties by the jar full. Our heads were filled with sugar plum fairies and unicorns! So we dug and we dreamed and we dug some more in the hot Zululand sun. Our homemade hats shielding our faces and the cost of a few blisters from sunburn seemed like a small price to pay for fame and fortune. Well of course we didn't find our treasure. There is a stone shelf just under the waves near Cape Vidal that would rip out the guts of any ship silly enough to run to shore to escape the storm. The ballast, and often the heavy treasure, would be deposited on the sea bed at the bottom of the rocky shelf. The rough seas and treacherous currents made retrieval of the gold almost impossible. As far as I know over 25 expeditions have tried and failed to find the gold. Whether the ship we dug around was a simple trader or a battleship or even the fabulous Dorothea, we never found out. The next time we went to the beach the waves and storms had covered the skeleton of the wreck with tonnes of sand. Hiding the gold for another generation to find.... maybe.
These days the treasures I search for have nothing to do with gold and all about genes. Yes, I am a genealogical hunter. I found out this week that I am a distant relative of Geoffrey Chaucer. Yes, the author of Canterbury tales and such like. So excited about that little gem. I know it was a long long time ago and the chances of an iota of gene genius having filtered down to me is miniscule, but never mind, I was thrilled. I looked at his picture and thought I caught a whiff of a similarity somewhere in the nose .... maybe not. Oh well, I can dream. But to be perfectly clear about this, I believe that many of our talents have come to us from the realms of our pre-existence. As intelligences we wandered the cosmos with our talents and quirks in embroyonic limbo. Waiting for our birth and our circumstances to flower and grow. I know I was a found by a loving Heavenly father and encouraged to develop my talents before my birth. Oh okay, I can see some of you rolling your eyes at me. But just saying, this is what I believe, so I am allowed my own opinions and beliefs. Anyhow, there I was wandering through the stars in time immemorial and now I am grounded in a very physical world and trying to find my talents. Trying to find these talents has been a challenge.
Sometimes more of a challenge than others. When people give me compliments about my art or my writing, I battle to accept those compliments. I know my work is not perfect, and can see all the faults in technicolour details, so I almost roll my eyes and say things like 'Its nothing.' But then I remember JJ, a young man at school with me. One day he gave a compliment to a beautiful young woman and she told him he must be blind to think she was beautiful .. or words to that effect anyway. He turned to me and said that he wished women would be taught how to accept a compliment with grace and gratitude. Its not easy to tell someone that you think they are marvelous and then be told you are an idiot. JJ taught me a valuable lesson that day. Always take the compliment in the spirit it has been offered. And hey, as we get older, compliments become less and less and at some stage almost extinct. JJ was really quite hurt by his gorgeous lady friend, but maybe his talent was to point out our good features so that we can recognise it in ourselves. We are often our own worst enemies. If a real enemy said the things to me that I tell myself, I would be angry and ready for a fight. How dare you tell me that I am ..... or a ....? But when I say it to myself I think I am right to say awful things ... no, I am actually just delusional and need to stop being a bully to myself.
What are our real treasures in life? The genes from a long distant ancestor or a bar of gold from the Dorothea? No, its our own self worth. Next time you tell yourself you can't do something .... pinch yourself and say 'Stop being so mean, or else I will tell on you .... to myself. And you don't want to mess with me when I am in a mood.' Treasures don't need to cost a lot of money, but they do need to cost a lot of passion and emotion. We need passion to enthuse others about the things that we value. We can cultivate our own culture of being grateful about the things we do have in life ... and need to stop concentrating on the negatives. Oh dear, I do sound a bit preachy today, don't I? I blame it all on our daughter, Collette. She died when she was a baby and each year on the anniversary of her death I get all sentimental and do a lot of self editing. The lesson for today for myself is .... oh dear, no idea. Less editing and more change maybe? Thanks Collette, when next we meet I will have to tell you that life is actually quite marvelous even if you missed out on most of it with us. But maybe you didn't miss out at all?
