I had two days of filming at The State Theatre. Hennie, the director, left to begin getting the stage set up for our filming the next day. Sniffing and dribbley eyed, I went for my afternoon rest. Lying on my bed in the hotel bedroom, I thought: ‘Tomorrow I begin filming. I am going to look horrendous if these waterworks continue. I need some antihistamine. Fast!’
I gave Hennie a call. Sure, he would get some for me on the way back to the hotel. I took the packet of blue and white tablets from him at dinner. “My life saver,” I said swallowing two.

I was nervous about facing The State Theatre. I hadn’t come into contact with it for almost 26 years. I had a terrifyingly exhilarating morning in which I was confronted by one of my worst fears – the stage from where I had tumbled 18 metres. And yes, the tears had fallen thick and fast. Here I was taking antihistamine to stop my eyes running and I flipping we’ll end up crying a bucket load of tears! What use was that? I don’t have a Meryl Streep face, made for tears. My face distorts into a wonky grimace-like mask. Oh, glory, maybe making this film was not such a good idea, I thought.

Once back at my hotel room, my eyes barely having recovered from their State Theatre experience, now began their Jacaranda weeping once more! I made a bee-line for my antihistamine tablets. I had left them next to my moisturisers. I stopped. Next to my face creams was a big, empty space grinning up at me. I looked around the room. Nothing. My antihistamine tablets in all their beautiful blue and cream colours had gone. I searched. No tablets. Oh, friggin’ hell! I needed the tablets. I was streaming once more. I phoned poor Hennie and asked if he could pick up another packet! No problem, he would give them to me at dinner once more.

I woke up from my afternoon rest, to see a man standing at the door of my room.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded, scrabbling for my Cochlear Implants. His mouth began moving and I said: “Hold on, just wait a minute!” Placing them in my ears, I said: “What on earth are you doing in my room?”
Highly embarrassed he said: “I am so sorry! I knocked and knocked on your door and you never answered. I thought no one was here. I am just checking that your room was cleaned.”
“It was very nicely cleaned, thank you. My antihistamine tablets were cleaned clear away!”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that someone has taken my antihistamine tablets! I left them right next to my moisturisers, came back from work and…..” I gestured at the empty space, “…they are gone!” I glared at him through my slightly red swollen eyes.
“Madam, I am sorry! Have you looked in the bathroom?”
“Yes and I have searched this room. Rien, niks, nada, zilch, nothing!” I expostulated.
“I am so sorry, Madam, I will speak to the room cleaners and get back to you,” he said making a hurried exit. Grumpily I put on the kettle. Half a cup of tea later, there was a knock on the door. I opened it to the same man. Apparently he was the hotel manager and he introduced me to the four hotel cleaners. They trooped into the room and I explained what I had lost. One woman began going through my makeup, my moisturisers, my base. “They’re not there, I’ve looked,” I said.
Another glared at me and said: “Where were you this morning?”
“I was at work; at The State Theatre,” I replied somewhat wrong footed. “And I…well…um…I left my antihistamine tablets right here and I wondered if…if you had perhaps moved them or put them in a different place?”
I was assured that my blue and white antihistamine tablets had not been moved. Indeed they had not been seen!
“Where are they then?” I demanded, “They couldn’t have just disappeared, could they?”
Silence.
They all marched out of my room, promising that they would let me know if my antihistamines magically appeared! Yeah, yeah, yeah, I thought making myself another cup of tea.
Hennie gave me a new bulging packet of blue and white antihistamine tablets at dinner. I took two immediately and repeated the dose after breakfast. Okay, I was ready for the filming!

After a long but triumphant day in front of the camera, we came returned to the hotel and collected our baggage. As I was leaving my room, I searched in my bag for my room key. And my fingers touched my antihistamine tablets.
Two packets of them!
Oh, Shytenhauzen! Shytenhauzen! Shytenhauzen!

At reception I asked to see the manager and was told he would only be back that evening. “Damn, I needed to speak to him.” I swallowed and said to the receptionist: “I mistakenly accused the people that cleaned my room so beautifully of taking my antihistamine tablets. I have just discovered them in my bag. Would it be possible to apologise to the four cleaners?”
Once again, my eyes were teary. I had two packets of antihistamine tablets in my bag but they wouldn’t cure these tears! I received this beaming smile from the receptionist that spilled over the counter top and into my heart.
“Thank you for coming and telling me. So many people on making a discovery such as yours, would have remained quiet about it and would have left the hotel with that accusation hanging in the air. I will tell the women tomorrow.”

I would love to say: Oh, it was because of my brain damage that I made such an appalling mistake. Brain damage had nothing to do with it. It was my own carelessness. My focus was on my filming and as a result I made four women unhappy, accusing them of being thieves.

I apologise to all four of you. ‘Sorry’ seems such an inadequate and inappropriate thing to say but until a better word is invented, ‘sorry’ will have to do.
I am so sorry. I am deeply, deeply sorry!

The post Jacaranda Tears! appeared first on 'ear 'ear! by Gaynor Young.

The huge concrete edifice loomed dark and forbidding. I looked up at the sign that I had been dreading seeing for so long: The State Theatre.
I took a gulp and I moved forward, into the building.
The doors closed behind me.

I hadn’t been to The State Theatre since my accident twenty-five years ago. I had fallen eighteen metres off the Opera Stage and the consequences had been life changing. I did not have the desire to return but I knew that I had to. Absa’s wish for me to perform i thank you God on the Opera Stage enabled me to seek a belated closure of some sort. I had unfinished business there. The demon that could turn my dreams into nightmares must be confronted. I needed to look it in the eye and deprive it of the malicious hold it still had of me.

“This way, Gaynor,” Hennie’s voice roused me and I hurried after him. He was the director of this film we were making for Absa. Through door after door, down corridors, around corners and suddenly I stopped. We were backstage, opposite the dressing rooms. Twenty-five years on, I remembered these dressing rooms. Kate Normington and I had shared one at the very end of the corridor.
“We’ll use this,” Hennie pushed open one at the opposite end. I was glad of that. I put down my things and looked around. I remembered the dressing roomss perfectly. Isn’t it odd how some memories are crystal clear and others are foggy, dense and almost a smoky black?

“When you’ve had a cup of coffee with the crew, I’ll take you onto the Opera Stage.”
My heart lurched. The Opera Stage! The place where my life had changed. It had suddenly swerved into a new direction for which I was totally unprepared. I needed more than a cup of coffee. Neat whiskey would do far better, I thought.

While chatting with the crew, I was introduced to two men, Madela and Abel. They both worked backstage at the theatre.
“Were you here when…”, I began.
“I was off sick that night, but my friend, Abel, was here when you had your fall,” Madela replied.
My eyes flew to Abel’s face. “You were here?”
“I have worked at The State Theatre for 37 years and that is a night I will not forget.” He took my hand in both of his. “Ai, Gaynor!” he exclaimed, “Your screams will always live deep in my heart.” He patted my hands.
Half laughing but with tears pricking my eyes, I said to him: “And look Abel, here I am!” I wriggled my bottom and did a shuffley kind of dance.
He looked at me with a smile in his eyes and said: “Isn’t God great?”
“Oh, Abel, isn’t He just!” I said giving him a hug.
Hennie called and I said to them: “Before I go home, I would love a picture of the two of you.”
“We will find you, don’t worry,” Madela reassured me.

Hennie and I walked onto The Opera Stage. Hennie pointed to a spot stage left towards the back. “Here is where you fell, Gaynor. You can see where it opens.”
I peered at the floor. It was clear that this part could open, raise and lower. I had fallen right there. It was on that spot that my life had changed forever. I walked hesitantly towards it. With my eyes tightly shut, I stepped onto that ‘plank’ of the stage. Where twenty-five years ago, Gaynor, the actress had fallen and been killed, this Gaynor stood there breathing deeply. Then I raised my foot and…stamped. I stamped again. And again. I opened my eyes, looked at Hennie and said: “It is just a board on the floor.” Stamp, stamp, stamp.”That’s all it is, Hennie, just a board!”
I moved away from the partition and stood next to him. “Are you alright?” he asked. I looked at him and smiled broadly.
“I am totally fine. In fact, I don’t know why I didn’t come her before this. I feel…” A huge sob racked my body as tears spurted from my eyes. “Glory be, what is going on? Why on earth am I crying? This is so stupid!” Another sob was wrenched from me. “I don’t know why I’m crying Hennie, I can’t explain this. I’m not feeling sad at all…I don’t know what is going on….” I sobbed and sobbed as the tears fell like rain in a much needed desert. Hennie was great. He didn’t come and put an arm around me. He let me cry myself out.

The ‘demon’ that had been lodged inside me for the past twenty-five years, took to the air and flew out of my life once and for all. Standing there on that stage that had taken so much from me, I realised that I was bigger than what had happened to me. God had wanted me back there so that I could realise that. “Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world.”

Hennie had said that he envisaged me performing in this red, shimmering dress. He sent me photographs of this incredibly glamorous red dress. If that was what he wanted, okay – so be it! My neighbour, Carlene Blom and I bought this beautiful red sequinned material that was simply glorious. She said she knew just the kind of thing that would suit me. Carlene’s nimble fingers soon had her sewing machine purring up seams as my transformation began to take place.

In the dressing room I had a makeup artist . I wasn’t used to this. As a performer I had always done my own makeup. What a genius she was! When she finished, in the mirror this good looking stranger looked back at me! My magnificent red dress slathered it’s way onto me. I looked just like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, although my thick ankles gave the game away!

Hennie had me standing centre stage saying my poem. I love that poem. If I didn’t know better, I would swear e.e. cummings had written that poem specifically for me. I said it over and over as I was filmed from every conceivable angle.
It ends:
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
I wanted to add: now the heart of my heart rejoices
in it’s peace

We finally finished.

“I must get a photo of Madela and Abel.” As if from nowhere they appeared at my side. They had changed. Gone were their dirty overalls. They had on beautifully pressed shirts and smiles as wide as the sun.
“You must take a photo,” Abel said, “a photo of Gaynor who died, but now is living!”

You have said it all, Abel, you have said it all!

*

**

To view my ‘Gaynor has Risen- Absa film click here! 

The post My State of Mind! appeared first on 'ear 'ear! by Gaynor Young.

Recently I wrote to the Chief Financial Officer and I thanked him for such an incredibly thoughtful gesture. I suggested that perhaps I could be an “ambassador” for Absa. He put his Head of Marketing in touch with me who said that they were working on one or two ideas and would be in touch shortly. Soon afterwards, I received an e-mail saying that Absa would like to send down three people to George to meet me and discuss a future project.
I was most intrigued.

They flew down to George and met me at my flat. A lovely, sparkling woman named Lauren, a wise, smiling and I was to discover gently, perceptive man, Hennie, and Wayne with his mop of curly hair and amused eyes that missed nothing. They took me out to lunch where we simply got to know a bit about one another. The next day, Hennie and Wayne came to my apartment and literally grilled me. Question after question about every aspect of my life. And no, I didn’t discuss my sexual proclivities with them but everything else! Eventually Wayne said that Absa would love to work with me and make a film which would be shown on their website and YouTube. They would discuss everything they had learnt about me and come up with a scenario to film. They would send it to me for my approval.

I said goodbye with a light heart. I would really enjoy working with them!

A week later, their proposal arrived. They wanted me to go back to The State Theatre and perform a poem on the Opera Stage. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I read it once more. Yes, that was exactly what they wanted!

I began to shake as the tears started flooding my eyes. How could they expect me to return to that nightmare of a place? It was there that I had fallen eighteen metres offstage onto concrete below. It was at The State Theatre that my life as I knew it, was stripped from me completely. It was in that place that Gaynor the actress had been killed. I had lost my ability to hear, sixty percent of my eyesight, my singing voice had not even waved as it disappeared forever. I had been given the unwelcome spasticity on my right hand side, a disgusting limp and a mind that was no longer able to memorise lines. And they wanted me to to return to that stage and perform there. The only thing I felt I would be able to do on that Opera Stage was curl into a little ball and howl. Wolf howls, long and loud.

Shirley Johnston, the editor of my book My Plunge to Fame is a close friend and mentor. I sent her their letter and added my helpless fear which was now tinged with outrage. I didn’t get back the comforting reply I had anticipated.

Gaye, you will do it! I know you can and you will. You – who have been to hell and have come back to inspire others.
It will be confronting your worst fear, I am so aware of that. I believe that if you confront it, you will conquer it. I KNOW you will be just fine, especially with your strong faith to guide you and give you strength.

I think it will be so moving if you do the e.e.cummings poem, the one you recited at your 30th birthday – just after your accident. And the sentiment behind it is so uplifting and so positive and so apt for you, Gaynor, who should be bewailing your fate and cursing every day – and yet you continue to thank God for each amazing day in your new life since it changed so drastically.

Gaye, look at it as a gift you will be able to give to countless others. Those who are afraid to confront their own worst fears, those whose lives have been shattered and who are trying to find their own strength. I believe it is your destiny to help others who have had a raw deal. You have always inspired, you have never let anything crush your indomitable spirit. You will be standing on a stage which is merely a wooden floor. It is a place you have always loved to be. You will, I am sure, be able to put your mind into another space.This will merely be a building, a stage…..
I just wish I could be there! I unreservedly recommend you should go for it, girl!!!

Glory be, Shirley was certainly not saying anything I had expected. She was saying that I should go back. Back to that hell hole! I re-read what she had written. Inspirational, she called me. I don’t want to be inspirational. I want to be normal. Ah, but that normality was done away with during that State Theatre performance. Like it or not, I had become an inspiration to people. And here was this ‘Inspirational person’ not facing up to a fear that she had been carrying around for twenty-five years.

In my motivational talks, I speak of facing up to one’s fears. About not carrying around unnecessary baggage. Only then is one truly free. An enormous boulder of fear had been twined around my neck for twenty-five years. Fear of The State Theatre and everything it represented to me. It was a boulder that I was able to sling out of everyone’s sight so that no one was aware of it’s presence. No one except for me.
What a hypocrite I was! The ironic thing was that it was causing no one harm. Except me. How can one move freely with a boulder around one’s neck? It constantly bangs into things causing you to flinch from ricocheting pain.

One thing leaped out of Shirley’s letter at me: “…especially with your strong faith to guide you and give you strength.”
I took a deep breath. And then another. Of course. I had God with me. I often didn’t understand His plan but He never let me down. He was always there. I got the impression that He was wanting me to go back. He knew that I had unfinished business at The State Theatre.
Thank you, sweet Shirley, for that gentle reminder.

With a sigh I picked up my I-Pad and wrote:

Hi there, Hennie and Wayne!
With trepidation I say: Okay, let’s go for it! If I see the stage and a feeling of unease and a dawning of fear engulf me, could we then change to the other theatre within the venue?
I look so forward to working together. We can make a film that can be looked upon as a gift to people who are afraid to confront their worst fears. Those whose lives have been shaken and are searching for the strength to continue, will be encouraged by the film we will make.
With a big smile I kiss your eyes
Gaynor

And so, it was back to The State Theatre. I felt hollow inside. Goodness knows what it would hold for me this time.
‘Lord, please stay close,’ I begged.

The post Getting into a State!!! appeared first on 'ear 'ear! by Gaynor Young.