Sometimes the most annoyingly chatty person on earth (me) dries up and has nothing to say. That’s where I’ve been at for weeks. Perhaps this is a blessing to all the people in my life to whom I talk!

Funny thing, at least to me, is that I remember being exceptionally quiet as a child, from the age of about 8 right into my 20’s. Things changed after I got married and had kids….and found myself stuck in a dorp for ten years in a place where I felt like I had been buried alive. I was desperately bored and desperately lonely, and I began…..to chat. I knew I was talking too much, telling people too much, giving too much away for free. There were a couple of woman that I came to know who had husbands as deeply involved in club sports as mine. In fact, these women, their husbands, my husband…they had all grown up together. What are club sports? You don’t see it here in the US, but in the UK and South Africa, New Zealand and Australia, every little town has one or more clubs and people join them and play sports through them. The provinicial and national teams for squash, cricket, rugby and I don’t know what all are (used to be) drawn from club sports. My own husband was always a provincial baseball player - granted, not a hugely popular sport in South Africa - and played at the highest club level (the A-side) of rugby. He was also, before I knew him, a provincial diver and gymnast. He is the most athletic person I have ever met, and his love of sports is so pure! But back then, it seemed like it never ended! It was customary for the wives to go along to all the games, taking their little ones and sitting in the stands for hours and hours, whole days even, or else they’d work in the club’s kiosk, selling hot dogs and “cool drinks” (sodas) and chips and sweets. People’s whole social lives revolved around those clubs. I made friends with a few of the women, and would call them up occasionally to go for a visit. There was one woman in particular of whom I was very fond. We had our first babies on the same day, and sort of “met” in the maternity ward. I’ll give her this….she was patient with me and a good soul, and did occasionally reciprocate and visit me with her little ones. The other women almost never called me. I was pretty desperate, though, so I kept trying. I’d go home after my little social calls and feel physically ill, feeling as though I had offered up pieces of myself for nothing. I never became really close with anyone and I think I was probably viewed/tolerated as an oddity - the one who grew up in America! Gradually, the need to connect like that wore away. Finally, in my thirties, having left the old dorpie years before, and on one very cold night in a hotel room in Sweden on a business trip, quite suddenly realised I was fine just by myself.

I still can get a good steam going if I’m comfortable with a friend, and I do still go overboard at times.

For a few years, here at work, there was a woman who was an incessant talker. On top of that, her voice happened to be naturally strident (she could give Ethel Merman a run for her money). Her subject matter invariably settled on her two sons, who, our whole office came initmately to know, are both at the genius level when it comes to IQ, but both have “issues”. I  grew to intensely dislike using or hearing the word “issue” used when what was really meant was ”problem”. She drove everyone nuts. Me included. It was hard to get angry with this woman because in most other respects she was actually a very nice person. I know she was kind, I think she was probably pretty smart and she had a good sense of humour. Secretly, I harbored a horrible thought: is this what I did to people? Is this how they felt about me? Did I drive them nuts? Is this divine retribution?

Ah well, let me be merciful and release you, dear reader.