Monday, August 8, 2011

Where the heart is.

A jam-packed week.
Things found during the move: photos of me as a baby with my mother, on the beach. An earring presumed lost in Mozambique. An old letter that starts: I am writing to you because we cannot speak. A small heart scratched into the handle of my screwdriver, visible only if you turn it just so, in slanted light.


My mother came to see. She brought roses, unfinished tapestries, cups like her grandmother used to have. She said: You're happy my darling - I can see it in your eyes. I always know by looking at your eyes. She's right. I've only been here a week, but since that first day, I walk in the door and it feels like I've finally come home.


Saw Guy Tillim's new exhibition of photographs taken in French Polynesia. They are the stuff of cold shivers. So full of life and detail and soft colour... they reminded me of looking through my View Master as a child. Magical, moving, painterly, utterly beautiful. Alas, they are the price of small cars. Second Nature is on at Michael Stevenson until 3 September. The best boyfriend helped me to hang things, gave advice, tidied all the wires. He also took me to see Steve Newman and Tony Cox play their guitars at the Olympia Bakery. They are omnipotent. Do go. They're playing every weekend this month.


It's Spring. I see snow on the blue mountains through my lounge windows. It snowed on Table Mountain. The internet turned forty. In a mad dash to Stellenbosch yesterday in my friend's lovely old Merc, we saw these words painted on a wall facing the N2: with you I am well pleased.

3 comments:

Roy said...

Happy you happy
:)

Marie said...

Nice post, Lily. Snow on the mountains breaks my heart. Ek verlang.

the sourcerer said...

I almost fell over when I saw the snow so clearly. but it was the wilde kweper blossoms that made me tearful..