There's a starfish on our stoep.

From a purple-veined, lantern-shaped bud,

an astonishing flower unfolds.

African Carrion Flower - Orbea Variegata.

Occurs naturally on the slopes of Table Mountain.

Smells... putrid!

The ides of April.

Never was there more welcome news: a call sheet that read

Shoot Day 40 of 40.

Then, one more obstacle. Removal of Basal Cell Carcinoma. South Africa's sunny skies, my youth spent swimming and running around on the beach. What did we know about sunscreen...

I have this to say: don't be a procrastinator like me. I could have saved myself a lot of worry and had a much smaller scar if I had gone a long time ago. I am twelve stitches wiser.

While time heals,  I build collages.

They are a mixture of Istanbul and our garden.

My heart still points to that wonderful place, sharp as a knife.

We will spend the month of September there and I can barely wait.

The season of the butterfly.

In Fish Hoek this morning,
the fog is so thick that I can barely see the houses over the road.

The garden rustles and drips.

A bulbul darts in and out of the eugenias.

Rhubarb stems have turned rosy overnight.

The aloes are in bud and yesterday the sweet smelling tree in the driveway was aflutter with butterflies.

Out at the farm the yarrow patch was covered in drifts of lilac butterflies, each one tinier than my pinkie nail.

My work continues to take me to far flung places. I see them in their autumn glory. This week past I have spent time in Ottery, Lotus River and Philippi. There are mosques and veiled ladies and rastas on bicycles. I met a vegetable gardener admiring his butternut blossoms. I met a fierce squirrel hunter.

At the Klip Road cemetery gates on friday, I saw two fishermen selling snoek from their wide old pick up trucks. On saturday it was a rusty blue El Camino laden with flowers.

Easter came and went. We woke and found a Dutch still life in the kitchen. There was Lamb With A Spoon - every last flake and morsel of shank bone marrow devoured.

Apple and plum crumble soon suffered the same happy fate.

I find myself more depleted after every film I work on. There is little to love about going to work with a lump in your throat, lying awake at night worrying about things that are - in the grand scheme of life, so very superficial.

It took a day of visiting greenhouses and nurseries to remind me how calm and happy these places make me. Outside Stellenbosch, at Bridget Kitley's organic herb nursery, you walk on flagstones that tilt and splash. Bees buzz overhead.
The people who work there do so barefoot and muddy. 
A small striped frog landed on my foot for a second and made me laugh.

Then sigh.

 

Perhaps these are all clues on the path to solving my conundrum.