Birthdays and Love Affairs.

I remember writing a post with the same title, exactly one year ago. On the surface, everything in my life has changed since then. But one thing stays constant -
I am surrounded by a group of loyal friends who make the world a better place to be in.

I spent my birthday yesterday on a recce in the hills. A three month job is a great present indeed. On a solitary sortie on a meandering path, this large egg lay casually to the side - no ostrich parent in sight.

Whenever I go to informal settlements, it's always the children and the animals that get to me. I think about my lucky childhood and the garden I had to play in, and these children with their ready smiles and laughter, playing with sticks and bits of plastic.

Employment, supper with my best friends, music and flowers, messages and letters.
This old world is painful sometimes, but there's beauty in it too. The love affair continues.

The Temptation To Exist.

We were classmates at university. Now he's a zillion dollar artist and me... well, I'm not.

Conrad Botes' current exhibition at Michael Stevenson is spectacular.

The scale of it. Countless brushstrokes, devilish self portraits, entrails, bones, fire and brimstone and an ocean of tears. A crossed out shopping list:
MELK, BROOD, VODKA.

And my utmost respect.

Seven Rand.

Walk in peace little doglet.

We'll miss you very much, but I know there's a cloud up there with your name on it.

The way we live.

And still the box is not full.

John Steinbeck writes this in East of Eden - about the Salinas Valley in Northern California: Once, fifty miles down the valley, my father bored a well. The drill came up first with topsoil and then with gravel and then with white sea sand full of shells and even pieces of whalebone. There were twenty feet of sand and then black earth again, and even a piece of redwood, that imperishable wood that does not rot. Before the inland sea the valley must have been a forest, and those things had happened right under our feet. And it seemed to me sometimes at night that I could feel both the sea and the redwood forest before it.
 

What a writer.

I've just finished reading Dan Sleigh's glorious Eilande (Islands) - an epic piece of literature about the history of the Cape, starting with the arrival of the Hollanders in 1650. A mere few hundred years ago. A time when you made your own entertainment and there were lions roaming Table Mountain, indigenous cattle, elephants in Paarl, hippos in the Berg River - all destroyed for sport and bacon. (A small cheer in my heart every time a soldier got trampled or gored in return)

I think of these things as I walk the streets of Cape Town. This past Winter has been a quiet one for many in the film industry. Instead of bemoaning this, my friend John took the time to build a theatre in an old corrugated shed. We walked up to the farm last night for the first show. We were enthralled, lost in time. I understood anew why people would want to be actors.
A dog growled on cue.
The silence outside was dispersed by the clicking of a hundred frogs.  

The verdict.

 Lately I've been getting a lot of invitations to events with the very thinly veiled "and then you can write about it on your blog". I've even been offered free stuff "for a mention". People say to me: but you can make money - advertise!

Well. No thanks. I've never wanted to do that here.

I think the most important thing is that this my place. I like it here. This is not work.

Do I feel sheepish that I couldn't even stay away for two weeks? Nope. I am listening to my heart -

thank you Marie.

I've been spending some time on the farm around the corner. Spring is really here. My friend the Jujuman tells me that this sheep is in love with him. My special beau is one of the medium sized black pigs. He sees me and comes galloping along to snuffle my shoes. Sometimes he just parks his snout against my shin and we stand there for a while, both of us slightly at a loss. It's a slobbery business, but it fills me with well-being.

We're on vacation.

I've been having a severe case of internet existentialism. A friend said to me on Sunday night that he just doesn't have the energy for something like a blog. I said to him that I can't not. That it's something I cannot suppress and I love it.

Then I sat down yesterday and I looked at the mountains. And I realized that it hasn't been all that much fun lately. (And I wondered what becomes of a thing like this if you just leave without turning off the lights. Does it become a cavernous place full of cobwebs, unanswered questions, doors that lead nowhere?)

Forgive me if this appears self-indulgent or ungrateful - there have been so many incredible rewards.

I'm hoping it's just a case of the blahs.

So I'm booking myself off for a while.

X

The truth.

Last night saw the opening of Honest Chocolate's first shop. 66 Wale Street, a little ways down from the Plastic Sandwich.

For this, I blew off my Book Club. The proprietors are a good advertisement for their product - they are tall, dark and skinny. The building is beautiful. The packaging is stylish.

Raw cocoa. Anti-oxidants. Traditional methods. ETCETERA.

What does this chocoholic care about all of these trifles?

Not a fig.

All I want is satisfaction.

This chocolate is good, people.

Buy it. Eat it.

Happiness.

I was very relieved to learn from Oprah that the first step to happiness is the place where you live. I've been feeling a little over-zealous about my new home. Toning down when I speak of it and so on, so as not to appear maniacal.

But the truth is that it has been life changing. I smile every time I walk through the door. Every time I go up the stairs to the loft. Every time I hear a cock crow on the farm.

Every time I look out of a window, I see the horizon. I spend many happy hours cloud-watching.

Last night I heard a girl in an apartment across the street singing along to Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. At the top of her lungs. "Home". The reflections of clouds had me enraptured.

The end of hibernation has come. Hello World.

heartstrings

Wandering around Kalk Bay this morning, I stopped for a chat at the Railway House and heard the entrancing thrumming of fingers on a drum. I walked around the corner and fell in love.

Mwalasha and Mateo. Their music did something to my heart. I'm listening to their cd right now. So happy and slow and beautiful. There's a number for bookings: 079 577 2737.

C'mon friends - lets pool together and have a party!