My Valentine.

A quiet man.

He lays out my clean laundry in interesting combinations.

 

 

When I'm down, he doesn't leave me alone until I crack a smile.

For Valentine's day, he gives me bunches of lilies and heart-shaped Lindt.

Not bad for a non-believer.

♥

God speed all the bakers at dawn.

A year ago when I moved to this place, I would hear the baker leaving at four in the morning to bake his croissants. I would wonder about the apartment in the sky and what it is that drives someone to do what they do. Now it's me living in the sky and leaving at dawn. On the road I pass trucks and I listen to the Blues. I wonder about the Vissershok Road working girls, they recognize me now and wave, skimpy dresses fluttering in the breeze. One morning, an overturned vegetable truck, people spilling into the road for spoils. Bright orange cardinals explode from the reeds. The moon rising like some huge luminous egg, a barn on fire.

Sometimes I shout with frustration, but I know that these are special times.

And my honey and I, we are far apart, but he sends me Turkish hearts.

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.

The way we live.

My friends I & J have grown themselves a remarkable and happy home, full of colours and layers of interesting things. Over the years I have: eaten many a scrumptious meal with them - indoors and out (there is a pond with a frog, a pool filled with salty water, a sunny stoep with sculptures), played ping pong in the basement, deejayed at parties in the lounge, had lessons in eyeshadow and lashes, splashed in the attic bath, slept over in the spare room a-dreaming of Italy...
these friends of mine are a constant in an
inconsistent world.

I could have spent a day and a night taking pictures, but my camera ran out of juice.

Avoiding the herd.

Not to be confused with Anthophobia (a fear of flowers), Anthrophobia is an extreme, pathological form of shyness and timidness. Being a form of social phobia, it may be manifested in fears of blushing, meeting the gaze of others, awkwardness and uneasiness when appearing in society, etc.

I have spells of... let's call it social anxiety. The mere thought of facing a crowd of strange people makes me withdraw into my undemanding little shell. Last week was one of those times and now I suffer a particular kind of ingrained guilt because I disappoint others, as well as myself.

These were the big guns:
 

1. The launch of my dear friend Diane Awerbuck's new collection of short stories, Cabin Fever.

Here in my shell my toes curl and my skin blushes with delight as I read Astronomy Domine.

(The title story strikes tender chords and I lie sleepless, wide-eyed in the dark.)

2. The opening of Gary van Wyk's exhibition of photographs, Private Public.

I went to see it yesterday and was happy to do so without any jostling. I see Gary out and about and I've observed how comfortable people are to be photographed by him. He has this incredible gift - in an unassuming and gentle way - of making people totally at ease. The exhibition left me feeling tranquil and content.

Past (Mirac, Waterval, Gifberg) The Photographer's Gallery

Anthrophobia, in some situations, can result in the person disconnecting themselves from human interaction resulting in the use of electronic contact 

over direct contact.

 Check...

Let's party like it's 1981.

The Lip told me the other day that whilst driving somewhere with his thirteen year old son, they started talking about the parents of his friends. Turns out, as they went through the list, that all of them were divorced or separated. Then they ticked off the parents of his younger son's friends. Ditto.

I realize more and more how fortunate I am to have had happy parents. And it gives me such warm joy when I see couples who stick it out through thick and thin.
 

We celebrated a union of thirty years last night. He asked her to marry him at the station. When they walked outside all the newspaper posters proclaimed: They're engaged! (They happened to have chosen the same day as Prince Charles and Lady Diana.)

Ken & Kris. You make the world feel right.

A perfect winter's day.

For walking down Long Street...

For coffee and cake with the charming Miss Leblond.

Along the way, at Galleria Fortunata, this kimono I covet:

But it costs arms and legs. 7 500 of them. :-(

This vintage shirt I bought:

A pussycat bow in celebration of the days steadily getting longer. R 150 at Joy's.
Very sad news from Saskia: Misfit is closing down. I've been shopping there for almost a decade.

Tong Lok's lovely signs this week are painted by hand.
 
Bumped into Papa San on my way home. Takumi is closed for the week, as he's starring in the role of the comical and evil mastermind "Mr Chan" in the local film production "Copposites", also starring Rob van Vuuren.
:-)

Winter solstice.

Spent some time with my old friend Chocolate.

The Gateau au Chocolat recipe will be published in my food column at Hy Sê Sy Sê shortly.

Did some sewing.

All the while thinking of this dream I have, the one that's finally coming true. I am moving upstairs to where there's a room tucked into the eaves. With skylights.

Happiness.

❤

The shortest day.

And the longest night.

It's everywhere.

Hy Sê Sy Sê goes live today.

Hy Sê Sy Sê (He Says She Says) is a bilingual e-mag and I'll be writing over there once a month, in a column called Kos Manewalus.

Read my musings about Dim Sum here.

Wishing my friend Elsibe and the rest of the HSSS team double luck and prosperity!