It has been over a week since I last bloggled about this journey but do not think it was because nothing happened. I simply felt that I was writing just for writing about my touristic activities while loosing track of what I am really here to do, which is to go back to the place where I come from, for the first time in nearly 30 years.
Suddenly I felt nervours and embarrassed because my writing style was not up to scratch, and no wonder for during the last month I substituted a clear mind by one dominated by CAT and booze. This stuff might have served Van Gogh and the like but it was doing me no favours.
Although I did not write for a week my life kept moving at fast pace. While still in Hermanus I proposed to a witch. It felt sooooo contemporary to propose by sms. I texted her saying: ‘A man loves his wife, a wife lovers her children, would you like to love my children?’. OK it was 10 o’clock in the morning and I had had a couple of glasses of dry white. The message was coded and I bet she did not understand the extent of it, but for me was clear there and then that this was the thing to do. I was out in the terrace looking at the sea and for the next few minutes had no reply. J was still in bed…
I lost my patience. How dared this witch not to reply to such invite? Positively or negatively she must sms back. But again, may be witches are different. I threw my phone as hard as I could in the direction of the sea, where there were rocks, bushes and the ocean. I heard it crack!!!
All my numbers were in it, my friends, work, possibly other witches too, and seeing my phone airborne made me want it back. The main reason was probably curiosity about this particular witch’s reply which I was in danger of never knowing. I ran towards the water and suddenly realised that the phone could be broken and anywhere between the bushes and the rocks. Suddenly it beeps but I am unable to figure out exactly where it is. J comes down to the beach wondering what is going on and I tell J the whole story. I ask J to phone me so I can trace my handset but J has no airtime left. We resource to emergency calls. In South Africa one can text someone for free asking them to phone back, and after three phone calls I was able to find my phone, as a light beeping deep inside a bush.
I had received a message and was somewhat nervous. With the phone in my hand, I sat next to J on the beaches park bench. It smelled of the sea and the waves were beating hard against the rocks. I opened the message and J started weeping. It read: ‘Then surely the wife will love her husband!’.
It was the perfect finish to this little event but to this day I can’t stop wondering if the witch fully realised the extent of the question. I guess we will have to wait and see.
Days later I was in the Kimberley Hotel Bar and I got a text from M. I had been drinking with Ed and someone else (might have been Ronald Suresh). We went through the usual hoard of brandys and coke (doubles) and half a bottle of Scotch, as they say here. M takes a long time to get there and needless to say I get absolutely rat arsed (steamboats). M stays for a couple of whiskies and by the time we leave its pouring down rain. We decide to go for a swim in the rain, get in the car and drive to Camps Bay. It was pitch black…
We take off our clothes in the car and start running towards the beach (200m). The asphalt is hard, and the huge rain drops feels cold. We take a sharp right and go down some bushes and into the water. It feels cold, but the alcool seems to override this feeling. It is beautiful and extreme.
We run back to the car and wrap round towels. We are shivering and decide to go back to the studio. The rain has not stopped and the run from the sea to the car has rid us of all the salt. As we drive back into town I wonder; if the police stops us are they going to do us for being drunk driving or naked in the street. Fortunately, and at least this time, I will never know.
Next morning we decide to take a drive to Cape Point. We drive through Muizenberg, Kalk Bay, go to a beautiful cemitery by the sea, then Simon’s Town and finally hit Boulders. This is the place where the pinguins seem oblivious to human presence. There is a trajectory designed by a Cape Town architect that takes us through the beach into some bush then back into the pinguin breeding ground. The place is absolutely stunning and the architecture that frames it lives up to the expectation. M is an architect and we talk about the use of forms, materials and surfaces. The sun is shining and adds a layer of shadows to the building.
It is getting late and we drive on. We can no longer go to Cape Point and head to Kommetje where I suddenly feel compelled to buy oranges. For 50 pence (7 ZAR) I buy six huge suculent oranges that promptly remind me of an old question. What am I doing living in Scotland?
We drive around looking at buildings, go to the beach, visit Ms friends house and head back into town where I am meant to hook up with Sue Williamson at her studio. I had met Sue the night before at Marlene Dumas exhibition press launch. I had heard lots about her as the ‘matriarch’ of the Cape Town young arts scene for she seems to be the one that looks after up-and-coming artists.
Sue shows me her work but her day seems to be hectic and I decide to leave her alone. The quick visit denoted some proximity and understanding anyway. I get a lift back into town because one of the viaducts is quite dangerous and even during the day one cannot walk it. I get dropped off in Long and bump into J. I have not seen J for a while and we decide to go to a bookshop for a quick browse, followed by a quick bite to eat at Bruce Gordon’s ever empty restaurant. I enjoy my time with sober J and cancel the appointment for that afternoon so we can cook for the last time. After two openings and lots of good white wine we go back to Js where I cook a Cape Verdean style tuna sauce with pasta.
Two more bottles of dry white and we drive down to the V&A to listen to some Jazz at the Green Dolphin. This is our good bye. Cheers J, it was amazing to have met you!
I leave Cape Town somehow frustrated. My trip to Robben Island was canceled by the 30ft high waves, and I never managed to see the meeting of the oceans in Cape Point, which apparently displays two different colours merging into each other. Auch well, that may be a reason to come back!
My sleeping patterns are still erratic. I wake up everyday at 4.30 a.m. and suspect it has something to do with going back to my birthplace, and all the feelings of loss attached to being forced away from a country while one is still an infant. I have tried to mask these feelings with work, stress, women, booze and drugs. Needless to say it has made it worse and I am now travelling in the opposite direction, trying to get healthy again.
There are two things in the world I particularly despise. One is blogs and the other are self-help books. Having done the first I felt compelled to round it up, and read parts of John DiMartiny’s Breakthrough Experience. It was quite painful to accept I needed help to cope with the lack of sleep and all its screens, but more importantly was the realisation that something had to change. I had put on weight again, from a month of beers and brandys and the purpose of my journey was getting somehow fuzzy as one can see by reading some of the previous posts.
I am now trying to re-focus and it seems to be working. I have stopped boozing and already feel lighter. I have brought some sort of closure to an area or two in my life and things got suddenly much clearer. I am now in a Joburg suburb caged behind high walls and unable to go anywhere. I am staying with a blood cousin I have never met before, eating good food, and preparing the next step of my journey. It will either be some time in Gaberone (Botswana) or a road trip through the Drakkensberg to Durban for a short surf course. Call it spoilt for choice.
