Malaga

A writer's notes: I remember meeting Linda and Christo for dinner at Malaga. I had just got there, the only person there. I was waiting for an ice cold beer, but drinking in, deeply, the slightly muggy air of the Lowveld. Only 20km from my place, I'm in another world.

 

I spent most of the weekend sleeping, reading, reading in the bath. Last night I spent hours on the couch devouring the relatively light "Sunday Philosopher's Club", which journalist Patricia McCracken gave to me in 2006 after we bonded in Maputo.

 

Today I struggled to get into my work, which after all the incredible pressure of the last 6 weeks, seems boring and a challenge to get into. But I had to. Because money makes the world go round.

 

It's dusk. It's a magnificent African evening. The birds are heading home and there's a whiff of chlorine hanging on the air from the pool. I can hear the juggernauts on the main road 100m away, also the comforting hum of the pool motor. I've given thanks to God a dozen times for the fact that not only am I here, but that I live here.

 

I was then reading Lonely Planet's "Guide to Travel Writing", which I was given as a Christmas gift (also 2006) in London, but started reading only a few days later in Morocco. I read only a few pages before bursting into tears at the impossibility of everything I wanted to achieve as a writer. After a few pages I put the book away and stared into the abyss of another year in an international PR/advertising agency which, quite simply, I hated. I could never have imagined that I'd be picking up the book again 10 months later in my house in Waterval Boven (it was beyond my rather limited imagination), after an interview at Getaway magazine, after two articles for Leisure Wheels, after being out of a fulltime job for 4 months already then. And quite a few other unimagined changes.. on the intense friendship level, among others.

 

All was very well then though. And my faith was better, strengthened. I continue to live from minute to minute... I breathed in summer, I breathed in the Lowveld.. I also breathe in boundless, fearless opportunity. amen. (071029)