Umhlanga, yesterday. Right on heart

It was a moody afternoon yesterday. And the air was salt-thick heavy; the tang of which I drew deep, deep into my lungs and smiled - WIDE - about.
A smile dripping with the joy of life. As if life was a big, ripe mess of all the earth's finest fruits; the juice, its fleshes, dripping, congealing, clotting in my beard, and brows, and on my lashes, into the hair on my chest.

So instead of heading home yesterday afternoon, as per 'normal', and after an intense day, and despite the weather, I slowly walked and photographed Umhlanga's esplanade; and enjoyed its village cafes; sucking the marrow from
life's bone; and confusing my metaphors.

My first reward was the salt-thick and heavy air that raced my pulse.

Walking into to local CNA, old fashioned with the reek of books and magazines, it was reminiscent of an old-style stationery shop, not a chain store. I breathed in deep that reek too. And smiled wide.

There I - almost - allowed myself the pleasure of buying two locally written and very recently published books; both of them exceptional examples of investigative journalism: Adriaan Basson's Zuma Exposed, Julian Rademeyer's Killing for Profit, about the despicable rhino horn trade.

But I didn't. Because I'm a minimalist and have streamlined and simplified my life: despite my overwhelming addiction to, and passion for books, I am taking the eBook route, which I confess I know nothing about. For the second half of my life I am traveling light and uncluttered. My thousand or so books are being redistributed as I type these words.

I savoured the two old white ducks chirruping and folding-and-unfolding knotted, gnarled hands on a bench close to the Beverly Hills. I smiled widely at their summery, breezy frocks and sensible pumps.

Still grinning I watched with a seagull eye the oily surfer-boy-seals; their boards invisible, they were nothing more than black ink drops on gray velvet, not yet absorbed.

My heart, wide open to life, was deeply satisfied by my deviation; and it cost nothing, and extended my life by at least 365 days.

Gray. I'm not a sheep even though I baa and bah

It's gray and raining. That's more than okay with me.

I'm drinking overpriced coffee at Vida e Cafe. 

How do they justify charging R26 for a single mug of Caffe Mocha; I just do not see what they have on offer other than having created some smoke-and-mirror vague-linked-to-cool brand tailor made for our sheep-consumerist society? 

Vida e Caffe having your behind-the-counter non-service orientated staff creating a ruckus every time they're tipped - like now - is rather tired after all these years, and certainly isn't the 'value-add' I'm prepared to pay for. Especially as I'm - now - a much wiser and savvy making-it-through the international financial crisis individual looking to be wowed, wooed and definitely not fooled into being content at your rip-off.

I'm writing and watching a humble sparrow (mossie in Afrikaans) beaking crumbs around my, and the table's feet. 

Most have lost their way. And have compromised their values, integrity.

My mascot is, of now, the humble sparrow. I'm looking for natural lines and wrinkles in faces that have chosen to age gracefully; thinking youngsters not gaga'd out and unthinkingly branded and walking over everything to get nowhere.

I choose life, not the living dead. No to noise, muchness and busyness: I choose to stare into my abyss, not to plug my ears with a racket and to gorge myself on possessions, anything to avoid the quiet, still voice within.

Bah baa black sheep.........

Bench of my content

Rainy late Sunday afternoon
Sitting on an always-unused bench
Peering though the untamed undergrowth
At the mighty ocean below, and-far-away
Battleship gray sky merges ocean like my left brain onto my right
It was - until now - a technology free weekend of recuperation
And a smattering of pages from a bland book
Lots of coffee too; fine French vanilla flavour from The Waterberry, last week
And, yesterday, three writers meet at The Edge, also over coffee and smoked salmon, passion and The Artist's Way
Then to church, and the night

Adams Booksellers... I am blessed

I am blessed and inspired to be working with the amazing management team from Adams Books in Durban.


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Distress signal frequency

Obama biographer David Remnick calls on him to end the "magical thinking" on climate change:  http://t.co/5hnOMyLg:

Inaction on climate change has an insidious ally: time. As the writer and activist Bill McKibben writes in The New York Review of Books, "Global warming happens just slowly enough that political systems have been able to ignore it. The distress signal is emitted at a frequency that scientists can hear quite clearly, but is seemingly just beyond the reach of most politicians." 

Good omens

Dreary, overcast day sees me still in bed, until now
Soaking in the bath I can hear the ocean, blustery sporadic wind, intense chirruping of at least ten weaver birds constructing homes above the pool by destructing the trees around them; 99% of the nests are sure to be rejected
22, 88 and yellow weaver birds, as well as the lotus flower, are strong-good omens for me
Even these words are struggly, like my attempt to not beat up my internal sensor, like my attempt to not procrastinate
I'm at the arse end of a long, hard year and I'm tired

Struggling for W.O.R.D.S

I'm slugging down a cappuccino; there's a deep tiredness right at the far dark back of my eye sockets; when I close my eyes - to rest them - they beg and scratch at me not to open them; not ever again please
I'm exhausted and battered
But good exhausted and good battered
A large woman hunched and round-shouldered - to the bursting - into a turquoise jersey stares at the magazine rack and clutches her new born to her bosom; I'm envious of her distilled and nature-instinctive focus
It's raining raining raining outside
I've been struggling for words
I'm working on a (very) short story about a crab; her name's Sally Lightfoot
I have to finish it by tomorrow
Feels like I've lost focus right here, that this has become the blog of my discontent
I smile wryly
To myself
And catch myself listening to the irritatingly but unusually high pitched squeak of an exceptionally short waitress reading a loaned-from-the-bookshop magazine: recycling I think might be the term