To the land of the rising sun

Plane's are practical. But, transport by road is my preference; I want to visually - in fact with every single one of my senses - join the dots between my departure and arrival. I want to see, smell, hear, taste and feel my  journey.

I desire for my senses to jangle with life like raw nerve-ends that have just been severed by a blunt axe. It's for this same reason that wherever possible I prefer not to use the underground transport systems in the cities I travel to that have them. I want to see people in the real-time action of living their lives in their 'real life' environments. As opposed to watching them with their masks on while sitting or standing in steel and glass tubes. Going nowhere, with me, fast.

I left Joburg on a bus. It's only 239 km to 'home' on the almost dead straight trans-sub continental N4 toll route that connects Maputo, Mozambique in the East with Walvis Bay, Namibia in the West. Sunrise, sunset.

That relatively short journey eastwards, 'home', was made much wonderfully longer by memories. Countless memories. Mostly good. Some bad, but for good in the end. It's called life I believe.

I'd travelled this road a zillion times, mostly for work as a journalist and then as a newspaper owner (humblest sense); quite often for love; sometimes to escape my self-imposed isolation; other times to escape Joburg, Gauteng, people, squeaking and squealing like a bat outta hell desperately seeking the peace, quiet, solitude, books and sane-making garden of my sanctuary. I've travelled it at the craziest and most extreme times. I thrived on my nomadism, the illusion of freedom that was incorporated in it - smoke and mirrors. All smoke and mirrors.

Isn't life exactly that, the illusion of meaning that we desperately clutch and squeeze out of it, not at all dissimilar to the fragrant but fleeting and sweet juice, I raped this morning, out of the voluptuous ruby grapefruit I bought at Gardens Pick 'n Pay on Saturday.

Was fucking worth it.

[That pic was one of many over even more years that I've taken at Milly's on the N4 outside Machadodorp; its border post transience has always allured me.]

Welcome 'home' Charlie Boy. And for fuck's sake stop being so prissy about the words your pour into this always-empty pisspot; no-one (thankfully) gives a toss anyway.