Relatively speaking

How do two-and-almost-a-half months pass without me putting down a single word here? I shy away from here; the desire to remain invisible usurps my desire to be creative, to celebrate life via words and photos: a terrible and constant tension exists within.

I'm long-time returned from Uganda, it was an enormous success on countless levels; I've not written a word about it. Neither here nor anywhere else. Nor have I written a word since in terms of the story ideas that were flourishing in me and my notebooks while I was there, and on the flights back.

Today, I weakly resist bleakness overcoming me... it's the same bleakness inherent in the photo, above, that I took on 27 May. It was the city hall, the side of the library, the autumn trees on a bleary winter's day when the days were drawing in.

Today: It's a magnificent sunny day and the roofs of Woodstock are bright with summery sunshine, there's - unusually - not a breath of air. A woman wearing taut shorts and sandals, her oiled hair glistening (noticeable from even from this far and from this high above) in the sunlight, walks languidly up off one of the roads off Lower Main. She has a plump child fast asleep on her back, tied to her in reverse-Kangaroo style by a bright and cheerful pink blanket. I long to be next to her and her child, feeling the warmth of the late-approaching summer on my face,  on my skin.

Instead, I'm indoors with winter and wearing pyjamas suited to the cold of the last long week; winter is in my heart: I'm again working from home because my university where I teach has been beset by violent student protests, a minority of a minority; there's been attempted arson and the cars of staff have been vandalised. Last night, in the darkness where deeds like these take place, the doors to my department were pulled off their hinges and offices broken into: stuff stolen, glass broken. I've been on campus only three times since 1 September, choosing instead to teach via means other than the luxury of a classroom.

Then there's Trump, Brexit, climate change, the oceans soggy and overwhelmed with plastic, greed, capitalism, consumerism, the extreme and strangling corruption that pervades swathes of our government: billions of rands that could be exchanged for free tertiary education, also that the lives of countless disadvantaged folk could be transformed. Not to mention our deep, cloying and hooded Drought, which stands behind us all with his shining, razor-sharp scythe.

Then, I look upwards so as to count my blessings: I've six buds on an orchid that I rescued from the side of a street dustbin two years ago; before me and up right up tight against my retinas is the magnificent and inspiring Devil's Peak; not to mention that I had an awesome night's sleep in a warm bed; also I'm most gratefully not in the likes of storm-torn Puerto Rico or earthquake-ravaged Mexico City and still have a roof over my head.

It's all relative.

I'm still capable of compassion, kindness and generosity to those less fortunate than me. I can still choose to smile.

Also to make the choice to immerse myself in the miracle of this very day... because the past does not exist and I sure as hell have not an iota of control of tomorrow.