I arrived here late on Tuesday afternoon, 1 October. The start of 'the residency'.
I'm a 1,800 km from 'home' and where I work.
Yet, I'm only now really at home. That is home without inverted commas.
Also, I note, my last post on here was just over two months ago. Which was, also, about here. Also, between when I was here and now here again, I was here, too, a month ago. That's four times I've been home (i.e. here) thus far this year.
Here/home is both a geographical and physical space as well as an emotional and intellectual space. That's an awful lot of weight given to place.
Yes, place.
Andreas Vogler writes that "[i]n Roman mythology a Genius loci was the protective spirit of a place. In contemporary usage, "genius loci" usually refers to a location's distinctive atmosphere, or a "spirit of place".
Václav Cílek makes a similiar point in his blog post of six years ago, and by the same title, Genius loci: that "[a] smaller place with which we resonate is more important then a great place of pilgrimage, where one is only a visitor." He calls this "a rule of resonance". I totally get him. I come home to my place of resonance for these among other reasons (more about this in posts still to come).
My place. In the humblest and ego-stripped sense.
*
Other than a burglar alarm sounding outside, closeby and right now, and as unusual as this may be for here, it's perfectly peaceful.
I'm writing this outside.
Got here at about 16h00.
The weeks and days between me leaving here a month ago and returning have evaporated like dew after the dawn.
I stopped at the Middelburg Shell Ultra City on the N4 Toll Route for a quick bite and a pee, also to celebrate that I'm over the halfway mark of the sometimes monotonous drive - even though it's only three hours from Joburg.
Then, another stop, this time at Milly's just before Machadodorp, for a ritual Seattle cafe mocha at a table I sat at for many years when I lived out here fulltime. And wrote fulltime for a living.
The further eastwards I drove from Johannesburg the icier and moodier the weather became, not that I was complaining. I had to put on more clothes.
Now, it's dark. And very moody.
And cold, very cold, indeed icy like in the middle of winter.
I predict rain, I pray for rain. The terrain here is still lion khaki and winter brittle, like a tinderbox.
The alarm has stopped.
A dog barks every now and then, but languidly and in the far distance.
A car or a truck, I think, somewhere in the distance too.
Birdsong. Peace. Quiet. Calm. As the evening draws in beneath a low-hanging elephant-grey sky.
A train's hooter - sharp, shrill, unexpected - in the shunting yards below the town. For me it's an always-welcome sound and a reminder of this town's fascinating railway history.
Today, 1 October, I've begun a writer's residency, in my mind and life at least. It's complicated.
I long for my bed. It will be my first night of full, deep sleep in a while. Thankfully I'd not packed away the electric blankets like I'd originally planned to when I left here a month ago.
Now to pack out some wood in my unique formula, with some charcoal, then to set the fire alight, to pour a glass of wine and to pull the throw tight around me.
It's good to be alone. With my thoughts. And with my God.
This is unexpected weather at this time of year: I'm wearing a tatty vest, two t-shirts over each other, a chunky pullover, my winter pyjama pants, socks, sandals. And the throw.
I'm extraordinarily happy despite my tiredness.
When I'd arrived I had locked myself indoors and in silence. So as to settle in and to decompress me. Thus to begin the process of meeting me, so as to be at peace with myself, and with this beautiful home, this place, which I so adore, in which I'm so at peace.
I'm stoked to be here.
Alone.
And beneath the radar.
Other than a burglar alarm sounding outside, closeby and right now, and as unusual as this may be for here, it's perfectly peaceful.
I'm writing this outside.
Got here at about 16h00.
The weeks and days between me leaving here a month ago and returning have evaporated like dew after the dawn.
I stopped at the Middelburg Shell Ultra City on the N4 Toll Route for a quick bite and a pee, also to celebrate that I'm over the halfway mark of the sometimes monotonous drive - even though it's only three hours from Joburg.
Then, another stop, this time at Milly's just before Machadodorp, for a ritual Seattle cafe mocha at a table I sat at for many years when I lived out here fulltime. And wrote fulltime for a living.
The further eastwards I drove from Johannesburg the icier and moodier the weather became, not that I was complaining. I had to put on more clothes.
Now, it's dark. And very moody.
And cold, very cold, indeed icy like in the middle of winter.
I predict rain, I pray for rain. The terrain here is still lion khaki and winter brittle, like a tinderbox.
The alarm has stopped.
A dog barks every now and then, but languidly and in the far distance.
A car or a truck, I think, somewhere in the distance too.
Birdsong. Peace. Quiet. Calm. As the evening draws in beneath a low-hanging elephant-grey sky.
A train's hooter - sharp, shrill, unexpected - in the shunting yards below the town. For me it's an always-welcome sound and a reminder of this town's fascinating railway history.
Today, 1 October, I've begun a writer's residency, in my mind and life at least. It's complicated.
I long for my bed. It will be my first night of full, deep sleep in a while. Thankfully I'd not packed away the electric blankets like I'd originally planned to when I left here a month ago.
Now to pack out some wood in my unique formula, with some charcoal, then to set the fire alight, to pour a glass of wine and to pull the throw tight around me.
It's good to be alone. With my thoughts. And with my God.
This is unexpected weather at this time of year: I'm wearing a tatty vest, two t-shirts over each other, a chunky pullover, my winter pyjama pants, socks, sandals. And the throw.
I'm extraordinarily happy despite my tiredness.
When I'd arrived I had locked myself indoors and in silence. So as to settle in and to decompress me. Thus to begin the process of meeting me, so as to be at peace with myself, and with this beautiful home, this place, which I so adore, in which I'm so at peace.
I'm stoked to be here.
Alone.
And beneath the radar.
