Self-love in the time of the virus

It's the quietest I've seen the Sea Point promenade, on Wednesday afternoon, a mere day after the City of Cape Town had closed down most public amenities because of The Plague.

The last time I experienced the public swimming pool empty, closed was during The Drought of 2017/18.

I'd decided to take the MyCiti bus from Woodstock at 4pm to Queens Beach, at the end of the 105 Sea Point route.

So as to get outdoors and to deeply breathe in the reek of the icy and plankton-rich Atlantic Ocean.

Not to mention the luxury of being able to see - unhindered by buildings, humans (except for the odd tanker or Robben Island on the horizon) - The Ocean.

To feel unconstrained by the city, knowing that I'm on its very edge; it's that definite line found almost only in ports, not in landlocked and seemingly endless cities like Johannesburg.

To bask, also, in the autumnal sunshine.

Especially as no one knows yet if the city, if the country, will be going into lockdown anytime soon; my guess is that it's likely.

I am, thankfully, rising again to the sunbeam-filled surface from the tentacles of the mental health issues that have been dragging me deeper and deeper into dark depths.

This while having my joie de vivre excruciatingly squeezed out of me, not unlike toothpaste from a tube.

Dark and grim days.

Was increasingly difficult to motivate leaving my bed, never mind being in contact with friends, nor posting a single pic on Instagram for example; street photography used to be an endless joy. 

The noose tightens so gradually that you're not aware of it, just as the temperature of the water in the pot is turned up so slowly that before you know your once lively, chirpy frog is cooked.

A visit to a Jungian psychiatrist for an hour on Monday, 2 March and an hour later my updated meds bought, swallowed, and down my throat.

That a mere chemical imbalance in my brain can so easily unhinge life.

Three weeks later and life is dramatically altered. I give thanks.

(And cannot even begin to imagine what it must be like to be homeless with the triple burden of being on the streets, hungry, and disabled by depression and unable to treat it.)

Looking closely at the photo to the left, taken on the same walk, at Three Anchor Bay - where the suburbs of Sea Point, Green Point and Mouille Point merge - you'll see a  homeless man with his trolley burdened by all life's possessions, pushed into the shallow water.

Doing what I don't know. 

Self-love and a healing process, like me?