Bosham

Sunday morning. I'm sitting with my first coffee. After having completed my Pages. My notebook is on my lap and I'm in my favourite place: on my old and comfortable wicker chair that's thrust up between my sunbed and against the full-length window, my plants.

My gaze: Over Woodstock and Devil's Peak, along with The Mountain, all of the way over the City Bowl and to Lion's Head, which just makes it inside of the far right edge of my vision's frame.

Blue sky and bright-golden sunshine; I should get out today. And take the bus to Hout Bay. So as to walk, barefoot, the sandy length of one of Cape Town's less populated, and least pretentious beaches. To feel sea sand and ocean between my toes, against my skin.

Against the peace and stillness of this morning, which is the same quiet and contentment that overfills me, BBC3 is playing; it's the least intrusive of the bouquet of radio stations that I allow, quietly, into my space.

Yesterday, despite the south-easter doing its utmost to put me off leaving the flat, I made it out and in-between things ended up walking 10 km; I also made it to the 6pm mass at St. Micheal's in Rondebosch and took communion. It caught my attention that there was neither a black or brown face in the entire congregation, very few youths too.

By chance, and as I'm typing these words a bell is chiming. I believe that it belongs to Woodstock's St Agnes's Catholic Church.

**

Every day, for inspiration, I read a short chapter of Natalie Goldberg's 'Writing Down the Bones'; the words are what pierced my consciousness today, especially since the concept of 'freedom' emerged strongly in my morning pages:

'There is freedom in being a writer and writing. It is fulfilling your function. It means knowing who you are, what you are supposed to be doing on this earth, and then simply doing it. It is not getting sidetracked, thinking you shouldn't write any more [about whatever your writing obsessions are].'

It feels like I've not written a single meaningful word since returning from Uganda in September. Nor, I believe, a single meaningful blog post, which are in any case rare. My toxic perfectionism gets so badly in the way. Of many things.

**

The bell is still tolling and it's piercing me in a wonderful way that I cherish.

**

Despite the sunshine's warmth and brightness, also the cobalt sky, my heart yearns today for the far north, which is where I spent three precious weeks spread around Christmas and New Year.

The moodiness, moisture, cold were in stark contrast to the drought and tinderbox dryness of home; in the last week it has finally hit home to everyone: it's almost a guarantee that Cape Town will be the first major city globally to run out of water.

Bosham, which I spent an afternoon exploring, for the first time, is a coastal village about 2 miles west of Chichester. In West Sussex. Inhabited since Roman times and, like much of the area around Chichester, it is believed to have played a significant role way back in A.D. 43 when the Romans invaded England.

Blood of the gods

I'm fondly remembering the drive along Chapman's Peak that we took early in December.

It was from Hout Bay to Noordhoek, before we stopped, again, at the Lighthouse Pub and Grill in Kommetjie; it's a favourite and calm place where I feel that I'm suitably far from the city.

Summer was in full bloom that day and there was not a single thought in anyone's head of the winter. Understandably so as we'd not even reached the climactic summer equinox.

Endless days overflowed with sunshine and light.

The peninsula was tinderbox dry, fires threatened the landscape, the sky so blue and without end, that it seemed possible to see all the way to Brazil, even to Antarctica if one but only stared long and hard enough.

Water restrictions and summer holidays were on the air.

Last week it rained. The first time in ages. With eyes closed, I breathed in deeply the distinctive 'wet road' smell of rain on hot tarmac.

There's apparently a word for that scent -Petrichor - that describes the earthy scent produced when rain falls on dry soil. Derived from the Greek, it's a combination of "stone", and "īchṓr," which was the very fluid that flowed in the veins of Greek mythology's gods.

It was during the rain that I had a sense of the approaching autumn and, hopefully, the winter downpours that I so clearly remember. And yearn for. Although one can't take anything for granted these climate change days. We hope it's merely a drought that will soon come to an end. However, I have my doubts: not only was it reported in 2016 that SA is experiencing its worst drought in 100 years, but in January it was confirmed that we're now breaking global temperature records once every three years. I dread that this might be our new reality going forward.

I come alive in the wet and moody weather that can see Table Mountain disappeared for days in an elephant-grey shroud.

Today, too, has just a hint of autumn in it, also, the days are undeniably shorter; I'm grateful for less light and that it's duskish when I wake.

The wind's gusting and Woodstock has a shininess about it; it looks bright and unusually beautiful: my hood.

During the last two weeks, words, not unlike big fat raindrops have flowed from me. I experience gratefulness at that: I'm a less parched than before, less parched than last year.

Please, may it be the last of my drought?

Fire in my spirit

It's deep summer now and the heat has ramped up; today's the hottest day of the season so far, and at 36 degrees centigrade I'm expecting it to get even hotter through the next two months. 

As I type these words at in the cool and shade at the back of Motherland coffee shop in the tree-lined St. George's Mall, someone skirts my table in a short dress and reeking wonderfully of summer; it's probably the sunblock she's covered herself in. As for me, I'm dreading venturing back out into the afternoon.

It's my first and most chilled day back at work; it's also the first day I've worn long pants and more than slip-slops in five weeks. It's also my first day in weeks that I've not woken myself and immediately burrowed into a book. While most of the city appears to be back at work, Cape Town is still crawling with holidaymakers and tourists.

Friday afternoon I - in turn covered in factor 50 sunblock - spent at the Sandy Bay nudist beach (photo above) at Llandudno (view from the Hout Bay road below). I'd not been there since 1999; I'd forgotten how beautiful and remote it is, also how liberating it was to lie naked on a kaftan in the sand metres away away from the ice-line of the Atlantic Ocean; but there was no way I was swimming.

After my burnout in the last six months of 2014 I've promised myself I won't be taking on more than I can very comfortably handle: this is to be a year of much more writing, devouring novels and enjoying more poetry. It's also to be a year of much more Charles' time, alone.

I'm seeking adventure and to have fire again infuse my Spirit.

Looking back (and forward)

I never finished this blog post on Wednesday, 5th November: Guy Fawkes day:

I took this photo of the twelve apostles on the winter day I arrived to live in Cape Town last year. It was the 3rd of July, the day before Independence Day, which has always been, symbolically, an important day for me over the years. It was also on 4 July 1995 that I threw up a job at a media house run by a dictator to go freelance as a journalist, a space I've more or less occupied up until now.

Taking the mycitibus between Camps Bay and Hout Bay and back on Sunday afternoon reminded me of this photo, also of the jaw-dropping and inspirational beauty of that stretch of coastline.

I leave for Prague this evening. Already, even though snowed under, I'm in a retrospective frame of mind. More than anything about this trip I'm looking forward to some perspective, from another continent, on my city and country, as well as a lens to look back at how I have lived, how I've occupied my 'new' life and work over the last sixteen months.

For one thing I know that I've burnt myself out, badly, also that I have seeped into a quagmire of listlessness and low-level depression; that I've taken too much on in the last four months and the result is that, again, I've (temporarily) lost my joie de vivre, that currently I'm a husk of myself.

Nevertheless I have to pack my and I've a flight to catch.

  

To the other side

Yesterday we took the mycitibus to Hout Bay. The ride, which must be one of the most beautiful, was good for perspective and because it's a long one, I had time to think and reflect. This while being therapeutically rolled-and-swayed by the vehicle's motion on the winding, coastal road, along, the, Atlantic. 

Once there we walked the beach in peace and picked up a shell; and for once I contemplated swimming the cold water. But didn't. I grounded myself via my barefeet in the water and on the seasand and then later on thick green grass beneath a splendid and verdant oak tree.

Then a beer gratefully in the shade at one of the many places along the road just before the start of the Chapman's Peak road.

Then back in to Cape Town via Camps Bay, Clifton, Sea Point, Green Point and the city - all in darkness because of the rolling electricity blackout that snuffed the city and suburbs last night. 

Winter dusk of passion in Hout Bay...

Tonight I wouldn't want to be anywhere but on the southern tip of Africa... our continent is experiencing a creative, cultural and spiritual awakening.

Other than the graphic images of violence, poverty, malnutrition and sickness of Africa that's mostly portrayed in the media, there are countless stories of love, passion, integrity and compassion. I know this because I saw some of these this afternoon.

More than ever before I am proud to be an African. I commit myself to changing the world immediately around me step-by-step (in the smallest of ways if need be) through my words and pictures and a positive attitude.

And with love, compassion and tolerance for the human beings - whoever they may be - that cross my path every day. Just one day at a time... .