Pliable heart; green light

I took this photo at the end of yesterday, as I walked alone along the deserted coastline seeking the inky, greasy dusk.

My heart was light; it was the most unburdened it has been in the last eight weeks.

I woke yesterday realising I had let my heart grow hard and hoary again (death sneaks up on you like that), that my life flow had been halted; that I was slowly strangling myself to dead.

The burst-then-gush of self awareness quicly freed my ice-trapped light.

At my uttered prayer for a pliable heart, as simply as that, my pause-button was un-cl-icked, the tension released, and the light turned green.

GO! Don't hold back, I urged myself. "What do you love - can you name it? Start there and follow the clues, you'll find your treasure along the way."

If you go down to the woods today... (A guided tour of Durban BotanicalGardens on 9 March)

So many of the people that I speak to in subtropical Durban take the city's 15 hectare botanic gardens for granted. I'm adamant and in everyone's face about this - it's a jewel to be cherished in both hands!

The Durban Botanic Gardens is not only the city's oldest public institution but is Africa's oldest surviving botanic gardens. Oh, did I mention that - on top of everything - this green and beautiful lung is free to enter; you've no excuse not to visit it.

According to one of my favourite local eco blogs Sprig (mulch love) there is one guided Garden Tour this Sunday, 9 March, which I'm intending to make:

Join experienced Botanic Gardens' guide Liz Ellis for a tour of the Durban Botanic Gardens, the theme of which will be a general garden tour with a focus on birds in the Gardens.

Meet at the Visitors Complex Info Centre. The tour starts at 09:15am at a fee of R35 per person or R25 for Friends of the Durban Botanic Gardens. Contact: dbginfo@durban.gov.za or call 031 322 4021 / 031 322 4019 (Jennifer or Thami) for further information.

The photo I took in October 2012; it's of the trunk of a magnificent Ficus cotinifolius planted in 1934, which reminds me of an elephant's hide.

Three minutes to midnight

A small brown leave spirals down and plops on to the surface of the pool; I'm transfixed. For one second I experienced meditation.

Sitting shirtless and dusty in my secret, dark and cool corner of the garden I'm watching my tea steep. I'm resting from my garden work.

The house is on show this afternoon; in essence it's been for sale since three seconds to midnight on 31 December.

Barefoot I've swept mostly dead leaves into papery rustling piles. I''ve just heard the distinct cry of a fish eagle; I almost didn't notice, but when I did I really did; I'm suddenly conscious again. Fully.

My best though has been peacefully shuffling around - in the sun and on my backside - pulling weeds from between the pool paving. Also very therapeutic. And exacting in its focus.

My mind's stream of conscious trickled down an explainable (well, to me at least) gully to mulching, both mentally and in the horticultural sense; it then sloppily gurgled to London's Hampstead Heath, in particular the untamed,  wild western heath of which I have countless memories, and experiences from when I lived and dreamed in London; I imagine that my imagination has been triggered by Theroux's novel 'My Other Life', which so far seems to largely be about his London writing life. And the fact that winter's eeking into spring in the far north and that soon the Heath will be transformed too. From the delicious and rotted history of centuries, new and abundant life will spring forth from its coffee-thick-mucky mulch that so intrigues me, and that contains the seed of so many men.

The truth that has set this family free oozed from this cracked suburban surface three seconds before midnight. Painful. Very. But a clean break at such an important pinnacle on everyone's calendar.

The emasculated alpha male was forced out at the dawn, of the first, with his poison. He went across the road. A year for change and truth. Time to sell the house.

I am merely, and most happily, a traveller; albeit my pack is still weighty.

Flaneur; my back to the wall

It's with my back to the wall that I can watch the world. While remaining as unnoticeable as possible. To blend in. I'm not one for attracting attention. But I'm rather tall. That's why the wall.

It is the most perfect day to have chosen to leave the house.

Driving up the road instead of down, even though it's slightly longer and uphill, I choose it for the momentary glimpse of the Ocean. Looking down while swinging right my breath is taken away in wonder. Every time. I live here!

It's the same reason that I take the M4 to Umhlanga, then Durban, instead of the much speedier freeway that cuts through happy-making swathes of sugarcane. The slower drive with windows wide open and endless glimpses of the mighty Indian. Whether reduced rain sky vision, or universe-wide cobalt skies that suck my very eyeballs out of their sockets and to the end-and-over-the-very-edge of my earth.

I love this subtropical city of sunshine, shorts and slip-slops no matter the time of year.

Gateway is Saturday packed, and airconditioning cool. Just below the ridge Umhlanga 'village' simmers on the Ocean edge; it's all that's between me and the containered ships awaiting entry to Durban harbour before heading back up Africa's eastern coast to Europe through Suez or striking out towards India, China and Japan.

With my back against the wall sipping coffee and typing notes, I can see as far as I want.  My only limitation is me. Me.

Home alone

I've not left the house for a few days now.

The black cat sits on a pile of books by the window; she's tightly hunched against the coolness and the greyness of the day. She's black-smooth-velvet against the deep-dark green of the tree that reaches, grabs more closely daily for my window.

My tea steeps on the bedside table; the fat Penguin edition Paul Theroux I'm currently reading - My Other Life: A Novel - is a little further away, right under the desk fan, I'd have to reach out of my way for it. Its contents, what I've read so far, are coursing through my veins, deliciously steeping in my brain juices. 

I bought the handsome secondhand copy for a mere R20 at the Ballito SPCA charity shop from a faded but bright and chirpy older woman; she blossomed beneath the genuine downpour of my praise for the large book section, it's varied amd fascinating contents, and low prices. 

Midmorning yesterday the heatwave unexpectedly broke: Gale force winds drove a cold front, much lower temperatures and eventually, late last night, rain, up the coast from the Eastern Cape.

The storm seemed to gather and rage around my wooden upstairs room battering the walls and windows, but not flustering the cats. I'm still held captive here, reluctant to leave. My warden, kindly and generous, allows me to pretend that here in the eye of my storm reality no longer exists.

While in reality my cheese has moved, I'm resisting change, and will soon starve...despite the kindness of strangers.