We are the Wildflowers

this is what i felt

i wrote this on friday night, after attending the fees must fall student marches in stellenbosch and drinking the better half of a bottle of wine to myself. i found it on my desktop this morning and after reading it again, decided to publish.

i am a thirty year old South African female. this is my truth.

i grew up thanking my lucky stars i wasn’t born black.

i remember following my nanny around her tiny house on the farm and even at the tender age of four or five, I remember being so thankful that i lived in a better, cleaner home than hers. i didn’t even think about the fact that she was so busy cleaning our house, she didn’t have much time left to clean her own. i cringe to say this now, but during the 1994 elections i was just excited to get a week off from school; i did not fully understand the implications involved behind the fact that i now had black kids in my class. i grew up believing that i was different. a better different, i’m sorry to say. that’s how racism works. i know this now.

i went to UKZN and then to Rhodes. i was a part of a march at Rhodes organised by my friend Felicity – a march against ZANU PF and Mugabe. At that stage our country was still okay; Mugabe was the evil one. Our comrades were our neighbours, not our fellow citizens.

Almost ten years later, I joined a march today in my own country – in a university town i now call home. I joined a march asking for the university fees to not increase; for the fees to fall. but it was so much more than that.

this is what i saw.

i saw young people, both black and white, marching against the rules. marching against authority, marching against tyranny. marching against the elite. marching against the should be.
i felt proud.

i was scared.

i was alone.

i expected violence. i had the important phone numbers written on my wrist in pen. i had sunscreen and water. i had my ID book. i hung around on the sidelines. i took photos and videos. i did not know the words to the struggle songs. i did not feel threatened. for once, i felt a part of something amazing. there was no violence. high discipline, high morale.

my heart swelled with pride.

we marched past the nay-sayers; past laughing and insulting students (both black and white) who would not join in. some of them were drinking wine already (it was friday afternoon, after all) and some of them put down whatever it was that they were doing and joined in on the walk. my heart swelled even more.

i partook in the disruption of the engineering department. i watched fellow marchers running up flights of stairs, interrupting classes. i didn’t feel bad for those disrupted students. i felt sad that they were not joining in. i felt sad for those who felt that this whole thing was a bad idea. i felt sad that they were not seeing the bigger picture

i felt wistful. i might even have felt envious. they are so brave, these youths of ours.

for someone who has been questioning living a life in this country and raising children in this country, i finally felt secure. i felt like maybe we had this. i felt so very, very proud.

i have been a part of many a braai and many a dinner party and many a whatsapp group where the future of our country has been questioned. i have been a part of many of these conversations. “this country is going to shit.” i have said that. i have thought that. i have wanted to escape to somewhere safer, somewhere cleaner, somewhere where no one draws out of the lines.

today i saw that we could make that place here.

i saw strength. i saw love. i saw peace. i saw unity. i saw black and white, hugging, kissing, talking, raising fists in solidarity. i heard singing and sighs and under-breath arguments. but most of all i saw hope. in every young face and laugh and fist pump and giggle, i saw people working hard for the greater good of this country.

perhaps we need a new president. perhaps we need a a new ruling party. perhaps we need a complete overhaul. all i know is that today i saw people willing to sacrifice their education, their lives, their dreams… for something bigger than themselves.

i saw energy, i saw passion. i saw love. i saw discipline, i saw hard work. i saw dreams, i saw anger. i saw disappointment.

the point is… i saw feeling.

and feeling is so much more than just existing.

we haven’t been feeling anything real and true in this country for a long time.

no longer will we be quiet. no longer will be accepting. no longer will be meek.

the kids have got this.

born free or not, there is a greater awareness, a greater consciousness, a greater understanding in the way this nation needs to go forward.

will we listen to our youth? will we put aside our fears of anarchy and change? will we put aside our comfortable lives right NOW for the chance for our children to live in a true rainbow nation where white and black is no longer an issue, but where the rights of the haves and the have-nots are pushed to the fore for the greater good of us all?

i want the children of today and tomorrow to be born into a nation where escape isn’t the first option. I want them to know that they are safe; that they are wanted; that they are valued. That they are here to make a life for themselves, in this country, supported, in the best way they can. i want these kids to be able to march for big issues, not for the right for education. education should be a given. i want their marches to be about fracking and environmentalism. i want them to join the first world conversation; the conversation about saving our planet, not just our country. i want them to join the ranks of world leaders and do-ers. i don’t want them to grow up thinking, ‘thank god i was born white.” or “i wish i was born rich”. I want them to grow up thinking, “thank god i was born with two working legs, seeing eyes, a clever brain and a strong voice.”

Will this happen?

i hope so.

I’m not a politician. i have no fancy rhetoric.

i am just me. this is what i felt.

coffee shop romance

people in and out. out and about. bustling, eating, humming, dreaming, fucking, keeping secrets. a decaf latte. are you serious? she wears that same khaki blazer again. The sensible one. it makes her look like a box, but he doesn’t tell her this. he has one hour to convince her. he will, he knows it. she needs to come Home with him. His story, her story, their story together develops as they sit there. Is this real? Will she do it? he needs to feel alive again. the longer she is away from him, the higher he floats away. it’s different to drowning, floating. drowning is dying. drowning is escaping. floating is a nothingness far worse than death. he needs to feel her. he needs to smell her sweat. her fear. will she scream?

he hopes so.

it’s the afterwards he craves the most. the sigh. the sleepiness. the anticipation. the regret. he knows there will be regret. there always is with her. she is the kind to blame herself and not him. his favourite kind. he can sense the phone call already; the worry, the tests. sometimes there are even police. and then it’s time to move on. she hasn’t called the police yet. his foot is still in the door. he wonders if she’ll be screamer; a do-gooder or a tell-tale.

“let’s get you out of that blazer,” he smiles.

the unfurling

we sleep with the ceiling fan on for the first time. i love it. it feels like childhood summer holidays at the beach and i grow nostalgic for a time where everything is easy and being in love is being in love. i fling off my clothes and lie naked and free and acknowledge my winter-forgotten body with love and tenderness. there are those freckles, and that birthmark and that funny bump. there are the blue veins under translucent skin; the scar that i’d rather forget; another season has aged my limbs; the soft fleshy reminder of my existence holds deeper lines and darker spots.

i am not soul, nor mind, nor thinking writer.

in this moment i am blood and bones and beating heart and i am comfortingly mortal. i am animal. as the buds open and hungrily thirst for the unrelenting rain, so i unfurl my legs and arms and take you into me. you are mine and i am yours and we are everything and we are nothing.

but i am the writer

i sit at a coffee shop to escape the noise but it is louder here. the coffee is not good. i miss you. i take myself out on a date. i bring my book; ambitiously shovel a large forkful of my too-hot meal into my mouth and then have to spit it out into a napkin. everyone’s eyes on me. tears prick at the back of mine. i drop my chopsticks. where did this clumsiness come from? there is a man sitting by himself too, staring at me behind dark sunglasses. i feel naked. i sink further down into my seat, book straight up to my nose, a constant dreamy barrier between myself and real life. always has been, always will be. i imagine other people watching me. do i look happy? confident? scared? clever? sad? i imagine how another writer, obviously someone deeply in love with me, would describe how i look, sitting here, alone and escaping the world by immersing myself in the midst of it.

monday mourning

today is not going so well. there was no yoga or a long walk; no daily planner and no green juice. mama left. the house is upside down and i have a list of things for work i need to tick off, but my notepad is hidden under pieces of scrap paper, a dirty dinner plate and countless empty coffee cups. my mama left. did i say that already?

big homes itty bitty living space

i didn’t write yesterday. i slept in because my mom is here and i was so excited at her arrival and showing her around that I was exhausted and slept though my alarms. we awoke to a sick little lulu and had to take her to the vet in town where the receptionist knew two of my favourite primary school teachers from treverton – such a small world. lulu shivered and shook. every time we take her out i think she thinks we are taking her to get groomed and she hates that. anyway the doctor gave her antibiotics and painkillers for her infected abscess and when he tried to give her biltong afterwards she tried to bite him. Well, gum him. we looked so funny with our fluffy white child. we were so worried about her; mom reckons we’ll be wrecks of parents if we’re that worried about our little dog. if i ever have children they’ll be bubble wrapped and home-schooled. mom and i took a drive out on the R44 to her hometown. she showed me where she used to keep her horse and told me about how she used to ride down the middle of the R44 to get to the Stellenbosch Riding Club from Somerset West for horse shows. Way less cars back then, obviously. They also used to ride on and around neighbouring farms. There were no fences keeping people out back then. We went to Strand and parked the car and took a little walk on the beach. the sand is white and soft, soft, soft; not coarse and hard and brown like in KZN. Funny how the texture can change in just a few hundred kilometres of coastline. The water was the most brilliant blue and so much warmer than camps bay and clifton. it is school holidays, so there were stacks of teenagers and families on the beach. the waves are totally playable, so i think it will definitely be my new choice of beach. perhaps even my very own promenade if i wake up super early in summer. we dipped our toes in the memories of mom’s childhood. she used to take the train from her home in somerset west to Strand and then hang out all day at the beach (if she wasn’t riding) with her friends, swimming and chatting up boys. if it got too windy she would tan on the roof of the lifesaver hut to avoid the stinging sand. one day she fell asleep in the sun whilst studying for a biology exam and burnt herself crisp. in those days there were no cellphones so you had to prearrange a time and a meeting point for your parents to pick you up if there was no train and by god, did you get in trouble if you weren’t there waiting and ready to go. we took a drive to my granny and grandpa’s old house in strand; the house i visited when i was a baby. it is a tiny little house with a postcard-size lawn and my mom laughed about how my granny used to moan about having to cut the grass. she showed me the hill where the brakes of my grandpa’s old beetle failed while she was driving down it with me in the backseat. she told me how sorry she used to feel for us farm kids in the midlands who had to rely on our parents (i.e. her and dad) if we wanted to do anything or go anywhere. we were so sheltered and our parent’s friends were our friends, even if we had nothing in common. we couldn’t just walk to our friend’s house down the road or catch a train to the beach. i got all wistful for a childhood i could have had, living in a little house close to the beach, riding a bicycle to school, spending holidays in my cossie by the sea, getting up to all sorts of mischief because I could venture about without the assistance and permission of my parents. my mom showed me the corner cafe where my grandpa used to buy his newspaper and cigarettes every evening on his walk home from the train station and she laughed about how he would have hated to see how built up the area is; all suburbs of one big city now really. It’s funny how times change; how precious our living space and our children’s stomping grounds are, how big our homes and gardens have become but how our scope for roaming has whittled down to practically nothing, save a lope around the mall. we blame it on safety and security, but is it all a figment of our imagination; are we prisoners of our murky past? i wonder if our kids will be chauffeured about in their bubble wrap, ferried from school to ballet to swimming to piano and back to the safety of their big home. Or if they will catch a train to the beach and ride horses down the main road and through neighbouring wine farms? I fear it may be the former.

pause

I re-read my post
from yesterday
and i thought
where was the

pause

the breath

the space

between here
and now

a comma

a reflection

Where is the whimsy
the dream
the fantasy

between what was
and what will be
is my mind so quick
that a momentary

Stop.

never appears
how one day it is all so fast

and the next so slow.

today I want stillness.
quiet.
a shared smile.
a wink
between you and
I.

Because what we know
my darling,

The truth
Of it all.

this dreaming sleepy life
this beauty and frightful
Truth
the scarlet flesh under the skin
the worm in the soil
the caterpillar
before the butterfly

the knife in between the shoulder blades
clean and sharp
and deep

And so painfully sacred.

Image by Kate Martens

does anyone really want to know

i sit here now about to write whatever comes into my head for this practise of October where I hope to write something here every day and i think is anyone really interested in what I’ve got to say? do they really want to know that my yoga practise this morning was slow and lazy and I couldn’t do many of the poses because I tweaked my hammy during a drunken game of the cereal box at a bachelorette party on Saturday night? (top game by the way, you should play it). do they want to know how I drove up to langebaan through malmesbury on saturday and then back down yesterday on the coastal road and how beautiful it was and how big open spaces make my heart sing? do they want to know about how seeing the farms and all the cattle and the sheep made me sad because while big open spaces are beautiful it’s also where the evils of livestock farming are hidden? i passed a dairy farm with six fields crowded with limping cows, except they weren’t really fields because there was no grass. they were lying in fields of mud, their distended tummies carrying babies they will never be allowed to bond with, their swollen udders covered in shit, the milk within them destined to nourish the bodies of human strangers and not their own calves. and people drink that? and eat that? that pain and misery? it blows my mind the things i used to shut my eyes to and it sometimes frightens me how illuminated it all is now and how i can’t understand why people would still want to ignore it when life can be so much better for so many more beings – both animal and human – if we all just gave a bit more of a damn. does anyone really want to know about my fast against slaughter on Friday and how it brought me to my knees, physically and mentally? Not eat anything for a day? Hmmm easy, i thought. Anorexics do it all the time. The headaches and the nausea crippled me and I was in bed by 3pm. every time i thought about how hard it was and how much i wanted a cup of coffee or a slice of toast or even just a goddam mint to such on, i was reminded about the millions of animals that have to endure this excruciating pain every day, day in and day out, sometimes on ships to foreign lands, for weeks on end. except that at the end of their enforced fast, they have their lives taken away from them, while i got to gorge myself on my favourite spicy tomato and chilli rice. does anyone really want to know about these dark things in my head? sometimes i don’t even want to know. we must all be positive and happy and thankful and grateful and i am these things i am the luckiest girl in the world but i want to do more. i will do more. does anyone really want to know that on friday, which was world farm animal day and gandhi’s birthday, it was my friend Rory’s birthday? he would have been thirty two. i thought about him many times that day and messaged my friend Andy a lot. they were soulmates the most real soulmates you could ever have seen with your own eyes in real life. i often wonder what he would have said about this all.

i suppose maybe it doesn’t really matter what people want to know now. it’s what i want to be remembered and this is why it’s here, written down in this blur of jumbled letters and words. it’s about what i want to know.

today in streaming consciousness

today i let myself sleep in a bit. i giggled with my husband in bed as he asked Siri to “message Kez ‘I love you babe'” and Siri sent it to our builder… whose name is Wegner. We argued over who would make coffee. He lost. (high five self). we walked the dogs and the sun was shining and it was lovely. The cat came with too. I got hot and tied my jacket around my waist. Lulu ran onto the island in the middle of the dam and chased the mother ducks off her nest of eggs. I saw red and called her a bloody naughty little shit. They were marched home rather promptly after that. The dogs I mean. They are battling to adjust to this new space, I think. The german shepherd needs more exercise but we are so busy with the new business that a twenty minute walk in the morning is all we can manage right now. every day I ask Andy to book her into an exercise/obedience class – she loves any one on one time with him. and every day i wonder how people have children and dogs and cats at the same time. they all need so much attention. the cat loves it here though. the guests adore her. I’m just waiting for her to drag a massacred rat into the breakfast room. After our walk i fed the dogs and washed lulu in the pool. we ran out of dog food and so we feed them abby’s cat food for breakfast. whoops. Bad parents. I had a shower. it was luke warm because i forgot to check if the washing machine was on. it was! then i made the bed and put the dog’s beds outside to air because it rained yesterday and everything smalls damp. the land is so dry and the dam is so empty – the rain didn’t touch sides, it seems. I got dressed and did my hair and makeup. my tummy growled and i realised it was half past nine already and i hadn’t eaten breakfast… again. there is no space in the kitchen right now – Andy bashed down half the cupboards yesterday because the builders are supposed to be installing an extractor machine. All the cupboard contents are now on the counter tops and Zayleen was using every other spare surface to prepare breakfast for the guests so I decided to get out of her space and out of the house and eat breakfast at my meeting with a friend. We went to blue crane and butterfly in dorp street. i like it there because they make soy milk cappuccinos and hummus toast and the staff are so friendly. except for that one guy. he never smiles back at me. maybe he is sad. i was there half an hour early whoops. it was so nice to get out of the house and catch up with someone who is in a similar life situation to me. before i knew it it was 12 and we said our goodbyes. i walked around the streets for a bit by myself. i stood under a big old oak tree’s shade for a while and just breathed in the calm of solitude. I picked up some gifts for a friend and then andrew messaged me a shopping list of things we need for the guesthouse, including eggs. I hate buying eggs or cheese now that i’m vegan – even if i know it’s not for me. it feels very wrong in the tips of my soul. i bought the most expensive organic and free range eggs i could find. i miss our chickens. then i remembered about the dog food so i stopped in at the pet shop. the staff there remembered me (probably because i referred to the lighthouse toy as a big dildo last time i was there) but it made me feel all local and homey and we had a lovely chat about our furry animals. the nice lady also told me she is starting a grooming parlour for dogs, which i’m pleased about because i don’t like the place in town that we took lulu to last week. there was something not nice about it. i remembered i must get more food for the koi fish too. i’ve never had koi before. i wondered if the pellets were vegan. Probably not. Probably made up of ground up fish. i was too scared to check the ingredients. on the way home my friend Gemma messaged me to say she is coming to visit which will be lovely. i miss her. it seems like light years ago those days when we used to sit outside at the old restaurant and drink cosmopolitans. were things more carefree back then or is it just the rose-tinted hue of time gone by that makes it seem that way? i got home and just sat in the car by myself for five minutes, bathing in the silence and the warmth of the sun. do you ever do that? just gather yourself in the car for a few minutes before you go into your house? i carried the groceries and dog food in – it took three trips. the kitchen was still a mess – the extractor guys had still not arrived, and will probably not come today. i had a little meltdown. it seems that just as things start to settle, something else happens to rock my world. i guess that’s what moving and fixing and changing things is all about, though. sometimes i want to run away to a neat little apartment with white walls and lots of light. Just me. And my desk. No mess, no clutter, no fighting dogs. lulu and millie keep having little altercations, especially around doorways and their food bowls. it’s stressing me out a bit but I know its because Millie needs more exercise. i unpacked the groceries as best i could in the upside down kitchen and then sat down to check client emails and messages. i started writing this post. i want to write something every day for october because i feel like i need to find my writing legs (feet? fingers is probably better) again and i remember being taught or reading somewhere that if you are battling to write you must just sit down and write by stream of consciousness and get everything in your mind out on paper, with no editing – no matter what. so this is what i’m doing now. sorry dear reader you will have to bear with me. it’s half past four now and i have to take the staff to the train station. every day we pick them up at 8 and take them back at 4;30. it’s a bit of a hack cos we always have to make sure we are home at these times no matter what. oh well, this is the way things used to run here and they are not happy about change. change is scary. i will write more when i get back and try not to look back on what i’ve said until i’ve finished my day. i am back from the train station. it took a while and i got suck in traffic on the way home so i listened to some lovely voice notes from my best friend Andrea in London. she sings to me. i love it even though she did not miss her calling haha. got home to a poor mole running around the house and into the walls. the cat never kills or eats moles. she brings them into the house but she never finishes the job. maybe they don’t taste nice or maybe they are not challenge enough for her. maybe she feels sorry for their blindness. i will find a box now and take him (or her) outside. andrew is still not back. my friend just sent me a picture of her baby in her old wedding veil with her pug looking grumpy in the background. it made me laugh! there are guests outside around the koi pond with their own baby. my dogs are now barking at them. i don’t like the sound of barking. it makes my hairs stand on end. the baby is crying now. whoops. now she is laughing. sounds like me today. up and down. up and down. i think i have written enough now. time to feed the dogs; maybe do some work; make some supper, read my book. what a day it was. happiness, moaning, grumpiness, complaining, laughing, joking, dreaming, wishing, being grateful, wanting more. the human condition in a nutshell and that’s all we really have is this day; this moment in this day until we fall asleep and visit the depths of our true selves and then we wake up and pretend to be real and fight the demons all over again in a day which is the same as today only in a different shade of light.

surviving this settling in thing

So we have been in our new space for just over six weeks now, but to be be completely honest, it feels like much longer. But in a good way longer. The farm and our life in the Midlands seems like a distant, hazy dream – you know the ones where you wake up all groggy as if you were were visiting a different spiritual plane and now you’re back in reality? That’s how it feels when I think of our old home and it’s probably because it didn’t really feel like home in those last few days when I was packing up all alone. There was so much to do and so much to think about and organise that I didn’t really have time to say goodbye. I remember walking through the house, turning off the lights and closing the windows after the movers had left with all our worldly goods, and it felt so surreal. All at once it was both the home we had lived in and laughed in and made love in and fought and cried in; but it was also just another set of walls under a roof. To be fair, I didn’t allow myself to linger; I couldn’t face the memories that would slowly start to seep into my skin.

And so we left, my brother and I, with three dogs and a cat in a car, and headed off on our reverse trek over the Drakensberg Mountains. Arriving at our new home in the twilight of the Cape winter was a little soul-rattling. That first night we stayed in a spare guest room with said three dogs and Abby Cat, as our furniture had not yet arrived. I let Millie out in the middle of the night and she fell into the guesthouse pool; cue both hysterical laughter and hot tears of frustration-relief. These last few weeks have largely smelt a lot like wet dog! The second night we attempted to sleep in the restaurant building where we had originally planned to live whilst renovations to the guesthouse were taking place, but the pungent smell of old burnt cooking oil and the sight of cockroaches in the drains soon pooh-poohed that idea! And so we have ended up in the guest manager’s house which is in a bit of a state (think no light fittings, peeling plastic flooring and tiles falling off the walls), but it’s clean and warm and has four walls and a roof.

From the moment we arrived, it was straight to business. If you haven’t already gathered, Andrew is running a guesthouse in Stellenbosch (have I told you that? I forget now if I have or haven’t) and the previous owner was supposed to not take bookings for our first two months – enabling us time to paint, fix, re-brand, unpack, settle in, build fences, setup reservation programmes and websites and employ new staff. He neglected to do what he promised and so we hit the road running, having to house and feed and attend to guests whilst trying to unpack and “settle in”. This settling-in thing is becoming a bit of an elusive concept, although I am still seeking its security… when does one become “settled in”? Starting off our move with guests to look after, dogs to control and staff to manage resulted in a quite a few tears, a large amount of shouting matches and blaming and a whole lot of unpacked boxes. My in-laws were also here at the same time and we were all sharing a kitchen, along with the staff, so that kind of accelerated the stress levels, especially since I’m a noise-sensitive person who cherishes and I mean, cherishes, her personal space. Looking back, I was actually a bit of a wreck! Thanks to my brothers and my friends who all took me out and kept me sane and reminded me that, this too, shall pass.

So whilst I was sobbing in showers, Andrew was out and about and on the go 24/7, which would frustrate me even more. I was all, why is he not commiserating with me??? This is because Andy is a do-er and a fixer and an organiser. I’m more of a contemplator, moaner, “I told you so”-er. I’m good at reflecting on shitty situations, I’m just not good at being in them. And yes, I can freely admit this now. I’m thirty and have lived on this earth long enough now to know what my strengths and weaknesses are. So whilst builders were banging around in our ceilings until 12 pm every night and the dogs were barking at any little noise, I desperately tried to remain sane. As the days have become weeks, I have discovered exactly what makes a good day and what makes a bad day for me. Here are my tips for surviving the settling-in phase after a big and stressful move:

Seek help

I’m just going to straight out and say it: I MISS MY EARTH ANGEL very very very much. My life is just not the same without my monthly reboot and repair session with Colleen from Midlands House of Healing. I thought I would be able to make it up to the Midlands in November for a friend’s wedding but now that’s not going to happen and already I’m scheming about when next I can get back up to see Colleen’s lovely new space and hop onto her massage bed for some magical healing! Colleen and I both know what kind of person I am (highly-strung, emotional, sensitive to change) and so we agreed to do some distance energy healing just before I left for overseas and for the first couple of days after the big move. Distance Healing you say? Well, in a nutshell, distance energy healing is reiki performed on an individual by a reiki master from afar. Colleen sent energy and love to my inner child (that little girl is always seeking approval and trying to make everything perfect); to my adolescent self (oi vey, enough said) and to my adult self (she of the great creative insecurity and self-doubt). She also sent energy and healing to my partnerships and to my physical body, which probably explains why I’m still married today and also the great desire I had to get back on my yoga mat pretty soon after we arrived. On about the fourth day of distance healing, a greater sense of calm came over me as well as a sense of acceptance. This was the day that I finally got over myself and the fact that our bathrooms are peach and brown, got out of bed and pretty much unpacked boxes for twelve hours straight. I guess I have discovered a few new things about myself with this move; largely that when faced with big life changes, my body goes into some weird grumpy primal instinctive mode and I find myself lashing out at anything or anyone who threatens my desire and mourning for the old familiar. If you happened to be in my war path over those first few days, I send my humblest apologies (mostly to you, my darling husband). Only once the voices of my perfectionist inner child, grumpy adolescent and insecure adult were all silenced, did I realise how love and acceptance can only come from being loving and accepting, and things started to calm down. And boxes were unpacked. Thank you again Colleen for bringing the sanity back to my life. I feel you – even from afar.

Get into a routine as quickly as you can

I very quickly gathered that unlike life on the farm where I had very little other human interaction or interference in my home, the only way to survive my new busy surroundings, was to adapt to them. If I wanted to have a hot shower, I had to get it done before or after working hours (no more freelancer lunchtime showers) as our bathroom shares a geyser with the guesthouse laundry. I also learnt rather fast to walk the dogs before 8, which is when most guests are up and about and also when we have to fetch the staff from the train station. My dogs are impossible if I don’t walk them at least once a day, so sorting them out before the day starts really helps me ease into the day. The fresh air does wonders for the headspace too.

Start the day off with Yoga

I cannot explain the difference to my attitude when I start my day off with yoga. As soon as I had enough free floor space to roll out my mat, I was straight into downward dogs and tree poses. “I’m sorry for what I said before I yoga-ed” is basically my mantra. It takes effort to put your alarm clock on and get out of your nice warm snuggly bed in the dark (oh and man, did the Cape dark mornings take some adjusting to), but it’s so worth it. Ask my husband. Hah!

One box at at time, one room at a time

Lol. Let’s just say I did not practise the whole packing and labelling of things properly and I regret it so much! With limited time and no help, I kinda just chucked everything into random boxes with vague labels like “Andrew’s shit”. (shout out to mom for helping me label a couple of boxes appropriately on the last day) When it came to unpacking, I spent a lot of time running around the new place placing random items in their right place instead of just putting the boxes labeled “Bedroom” in the bedroom et cetera et cetera. Make sure you label the contents of every box rather specifically (the vegan hunt for the food processor was not pretty, I can tell ya!), as well as which room they need to be unpacked into. This is probably Moving 101. I just wish I had paid attention to these tips before. It’s good exercise though, getting everything wrong and muddled up, and I’m pretty sure I’ve lost weight with all the running around… except I can’t check because I still have no bloody clue where my bathroom scale is!

Get out

Before the immensity of everything gets you down, get out the house. Even if just for a quick drive. You will come back feeling re-energised and ready to tackle life (ie: more boxes, stinky dogs, noisy staff members). Thank you so much to Jonathan, Megan, Tash and Graeme, Chereen, Jackie, Zan and Trevor and Sally and Rob for inviting – and sometimes forcing – us to get out and about and thinking about something other than builders and all the different shades of grey you can get (there are a lot more shades of grey than you would think… perhaps if I had finished reading that crappy book, I’d understand the metaphor she was going for now). Eternally grateful to all you lovely folk for looking after us – I think I’ve repaid Tash and Graeme so far in funny voice notes. Andrew could use a bit more of this out and about stuff, but he’s a little ADD and is completely project-obsessed at the moment! As I type this, he is right now up a ladder with his new “light-hat” from Builder’s Warehouse fixing something. Yaaaaaa. The struggle is real. He did get his first five star review yesterday so the man is fired up!

Treat yo’self

This is fine talk coming from the girl in desperate need of a haircut/pedi/bikini wax, but take it from me – you need to do it! Even Andy has managed to fit in a haircut – and Lulu is going for hers tomorrow. I’m just hanging back hoping Tash will book me in with her guy. The one big treat I did have, which I completely loved, was attending a yoga class last Saturday in Stellenbosch with Yoga With Nicci. My teacher was Victoria, a dreadlocked, tattoo-donning steamcat who I’m now a little in love with. That morning to myself – nourishing my body, mind and soul with deep breaths and silence – was so delicious. I got home, climbed into bed and took a big whoooosa for the rest of the day. It was well-needed. Don’t feel guilty about taking time out when you’re settling-in, as much as you’d like to get everything done straight away. In the words of my grandpa Mac, “staddig oor die klippe”.

So that’s the last few weeks in a nutshell. On Friday, for the first time, I began to see fragments of me and him and us and our life together. For the first time, being here really started to feel like home. In a weird way, it feels like it always was. Perhaps this really is where we are supposed to be? At least for now? Throughout all the drama and craziness, I have not once thought that we’ve made a mistake in moving here and I have not wished to be back on the farm, as beautiful as it was… and this brings me comfort. I do not miss the small town shenanigans, the screaming of the factory-farmed pigs next door, the unforgiving dirt road and the heaviness of a dark history I can’t quite put my finger on. I’m tuning into the sunshine, letting my feet sink into the soft sand, thinking in another tongue, breathing in the scent of spring jasmine, sampling the local nectar and, most of all, giving thanks. Because this life is so damn lovely.