Shiny happy people laughing beware, here I come. Bumble bee. Rumble and tumble all week long and in the end it feels like hustling. No, you cannot expect people to be cheerful all the time, chatty everyday and joyful when it would be convenient. So what do I do?
On Wednesday I get stabbed twice in the back. Six stitches and itchy scabs, that’s what you get when you step in the way of melanomas and what not. That same day is me beginning to work for a new team in the office. Yes indeed, I’m joining a squad working on northern section of the project. I’ll be reading maps like the back of my hand, and my hand will be back on top of the stack flipping pancakes for whoever wants to come and breakfast on Sundays with us again.
Fish has been watching my back lately, the stitches mainly. He’s sort of my mad vet with a mean smile and tight pants. Ouch.
But that’s not the point. My point’s the cape. Cape Town. The capital city of whatever you need, including penguins and moustache bars. Friday night and we are driving to ORTIA, the international airport, a black hole that snaps you fast into faraway holidays and spits you out a few days latter with your dirty laundry on the dusty sidewalks of Gauteng. The plane takes off late in the chilly night and speeds straight towards the West in a deafening din. Who’s the ‘we’ says Ali in a previous post. ‘We’ is a she that talks to me with bright eyes and delicate manners, interrupted from time to time by her own coughs. ‘We” is a me that talks to her behind the steering wheel of our bright green rental car on the road slipping down towards the misty mountains of the Cape. Yes, time off. We’re off the hook and sliding on thin air. In 48 hours we’ll be gone.
The next morning we wake up in a deco lodge: purple walls, orange couch, a grey pool and loads of dogs. We drive slowly on sunny coastal roads with the ocean in the background. Everywhere are costly white houses flanked on hill tops like a pearl necklace around the throat of a too wrinkled and too tanned old lady. We reach Camps Bay where I eat bacon pancakes with maple syrup and almonds in front of the deserted shore. Next stop is Simon’s Town in the south, fancy architecture, smelly penguins (Penguin!), tasty sardines, milky oysters, peaceful view and marine mercifulness. It’s a little chilly so we decide do end lunch in a coffee shop, a hot Belgian chocolate for me please. I decide to end the hot chocolate by a brioche. Yes please.
As the sun slowly starts to fall from its zenith, the temperature follows. We reach the waterfront before sunset and she buys a black scarf to prevent her cold from worsening, a cold that I would catch the following day. ‘We’ is a she that talks to me with delicate manners interrupted from time to time by her own coughs.
In the night we slither again along the rocks for half an hour like eager cats rushing towards preys we would have smelt miles away. We reach a small bay in the East; we park next to the restaurant on the wharf, step in the sand and walk up the stairs into a wooden room. A seafood platter for two and too much starters, please, and don’t forget the wine! French disappointment. No, grilled cheese on top of a dish does not make any sense nor makes it any better. We lost appetite in that restaurant; I lost my jumper in that restaurant.
The Sunday morning is sunny and cool. Cold and painful. We leave the hotel and enter a nice Italian food place – nice because authentic, authentic as in someone living and loving is in charge of something around here – it’s good to feel that for once, even though this time it’s very brief. We’re short on time so we grab peach orange juice packed in poorly designed plastic cans that look like hand grenades. Boom! Bye bye Cape Town and hello wine land.
Boschendal here we come. We picnic under the soothing sun and talk about the past or people we know. Some roaring shinny vintage cars drive off in the long alley of the neat cottage while we sip white wine.
Shiny happy people laughing beware, here I come. Bumble bee. Rumble and tumble all week long and in the end it feels like hustling. No, you cannot expect people to be cheerful all the time, chatty everyday and joyful when it would be convenient. So what do I do?
We decide to head off to the west coast and sit on the beach. We stay there for a while. We forget about the rest, step outside time and have a look inside ourselves. Lying on my towel, she’s resting against me. I feel her soft embrace around me, a healing touch. She caresses my cheek and my hair with her wind charged with light sand. I am sinking into her whispering songs of rushing waves. I fall asleep into her arms and so does she. When I wake up I feel better. The Good Life again for a short moment. Shiny happy people laughing beware, here I come. We walk along the shore and end up drinking a beer in a rock bar during a gig; around us most men wear facial hair (Moustache Bar!). We watch the peer fading in the bright orange lights of this end of weekend.
Suddenly everything starts slipping away from us and as surely as any beginning has its end, we are uncontrollably sucked back by ORTIA, speeding towards to the hub like mindless mummies running for a nice place in their still tombs. ‘We” is a speechless me trying to find a sense to all this, behind the steering wheel of our bright green rental car on the road driving us back to our serious duties.
“We” landed in Johannesburg at 11:45 pm, like a Cinderella’s story, the dream was over at the stroke of midnight.
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