There's something to be said for cramming a week's shopping into a Friday night, packing, and getting out of town Saturday morning until Sunday evening. I'm not quite sure what it is, but it kicks you down a gear or three, untangles the psyche, and focuses the mind.
Nah, it doesn't focus the mind. In fact, the last thing a weekend away does is focus the mind.
Mine drifts...
On the beach...
Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast / In a field I looked into going past, / And the ground almost covered smooth in snow, / But a few weeds and stubble showing last.
We hit out along the east coast towards Cape Agulhas (Africa's southernmost tip) with Zonker and Amelie. An accomplished artist and nurse, Amelie's visiting from Trondheim, where she's lived these past twenty-five years. We met her, Zonker and The Dutch Boy last Tuesday night when we went round to cook some meat on the fire.
Smiler was there too. I hadn't seen him in twenty-five years either. As it turns out, neither he nor Amelie have changed much. Smiler, who's working rigs off Brazil, is the one who's changed most physically.
But you recognize a person's vibes and I was mightily pleased to see him.
"Hey, you old bastard. I want my books back. Those you pinched when you and Chuck jumped a trawler to Hong Kong."
Smiler will be around again, so there's no urgency (actually, he can keep the books). But Amelie heads back to the Arctic Circle this week so, with Spring breaking all about us, a trip up the coast always was going to be on.
Heading out of town, we figured it to be about five months since our last venture, a three-day foray to the mountains above Porterville, among ancient canyons and crags, freshwater pools (lovely, dark and deep), and a full-moon sky.
It struck us this past weekend would be a full moon too, as it was six months ago at the Equinox. We were up the west coast then, at the mythical point break distinguishing Elandsbaai, paying homage to the quarter century that separates us from our lyrical, dope-shrouded outdoor past.
We're still paying homage, but not to anything in particular.
"...at the edge of the lake"
The woods around it have it—it is theirs. / All animals are smothered in their lairs. / I am too absent-spirited to count; / The loneliness includes me unawares.
Zonker's bought himself a perfectly maintained, 15-year old, single-owner Mercedes. As a touring car, we couldn't ask for better. Drifting elegantly along the flower-bedecked roads of the mountain-shaded, tumbledown coast rolling into the southern ocean, German opera and classical music filled the air.
"What the fuck is this shit?" I asked him.
"Touring music. For the Merc."
It made sense. In spacious luxury, we sailed the road without noise or rush. The car's easy opulence suited us, lending added appreciation of the shades, colors and contours enfolding themselves about us.
"On the other hand, all you have is a carload of stoners smuggling endangered plants," I pointed out. "If we hit a roadblock now, they'll lock up Amelie and Wendy and we'll be lucky to escape with a hefty fine."
Zonker scowled at the girls' bags before turning back to me. "Mmm... it's a pity about the plants and the sea life, but we are, when all is said and done, traveling in style."
There was no denying it. For a weekend overlooking the Whale Coast across an open lagoon fronting our verandah, I'd listen to Wagner any day. It was easy to forget this was a one-night trip. It was easy to forget that Amelie might fly off Friday and not return.
Desert places...
And lonely as it is, that loneliness / Will be more lonely ere it will be less— / A blanker whiteness of benighted snow / With no expression, nothing to express.
I guess forgetting is easy because we're old friends and old friends are like that. We take each other for granted in the easiest, most loving ways. Our conversations last a lifetime and they bear many repeats. Without missing a beat, we are forever picking up where we left off.
When she was a naive Afrikaner farm girl making her way in the big city, Amelie introduced me to Wendy by way of a Wit Els camping trip. She and Wendy lived in the same residence and my friends and I became frequent visitors. Wendy and I broke every rule in the book, but the little old lady running the place took a shine to us and we were always on our second chance.
Easter's west coast and mountain trips, though far longer than this past weekend's, were similar in many ways. Good company, good coffee and good friends. We experienced indifferent weather atop the mountain above Porterville, but so what? We are, when all is said and done, experienced campers.
Not having been 'back home' for so long meant Amelie could give us a pretty objective, sobering view of South Africa's standing in the global village. Superficially (and beyond her wealth of digital paraphernalia), we're not doing all that well. Crime, violence, imploding infrastructures, endemic corruption, a giddy capitalism (i.e. greed), and massive income disparities show us to be pretty much towards the bottom of the global pile in terms of living standards and sustainable futures.
As far as Joe Soap is concerned, Hunter S. Thompson gave us a perfect example of the typical 'white' South African's retirement plan.
"...lovely, dark and deep..."
They cannot scare me with their empty spaces / Between stars—on stars where no human race is. / I have it in me so much nearer home / To scare myself with my own desert places.
Robert Frost | Desert Places
And I guess that's the problem masking our not-insignificant successes. Much as we aim at cultural and racial harmony, the average schmuck hates everybody but skin-deep mirror images of him or herself. Racism and xenophobia are massive problems in South Africa and, if you think you know where the problem lies, think again. Old white racists are literally a dying breed.
My generation, that which was sent to war on either side of the Verwoerdian divide, feeds the dominant view. It's ugly. And we pass our prejudices on to our kids. Mine have raised themselves (we've just 'been around for them'), so they're okay. But the average South African? As racist or resentful as all hell.
Unless one makes money from it (a la the NOLA developers or former Director of Public Prosecutions, Bulelani Ngcuka), racism's the world's greatest waste of energy and, even should it pay, one of humanity's foulest byproducts.
Anyway... yeah, that's the cause of our superficial failure to cut it in the Twenty First Century. We fail to work together. Everything is about 'Me'. There are very few true South Africans about and they're being screwed every which way. Many, like Amelie, now live overseas and it's sad, because these people are our friends.
Or our kids' friends.
"Howzit, Iain?" "Gabriel?" Etc.
However, beyond our failures, and given enough to get by, I reckon we have a grasp on something most of the world fails to see. Even if we're not doing too well at it, we've a vision of a world that could be and, having that vision, occasionally get to live it.
It's about friends, other people, shared values (share and share alike) and life, overall, being very cool. How could we not see it that way? Cruising the highways of Heaven (and forgetting the fucking German music), layers of beauty as deep as one's perception seep through the fabric of land, light, sea and air.
Like an old friend, it's a country as remarkable as one's living of it.
At a hastily convened press conference late last night, surviving members of 60's British pop group The Animals apologized for misleading their public for forty-one years.
"Apparently, there is no house in New Orleans," a contrite Eric Burdon told stunned reporters.
