Just do it

YES. A whim of want gets you packing your suitcase and the next thing you know, you’re up all night to get lucky!

The flight from Joburg to Paris dragged on, and on … for nearly 11 hours.

You watch films, you nod off and get a sore neck and then it’s 6am and your’re rushing to get your 7.20 flight to Athens.

CDG airport is humungus, so to get anywhere is a concerted schlepp. You move, fast.

You do not want to miss your flight to Athens.

Not when you’ve been counting sleeps for weeks!

You crane your neck to peer through the aeroplane window. The sight of the mainland and the islands soothes you

They all wave at you.

A little spark sputters in your heart but oh, your body screams for sleep.

At the airport, strangers help you at the check-in machine.

You pay E25 for one suitcase too many.

You have lunch.

And you’re so tired you could almost burst into tears.

You wait for the next plane, the third in 24 hours. 

It’s taking you to Mytiline, the capital of Lesbos.

It’s taking you back again, back to the future!

(ends)

 

That’s it

NO more sleeps.

Two people will meet you tomorrow when your plane lands at the airport in Mytiline, Lesbos.

They represent the past, and the future.

Somewhere in between, in the present, in yourself, you will find the truth.

Maybe love will smile, its pretty face a sunshine glow, its eyes, deep pools for you to drown in.

You’re centred, yes, but … uhoh, your knees rattle and shake. What’s that sound?

It’s the drumbeat of your heart, dear, racing to crescendo.

Every step is closer to a beginning. Every step is closer to an end.

Bon Voyage, Afrodykie!

(ends)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, so close
SWEET sleep unravels itself from your warm body. It’s reluctant to let go.
Its smell is yours now.
You watch the sheet curl, and fold into rolling furrows and hills. It whispers night’s secrets, so shy in the day.
Your feet press into a plush carpet, soft landing.
WHHAAAAT???!!
One more sleep? One. More. Sleep.
Oh no. Noooooooooooo!
Your hands clutch your head. You roll back into your cocoon.
There’s perfect bliss; you’re safe, warm in the arms of your darling, your beloved and devoted duvet.
You linger there, in that soft private spot, where everything is sure.
The city’s sounds, this morning, are a soothing symphony, a tender caress.
You savour it, the melody that’s your home.
60 minutes pass in seconds, then it’s coffee time.
It’s get ready and go time.
There’s quite a bit still to do.
Anticipation simmers.
ps: Lesbos beckons.
No, oh my god, she’s winking at me!
(ends)

Wheel-spin

WHAT? Two more sleeps?

The city’s surging into its morning growl, and all you can think of is …. no, no,no, not England.

Your mind’s already traversed Africa to settle in Skala Eressos/Eressos, two villages with the sum total of about well, not many people, even in summer.

You’re thinking of the engaging Madame X, and the bicycle that’s propped up against a wall at the flat of Miss Muscles.

You’ll have to pedal, she says.

You anticipate the Kouitou Hotel’s quaint and quirky charm, and wonder what new art Alex Shine Martinez has sprayed onto the walls.

And floors.

You should be focusing on going to the bank and getting your tax completed.

You need to post the papers to Elize in East London, a palm-tree town in the Eastern Cape, one of the poorest and most blighted provinces of South Africa.

Elize told you, years ago — last century: Declare everything and don’t sell anything.

It was the best advice. You’ve stuck with her. You stick with all the women who help you.

She and — since you got to Joburg in 2005 — your hairdresser, Liezl, they are your enduring service providers, oh, and your therapist, Kantha, and beautician (yes, you gotta believe it), Jane.

Not to mention your helper at home, Nomusa and, how can you forget, your yoga teacher Champa.

Ah, and Gwyn, the general factotum and holder of the reigns when you’re away.

These seven women, your support group, you say au revoir, gracias to your security blanket!

You swear to not cut your hair until you see Liezl again. She laughs.

Snip. Snip. There’s hair on the floor.

(ends)

 

 

 

 

 

Jozi

YES! Three more … sleeps.

Your bed feels as if it’s the best bed in the world. You draw your duvet around your shoulders and snuggle into your pillow.

Yes, the best bed, ever.

Even so, sleep is served in intense bursts of shut-eye: six hours of a dreamless blank.

You become aware, slowly, of the sounds that indicate the time; it’s still dark and quiet – about 4.30am.

Perfect. The night stretches into a reluctant dawn. It curls its toes into the morning.

The guts of the city starts its restless rumbling. It seems very far away, at first.

Growling car engines and impatient hooters, they stretch and reach into the approaching light, stretch and reach out, again.

You can hear the stirrings of the city, your city, your Joburg, Jozi  —  a brazen hussy, with a heart of gold.

She swishes her skirts at the traffic lights.

They wink back at her. Wink wink.

The blood of her being moves on, pulses through the streets; relentless pursuit spills onto sidewalks.

The cloth of Africa unfurls into a palette of a brash continent.

But there’s much more to Joburg than its vibrant and rejuvenating inner city, 7km from where you live.

You love its open spaces and trees; millions of them, the biggest urban forest on the planet.

You enjoy your community, and low-key neighbourhood activities. You breathe. You live.

Jozi offers a spectrum of possibilities and glittering options.

They can dazzle and destroy, if you let them.

(ends)

 

Dogged, that’s what she is

AND for once you’re talking about somebody else, somebody who has spent 14 years (pushing 15) in the service of sentient beings with four legs!

Yes, today The Traveller is not about four sleeps … (yikes, it’s that close!)

No. The focus is on Gerbien Fricke.

She’s top dog at .Gaga Animal Care, Skala Eressos, a seaside village on the Greek island of Lesbos.

You see, there’s more to island life than olives galore … and the Aegean contemplating a docile shore.

Vaboom!

There she is, looking after 20 to 30 dogs and pups, at any time you may care to enquire.

She’s got a compassion you can’t ignore.

Imagine that. Dogs chucked in bags at Villa Gaga’s door; strays, you name it.

Seventy two of them find homes in Europe, and the United Kingdom, in a year.

The Atlas Animal Project pitches in too, transporting pooches here and there.

Volunteer vets and assistants round up cats and dogs and give them the snip.

It’s a mission; trapping and sterilising, nursing, releasing.

The chub-a-lub cats stalk scraps on the cafes boardwalk … then, one after the other, oh no, the tips of their ears are missing.

You imagine cat ear triangles curling, dry on the ends!

They’ve been lopped off to identify the doctored ones.

It’s a big job, this animal care of Gerbien’s.

Dog walking, dog feeding, dog grooming, horse grooming, horse feeding, cat feeding.

Vet visits, nursing sick animals, holding one as it sighs its last; a scratch behind the ears.

Sterilisation. Transport. All that food!

Ellen has spent some months helping her.

Now she is leaving.

Gerbien would like a volunteer assistant, two if possible.

They can live her house at Villa Gaga, mahalla, next to the Kouitou Art Hotel.

Gerbien’s not there for the summer. She’s moved into the veld, to Camp Gaga, and that cost a bomb too, all that fencing and stuff.

It costs to set up secure accommodation.

One of Gaga Animal Care’s supporters is the Skala Women’s Rock Group, a posse that swims each day at 10am to The Rock, from Zorba the Buddha (you make your hands into a little temple, the prayer position, and you don’t know where it comes from, but you say namaste and feel very pious. Your soul skis along the sea. It bounces off the palm-leaf roof. Plop. A tear trickles down the straw and dents your smoothie).

Good vibrations include the Big Dog Splash that the Rock Group organises each September, during the Sappho Women International Eressos Women’s Festival. 

Gerbien takes the pups to Zorba the Buddha every day, to put them on display for possible adoption.

They’re in a shaded circle of netting wire near the top of the steps leading  to the beach in front of the café.

A woman stands ready to strike a big gong.

 Boooooing. The pups start and stare: WTF?

 It’s the Dog Splash, of course.

Why? Because money makes a dog’s life, in the hands of Gerbien.

(ends)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/gaga.animal.care/

http://www.atlasanimalproject.nl/

https://www.facebook.com/sapphowomen

Land ahoy

JUST five more sleeps … You count them.

You turn to your May’s Chemist calendar stuck onto the window frame in your beloved tin office-turning-storeroom, just to make sure.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

You stick out your little finger on your left hand, and squash the others into your palm with your thurmb.

You don’t want any miscalculations.

Your right hand index finger lands plum on the little one that’s sticking out.

One. Two  Your ring finger extends and your index finger lands on it.

Three. Same thing. Four. Five. Your thumb shoots off in the other direction.

Five sleeps!

You’re exhausted.

You could do with 10 sleeps. Followed by a bacon and egg breakfast.

.Oh, is that an eyelash on your yolk? 

You frown at it and loop it off with the tip of the knife.

Not that you’ve got much appetite. 

There’s no place for food in a guts.that’s gone nuts breeding butterflies.

Whoppers these things are too. Giants.

Batting about making you dizzy. Are these blighters stirring delight or dread?

You can’t tell. Both leave you breathless and bewildered.

You lie on your bed. Your fingers find each other behind your head.

Your legs snuggle into crossed (swollen) ankles.

Yesterday, ah the wonder of yesterday ….

You lips stretch and flatten over your teeth. 

It startles you, this smile. Just like that, your cheeks push in to the lines around your eyes.

No more turbulence. It’s plain sailing from here. Steady.

(ends)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mama mia

IT’S scary now. Only six nights to go and your accommodation plans are receding into the sunset.

That’s what happens when you mix romance and rentals.

Even on  a Greek island.

It never works.

Not even before it’s started!

You put an ad out for somewhere to stay, somebody responds, you talk, and the next you know, the rental is an afterthought and you’re planning all sorts of wonderful thing together.

Nice. You even decide to fly over seven weeks early.

It seems appropriate. There is more than rental going on here, she says.

Damn right. When’s the next plane?

Texting on Facebook is intense, intimate. Funny. It goes on for months.

You must see her.

So you lean into the computer screen, on Skype, and this face — yes, it’s an angel in your heart — it’s not very clear, except for the lipstick. The lipstick is vivid.

You wonder what you look like, to her.

You arrange your face into the sweetest of smiles.

She examines the picture. She’s intent in her focus, like artists are.

Your nose looks huge, she says. Is it?

Her head leans left, right.

You turn your face this way and that. You don’t realise you’re mirroring her movements while she’s gauging the dimensions of your snout.

(You want to smell that hair on that head.

(You want to put your face in it.) 

 You are careful, though, when you’re modelling your visage, not to reveal your two smoke-stained teeth, the muddy splotch leftovers, grubby blobs on the pristine shine of the ready-mades.

Ah, the excitement. The anticipation.

Then the Incredible Hulk lumbers into your sweet-pea landscape.

The butterflies cower wide-eyed and the bees forget to make honey.

There is a big shadow. There is no oompah band. This, dear readers, is The Ex.

Her recent ex.

Your feet turn cold. Ice. They freeze.

The Imagined Threat; The Monster, it looms.

It rips the guts from your gentle reality. It tosses it about, for breakfast.

You try to stand back, to dodge it. But The Monster’s unforgiving. Relentless.

It’s on a rampage to rout. You run. And run back again.

You don’t know. What is there to know?

Limbo is unsettling, a monster’s playground. In limbo you teeter.

It can tip you into heaven, or hell.

Peril lurks. Imagined or not.

Life’s like that, darling, in Shadowland. There are no angels there.

 (ends)

 

 

Seventh heaven

YOU guessed it. Seven more sleeps.

Abel’s here today. He’s patching some roof leaks, and your tin shack that’s going to store your worldly possessions, mightily whittled down in scale and  number, mind you; it’s also going to get some damp-proofing.

It has to be like that.

The shack you write in is only 2x5m, and it is the only place to store the boxes of odds and ends that embellish your home and fill your cupboards.

Abel, your right hand man, will make sure it is waterproof and that the boxes are raised and covered with black bags.

There are papers too, that await your attention, sometime in the future. 

One A4 envelope is full of Loeriesfontein. You’ve wanted to travel to Loeriesfontein, for a long time, since you lived in Cape Town in the early 1990s .

The village, in the Hantam district of the Northern Cape, is exquisite in spring; the wildflowers roll out in luxuriant carpets of exhilarating colour. They make the most of their August/September display.

The intensity of the bright blooms is enhanced if you look at them by bending over and peering through your open legs!

It’s true. You do it in Namaqualand; you stand with your legs astride and let your body flop forward. Your face must point to the sun before you start, and your back must be turned on the flowers. This is because the flowers look into the sun.

And now, they’ll be looking at your bent over bum! 

The rush of blood to your head enhances the thick fragrances of the flowers, and the bees buzz louder.

For now, your wooden hat stand full of hats is already hooded in the corner of your shack.

Hats vanish under a black garbage bag,

You pack things, cover things, tick off items on the to-do list.

Your heart quickens.

It’s not long. Today week you’ll be on the wing.

Flying to your future. Your love.

(ends)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ready, not so steady, go.
EIGHT more sleeps.
Sleeps? Not with these butterflies igniting a nerve highway to a burning adrenaline rush.
Life’s blood. It throbs.
The scales are unsteady. Heaven or hell?
You balance on the dream of typing in 20kg of words on paper while occasionally rising to blink at the Aegean.
It almost forgets to nudge the shores of Lesbos, so reluctant is it in its summer stupour.
You swat away a fly. It nestles on your hat.
The words were scribbled and crafted on all sorts of bits and pieces of whatever that responded to the scratch of a pen.
They represent more than 40 years of your life.
There are some stories, complete and incomplete. There are lots of other words, one after the other.
Two boxes of this stuff are on their way to Eressos. In your suitcase, the one that goes in the hold, you put four A4 packets full of the most exquisite love letters to you, mind you, and poem-notes you wrote or scrawled on the impulse of haste.
In bleaker, more drunken moments, words lurch into the dark to light the way.
The outpourings of a blind boozer, the pitiful squeaks of sad sorrow, fumbling for freedom.
You travel, not only to relocate your physical body.
You travel to grow, to learn. More and more.
About yourself.
The long love. The love of self.
You say goodbye. Dislodge. Eject.
There is a lot of casting off and throwing away.
Your carapace of complacency, it melts to fuel movement.
You go from Johannesburg to Eressos.
You open your eyes. But your heart is locked.
It’s scary. Travelling promises nothing.
Travelling promises everything.
it also has beginning and an end.
Butterflies. They flutter.
Tickle and taunt.
Your stomach stutters, in a flap
Anticipation bleeds from pulsing cells
Panting
Your heart flounders.
It thunders, roars, locked in its cage.
(ends)