The weather a wilderness

Squalls of rain and galeforce winds — driving through the veld we saw Brahmin cattle standing with bowed heads in a field of low grey scrub. Farm dams rocked with choppy waves, black and indigo. The Breede River had burst its banks and the  dark waves were rising and falling through tree branches and shrubs. Roads closed, birds flung like black paper wrappers across the skyline. The mountains coming and going like chimeras on the horizon, eerie sentinels obscured by cloud and rain.

 

I had forgotten this wildness, this feeling of being out alone on the edge of the known world. When we reached the restaurant and dashed indoors for cover, the valley below us was black and only just visible through the rain and fog. Grey trees with leafless branches cracking and tearing away. Ditches swimming with half-drowned white arum lilies. Pink blosson scattered like celebratory confetti from the orchards of almond trees.

 

It was exhilarating, and my sadness took a back seat. Springbok carpaccio and hot baked breads, lamb and bobotie: country food, unimaginative but warming. Tomatoes that taste of tomato. A large fire in the hearth at my back, well-lit tables by the window. Grape juice and bitter coffee.

 

Driving back, we stopped to buy a small bag of waterblommetjies, a Cape delicacy of bredieor stew made from the flower buds of a water plant that grows in icy dams and ponds, only flowering in spring. The vendor had his stained woollen cap pulled down low over his ears and his hands were shaking with cold. He had been standing there  by the roadside without rainjacket or shelter, in wet clothes, since dawn and he will wait hopefully until the sun goes down tonight. Drenched and frozen and choiceless.

 

South Africa drives me a little crazy. I feel helpless in the face of the destitution and desperation, and racked with that helplessness so much of the time.

 

And at last we were through the mountains, hail bouncing off the bonnet of the car. Low slopes of blackened vines in rows, dull yellow reeds thick by the rivers and streams. A few oaks just coming into leaf. A mongoose darting across the road. Both of us laughing and talking together quite easily, the semblance of an old friendship observed. Unpacking vegetables and groceries together in the kitchen, missing the dogs who used to greet  our arrival with such excitement.

 

Something in me that is not resigned to this return. And something in me broken. But I will find  a way to go on, finding a place for myself in this wild impossible country.

Storming Saturday

Well, it is the new moon in Virgo, but I shall not catch a glimpse of that until the black thunderclouds and storms have passed through the mountains.  The village rainwashed and windswept, gales blowing and dead branches littering the side streets.

 

Received confirmation of my meditation retreat booking and looked doubtfully at the requirement to get up at 4am and sit on a small cushion in a draughty hall with only a shawl or cape for warmth, as well as being reminded that the last meal of the day will be at noon (oh, that simple vegan bowl of brown rice, tra-la) and 10 hours a day in silent sitting practice.

 

Is that an exhilarating challenge or a daunting invitation to masochism? Well, it will clear the sticky emotional cobwebs away if nothing else. I can foresee my bad temper reasserting itself in no uncertain terms. More scowling than satori.

 

This morning I am going through to the small town of Worcester at the head of the Breede River valley to get some basic supplies. Then a light lunch up at a wine estate restaurant overlooking the amphitheatre of  vineyeards below the mountains. Soup and a slice of bread and we can’t really afford it, but it will be a chance for Una and myself to reconnect as friends and housemates.

The Greek root of the word ‘nostalgia’ is noster algos, meaning ‘to look homeward with longing’. I am missing Wales as if somebody has stolen that countryside and the chance to experience autumn from me. I feel cheated of seeing another season there, of revelling in that beauty.  This is not a rational feeling, but it goes deep. And with the longing and missing and feeling cheated, there is a bitter grief that things could not have been different between S and myself, that the love did not take root and grow. That too seems unfair and there is nothing to be done about that unreasonable feeling either.

And it is also true that I am grateful to be here and sober and having a chance to be present to this actual reality around me today. To be there for others, to notice new opportunities, to live this one life fully. Taking a deep breath and letting go of the daydreams. Not pointless longings, but a distraction from my life as it really is. Let the rain come down.