Perspective

It’s been a rough couple of weeks. Weeks where nothing seems to work out. I wake up tired and by noon I wish I can crawl in under the bed.

I took a big risk a couple of weeks back. Something that can either turn out amazing or that can ruin me. I’ve been thinking about it 24/7. I wake up at 4 in the morning, shivering from fear. I did my research and still feel like I’m not ready for it. I feel young, unprepared and scared. Very scared.

A couple of nights back I took a friend to his new hostel and spend a couple of hours chatting while looking out over the city, having a beer.

I loved the industrial feel of the hostel with a huge couch in the one corner, the original fittings, the raw brick walls and the concrete floors. Turns out it was a printing press during the Apartheid years. I found out as I read the posters on the wall. In the 1960’s blacks were gathering, writing and distributing their dream: the news a free world they imagined.  It’s now a youth hostel.

Unwrapping my own fear, my own feeling of inadequacy and nothingness I spend time with three foreigners.

Some of them spend longer in SA than others. Some saw the Kruger, the Drakensberg and Durban. All of them saw the fairest Cape. None of them saw Kakamas or Montagu – my favourites. And some were planning to go see Soweto. Whatever their itinerary consists of, they all agreed to come back.

They described it as vibrant, so much to learn and experience. They liked how eager people are. Eager to show them around, eager for them to experience the rainbow nation. Interesting stories to hear and little corners to explore. Oh, and beautiful blue skies.

Perhaps, they feel about this place I call home, like I do about India: I will spend my life going back to try and understand it.

Perspective, for my own very confusing life, comes in the most unlikely places.  At that moment I felt better.  It was just what I needed. With good conversation, a bit of gratitude from strangers for this new country and the city skyline at night.

Small blessings

I had a particularly bad Monday. But then again, Mondays are a bit strange – it’s that day with a bad reputation, early meetings, traffic jams. Or is it just us, making it up to be all that bad?

Mine was bad though. I had a page in one of the newspaper layouts gone wrong – not by human error – by some IT bug, I guess. It had to be redone. A few mistakes needed to be fixed for a page later this week. A sub needed my attention to explain something. And none of that is on the to-do list. It was before 9am. I walked into the boardroom to catch my breath. 

On Tuesday, after soothing myself on Monday night with a glass of wine, I had a better day. Through the two deadlines before 12, and the sitting behind my computer to go over a piece before submitting it, I ate lunch.

On my way home, I was much calmer. I like driving, listening to the radio and singing along. Not getting stuck in traffic, but a little driving and a little looking at the sky goes a long way to calm me down, especially after a rough day.

Trees. That’s one thing I still like about my city – the streets lined with trees. The winding roads with the sun shining through the branches and the bits of blue sky somewhere in-between.

And so my drive home becomes my sanity, because I get to see blue skies, age old trees and sing along to the top of my lungs. Because I can.