For Today .......

I thought for today that I’d try to give the whole ‘god, I am SO SAD!’ routine a rest (even though it still creeps up on me every day, like a literal 5-o-clock shadow, just in time for the evening, lots of time to cry, you see – but I digress). So I’ma try a different take on it:

On the way to Misha’s school, we drive past a lane of Wild Pear Trees, the first SA trees to blossom each year. I think, in Venda, they’re named “Announcers of the Spring”, isn’t that beautiful? Bunches of off-white flowers hang from heavy branches. They’ve been flowering for a few weeks now, and smell of honey in the afternoon sun.

I also noticed this morning that the Coral Trees are flowering, gorgeous scarlet that always reminds me of my grandfather for some reason, a good thing.

Even being sad, in it’s way, is a positive sign, it means that I am actually braver than I gave myself credit for. Even though I’d convinced myself that falling in love/ caring for someone, was a bad idea, I went ahead and risked it. And, I really am thankful for the time I shared with the Honey, it’s opened a portal to the idea that there's actually men out there my heart likes, and that means that my life holds possibilities again. I may slowly be changing my mind about men being the root of all evil. Which in itself, is a miracle.

I live in a country where Life is everywhere. A lifetime ago, I spent a month in the First-Worldedness that is Canada, as a kind of test to see whether I’d relocate there. The answer: HELL, NO! Here, kids dance on garbage heaps, dogs play even though they’re starving, people laugh out loud, and everywhere you look, something is ALIVE! Smiling at a child means that you get a smile back, or even a little hand reaching out for a touch, a shy giggle from behind mom, or a terrified screech and tears. Over there, kids hid from smiles with passive, adult faces; people enquired whether I was ok when I laughed too loud; and the only things warm were the heated malls and enclosed pedestrian bridges. The people were dead, their minds where alive, and so sorry for the poor Africans, but the rest … cold and frozen.

Love surrounds me, although I very often fail to see what’s in front of me. I have a boy who whispers: “My Mamma”, before he kisses and hugs me. Who burrows into my side as we watch the world’s tragedies flash past on the tv.

Yes, I have lost people and parts of myself on the way here. But that pillar that I see at the core of the people in my life I admire; that pillar is part of me too, and it’s still there. It’s strong, and bright, and eternal. The sadness, tears, everything I’ve lost, that’s all transient, loose, replaceable. Maybe I should just take it as it is, like the touch from a smiling child in a supermarket, hug it to myself for a moment, and then let it go.