#44
CLIMB TABLE MOUNTAIN: UP AND DOWN
Correction, ‘climb one of the seven wonders of the world: up and down’.
I have actually climbed up once...shocking if you consider I have lived in the Western Cape all of my life and I have only been up there once. We did the Platteklip Gorge route and all I have to say is (and the Afrikaans speaking reader will understand)...it’s not that ‘plat’ :). It was great fun though, if quite a tough climb, and the views from the top are breathtaking as one would expect. The cable car ride down was a bit of an anti-climax. So next time I'm walking up and down. And the best advice I can give anyone who wants to do this, is to start as early as possible, as it tends to get quite hot. A secondary item would be to do a sunrise Lion’s Head walk!
#45
COLLECT ALL MY FAVOURITE LYRICS, QUOTES AND BOOK EXCERPTS THAT I LOVE...SO I WON'T FORGET
If I wasn't careful, this blog would turn into me only sharing pieces of writing, movies, books and lyrics to songs that I love or that touched me in some way. I have shared some of my favourite songs with you up to now, but there are hundreds more...
My #np section is up and running! *excited shriek* Now I can share so much more!!
The reason I want to make some kind of scrapbook, maybe even an electronic one, is just because there are so many pieces of music and writing that I love and I don’t want to forget any of them. Even little bits of dialogue from movies stay with me and I want to remember them always!
From Pushing Daisies:
Ned: Just because we wake up each morning with a list of things we want a mile long doesn't mean we need those things to be happy.
Chuck: What do you need to be happy?
Ned: You.
And this little part from the series Greek. In the final episode, two of the main characters, Casey and her boyfriend Cappie, are heading off after graduation. They are not really sure where or what they are going to do. As they are getting into the car after saying goodbye to all their friends and family, Casey turns to Cappie.
Casey: Where to?
Cappie: Wherever you're going.
And even after seeing this episode ages ago, it stayed with me. Because no matter where we are going, even if we are not sure where we are heading, the trick is to find someone that wants to go there with you.
These lyrics from Fiction Family, a song called War in my Blood is just beautiful.
War in my blood
I've got a girl she tastes like rain on my tongue
She’s got the moon in her hips
And her eyes burn up like the sun
When I’m gone from my girl
When I leave her alone
There ain’t nothing that I’m running from
There’s war in my blood
I’ve still got wars to be won
My baby's soft and sweet
Somewhere between a flower and a gun
And where my girls is now somewhere that’s where I wanna be from
Love is a dollar that’s already spent
Love is a song that we sung
There’s war in my blood
Love ain’t the tune in my lungs
So here’s my consolation
And a poet is enough
It takes two to go to war
And only one to fall in love
I had a girl I no precisely what made her run
Her skin was like the sky
It made my heart beat itself like a drum
I long for my girl when we meet in my dreams
I tell she’ll always be my only one
There’s war in my blood
There ain’t a long love could have done
There’s war in my blood
There’s war in my blood
There are so much more I could share, but the amazing thing is discovering parts of a song, a paragraph from a book, a small piece of dialogue between two characters in a movie or television show or something you randomly read somewhere, that makes you remember it, days, months or even years after you've seen or heard it the first time.
#46 WATCH ALL THE SEX AND THE CITY EPISODES IN A MARATHON SESSION
All 6 seasons, 94 episodes and 47 hours of it :).
This will probably involve pyjamas and loads of popcorn and oodles of couch time.
Maybe mistakes are what make our fate... without them what would shape our lives? Maybe if we had never veered off course we wouldn't fall in love, have babies, or be who we are. After all, things change, so do cities, people come into your life and they go. But it's comforting to know that the ones you love are always in your heart...
and if you're very lucky, a plane ride away.
-Carrie Bradshaw
Later that day I got to thinking about relationships. There are those that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that bring you far from where you started, and those that bring you back. But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you can find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous.
-Carrie Bradshaw
I remember growing up, and this being a show with an age restriction of 18, I wasn't allowed to watch it...but of course I did. Very covertly and late at night.
I have learnt so much about life, love, sex and above all friendship by watching this show. But one thing stands out. I remember watching Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda prance (you can’t call walking in those shoes just plain old ‘walking') around Manhattan, with their fabulous lives, loves, friends, boyfriends, boy toys, Cosmopolitans and outfits...what more do you need to teach a girl to dream and that anything is possible?
When you're young, your whole life is about the pursuit of fun. Then, you grow up and learn to be cautious. You could break a bone or a heart. You look before you leap and sometimes you don't leap at all because there's not always someone there to catch you. And in life, there's no safety net. When did it stop being fun and start being scary?
-Carrie Bradshaw
#47
GET TIPSY ON FRENCH CHAMPAGNE
A gay, light happiness, like bubbles in wine held up to the sun.
- Ben Ames Williams
Not Method Cap Classique sparkling wine, which although made in the same way, is not Champagne. So I'm talking real French Champagne, think Moët & Chandon, Dom Pérignon, Laurent-Perrier, Mumm or Veuve Clicquot.
Come quickly, I'm drinking the stars!
-Dom Pérignon
#48
GO FISHING WITH MY DAD AGAIN
Believe it or not, I actually used to be quite good at it. When we were growing up, my Dad owned a boat and we used to go fishing during every December holiday. I took it for granted then, spending time with him, just the two of us, my Mom's sandwiches and the sounds of the ocean. Those were special moments and I wished my younger self would have realised that. Next time we go I won’t make that mistake again.
#49
GO ON AN OVERSEAS TRIP BY MYSELF
The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.
-Samuel Johnson
Traveling is like flirting with life. It’s like saying, ‘I would stay and love you, but I have to go; this is my station.
-Lisa St. Aubin de Teran
Half the fun of the travel is the aesthetic of lostness.
-Ray Bradbury
I don’t think there are many things that make you feel as independent and in control of your life and yourself, than travelling alone. I want to see the world...on my own.
I recently came across a blog, mano@mano, a collaboration between a travel editor and freelance photojournalist. This blog is all about travel, words and images. The best thing about this blog, is the way it literally makes me want to pack a bag and leave. Go somewhere. Go anywhere. Write about it. Photograph it. Live it. Experience it.
One of their recent posts took two people, at the exact same time, thousands of kilometres apart, and had them describe the world around them at that precise moment. It's some amazing writing and their surroundings are described in a such a vivid way, that you can't help conjuring up the images in your head or constructing the sights and sounds with the words they wrote.
One ocean, five time zones and 6873 kilometres apart, two writers sat at cafés on two different continents at exactly the same moment, and ordered a cup of coffee. They were almost at the same latitude: he in Buenos Aires (34° 35′ 54″ S) and she in Cape Town (35° 55′ 22″ S). At that moment and in both cities – 8.30am in Buenos Aires and 1.30pm in Cape Town, on 22 November 2011 – it was a sunny, tepid 20°C. As the writers sipped on their coffees (he a café con leche, she a latte), they took out their notebooks and recorded the world around them.
Cape Town
35° 55′ 22″ S 18° 25′ 12″ E
1.30pm (12.30pm GMT)
It’s strangely quiet here on this square. The café tables are half full with a mix of tourists and office workers, happy to be free of air conditioning for an hour. The locals lean forward in their chairs; they take off their jumpers or roll up their sleeves; business talk drones between the tables. The foreigners, all bare limbs and backpacks, stretch their legs, lizarding in the African sun.
I’m sitting outside Crave, one of the many cafés that surround Greenmarket Square, a cobbled national monument in the centre of Cape Town where, almost 180 years ago, the declaration freeing slaves was made. These days it’s a popular shopping spot for tourists.
Travelling students waft between the cafés and the market and – with no sense of commitment – browse the stalls. It’s colourful – bright paintings and fabrics and souvenirs from all over Africa have migrated down the continent and landed here, arranged on neat tables and hanging from the market structures.
Suddenly the students gather, five of them, just in front of me, and pose. Arms wrap around shoulders; fingers push back sunglasses. Someone snaps a photograph, they laugh and then scatter into the market.
The sweet aroma of a Thai green curry wanders past my table, which is near the corner of the square and almost underneath a white stinkwood. A very subtle breeze moves its leaves. There’s a bird calling – shrill – somewhere above me and I look up. The sun’s lighting the leaves from above, turning them a luminous green against the royal blue sky. It really is beautiful here.
In a moment – or perhaps it’s because I'm more aware of my surroundings – the square becomes a mess of noise – a trolley clanking across the cobbles; Eastern dance music ching-chinging from a café behind me; heels clacking up the sidewalk; a helicopter moving in to drown everything out. It circles over Parliament, just a few blocks from here, where people dressed in black have gathered to show their opposition to the Protection of Information Bill, which is being voted on right now. It’s a peaceful protest. I know this; I've just been there, adding my black-clothed body to the mass of protesters.
I'm envious of the tourists, most of them ambling two-by-two across the cobbles, unaware of what’s going on at Parliament and probably not noticing that so many people are dressed in black today. A few stop outside the various cafés, browse the menus, and move on. Two walk back; sit down. Pigeons tug at scattered crumbs of bread that have slipped between the cobbles. The office workers stand to leave. My coffee mug is empty; lunch hour is over.
Buenos Aires
34° 35’ 54” S / 58° 22’ 21” W
8.30am (12.30pm GMT)
A Bolivian shoeshine is laying his tools out on the corner of Calle San Martin. His location will hopefully bring him business from the steady stream of office workers, making their way uptown along Avenida Cordoba.
Not so long ago, smartly liveried doorman would have shared the shoeshine’s territory. Harrods closed in the Argentine crisis, however, and there is now just a faint tinge of peeling green-and-gold on the regal building across the road.
I turn the corner and step into the dusky interior of Café Orleans. I order a coffee and make for a seat in the corner. After the glare of the sunlight it is hard to see but I have the feeling that eyes are following me – echoing the professional optimism of the shoeshine.
Taking the first sip of my coffee I glance around. Apart from the waist-coated waiters I am the only male in the place. There are seven girls at seven separate tables – all apparently waiting for someone. Most are clearly South American but there are two tall blondes who could be Russian, or maybe Polish. Their tight jeans and low halter-neck tops are designed to be as obvious as business cards and they divide their working day between this café and the ‘love hotel’ (rooms for US$10 per hour) that now stands opposite what was Harrods’s rear entrance.
These girls are the day-shift counterparts of the nocturnal workforce I saw from the taxi last night on my way back to my lodgings. By night the shoeshine’s patch becomes the territory of transvestites. Some are deceptively attractive and are often betrayed only by the fact that they wear higher heels, shorter skirts, more makeup… and are less reticent about displaying the curves of their inflated orbs. Apparently it is an unwritten rule that only ‘real girls’ are allowed to sit inside the café. As I sit writing the café begins to get busier but each new arrival seems ostentatiously unaware of the other girls and they continue to occupy separate tables.
As I expected the girls seem to take me for a gormless gringo – childishly naïve, a complete virgin of the streets – and figure that I am unaware of the ways in which our ‘relationship’ could develop. Whenever I glance up from my notebook, however, there is the dark, sultry glance of a pair of almond-shaped Andean eyes to meet me. She probably figures that even this witless tourist won’t be able to misread the signs for long.
So I pay for my coffee and step back into the sunlight. Late office workers are still hurrying past and the endless stop-start waltz of traffic buzzes through the crossroads as I the corner turn back into San Martin.
The Bolivian shoeshine, at least, has scored this morning. A smartly suited businessman is propped in his high chair having a pair of tasselled moccasins buffed. I suddenly realize the logic of the Bolivian’s position: the businessman has an unobstructed view over the shoeshine’s bowed head into the café’s inner sanctum. The harem inside are positioned so that they are clearly visible from the shoeshine’s window-shopping vantage point. Not everything is what it first seems in Buenos Aires.
#50
GET A NEW JOB
Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.
-Rumi
I have only been working at my current job for two years, but it has become somewhat of a ‘safe zone’ for me. It’s time to start exploring outside of my comfort zone. I have so many different passions and loves that are definitely worth changing my life for.
Recently my friend Jake G. finally got the opportunity to get a foot in the door of the industry that he really wants to be in, music OBVIOUSLY :), and just seeing the pure joy and excitement that this brings him and getting to share that with him got me thinking. I know so many people who are 'just there' in their daily jobs. They don't necessarily hate what they are doing, but it doesn't make them light up or literately jump up and down with excitement (yes, we DID actually jump up and down with excitement). So maybe it's time for a change...
I've come to the conclusion that enthusiasm is perhaps the greatest asset anyone can have. It is the key ingredient to success. You can have a wealth of skills, but if your heart is not in it, your work will reflect it. If you have enthusiasm, you will find the energy to acquire the necessary skills and draw to you all the people and support you need to succeed. enthusiasm beats power, money and influence.
- Joan Lunden
#51
GO ON A SOLO ROAD TRIP
I am a solitary person by nature and I would love to get in a car, turn the music up and drive to my heart’s content. Knowing myself I will have a plan of where I'm going, but I’ll try to reign in the OCD a bit and be spontaneous...and see where the road takes me...
I found an amazing poem by Tanya Davis (via
bibbity boppity boo), about being alone and how to get to a place where you are ok to be by yourself. Listen to a reading of it
here...it’s amazing, definitely worth a listen or a read (see why I need the scrapbook?).
How to be alone
If you are at first lonely, be patient.
If you've not been alone much, or if when you were, you weren't okay with it, then just wait. You’ll find it’s fine to be alone once you’re embracing it.
We can start with the acceptable places, the bathroom, the coffee shop, the library, where you can stall and read the paper, where you can get your caffeine fix and sit and stay there. Where you can browse the stacks and smell the books; you’re not supposed to talk much anyway so it’s safe there.
There is also the gym, if you’re shy, you can hang out with yourself and mirrors, you can put headphones in. Then there’s public transportation, because we all gotta go places.
And there’s prayer and meditation, no one will think less if your hanging with your breath seeking peace and salvation.
Start simple. Things you may have previously avoided based on your avoid being alone principles.
The lunch counter, where you will be surrounded by “chow downers”, employees that only have an hour and their spouses work across town, and they, like you, will be alone.
Resist the urge to hang out with your cell phone.
When you are comfortable with “eat lunch and run”, take yourself out for dinner; a restaurant with linen and Silverware. You’re no less an intriguing a person when you are eating solo desert and cleaning the whip cream from the dish with your finger. In fact, some people at full tables will wish they were where you were.
Go to the movies. Where it’s dark and soothing, alone in your seat amidst a fleeting community.
And then take yourself out dancing, to a club where no one knows you, stand on the outside of the floor until the lights convince you more and more and the music shows you. Dance like no one’s watching because they’re probably not. And if they are, assume it with best and human intentions. The way bodies move genuinely to beats, is after-all, gorgeous and affecting. Dance until you’re sweating. And beads of perspiration remind you of life’s best things. Down your back, like a book of blessings.
Go to the woods alone, and the trees and squirrels will watch for you. Go to an unfamiliar city, roam the streets, there are always statues to talk to, and benches made for sitting gives strangers a shared existence if only for a minute, and these moments can be so uplifting and the conversations you get in by sitting alone on benches, might of never happened had you not been there by yourself.
Society is afraid of alone though. Like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements. Like people must have problems if after a while nobody is dating them.
But lonely is a freedom that breathes easy and weightless, and lonely is healing if you make it.
You could stand swathed by groups and mobs or hands with your partner, look both further and farther in the endless quest for company.
But no one is in your head. And by the time you translate your thoughts an essence of them maybe lost or perhaps it is just kept. Perhaps in the interest of loving oneself, perhaps all those “sappy slogans” from pre-school over to high school’s groaning, were tokens for holding the lonely at bay.
Cause if you’re happy in your head, then solitude is blessed, and alone is okay.
It’s okay if no one believes like you, all experiences unique, no one has the same synapses, can’t think like you, for this be relieved, keeps things interesting, life’s magic things in reach, and it doesn't mean you aren't connected, that community is not present, just take the perspective you get from being one person in one head and feel the effects of it.
Take silence and respect it.
If you have an art that needs a practice, stop neglecting it, if your family doesn't get you or a religious sect is not meant for you, don’t obsess about it.
You could be in an instant surrounded if you need it.
If your heart is bleeding, make the best of it. There is heat in freezing, be a testament.
#52
GO ON A ROAD TRIP WITH A BUNCH OF FRIENDS
As much soul soothing as it would be to go on a solo road trip, spending some quality (read hilarious) times with special friends, cooped up in a car on the open road...count me in.
Rachel
xoxo
