I have been traveling and living in South East Asia for
sixteen months when I finally created the opportunity to have a holiday back
home. So I left my island early one morning, to take a boat, mini-van, bus and
two planes. I traveled a total of 53 hours to wake up under the velvet, star-spotted cover of the African sky early on my father’s 59th birthday.
I spent a little over a month soaking up the beautiful
Highveld sunshine, shivering in the freezing mornings and evenings, eating
ridiculous amounts of steak and biltong and Proneutro and braaivleis and
everything else I saw.
Many nights were spent with friends and family over
margerita’s and red wine and hunters dry. We had family breakfasts and evenings
relaxing on the couch in the tracksuit pants and hoody that I woke up in that
morning.
I was fortunate enough to spend a lot of time with my
gorgeous niece, watching her learn and grow and change every day. We played
dress-up with photographic props, painted each other’s toe nails Cherry-red,
danced in the back seat of the car, and sprinkled the floor of my father’s
studio with sparkling fake jewels and pearls.
There was a wedding, the couple promising happiness to
each other in a beautiful venue tucked away in the Maluti Mountains. I
reconnected with old friends and made new ones over steak and home-made beer,
while savouring every breath of freezing African air.
There was a funeral for an inspirational lady. A coming-together
of strangers, acquaintances, friends and family over the loss of a loved one.
What I found most of all is that life had carried on
without me. People got engaged, got married, had babies, moved homes. Friends
had built empires, others lost theirs. Some friends came to see me again and
again while, sadly, others had to do with a quick chat in the reception of
their office building.
I was nestled safely and warmly in my parents’ love. My
father trying to wipe the wrinkles off my face the first time he saw me. My
mother uncomplainingly driving me around, making me tea and taking care of me. Here I had the opportunity to replenish my
soul, to regroup, to heal and breathe with the ease of a sleeping child content
in the knowledge that they are taken care of. I slowly uncurled from the foetal
position that I had crumpled into, hiding away from the world and life and the
lessons it insists on teaching you with no mercy. I cried and talked and
laughed and breathed until my soul was bursting and my wings were mended.
I had the opportunity to vote in our general elections.
Few things have left me feeling so intimidated and powerful at the same time as
standing in the voting booth. I felt like I had the power to change things and
truly make a difference by making a cross on a page. At the same time I felt
immensely intimidated by the weight that that cross carried.
I’ve been back on the island for a little over two weeks
now and everyone I see asks me where I’ve been because they haven’t seen me in
a long time. You see one month is a long time on this island, in this life. In
one month your world can change, you can find yourself travelling through three different countries; you can become a different person.
For a month this island seemed like a distant dream
calling me home. Now that I am here, home feels like a distant dream
threatening to fade, to continue life without me.
It seems that the blessing of this life is that you are
free to go where ever you want, do whatever you feel like… the curse is always
missing the place where you are not.
“You will never be completely at home again, because part
of your heart will always be elsewhere. That is the price you pay for the
richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place” – girlgi.com
