Oh, the things you can find if you don’t stay behind!
I am at home when I am in transit. I realised this when reading the partly sweet, partly sour debate about the respective merits and flaws of Cape Town and Durban, my hometown.
The whole thing might have been sparked off by the bitter opinions of a bloated fish in a fast-evaporating pond, and my new home, Johannesburg, did not really feature in any real way, but, as someone who usually leaps at any opportunity to engage in a juicy, bloody debate, I felt oddly detached. I had no desire to leap to the defence of a city that had been my home for all but two years of my life, nor did I see the point in pointing out the many reasons I had felt desperate to leave. Not even Dr Seuss, who taught me everything I know and has never been proved wrong, could incite me to action.
”This”, cried the Mayor, ”is your town’s darkest hour!
The time for all Whos who have blood that is red
To come to the aid of their country!”, he said.
”We’ve GOT to make noises in greater amounts!
So, open your mouth, lad! For every voice counts!
Nope. Despite the fact that I can describe parts of Durban in gruesome detail, I felt unqualified to comment. I did leave, after all. Had Jo’burg come up, I would have been even less equipped with anything but shallow observations.
It’s a cop-out, of course. I can pretend that the realisation that I live ”between” is somehow deeply profound, but it’s just an excuse to always be a little bit lost and confused (my relationship with real-world issues and responsibilities has always been on the casual side). Positioning myself as a permanent tourist is a conscious and strategic choice.
Of course, I do work, and I have to pay rent, and I have to deal with traffic and boredom and toothache (can anyone recommend a good dentist in Jo’burg?), but it is a wonderful feeling when nothing is too familiar, every journey could end up with you getting hopelessly lost, and you know that you are unlikely to bump into anyone you know when buying two chocolate cakes and a tub of ice-cream for emergency consumption when feeling a little bit lonely and miserable.
Dr Seuss offers me a warning. At least, I think it is a warning:
You’ll get mixed up of course, as you already know.
You’ll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go.
Sounds intriguing. The mixed-up bit, I get that. There is nothing like stepping out in a post-chocolate cake and ice-cream haze and convincing yourself that the first person who starts a conversation with you is your new Best Friend Forever, when, in reality, it is just a guy hitting on you because you were alone at the bar.
There is also nothing like going back to a place where you thought you had no real connection (or in my case, that everyone else had also jumped ship), and finding your holiday is so booked with ”catching up” with people that the plane ride home is the first time you truly relax. It’s messy, it’s mixed up, but the promise of strange birds still makes it worthwhile. And they are strange. So many of the people I relate to are also flitting between two places, and I have come to appreciate the impatience, restlessness and hyperactivity that is always present when someone is living with feet not quite touching the ground. It takes a strange bird to know one.
And that, to stretch the metaphor to breaking point, is why I hope I never land. And I see no reason that I should. I am more than privileged, spoilt bloody rotten because if things ever go badly wrong, if it ever gets too tough, or if things with the guy at the bar end horribly, I can move back, or move on. Oh, the places I could go. As Dr Seuss knows:
I’m sorry to say so
But, sadly it’s true
That bang-ups and hang-ups
Can happen to you.
It’s not honourable or heroic, and no one will immortalise my story and struggle, but I’m OK with that. For now.
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