Aerial view of Table Mountain, the city and waterfront foreshore of Cape Town. (Photo by: Peter Titmuss/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
An exercise called a “mindfulness walk” caught my attention a while ago, and has been on the back of my mind. It is a drill in observation, in grounding, and in appreciating your surroundings by letting a colour dictate your route. If your colour is yellow, you follow a yellow sign, building or plant until you find something or don’t feel like walking anymore. I thought, “What better and more vibrant setting to try this in than Cape Town?”
Cape Town has long been a cultural enterprise, with every district and area having unique personality and local quirks. I know, because it is where I’ve grown up. I’ve experienced the adolescent, drunken Long Street forays, the pain of finding the perfect spot at Bakoven Beach on a summer’s day. I have cursed at the five o’clock traffic on the N1, and I went all the way out to Dunoon just to fail my driver’s test. On every street belongs a memory, an idea, a story from friends and family. It is my home in the purest sense of the word.
I moved to Makhanda in the Eastern Cape four years ago to study at Rhodes University, and in that time, I’ve felt Cape Town slip away from me. I haven’t had the luxury of watching it morph gradually — so slowly you don’t even notice that it is happening. I get it all at once, like a blow to the stomach every time I go back. Fast, all-encompassing, and then an adjustment period. Every time I come home an old bookstore has been replaced, or a new apartment complex has popped up where there was previously a grassy field. In a city where the only constant is new development and a growing population, it is hard to not feel encumbered by a sense of loss through change — and I don’t want that. I wanted to once again embrace the place I know as home and so I did. I chose my colours, and I explored.
Green, for Sea Point (the first thing I saw when I got out of the car was a green bench and the colour felt fated).
Blue, for Observatory (a reference to the sky in honour of the street’s eponymous Observatory built in 1897)
Red, for the Cape Town city centre (for neon lights and the vibrant red of convenience store signs).
My first day was spent in Observatory and almost immediately I was screamed at by a man living on the side of the road, got staggeringly lost and overwhelmed by the highway, and was met with immediate paralysis: “How am I going to do this? Find any hints of blue worth writing about?”
And then I saw the mountain rising over the highway with a sizable blue road sign displaying the turnoff to Rhodes Drive. It became glaringly apparent how the mountain accentuates the contours of the buildings and makes a monument of the concrete and the brick and tar and I got excited all over again.
Blue was, first and foremost, a display of curation and plastic Pick’n Pay packets, of funky painted pots and the details of the momentous amount of wall art which stipples and animates the skin of Lower Main Road and Main Road Observatory.
Before arriving at the Lower Main Road Obs of vintage stores and trendy coffee shops, I passed the Singabalapha (We belong here) settlement propped just off the main road. What struck me was the homely comforts and friendliness of the residents I passed, and it was a man living here who volunteered to be my first portrait. This nascent Observatory geniality didn’t end there, and in my perusal of Obs Main Road and Lower Main Road, almost every store I walked into had a smiling face and some conversation. Charles from Revolution Records offered to help me find a strikingly blue album cover that might make a good image, Keowyn from Coco Chachie chatted to me about my photography and Julia from Maids of Honour told me about how she was one of the first vintage stores about 15 years ago. Since then, almost every second storefront has been peppered with “vintage” signs and decorated with mannequins adorned in second-hand apparel meant to entice. The drinks at Trenchtown remain absurdly cheap, and the walls are bedecked in graffiti.
In Sea Point, my pursuit of green led me to a collection of fynbos, flowers, ferns and garden statues. The space between trying to identify the plants was punctuated by a rhythmic thwack from the tennis courts less than five metres away. The garden belongs to Jason and Thelma, who live right next to the Sea Point Tennis Club on Portman Road, in an informal settlement behind branded ClearVu fencing.
They have decorated their small piece of land with copious plants and garden ornaments, with the centrepiece being an Environmental Care Centre sign, which points away from them and down the road beyond their fence. A clash of recreation and creating home, this group of displaced people have settled in this ClearVu constructed border that marks the centre of the Sea Point triage — sports, consumerism, and the promenade.
Just up the road from this community, a Porsche was filling up at the garage; the red of its paint barely a shade’s difference from the red of Shell’s logo.
Sea Point is one of those bizarre places where a single road can mean a new world.
From the promenade it is only one street leading up that takes you from the gentle crash of the waves, the smell of salt and the sound of children playing in the parks to cars honking, construction racket and a diverse line-up of stores ranging from daunting boutiques and high-end food markets to charity stores and micro delis. In this sense, Sea Point is a motley reflection of its people. It is what happens when you have an area of diverse inhabitants — middle class, upper and lower, religious creed and social identities abound — and a public space that is readily available for any Capetonian, and it is the promenade whose flame burns the brightest. Walking along the promenade is a sure way to regain the lightness and joy that come with watching a stranger’s happiness. I have always revelled in the sanctity of the everyday — in watching a family cycling, a group of boys skateboarding, a brother and sister playing. The promenade constructs a space where I can affirm my own humanity by sharing in the lives of others.
I happened to visit the city centre on a Saturday afternoon at month’s end, and thus I witnessed it in all its midday boozy bedlam. Unlike Sea Point and Observatory, this area of Cape Town has been a key subsidiary of the tourism industry.
On my final day of walking, I started in Bo-Kaap, a popular tourist attraction, and I was immediately presented with the absurdity of a gaggle of Europeans staring at a spaza shop in fascination — at least two of them had trekking poles. Not to denounce the wonder that occurs with exploring a new place, but there is something about the blatant cultural blindness that I just couldn’t tear my eyes away from. And the more you look around Bo-Kaap, the more you see how the space bears evidence of its commercialisation; the “no parking” plaques on the front steps of people’s homes, and the evidence of newly renovated guest houses among chipped walls and untended driveways. It’s a testimony to how a culture can gain fame yet not reap its benefits. Just a bit further along, should you keep adventuring past the painted walls, you come to a quarry that has a single dilapidated building nuzzled in the weeds. On it is a portrait detailed with a rich red, and just beyond that, should you turn around, you can see the ocean and the high-rises. I’ll never tire of finding a piece of art in an urban space, and I’ll forever appreciate the fact that some artist out there, who will never be known, took the time to create something on a canvas that is falling apart.
The rest of the city centre on Saturday was electrifying and immersive. Markets were jostling with tourists and locals — the tourists eyeing the beaded bracelets and paintings of the big five, the locals considering the silver and brass jewellery and handmade clothing. The bars were competing to draw in their crowds, creating a strident multi-genre symphony and, the true beauty of town, everyone was milling about. Taking a peek at the art of the galleries, considering which bars had the ultimate combination of happy hour prices and sufficient vibes, eyeing which stores were still open — it is something you just don’t get in a small town like Makhanda. Even on normal roads, there is still an air of festivity that establishes the amalgam of this historic city centre area as unique.
During these walks I documented everything, and I think taking photos is its own exercise in mindfulness. There is a force to your points of observation — a layer to penetrate at every turn, and everyone and everything becomes a potential piece of art. The man in the blue blazer walking along Sussex Road, the child cycling down the Sea Point promenade in his neon green wellies, a barista named Julian whose red leather jacket shone through the windows of a church foyer turned coffee shop on Shortmarket Street. Every corner held someone and something worth capturing — someone and something to see.
Cassandra Scheepers is a journalist.