Category: new life

Lemons and Circuses

6MT Lemon and CircusIt’s been far too long since I wrote anything here, but when I find myself being the ringmaster, clown, trapeze artist, lion tamer, and road crew for a performance in the most bizarre circus I’ve ever encountered…things are bound to be swiftly re-prioritised.

I have moved house. Again.

We only lived in the first house on George’s western edge for something short of two years. Nary a thing was done to improve or beautify it because life was busy throwing lemons at me, and I had neither the time nor the inclination to make lemonade. Margheritas would have been better, mind you.

During a shaky 2017, every effort to make a living was met with a figurative, “Are you fucking nuts?”
2018 could only be better, right?
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Start in the Middle

Many intriguing books or movies start the story in the middle. This allows the reader or viewer to ponder what came before. Why are the characters doing this? How did they get there? What will they do next? Does the past have a significant impact on their next move?

I’m here in the middle, making a new start. What came before is what brought me here. What brought me here is what affected me before. Life and endless circles. And endless running around.

Yeah, yeah, I’ve been slack. Four months of blog silence.

Why?

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Postcards at Dawn

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   They march across the dimly-lit horizon, massive worn-down teeth of a sleeping dragon – the Outeniqua mountains, just before sunrise. Ragged edges. Smooth slopes. Shadowed ravines. A purple haze that looms out of the gloom. Fields and forests and valleys coating the lower slopes and flatlands.

I’m doing the morning school run, driving parallel to this moving, shifting masterpiece. The sun is still well below the horizon, the clouds splay out above, catching fire from beneath because the sun is still so low.

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A Recipe for Laughter

There’s nothing I like more than seeing something that makes me laugh or really think about what took place…and sometimes I stare in amazement! My arrival in the Garden Route has been punctuated by a series of these moments.

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On the second or third day here, we were confronted by a donkiekar trundling the streets of George’s suburbs, sifting through residents’ rubbish bins and garbage. In Joziburg™ there are waste pickers too, but the guys on those operations pilot ricketty trolleys that look like they’ve been salvaged from a warehouse yard. Self-drive and potentially lethal when they steer them down steep hills, fully loaded. Meanwhile, George operates at a more gentle pace.

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Six million other trees

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In August last year, I started this blog. I was in a pensive mood, caught up in my own thoughts about being a Joziburger™. A love/hate relationship that was part of what I had been and what I wanted to be…an editorial graphic designer vs a free-agent-who-will-do-anything-that-makes-life-interesting.

Some 220-plus applications for jobs, only five-or-so interviews, and only two replies………..that hurts. I have a CV that I am proud of, achievements that are singular, places I’ve been and seen, projects that wouldn’t have worked if I hadn’t thrown myself wholeheartedly into them.

That’s when you look in the mirror and wonder if your career was all just smoke….and mirrors.

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