A while ago I attended a university lecture where I was urged to start writing creatively in my free time. The lecturer said that we often have beautiful memories of unique and memorable experiences, which are backed up with strong images that flow into our mind whenever we recall the memory. However, as time passes, these images become vaguer; they de-pixelate in our minds and eventually when we recall the memory we are left with nebulous emotions - with close to no context. He urged us to reflect on the memories we truly want to keep and write about them, as romantically as possible - so that they may never be lost.
I have done this for one such memory. It centers around the Karoo, a truly distinctive region of South Africa. I've decided to share it with all those who would read it. Enjoy :)
| A Day Where Time Froze |
In my youth, a treasured past-time of my family was our frequent expeditions to the untouched parts of our beautiful country. Such expeditions were a much-needed escape from the concrete enclosure of our daily lives – from the grassy Highveld to the green, mountain fords of the Drakensburg; we were transported to the untouched, hidden vistas speckled throughout South Africa. However, none of these journeys parallel my one day spent in the Karoo.
There was nothing prodigious about the Karoo: barren; unfamiliar to water; and completely singular in shade – it did not sport the kaleidoscope of shapes, colours, wildlife, sounds and other coveted qualities of holidays spent in nature.
It was hot too -
An oppressive heat which made clothing cling to me like a babe to a mother’s breast, and left my tongue like sandpaper. I was an outsider – the sweating and sun-burn a stark reminder that I was far from home…
… but you see, it was only when I truly gazed at the country before me, that I realized its furtive beauty. For there was something remarkably welcoming about the landscape’s visage – some orientation of valley, mountain, and sky which invited me behind its veil, and into its wonderful world.
The Karoo was silent, but not with the deathly silence akin to a tragedy that has befallen a family, nor the vacuous silence that tells one there is nothing to be said – no, it was a placid silence. One which indicates a resonant sort of equilibrium – for it was apparent in the birds who gazed upon the horizon, captivated by its serenity; it was in the boulders who stood sentinel; and in the sheep who frolicked across the fields in a jocose manner; and finally, it was in myself, who stood in amazement and wonder.
In fact, it was not only the silence which spoke to me – it was the freshness of the air, clear through my nostrils and flowing through my body like water; a perpendicular feeling to the coarse air of my urban cage, air which had to be digested before it reached my lungs.
It was also in the heat, which had experienced a metamorphosis of sorts – or perhaps I had. No longer was it stifling and austere, but rather warm; the sun sharing her estus, inching herself closer and closer, and enveloping me in summer.
In the Karoo, I felt like time had frozen –
It was a land untinctured by the ubiquitous upheaval of the country: xenophobia; crime; corruption - the Karoo had a sort of dispensation from these issues. The people there were different too. At home, people always had their eyes half in this world, and half in another – haunted by the injustices of the past, harrowed by those of the present, and horrified of what might come next. In the Karoo, there was no place for time – what existed was the present: the present warmth; the present stillness; and the present clarity of mind.
At night, I looked to the heavens and saw what looked more like a white sky dotted with black, than a black sky dotted with white – an unending chessboard that had been wrought with too few black pieces. An inexplicable brightness that was complimented by the moon -who revealed her milky face to the world - while the embers from our fire darted into the night sky, competing with one another and weaving patterns of light and shadow as they raced across the valley. Embers who would chase after the horizon, drawing nearer but never reaching their mark – they would grow old, the energy stripped from their bodies and replaced by an ashen and sickly surface; they would sink into the night, ashes falling to the earth; and they would return to Gaia’s embrace, dying so that plants could thrive on the nourished soil left in their wake.
Such was the nature of the Karoo – the cycle of life was ever-present, but unaffected by the cycle of chaos everywhere else. A landscape that was bright even at night, its glow refusing the influence of the seemingly teeming darkness. It was an isolated system, like an insect in amber; part of a tumbling world, but perfectly still. Time truly was frozen.
There was only one reminder of the world from which I was escaping -
An enormous, low-hanging willow couched in the grove near which we slept. Its proud trunk stood upright, reaching for the sky – yet its branches sighed, weighed down by the wind; a stooping figure, believing and hoping for more, yet wallowing in disappointment – proud of what it had achieved and how much it had grown, yet ashamed by how little it had actually changed.
Much like our own country…
A holiday is an escape, but as rewarding as escapism may be, I realized that there was no beauty in running away from the problems at home and elsewhere. I could not isolate myself from time, not until the present had been fixed.