“I like this fence,” I said to Jess, as we walked down the path between houses to Clifton 2, “This wooden one.”

“What do you like about it?”

“It reminds me of the karate kid.”

“Why?”

“Did you ever watch the karate kid?”

“No,” Jess said.

I explained that Mr Miyagi instructed Daniel to hit nails into a wooden fence.

Jess listened and then said, “I like how formative karate kid was to you. You relate it to a lot of things as an adult. Did you watch it a lot as a child?”

“A lot.”

In our home, we weren’t allowed to watch a lot of tv – that’s putting it mildly. For most of our childhood, we were allowed one program each (I have an older brother) on Saturdays and Sundays – so that’s half an hour – and we could watch each other’s choice. This meant that Clyde, my older brother, strongly influenced what I chose to watch. We were encouraged to play outside and to draw and to read. Every now and then we got to watch a movie. You’d think that having such restricted tv watching would mean that we’d always choose a new movie to watch but it didn’t. Top Gun and the Karate Kid and a movie called Undercover Blues got selected again and again.

Our favorite line from Karate Kid actually came from the second movie. Mr Miyagi tells Daniel: “Best block, no be there“.

Words to live by.

I’m reluctant to post another poem to link to today’s writing because I did it yesterday and I don’t want this to become a quote journal but I think it’s too good to pass up – so here it is: A longer and more beautiful way of saying, best block, no be there. Written by Portia Nelson.

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost… I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place.
But, it isn’t my fault.
It still takes me a long time to get out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in. It’s a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault. I get out immediately.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

I walk down another street.”

This morning I married a couple in a truly exquisite apartment in Mutual Heights in the middle of town. The couple – even better than the apartment. Only their mothers were with them. Their mothers were the ring bearers; their mothers threw basmati rice over them at the end of the ceremony; and their mothers were their witnesses.

I decided on which reading to do in the ceremony after meeting them. It begins, “this is everything I have to tell you about love” and then the bride, Sarah finished the sentence, “nothing“. She explained that her friend had sent her a voicenote last night, reading the piece and that had been the first time she’d ever heard it. Today was the second.

I took this photo on my phone while I mosied around the apartment, admiring it, after the signing.

(You may not be able to read the writing so here is a close up).

This afternoon I took Kit to the Camps Bay tidal pool. There, she collected shells for a girl of about 8 who lay across a giant blowup swan. The girl would decide whether she liked the shells or not (she had another minion, older than her, also collecting shells). The only known parameters for the shells were that they needed to be white or blue (beautiful brown shell? Don’t even bother). This requirement proved tricky to explain to Kit. I helped Kit along by handing her appropriate shells. Some were nevertheless rejected. Absolutely no leeway was granted for the fact that Kit is 14 months old. Swan girl either liked the shell or she didn’t – it didn’t matter who handed it to her; it didn’t matter if it met the brief. I respect that.

At the tidal pool, I got to swim too. I waded into the water, lifted Kit up in my arms and went under. Kit thought this quite funny.

This evening I got to sit on the couch with my wife.

Just before bed I had to trek to the garage to get my dodgy phone charger cord that has a USB (because I couldn’t use my normal charger because loadshedding and because, infuriatingly, my Samsung charger has some ‘fancy’ port – if that’s the right term – that is not a USB and so can’t fit into our inverter, which is not an inverter, it’s some small box that I forget the name of but keeps our wifi going). Point is, to get to the garage, I had to cross the courtyard where I looked up to a clear sky and Orion’s Belt.

It was a good day.

Goodnight.

P.S Maybe some of you haven’t read Neil Gaiman’s piece of writing before. For your convenience (as we used to write in corporate) please find it herewithbelow.

All I Know About Love by Neil Gaiman

This is everything I have to tell you about love: nothing.
This is everything I’ve learned about marriage: nothing.

Only that the world out there is complicated,
and there are beasts in the night, and delight and pain,
and the only thing that makes it okay, sometimes,
is to reach out a hand in the darkness and find another hand to squeeze,
and not to be alone.

It’s not the kisses, or never just the kisses: it’s what they mean.
Somebody’s got your back.
Somebody knows your worst self and somehow doesn’t want to rescue you
or send for the army to rescue them.

It’s not two broken halves becoming one.
It’s the light from a distant lighthouse bringing you both safely home
because home is wherever you are both together.

So this is everything I have to tell you about love and marriage: nothing,
like a book without pages or a forest without trees.

Because there are things you cannot know before you experience them.
Because no study can prepare you for the joys or the trials.
Because nobody else’s love, nobody else’s marriage, is like yours,
and it’s a road you can only learn by walking it,
a dance you cannot be taught,
a song that did not exist before you began, together, to sing.

And because in the darkness you will reach out a hand,
not knowing for certain if someone else is even there.
And your hands will meet,
and then neither of you will ever need to be alone again.

And that’s all I know about love.

 

Whoever (whomever?) brushes their teeth first must put toothpaste on the other person’s toothbrush. I thought this gesture was particular to Jess and I but I’ve married enough couples and spoken to enough couples about such small kindnesses that I know – it’s a thing. A common curtesy among lovers.

She who gets a snack must also get (or at least offer) a snack to her wife: Another rule in our household. The rule extends to drinks to and even water. This isn’t just among lovers – it’s just common decency. In our household, however, only one of us strictly abides by this rule. It is I.

Jess told me, after downing a glass of water – in.front.of.me – that “we’re fending for ourselves; that we’re in survival mode“. I reminded Jess that not only did I pack her lunch for work but breakfast and a snack too. Survival smival.

Jess conceded. I also reminded her that the other day she came upstairs with some salami, for herself – none in sight for me – and that on that very same day I had made her breakfast and left it outside her door.

I wish I could say there weren’t other instances. Whole sandwiches! Whole sandwiches made and eaten in front of me. The excuse there: “I didn’t know if you were hungry” – I was not home when one of these sandwiches was made. Pathetic excuse. Of course I want a sandwich.

On this Thursday, January 2023, Jess has sworn to be better. She came up to bed tonight and mentioned that there was a full glass of water downstairs for me. Better.

Photograph of the day: Kit’s awe in a tunnel of fish.

A swimming towel lay next to me on my way to Pringle Bay today. As I drove, every now and then, I’d see the towel and hope that I had thrown a cozy into the boot. This hope escalated when I drove over the bridge just before the Crystal Pools hike. The water. Oh the water! It looked spectacular. I started brainstorming about what I could swim in if my costume wasn’t in the boot.

Fortunately, when I arrived at Pringle Bay and opened the boot to get my ceremony book and registry, there was the cozy.

On the way back, I almost didn’t stop at the river mouth. I drove over the bridge, saw the water again, and decided to turn back. At first I thought I’d get away with just walking quite fast past the guard/capenature hut but a woman stopped me. Apparently I needed a permit (I kind of knew this).

“But I just want to swim down there,” I explained, pointing just over the rise.

“You need a permit.”

“So what must I do if I need to swim down there?”

She told me about a path on the other side of the road. I found it and then climbed down some rocks to where the darker blue of the sea found the shallower river bed. At that stage I was more in the blue than in the turquoise so I climbed a bit further, over some barbed wire towards the bridge.

After a quick change, I climbed into the water. It was perfect. I had fluked high tide and the turquoise water, warm but not too warm.  Honestly, it was one of the best swims of my life.

For the rest of the day I felt like someone had shared really incredible news with me – a lightness in my chest. Joy.

To think, I nearly didn’t stop.

Loadshedding has wiped out our wifi and for good measure, our cellphone reception too.

We live on Signal Hill.
We recently decided that we don’t need fibre as well as our wifi router (I’m not sure if that terminology is correct, maybe fibre also needs a router – whatever). We had both because the fibre doesn’t reach our spare room and we inherited it from Jess’ practice (she now practices from home) and it worked for us for a while.
We got back from holiday and our fibre had been disconnected due to an admin error and we decided to make it permanent and cut costs.
We regret that now. Apparently the wifi takes a hit from loadshedding that fibre shrugs off.
I’ve tried. I’ve turned it on and off, and ive hotspotted. I’ve come downstairs to sit next to the router and the heat of my laptop on my legs is turning a sweltering evening up a notch or 5.
I’ve resigned to post this in the morning then. I’ll work on doing my writing and taking my photograph in the morning, too. Yesterday I managed to do it at around 7pm (progress) and then tonight I’ve backslid … so let’s see. Slowly does it.
For now, in the darkness and with regard to my cooking thighs, I’m going to call it a night.
Today’s piece wasn’t meant to be about fibre or wifi, it was meant to be about the beach and how Kit found a big mussel shell and hung onto it, even through the waves. She watched it float and she carried it to her bucket and, watching how enamoured she was by it, I thought for a while that I would have to break my shell rule, just this once, because this was Kit’s first real possession. Something she chose and found and kept. The shell rule is the same as the rock rule: Shells belong where the salt water rushes over them. Shells belong under the sea and on the shore, with each other, in wild places, and NOT collecting dust on a bookshelf. That NOT seemed aggressive. Not.
For Kit though, oh for Kit, I considered breaking this rule. She could be the shells keeper. I had decided, she could bring it home in her bucket. But Kit, Kit had by then moved on to other things: Buckets and spades; a young man wearing a bucket hat; kelp buried so deep in the sand that she couldn’t pull it out – infuriating!
P.S The power came on five minutes after I shut my laptop and put it away.
P.S.S Jess promised me that no one would zoom in on my legs to see if they were smooth. Don’t.
Photograph of the day: The sand, Kit and I. Camps Bay Beach. Look at those toes!

For my wedding, I chose the song, Crowded Table by The Highwomen. It was meant to be a surprise for Jess on the day. On the morning of our wedding, I was so anxious and so emotional (nothing to do with marrying Jess) that I kept pressing play on my “secret” “aisle” song. I write “aisle” because, of course, there was none – we got married on an wide open beach. “Secret” because Jess heard me push play and panic and try stop the song at least twice when I was showing a friend which song I wanted them to play on cue. For my sake, she pretended she didn’t hear it. Whenever I think of that small kindness – even on stressful days like today – it makes me smile.

In the song, there’s a line about a garden. It goes, “if we want a garden, we’re gonna have to sow the seed“. I led the ceremony at a wedding on 10 December with a similar message that came from a reading Jess and Brandon chose. It said, “The more wonderful the garden, the more skilled the gardener“.

I like gardening. I’m not very good at it. Yet. I want the plants to grow faster even though sometimes I forget to water them. Gardening is teaching me patience and consistency, and I have a long way to go.

At the back of our house, there are retainer blocks. I hate retainer blocks. I mean, ya, they retain and everything but I hate the way they look. So I’m trying to create a vertical garden to cover them. It’s slow going. It’s trial and error.

Since we were away for a near on a month, occasionally I imagined my vertical garden and what it might look like on my return. That’s one of my favorite things about returning home – seeing how much things have grown.

My vertical garden looked sad though. Dry. Thirsty. Barely showing improvement.

I’m back to watering it, trying to do it every day – even when the day doesn’t go to plan – even when the plan is obliterated.

A few weeks ago I read something on Instagram that struck a cord with me: Normalise ordinary houses. Non-magazine houses. Houses that families live in. Toys scattered. Washing on the line. Here’s my contribution: You should know that all these clothes are dry. You should know that I made no attempt to take them off the line. You should know that my vertical garden looks a lot better at this angle than it does straight-on. You should know that I hate these retainer blocks. You should know that I wish I had moved that damn dishcloth.

 

Tonight I’m late to write and I thought I’d get away with typing next to a sleeping Kit but she woke, sat up, smiled and looked at the laptop like she would quite like to send an email.

She is down again now and rather than risk waking her, I pried (is that how you spelt it?) my t-shirt out of her clasped hand. I write this, cross-legged on the carpet next to the bed. Due to these working conditions, I’m going to call it ‘early’ and climb back into my bed.

My wife and I have been reading the Jack Carr series on Kindle. I think Jess is on book 6 or something and I’m on book 3. In the books, the main character (who Jack Reacher fans will love, by the way) mentions a SEAL motto or philosophy: Slow is smooth; smooth is fast”.

I like it. And I really need more of that in my life. Me and the SEALS.

And so, as a family, we are trying to slow down. Put things in their place. Buy ourselves some more breathing room by being organised. Today we did good. We unpacked carefully and took our time.

I took things so slow that by 8pm, after the park, supper and bath time, I hadn’t yet taken my photograph. I took my phone into the garden, searching for inspiration and found the asparagus fern.

When I looked back at the photographs, I saw that I must’ve taken one, accidentally, as I made my way out of the flower bed. I think it like it more than the focused one. In case anyone thinks I’m trying to tie this into what I said before about being slow and smooth and fast, I’m not. I just like the photograph better. I’ll post both so that you can decide for yourself (selves? More than one person reading this? More than one person that’s not my wife? Wonderful. Thank you. Time is so precious and I’m so glad you’ve chosen to spend some here.

P.S I asked Jess this evening if she reads my posts. She said she does. Every day. She said sometimes she reads them in the middle of the night. That made me smile.

P.S.S Hello my love.

In November 2020, a couple days before Jess and I got married, my aunt came to visit us at my parents’ home in Plett. She had her granddaughter – also Jessica – in tow. Together, they delivered a large wooden box and a tree sapling.

Within the box, there were many cards, with messages about love and timing and grace and a child waiting to be ours. There were also dandelion seeds and porcupine quills and the distinct red and black of pod mahogany seeds. Many of these treasures came from Londolozi, where I spent the first year of my life.

The mahogany seeds were from a tree that my parents planted in what was once their garden. My father brought seeds from an impressive tree he saw elsewhere in the Kruger. Thirty years on, their tree (my parents’ tree) stands at an impressive height now.

At my cousin’s wedding, as one of the rites of passage before their ceremony, she planted, with her soon-to-be husband, a sapling grown from the seed of my parents’ pod mahogany. Those of us privileged enough to be at the wedding had a chance to throw soil on the roots of what would grow into another beautiful tree.

The sapling that my aunt brought to the Plett house that morning also grown from the seed of my parents’ pod mahogany. Kneeling alongside the box of treasures and the sapling, I cried.

The sapling came home with Jess and I to Sea Point (where we lived then). I went out to find a pot fitting enough for the tiny tree and placed it in the shade of our outdoor courtyard.

When storms came – and they did – I would run out into the rain to bring the pod mahogany inside, and then take it outside again when I deemed it safe. I did the same when strong winds came. I needed this tree to grow; to survive. As we underwent egg retrievals and IVF treatments, I watched it carefully. Not much happened. Some new leaves grew but then fell off quite soon after. I worried.

Last January I came home to find it had more than double in size. This year, on returning home, I find that, again, it has thrived in the heat and the neglect, doubling again, outgrowing its pot.

A fiddle leaf fig in a pot outside didn’t fair as well. Caterpillars got it. Big hairy ones that chomped on the leaves that took so so long to appear. What is the fiddle leaf fig doing outside, you ask? It is, after all, unaccustomed to such conditions. There is a hierarchy of fiddles in our home. Only one – the grandest by far – claims a corner in the house, in our room. I’m happy to report she has one new big leaf.

Kit ‘watered’ the courtyard pots this evening, mimicking her grandmother, but there was no water in the watering can. Tomorrow I shall give the garden the real deal.

This is to all to say, we are home.

Photograph of the day: Jess’ side-table lamp reflected in the window against the bougainvillea. Also, below, the bougainvillea, without anything stealing its thunder.

 

 

The post that I lost on 7 January has been found. It was published as a whole page instead of a post on my blog. Between CONTACT and BLOG, there appeared the title of the blog, Hat Head, as though it had enough clout to warrant a top tab on the website. I copied the writing and deleted the page. Tonight, since I’m close to sleep and it’s my last night in Plett, I’m going to cheat a little and paste what I wrote on 7 January 2023 for today’s post. The photograph is from today – all sky and sea.

Here’s that lost and found piece:

A few months ago before bed, I looked in the mirror and I had a lot of mascara running down my face. I told Jess I was upset that we’d spent a whole evening together and she hadn’t told me about the mascara.

“If you don’t tell me, who will?”

Granted, we were at home in our pjs and spent most of the evening following a one year old around and the mascara wasn’t on the top of Jess’ list to worry about. But she apologised and said she’d tell me next time.

Today I got ready for the wedding in my parents’ room because Jess and Kit were having a nap in our room and because I was leaning heavily on my moms closet since I brought ‘civvies’ on holiday. The first item I tried on was a lilac suite. Moira, my mom, likes match matchy. For her, if she can wear everything of the same color (and even tone within that color), it’s a good day.

The lilac suite was a lot and I knew it was a lot. What I didn’t know was whether it was a lot in a good way – fashion forward. I messaged Jess: Are you awake? I need fashion advice.

Jess came into the room and told me that the suite wasn’t ‘me’. I looked at Jess’ pants. Jess saw me looking at her pants, and offered, “Do you want to try these?”

Jess sat on my parents bed with no pants on while I tried on her black linen pants. She sat like that as I tried on various jackets, telling me what looked best. After a while, I offered my tracksuit pants to Jess said, “Thanks, I felt quite exposed”.

Jess then went back downstairs while I riffled in my mother’s exquisitely neat draw for some base. When applying the base, I thought it looked a bit dark for my mom but reasoned if it works for her, it would work for me.

When Jess next saw me, it took her all of three seconds to tell me my base was far too orange. I then used Jess’ base, which is lighter than my skin tone, asking her whether she thought it best to take off the orange base and then apply the lighter one or just apply the lighter one on top. I went with the latter option. And something about it, I tell you, it just worked.

Arriving at Alkira, in Knysna, I noticed that most people had a white hat on. For a moment I thought I had somehow missed a dress-code but looked closer and saw that they all had the exact same kind of hat on.

Soon I located the basket with hats, put one on and then went to the bathroom – not to go to the loo but to check my hair was okay under the hat. I knew the hat worked. I knew because I look good in any hat that fits. I have what is known in my family as a hat head. A head that looks exceptional in hats – all hats.

One afternoon when Jess and I were newly dating, Jess sat on my bed and tried to claim the title of hat head (only three held it at the time). She proceeded to prove her hat head worthiness by trying on all the hats available – there were quite a few because why wouldn’t I have a lot of them when I look good in them. Let me tell you – she looked sensational in every single hat. Sensational. But I couldn’t tell her that. I had to keep that information to myself, pretend that the verdict was still out. How could I give her a title in the first month? No. She would have to try on A LOT more hats to earn that.

The caveat – any hat that fits – is necessary in my case because I also have the largest woman’s head in pretty much any room (I talking circumference here). I’ve tested it before with an adjustable cap. My head doesn’t look big but it is big.

The hat at today’s wedding was up to the task and so for the first time, I did a ceremony with a hat on. The hat wasn’t the best part of the ceremony. The best parts of the ceremony, in no particular order, were these:

*Kent cried on seeing Charlotte walking down the aisle. I know this because I saw it and also because I had to remove a tiny bit of tissue on his face (only I could see it due to the way we were standing).

*Charlotte giggles when she’s nervous – she told me this and I heard her mom mention it to Kent before he came down the aisle. True to form somewhere in the middle of the second reading she started to giggle and I called her out on it and then lost my place. We laughed.

*When Charlotte’s bridesmaid, Steff came up to do her reading and her phone refused to unlock and she blamed Siri.

*On the ‘repeat-after-me’s Kent was meant to say ‘my faith in our strength together’ but said ‘my face in our strength together’ instead, and so when it was Charlotte’s turn, she also said ‘my face in our strength together’ to make sure her vows were they same as Kent’s.

*Although Charlotte and Kent have made a home in London, it is Knysna that has their hearts which is why they chose to get married here.

The magic in ceremonies happens when you allow the unplanned room – when you greet it and make space for it and giggle about it.

Years ago my dad met a guy in the bush who told him he could find honey.

Keen to go find the honey with this man, my dad asked him, “when will we be back at the lodge?”

“After we find the honey.”


Photograph of the day: A piece of advice sometimes does the rounds about never missing a sunset. Kit lives by the same philosophy, only with water. Never miss an opportunity to get into water. The bird bath, the ocean, a big blue bucket, a dripping gutter after the rain, a garden hose pipe – get involved, even if it means getting changed 5 times a day.