a whispy white cloth shrouds the cable-car corner of table mountain, poetically censoring the preponderance of tourists in the city. the cloud beckons me to pull out a notebook and pen on oranje street. crossing the entrance to engen, a car almost drives into my thoughts as i scribble about this city, that cloud.
i see...pink vespa...tattooed skin...wire-and-beaded dragonflies...purple all-stars paired with the skinniest skinny jeans over un-skinny thighs. a man sitting on the sidewalk randomly shouts "happy lady!" to me and we exchange greetings. i smile thinking about what My Good Friends would say of this encounter and my mood today: "on sooooome 'suddenly i see'!"
i won't lie. i am enamoured by cape town. as i write, i feel particularly nostalgic. milan kundera reflects on the root of this word, nostaligia: 'nostos' means return, 'algos' means suffering. nostalgia is suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return. i leave the city in seven days. why is there a longing to return before i depart?
with the lens of a lover about to leave her beloved, i aim to write every last day; to write about living, loving and leaving the mother city. writing the city gives me a heightened awareness of is sights and i want to savour every last view that i may have taken for granted.
walking towards buitenkant street, i see the words 'we all share the same sun' chalked under a bridge. i pass a corner that leads me towards my doorstep. here, almost every day, i step over cardboard boxes that provide nightly shelters for people on the pavement opposite parliament. and i wonder if ministers notice - let alone discuss - the citizens that sit, sleep and live in front of their unseeing eyes.
good evening, cape town. six days to go.
(fieldnotes, 19 november)
i see...pink vespa...tattooed skin...wire-and-beaded dragonflies...purple all-stars paired with the skinniest skinny jeans over un-skinny thighs. a man sitting on the sidewalk randomly shouts "happy lady!" to me and we exchange greetings. i smile thinking about what My Good Friends would say of this encounter and my mood today: "on sooooome 'suddenly i see'!"
i won't lie. i am enamoured by cape town. as i write, i feel particularly nostalgic. milan kundera reflects on the root of this word, nostaligia: 'nostos' means return, 'algos' means suffering. nostalgia is suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return. i leave the city in seven days. why is there a longing to return before i depart?
with the lens of a lover about to leave her beloved, i aim to write every last day; to write about living, loving and leaving the mother city. writing the city gives me a heightened awareness of is sights and i want to savour every last view that i may have taken for granted.
walking towards buitenkant street, i see the words 'we all share the same sun' chalked under a bridge. i pass a corner that leads me towards my doorstep. here, almost every day, i step over cardboard boxes that provide nightly shelters for people on the pavement opposite parliament. and i wonder if ministers notice - let alone discuss - the citizens that sit, sleep and live in front of their unseeing eyes.
good evening, cape town. six days to go.
(fieldnotes, 19 november)
4 comments:
love your writing, love cape town (and miss it madly!) and LOVE LOVE LOVE you! x
merci :)! love you too joonam! xox
awwww...cape town is gonna miss you! :(
WE are gonna miss you!!
please lets meet up for a goodbye hug before you go! oxox
i love this a lot :) xx
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