I think I’m finally living.
Sitting on a bench in my garden, looking at the afternoon light flop into the kitchen like an old familiar friend. Every day at the same time, like clock work. Lighting up the place, a feeling of warmth and comfort settles throughout. A sight for sore eyes I tell you, this little hut I found at the foot of the Cape Point mountains.
About three years ago I was struggling to find a place for both work and living. Being a jeweller with a workshop seemed a tall order for landlords to agree on, add my sporadic income tally to the mix and I was the worst candidate for any and all rental agents. Every time the credit check came around the deal would fall through. For the first time in my life, my financial standing was a spanner in the works, it touched on how far removed I was from functioning within the system and it made me feel utterly insecure and childlike. Was I failing at being an adult?
By then, the two years of life in Cape Town was tough as nails and I was starting to think that I really didn’t belong here. I understand that moving is stressful on all fronts, it imprints and brings things out on a spiritual, mental, emotional and physical level, if you feel it or not. But this was more than the move. My body was in full shut down mode and desperately trying to tell me things. I had multiple injuries. My romantic relationships were failing one after the other. I was overwhelmed with how fast things were moving in a city and desperately trying to slow things down. I was awkward socially. I couldn’t cope with having to be everywhere all the time in order to make friends. My flow and alignment felt out, I had a serious case of fatigue from just existing. Cape Town was exhausting. Especially moving from the Garden Route to what was New York for me at the time. You know, the whole “Concrete jungle where dreams are made of” that song by Alicia Keys. I needed a change of scenery and I had this idea about Cape Town. I honestly thought that I was going to find a life and adventure partner and came here, partly, for exactly that. But my idea and reality were worlds apart.
I would like to thank my intuition, life circumstances, higher self or whatever it was that made me move because looking back at the unfolding of events life handed me exactly what I needed. Of course I didn’t know it at the time. I have moved for love, only once in my life before. The move to Cape Town wasn’t for love, it was feeling ready to find love again three years after stepping out of a long term relationship. Don’t you just love it when life lures you with new prospects of love but then hands you the abyss of self-discovery instead. Life is clever like that, she must have known that deep down buried in the recesses of my heart lives the desire for togetherness and although I would never admit it, I would move mountains to find it. Using that to move me to a place that held my healing in ways I could never imagine was a sneaky hand to play. Well played universe, well played.
Life out here is slow. Rain water collected from the tank behind the house. Boiled and cooled for drinking later. Candles are lit when the sun sets and just before dawn. Softening practices I call them. Somewhere along the line life really scared the shit out of me and ever since then I’ve dedicated my existence to finding places that bring me peace. Places that make me feel safe to unfold, where I don’t feel threatened by the depth of the seven seas I hold. The Fynbos Shack as it has become known over the years, has been one such safe space.
After the fifth or sixth viewing through multiple rental agencies I gave up. I decided word of mouth was still the most powerful tool out there and ended up on a social media page in a place I didn’t even live but was allowed access to. Plenty of house rentals popped up on the daily but there was always some catch that I couldn’t see myself living with so the search continued. One random morning mid-way through a third cup of coffee I checked the socials and I read a post on someone asking if anyone has a two bedroom place available in or near Kommetjie. I followed the thread of comments, probably out of desperation, and there it was. A comment on someone that knew someone that has a cottage near Cape Point. Comments like “it’s too far, is it safe, where is that even?” followed and I knew I found what I have been searching for. I contacted the person directly and asked about the cottage. Turns out she was the last person to live in it. The very next day I called the landlord, viewed it and solidified the rental.
On my way out to the farm to view the cottage, I was suddenly overcome with memories of my grandmother. She passed away when I was younger but she felt like the safest place I’ve ever been. One evening, late at night, she jumped in her land rover with just the clothes on her back to cross the border into South Africa from Tanzania. She had to flee to safety, leaving her farm, her life and all she had behind in order to save herself and her children. I felt like I was her right there and then. I was leaving my old life behind to start a new one and it was a matter of life or death. I was driving to save myself, to find my safe space, a small hut nestled among the fynbos at the foot of the Cape Point mountains.
I’ll be turning forty-one this year. I am more single than ever before. I have no kids, no dogs and I still don’t own a home. But I’m going to let you in on a little secret, I get to drink tea with peace on the daily. I get to choose how my days unfold. I decide who I want to spend time with. I play, draw, nap, sing, dance, garden, read, surf, run, walk as I please. It has been the loneliest, darkest, toughest, intense, uncomfortable, scary few years of roaming my own inner landscapes but they have been the most rewarding too. To arrive at a place with your feet dirty and firmly planted on the ground, a feeling of belonging in your body and your bones, messy hair and a sparkle in your eye is a rather rare place to arrive at and not because of someone outside of yourself, but because of yourself.
Although I’m happy about having arrived in this season of my life, feeling the way I do, the journey here has been hard and continues to be. Once awake and aware, you can’t go back to sleep. To come face to face with yourself and then decide to stay is a radical act of acceptance.
There is nothing left to prove, to find or force. All this time I was merely looking for myself.
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