It is the 22nd October 2022. I am sitting on my little balcony in a little town called Antibes. I always feel that the South of France is a small place with a large in-your-face attitude. A place of little chit-chat at the morning market, a little work, small apartments. They add just a touch of coffee to an annoyingly tiny cup and a bit of olive oil to my toasted baguette with quatre fromages. It is the perfect time of year for me, where the mornings are crisp - as I always say, they bite - and the day is warm and sunny.
I am sitting here because I am wondering and trying to remember why a poem I researched at school had such a profound effect on my life. Why did I spend hours remembering it? Why do I see its meaning in every film I watch, every step I take, every country I visit, and every book I read? In every conversation I have. It was written by Fanie Olivier. As my mother tongue is Afrikaans, we studied Afrikaans poems. I remember sitting on one of those old South African school benches - you know the ones where people like to scribble A and C forever or stick their old chewed and gross gum. The smell of the wood, old, safe, musty, like something I assume you would find on a pirate ship.
The teacher started to read:
"besoekersboek" – Fanie Olivier
op die sel se mure het iemand uitgekrap
(of liewer: ingekrap): sy naam en al die dae
van sy duskantse verblyf. gaan mens op stap
deur duikweë stasies onder brûe bly draai die vrae
wie was die peter? waar kom pam vandaan?
hoe het die vriendskap tussen brian en ed begin?
sou w.a.l. se ouers hom meer as normaal geslaan het?
hoe lank het lieb sy liesbet bly bemin?
ek loer na hiërogliewe. ‘n boer het my gewys
waar jagtonele oorgebly het teen die krans.
vóór in die gideons se bybel is ‘n lang Iys
lesers wat hul teen sterflikheid probeer verskans.
‘n kind hoes seer; ‘n lam huil stomgemaak. ek skraap
moed bymekaar: ek was hier en hier het ek geslaap.
I guess I can translate it. Maybe some meaning will be lost.
"visitor's book" – Fanie Olivier
On the cell's walls someone scratched
(or rather: scratched in): his name and all the days
from his most recent accommodation. One goes for a walk
through underpasses, stations under bridges, the questions keep turning
Who was the Peter? Where does Pam come from?
How did the friendship between Brian and Ed begin?
Did W.A.L.'s parents beat him more than normal?
How long did Lieb keep loving his Liesbet?
I peer at hieroglyphs. A farmer showed me
where hunting scenes remained against the cliff.
Before in the Gideons' Bible, there is a long list
Readers trying to hedge against mortality.
A child coughs badly; muffled, a lame cry. I scrape
Gather courage: I was here and here I slept.
Here I slept indeed.
I remember that as a student, I used to go to Bohemia in the old town of Stellenbosch. You know, one of those places you discover as a student. Where you can get the two-for-one specials and pretend to hear the people across the table from you above the pounding of the boombox. You hold your pee in so long before you feel you will burst, as you do not want to take a walk and stand in that never-ending queue for the disgusting, pee-smelling toilet. Eventually, you sit down on that toilet seat, you know the one your mother warns you against, and behind the toilet door, there would always be scribbles. Sometimes the scribbler would be really rude and scribble over someone else's writing - I mean, come on, if you are going to pretend to be Banksy, at least have some class. I would look up, read, wonder, and try to make sense. Why do people have to write their names? Why do they think anyone cares who loved who and who slept with who? Who cares where you have slept and with whom? Why am I writing here?
I cannot pretend to assume or know what the writer of that poem meant. I think everyone has the need to be heard, the need to be seen, the need to be remembered. The need to be better than the one before.
Meaning?
I am more in tune with that need now that I am pregnant. Or at least, the need has become more pronounced.
Sometimes you just want to talk something to death, as my husband would say. I am the master of talking things to death.
Probably why so many of us swipe on Tinder, post on Facebook, and hashtag on Instagram. Humans, I have noticed, want to define themselves on the outside and put things in categorically labeled boxes. Jennifer Pastiloff wrote a whole damn book about listening and the need to be heard. Jen, if you are reading this, I am your biggest fan. Throughout this blog, you will notice how I refer to her writing repeatedly. She has one of those writing voices that just stay in my head, becoming the first thing I think of when I wake up at 2 a.m. - a voice to read while reading and having a bath with some wine. Her, Glennon Doyle, and Elizabeth Gilbert. When they write, they speak, almost like sitting here talking to me with a glass of wine. Not from some high place of literary wonder. Or some quasi-intellectual bullshit. No. A friend to a friend. A sister to a sister. A wise old aunt.
I do not have the answer to this question that has plagued me for most of my early thirties and late twenties, I guess this blog (and hopefully book) is my attempt, for the first time, to jump on this bandwagon. I need to put myself on paper. I need to write it out of me, whatever "it" is. I need someone to read it. I need to process. Maybe especially now since I am pregnant, one tends to revisit one's life, one's choices, one's whole definition. I wish for my daughter to read this, my very own long letter to her, much like the book "’n Baie lang brief man my dogter."
I sit here and wonder, how?
How am I supposed to write? I have done it before, but never to this extent.
How does one write a book/blog without making it some self-help thing? Some ego endeavor (which I guess, to some extent, it will be). It then hit me one late night.
Do I not do this anyway as I voice note my friends? Where we dish out advice, funny stories, sipping wine trying to find meaning. Laughing while sitting around the WhatsApp campfires. So I made this decision to approach this book like a voice note - also, I am too lazy to type texts and WhatsApps to people, hence the voice note reference.
I have led an interesting life. Some days I feel sorry for myself. Some days I feel blessed. I have traveled extensively. Always thinking "more," I need to do more and I need to see more. More, more, more. The fatal human need for more. To sum it up - I think I have had three main professions before my mid-thirties: a student, a lawyer, a Yachtie. Now I am a yoga instructor, or at least trying to be. Disclaimer - I have no psychology qualification. I can simply point to the rocks I have stumbled upon, maybe even give you a giggle or two.
To shorten it - I was a small-town girl who became an advocate (most countries probably know this as a lawyer or solicitor), who left everything (including a long-term wealthy partner) for a sabbatical in India, met the love of my life there on a whim, and by what some would call fate, became a total backpacker, fell into yachting, found my center in yoga, and now I would like to think I am a writer. I want to scribble on this wall - I slept here.
Hopefully, along the way, I leave breadcrumbs for your life, even more so for mine.
xoxo
LS
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