Axis-tilting

Every now and again, out of the blue, one meets someone that will alter the axis of one's earth. It is, in my experience, always completely unexpected and absolutely bloody fabulous. Sometimes it's not absolutely bloody fabulous initially, but it always becomes so. I'm not necessarily talking about only lovers or relationships, which always get the kudos for these axis-tiltings.

No, I am talking about the whole range - from a conversation with a stranger in a post office queue that alters your thinking, to the three-day affair with somebody society considers Most Unsuitable, all the way through to the lovers. All of them, the people that shape the way you think, the way you live, the way you love.

As Spring springs here on the tip of Africa and the birds begin a nest-building flurry amidst the sensual fragrance of jasmine twisting through the blossoms, I am reminded of one such creature. Once upon a time, a long time ago now, I fell whirwindingly in love with a Most Unsuitable Boy. I knew right at the beginning that it wouldn't last, that it couldn't last, that my heart would break, but for that short, electric period of time, I didn't care.

And did my heart break? Hell, yes. His too. But we knew it was going to happen, the inevitability of it made the electricity spark and crackle so much more brightly, a will-o-the-whisp amongst a drugdery-filled marsh, a firework display above a void.

Was it worth it? Absolutely. A reminder of a life to be lived, a heart that doesn't live within the confines of an ordinary life, blood pumping strongly through ones veins, air filling ones lungs, under a bright, star-filled sky.

You knock the breath out of me

Ah, how bored I have become with my whitterings on computers and the such. Indeed, I have. Although, before I relegate it all to the dusty archives, let me just ay one more thing. The BFF has some fabulous music on this thing. I'm filling my head with tummy-twisting tunes of before. The type that throw you back at such a speed, your wind gets knocked out of you, leaving you breathless and flushed.

As a child, we had a swing made out of a long length of fraying rope tied to the Plain tree on our front pavement, with an old car tyre attched to it. I spent hours in it, swinging higher and higher into the bright blue sky that I could see through the leaves, flying through the air to places in my head.

One day, however, the frayed rope finally gave in, slamming me into the pavement, knocking the wind completely out of me. I remember lying there in the dappled shade of that beautiful, big tree, trying to take in a breath and not being able to, wondering if I was going to die.

I didn't (obviously). My mother, most fortunately, happened to come out of the front door (I wonder how mothers somehow just manage to do that?) She rushed over, sat me up, and rubbed my back to calm me, coaxing the breath back in, there on that grassy pavement in small town South Africa in the '80's. Having got my breath back, I sobbed uncontrollably into her chest - my first glimpse of my own mortality.

Flittery hot Saturday musings, with a head full of music. I think this might all just be an allegory for something else that's going on.