Small town thoughts

The leaves are turning on the vines on the other side of the tunnel, just their edges starting to bleed red as Autumn throws her cloak over us. I don't like the tunnel. It makes me claustrophobic as I try not to breathe, every time reminded of the fact that it is impossible for a person not to breathe for that long, without dying. I endure it, however, in order to leave the heaving city behind us. We are in the country, separated from the bright lights by the towering mountains.

As I've said, possibly ad nauseum, I love small towns. I grew up in first one – a place where the land was flat, the soil red, mielie fields abounded and the sky stretched all the way to space – and then another – where the earth was unstable, a patchwork of holes beneath the surface threatening to swallow houses at any moment. Both were places where, if you went into ‘town’ on an afternoon, you would run into at least two people you knew well enough to stop and chat for ten minutes. We borrowed sugar from the neighbours, rode our bikes everywhere, people knew your name.

The small town we went to is one of those that claims to be a little shoowow, you know the type - they have a 'Retreat' which does yoga and runs 'Silent Retreats'. They claim to be on ley lines and talk of spiritual energies and such. I probably don't have to point it out that, while I love a good hippy, I do snigger a little at those that are a little overboard with the shoowow stuff.

Anyway, it's a lovely little peaceful town, surrounded by mountains. The air is clear, they have donkeys, and we needed a night of starshine and peaceful sleep, which we got. We arrived early, visited the donkeys and stroked their noses, scratched behind their ears and bequeathed them carrots. They seemed pleased by the whole thing.

After donkey-stroking we ambled into the village to eat some lunch, a very delicious meat and cheese platter accompanied by a crisp glass of white wine from the valley. We'd decided to braai in the evening, our house being blessed with a fabulous verandah on which to watch the sun set and braai some meat, as good South Africans should on a Saturday. Asking the deli lady about where to buy meat, she showed us her 'deli sausage' and pronounced that there was "nowhere else in town that sells meat. Other than the Chinese Supermarket." The last statement was accompanied by a disturbing sniff of contempt.

So off we traipsed, to investigate ourselves why this should be. It's a supermarket, in the first half of town which we discovered, on our journey, to be the 'coloured area', owned by a Chinese couple, with very little English, but smiley and welcoming. The shelves were filled with necessities and smelt like a proper, farm shop - furniture polish, maize meal - a comforting, childhood smell. Above the meat freezers hung a disturbing array of sexy lingerie. I guess maybe there's a market for it in Small Town South Africa.

Ahead of us in the queue were a patently poor family, buying milk, bread, some fruit, with a toddler who was wailing because he'd picked up a chocolate and his mother had whipped it away instantly and put it back. They paid, and as they were walking out, the shopkeeper reached beneath the till and pulled out a handful of sweets, handing them to the snivelling child, turning his tears into smiles.

I wished I had the gall to go back up the road to the sniffy deli lady and tell her this sweet story (ahem) and encourage the occasional amble over the invisible line dividing the town, but I didn't. Instead we marvelled at this country we live in, still so full of prejudices and segregation, but never stopping trying to make it better. I suppose it all takes time.

Topsy-turvy, be mine

It's a strange world, this one we live in, a twirly-whirly ride of ups and downs over which, sometimes, we think we have control and, most of the time, we realise we have none. Whatsoever. I'm quite glad of that, though. There is magic everywhere.

Gadzooks, I'd hate to feel like I had any kind of control. Out-of-control has always appealed, despite my being a particularly organised sort. Organised in some aspects, the ones that, I am hoping, hoping, hoping, allow the rest to be completely and utterly and mind-blowingly, topsy-turvy all over the place.

The fat moon laughs at me from high in the sky, taunting and teasing.

I'm craving topsy-turvy, I am.

Hatching a plan

So, there I was thinking. Not an unusual thing for me, perhaps even “too usual.” I was thinking of the surrealism of it, the difference between this world I live in, here in the city, and the one I long for, there under the wide sky. Trying to rid myself of the feeling of suffocation that it is (has always) instilled in me.

The thing is that it is so hard to quantify. I do love it here, too, of course. I wouldn’t stay if I didn’t (or would I?)… It is beautiful, I am blessed with mountains and sea and vineyards and wonderful friends, what more could I ask for? To be rid of the claustrophobia, that’s what. I am trying hard not to be whingy and ungrateful, because I have so much to be grateful for. I’m just struggling with it.

I keep looking out of my window, like those sad penguins at the aquarium staring out of their glass cage to the sea beyond, and wishing for that big sky, that fresh air, that magic. The magnetism of that place seems to pull more each time I go there, until, at some point, it will become impossible to ignore. At some stage, I get the feeling that I will be pulled back there, even if I try to stay.

G felt it too. We’ve decided it’s time to hatch a plan, to get it right, to make it work. We're aiming for next Autumn, and I'm putting this in writing because, well, then it'll be more tangible.

Dreaming of wheat fields

We followed the ribbon of tar that leads upupup into Africa to the desert, drove past the Ugly Duckling Beauty Salon and looked into the Lucky Lips Café in the small town that boasts that it’s the cleanest town in the country.Then we left it behind us and drove through fields of bright green lucerne, to the even smaller town, the one that doesn’t even have a petrol pump, the one where Tannie Anna stood outside the bottle store, red guitar in hand.

To a cottage with thick stone walls and a fireplace, surrounded by stillness. I could breathe, huge lungsful of clear, crisp Winter air, the sounds of birds twittering. We ambled over to the pub, me with my book, G to watch the rugby upstairs. The view from my window looked like a painting – two adjoining fields, one golden, one emerald in the fading afternoon sun before the clouds came over, bursting with big, fat drops.

She’s from Holland, so doesn’t speak Afrikaans, the pretty girl that walked in looking for Oliver. He was upstairs, watching the rugby, but she sat next to the bar and ordered a tomato juice. It was taken to the kitchen and seemed to be taking awfully long, which we started discussing. I asked if she wanted a Bloody Mary, because it seemed that was what was coming and she told me that no, she couldn’t, because deep inside her a tiny foetus is growing. I clasped this secret information to my breast, a beautiful little glimpse into somebody else’s life, as I explained to the bar lady in Afrikaans, feeling protective of this stranger and her little secret burrowed inside her, that just tomato juice was required, no vodka.

We chatted for a bit, then I returned to my book until a disappointed-in-the-rugby G came down and we ate tomato bredie in front of the fire to warm our tummies and cheer her up. A young girl and her boyfriend were entertaining the boyfriend’s parents in the next room and she kept escaping and coming to chat, exclaiming they were the only two in the village under 50-year’s old. We spoke of longing to be in such a place and her boyfriend basically invited us to stay with them, desperate for young(er) company.

And then back to our little cottage with its fireplace and rietdak ceiling, the rain playing music on the tin roof. Even the manager was away for the weekend so it was all ours. Blissfully quiet, woken by birds and the sound of the church bells up the hill.

Driving home we took a back road, through emerald lucerne fields dotted about with lambs, it was surreally beautiful and I wished not to go back to the city. I pleaded with G to turn left and not right, gulping air, feeling wistful. She was feeling the same as we trudged back into the city lights. My heart feels heavy with a longing that I fear may consume me.

Claustrophobia

It's not that I wish to be ungrateful. I suppose nobody 'wishes' to be ungrateful. I know I live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. We've got a mountain on one side and the ocean on the other and vineyards just over there and, oh wait, some more ocean yonder and then... more mountains. I can't deny it, it's gorgeous. But it's the city.

Between that mountain and that sea are claustrophobic house after house after flat block all cut through with two-lane, three-lane, four-lane roads filled with shiny cars pushingandshovingandrushing places. From one big building with reflecting windows (the mountain showing itself again, in reverse) to the next, filled with glitzy shops and the sound of tills guzzling money for useless things that are pretty. While there, below the bridge, people sit on stained matresses, eat tossed-out leftover chips and watch those shiny cars filled with useless but pretty stuff pass, pushingandshovingandrushing places.

Oh yes, I know those people are in Small Towns too, some worse off than those below the bridge. It's just that there, over there, the four-lane highway doesn't exist, the lady at the guzzling till knows your name and when you step out of the shop, still with some useless but pretty stuff, there is air. And it just seems that, with that amount of air, and not too much pushingandshovingandrushing places there may be a little more time to care.

Claustrophobic, me?

The man at the bar

I wondered why he was staring, from the other side of the well-designed, super-interior-decorated smoking lounge of the smart new hotel that we were having a drink at. It was Friday, I was splashing out and having a cocktail to celebrate the end of a long week - the ominous sounding Strawberry Haze. It was sweet and pink and in a champagne glass. I thought, perhaps, that's what he was looking at. But it wasn't.

He was a round man, a typical-looking South African man. He didn't quite fit in with the bright young things at the next table in their designer clothes and put-on animated expressions. They were talking about a company golf day, cars with big engines, girlfriends who have facials. He wasn't talking about anything, being alone. And staring. I decided to smile.

A minute later he came over and offered us a drink. G mistook him for the waiter, very funny. We fumbled our way out of that and he joined us, apologising for staring. Not some mad, starey, stalker, just a small town man in The City Beneath the Mountain for a conference. Alone, lonely, and sweet-as-can-be.

I can't remember when last a man offered to buy me a drink (oh, except that rugby lout occassion, which hardly counts), or met a stranger in a bar and made friends with him, exchanging numbers because he knows a guy who knows a guy who could be a great help to me. It just doesn't happen all that often in the city. I miss Small Towns and their Small Town People, like me.

A day away

Through the back streets to avoid the traffic, I forgot to take into account the weekday working people, poor things, sweatily going places importantly, driving too fast, frowning too much, not seeing four pretty girls chattering in The Silver Unicorn, heading for the hills. Girls, I use the word lightly, more for our presence of mind than our real ages.

We left the choking traffic behind and found ourselves amidst vines all ready for the changing season, the tips of their leaves yellowing, the ground dry and hard, waitingwaitingwaiting for the Winter rains. In the air, the smell of the grapes being 'stomped' and starting their fermentation was thick and, honestly, not entirely pleasant. Not surprising I suppose, it being fermentation and all.

We threw our bags into the beautiful rambling Cape Dutch house that was ours for the night and drove out the other side of town where we drank champagne as the light faded next to a dam with a lady who had a skirt made of rocks. The farm's ridgeback puppy, already enormous, fell in love with us, and us with him.

Back to our wooden-floored, thick-walled house, they dipped themselves in the pool and I watched the steam come off them as I listened to the hadedas heading home through the clouds that turned pink as the sun disappeared behind the towering mountain. Sounds idyllic, doesn't it? It was.

A dinner filled with laughter and stories, we were the only guests mid-week out-of-season, our waitress answering "Why not?" each time we asked for anything, and showing us pictures of her son and daughter on her phone. Red wine from down the road, rich, deep red, vampirical (I know, there's no such word, but it just suits it) like the mosquitoes that swarmed and buzzed.

We sat on the stoep and it seemed the word had spread as the quiet street suddenly had numerous cars driving past and slowing to look at us. Four women, on their own, out in the middle of the week, seemingly with no cares in the world. Just for tonight Little Town, just for tonight.

Sleep in a house filled with hundreds of years of other people's dreams and breakfast in a cutesy shop filled with cutesy things and homemade jams with computer-printed labels. I want homemade jam with a handwritten label, please. Demanding City Girl.

Moments of confusion, moments of clarity and home again, to moments of a different kind completely.

The house with two numbers

It was Small Town South Africa of the 80’s at its best. Our telephone number only had four digits – 3583. I lived in Beatrix Street for years, first at number 11, then number 33, but they were both the same house.

I’ll explain. At the end of the street was a large piece of veld with nothing on it except a huge rain drain that ran through the middle. During summer thunderstorms children would go down the roaring rapids that would appear suddenly on blown up tyres. Unfortunately, the rapids would disappear just as quickly, leaving us sitting on our tyres on the concrete floor of the drain.

About five years into our stay at number 11 they extended the road into the veld and built a whole bunch of little boxy houses down there. The problem was that number 1 started that end. But, my little Small Town South African Small Town didn’t let that get in the way of expansion. They just tipped it all over and started with number 1 at the opposite end, changing ours from 11 to 33 (and everybody elses from whatever to everwhat).

For years we got the previous-33-er’s mail and the previous-11-ers got ours. Essentially, it turned into a really good way to shake the street up and allow everybody to meet their neighbours. Then again, in Small Town South Africa, we knew everyone anyway.

I was just thinking, though, perhaps it’d be a good idea in The City Beneath the Mountain. While I know my neighbours, it is in a vague-wave-hello kind of way, as opposed to a may-I-borrow-an-egg-here’s-a-slice-of-the-cake-I-just-made-send-your-kids-over-here-while-you-shop way.

I wonder if I should send a letter to council suggesting turning the number chronology around of streets?

Small Town Sadness

There's something about Small Town South Africa that is dusty. Even a little town in the greenest, lushest valley has a layer of dust over it, like a house that needs a featherduster. The shops in the main street (and I'm talking generically here) generally have sparsely stocked shelves where you can find handcreams still in the bottles they were made in in the 80's and sewing kits with those little silver threaders in them. All made slightly dull with the layer of dust.

It's not only the literal dust, though. The buildings and, often, the people have it too. They don't gleam and shimmer like city buildings and city people. They don't knock down the ugly 70's shop that houses the Pep store (another Small Town requirement) to replace it with a steel and glass architectural monstrosity where beautiful people can sip cocktails while pouting their collagen-filled lips and blow air kisses at each other, falsely. Pep stays, it keeps the same stock of cheap and cheerful clothes, homeware and TV bars at the counter, as it did in my Small Town when I grew up. It still smells exactly the same.

It's real. I think that's why there's the dust. People are just humans, there is no need to silicone, liposuck, extend one's eyelashes because people here know who you are, they've watched you grow up, they've seen you fall, pick yourself up again. Good grief, they've talked about it on a Friday night at the bar. You've talked about them. It works both ways.

Our little town we went to had that dust and the Pep store. We drove through it on the Monday evening when we arrived, the wide main road looked at us quizzically in the afternoon sun. It was quiet but we thought that was just Small Town. The vaguely sad, still feeling was there each time we went into town (from our cottage on a farm next to the river) during the week.

We decided to have our hair cut while we were there, entranced by the local hairdressing salon: Hair by Me, opposite the garage. Me seemed a good person to give one's hair a trim. Stopping outside the shop on the Thursday, we noticed a small bunch of flowers, and a poster with a girl's name on it saying "In loving memory. 2010/09/06". The Monday we'd arrived. Me, the hairdresser was not there. She'd be back next week, according to a sign on her door.

On the Friday we stopped in for a beer at the bar. And there we heard why the little town was so still. A little girl, she was to turn 11 that Thursday, had been knocked over by a bus that was coming out of the garage opposite Hair by Me on her way to school on Monday morning. She had looked the wrong way and stepped in front of it. The funeral had been that morning.

The stillness of the town was not just a Small Town thing, it was a palpable sadness, the heart-wrenching brokenness of a place that had lost one of its young, way before her time.