Well hello there 2019: on family holidays and new beginnings
'Tis the season for families to be thrust together for uncomfortably protracted periods of time. At least in the Southern Hemisphere, this is our long summer holiday and the children are on weeks long school vacation which can be tricky for working parents. And for those not working, the extra expense of holidays and gift giving can weigh heavily as the always far-too-long month of January looms with its 100 bills to pay.
Yet, it is also a time for thanksgiving, for reminiscing, and even celebrating. As always, the reality is far more complex than the holiday photos can capture.
We arrived back home after gallivanting all over Southern Africa (paid for as per usual by renting out our house through AirBnB) on the very first day of 2019. I understand that there are very mixed feelings about the birth of a new year, which might explain why so many choose to drink themselves into oblivion, although from what I witnessed over the holidays, just about any excuse will do!
It strikes me that alcohol like oh, let's say endless scrolling of the so-called social networks, is a refuge from having to engage with feeling too much in this messy playground of life. It's one way to get out of having to DO anything, let alone the hardcore inner work that only each one of us can do for ourselves.
One evening I walked down the windy broad beach of Ponta de Ouro in Mozambique and saw two grown men hugging, this unusual show of affection between men softened my heart until I saw that they were both wasted. Surely it is something worth pondering, this need to be completely sozzled before accessing any kind of human warmth.
Is it possible to see things clearly and just accept them?
Is it responsible?
I do feel that people must live as they choose, however problems arise when your choices negatively affect my choices. How many road accidents, including the deaths of my own dear friends, can be attributed directly to alcohol abuse. The stats are alarming.
Worth considering are the majority who survive, but in the shadow of violence or even the twisted equating of love with booze.
Just after we left Ponta I saw a reported head-on collision right there. I also heard tell of inebriated South Africans beating up locals. I hang my head in shame. The Chinese have paved paradise and put up roads, including a very impressive and handy bridge to Maputo, cutting travel time significantly. In return all they've taken is everything. But who can blame a country impoverished by colonialism and 16 years of civil war from simply saying xiexie. This accessibility has meant that tourism has increased exponentially. And it seems to be of the hard drinking type. And really it is a dogged, self-destructive kind of consumption that simply breaks my heart.
I for one was delighted to greet the new year on top of a very hot koppie in the Karoo town of Prince Albert. We were graced with an inexplicable rainbow on a 40 degree dry as a bone evening. It felt like hope. My daughter longed for a midnight party. My son wisely ruminated on the dangers of assuming that others are like us and how much trouble that leads to in families and in society at large.
I hope that we can all learn to love ourselves a little more and respect each other a lot more in this and the years to come.
These are my hopes for the year.
What are yours?
Yet, it is also a time for thanksgiving, for reminiscing, and even celebrating. As always, the reality is far more complex than the holiday photos can capture.
 |
| Snapshots of surviving Mozambique. As my muse Virginia put it in The Waves:
I need silence, and to be alone and to go out, and to save one hour
to consider what has happened to my world, what death has done to my
world.
|
It strikes me that alcohol like oh, let's say endless scrolling of the so-called social networks, is a refuge from having to engage with feeling too much in this messy playground of life. It's one way to get out of having to DO anything, let alone the hardcore inner work that only each one of us can do for ourselves.
One evening I walked down the windy broad beach of Ponta de Ouro in Mozambique and saw two grown men hugging, this unusual show of affection between men softened my heart until I saw that they were both wasted. Surely it is something worth pondering, this need to be completely sozzled before accessing any kind of human warmth.
Is it possible to see things clearly and just accept them?
Is it responsible?
I do feel that people must live as they choose, however problems arise when your choices negatively affect my choices. How many road accidents, including the deaths of my own dear friends, can be attributed directly to alcohol abuse. The stats are alarming.
Worth considering are the majority who survive, but in the shadow of violence or even the twisted equating of love with booze.
Just after we left Ponta I saw a reported head-on collision right there. I also heard tell of inebriated South Africans beating up locals. I hang my head in shame. The Chinese have paved paradise and put up roads, including a very impressive and handy bridge to Maputo, cutting travel time significantly. In return all they've taken is everything. But who can blame a country impoverished by colonialism and 16 years of civil war from simply saying xiexie. This accessibility has meant that tourism has increased exponentially. And it seems to be of the hard drinking type. And really it is a dogged, self-destructive kind of consumption that simply breaks my heart.
I for one was delighted to greet the new year on top of a very hot koppie in the Karoo town of Prince Albert. We were graced with an inexplicable rainbow on a 40 degree dry as a bone evening. It felt like hope. My daughter longed for a midnight party. My son wisely ruminated on the dangers of assuming that others are like us and how much trouble that leads to in families and in society at large.
I hope that we can all learn to love ourselves a little more and respect each other a lot more in this and the years to come.
These are my hopes for the year.
What are yours?
Comments