Walk it Off
I woke up in a cave yesterday morning after a cold and uncomfortable night listening with no small sense of trepidation to the barking of baboons. For those not accustomed to our big fanged opportunistic brothers from another mother, they are not so much like mischievous adorable monkeys and more like thugs.
No disrespect intended, but my 9 months pregnant friend who is no wilting violet, having survived a near-death experience in the Alps as one of the world's foremost female mountain climbers, had to barricade herself and her toddler in their garage while the Scarborough baboon troop ransacked her home.
So ja, I was a little bit unnerved when I heard them grunting close by as the sun set. When I realised it was untenable to consider hiking back for many hours to the closest human habitation from my lofty mountain perch in the dark I chuckled, packed my stuff for a quick getaway and settled into my sleeping bag for the long night.
I was amused by how stoically I could confront actual fear and real danger when the imagined horrors of this time have held me hostage in a far more suffocating way than even the stringent restrictions of the hard lockdown South Africa has been in since March (8 long weeks ago) thanks to the global COVID-19 pandemic.
As a girl my family called me Lady Macbeth because I would wash my hands... a lot. In my early 20s I read a book about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and recognised many of my hang ups, from intense religiosity to all kinds of squeamishness. It's sometimes useful having a framework to help you understand yourself. It's been interesting seeing how my OCD behaviours flare up when I'm wanting more control. Or when I'm overwhelmed by anxiety, to call a spade a spade.
The first week or two of lockdown I was both stunned and frantic. Then I went into overdrive. That was the Flow Facebook Live phase as well as volunteering. Service is a good way to manage anxiety actually. Just the act of trying is better than spiraling or wallowing I find. This is borne up by research. Yale's Science of Well-Being Course suggests it, along with 3 deep breaths to reset the sympathetic nervous system. Oh, and stepping away from phones/screens. Duh. Doom scrolling or just bog-standard mindless scrolling is never a recipe for anything other than self-loathing.
Simple.
But when you're told you MUST wash your hands incessantly and everything has become virtual by necessity because in person anything is forbidden, and when after many many weeks of being forced to stay in, which is a mental and physical and emotional health crisis in itself akin to severe depression or convalescence or old age...well, what to do?
I had to GET OUT. So I took my kids and we spent 10 days simply walking and walking and walking in the mountains.
I know there's nothing revolutionary about that. We are bipedal creatures made for the long haul. When I was a young girl I stood on the beach in what was then called simply Natal on the East Coast of South Africa with the warm Indian Ocean crashing at my feet and gazed longingly northwards. The desire to start walking and just never stop was strong in me.
Some of my happiest teen memories are of hiking with my dad and friends in the Drakensberg or Magaliesberg. I've always journalled and here's a piece I wrote after one such memorable excursion in 1993 when I was a rather Romantic 17 year old in love with Keats.
As a teacher I took high school students on week-long journeys across mountains and hope that they will recall them fondly too. Here was the last one I did with students from Imhoff Waldorf School in 2017.
And this was the first...
So this is my medicine. In nature you inevitably find your place. Within no time my jaw, which has been talking to me in no uncertain terms since December, had unclenched and the magnificence of the world as it is was laid out in plain sight.
No need to fret. Just put one foot in front of the other.
Before we left I was sitting and collaging with my daughter Thandi one evening when we felt the presence of someone and she said: "Uncle Jason is here...he wants us to know that he's proud of us for carrying on." It was a moment.
The day we were packing to leave I kept feeling that there was someone in the house, but would turn and see no one. Later T mentioned, "There's someone here." Both my hubby and I affirmed that feeling. "Who do you think it is?" I asked. "Rokela," Thandi answered.
On our first day of freedom in the mountains I took my son on a very arduous walk. We'd stopped to rest and as I turned back to pass him something to eat I knew my brother was there. It was enough to stop me in my tracks.
After my husband brought our children back home I walked solo for a whole day from dawn till dusk and felt a presence right behind me the entire time. A protective presence.
The next day I set off for my overnight in the cave and an eagle came eyeball to eyeball with me as I ascended.
I took a rare selfie at the summit and an orb of light dances on my lips. A ghostly kiss.
It's not always or even often that I feel the presence of my departed friends and family, but this last passage they have been so intensely present that I wondered if it wasn't time for me to cross over. Of course we never know when that will be and the persistence of energy, the cycles of all that lives and dies, are so clearly not only unavoidable but actually welcome.
As I walked 1000 miles these past 10 days I found solace, ease in being, great relief. I also enjoyed some excellent books and podcasts. As synchrodestiny would have it, I'm currently reading Kate Atkinson's wonderful "Life After Life."
Cheryl Strayed has been calling up older writers for their advice on how to navigate this trying time and I really loved the counterpoint between crotchety Margaret Atwood and lively Judy Blume -- both octogenarians but miles apart in spirit. It's good to remember that even in the inevitability of growing old we have a choice in the HOW.
So now I'm home again and confronted with being a domestic slave which is my least favourite role. But I hold in my heart the fragrance of a myriad of fynbos blooms, the softness of the light both early and late, tingly cold river water and many hued boulders.
As do we all. Always.
Apparently baboons sleep out on rocky ledges to try and protect themselves from leopards and grunt in what had seemed to me a very threatening way all night long to comfort and cajole one another. Maybe that's what this is? And all of our online posturing.
A way of managing the inevitable terror of living.
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| View from my Cave at Sunset |
So ja, I was a little bit unnerved when I heard them grunting close by as the sun set. When I realised it was untenable to consider hiking back for many hours to the closest human habitation from my lofty mountain perch in the dark I chuckled, packed my stuff for a quick getaway and settled into my sleeping bag for the long night.
I was amused by how stoically I could confront actual fear and real danger when the imagined horrors of this time have held me hostage in a far more suffocating way than even the stringent restrictions of the hard lockdown South Africa has been in since March (8 long weeks ago) thanks to the global COVID-19 pandemic.
As a girl my family called me Lady Macbeth because I would wash my hands... a lot. In my early 20s I read a book about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and recognised many of my hang ups, from intense religiosity to all kinds of squeamishness. It's sometimes useful having a framework to help you understand yourself. It's been interesting seeing how my OCD behaviours flare up when I'm wanting more control. Or when I'm overwhelmed by anxiety, to call a spade a spade.
The first week or two of lockdown I was both stunned and frantic. Then I went into overdrive. That was the Flow Facebook Live phase as well as volunteering. Service is a good way to manage anxiety actually. Just the act of trying is better than spiraling or wallowing I find. This is borne up by research. Yale's Science of Well-Being Course suggests it, along with 3 deep breaths to reset the sympathetic nervous system. Oh, and stepping away from phones/screens. Duh. Doom scrolling or just bog-standard mindless scrolling is never a recipe for anything other than self-loathing.
Simple.
But when you're told you MUST wash your hands incessantly and everything has become virtual by necessity because in person anything is forbidden, and when after many many weeks of being forced to stay in, which is a mental and physical and emotional health crisis in itself akin to severe depression or convalescence or old age...well, what to do?
I had to GET OUT. So I took my kids and we spent 10 days simply walking and walking and walking in the mountains.
I know there's nothing revolutionary about that. We are bipedal creatures made for the long haul. When I was a young girl I stood on the beach in what was then called simply Natal on the East Coast of South Africa with the warm Indian Ocean crashing at my feet and gazed longingly northwards. The desire to start walking and just never stop was strong in me.
Some of my happiest teen memories are of hiking with my dad and friends in the Drakensberg or Magaliesberg. I've always journalled and here's a piece I wrote after one such memorable excursion in 1993 when I was a rather Romantic 17 year old in love with Keats.
As a teacher I took high school students on week-long journeys across mountains and hope that they will recall them fondly too. Here was the last one I did with students from Imhoff Waldorf School in 2017.
And this was the first...
So this is my medicine. In nature you inevitably find your place. Within no time my jaw, which has been talking to me in no uncertain terms since December, had unclenched and the magnificence of the world as it is was laid out in plain sight.
No need to fret. Just put one foot in front of the other.
Before we left I was sitting and collaging with my daughter Thandi one evening when we felt the presence of someone and she said: "Uncle Jason is here...he wants us to know that he's proud of us for carrying on." It was a moment.
The day we were packing to leave I kept feeling that there was someone in the house, but would turn and see no one. Later T mentioned, "There's someone here." Both my hubby and I affirmed that feeling. "Who do you think it is?" I asked. "Rokela," Thandi answered.
On our first day of freedom in the mountains I took my son on a very arduous walk. We'd stopped to rest and as I turned back to pass him something to eat I knew my brother was there. It was enough to stop me in my tracks.
After my husband brought our children back home I walked solo for a whole day from dawn till dusk and felt a presence right behind me the entire time. A protective presence.
The next day I set off for my overnight in the cave and an eagle came eyeball to eyeball with me as I ascended.
I took a rare selfie at the summit and an orb of light dances on my lips. A ghostly kiss.
It's not always or even often that I feel the presence of my departed friends and family, but this last passage they have been so intensely present that I wondered if it wasn't time for me to cross over. Of course we never know when that will be and the persistence of energy, the cycles of all that lives and dies, are so clearly not only unavoidable but actually welcome.
As I walked 1000 miles these past 10 days I found solace, ease in being, great relief. I also enjoyed some excellent books and podcasts. As synchrodestiny would have it, I'm currently reading Kate Atkinson's wonderful "Life After Life."
Cheryl Strayed has been calling up older writers for their advice on how to navigate this trying time and I really loved the counterpoint between crotchety Margaret Atwood and lively Judy Blume -- both octogenarians but miles apart in spirit. It's good to remember that even in the inevitability of growing old we have a choice in the HOW.
So now I'm home again and confronted with being a domestic slave which is my least favourite role. But I hold in my heart the fragrance of a myriad of fynbos blooms, the softness of the light both early and late, tingly cold river water and many hued boulders.
As do we all. Always.
 |
| On the River of Life |
A way of managing the inevitable terror of living.
Subscribe to Foot Sore & Fancy Free by Email
And please verify your email address (check your junkmail!)
Thanks :)
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