Nostalgia

Cotton Candy skies greet me as we make our way along Brunei’s busy streets to my place of work. I sigh deeply, inviting the soft rays into the car to invigorate my old bones and my tired heart. He navigates the early morning traffic, dodging cars with the agility of a seasoned Capetonian driver.

Kaapies in Southeast Asia, “Lekkerlewe!” as some would say. In reality (ask any expat) forever standing outside of your life back home, missing friends and family, celebrations and weddings, birthdays and funerals, Cape Town markets and beaches…and the food, always the food!

Why do it, then?

To be in the position to take care of our own, it is that simple. South Africa is in my blood, I am Cape Town, she is me, and returning to the Mother City is 100% IT!

The early morning sky is a sketch in delicate hues, shades of blue and the softest pink taking me back to the Southern Suburbs when my biggest worry was whether my Walkman had enough battery life to last my 10-minute walk to school along roads without any pavement. Nowadays my bags are laden with an assortment of wires and cables, gadgets and charging ports, forever connected and online, and the only walking I do, is on a treadmill.

I crank open the car window, inhaling deeply. I feel the intense assault of the early morning heat and I immediately regret rolling down the window, my carefree act quickly dampened by the cloying tropical heat a faint blush settling on my cheeks.

Lol, why am I always tired?

Sixty years of living and thirty years of shaping young minds might have something to do with it.

But I refuse to accept that my fate is to be endlessly fatigued, my days lacking joy.

Not when I’m so excited for my next chapter, emboldened as I am by the sweetness of days gone by. I attempt to tune out the relentless chatter of the early morning DJs (they have way too much energy for 6am) as well as the overzealous drivers circling the roundabout with screeching tyres as if the three lanes were a racetrack.  And—him, my chatterbox! I listen selectively, nod absent-mindedly, chuckle softly at witticism as we are about to enter the roundabout. 

Circling, always circling…

Round and round we go.

The past is tugging at me, waking up old memories of green days spent in Grassy Park in the 80’s. I was a strange one! I remember sprinting around the old pine trees in our front garden in Diaz Road (gyms weren’t popular back then) wearing teeny tiny jogger shorts and white sand shoes with frilly white bobby socks… I hated girly things then and hate it even more now. I kept running for hours oblivious to the gang of friends hanging about outside, the green grass damp against my feet, the gnarled roots digging into soft soles at times… and afterwards I would plonk myself on the thick blades feeling the prickliness against my back and calves staring up at blue skies and cotton candy clouds in the African sky. I would breathe deeply, enjoying the solitude and the faint sound of my mother’s incessant cleaning, she was always busy, busyness was what she did best during daylight hours, and laughing was what she did best at night in a spotlessly clean house.

It was comforting hearing her move through the house, over black slate floors, banging doors, cursing finger marks on windowpanes and brass ornaments…I remember the distant sound of my mother’s footsteps, the rhythmic sweep of the broom across the kitchen floor. My mother never stopped moving. By day, she was a symphony of swishes and swirls, cleaning, cooking, ironing, her movements precise and unwavering. But at night, she laughed. Oh, how she laughed! Loud, uninhibited, with the kind of joy that made our walls echo. There was comfort in the certainty of her presence, the predictability of her busyness, the warmth of her voice when she called out my name.

“Nari!”

That voice again, not my mother’s this time. I groaned, rolling onto my side, hoping he’d go away. But I should’ve known better.

“Hello,” he called from the other side of the vibracrete fence.

I sighed, “Hello.”

He rested his chin on the sharp edge, undeterred by the discomfort, his green eyes twinkling with mischief. “My mom says you must come over when you’re done.”

I wished that he was more like his younger brother—silent and absent. Instead, he was always in my face, a disturbance I had failed to deter with scowls or sneers. I hadn’t quite figured out how to handle stubborn, determined men at that stage (not even sure I know how at this stage either lol)

 

Before I could respond, my mother’s voice cut through the air.

“Nari, kom hier!”

I sprang up, thankful for the escape. 

“My mom’s calling.”

His smirk told me he knew I was running. His wink told me that he would be back.

“Yoh, how did she always know just when to call me?” I muttered to myself.

“Haastig! Before it rains!” my mother urged, her sloffies barely holding on to her feet as she grabbed an armful of washing. I trudged to the washing line, taking clothes off with the speed of a slug. Overhead, the once-sunny sky darkened, the smell of impending rain heavy in the air. 

“Jirre, why you take so long?” my mom asked,” haal die wasgoed af voor dit reen.”

I scowled as I yanked washing from the clothesline in haste, wooden pegs flying off and landing at my feet. Thunder rumbled and mom and I were furiously pulling things off the line, we barely made it before the first drops landed, my mom’s feet slipping and sliding from beneath her, my bare feet covered in grass and mud, and we started giggling uncontrollably as we made our way to the side entrance carrying the washing like babies.

A sudden gust of wind sent a rogue school shirt flying. I lunged, but my reflexes let me down and it smothered me. I sputtered, yanking it off, only to find my mother trying hard not to laugh, her distress starting to show at her ruined laundry day, and the mood quickly changed. The rain arrived in fat, heavy drops as we made our way inside, clutching the ruined washing, but giving up at the hopelessness of it.

A heavy sigh escaped her.

“Put it back into the washing tub,” she said shaking her head trying to catch her breath. “Ag, Nari, jy’s nog steeds net so stadig soos altyd.”

In that moment I looked at my mother longing to hear her belly laughter, her face all lit up with joy! But instead, her to-do list had taken over, her demeanour changed and her face was weighed down by work and worries. 

I promised myself then that I would choose differently, that I would invite joy in every day, finding it in the smallest moments:

In the laughter of a mother and her daughter running from the rain.

In the cheeky grin of a young man in a pink button-down shirt teasing his first love.

In the victorious grin of the old man getting his old love to work on time… 

“Ten minutes! Told you.” 

And just like that, I realised that along the way I had indeed become my mother.

With the workday stretching before me, I feel the first stirrings of anxiety, so I tune back in to him, to the splendour of the cotton candy skies, and to the melody playing on the radio seeking to centre myself.

And at the heart of me, I find her, the young girl in me awakened again...

By clouds the colour of the strawberry milkshake bought by my dad from Boeta Manie’s kiosk at The Grand Parade.

By the early morning DJs speaking in foreign tongues playing Rick Astley. 

And I am twelve again, the girl with the wild black hair lying on a bed of green grass looking up at fluffy clouds wondering what it would feel like to be adrift on one, clutching my Walkman, humming to my favourite song playing on a scratchy cassette recorded from Radio Good Hope in the days before Ipods and Spotify… a scrawny, silent girl growing into her own skin, so afraid of the world. 

The one who spun on tiptoes, playing bok-bok and kennetjie in the streets, catching his eyes, and awakening to a new kinda love.

Our green days are more than a point in time, fleeting and fragile. It imprints on us, unlocking feelings and desires that will grow and bloom over a lifetime. 

And so, decades later, I find myself enraptured once more as joy quietly descends bringing the magic to the mundane, the laughter to the chaos, and the sweetness from the sky to warm my battling heart, my mother's hands resting lightly in his as we pull into the school parking lot.