The Everywhereist

Rand, sniffing my coat. Though to be fair, it kinda looks like he’s licking it. Which is gross.

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I had hoped that I would be able to get my post about our visit to the townships of Cape Town up before we left for Australia, but that didn’t pan out. I was rushed for time, and found that I just couldn’t give the tour the attention that it deserved. Rather than draft a post that didn’t do the experience justice, I figured I’d wait until I got home.

Also, between researching the history of Apartheid in South Africa, and Wednesday’s post about the epidemic of rape that’s currently plaguing the country, I needed to switch gears. To talk about something lighthearted, if only for a little bit.

So I want to tell you about how I freaked out and was convinced that I sat in pee last week in a Dublin cab.

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Note: all of the links below are safe for work, but they deal with some pretty serious issues. I read through a lot of the articles and can tell you, it fucked with my head mightily. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t read them. If anything, you probably should. I just wanted to properly prepare you for what lies ahead: it is not funny. It is not lighthearted. It will not make you feel warm or fuzzy inside. But it’s a discussion we should nevertheless be having.

A road in one of the townships outside Cape Town, where rape is an epidemic.

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I loved South Africa. I really did. I had a lovely time there, and I sincerely want to go back to both Cape Town and Bushman’s Kloof. I’d like to see more of the country, and, if possible, more of the continent of Africa as a whole.

But I feel like I’d be doing everyone a disservice if I didn’t discuss the issue of rape in South Africa.

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Going through my photos from South Africa, I noticed that a large number of them featured our friend Kurtis. Sometimes this was intentional. Other times, it was not:

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Rand, just prior to our miracle berry dinner.

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The other day, I was lamenting to myself (and by extension, to my long-suffering husband) about the death of wonderment in my adult years. How there were now so many known variables in our lives, so many answered questions. There were very few decisions to make. Very little was new.

“I just remember high school, and thinking I had all these opportunities in front of me, and all these choices to make. And now those choices have been made. And I’m not upset how life turned out, you know? I’m happy with the decisions I’ve made. I’m just sad that I don’t have all of that in front of me anymore.”

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Warning: before writing this post, I spent waaaaay too long listening to NPR, after which I devoured some poetry, and then chased the whole thing with a few swings of prose. The result is … whatever the heck is going on below. It has nothing to do with travel. Sorry.

Rand and I have a shower in our bedroom.

I mean, in our bedroom. Not in a bathroom in the bedroom. No. It is IN the room. At the end of the bed.

Pictured: the end of our bed, and our shower.

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It’s about as ridiculous as it sounds. In the two years that we’ve lived here, we can’t really make sense of it. The doors are glass, so you have absolutely zero privacy if someone is in the room. When one of us has to wake up early for whatever reason, we’ll shower with the lights off, so that we don’t wake the other person.

Have you ever showered in the dark? It’s really weird, and yet strangely familiar. I’m pretty sure it has to do with some pre-memory of being in the womb.

And then I start to feel guilty for not having called my mother in a while.

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Cape Weaver nests.

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Rand often tells me that it takes a lot to please me. I argue that this isn’t exactly true. I require very few things to be happy.

I’ve explained time and again that I require little else in life than a cupcake or four, his undivided attention, and a really comfortable couch.

The problem is that I need those things constantly. All the damn time. I want them all right now, even though none of that would be feasible, since I’m standing at my computer and Rand is still at work and our couch wouldn’t even FIT in my office and if it did, oh god HOW would I get any work done?

See why I eat so many cupcakes? It’s because it’s the only one of my constant demands that can be met easily. You’ll note, too, that “looking good in skinny jeans” was not of my list of things required to be happy. I’m not entirely unreasonable.

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There are times when I have trouble accepting that I am, in fact, an adult.

Despite having voted in THREE presidential elections, consistently writing grocery lists that don’t include candy, and being carded approximately NEVER, I still  can’t wrap my head around this whole “adulthood” thing.

I’m fairly certain that someone fudged up the math, and we’ll soon find out that I’m actually about 12 or so. And while that revelation would be somewhat comforting, it would bring forth a whole bunch of problems, too (for example, Rand and I have been together for nearly a dozen years, meaning that we started dating when he was 22, and I was, um … zero. Making him, in a rather literal sense, a cradle robber. Also, let’s be fair: I’d look really terrible for 12. Like, I’d have to be a serious meth-addict in order to look as old as I do and still be in middle school. Like non-stop meth. Meth meth meth meth meth. Frankly, that sounds like a lot of work. And meth-smoking.)

Still, being 12 would explain why I can’t stop giggling when I see things like this:

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I mean, come on. YOU GUYS. IT SAYS LABIA.  (more…)

One of the better things I’ve ever had in my mouth. #thatiswhatshesaid

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I’m having a brief moment of wakefulness right now. I haven’t had too many of those as of late. I’ve gone through the last few days in the fog of jetlag, waking up at 4 in the morning and crashing (heavily) around 7 or 8pm. My body and my brain are making it painfully clear that I can’t travel like I used to.

And so I’d like to take this brief moment of lucidity to tell you a bit about Africa. I hate to say that it was a life-changing experience, because that expression is so melodramatic and overused. But the thing is, it was precisely that. There was more than one occasion where I would pause, take in my surroundings, and realize that it was in the middle of one of the more incredible moments of my life.

Between the immensity of that, and my lack of sleep, I’m having trouble knowing where to start. How do you even begin talking about your first visit to a new country, and a new continent? How do you sit down and write about your visit to a place that is (almost exactly) on the other end of the world?

For me, I do it by talking about fudge.

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