I constantly observe social behaviour – mostly without realising I’m doing it.
Posts in this category are my ‘thinking out loud’ about the way people do things.
I learned to read over my big brothers shoulder when I was really quite little. At three I sounded out cos-mo-po-li-tan unprompted while waiting for mom to unpack the groceries at the till, and I have barely stopped reading since. There was the year after I graduated from UCT, where I just spaced out a…
I’ve started writing some cameos of people I meet in every day life, who stay with me when I leave. First there was Elizabeth, today is Samson… I met a man. He was driving a small forklift for pallets at a warehouse where I often go to collect things, though I’d not seen him before.…
I was driving over the mountain (Ou Kaapse) in endless Cape Town drizzle & gave an elderly woman on the corner a lift. (I don’t often stop like this but my Mr. does, especially in the rain, & I was inspired by him.) The lovely tannie I met was Elizabeth. Friendly & content she chatters to…
I’m thinking a lot about my age at the moment, maybe you can tell. Not in a sad way, or even a nostalgic way, heck it’s not even nearly my birthday. I’m just thinking. “Your twenties are for learning, your thirties are for earning” they say – um, yes please 30’s! I’m going to write…
There was a moment, earlier, when I looked out the window at a patch of evening sky between the trees. After a long, but good, and somewhat emotional day, my mind was uncharacteristically blank. The sun is setting earlier as summer wanes & I was grateful to get home before dark. As the light sank…
Cautiously walking the back streets of Woodstock; memories of a mugging keep my wits about me. Many people brush passed me & naked children totter on the pavements. Nobody looks me in the eye – not the locals in their night gowns nor the hipsters on their fixies. In a land that seems full of rape horrors &…
I noticed a gentleman on my way to work today. Early in the morning, early in the week – he is clean shaven, freshly bathed & smiling. Wearing a smart shirt & trousers pressed to front-crease perfection; his black shoes are clean, but heavy & worn. I couldn’t help but watch him & wonder. He…
