Embracing melancholy as part of my nature, not something to be denied or relegated to the dark stifling depths of who I don’t want to be is probably the most difficult thing to share.
This is the area from which my style of writing comes from, the most authentic tone as I ponder life’s vagaries. It is this part of me that writes passable prose and the rare poem or two. It is this part of me that keeps those poems private feeling shame of the voice within me. It is this part of me that paralyses me, faced with a blank page, the unformed thoughts, unable to put them into words raging within me, never seeing the light of day to be forever locked away by my inner critic.
Embracing melancholy is what enabled me to write this piece, without stopping, allowing the words to spill from my consciousness to my fingers to this page.
I haven’t yet found a language for my melancholy.
It’s not a sadness it’s not depression. It’s a stirring dissatisfaction with the present, the status quo, of things that could be different, of my role in changing them and the eventual acceptance that I’m not able to change everything…
As soon as the Bolo Rei is in the oven I will start on the lasagne. It’s simple wholesome food tonight.
For tomorrow, the first day of 2018, we braai.
“For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.”
? T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
Have an amazing evening.
Wishing you 2018 that will bring you all that you desire.
Until tomorrow…
“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.
Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.
So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.
Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.
Make your mistakes, next year and forever.”
? Neil Gaiman
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Mozambican-born Portuguese South African; reflecting on travel, writing, editing, life, family and change that has social impact; chief wide eyed in wanderer, wonderer and bottlewasher
