Category: Blog

That word

The drive was atavistic.

Hunter-gatherer sensibilities trumped a millennium’s worth of progress as we engaged in a quiet war to secure, and deftly, the most well-vantaged space for our cars.

Parking lots bring out the moer in people.

And the ugly too.

We were all inching along; the tiresome stop-go-stop-go, mindless clutch control, memorising the grocery list by rote.

A woman in the oncoming lane had her indicators on to claim a spot where a family were busy packing up lots of groceries and what could have been a baby or its pram into the boot of their car.

The man behind her hooted.

She made spastic hand gestures towards her rear-view mirror.

The impatient man was either not versed in mad finger pokes or really didn’t consider her problems to be his.

He proceeded to somehow squeeze his bakkie into the gap between her car and the other parked ones.

This looked like it was going to blow all out. Best to move along now, I thought, nothing to see and all that.

Her window was wound down on the the drivers side and I heard her say it.

Quite clearly.

“Fucking k******.”

—

The shock stayed with me all the way to Pick N’ Pay and blog.

She could have called him an asshole or a fucker or a fucking asshole or some other more creatively-constructed epithet.

And he no doubt deserved some measure of profanity for forcing his vehicle past hers the way he did.

But she used that word. Why, that word?

Was she so angry at that man that she just reached inside and pulled out the most hateful thing she could think of?

Here’s what got me.

This was a young woman, somewhere in her 20’s. Probably around my age.

Hardly fed off of the boob of apartheid, right?

It isn’t that if she were older, it would be more easily computed. It’s just that I don’t want to accept that certain things are still being passed on.

Is my alarm just symptomatic of my naiveté?

What do you think?

Shift

Lately I’ve been thinking (oooh, I channeled some Henry Ate* there) that it won’t be such a bad thing if it happens that I never make it as a serious writer.

Yes, it’s been this dream; this full-on burning, for so long, that the acceptance of this possibility does feel a bit like cutting off a thumb.

Digitectomising (not a real word) aside, I will not stop writing. I just need a bit of space to figure out where I see myself ascending professionally. I’m hoping our time in Egypt will bear some revelation (Inshallah Ameen).

I’m rather rudderless right now. Stagnant qi and mosquito-brained.

The freedom that freelancing affords me, now seems to be the very thing that’s frazzling me. I’m a dabbler of note, a doyenne of nada.

I am loving the layout and typesetting gigs though, and am keen on upskilling that. I don’t quite know where the papercrafting is heading, but I have learnt that hobbies-turned-jobbies are not all about the glitz and glue-buzz.

Was it not reasonable for me to believe that by the time I reached this age, I would have had it all figured out?

—

*really lekker now-defunct South African band

—

Fascinating bit I hope I understood correctly from Arabic class: The words Binte (Daughter of) and Ibn (Son of) have at their root, the letters Baa and Noon. The arabic word transliterated as “Banaa” means “to build”, implying a notion that your progeny build you (and your legacy perhaps?).

the way forward

Oft times when one encounters a brick wall, an overwhelming urge for capitulum to kiss clay with vigorous repetition presents itself.

In such an instance you would do well to be mindful of a caveat or two; a stubborn wall rarely commits to anything while living tissue tends to book the caterers.

Granny’s been over for a few days while Naeem observes Itikaaf. She would say, “Haha karakarwanu, ek kaan ma ti karilakwanu.*”

That’s a good bunch of sage to carry around as a taaweez**.

*Just say yes yes and take it out of one ear
**amulet/piece of scripture worn for ‘protection’

Roots

This is daddy and I on a novelty photo badge we got at the Rand Show when I was five-years-old.
You can tell from my chewed-on smile that I wasn’t feeling particularly photogenic that day.
Today, I’m grateful my parents made me sit for this photo. It reminds me of all the things that link me to him; beyond personality, phenotypes and the fact that I love to wear hats just as much as he did.
Some Muslims have a tense relationship with photographs, especially those of their dead. I don’t.
daddy and me

My mum used to keep a songbook in High School. She’d listen to Springbok Radio and write down the lyrics of her favourite songs. I used to do something similar, except I had Google and printed out the words to stick into a plastic folder. Her method definitely had more romance to it. Her writing is also almost exactly the same today as it was when she was in Std 8 (She wasn’t sabotaged by keyboards). I didn’t inherit her legible penmanship.


mummy song book

These are my memories manifested; a badge and a notebook weighted with all the imagery and associations I osmositise into them. They’re just things though; easily lost or destroyed because of this tangibility. Short-lived signifiers. But their signified is tatooed straight onto DNA.

Note to self: stop wasting life playing Bubble Shooter.

No. Those are laugh lines.

So, I have decided that next year, I will be turning 26. I will be 27 in four years time.
I’ve always had one of those ‘mature’ faces, and after seven years, I’m finally grown into it.
Oh all you wonderful people; you are the seatwarmers of my winter days.
I came across this old gtalk chat while looking for something in my mail:
04/05/2006
Mak: so Saaleha.. what are your plans forthe next 5 years ?
me: hmmm
lets see now
five years
well
within that time
i hope to be married to my soulmate
have completed my masters in creative writing
and have done a vast amount of travel
Well, here’s me tooting my own tooter; I’m actually pretty much on track with that timeline. Almighty Willing and Saaleha Doing, I will be shaking hands with the deadline.

Google’s doodle yesterday was a tribute to Russian composer Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky. It will probably take me a lifetime and beyond to nudge him off of the June 17 spot. Ambition is the salt of life.

some sage and thyme for the sprogs

Our very own Meme Queen Kaye has been knocking the flints together and Shafs wants to know what ten things I would like the watermelons from my loins to know.

  1. If you have sex before marriage, your hoo-hoo will turn blue and fall off. (Ok, maybe it won’t. I’m hoping our conversations about things of this nature will not get awkward when you’re older and have stopped calling it a hoo-hoo.)
  2. Not everyone will like you. Sometimes I may not even like you. But I love you and would die for you.
  3. You won’t be good at everything, but you will be great at a few things.
  4. Always acknowledge anyone who has done a service to you (from waiters to car guards to that cashier who looks like someone farted in her cereal). Thank with sincerity and a smile in your eyes.
  5. Give of what you can, and often.
  6. Your parents aren’t perfect.
  7. Don’t carry any tales unless they’re meant to be written down and read aloud.
  8. If you are your mother’s child, your teenage years will be awkward and angsty. It will pass, and when you read your old diaries, you will laugh at what the adult you will see as frivolous intensities.
  9. While your mother’s desk may still have a ‘there be dragons’ notice pointing to it, being neat and organised really does unclutter your thinking.
  10. Confidence is an easy trick to pull off. Fake it till you make it.