I had become wary of building my writerly career online, because of a sense of the ephemerality of the online world - load shedding in South Africa is a reminder of the tenuousness of electrical power; during the 'dark hours' (which can happen at any time during the day) one is obliged to turn to the tangible world for activities, duties and amusement, and there is much reassurance to be derived from going for a walk or taking a rest, because there is simply nothing else to do at a particular moment. Of course, there are always dishes; and perhaps one browses through a forgotten book and finds phrases and fragrances beyond the reach of the internet.
The second, more complex, reason I sidelined the supposed career, which I was building in my imagination, is that my elderly parents became increasingly needy, and I simultaneously said yes to a new love relationship. I was thus obliged to choose between paying attention to my 'career' or to real human beings and it seemed unethical to prioritise the former, as it is a vanity, while my parents, and my beloved, are irrefutable.
And so I neglected my online writerly presence and productivity. The decision to do so has lost me much energy, as there is little that refuels my soul as effectively as when I release my poetry and feminine philosophy into the unknown currents that run the worldwide web. It turns out that supervising my parents' combined wilting as compassionately as possible saps my life force in the extreme. Not infrequently, I have felt the need to die in advance of them, in order to show the way - a mood, which it would shock them to know I experience, if they had the presence of mind to know it, which is a presence they do not, fortunately however, have.
I have been in shock, though, for the past three years - ever since leaving Hogsback, arriving on the Garden Route and covid lockdown slamming the brakes on any forward movement. I have, I realise, lived in a state of shame about the unutterable sadness of my life. A shame, which, on learning that I am once more forced to move house - the third move in three years - has suddenly left me, and lifted me up, this spring, to the joys of complaining unrestrainedly. I am pushed beyond endurance! Praise be to complaint! And praise be to my beloved, who endures it, and you, my reader, if you are here. I need no comfort other than to utter what saps and uses my loving, giving heart beyond her limits.
So it could be that complaining may yet help me to prevail. Thus, this blogpost is a preliminary blub and my online writerly presence resumes in a spirit of watery melancholy.
In short, I am happy to be sad.
