In my first year of university, I used to go to town each Friday morning. My only lecture was later in the day but I knew if I skipped breakfast I’d be starving later and I couldn’t really afford to buy extra food. So I’d get up and have breakfast in the res dining hall and then walk down the hill.

Through campus, under the arch, down high street and into the town. I’d wander in and out of shops and occasionally buy something I needed – although usually only after careful consideration and a thorough search for a better deal. I’ve always been a window shopper. The shops were empty. There was space and time for me to consider and look and wander.

Once I’d visited all the shops (Grahamstown does not have that many shops), I’d sit in a cafe and sip delicious cappuccino or hot filter coffee. Sometimes I’d read but mostly I’d sit there writing. I wrote so much that year. These days I seldom write anything that’s not for work or studies. Then, I wrote for pleasure.

After my coffee, the morning now half gone, I’d wander back onto campus. The campus was quiet on a Friday morning. The occasional sleep-deprived undergrad tearing off to hand in a late assignment – often still in pyjamas (or yesterday’s clothes) – but otherwise quiet. I’d find a spot in the half shade near the library and read and write and people-watch.

Those were quiet times. Later in my varsity years the pressure and the parties would pick up, but those first-year Fridays were so very quiet. I think that was the first time I learnt to be alone. Of course, I’d been a normal teenager with ordinary angst but the lonesomeness of adolescence was tempered but a busy family and a home with a heart far bigger than just the five of us.

That first year at varsity was different. I learnt to enjoy the silence and introspection of alone. I learnt to be alone in public. I am always a little sorry for people who can’t go to movies or eat out or to a show on their own. Years later, it would chafe terribly that Korean restaurants wouldn’t serve a solo diner. That same year I would discover, alone, the incomparable joy of the opera. And later, learn to travel alone. How much you can see and learn in solitude in motion.

I still associate the joy of alone with shopping. Whether it’s a market in Maputo or a cafe in Korea, I’m one of those annoying customers that don’t want help. I don’t want someone to find things for me. For me, the joy is in the wandering, on my own, and looking at everything. Shop assistants annoy me. To be fair, the fact that I seldom buy anything probably annoys them, too. But I don’t care. It’s my space, my time, my alone.

I feel the same joy in a mall or a street of shops on a quiet morning. I lived in Johannesburg for a few years and there was a special magic to Rosebank in the early mornings. Shops just beginning to open. Umbrellas being put up. Menus being prepared. The newspaper seller rushing to keep up with the demand. The taste of strong coffee in the quiet morning cool over a copy of my favourite daily paper. On my way to work or meetings or brunch with friends. I’ve lived in small towns and subdued suburbia and far-flung places in more than one country. If you ask me what I love about cities, that’s it. The quiet of a coffee shop with a newspaper or a note-pad first thing in the morning. The joy of a quiet mall. That and public transport.

There are things I love about living in the middle of nowhere. The monkeys and the cows and the long, daily trek to work, to mention just a few. But I find myself longing for civilisation again. A trip to the local mall is a tantalising taste of what I long for but just a little too small, a little too unsophisticated to fill the gap. A new year creeps towards the horizon and I begin to wonder if it’s time to move on.