Tag Archives: anticipation

Still learning to fly

Adventures, Ideas, Travel, ,

Last week I bought a ticket to Uganda. I’ve never been much of an adventurer, a risk-taker. At least, I never used to be. My instinct is to lean towards control and order and stability. I worry a lot. I find the admin associated with big change and travel overwhelming.

Yet, I’ve moved house annually (at least) since I was 21 and I’ve had 9 jobs in 10 years. Stability and security are as attractive to me as they are to many others, but a combination of circumstances and a restless desire to be doing something real have led me a merry dance in a completely different direction. Stability and security are nice ideas but probably not for me.

I’m still learning how to live this life, how to be a nomadic soul, how to fly, and frankly I’m not always that good at it, but it is the life I’ve chosen. And if I’m going to be constantly moving and changing, I’d like to make the most of it.

So last week, I bought a ticket to Uganda. The plan is to travel with a friend and a couple of other people to Northern Uganda and the DRC for a few weeks in December. A lot of people seem to think it’s a strange way to spend a holiday. Some people to whom I’ve mentioned it think I’m stark raving mad. I’m excited about the trip. From what I hear it’s an absolutely beautiful part of the world.

And sometimes doing seemingly-crazy things turns out to be well worth it – this time two years ago I was running off mountains and learning to fly.

Anticipate

Adventures, Ideas, seasons
It’s a cold, miserable, rainy day. Properly cold. Cold like it hasn’t been for months and months and months. It is as easy to forget what cold feels like in a South African summer as it is for hot to become a distant memory in an icy northern winter. I’m not entirely pleased that it has returned.
But still, I thrill with anticipation. Next week I travel to the Western Cape. It sounds so odd to be excited. I have visited Cape Town so often in the last few months it is almost a second home. But this time still excites me. Every time still excites me. But this time is especially good. This time I am not traveling for work. This time is exclusively exploring, being a tourist, seeing friends and a few days in Stellenbosch with some of my favourite people.
I grin every time I think about it. I randomly find myself starting to put aside clothes and consider what shoes to take. I wander the shops and wonder if there is anything I need for my travels. To go, to move, to learn…
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!
As tho’ to breathe were life!
Alfred Lord Tennyson, Ulysses

It’s a cold, miserable, rainy day. Properly cold. Cold like it hasn’t been for months. It is as easy to forget the cold feels in a South African summer as it is for hot to become a distant memory in an icy northern winter. I’m not entirely pleased it has returned.

But still, I thrill with anticipation. Next week I travel to the Western Cape. It sounds so odd to be excited; I have visited Cape Town so often in the last few months. But it still excites me. Every time still excites me, but this especially so. I am not traveling for work. This time is exclusively exploring, being a tourist, seeing friends and a few days in Stellenbosch with some of my favourite people.

I grin every time I think about it. I randomly find myself starting to put aside clothes and consider what shoes to take. I wander the shops and wonder if there is anything I need for my travels. I wait in anticipation. To move, to go, to learn…

And drunk delight of battle with my peers,

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.

I am a part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’

Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades

For ever and for ever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!

As tho’ to breathe were life! Life piled on life

Were all too little, and of one to me

Little remains; but every hour is saved

From that eternal silence, something more,

A bringer of new things; and vile it were

For some three suns to store and hoard myself,

And this gray spirit yearning in desire

To follow knowledge like a sinking star,

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Ulysses

Anticipating Opera

Arts, Daegu, ,

I woke up this morning feeling tingly with anticipation. There was sunshine creeping in my window and blue sky outside, sharpened by the contrast with rolling white clouds around the edges. I am off to the Opera today. I am so excited. I haven’t been to the Opera since I saw Madama Butterfly in December. This is not for lack of trying. There simply haven’t been any performances that I was able to attend since then. So I am excited to see Opera again. Actually, I’m excited to see any theatre. I’m feeling a little art-starved at the moment.

This is, of course, brought sharply into focus by the fact that I now know that I’ll be home in time to see at least a few days of the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown in July. Fest has become (for my mother and me at least) an annual pilgrimage  to several days – a week if we can manage it – of intensive culture and arts immersion. It is the most amazingly stimulating, relaxing, exciting, fulfilling experience. For those who have never experienced Fest, it is a week long  festival of arts and culture, including drama, dance, comedy, visual arts, music of all varieties, cinema, flee markets and street theatre (this year extended to 15 days of AMAZ!NG ). There are nearly 500 different performances, showings and exhibitions in that time. Some of them are funded ‘main’ productions, such as the annual festival ballet – this year Cape Town City Ballet performing Carmen (swoon), the gala and symphony concerts (conducted by Richard Cock – swoon again) plus other musical performances from the likes of Vusi Mahlasela, BLK Sonshine and Samson Diamond (SBYA for music), major theatre productions and developmental student theatre. There is also the Jazz Festival where some of the top jazz artists around (Concord Nkabinde, Sibongile Khumalo, etc., etc.) perform and new talent is showcased. The ‘fringe’ festival has hundreds more shows, some of which will flop completely but many of which are world-class theatre by some of the top performers in the country, who at no other time gather in one place, making Fest the only opportunity to see them all in action in just 15 days. Physical theatre, live music, dance, drama, plenty of comedy and the usual festival standards like ‘Raiders’ and (although I find him annoying and would never see his show) Stef: the ‘fringe’ is an integral part of the variety and diversity that makes Fest a unique cultural experience. Alongside this are ‘Word Fest’ – a literary festival that warms my heart,  Winter School (recently renamed ‘ThinkFest’) where some of the countries top minds come together to talk about topics ranging from law and  neuropsychanalysis to hip hop activism and sports versus art. Oh, and as a myriad visual arts exhibitions by a wide variety of artists.  To someone for whom all of the above equal joy, Fest is an abundantly joyous experience. This will also be enhanced, this year, by seeing my family for the first time 12 months (yay!) and by the prospect of touching base with friends (some of whom are now showing up as experts and performers in the Fest programme – as odd as that may seem). So the anticipation runs high, even two months away and even though I am very sad that there does not seem to be a way for me to make it back in time for the ballet, the gala or symphony concerts or the lecture on a century since South African Union, given by one of my all-time favourite South African historians.

The anticipation of Fest and the knowledge that it is just a couple of months away, make the anticipation of this Opera even more thrilling. Today’s Opera is La Traviata (G Verdi) performed by the Daegu City Opera at the Daegu Opera House. It’s a matinee performance at 4pm. I’ve never seen La Traviata and am very much looking forward to it. I have researched the story, of course, so that I can follow, because the synopsis that is handed out is generally in Korean and therefore not helpful to me. After 10 months I know enough basic Korean to buy things in shops and direct taxi drivers but I definitely cannot claim to speak the language and would probably still, even had I been studying Korean seriously this whole time, not be able to understand enough to follow an Opera synopsis.

In the midst of all this art-sy anticipation, a friend and I are also preparing for a trip to the cultural heartland of Korea next weekend. We’re both quite excited to see some history and culture although the planning is attended in this case by rather a lot of frustration and dead ends – it appears not all Korean tourist destinations have managed to become English-tourist-friendly. At this point we may or may not have booked accommodation at a place that may or may not have an actual name. It should be an interesting weekend and finding out all I can so that we don’t miss any of the wonderfulness is yet another part of why today is a day filled with the anticipation of wonder and the joy of looking forward to the things (and the people with whom I will share those things) that are good and special and joyful in my humble little life.