If I had a buck for every time someone said that to me, I would be a millionaire!

But I’ve never really, seriously considered doing it, taking on a huge project like that. Because…I have never really sorted out what I would write!

My life has been such a hodgepodge of locations, events and people, that to put all that into readable form would be a formidable task. Besides, are people really wanting to read about all that stuff? So I’ve not done anything about it.

Until the last week or so. Since the coronavirus outbreak, and including the Chinese New Year shutdown, my online work has shrunk to a mere trickle, leaving me with a lot of time on my hands and a lot of time to have thoughts and ideas rattling around in my head.

With no real direction, the thoughts, feeling and memories were at times, quite jarring and depressing. But they did semi-clear an idea of what a book would be about. Thoughts and ideas sort of coalesced in my head, bring some clarity to a lot of the why’s and what’s of my life.

Nothing is very clear yet, but a direction is forming. For the last few years, I have been writing down and recording my thoughts, feelings, and very importantly, my memories. I’ve done it in all forms, from voice recordings and word memos, to collections of photos that job my memories. Being here in South Africa has allowed some of the very old memories of people and places to surface.

Now it’s a matter of fine-tuning the direction I feel I am going with it, but also staying open to more clarity as I work through a lot of this chaos.

One of the biggest hold ups for me was not wanting to have to live through some of the absolutely shittiest years of my life again, by dredging up old memories. But I think the direction I am going has a way of negating some of the importance of those years, confirming how unimportant that period is in overall scheme of things.

That’s what I hope for, anyway and I’m not planning on putting it out there until my direction is a lot less murky.

Meanwhile…

Life continues here, much as it does in the rest of the world. But the rest of the world (or the western world) doesn’t have to deal with load shedding during the hottest time of the year. No air conditioning and no fans when the temperatures hit 100F (38C) on a regular basis. And traffic lights go out which means that there really is no requirement to stop at a 4-way stop! It’s the wild west.

On the other hand, prior to planned load shedding (usually 2 hours at a time) I download movies to watch when the lights are out and the house is absolutely quiet with nothing running.

I didn’t really get an “adventure” last week, other than a haircut which turned out, I think, very well. In California, Tate has been cutting my hair for 10 years, and I’ve resisted going to anyone here, afraid I might get a real granny cut. Justin loves the Helen Mirren cut as much as I do, so it all worked out well.

But tomorrow is a big adventure. I am going into KwaMashu Township with the two young African guys from the Aids Centre to interview an artist there. Qin and Bulezi (sp) are wanting to do a video as well as photos and I think this is, if not the first, the second time they have done an interview. I am hoping that I can help them ask the right questions and direct them in writing it up afterwards. I don’t know how much help I can be with a video! They unfortunately have really old, bad equipment, something I am hoping a sponsor can remedy.

But in the meantime, we’ll do what we can.

And if you’re wondering where all the pix are? I realized that I have taken almost zero this week, which for me, is an indication that my life is out of balance! Tomorrow should remedy that.