Becoming The Muse

Of coffee with the simple life…..

If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you I had to initially draft this post, the hard way, by candlelight, on a piece of paper I saved from being kindling for a fire, fortunately I had a pen and I did not have to use my blood as ink.

Do you hear that? There’s nothing but silence, well not entirely silence.  just the natural silence of the simple life, broken only by livestock, the chirping of birds and the whispering of the pine trees as breeze blows past sounding almost as if it’s a thousand voices whispering your name……..

If you were having coffee with, I would tell you that you don’t realise what a good thing you have going, not until you are back in the city, with its big city lights and the first thing that greets you is an assault on your nostrils, by the noxious fumes of commerce and vehicles speeding dizzily past, no time to say hello or goodbye, not even a friendly wave, only a honk of the horn beep beep move get out of the way……

This is the longest period in my adult life that I have spent in the countryside, at my maternal grandparents’ homestead, I pulled weeds from their graves and felt a connection to roots that hold up the tree that is my existence.

If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that, the pace of life here is different, slower even and the list of priorities might as well as be worlds apart from what happens in the urban parts of the country. Life is simple, a little too simple, I wish I had my laptop, and somewhere to charge it and definitely some Wi-Fi. I have been off the internet grid for a week and some change, and a part of m feels like the world is spinning without me.

In fact the rest of the world is spinning along however imperfectly without a care what happens in such simple corners of the country. The elections came and gone just like they do and here political aspirants come and they make grand speeches and fancy promises then depart in a cloud of dust and smoke, leaving nothing but tyre tracks from the their shiny new off-road four wheel trucks, never to be seen again until the next elections. And this time, this might be sooner than expected, if a rerun is declared, because well a petition was filed challenging the election results and now we wait the constitution court’s ruling.

Watching a beautiful sunset as the night falls, it’s a moonless night, and it would be a dark night were it not for the sky full of stars, nights like this we used to gather round a fire and tell  stories.

If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you we gathered around a fire, the same fire I saved this sheet of paper from and we told stories, but they weren’t like stories of old, these were real. Stories like about the homestead next to ours the only home without a fire lit, because only death lives there now, and ghostly flames can be seen by late night travellers; everyone there died from some mysterious malady, everyone that is except the first born son who is said to live lavishly abroad but could not come for any of the funerals because they left country claiming political asylum and so now cant return.

It’s a familiar story, those who remain bear a certain resentment for those who manage to escape the shackles of the simple life, chasing paper and never returning except only to be bury or be buried. The last time I was here was for a funeral and before that another funeral, and this land slowly becoming simply graveyards and half abandoned homesteads populated only during funeral services.

Another story that’s not spoken in polite company, the one about the lady who lives by herself, whose husband left, or died or maybe as some suggest she killed him. She is said to be very gracious with her favours as payment in kind for groceries. If you take a loaf a bread to her house, she will accept it with a coy smile and invite you inside, for tea maybe……

If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you my plan was to only spend a night, but the simple life has no room for rushing, every time I say I am ready to leave something comes up, an aunt I must absolutely visit, and of course they will insist you cannot leave before dinner, and by the time dinner is done, its too dark to leave, tomorrow first thing in the morning, but of course that means first thing after breakfast of course breakfast is at lunch………

But finally here we are, I had to insist I would return soon and not wait for another funeral.

Have an awesome week

~B