i was sick last week. like bubonic plague sick. within hours of passing out on my bed, my mother had already driven an hour's drive to a pharmacy and delivered me a package of delights through my window. my gran knocked a little later and delivered two bags full of groceries from woolworths for my son and i. the next day, after my son had been lifted to school by my family, my neighbour saw me hunched over in the local grocery shop and came round later to make me a hot toddy. he then proceeded to take my child over to his house and make him dinner and drive him to and from school the next day. my gran continued to deliver me hot meals every evening, even in the pouring rain. this story is indicative of country life.
if you don't want to engage with people and with life, if you don't want to be confronted by your own demons, if you don't want to have mirrors held up to you, if you don't like being tested or seeing inside people's hearts and souls, then small village life is probably not for you. if you have a love affair with possessions and use your car or your clothes to validate yourself as a human being, then village life is probably not going to do anything for you, because nobody cares about your handbag. many people are burnt by small town living for various reasons, and i hope i won't be one of them, because there's an honesty here that i've been searching for my whole life. to think that having the latest outfit or hairstyle was ever a priority to me makes me cringe. by the same token, there's just no way i could be prancing around cape town now, dressed the way i am today, and there's no reason why country dwellers need to wear fleece and crocs either :)
i know this life only suits a handful of us, and i miss many aspects of living in 'the big smoke', such as theatre, live music, dance, eating out and my friends - but it's all only two hours away. curiously, i've found myself performing for the first time in over a decade: i'm in a band and a musical. so where we lack, we make up for ourselves?
as you can see, i'm still in the honeymoon period.
6 comments:
When we will move to the countryside, when immigrated to Sweden,I will think of this piece.
I yearn for it and what comes along with it (good and bad).
Thanks for this post, in a way it strengthens me. :-
Greetings from Belgium. Alexandra
Mmmm, agree and disagree.
I grew up in a small town, and those people were VERY cars-and-handbags orientated. Granted, it was a BMW 3-series not a Ferrari, but the obsession was there.
Similarly, I think you can be selfish and superficial in the country, or you can be people-orientated and real and "don't sweat the small stuff" in the city. It depends on the person entirely. Any mayhaps someone who is inherently superficial and yucky will be that way regardless of where they live or what they do for a living.
I also think you can wear rags and still be a wanker, as much as there are people trotting around in labels who are actually kind-hearted, generous, and wonderful.
It makes my heart glad to see how much you enjoy your new lifestyle, and how much it seems to have enriched you. But I don't think country mice are all peaches and cream and city mice [rats?] are all wicked witches. I know families who live in cities who bring each other soup and pick up one another's children. I know families who live in small towns and don't speak to each other at all. In fact, I know a farming family who live metres apart and they don't speak. Point is, I think the human condition and its intrinsic sadness and failure manifests itself in humans, not geography.
All that said, your new life looks super rad and Simon and I ARE going to come visit! I promise :)
Nicely done, Lize. I guess it's just THIS little town that is this special! The difference is that people are drawn to this town because they are of a certain persuasion - very few of them grew up here. It's a bit of an artsy spot, a place where swallows buy homes and spend a few months here in summer. It's not a backwater, it's an idyllic respite, which I think attracts certain people to it. I completely agree with your experiences of rag-wearing wankers (ha ha) and compassionate label lovers. If you read my previous posts on the subject, and my observations, you'd realise that this post was merely reiterating things that I have experienced here, such as the generosity of spirit and the 'open-house' lifestyle that I have never experienced anywhere else. I spoke about how our children play all day, cycling to each other's homes, being fed along the way etc etc Geography, cities, true...but small town life is more intimate, you can't argue that.
Thank you so much for sharing this informative post.. Stay blessed!!
Car Bazaar
Hi Thaya I think your move based only on the blogs we have reasd because we cannoty claim to know anymore seems extraordinarily brave and generally happy. What I am interested in as I consider that kind of move is how to put together the copntradiction of admiring the people don't care about what handbag you have with those of us who sell material goods for a living- yes they are very often quality artisic original eco friendly, handmade, recycled, 2nd hand so sure its, but sometimes they are cheaper made in china - mr p. some posts r about these amazing people who care nothing for possessions and sometimes they are wow look at these beautiful material possessions to art direct this country lifestyle. I find myself in the same contradiction and I don't know how to explain it.
Hi Anon, I couldn't make out some of what you were saying but the overall feeling I was trying to convey was that I don't think I realised how much we're sucked into projecting an image when we live in 'cities' (not that Cape Town is a real city, but you know what I mean). The right hairstyle, shoes, way to wear the right pants, the right handbag, the right bicycle, the right camera, the right, most 'now' coffee in our hand, the right music, the right place to be seen - all of which are mutable according to what your social group considers to be 'right'. There's also something beautiful and creative about it though - it can be about expressing yourself and experimenting - and being a part of this energy fuels more creative exchange and growth, but this post was about how this country environment shifted those ideals for me. It was about how people are loved more for being a passionate baker than they are for wearing the latest neon jeggings ;) I'm not torn. I enjoy aspects of both, and I will continue to advocate and sell things that are made with love and I will continue to wear R10 charity store vintage dresses, partnered with things from Mr P because I don't have a choice out here. Lize made me realise that this isn't a croc-skin handbag, French tip and BMW village (it's more of a wafty kaftan and twin cab village anyway), but I like the way that external trappings don't matter here, well, not to my people anyway. It's all about personality and kindness here.
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