Yesterday was just simply NOT a blogging day. It was a day for reflection and nostalgia.
Just when people tell me that social networking is over rated, or mostly that they don’t understand it, then you realise how it also brings people together. My post wine-jump expedition on Saturday was followed by more wine, a “braai” and our divorce party. Yes, my Ras is moving out, and as this was our second divorce, we felt that we had to celebrate it. (For those that do not know about our soon to be EX-living arrangement – watch Modern Family)
But I digress – just by chance I tapped my Facebook update on the ol’ iPhone, and there I am met by two posts from someone who is a friend of my mother, and merely a Facebook acquaintance of mine. It was what he posted though that touched me profoundly, and opened floodgates of distance, memories of laughter, love and mostly my mom and my longing for the wisdom of my dad.
The one was Jacques Brel (famous Belgium songwriter and singer) singing Marieke, a song that during my growing up was belted out by a singer Leonora Veenemans on many occasions. It recollects long journeys in a Grey Rover van den Plat to Cape Town, where the tape would be played over and over again. It reminds of chilly nights in Hogsback to a 3/4 beat. It makes me remember my mother varying it with every Elvis track imaginable, and boisterous singing to all corners of South Africa – in heat that saw the tar glimmer oily on the horizon, or in stop start slides down black frosted mountain passes.
The other? The other was a clip where Anthony Quinn (very elderly) meets the composer Mikis Theodorakis in a slow dance and a fast embrace to the now symbolic plucks of the Theme tune to the Movie Zorba the Greek. And in Anthony Quinn’s frailty I see the passions of the past, but in his spoken words I hear the answer to our present. “And I want you to know, the music of Zorba – is the music of life. And to live life fully – you must always love. And I love you” A man must have truly lived to say those words to another man so convincingly, and so unashamedly – such awe and humility in those simple words.
So out of the doldrums that was homesickness, sadness and nostalgia yesterday, I give you today these words from Zorba himself:
Alexis Zorba: Damn it boss, I like you too much not to say it. You’ve got everything except one thing: MADNESS! A man needs a little madness, or else…
Basil: Or else?
Alexis Zorba: …he never dares cut the rope and be free.
Five pounds down in total – falling seriously behind. Then again -I’m on a journey more thana quick ride?
Calories? Who cares….. rather – Teach me to dance!!