Monday 15 February 2010

Lottery winners vote to invade Afghanistan with Gordon Brown*

* = not really. It's SEO baby.

No seriously. It's weird not having a home. A home in the sense of somewhere that I call home.

I live in London. I have lived in Cape Town. I was born in Zimbabwe. So where is home?

I was walking through Westfield London, looking at the hordes of people and they were all foreigners. Foreign to me that is.

I am not really British but I live here. In my passport it says that I am British. I also have another passport that says I am South African.

Not a day goes by that I don't think about moving back to South Africa. But the South Africa that exists now is not the South Africa that I know.

I left it in 2003. A lot changes in seven years, especially in a place like South Africa.

Going back to Cape Town is nice because the place hasn't moved on. It is a fishing village and that's its charm.

The problem is that at some point I am going to have to stop running. At some point I am going to have to commit and say this is my home. Where that is, I don't know.

I am not someone who wants to dress in the South African rugby jersey and I am not someone who feels emotional when I hear the South African national anthem.

I miss the county - and not in some cheesy "the pulse of Africa beats in my heart" rubbish.

I think to myself every morning, "when I am 40 or 35 or 50 or 60, I'm going to give up the endless fight that is London and move back to Cape Town" but then I think about Cape Town and what I would move back to.

Life in Cape Town is superficial. It's skin deep. It's easy and it's dangerous. The place annoys me and it infuriates me. Cape Town is limited. It is small.

London is big. London draws you in. London is someone who you serve. No-one is bigger than the city.
You feel like you can't leave London. When you're not in London you feel like you're missing out.
London is hard and it's tough. It's difficult. The people in London are like they are in New York; no-one gives a fuck.
Oddly, the same can be said of people in Cape Town.

I just look at the long-term prospects for South Africa and it doesn't look good.
When I think of the future of South Africa, all I can remember are the words of Mzukizi Gaba, a senior member of the ANC who once told a police officer, who arrested him for driving on the wrong side of the road; "The day Mandela dies, we will kill you whites like flies!"

Oh, I don't know where this is going. I know that comment is incendiary and I know that it's bad to leave it at that but ...

Whatever. Right now I am thinking of a place that I'd like to call home. Is it in London?

If London was by the sea and had a marvellous temperature and a lovely mountain and all my friends were here and there was no overcrowded Jubilee Line, I would start to call London my home.

10 comments:

CMR said...

You need to come to Sydney... god knows how you cope with London through winter.... The weather is good and it's big enough but still young and not so jaded. Come for a visit you just might like it.

I am missing the photo updates.... you are v talented... don't give up if you miss a day or two... cheat and catch up.

xx

Jake said...

Maybe you will consider London your home when you meet someone special that you want to settle down with.

I don't believe in validating yourself through a relationship, but I'm not sure the concept of 'home' is something you can ever achieve on your own.

Stephen said...

There was a line in a recent Indy article about European cities: Berlin is like your crazy best friend, Paris is your mistress - beautiful but ultimately boring, and London is your spouse - not glamorous on the surface, but holds your interest.

I think there's more than a grain of truth in it.

Monty said...

Move to Sydney! :-)

Robert Cox said...

Craig: I am taking photos every day but sometimes it's difficult to upload them or - as in one case - I couldn't find the chord for the camera - and I wanna stick them up as I go so I can't get the photo for the 13th off the camera so I don't wanna stick the 14th and 15th up without having the 13th on... but there are more more more more!

And Monty too - Sydney is a good idea but then I got thinking - and it would be like Cape Town without being Cape Town and the weather and the lifestyle would make me miss Cape Town even more... if that makes sense.
My sister is in Cairns at the moment so there is always that option. Er...

Yeah Stephen - good point - it's like you enter into a relationship with London because you have to work at it but the rewards when things go right are great. It's just sometimes it's totally shite!

Jake maybe when I do settle down with someone then it will become home. Wherever that is... could be bloody Timbuktu! x x x

Anonymous said...

LUV .... 'Be my ultra Beethoven'


I like your photo vision...

Liz

Anonymous said...

caelum, non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt - Horace

Jake said...

I hope the new photos are up soon too!! I'd like to put in a request for more ones with pants in 'em and also your rather sexy legs, rawr!

Fresco said...

Off topic: last weekend, there was a 2 page article on Die Antwoord in one of Belgian's leading news papers. I thought: strange, where have I read this before? Yes, here.

Craig2 said...

Sounds to me like you could never do without Cape Town, but you probably could do w/o London. As you get older, you'll probably find that fishing village more & more attractive.