we went away, my girlfriend and i, to the mountains for the weekend. such a simple statement and it holds an incredibly beautiful world between its little words. we’ve been roadtripping pretty much since we met and it works well. we share the driving, talk a lot, play music infrequently, stop where we like – it works. i LOVE roadtrips, so it’s a huge bonus that she does too. it means i can merge like a lesbian and say, “we love roadtrips.” nice. i drove the tarred part of the journey and she drove the dirt – because photogenic things tend to happen along dirt roads. on tar, you have music and livelier conversation. on dirt, the wheels become a mantra, the sky is a meditation and you find you want to just quietly rest your hand on her thigh and smile at the world a bit.
time’s so elastic on a journey – in transit is a place in itself. i love it. i love it a lot.
i could do a wonderful review of where we stayed and what we saw, but i’m indulging myself completely in this blog entry and it’s more of a love letter – to her primarily, but also to my country – my adopted country, i wasn’t even born here. roads and tracks and trees and signs of humanity and the parts of it humanity has fuckall to do with … it’s just love.
yes man, i am solidly smug.
landscape photography is not my strong point and i don’t much care – but weeeelll … one may as well practice eh? i love mountains the way i love the sea – perhaps the sea just gets a slight advantage because it is blue. and i love blue. the eastern cape’s all yellow and dry now – worst drought in living memory and so forth.
my girlfriend is from the eastern cape and interprets and translates it for me beautifully, because i am not.
eland are my favourite animals and san rock paintings are like prayers to them in some senses. so’s the tattoo on the base of my spine. we climbed a mountain to see those. they’re so bright, because they’re not getting messed up by loads of visitors. nice man, very nice.
and now i’m out of words.
