We went away on a company retreat over the weekend. Out into the Karoo we drove, bubbling with excitement, keen on good fun, a much-needed breakaway to spend some time with each other. Driving through the wide-open drylands was bliss. I could tell by the happy chatter, the easy smiles, the warmth and contentment radiating from everyone.
It had been a long time since being out in the countryside. Or maybe it just felt that way. I grew up on a farm overgrown with wattle forests, a wide river with cliffs to jump off. I grew up on the backs of horses and quad bikes, watching out for snakes, learning about the wild from my dad. It all started coming back to me as we arrived at Tankwa River Lodge.
Telling my colleagues about my upbringing, when I knew they had this preconception of me being a sissy city boy, taught me things about myself. It brought home this sense of heritage, of being more to myself than I was to others, who only knew me in the now.
Another odd sensation made an appearance as I talked about my upbringing. I had this distinct feeling that I’ve lost touch with who I was as a child, and the person I was raised to be by my father. I went for a frolic in the outdoors, and found I was trying to prove to myself that I could still climb cliffs, identify tracks and spoor, name types of antelope, and copy the whistles of the birds I could hear.
I remember walking with my dad through every type of South African habitat, tracking animals, just hanging out with him. Legs dangling off the ledge of a cliff in the Karoo, lost in memory, I could feel him sitting behind me. I had to stop myself from turning around and expecting to see him there, asking me what type of bird was making that sound. It didn’t make me feel sad, like thoughts of my passed father usually did.
I began to experience a feeling that had been dormant for a long time – stillness. Peace. Wildness. A feeling of being free that doesn’t exist when you live in the city. No one around to make me contained by consideration. No rules of society to cause pressure, and make me wonder if I belong, or if I’m getting it right. Just…me. This is my heritage, and I could only realise it when there was nothing ‘right now’ but me.
City life has been what I’ve known and thrived in for the last six years. It felt good to find my heritage, waiting for me to acknowledge it, biding its time, knowing that inexorably, I will return to it. I will always hear my father’s voice, feel him resting behind me, asking me what type of buck that was. Those times with him out on our farm made me the man I am today.
I came from somewhere strong, somewhere free. I forget it often when the constant struggle to succeed at ‘right now’ consumes me. But I don’t think it’s a matter of sometimes forgetting where we come from. It’s about understanding that right now is most important, and that right now is made beautiful by what used to be.
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