To everything there is a season…

Turning a new leaf in the platteland, one becomes more aware that there is “a time to every purpose under heaven”, to quote Ecclesiastes (and The Byrds, of course). And village life may come with surprising advantages when things don’t go according to pla

Summer – January 2016

There is a general sense that things are going from bad to worse, but sometimes they don’t – like the time my mother moved from Durban to a small Swartland village called Koringberg, about 118 km from Cape Town. The town suited her as an artist, and recently divorced. Koringberg has nothing, so the living costs are low, the air is fresh, and the horizon is open.

Her new patch of earth wasn’t much. There was a small house in a bad shade of maroon and a deeply neglected garden. But my mother is an artist.

“Look!” she said, about to show me the photos, “the garage space is perfect for a studio!” Previously, her studio was in the basement – a dark, small and damp space with no doors or windows.

When I looked at the photos of the plot, I smiled to hide my impression, but she is my mother: “Yes, the house is ugly and the garden’s dry,” she said, “but it has potential.” She pointed out the hedge of rosemary and, tucked behind it, a rustic pool shaded by an enormous old pepper tree. “It just needs some TLC, I’m just saying!”

I felt uneasy about Koringberg.

I am used to places with cafés and restaurants. Or a hospital. All she had in Koringberg was less than half her furniture, the art she’d made, her dogs, a single friend, this house and its garden. As we unpacked boxes in the harsh summer, cold sarongs over our shoulders, surrounded by drought-reddened hills and bare farms, the dry and oppressive heat evaporated my cheerfulness.

The quiet and starry nights of Koringberg helped our attention to drift away from schedules, deadlines, projects and lawyers.

We could speak about how we were feeling. My mom would say – despite the heat, the raw stress of divorce, the scorpions – she was fizzing with excitement. She could make this house beautiful.

Autumn – May 2017

In Koringberg, surrounded by farms and filled with gardens, the land is prepared for seed over May. Farmers comb the soil while the gardeners churn it. Wheat and canola are then planted in the dust.

After uprooting her life in Durban, my mom had grown her friendships using an age-old method: supplying sunlight held together by water (read: wine), like trees that funnel water to other trees. After all, one tree cannot make a forest, or a local climate, by itself. Trees don’t hoard resources too, because the deaths of other trees would make gaps in the forest’s canopy. More trees would get uprooted by storms, and the forest floor would dry out over the summer. I think Koringbergers must have a tree-morality because they share plenty of wine together.

Sharing, of course, was not limited to wine. She would know who is doing what and going where, who is ill and needs a meal, and folks would know when she is ill and needs a meal (and, in time, she was going to be very ill). She came to know that So-and-so’s partner can’t drive, and, in case of an accident, she might be the one who is called to take him to the nearest hospital. Just in case.

We hope we never have to make or receive a call like that. Hers came at three in the morning. They made it to the hospital. In moments like these, the roots of a community tied themselves more closely together.

Winter – July 2019

Sometimes, things do go from bad to worse. Divorce matters. Accusations. Stubbornness. A lump in her breast. To remove the breast cancer, she needed surgery, radiation and medication. Yet the calloused surface over a hardened heart cannot be removed by surgery, radiation or medication.

Even if the operation and treatment went well, cancer carries a high risk of depression. In time, she could have laid in bed justifiably weighed down by fear and self-pity. Instead, she charged into the face of the enemy.

The charge would start in the mornings while drinking coffee in her bed warmed by the dogs. She’d say, “Look!”, gazing through the large bedroom windows, “The sunbirds!” After a few seasons, the aloes had matured enough to flower. She pointed out that the fluttering sunbirds were a pair and, behind them, the drowse of a small mountain.

Once out of bed, she’d ask me to water the reservoir of succulents and her vegetable garden while she would feed the birds and her dogs. There were three now: Her dachshunds from Durban, Jack and Daisy, and Tigger, a retrieverridgeback mix that had lost its bark after being re-adopted again and again.

After everyone had been given care, Mom would drive to the treatment centre. It took the better part of her day and the treatment was painful and debilitating. Her friends offered her places to stay somewhere closer, but she always went back to Koringberg. She went back to her large sunlit studio, her stoep, her bed. She went back for her dogs, the garden, and its critters; the air, the light, the quiet, and power of the landscape. Plus, the Koringbergers had filled her fridge with home-cooked meals. She came back so that Koringberg and its locals could take her into their care.

Perhaps depression has something to do with carelessness, an absence of tree-morality.

Spring – September 2022

“Everything in her garden flowers, even the spekboom. The cancer has not come back but Tigger’s bark did.’

The wild flowers of the area throw such a good party that even though we don’t know the names of the hosts, our hearts are joyful to see them. Surrounded by flowers and the creatures they attract, something in our chests is dislodged and rises. We feel inspired. We feel grateful. Colour is wrapped with emotion. Pink is glee. Purple entices. Orange is excitement. White calms. Red woos.

Even the light in Koringberg changes from the pollen and dust. Smog absorbs light, making cities darker, but dust and pollen scatter it. It changes the wavelength of the light, giving it a soft yellow hue. Yellow is cheerful.

It’s been seven years since my mother moved, and she was right. The house is now a pale blue which matches the plumbagos, the inside walls the colour of wheat fields. The pool is decorated with pink peppercorns. Everything in her garden flowers, even the spekboom. The cancer has not come back but Tigger’s bark did. And whenever new visitors arrive, they all say something like, “Oh! This house is beautiful!”

Sometimes, things don’t always go from bad to worse. A bald field will erupt with an abundance of flowers, crops and creatures. People care enough to feed a sick friend and drive them to the hospital before dawn. Dogs find a home. People heal from cancer. A local landscape and its community become familiar, and something dear emerges. What is touched by courage and tenderness becomes more beautiful, like my mother’s house in Koringberg.