Morning Plans
It’s still night outside and as I open the door a crack, a gust of cold salted air rushes into the apartment. I shiver and relent and open the door fully and prop the rectangular concrete doorstop in place. I step onto the landing (it’s too small a space to be a stoep) and greet first light of this new cycle with my bare arms, legs and head; standing there allowing the cold greeting of the South Atlantic to reach around and over me. I steady my breathing and eventually stay the shivering and enjoy the sensation of being present in another mood and moment of this cold, mighty and terrifying ocean. A few moments later, now properly cold from head to extremity, I retreat and get the morning rituals going. The salted air now mingling with the first traces of the coffee that’s just about ready, the bouquet of drying herbs, some heads of garlic and a bunch of impepho hanging over the kitchen counter.
Ablutions done, I turn off the camp stove and set the bialetti down to stand and grab the last of the spring water from Oom Martins from the fridge. By now my houseguest has clearly had enough of me tramping about and making noise and is up, groggy-eyed and bound up in a soft cerulean and slate throw from the bed. She’s barefoot and despite me tramping around barefoot for almost an hour already, her feet are freezing when she plants them over mine and mutters a string of expletives and complaints into my ear about being awake at this patently unsuitable hour. I listen and offer the only sensible words in this context; coffee? My reward is a moment’s silence and then too-much-wine-the-night-before morning breath searching for my lips. I acquiesce as much to the tenderness of the gesture, as to the hope that it will speed up my escape from the frozen feet torturing me. No such luck, my submission only adds to the torture from the cold-blooded amongst us as a pair of frozen hands encircle me a slide under the t-shirt. I submit; properly this time and forget all about the plans to be on the road by twilight to catch the sunrise at that special spot near the vlei.
Hours later, long after sunrise has come to and gone past the vlei, we pull off at an unmarked gate and I get out to do gate-jockey duties for the next 10 kilometres and six gates or so over farm track that meanders around, alongside and briefly, over a narrow strip of the vlei itself. It’s really just indigenous west coast veld that grows over a vast unfarmed area. There’s a low dune separating the vlei from the white sandy beach that the Atlantic laps on the other side. Way up north is a little inlet where during high tide, the ocean slips gently into this depression and slowly fills it up here and there with what become pools of briny water as the tide ebbs away hours later. The birdlife is, as expected, prolific and since my first visit here a few moons ago, I’ve kept a note to learn more about them. Of course, I have not actually gotten around to doing the admin and the learning so everytime the houseguest goes ‘ohhh, what’s that bird?,’ I mutter yes, that’s a bird indeed. A big bird, a little bird, a flock of birds, a pair of them, a brown-ish bird, ohh indeed, that’s a greyish-blueish bird, that’s a bird with red legs and black feathers and it’s medium sized. After a bit houseguest relents, and now we both go, ‘ohhh tall birds standing on one leg — oh wait, that’s clearly a flamingo — even we non-twitters know that one.’ ‘A flamboyance of flamingos’ she adds. Eventually we get to the pull-off spot that I had imagined us sharing the sunrise from, huddled together with our coffee and I see it’s been taken up by a small, overland type tour bus. I cannot suppress the groan that escapes me and houseguest mutters to herself and then does her best to comfort me.
It works. We abandon the car at an awkward angle so that the little track remains open, grab the backpacks and head towards the little path that takes us over the low dunes and towards the ocean. The air is now warm and thick with sea spray as a gentle onshore breeze carries it towards us. The crashing roar of the ocean gets louder with each step we take. Eventually, we crest the low dune and stop to behold the sight before us. From right to left is the same shimmering dark blue, bustling into a foamy white band as it crashes gently onto the powdery sand. It’s empty of other humans as far as the eye can see. The veld of the dunes reaches right down to the beach itself and we turn left and trudge on for a bit until we find a little copse of trees, where we set down the backpacks and ourselves in the shade. We unfurl the picnic cloth, books and several apples (idk — there’s something about people with cold feet and apples) and some biltong. We settle in for a perfect day of doing not much besides reading and snoozing. After a bit of quiet reading and then a shrieking dip (the water is properly cold) the houseguest starts rummaging around in her backpack and I turn around to see what is going on. Kneeling and grinning, she proffers a (still cold) bottle of local sparkling wine and the only two glasses that exist in my spot. I’m as surprised as I am impressed — when did houseguest get this done? ‘Happy earthday’ she whispers as we toast ‘I hope this makes up for the ruined morning plans.’
Morning Plans is an ode to people that fit together in ways even they don’t understand and have stopped trying to.
© Jesh Baker, 2022
