Reality, surreality and fishpaste...

Life is real. I mean you feel. You feel joy, pain, ecstacy, agony. It's sharp. It cuts deep. Life makes you bleed a little. But there are those times where life seems somewhat surreal. It seems like some kind of dream like inter-action that you're ready to wake up from at any moment but you never do. One such moment I remember clearly was when one of my close friends died in a motor cycle accident. I was, I guess, 14 maybe 15. I was lying on my bed in a black goofy Disney t-shirt. Goofy was dressed up like some kind of weird animated fitness instructor.... yeah I went through a weird Disney era... everyone was doing it... anyway. I lay there in a fetal ball.. Shaking as I cried. I cried hard and I cried long and my nose began to bleed. I kept thinking I was going to wake up from this semi conscious delusion... but I never did.

Another such moment is happening in my life right now. Everything seems so surreal. Like it's happening but it's all hapening in cotton wool. It's dull and only half real to me at the moment. Maybe this is my emotional coping mechanism (however unfortunate that is) for dealing with loss. This isn't death... but there is a loss. A grieving that is neccesary. I've lived in the USA for the last 2 years. I've made new friends to add to my list of incredible old friends back home. I love them all and it places me in this rift. Torn by a deep precipice. In South Africa there is a term that is used by certain Afrikaans speaking people to describe white English speaking South African men. The word is "Soutjie." It's rather derogatory... but I assure you it helps me deliver a point.... somewhere in this mess. Translated the word means salty. The name was given to English men living in south Africa to mean that they have one foot in Europe and one foot in south Africa and their....um... wedding tackle is hanging in the water. It's means they're torn... always having both places as their homes. I feel the USA is now my home... San Diego is also liquid that pulsates through my veins. But I will forever be Africa. Africa is my mother. I hear her whispering to me softly... no matter how far away I am. I am white... but I am African born and raised. She is my shelter... my home... it's time to go home.

P.S: Not sure how to fit fishpaste into all this.... um... Oh yeah! Fishpaste is kinda surreal.