The ups and sounds of moving out

This past weekend, I moved back home after going at it on my own for the first time in my life in a little cottage in Observatory. A cottage with a cracked bedroom window, an overgrown garden, an extended family of snails, a slightly out-of-tune piano and an eerie picture of Whistler’s Mother on the dining room wall.

Yes, it’s only been a tad over three months, but due to unforeseen circumstances I need to find a new place and until that happens, my old and now painfully undersized bedroom will need to suffice.

I grew up with one of the ultimate fears being that, when I were to move out, moving back home (regardless of the reason) would simply be the ultimate failure. I don’t really want to go home at all. And yet, feeling as accepting and cognisant of my current circumstances feels like the greatest accomplishment I’ve had in some time, but more of that a bit later…

Going back to moving out of home for the first time, what are some of the biggest lessons I’ve picked up in the last few months? What is reality actually like? Well, right off the bat, there was the rather upsetting realisation that carrying boxes all day and acquainting yourself with your new home, while empowering, is not as easy and enjoyable as it would be if you were doing it with someone else. 

Once everything was somewhat set-up, there was the question of ‘what now’? It was truly peculiar to have the silence that was once a blessing (on the rare occasion I was home alone at my parents’ place) seem like something far more burdensome and unsettling here, in my own space. Being the youngest of four, I had always been accustomed to the ambient sounds of others milling about the house, banging pots and pans, locking bathroom doors, watching the TV too loudly or simply visiting the refrigerator at 3am to grab that last glass of hopelessly flat Coca-Cola.

I love silence, but certainly not as much I was getting in those first few weeks, and it soon became second-nature to turn the TV or my music just a little bit louder than I was used to, with even Brooke Logan's voice offering some audible comfort.

On your own, especially at night, there is the need to justify every single sound that you hear. If you can’t explain every sound, then the natural assumption is that you’re about to die. A spooky scraping on the roof? “Oh, that must be the leaves of that big palm tree blowing in the wind and scraping against my roof, which is made from that older tin-like material that also makes everything sound louder than it actually is.”

A sudden knocking noise from the kitchen? “Relax, Karl. It must be that big pot that you stacked on top of all those plates and the pot must suddenly have moved an inch because the greasiness of the plate below it made the entire structure unstable in the first place.”

What about the sound of the patio door being opened? “Holy shit! Someone just opened the patio door! This is where it all ends…”

I blame my parents for these bouts of anxiety. They have always been highly security-conscious and aware of their surroundings and evidently, much of those traits have been passed down to me. But these were times, especially over the first month, that I sorely missed the presence of someone else in the next room.

I learnt much more in these three months. I learnt how resourceful I could be when one simply has no other choice. I changed outside light bulbs (standing on a cushion that was on a chair which was balanced on a table) at 1am in the middle of the night. I unblocked drains (who knew you could do this without a hosepipe and/or a plumber?).

I went on a gardening frenzy one day with a shears borrowed from a friend, and came away with all my limbs intact. I picked figs, removed a gigantic arthropod from the wall without screaming and mopped up some barf (not my own) from the single house party I had (not my plan).

And then there was the cooking… the positives include me never having made something that wasn’t edible. My onion-chopping speed has also improved from nothing to one onion per 90 seconds. I learnt the hard way that tomato sauce is not the answer should one run out of tomato paste, and that what looks like too many mushrooms at the beginning of the cooking process turns into far too few by the end.

I loved washing dishes whenever I felt like and I loved being able to sing in the shower without someone hearing me on the other side of the door.

More than all of that, it’s eye-opening to do something right (cook a good meal, have the grass cut, pay the rent) and to realize that you did it all by yourself. You’re forced to grow a thicker skin and to not sweat the small stuff and as I hinted at above, it’s been that sense of growth that means I can go back home for the month of November knowing that at the end of the day, this is life. Things don’t go entirely according to plan, and that is absolutely fine (if rather inconvenient).

I hope to find a place I can call home again really soon because it’s a tough, awkward, expensive and wildly life-changing experience that I can’t wait to resume (hopefully in a place without a large palm tree's noisy leaves imitating the arrival of an axe-wielding intruder...).

The Mighty King Steer burger

There’s something mystical about the ‘ultimate’ option on every menu. At Spur, it may be something like the 1kg rack of ribs. And I’m sure that even Ocean Basket has a platter-for-1 option that would threaten to drain the sea life from the Waterfront Harbour.

These are menu options that make normally-sized people uneasy, uncomfortable and a little bit sweaty. We just don’t order them, choosing instead to go for the ‘middling’ burger or steak without compromising our bank account balances or our dignity.

But last night, I conquered the mystery of the Steers Mighty King Steer burger. It’s somewhat hidden on the Steer menu and many people I spoke to were blithely unaware that you could buy a burger with two buns which somehow manage to contain three patties and three slices of cheese. At R61, it’s extremely expensive (by the way, that R61 buys you the burger only). No fries and no cooldrink are included. Obviously, Steers believes that after consuming this particular burger, such extras are completely redundant, and potentially dangerous.

Anyway, I ordered the burger at the Rondebosch Steers and patiently waited for the monster to be prepared. When it was done, it was packed into a regular Steers brown paper bag and accompanied by a regular serviette and a regular slip. There were no warning signs to indicate the magnitude of this purchase. Think of it as the BMW M5 (it looks a lot like a 535i, but will kill you if you press the accelerator down with the same force as you would in the 535i). The question was, would this burger kill me too?

So, there I was, 15 minutes later, home and removing the monster from its packaging. The first thing I noticed was that the single slice of tomato slid right out of the awesome specimen and landed, with minimal resistance, into the box – it seems that this burger rejects everything that doesn't come in threes.

While it looked and felt heavier than a ‘regular’ King Steer, the appearance of it wasn’t quite as terrifying as expected. But that first bite… this thing tasted unbelievably good! It was everything a Steer burger has always been, but just much more.

And while I did try to get away with one complete bite (from the top to the bottom of the burger), this wasn’t physically possible – and I don’t think it was ever meant to be. Another impracticality arose when trying to keep the burger and its contents contained as I devoured it. This required slightly more hand-eye coordination than one would usually be accustomed to when eating, with a level of difficulty that ranks alongside consuming a bony piece of snoek or a Bona masala steak gatsby.

A couple of minutes later, I had managed to finish the entire burger without foaming at the mouth or needing to call ADT, and there it was – done. While I did feel full, I can’t say that I felt stuffed. In terms of taste, this extreme burger delivered, but I couldn’t justify the extra expense over a King Steer. It isn’t THAT extreme.

So, like the golden circle experience at the Rihanna concert a few weeks ago, the Might King Steer was an unknown that just had to be investigated. And like the Rihanna concert, this too was an experience that had its moments without quite living up to my lofty expectations. Does it mean you shouldn’t give the Might King Steer a go at least once in your life? Of course not.

A few quick thoughts on Rihanna

I’m still very much in recovery, but here are a few thoughts on attending what was my first big concert (and consequently my first golden circle experience). Oh, and I have attached no pictures because I just didn’t have the energy to do it. My apologies.

THE GOLDEN CIRCLE

All in all, I stood for over eight hours, which was far more challenging than any tennis match I’ve played, or Argus Tour I’ve cycled. I rested on the shoulders and beneath the armpits of friends and strangers, and while the vibe was definitely exciting, the leg pain was great and the heat / smell almost unbearable at times. Being 1.67m ‘tall’, it only took one or two taller guys directly in front of me to block my entire view. I think watching the big screen from the golden circle defeats the purpose of paying so much to be there, even for a few close-up glimpses of Riri.

It must be said that the general fixation people have with recording every second of the concert on smartphones instead of actually watching and soaking up the experience is incredibly annoying, with many of these screens also blocking my view.

HER VOICE

A close friend and I exchanged a few gasps / laughs during Rihanna’s often hard-to-decipher live vocals, which is a reminder that this is not her strong point. She sang the fairly-easy-to-sing ‘Stay’ really well, but the dance tracks made it hard to hear when she was singing and when she was not. I think a few more low-key, acapella-type snippets thrown in here and there would have been great for connecting with the audience, but there were none.

HER OUTFIT…

…was average. She did look quite cute, but she also didn’t change into anything different all night, and I never imagined this would be something that would be a disappointment, but it was.

THE DANCING

When most Riri fans are celebrating the three times she twerked, then one has to assume there was very little actual dancing, which is true. Sure, Riri swayed back and forth with her special brand of chilled, Caribbean-laced rhythm, but there was a lack of obviously-rehearsed and ‘we-spent-hours-making-this-look-awesome’ performances.

THE SONGS

Thankfully, Riri has a massive catalogue of hits to rely upon and ultimately, we do pay the money to hear the songs that we love. She delivered in terms of performing almost all her big hits, many of them during the second half of the concert, and they were awesome. But I was still watching a lot of it on those big screens… and my knees were still buckling under the pressure.

HER PERSONALITY

I think that the least an artist can do is try – even if somewhat awkwardly – to engage on a personal level with their audience. Unfortunately, Rihanna lived up to the ‘rather vacant between the ears’ impression I had of her, with shouts of ‘Cape Toooooown’ being the apex of her communication with us. This is where the fans want to experience the artist as a person, but I can’t tell you anything about her that I didn’t already know.

There was zero talk of any song meaning something to her and nothing at all about what visiting our country has been like. It just felt very non-personal.

THE BEST MOMENT

‘Stay’ was a welcome relief from the bad, distorted sound that always accompanies big concerts when a bass-heavy dance track is being performed. Being a ballad that didn’t require her entire band, it was so nice to hear her voice.

The Diamonds follow-up was also great, and each built up to my favourite moment, right at the end, when a smiling Riri walked off the stage with a South African flag around her shoulders. It’s safe to say that the concert ended on a much higher note than it began on.

Would I pay R820 for a golden circle ticket again? For Mariah, yes. For someone like an Alicia Keys that takes time to engage with her audience, yes as well. But for most others, probably not.

The Rihanna concert was an okay experience sprinkled with a few really fun moments, but I did leave thinking that in this case, the music ultimately overshadows the star behind it.

THE ‘I’M SOOOO STRESSED’ SYNDROME

The more things change, the more they… change.

The price of petrol today has little in common with the price of petrol when I was a student, except for the end result being the same – my car keeps moving. The amount of lovely, liquid chocolate filling the Twice As Nice ‘sucker’ I enjoyed as a kid steadily decreased through the years, to the point where said sucker became merely ‘nice’. And the search for that epic song that I JUUUUST couldn’t get to the name of has become, well, barely a search. All I really need to remember are two words in the lyric and – perhaps - the first letter of the artist’s name and just like that, I’ll be able to instantly identify and download the thing online.

Those are all some fairly non-destructive changes I've experienced in my lifetime.

But the subject of this little write-up and the specific change I want to speak of is the compulsion we modern, trendy young professionals have to constantly communicate to others that we are busy. Stressed out of our minds. Inundated. Burning the midnight oil. I could go on, so familiar am I with these expressions…

Are we really that busy, however? Or has the idea of being busy and stretched to the limit come to be associated with success, virtually forcing within and upon us a culture of chaotic pretence? I think it has.

Nobody really seems that interested in your small talk if all they’re going to hear about is how your sister’s son is doing at school, which beach you went to as soon as the Cape sun made an extraordinary appearance or even how the renovations on your apartment are going. These all come across as a pathetic little starter salad, complete with a browning piece of lettuce. Nobody wants it. What they do want is the main course. That juicy piece of sirloin you’re inevitably leading up to – it’s far weightier, drama-filled and also likely to leave you exhausted and almost unable to walk. Much the same as work stress, unread emails and overflowing schedules.

Of late, I’ve been curtailing my default responses to the ‘how are you?’ question. My mission is for these responses to not always be saddled with words such as busy, exhausted or pitted (as affectionately used by a few friends). Too often, I’ve been witness to these descriptions escaping my mouth when, actually, I’ve been quite okay. Things have been going well. I am in control and in fact not in pursuit of the nearest cliff face or shot of Tequila.

But very often, I’ve found the ‘I’m good, I’m okay’ space to be an uncomfortable one, for myself and for others. Surely if we’re okay and fairly well-rested, we’re not doing enough? And then, the paranoia kicks in. The moment I find myself feeling fine, I question why I am not using the time to get ahead – to hustle.  To gain an edge over my competitors, my colleagues and even the person I was a few months ago.

Where does this leave us? Well, I think we need to re-evaluate the stress in our lives and pinpoint how much of it is real, and how much is a mere fabrication. Beyond that, we need to go back to basics and become less reliant on stress as a means of defining who we are. We need to revisit the true meaning of stress.

It’s actually NOT a positive emotion. The dictionary defines stress as ‘a state of emotional or mental strain’ so by us constantly and boldly blurting out how stressed we are, we’re in fact admitting to whoever is listening that there is some sort of imbalance in our professional or personal lives – or both. Sure, a little bit of stress and anxiety helps to keep us on our toes, but these are sentiments that most certainly do not deserve to be wielded about like a trophy of competence.

Rather, we should be soaking up the periods of control, peace and self-assurance we all reach (or are at right now, without even knowing it!). Wouldn’t you rather complete seven tasks at 100% of your capacity than 17 in a frenzied state? Wouldn’t THAT engender a greater sense of satisfaction? Chances are, you’ll slip up less of the time and will actually have the capacity to look back on what you have achieved.

Too often, we value people based upon how thinly they can spread themselves between multiple tasks, rather than how much flavour and magic they can add to a single function. We’re missing out on the details because we’re chasing all that is mad, chaotic and consuming.

If I can leave you with one little morsel to chew on, it would be to resist the urge to forge a mind and a body that is stressed and approaching its limits. Think, really think, about how you are before telling someone else. Keep it simple. Be calm.

And always leave some room for dessert.