Sunday, February 1, 2009

Need for Solitude


I have never had so many invitations in my life. Everyone has been fantastic, but yet the only people I've been able for are Mitchell and Jill (who comes as a job lot with Lorian). There are lots of people I still have to get back to. I don't necessary want to be alone but I don't want to be with anyone else either. Paradoxical as that is, it makes sense to me: I simply want to be with Duncan.


When I have to be out socially I find my breathing constricts and I am seized by a strange panic; suddenly I cannot be with these people any longer. If I zoom out and look at the world from far I see millions and millions of people, all slotted into their lives; then I see me - I've lost my place in the universe. It is as if it has closed up and there is nowhere for me to be. I feel more lost than I had known it was possible for any human being to be.


I keep smelling Bitumen which I associate immediately with Kranspunt - the cattle farm we owned in the Free State - a place of sheer joy and solitude for Duncan and I. When the calves were dehorned the cut was sealed with this product to prevent bleeding and infection. I don't know where it is coming from but it is quite disturbing; and of course catches me up short and reminds me distinctly each time of Duncan.

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