I write stuff and I live in France.
The LiLly Pond Lodge After our hike, we turned the car about and drove the five minutes back to Lilly Pond. We turned left into the gate and announced our arrival through a little speaker that connected us directly to Nils. He let us in, and they both met us in the parking lot for welcome hugs. &am
At risk of being trapped in Knysna, we set off in search of long lost sailors who are currently testing the theory that sailors can successfully return to land and re-enter polite society after this ocean-going dalliance is done. Join us in this series of blog posts as we enjoy the South African’ Ga
We sailors aren’t really superstitious anymore, but… Join us on the next leg of our passage down South Africa’s Coast of Storms. We test our favor with Neptune as we attempt to enter the dreaded Knysna Heads where, if we succeed, we will be met with a yacht club steeped in history and gin distille
I’m not supersticious, black cat just crossed my trail . . . (sf)
Having survived one of the more miserable passages we’ve had in our whole trip, we enjoyed the safe harbor of East London along side both new and old friends. What’s the trick to re-motivating ourselves back out to sea? A dose of laugher must be the best sea-sickness medicine.
I arrived in France on May 12th. My luggage got to France the 14th. The company responsible for delivering it gave it to Poste Français. I wasn’t home when they tried to deliver it, so they took it back to the main post office in Civray, 8km away. They did not notify me. After almost getting nasty about things, the delivery company told me what had happened. Yesterday I went up to Civray and retrieved my luggage. Everything was there. I shall post again! Carry on!
A paradigm (pronounced pair-a-dime) is a framework used to operate something, be it a club, website, club, or society. As it happens, a free society changes its paradigms roughly every eighty years. Look it up, and you’ll see many people claiming loudly that the cyclical theory of history has been debunked. In the 1950s, the theory of plate Techtonics was said by many to be debunked. Too bad for those guys, that theory predicts so well how the world is and will be that it is now accepted as correct. Amongst historians, cyclical theory is right where plate Techtonics was in 1955. And cyclical theory predicts general trends amazingly well. Trends such as the recent surge in hard-core conservatism (which happens at regular intervals) and the general zeitgeist of each succeeding generation. There is a book that explains it all: Generations: Howe, Neil: 9780688119126: Amazon.com: Books
Read that first if you must, but since you’re here, why not just go on? This is short, I promise.
Consider prior to the 1930s, when consumerism was considered crass, and people were afraid of plastics. Then came the Great Depression, and WWII, and now darned if people didn’t embrace consumerism is a manner that is, frankly, sort of embarrassing. The so-called Silent Generation, the one just before the Baby Boomers, was all over criticizing their elders over consumerist habits, the Red Scare, and other things. But, that was the paradigm of the age, and it worked. The biggest boom in prosperity in the history of the world ensued. But just as the paradigm that consumerism replaced was becoming increasingly dysfunctional, the paradigms we have been living in are no longer working well, and the resulting zeitgeist is one of, well, you’re living in it, you tell me your words for it. It’s not fun.
Oddly, every time the basic attitudes and structures of society need rearranged, they at least partially are, to the extent that people will put up with the changes, anyway. But to do that, there are always distractors. The Great Depression and World War Two kept everyone’s attention off of the structural changes in society, such as unbelievable levels of choice for consumers (do we need all that?), increased automation and mechanization, standardization of foods, housing, transportation and other aspects of society, and others I’m sure you could list if you want to. Those things were, believe it or not, not always popular prior to those mid-century crises, but they have been incredibly popular since. Ever drive on an Interstate? Nice roads, huh? And, of course, societal attitudes toward minorities and poor people have moved away from where they were just after that war. Some cities are doing what they can to ameliorate the damage caused by an Interstate Highway through historically thriving neighborhoods of minority people, for instance. There is a reason that those who cling to the “good old days” are unhappy today. Of course they are, and you would be too if you were in their exact place. But you’re most likely not, because the world is, as always changing, and the way society holds together must change with it.
So, our country will look and sound different in another decade or so. And everybody will either be actually happy about that, pretend to be happy about that, or be dismissed as an old grouch. I know because that’s how it always goes. You should have heard what some people were still saying about FDR in the 50s! But, the change will happen, and a new era of, well new eraness will begin. And, get this, immediately following the resolution of the current crises that distract us, the next generation equivalent to the Boomers will start being born. Bet you’re really looking forward to that, huh?
Let’s just say, the passage from Richard’s Bay to East London goes down as one of the most physically miserable passages we have experienced in 24,000 miles of sailing. And, it made the cat angry. But Sonrisa hit another water-speed record while riding the Agulhas Current like a runaway speed train.
The question of our future follows us into some of South Africa’s most beautiful terrain as we Meander through the Midlands and onward to Drackensberg and Cathedral Peak. Enjoy some hiking and exploring South Africa with us while we avoid life’s pesky: “what’s next” question.
Source: Meandering — OddGodfrey: The Oddly Compelling Story of a Sailing Circumnavigation of the World
You remember the Oddgodfreys? Used to sail a lot, and post a lot. Well, finally, here they are again, after ONE, count it, ONE post this year! Yoiks! Don’t they realize that if they don’t post, I actually have to write my own stuff???
Okay, joking. Glad to have them back. Here is the latest, and there are two more. From here, just follow the links on their blog!
The Oddgodfreys commence their by-land wandering through South Africa. Leaving Sonrisa tied up to her slip at the Zululand Yacht Club, we embark into wild and unknown territory involving ramps to the moon, holes into the center of the earth, and hopefully, ghosts!
I took that picture from the street in front of Shakespeare and Company, one of my favorite bookstores. Rooms follow rooms, and it is an American book store, which is a bit of a nice relaxing thing for an American tourist. Now, on the 11th of April this year, in 20 days in fact, I will fly out of Las Vegas and, with a stop at LAX, to Paris, from which I will take a train to Poitiers (the town where the famous Eleanor of Aquitaine literally held court,) from which I will drive my rented car to Lizant, where we will have, as of March 29th, a second home. If you want more details, see Follow Me to France on this very blog. By the way (BTW if you insist) the region is now known officially as Nouvelle Aquitaine, or New Aquitaine. France feels the need to rearrange internal political boundaries every so often.
I was getting rather nervous about the whole thing. After all, I do speak French now, maybe at a level B1, somewhere around there, which is okay if things don’t get too technical, but not okay for banking, dealing with tradesmen, or for that matter talking on the phone. We want to make some modifications on our house, so I must see the Maire (just pronounce it, it isn’t difficult) and get official permission from the Commune (relax, that name goes back to Napoleon and means “municipality.”) Hot damn. And then there’s the issue of hiring tradespeople to do the work, or at least most of it, because I am, as my son will point out, older than dirt. And lazy. They don’t all speak English, and I don’t know if the Maire does either, although the sheer numbers of anglophones in the area suggests that he might have to. Not everybody is so happy about learning a new language as myself. (If I live in France, I speak French; sil je habite en France, je parle français.) Also, I have to arrange for all utilities to be in our name, get cable and Internet, buy a frigging TV, and a printer for our computers, plus some cookware and other stuff. And the sellers, bless them, are leaving most of the furniture, but not the living room set, so there’s that, and well, that’s a lot of stuff to do five-thousand miles from home, it seems to me. (There are some serious modifications to the building in store, too.)
So, I was getting nervous. Then I read a Facebook post from my friend Leslie, who is one of the Oddgodfrey’s from whom I regularly repost blog items. They are in year seven, maybe eight by now, of a planned five-year circumnavigation in their 40-goot sailboat, the SV Sonrisa, which is a great name for a boat. It makes me smile to think about it. (It means “smile” in Spanish.) Unfortunately, I can’t repost it here, but the essence of it is that they had a meal in a South African restaurant that she described as “maybe the best I’ve ever had.” Yes! If you want to have lived before you die, you’ve got to get out there and do it. There’s a saying I learned from the Oddgodfreys about boats: A boat is safe in port, but that’s not what a boat is for.
By the same token, you won’t get too many surprises or difficulties if you stay home, but you’ll probably never find the “best meal of your life” either. Living life means getting out there into where life is lived, which isn’t at home for most of us these days. I mean, what’s gonna happen? I’ll need to type into Google Translate to be understood? Heck, I’ve been there before, and it wasn’t at all dangerous. Hey, I’m going on an adventure! And I think everyone should. If it’s okay to say YOLO before doing something arguably stupid and silly, why not apply that philosophy to bigger things? Pack up and move to Tibet, if that’s what you want to do. I’m sure it will scare you, but that great experience is just champing* at the bit waiting for you to show up!
*Yes, it’s ‘champing’ not ‘chomping.’ It’s a horse thing.