Deserts & dates

Remember that panicked late-night drive down the Nossob ? (The Man) Here, in the shade of a shaggy old camelthorn tree: one of the things that made us late.

I know, it was going to be Rule #3 - but I'm just not in the mood. I've been re-reading Freya Stark's travel writings - you know 1920s-30s, traipsing all over the Middle-East & dining with the Bedouin. We'll pass over the sheep's bits & the camel's unmentionables - but she writes about desert dates, and the figs & pomegranates in the suqs. Just imagine.

So, what with the Kalahari springbok & Dame Freya's dates... well, my mind is full of sun & faraway places.

Kyloe's two young date palms are nowhere near ready to bear - but they're getting there. Such a business as it was to get them too, years ago. Ornamental palms, of course - no problem. But the real dactylifera - well, I hope that's what we've got...

Is there someone else who remembers those beautiful little wooden boxes that used to arrive, once a year, from somewhere in the northern Cape ? Fresh sticky syrupy dates. A treasure from a desert place. Like Dame Freya's desert fruits. A fond & rather melancholy memory.

Seems I have unfinished business with the deserts... Hence, I suppose, the Kalahari-Augrabies thing - no matter how tough the training. And that is how I discovered the cruelest words in the English language: "Repeat whole sequence 3 times."

Don’t be a pain in the whatsit: Rule #1 of 5

Kyloe: view from the front stoep. A good place to be reminded of the bigger picture, and to keep things in perspective. Which brings me to the following: Don't be a pain. For heaven's sake - and for your own, no less than for the sake of those around you - keep things in perspective. Approach your fruitarianism with as much elegance, and as light a touch as you can manage. Some wise person somewhere said: Get over heavy ground as lightly as possible. So, in that spirit, here is the first of my 5 little rules:

STOP EXPLAINING
Lose the compulsion to over-explain. Just lose it. You’ll find that some friends – or indeed family members – don’t agree with what you’re doing. So what ? Let it go. Once you’ve embarked on a well-informed, well-considered and well-motivated journey towards your own empowerment, you have earned the right to be free of the symbiotic need to be understood & validated.

And don’t apologize. If you’ve been ill-mannered, apologize for that, certainly – but not for having the guts to take responsibility for yourself. If your critics are not on a similar path, it’s highly unlikely that they’ll be familiar with the co-ordinates of your world. In-depth explanations may be meaningless to them. So, stand back, disengage from the emotional hooks of the situation, and share only as much information as may be necessary to facilitate a light atmosphere.

I know, I know - easier said than done, sometimes. When there's someone who just has to dig & pinch & snipe - just tell him (it's usually a him) you've decided to experiment with fruitarianism. He wants to know why ? Oh, you want to see what it can do for your sex-life. If that doesn't shut him up, it'll at least divert the conversation into a channel which will reveal more about him, than all his probing about your fruitarianism revealed about you...

Kyloe

Kyloe ? A kind of cow (bulls too I suppose) you'll find in the Scottish highlands (and lowlands, I suppose, if they have lowlands there, but I haven't bothered to find out). In some previous century the house began as a Scots Reverend's cow-shed (this is the short version of the story); the main front room still features the ancient feeding-trough - worn-down sections in the massive yellow-wood beam showing where the cows rubbed their heads & necks as they fed. Well, it seemed right to keep the name.

And the "Experiment" ? Well, there are a few parts to it. One of them began a few days ago, in the Sports Science Institute in Cape Town - the temple where the Fit & the Firm go to worship, and elite athletes go to be honed into something even more elite. You know about the two guys who ran the ENTIRE Great Wall of China - all 4,000+ kms of it - in one go ? Well the SSI was where they went to fine-tune their training. That should give you some idea.

And then I turn up. Dear heaven. In my please-hide-as-much-as-possible T-shirt.

A fresh young blonde takes me in hand, and - to her eternal credit - doesn't collapse in uncontrollable mirth when she discovers Why I am there. Of course I wasn't going to tell her anything. But then when I don't detect any obvious sneering & sarcasm, I lose my head, and start confessing. Suddenly she's my Friend who is going to help me to get to my goal. So she measures & prods & fills out questionnaires, & next week I'm going back to get the training schedule she's working out for me. (I'm choosing to believe that she needs a whole week to devise this schedule - NOT because of the outrageousness of the challenge, but because she is a good kid who is sincerely trying to do a thorough job.)

The challenge ? Ever heard of the Augrabies Xtreme ? Well, the fresh young blonde also hadn't heard about it before - perhaps that's why she didn't flinch at the thought of getting me ready to do the thing. But then, I didn't actually tell her the whole truth. I didn't tell her I want to do the thing on fruit. THAT is where the Challenge becomes the Experiment.

I think I'll go lie down now - suddenly feeling a bit faint.

the beginning (continued)

By the time we found it, it was late autumn. Now you know what autumn does to grapevines - and there was this stone courtyard, vine-covered. Catabwa-grapes - but we didn't know that at the time. In fact you won't believe how little we knew about what we were blundering into. But we did know one thing. We'd found it. Kyloe.

We didn't ask about the climate, the water, the soil. Nothing. It was enough that it had drystone walls - and that, on the other side of those walls, it was just veld. Real dusty, scratchy, rocky Karoo veld. Which means of course that we should have asked those questions about the climate (vicious), the water (not enough - not nearly enough), the soil (requiring earth-moving equipment for doing anything at all.)

Blind ignorance is a wonderful thing - it brings it own rewards. We would not otherwise have been stupid enough to plant a persimmon tree. And yet here we are now, rewarded with yet another ridiculously generous crop on this little tree. I share with the mouse-birds, & remember the grandmother who gave me my name & my love for the Karoo. And for persimmons.

the beginning

To begin at the beginning...

Yes of course Dylan Thomas said it first; he had to - he was born 38 years before me, so he had plenty of time & got first innings. But the phrase served him well and is none the worse for having been used before, so To begin at the beginning -

Oh, and the reference to my age is in fact relevant, as will become clear later - the relevance, that is, not my age. So. To begin ...

Sorry - one more thing. The reference to Dylan Thomas is in fact also relevant. A sublime poetic voice, silenced before he was 40. Why ? Usual suspects: lifestyle choices, and we'll get back to that - in fact it's sort of the point of all of this. But first,

To begin at the beginning - it was My Fair Lady on the opera house stage. No, I wasn't the fair lady, and I wasn't on stage. I was in the outside broadcast truck - the only female among the rather rough diamonds in the television crew (the senior engineer carried a gun, and probably needed to). I was also the only one who wasn't on the meat-tobacco-alcohol nutritional plan. I was in fact a fruitarian a.k.a. fruitflake & nutcase.

But of course that wasn't really the beginning. It began well before that, and in an even more unkind & uncaring environment - a hospital bed. Fast forward to 2 weeks later to find me climbing a big mountain. Two short weeks from medical crisis to active & healthy. What happened ? Fruitarianism happened, and that brings me to the Real Beginning of my story.

Back to the Welshman. Remember that grand, now immortal, poem he wrote for his dying father: "Do not go gently into that good night - Rage, rage against the dying of the light" ? Well 50 years ago there was a young South African woman who felt her life ebbing away - her body was in fact moving towards death. But then the fates offered her one last chance. What followed became an amazing account of survival, of her own "fight against the dying of the light" - but that story is hers to tell. Her name is Essie Honiball, and because of her story, I chose the fruitarian lifestyle.

So it really all began with Essie Honiball - although she will tell you it all began long before her. And she'll be right. But more about that later.

Oh, The Kyloe Experiment ? Well, more about that too, later...