Do you plan, or do you just let things happen? 
I have come down with a terrible condition – earworm. You know, it’s when you can’t get a song out your mind. It is actually worse because I don’t even have the full song going on, just a few lines, ‘You can go your own way, go your own waaayy.’ (For the young folk just YouTube Fleetwood Mac, or wait for someone to do a cover version on The Voice)
I’ve just come back from camping in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, where I saw lions slumber with their cubs, foxes hide their pups, eagles sore and vultures wait. I saw jackal stealing bones and giraffe play-fighting each other with their long necks. I saw gemsbok meander and springbuck spring, owls hiding in their trees and oh so many squirrels scurry around. I went for the heat of the Kalahari and found the cold rain. And I did all of this, while secretly humming my way through the dry desert.
‘You can go your own way…”
As 2019 draws to a close many people are taking stock, doing rollcall of all the plusses of the year and trying to overlook the minuses. A lot are making plans for their upcoming holidays and some are already getting their new year’s resolutions together. Some of them are looking forward and some are looking back.
I always feel a bit strange at this time of year. I feel the pressure to celebrate the incoming newness which is about to clock over. I’m told that it is a time for new beginnings. A time to close off and say goodbye to the old dragged year. But I always feel that it is more of a man decided sequence than a natural cycle.
I like to let my changes come in a natural flow of events. Sometimes a bit too abruptly, sometimes desperately too slowly. For me, my change comes from all different directions and most of all, I can’t see them coming. I feel like I am cheating a bit if I point to my calendar, and say, ‘Right, over there is when my new beginning is going to start.’
So I found it a bit odd that somewhere between the border of South Africa and Namibia, I noticed myself reconciling the year. Somewhere, in the middle of wild nature, unpredictable weather and a song that keeps telling me to go my own way, I fell into the rhythm of the closing year.
I realised that despite the fact that I can’t spell to save my life, I started this year as a published author. A first for me. I moved countries. Again. Anyone wanting relocation tips, please feel free to contact me – I am an ace at moving, shipping, settling down, starting over. I changed careers. Again. Anyone wanting tips on that – don’t bother asking, I am still clueless. I have travelled. I have learned things that I never thought I could. And I have grown.
So here I sit, close to the end and the beginning is nigh. Still stuck with a song in my head, sequence, cycle or rotation, who cares what you call it, all I know is that whatever I plan for 2020, life will take its own course, so I plan to look for the good, find the joy and carry on my adventure. Happy holidays to you all.
