In life, everything happens in cycles. Seasonal changes, good fortune and even romance. Our friends change, our jobs change, our lives change. And while we never can tell whats waiting for us around life’s bend, the one constant is that nothing stays the same.
Not even the water.
Here, in Cape Town, 2017 has been a particularly bad year for water. Not that 2016 was much better, but 2017 – wow, what a challenge. Boil it, don’t boil it. filter it, buy it. There’s not enough! Spit it out and recycle it!
Those of us barely touching the breadline were especially targeted with acute paranoid propaganda of not having enough. Those barely able to see the breadline couldn’t be bothered since they never really had to begin with; and the super rich who wave at the breadline as they pass by remained untouched by such concerns. And yet all of us seemed to have weathered this provincial dehydration.
Yes, its been a particularly challenging year for many of us. New ventures, new relationships, the ending of old ones and choices we never thought we’d make. And at times not understanding the choices we’ve made, an unprecedented reliance on faith and the unseen forces of the universe was called into action. All pervasively though, it feels as if there just hasn’t been enough. Enough work, enough money, enough time, enough energy, enough love, enough food and, yes, enough water. When looking back at this year’s many shortages I can’t help but wonder, We’ve been thirsty for so long but what have we really been thirsty for? Operating from a place of desperation for such an extended period of time has left us in permanent self-preservation mode. We’ve clawed for solid ground, anything that will keep us from sinking, and like driftwood, it seems we never really got anywhere.
Like a kid eager to be noticed as it restlessly tries to get attention with its hand in the air, this metaphor couldn’t have been more obvious… Are our proverbial damns running dry too?
The dating landscape, for example, hasn’t been unlike our water shortage; we’ve scraped the bottom of the barrel for that something borrowed / something blue. Even if it did make us sick. Work’s been so scarce, the Hubble telescope couldn’t find it and all this to the nagging backdrop of Crowded House’s 1986 hit “Don’t Dream Its Over”.
But lets stretch this metaphor incredulously further and say that the water is symptomatic of a much deeper problem. With 70% of our bodies made up of water, maybe it’s we who’ve become toxic and in-consumable. Surviving with tank on empty and hemorrhaging financially, emotionally and spiritually, we’ve become dried out husks unable to give anymore. If so, perhaps we could all take a lesson from that girl who stuck her finger in that dyke’s hole and find solutions to our metaphorical crises.
Granted this all sounds decidedly catastrophic and maybe some of you faired better than others. If you fancy yourself a soft merlot then perhaps 2017 was quite a good year for you. I’ve always thought myself a rather spicy Shiraz but even this year has taken the juice right out of me. Having said that though, there have been things I’ve accomplished I never thought I would and perhaps the trade off has been everything else. If this has been a winter of discontent for some of us and the seeds we’ve laid now will yield its next season, then was it not worth it? If you’re like me and you believe that everything has a purpose, then there has to be a reason in this rhyme. A meaning to the madness. Doesn’t there?
Yes, we’ve lost much along the way. Friends, family, possessions and at times, hope. But perhaps a moment of reflection will encourage us to see what we may have gained. A new perspective, A deeper appreciation or a thicker skin? Considering what we’ve lost and gained Im left wondering…Can we really have it all and are we meant to?
The cosmic question here, my thirsty brethren, is who have we been during this hyperphorical drought. Because like all things, this too will pass. Our water will be made wine again and it will be a good year. But would we have learned – would we have grown? Did we take to heart this period’s fundamental lessons than ran deeper than the levels in our reservoirs? Or will we continue to run dry. Never filled. Ever thirsty.
May we all have a merry xmas and a hopeful new year.
Upside To Catastrophe 