I don't consciously think...

that anyone spends their days with my blog in their favorites and checking ever so often in a day to see if I have updated; however, I think perhaps everyone who writes a blog or regularly posts pictures suffer from that malady of egocentricity in thinking that since they were just engaged in updating, others surely are already engaged in reading...enough of that.

I say all that to say that if anyone is still reading this after the previous two less-than-cheerful posts and checks now and then in this time of silence, I commend you.  This is not really an update, but then again, any blog that centers on random synapses or thought patterns-snapshots-should not have "updates."  

I could tell you about what I've been doing, riding the bus route between here and Cape Town.  Anyone that follows facebook may have seen the updates a little over a week ago as I sat next to a very sprawled out, heavy sleeper in scratchy-looking Mr. Rogers sweater.  That was fun.

For more info I could tell you how I was in Cape Town for a week, or rather, in Stellenbosch.  How I conquered my fears and went into a library that's bigger than my entire college building and even posed as a five foot something female named, Delani, in order to check out nearly all the books they had on the life of C.S. Lewis.  How I sat next to a wannabe, rasta-esque figure with bleary eyes and an unhealthy distaste for weather while I typed on a keyboard that had enough grease from previous users to supply a small mechanic shop.  How I picked up a biography of Fyodor Dostoevsky that I unfairly had no time to read and may have considered for just a moment the possibility of relieving the library of it...with a payment of course.  I could tell you of the deep sadness I felt for the students I saw everyday, usually filling the emptiness inside with liquor.  How I became a photographer for five girls in pretty dresses that kept turning heads and how I nearly was dispatched during the process by a fast moving, yet unseen bicyclist.  

I could tell you I suppose of the cafes, the coffee shops, the conversations, the flicker of candles on rough face of concrete walls.  Of neighbors who do stomach-turning belly dances in front of their large, pane glass windows.  Of mountains shrouded in clouds and a wind that almost never stops its constant fury on trees, grass, windows and doors.  

I could tell you of Delani.  Of a hundred little memories that keep playing in my head.  I could tell you of a thousand looks, but then I would waste my time for their simply isn't the words.  The wind through her hair, the corners of her mouth beginning to dance before a smile and the sudden breaking of the silence when she laughs at something I said.  Of an ice cream parlor, a beggar on the street, a curio shop, silk worms, and a thousand adventures that one has in the ordinary ticking of the clock in a twenty-four hour day.  

I could tell you of all these things, but there simply isn't the time and I don't suppose you would understand.  Try as we may to live vicariously, these are things that can only be understood by the one who stood there, who drank in every moment and whose eye was carefully hidden behind the lens.  

P.S. I got an idea for a book, perhaps two.  If it pans out and God grants me the wisdom and inspiration to write something that could help someone...I will forever be in debt to a certain veranda in Stellenbosch and a stack of old pictures Delani shared with me.  Until then, just remember the name, Emilie...if all goes well it could mean something someday.