We're not free of these things

Fetching, carrying, feeding and fixing

On Freedom

Today is a holiday because we’re observing Freedom Day in South Africa. I was moved by this observation from Lwando Xaso, whose writing is always considered and informed:

South Africa, my limited thinking of you as a nation state has been replaced with thinking of you as a daring idea. An idea that can be held by anyone, anywhere, citizen or not. An idea of you as a bridge.

The proverbial bridge away from our pasts marked by violence, inequality, injustice, wretchedness, trauma, lovelessness, and untold suffering, towards a future of peace, equality, justice, joy, freedom, redemption, healing, love, abundance and care.The defining question that has plagued my adulthood is whether South Africa is possible. "No" is an unthinkable answer.

(From: On Freedom)

Newsy things

I was notified last week that I was 48th on a list of 100 Substack newsletters in the ‘Rising in Literature’ category. In the world! Not just here in the little corner of Earth I inhabit.

‘Rising’ in a category means experiencing the fastest-growing paid subscriber base. Thank you for showing your support for my work in such a concrete way.

Second on that list was the author George Saunders, whose book Lincoln in the Bardo was a wild ride. Sharing a list place with George Saunders is something worth mentioning.

If you’d like to have a paid subscription to have access to all the Love Letters (and to various other surprises that come along from time to time), but can’t afford the full amount, please be reminded that you can get a group subscription at a lower rate. Click here:

Two subscribers can no longer make it to our forest bathing experience on Saturday. If you’d like to join us in Newlands forest at 12.30 on Saturday for what I know will be a memorable way to experience the trees, please DM me. You’ll find more details in this Love Letter.

It’s been a worse time than usual for trans people. I’ve unlocked a piece I wrote three years ago called A Beef with Bullies. You don’t have to be a subscriber to read it so please feel free to share it with others.

Hauling wood

On back roads between Worcester and Robertson in the Western Cape, there is a long stretch of tar that forms a bridge over a river I have never seen water in. The ruler of this bridge stretches over wild shrubbery so big and green, that you can see how this might be a place a river once flowed.

This picture wasn’t taken anywhere near the South African landscape I’m referring to. It was taken in Berlin in the European autumn of 2023. In Berlin, it is prohibited to take wood. PHOTO: Karin Schimke

There are two neat lanes for cars but no margins for cyclists or pedestrians.

A man cycling across this bridge was in the car lane because there was nowhere else for him to be. He had a pink plastic crate strapped behind his seat and in it what looked like an enormous flower arrangement in silhouette, but turned out to be smallish branches with dried leaves and seed pods intact.