Idle Days
This article originally appeared in the first issue of Antigone, Daydreamer. You can read it here.
I love going home in June.
Kimberley is vivid blue skies, constant sunshine, freezing chill, and even quieter than usual without the morning school rush.
In our backyard naartjies, oranges and pamplemoes hang fat and so ripe it’s impossible to pick them all before they drop to the cold ground. Sitting under them, wrapped in a thick blanket that smells like my mother’s favourite brand of fabric softener and letting my mind drift is my favourite way of spending my afternoons during those few precious weeks of no responsibility.
It can be frighteningly easy to slip into a mindset that demands constant action and productivity. It always takes a week for my brain to adjust to the fact that I could wake up at noon and not have missed an urgent meeting or appointment. Not that my mother would ever let me sleep in that late. But that I could and the only consequence would be her annoyance is a small, beautiful thing — a relic of a younger self that I’ve somewhat forgotten, who didn’t have to worry about much besides her mother’s annoyance.
For those of us in university, I’ve come to believe that taking advantage of these small reprieves is crucial to our wellbeing. We won’t be this free to be idle again. It will soon be internships and graduation and postgrad and board exams and articles and the huge gaping maw of the working world.
Life has placed me a thousand kilometres away from my family and Kimberley itself does not feel like home anymore. Home is where my mother’s arms are, where my father’s laugh is, where I can unburden myself of a semester’s worth of anxiety.
Who knows where that home might travel in the years to come? How much longer will I have the regular privilege of visiting home and indulging in little pleasures? Sitting under my naartjie and bingeing series I don’t usually have time for and letting my dogs climb all over me begging for cuddles. Drawing and writing awful poetry and reading books I’ve been putting aside for months. Letting my mother fuss over my hair, having tea with my Oupa, trying to figure out the moods of my teenage brother. Appreciating them while I have them is something I haven’t truly prioritised until now. Even as I try to move towards the woman I dream of being, I am trying to treasure these small moments that feel more and more like a child’s indulgence.
Learning to shut out the voice that demands relentless productivity in order to feel like a ‘successful adult’ and listening to the whisper that understands the importance of a quiet moment is incredibly difficult to do. But it is necessary.
