And so here I am, hailing from Cape Town. What an adventure it has been.
The last weeks and days in LA were just a blur of goodbyes to places and people and feelings, not knowing at all when I will see or feel them again.
I moved my ticket home back a week so that I could visit the Grand Canyon with the Hungwe boys, and really, thank goodness because I don't think I would have been ready, practically or emotionally, to leave on my intended departure date, May 20. Of course the sudden plans to go the Canyon meant that I urgently needed to get fit, so I spent much time hiking in Topanga Canyon and in Malibu. I also finally swam in the Pacific, after living right next to it for months and months. I went bowling in Hollywood with Katie, Caity and Maggie, joined forces with Zina, Karlyn and Caroline to throw Portia a surprise party (wildly successful), and graduated.
Then there was the birthday/farewell/end of finals party hosted by Nisha at her wonderful apartment in West Hollywood, and one last motorcycle ride with Nyash, along Mulholland Drive with its sweeping bends, and sudden glimpses of the wide, blue sea.
And then packing and goodbyes, farewell after farewell. They just seemed never to end, and I was never sure which goodbye would be the last one. I sold all my furniture, watched a girl take my bed apart and load it onto a truck, and felt as though my life was being disassembled and loaded into that truck with it. Packing is difficult, it seems it doesn't matter how many times you've folded yourself and all your things into a suitcase, it doesn't get any easier. But that's the road, that's the nomadic way, that's what rolling and not gathering moss is, isn't it? So you play your music, and you ask Portia to sit in the kitchen and read, and you try to decide which belongings you can bear to put in a box and leave on the sidewalk because you really can't fit everything into two suitcases.
The emotional trend in that last week was definitely downward. But, as Nyash says, down is a choice. To ward off tears, I started to leaf through my memories, which I've left down at the bottom of this post so that I don't ever, ever forget. Thursday night was my surprise farewell (thank you, you wonderful, unforgettable friends) at R Bar, a speakeasy in Korea Town, and then Friday: the Canyon. Or at least, 8 hours of traffic and a 1 am arrival in Phoenix to pick up Gari and Mwa before crashing at a nearby hotel. The next day, we headed to the Canyon...after dress shopping for Mwa.
We stopped for a quick photo shoot at Sedona Rock, and arrived at our campsite in Tusayan at 7:30, where we started trying to set up camp. A comedy of errors. Team Tent took ages to figure out how to put up the tents, finally reverting to the instructions (honestly though, it's a tent, how hard can it be?) and Team Fire tried to light the fire by dousing the wood in paraffin. Not a resounding success. But once it was all set up, we settled down to eat steak and corn and to kakpraat. Suddenly it was midnight and bitterly cold, and we were all sleepwalking into our tents, the plan being to wake up super early and hit the Canyon for the day.
We arrived at the Canyon at 1 pm in a veritable deluge.
Undeterred, the boys bought us all walking sticks (Nyash now owns four Grand Canyon walking sticks) and ponchos, saddled us up with camel packs, and set off down into the Canyon. Mwa and I were not so enthusiastic, or at least we were, but more because of the endless photo opportunities. So we decided to let the boys head off without us (they were dead set on going all the way down to the river and back - strongly discouraged might I add), and we took a leisurely stroll about 1.5 miles down, pausing for chats, giggles and water breaks, and finally sitting for a while on a cairn to look at the view (the rain had moved off). And then we tried to walk back up. Ha. My poor heart. How those boys did the whole descent and ascent in 9 hours I will never understand. I nearly died. Much to my relief, so did all of the other tourists. It was only when I got lapped by a guy with a sprained ankle that I really began to feel ashamed. But we survived, went back to the campsite, packed it all away in the pouring rain, showered and headed back to the Canyon to pick up Nyash and Gari, who arrived 2 hours later after actually reaching the bottom and climbing all the way back up in under 9 hours! We had dinner, and I drove (yes, I really did drive) us all back to Phoenix so that Gari and Mwa could catch their flight at 12 the next day.
The final 24 hours were taxing. We arrived home at 11:30 on Monday night, after stopping for dinner with my favourite professor, and for the final, final Cata farewell. Also, I've discovered that it doesn't matter how exhausted you are, if you don't know when you will next see someone, especially your bestie, you damn well make the effort to have a conversation until as late as you can manage, so Nyash and I sat up and chatted until our eyes refused to remain open. And that was that. My last day in L.A. You know what airport goodbyes are like. This one has left me with a flinching wariness of airports that I suspect will last me a good while. I do not. Like. Goodbyes.
I do doubt my capacity for the nomadic life, if only because I struggle with leaving people behind. And although I've been fairly vocal about not being able to live in L.A., I do think it's not impossible. But now I'm in Cape Town, for who knows how long. Really, I have no idea, I may move up to Joburg, or I may stay here until I figure out my next step. Does the uncertainty bother me? A little, but I've learnt to be less uncomfortable with uncertainty, as certainty is really an absurd notion. We just don't know, can't know, won't know, how anything will turn out. I'm still in touch with the lovely L.A.-ers whom I miss so incredibly much. Homecoming is bittersweet - I'm so happy to see my much-missed family and friends, for whom I've been so homesick, but now I'm homesick for another city and people across an ocean and a continent. Eternal malcontent. I lied before, when I said certainty is absurd, because there is one thing that is certain: returning to the place you started is not the same thing as never leaving.
***
Driving through Downtown L.A. for the first time with Rosa, and exploring Santa Monica Pier; the first time I met Nyash at Barneys, with Daniella and Effie and Monica and Camilla; Nyash's birthday barbecue, the first time I felt comfortable, and like maybe I would be alright in L.A.; when Portia arrived in L.A. and had to yell my name from the courtyard; in fact, all of our morning coffees and dance parties and meaningful conversations until the wee hours of the morning; Zina, the first J.D. to speak to me; seeing the J.D.'s all sitting in the law courtyard at the beginning of the year and wishing that I could be friends with them, and then ACTUALLY becoming friends with them!
What else? Oh yes of course, going to the pool with Sophie, and going to No Vacancy for the first time with Sophie and Caroline and Nyasha; and the time that Caro came over to drink tea because she was homesick and Rosa and I found her somewhere to live in our apartment block. Studying in the library tower on Sunday evenings; the heatwave in September; hanging out with Karlyn and Zina and Stephanie in the garden behind the PILP office; telling Lex that I'd decided we were going to be friends, and she said, 'What? I thought we already were!'; going with Porsh to NV and seeing Adam Devine; seeing Kevin Bacon in Griffith Park, and Sam Rockwell at LAX; Thanksgiving with Tom and K in D.C.; Halloween at Geneva's; Friendsgiving with Katie and Maggie and Malika; Oakland with Porsh, and the following all-nighters trying to finish our papers; when the Grand Jury came back with no indictment in Ferguson and the BLSA vigil for Mike Brown in the Law School courtyard; Christmas in Winston-Salem with the Stephens family, and New Years Eve in D.C. with Tom and K after visiting the Newseum with K; drinks with Sina on U Street; and my first ride on Ninja with Nyasha, down to Santa Monica, where we napped on the beach and watched the sun go down.
So many memories! My first ride on Betty, down to the O.C. for lunch and new guitar strings, and the terrifying ride back, followed by shakey-kneed dancing at Makai in Santa Monica. The Superbowl party and my silly bet; Galentines day and playing hotseat; in fact, CAMPING and playing hotseat; football with Katie; spending one Saturday with Nyash, going to the bakery, driving through Topanga and plotting our return with the newly repaired motorcycle, and finally eating cheesecake on the beach watched closely by Hector the seagull; every supsequent trip to Topanga with the Betty the motorcycle; taking Karlyn to Ojai; being taken to a wine farm for a picnic by Zina and Karlyn; towing Nyash on roller blades up and down the beach walk between Venice and Santa Monica.
Goodness, it just goes on and on. Seattle, New York, San Francisco! The Grand Canyon! Phoenix! The tulip fields! The Empire State Building! Comedy in Brooklyn with Kate and Albert! Crashing house parties in Williamsburg with Tierney and discovering that they had a chocolate fountain!! Sitting in my big chair next to the window and daydreaming. Sitting outside and working with Porsh. Going to the beach with Cata. Lying on Nyash's sunny bed and talking in circles. Alex's plaintiff "I'm dying"; the way that Cata says 'Bob'; the taco truck at midnight; Grey's anatomy nights with Porsh. Cards Against Humanity. Friends.
Happythankyoumoreplease.