Autumn Afternoon On Lorraine

Multi-tasking isn’t all it makes out to be. To concentrate on a single task should always be the order of the day, ask anyone with ADD.  Like a faded rose of days gone by my Menopause makes me forgetful. No! I do believe it’s an over stimulated brain on the run that allows one to do more than one thing at a time.   Leonardo Da Vinci only did the Sistine Chapel and that took a decade or more.  The end result was perfection personified.

The vines are spectacular especially with the late afternoon sunlight backlighting them and saturating the colours to a rich golden orange, red and copper.   There I stood like an idiot as the light bulb went off; I’d forgotten my battery on the kitchen counter charging.   Fortunately my good friend also uses a Canon  EOS 1000 which she kindly lent me.

As I stood there with my arms flapping I inadvertently touched the scabs on my arm, a startling reminder of my face-first fall on Saturday afternoon at the Old Harbour in Hermanus.  There I was running up the cobbled steps looking everywhere but my feet when I caught my trouser leg as I put it down on one of the ancient steps.  Down I went, I really hate to say it, ”like a ton of bricks”.   My first thought was my precious camera, which I clutched firmly to my breast.  I hit the deck face first, almost breaking my petite nose, smashing my lower lip and knocking my front teeth (they’re a good set of ivories) and chin.  My arm was scraped as I tried saving myself (too late) by doing one of those army barrel rolls when you dodge bullets raining down on you!  

It’s Monday evening and I still have “Botox-like” lips, all pouty, bruised and scabbed.  Believe me it doesn’t look hot; it looks more like a huge cold sore.   Of course I said I was fine when the young hunk in board shorts asked me if I was OK, the kind smile evaporated when he saw my bleeding lip and face covered in gravel, sea sand and shell chips.

Moral of these stories.  CONCENTRATE!  As Susan Sontag says “Do stuff. be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration's shove or society's kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It's all about paying attention. attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. stay eager.” 

I still berate myself.

“Nothing, save the hangman's noose, concentrates the mind like piles of cash.” ― Tim Wu, The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires.

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