Okay let’s face it, me no Guava Juice no more.
This week, while doing a peaceful walk in a peaceful Khayelitsha street, I stumbled and fell. Between me and you, I did look around for an apartheid activist that might have initiated my fall, but there was nobody. I glanced around looking for a personality different from my magnificent ethos, but there was none.
With incredible humility, I rose from the Khayelitsha dust and straightened my magnificence ready to take the walk. But damn, I discovered that my lower spine was refusing the humble commands from my humble brain. An extremely uncomfortable pain told me that maybe the lower parts of my spinal chord were not listening to my central nervous system.
The pain there was not talking English only, there was isiXhosa and Afrikaans as well. It was a tremendous pain.
“Why, oh why?” I tried to reason. “This is June 16,” I tried to reason. But gosh, it flashed through my brain, that is the point; you are not youth any more! In a few months you are going to be a half-century old. It is just a matter of time. Damn!
Let’s be fair, I recollect numerous times when I had a similar fall but stood up with no nagging pain in any part of my anatomy. In fact I got up and ran much faster than before the fall. “Why now?” I asked myself. The answer that kept on coming back and kept disturbing me was that I am old and nearing 100 years. In other words, beyond 50 means that what was a “mere fall” before has now become a catastrophe.
Okay let’s face it, the eighties were not very cool if one considers the many trials and assaults of the apartheid guys. No, the 1980s were far from cool. In fact they were uncomfortably hot. Hot, warm, hot, shushu, hot. But let’s be fair; no pains in the back just because of a mild tumble in a quiet street.
This week, I was supposed to come in on Wednesday to scribe this column, but because of my fall on June 16, I could not and called the deputy editor to give notification that I would not be able to because of my fall on Youth Day. It was not a comfortable call! I was told of my popularity and discouraged from not writing the column in the month our youth seeks credible input. Later it was agreed that the column could be written yesterday. Cool! Here it is.
But between me and you, can I say something about my discomfort? I am not entirely comfortable with this ageing thing. Leave aside the nagging pain in my back, the less-than-satisfactory memory, the inability to understand certain throbs in certain music, the discomfort in hearing certain jokes… methinks I don’t like ageing. True, people tell me I don’t look old, which is a good thing, I believe. What is not good is that I do feel oldish.
Sometimes, when a good song hits your inner self, you instinctively grab for a dance move that vibrates in the inner self and do it. Me, I do not want to lose that. More, I also don’t like falling in a street and rising up with a gnarling pain in the hip. That is not cool in my humble opinion. Excuse the pun, but I don’t think that is hip. Let me not be too personal, but rather express that I also humbly do not want you to experience the same agony.
Having said that, I also wish that the youth of today showed an understanding of universality. In my opinion, they are reluctant to look at the breadth of things. In other words, the narrower your look the greater your youth. In my opinion, the broader your look the greater your youth. It is, in my opinion, enriching for the youth to hold deeper opinions that help us secure a deeper life.
One of my great moments in the Bible is that of a 12-year-old Jesus in the temple. He enlightened many and changed their lives. I am not religious and cannot remember how old he was when he was nailed to the cross, but popular history has it that it was 2 015 years ago. And millions still remember him! I think that’s cool. In other humble words, methinks Jesus is still remembered and loved for his youthfulness.
Between me and you, the inner depths of my revolutionary consciousness was as a member of what was called YCS – the Young Christian Students. We had a philosophy called “See, judge and act”. There is no deeper meaning than what it says. That is how we viewed the anti-apartheid task. That is also the ticket that landed me in the SRC at the University of the Western Cape.
We were in alliance with Sansco (SA National Students Congress). I still cannot recall our age limit in YCS, but I do remember the glory was in the international impetus of the organisation. I also remember the glory of YCS was being an international organisation that organised the youth at high school at the same time as the young people in university. That, in my opinion, was one of the highest moments in the anti-apartheid struggle. In YCS we had an opportunity to engage with our spiritual fellows in the Call of Islam and other religions.
I do, however, think the comfort of seeing and working with other religions might have been youth. I am implying that the eye of youth can see farther than society cares to admit. It is fair, then, to say that religion is not the impetus here. Our visions and possibilities in a complexity called life are much broader than the nation state. It is my humble belief that the chances to view the depths of the intrinsic human life is in these people. Now you know why I don’t want to stop being youth.
I must be honest and say I am not so sure I feel comfortable with a pain in my back just because of a fall in the street when I am acutely aware the same fall happening 20 years ago would not be so painful as now. I am not the kind who likes physical exercise – mind, I am not discouraging it, but am prepared to live not having to do it. I, by the way, can recollect going through my young days without it. It is true that in Victoria West you could not finish primary school without playing rugby like Mannetjies Roux. Mannetjies Roux is my homeboy! I once went to interview him with what was my German girlfriend when I was with Die Suid Afrikaan.
I am feeling a bit silly that one cannot remain youthful, but between me and you it is not exactly a secret why there is death! I am just one of those people who wish that they could remain young forever. I just wish that there was a way in which eternal life could mean youth. Is that an expensive wish?
Eish!