Today is voting day here and also there, I believe. I’m writing from my neighborhood Deluxe because I’m still without wifi in the house. Which, by the way, is a great way to get yourself out the house, people. I find it comical how accustomed we become to having all our things within reach, really. And in furnishing this apartment now, I keep rushing around for more and more things. When will enough be enough? When all the space in filled? Should I have rented a smaller place, then? Surely, it’d be less to sweep.

Yesterday, as I walked home. I was approached – well, no. They were standing and I was walking. I approached them as I continued on my path, as I tend to do all too often without stopping or resting at all.

Lady, please. We need your help.

Sorry, I have somewhere I need to be.

Lady, please don’t be angry with us. Do you have a phone?

I was not angry, how dare she think I’d be silly enough to be angry. I have only an international number.

Lady, please. We have nowhere to live. There are my daughters. We need to use a phone.

I faced this family, now. Nowhere to live? How could my phone help with that? The primary spokesperson, presumably Mom, started to cry. Tears streamed down her face in the slick and painful and automatic way some tears tend to. As one daughter presented a torn and wrinkled paper with a scribbled phone number, I pulled out my phone from my giant red tote bag to the sound of Mom’s, God Bless You.

If I type plus two seven, do I need to type the first zero?

The oldest daughter took a turn speaking to the lady on the other side of my phone, which I still held just in case they decided to run off had they been holding it. As if they could not snatch it from my hand as I held it between us all, four ladies on the side of the busy street. I calculated I could have outrun each of them. But I probably should start exercising more regularly if I am going to keep engaging in these sorts of interactions.

Earlier this day, I walked the same street more than three blocks alongside a rasta whose name is supposedly Daniel. I don’t know why he’d need to lie to me about his name, of all things. I wonder why I qualify these facts with “supposedly,” really; he just wants to sell me a bundle of sage, I think. He just wants someone to talk to, right?

Before that, I walked down towards Bree street to purchase some absurdly expensive sheets for my new apartment and I ordered the uber home because the walk with baggage like that surely could not be safe, right?

Anyway,

I’ve gleaned the oldest daughter supposedly has a one-year old baby who is somehow still in the house from which they were evicted this morning by the landlord who is now inside my phone. Landlady’s profile picture is in black and white. It’s a selfie. Her puckered face takes up 30% of the circular frame. I think now that it’s strange she answered the phone.

The tears are streaming from the middle daughter’s face a bit now. She is the only one sniffling. I have not once looked the youngest daughter in the face so, I do not know whether she is crying.

God Bless You. All this over two hundred seventy five rands.

I stayed silent. The phone call was maybe two and a half minutes in.

God Bless You. Lady, can you make a case for us?

I hesitated.

Me? I’m not sure there’s anything I can say. Is she still there? I looked at the phone and then at the oldest daughter, a bit confused, now.

Lady, can you help us?

I thought I was being helpful.

I… I um…. I am not in a position to help you, actually. I’m sorry.

Swiftly, Mom turned away. And just as swiftly, I turned to walk in the opposite direction, towards home. The phone call could not have lasted more than four minutes. The entire interaction, no more than ten, surely. And I did not think it a waste of time, how peculiar.

And I thought about heading to the public park around half past one one in the afternoon. The day was so beautiful.

At home, as. I debated my exploration to the park, I deleted and blocked the number they called on my WhatsApp. Just in case they can somehow gain access to my bank details if I don’t. Is that possible? I decided the whole thing was coordinated. I wondered whether they were an actual family and whether they were just roaming around seeing who would give them some cash. What would have happened if I just invited them into my new home? I do have the space, after all. And I could use the help killing the cockroaches.

Am I in a position to help? Did I lie when I said I was not? Am I always lying when I say I am not?

Will they adjust their asking price because they were not successful with me?

Will they adjust their approach?

How many times do I have to say no before they turn away? And have they practiced the crying in the mirror? And how do they decide to ask me in the first place? Of all the folks out there? I guess I do stand out like a sore thumb. Maybe it’s my shorts. Or my sunnies. Or that stupid, giant red tote.

What will all this paranoia do to me over time? What is the antidote? If I ground myself and live more simply; if I humble myself and level myself, does that help? If I stop buying expensive sheets, maybe?

Each has their limits, I guess that’s the truth of it.

I’m supposed to track Daniel down today for that sage I didn’t buy yesterday.

I have been half-employed and writing a book. I am in Cape Town and I’m subletting to my bestie in Sarasota, what a blessing.

That woman, she kept saying God Bless You and I wonder whether she believes in God at all. I sort of imagine her sitting in a bit of a pimped out house, smoking a cigarette when she gets home at night after a day of swindling, mocking all the believers for their imbecilic almsgiving.

Unlikely, my love.

Until You Know Better

What are you hungry for, anyway? Remember what you wanted before you had what you now have. And make space for enjoyment of the thing.

Surrender all your weight to the sacred earth beneath you

Fall in love

Great Artists Steal

Sense and Sensibility, the new movie

Trevor Noah’s What Now, the episode with John Cena, funnily enough.