Between a Mountain and an Ocean: Living in the Town by the Cape

I look up and to the south of town. The mountain stands there. Clean, beautiful, undisturbed and undisturbable. I turn my gaze and look to the ocean, north of the city. It is wet, cleansing, moving and agitated with waves and whitecaps. Between these two are the places where we live.

I look to my feet. The sidewalk is littered, broken, and the place where I actually am between the mountain and the ocean. I look ahead at eye level with the people. This is where we really are in my city, my town by the cape; Cape Town.

Between. We are always between. There is the mountain and the ocean; we are between those. There is the Atlantic and the Indian; we are between those. There are the speakers of Afrikaans, Zulu, Xhosa, and a rainbow of African languages; English is the language shared between those. We are the black and white, and the Coloured between those. There are the Christians and the Muslims, with the atheists, well, are they between those?Also, mostly also, we are the starving and the wealthy. Not enough of us seem to live between those.

Where do I fit between all those seemingly different things? I am not really any of them. I am a foreigner, Canadian by passport, and I have adopted Cape Town as my home. I live here as genuinely as I can, with few friends and many connections, and I share stories and time with those who listen and share as well.

Back to the city; I look to my feet as I walk. In my suburb of Cape Town--Woodstock--you look to the sidewalk that is a broken pattern of neglect. I look up to eye level, between the mountain and the ocean, and the only people who look back are those who spend too much time sitting, sleeping, and living on that sidewalk. They want my time and attention, and too often I try hard to not give either.

We talk.

"Howsit, my brother? Could you spare something?"

"Come on, man. I'm in a hurry to get back home."

"Anything, can you help and give?"

"Man, I'm trying to get home and I don't have much money on me."

"If you were to give something, my friend, it would feel like someone was singing," and he breaks out into an off-tune: "Haaaappy biiiirthday to youuuuuu."

I laugh. "I like you."

"Please, can you help me now."

"I guess it depends on what you're looking for."

"Whatever you can give, friend."

"Well, I'm hungry. What do you say we stop off at a store."

"I would appreciate that very much."

"What is it you'd like to eat?"

"How about a Gatsby?"

"A Gatsby?!?"

"Yes, it is large but I can eat now for lunch, then for dinner, and maybe again for breakfast."

"Man, I can't do a Gatsby. Let's go into this store here and find something."

"How about detergent. I need to wash my clothes so I can get a job, boss"

"Oh, don't call me boss. Detergent it is."

"Here, look boss, they have detergent."

"Call me 'brother' if you need a word, please, not boss. Fine, we'll get that. Do you want anything to eat?"

"They do not have what I like to eat here. This is enough."

I buy the detergent with the little cash I have on me. We walk out the door onto Victoria Street and walk east, away from the Cape Town you visit, towards my home. At my street I turn to him: "Alright, this is where I head home. Have a good day."

I shake his hand with 30 Rand in it. He thanks me with a smile. It isn't much, but for a time I looked between the mountain and the ocean at the eye level we live at.

Another day in Cape Town I am lazy. I try to look to the ground, neither the mountain, the ocean, or between them into the eyes of anyone, but the ground. There is nothing good there.

I am lazy as I walk to the pizza restaurant and order one to go. Walking out the door, with a fresh triple layer pizza, I see a man ahead and look to the ground.

"My friend, I am hungry. Can you help."

"Sorry, man." I do not look up to his eyes between the ground and the mountain and the sky.

"Please, anything."

I say nothing. I do not look up. I walk on. He follows at my pace and around the corner off of Victoria Street as I head home. He makes a little chit chat but I do not listen enough to remember. I am still looking to the ground.

We approach my home and I turn and say, "Ok, you can't follow me any further. I have nothing for you and you can't come into my building."

I open the gate and close it. Upstairs, from my apartment, I hear the argument he has with the security guard who asks him to leave.

"Please, go quietly, you are not welcome here."

"I will come back! I will come back and I will smash your cars!"

"Settle down, that is not good for you to do. It will not get you anything good. I am here all night."

"I will smash them! I will smash your cars tonight!"

I sit uncomfortably with what I have done, slightly smug in the protection of my high walls and white privilege, and well fed on a triple layer pizza.

I awake the next morning to see cars with smashed windows. I could have looked up from the ground to the place between the mountain and the ocean where we live, but I did not.

Are these the extremes we live between? Helping and the reward of a smile, not helping and the punishment of broken windows? No. The place we live is somewhere more than extremes. Here is the most important place in between those extremes:

Where we learn about what we share between us.

We don't always learn at school; it can be the decrepit Rainbow Bar around the corner, the local talk radio station where we share our ideas with the town, inside the books we read, it is always the street when we stop to talk, and sometimes it is a bar on a Sunday afternoon with nothing but a jug of margarita and a group of people.

We talk to learn about politics and corruption. Bike lanes and highway accidents. AIDS and birth rates. Sex and death. Art, because we love art. Business and money and money and money. Then, usually, we argue about politics some more. Lastly, honestly, we discuss race. These are not easy conversations to have between us. They are rarely pleasant, but they are happening and they are helping us with the spaces of distance and privilege between us.

This is how we will work on, and imagine, a place where we are always between the mountain and the ocean together, and find a better life for us all. And one day, between now and the day those we love die, we will be somewhere we all look between the differences between us to that which we share between us in spirit, in our hearts, and truly live together between the mountain and the ocean.