I left for the road trip at 8am on Wednesday morning, packing my clothes in a trash bag I found under the kitchen sink. It was decided that I was going to be the driver for the road trip and, therefore, I would be renting the car in my own name. That process really hit me as an adult thing to do. The only time I’ve seen a car be rented is by my parents. Now, I’m the one signing the release form and grabbing the keys. To say I was nervous was an understatement. I was flooded with anxiety about driving. Firstly, I didn’t know where we were or where we were going because I am entirely unfamiliar with the area. Secondly, in South Africa, you drive on the left side of the road and the steering wheel is on the right. This means the usual mindset I have of where I need to check for space is entirely thrown off and I need to re-calibrate the way I think of a car when I drive it. Thirdly, I had never driven the car we were about to take off in. Most cars here are manual— but I can’t drive manual so I paid extra for an automatic. Calling the car an automatic is a drastic overstatement. It was more like an automatic that had the brain of the car taken out so you cant change the gears, and it doesn’t know how to either. Moreover, when it would accelerate if I really just floored it, the engine would hit 500-600 RPMs. That’s not supposed to happen in a Toyota Corolla.
The first stop after getting the car and camping gear was Hout Bay. This is on the other side of Table Mountain from where I live. It’s secluded and smaller than the other alcove-like beaches around Cape Town. There was a long pier and a dock that was filled with little fishing boats that looked like they were off of a postcard from the 1970s. The entire scene was beautiful— except for one thing. There was an obese seal. Now, the image of an obese seal is kind of funny in a ridiculous way. But the reason it’s so fat is that a man sits with a huge bucket of fish and feeds it constantly so it’s more human-friendly and dependent on him. This seal is so fat it can’t hunt anymore. This is an animal that a human has taken out of the wild and essentially ruined it’s life through isolation from its own species and overfeeding. It was so fat it could barely move. I got over it though and got a large tray of fish and chips with salt and vinegar. It was fried heaven.
Hout Bay is surrounded by mountains. When you’re there, it feels sort of like it could be God’s fish bowl. It’s so contained and observable from above, a little biome all by itself. We started from the bottom of the fishbowl and drove up the side along the mountain, eventually coming to Chapman’s peak, which looks down on all of Hout Bay. It was so surreal to see the tiny little dock where I had been 20 minutes before as a little speck and simultaneously knowing how many people with stories and families and dreams were sitting there, munching on fish and chips.
After Chapman’s Peak, we headed down to Cape of Good Hope— the most Southwestern tip of the African continent. If that definition is confusing, it basically means there is one other place that is farther South than it, and it’s in the Eastern Cape. So, their claim to fame is the farthest Southwestern tip. The view was so incredible and expansive, that it actually looked like you could see the curve of the Earth on the horizon. On one hand, that makes sense because the slope of a sphere would be steepest at the poles. On the other hand, maybe I was just overexcited. There are two ways to describe what happened at the Cape of Good Hope. One is that we were adventurous and unconventional and hiked on a ledge to a cliff nobody else dared to go to. The other is that we lost the trail to the main peak with a lighthouse and just went with it. You can choose which narrative you like better- full reader’s discretion.
We finished up the first day by driving to the first town we were staying at. It was night by then. We bought a cooking pot and pasta supplies for the rest of the week. I was absolutely starving even during grocery shopping, so by the time we pitched the tent and were lighting the fire it was not only pitch black outside but I was also getting grumpy. I made the responsible and courteous decision to curb my hunger with white wine instead of being snippy until I had finished cooking. The pasta was heaven by the time I finished, even though the mushroom cream sauce was out of a plastic bag container we had bought for approximately $1.50. We ate directly out of the pot of pasta with forks and were asleep by 10pm.
The next morning was magical. I woke up to the sound of the waves crashing on the beach that was 50 yards from where I slept: in a tent, on a lawn, under a tree with a little fire pit near it. I walked down to the beach after eating leftover pasta for breakfast and it was breathtaking. I was so calm. Sand between my toes, watching the waves crash on the shore at 7:30am. That is me at my calmest. The second day was a long day of driving, so we pulled out of the camping grounds around 8. We drove up towards the Eastern Cape coast. The highway was mainly empty. For lunch we pulled into this little farm stand with a cafe and got amazing cheeseburgers. I don’t like driving for extended periods of time, especially on the opposite side of the road in a place I don’t know for more than 5 hours. But, the company and music in the car made it more than tolerable— I was blissed-out behind the wheel of a 2005 Toyota Corolla. Past that, I bought a huge bag of peanut M&Ms. The blue ones are my favorite. The right company is everything. I’m not sure if I’ve ever laughed that much in a single car ride, whether you measure that by straight time or percentage of time laughing, the statement holds.
The best part was that I got to go to Myoli Beach again. This is my heaven on earth. This is me in my element. This is what bliss looks like and feels like to me. It is a sacred space. I will only go there with people I love. I also know that when I am an adult, if I ever need time or an escape, that’s where I am going to go. I don’t care about the flight time. I don’t care about the distance. I am going to make it happen. When we got there, I almost sprinted into the water. Soon, the lifeguards were screaming at me because apparently the currents are so chaotic and powerful that you have to swim between two cones they set up. I was mildly irritated by this because I wanted to just be alone, but I didn’t let it cramp my style. I was too happy. I was so proud. I did it. The first time I was there, I promised myself I would go back, and I executed.
I think execution is one of my strengths. I am very creative and I dream a lot, but I also make the dreams happen. I don’t allow myself to be overwhelmed to the point of being paralyzed by all of the options and ideas my brain can create. It is really wonderful to live that way. However, there is a slight drawback and that is that I don’t really believe in just “letting things turn out the way they should”. I don’t buy a laissez-faire mindset. I don’t think things just work themselves out. You make things turn out the way they should and I don’t really cut people slack around that, because I know that you can make things happen because I do all the time. It’s hard. It takes a toll on me. There’s pressure and sacrifice, but I am always trying my hardest to execute and a lot of the time it happens. I think the harder you try, the more things fall in your direction. Effort generates luck.
The camping grounds we went to next we were staying at for two nights, so the drive was efficient and worth it. We pulled in and my jaw dropped. In front of us was the Indian Ocean. When I mean in front of us, I mean the tent was maybe 30 feet from the sea. Huge waves, crashing on the rocks that were the only thing in between us and the most beautiful thing in the world: the ocean. The other day, a friend asked me if I thought the ocean was conscious. I said I think it’s more complicated than that and I don’t really see it as a united, conscious being per say. I was then met with a brilliant observation: foam. There is so much yucky foam from the ocean that is filled with the pollutants of the sea. The ocean cleans itself. If the ocean wasn’t conscious, why would it clean foreign objects from itself? Food for thought.
Now onto the real food. For dinner that night I made an absolutely stunning pot of spaghetti and meatballs. I really was proud of myself for this one. I made it out of various ingredients and cans of meatballs all from the OK-minimark. It irritates me that it’s not called the mini-mart, but instead the minimark, like market. Why not just use mart? C’mon now people, I can’t be the one supplying all the good ideas. While the pasta cooked, I went and took a super quick shower in the facilities graciously provided by the camping site. I was walking out of the bathroom, towel securely turban-ed in my hair, and I saw the ocean light up in front of me. I thought I was hallucinating. Then I remembered that my friend Tim told me about seeing bioluminescent waves on one of his road trips, and I started sprinting towards my tent. I was completely out of breath upon arrival because I am in literally the worst shape of my life. I just said “bioluminescent… waves *gasps*” and pointed towards the ocean. Then, miracles took place in front of my eyes. For the next hour, the ocean was alive. The waves were lighting up. Millions, maybe even trillions, of plankton were crashing against each other and lighting up the waves as they curled and crashed in front of us. It was magic. Every time, it felt like my brain was glitching, but it was real. This was really happening. Then Mother Nature decided to test whether or not she could give us a heart attack and the clouds above us parted, revealing the Milky Way. In front of us, bioluminescent waves. Above us, the Milky Way. In our tummies, amazing spaghetti and meatballs. If this isn’t what life is about, what is?
The next day was quite lazy. It was raining and super windy. To the point where we were afraid to leave our little tent all alone in the storm in fear it might be blown away. Thankfully, as we went and got breakfast at the restaurant that was on the nature reserve we were camping at, it held it’s ground. It was not completely out of the question that the tent could have blown into the sea. I’m not sure what we would have done. That would have been no bueno.
Because it was so rainy and cold, we decided to forgo the hike we had planned and went to a vineyard instead. No complaints from my end. Give me a tapas-style restaurant and a wine tasting and I am, literally, a happy-camper. The food was delicious and we were so full that we ended up just heating up the leftovers of the spaghetti that we had negligently left in the pot and eating that for dinner. The next morning, we packed up fairly early and hit the road. We stopped at a gas station for breakfast and I got a grilled cheese with tomato and a large cappuccino. This was the second to last day and I was in no way ready for this magical adventure to be over. The route to get to the last site was so incredibly scenic. We drove through ravines and over the mountains of Africa. The ground here is incredibly red and it contrasted with the green of the plants growing on it. The scientific reason for the redness is because there is a lot of iron in the soil. The locals say that the reason the earth is so red is the blood that has spilled over it.
The last place we went to was in the mountains, our first venture inland away from the beach. Naturally, I was a little hesitant about this because the beach is my happy place. Oh, how wrong I was. And happily so. We stayed at an amazing hot springs in the middle of the South African Mountains. The pools each varied in temperature. It was all outside and directly out of the mountain beneath us. There was iron in the water, naturally, so it was a little reddish-brown. I loved it. I was so at-ease.
Africa has pushed me to grow in many ways. One of the biggest, most important ways, is the groundedness I feel here. I am not a laid-back person. But the closest I get to that is feeling rooted and calm within myself. I don’t look for other people to tell me that I’m doing the right thing as much as I used to, I just know what is right and I pursue it. That’s how I feel here. Feet on the ground, heart in my chest, lungs full of beautiful air, eyes staring directly ahead: I am here. I am here. I am hopeful and present at the same time. I am settled in my own body and mind. I am centered in my own existence. I am ambitious without being discontent with my own reality. I am seeking and finding and accepting balance in my life. Namaste, motherfucker.
That night, we made the most complex dinner yet. It was the last night of the road trip, so the special occasion warranted extravagance. We made fish and pasta. I made the pasta, naturally. It was all delicious and wonderful. The stars were so clear. It blows my mind to look up and think about the infinite expanse of space that we are hurtling around in like a little speck of dust carrying over 7 billion individual realities. It was freezing. Even when we were cooking dinner, I was shivering. The wind was impressively strong, blowing anything under 5 pounds at will. I felt a little annoyed at Mother Nature for that kind of treatment, given the amount of appreciation I had for her during the rest of the road trip. I thought she might do me a solid for that, turns out she really just doesn’t care. It’s alright. My feelings were only a little hurt. I can bounce back with pesto pasta. And I did. That night we stayed up late. Talking about the universe and morality and politics.
It always amazes me when people say they don’t like politics. I understand not liking conflict. That’s one thing. But not “liking” politics doesn’t really seem like an option to me. Politics is your life. It’s your education. It’s your job. It’s your health. It’s your rights. How can you not “like” politics? That being said, I generally don’t like conflict. It feels like an attack and takes a lot of energy from me. Talking about conflicting political views taxes me a lot (no pun intended). When I hear about political issues, I want to do something about it. I want to take the steering wheel and fix all of the unfairness and damage that the world is doing to itself right now. I am usually an empathetic person, but when people don’t have that same urge, I find it really hard to understand. I think a large aspect of this is immaturity. My passion blinds me to an extent. I get carried away. I get overwhelmed by how necessary the issue is. I am unable to moderate my tone or conversation points to make what I’m saying digestible. This is somewhat of a pattern for me. It makes me feel very immature, embarrassed, and like I lack self-control. I know that if I really wanted to convince people of my views, if I wanted to really get the outcome I want, I would actually moderate what I’m saying. People don’t respond well to accusation and conflict. If I defend somebody or a view of mine, the natural response for the other person is to either take the offensive or see what I’m saying as the offensive and take the defensive of their (wrong…) opinion. It makes me think of an Albert Einstein quote: “insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. I go into arguments with the same amount of stubbornness and passion and intensity, and expect it to sway people. I get tunnel-vision and let go of what I know is persuasive and just unleash my feelings and views in one huge Tsunami Quinn. I am very evangelical about what I believe. When I really care, I suddenly become a Mormon with a picket sign screaming at girls in skirts that God hates them. When I think I know I’m right, usually because I’ve done extensive research I assume most people are way too lazy to even do a fraction of, my words slap people in the face like a verbal picket sign. This is one of the things I’m working on this year. I think I’ve become significantly more aware of it and it’s going to take time, but I’ll get there. I know I can execute, this goal will just take some more time than is ideal.
Another point of self-improvement I am working on is self-image. That is, I don’t balance confidence and self-assurance well. I am either entirely confident, set in my views, plowing forward with full force and self-righteousness, or I am entirely insecure and see myself as the problem of a situation. Neither of these is ideal. The goal is to moderate. To find a point of confidence and humility and implement that into the way I approach the world. To be assured in my values and who I know I am, without being so confident that I have a closed-mindset and, therefore, close myself off to more improvement and learning. I have a very complex mind and am able to see a lot of nuance in the world. I am also empathetic. I can see the different elements and viewpoints of any situation. For example, I see why ISIS would be a persuasive institution to join in a desperate, isolating, and unfair situation. That being said, there are some absolute truths that I believe that I am not sure if it helps or harms me to see as absolute truths. The main of these is that I don’t believe in cutting others more slack than I would cut myself. I don’t think anyone who is persuaded to join ISIS is a good person. I think a bad person can regret and then move towards becoming a good person. I think a bad person can become a good person. I don’t think there is a fixed state of goodness or badness. Your goodness or badness hinges entirely on your actions and beliefs. That being said, if you are convinced that the right thing to do is kill others in an act of Jihad because they are Shi’iet Muslims instead of Sunni Muslims, or because they are of Western Culture, you’re a bad person. There is never a “right” reason to kill people you don’t know. Those people are stories. They are families. They are lives and experiences and relationships and heartbreak and loss and happiness and complexity in the same way anyone else is. It is so selfish and entitled to claim a life that is not your own. To intervene in somebody’s path like that. To step into a family’s reality forever. To influence hundreds of people in an act of destruction. There is no information, persuasion, or excuse that justifies that mindset. That is an absolute badness to me. I hesitate to say evil because it is weighted by the connotation of Satan and religion and I don’t want this to be about that. It’s about goodness and badness. Killing people is bad. That is an absolute truth to me. Stealing from people is bad. That is an absolute truth to me. Whether that is robbing people of objects, of experiences, or of honesty, it’s all stealing. Material stealing is the least important. Money, objects, material, it’s all societally constructed and most of the time doesn’t destroy somebody’s wellbeing or happiness. Not to say that’s never the case, but *usually* it is not the case. However there are more dramatic versions of stealing. Lying is stealing the truth from somebody. Cheating is stealing a natural, right sequence of events from somebody. It’s all stealing, and it is deceptive, and selfish. Nobody has the right to change what should happen. Nobody has the right to pretend the truth is something it isn’t. That’s an absolute wrong to me. How am I supposed to live in a world where I have to doubt what the people around me say? That is an incredibly exhausting existence.
That mindset towards lying and trust is another thing I have recently realized about myself. When I begin a relationship with anyone, friendship, professional, romantic, etc., I give that person my trust. I am vulnerable. I am open. I am true and I don’t hold back unless it will cause damage to somebody other than myself. However, if that trust is exploited, it is taken away by me in an extreme way. I withdraw entirely. It hurts me deeply to be betrayed, and it has happened many times. Yet, I would rather be hurt many times, than not keep my heart as open as I do. I feel everything so deeply and connect with people in an honest way on a daily basis, because I am brave enough to open myself to betrayal and pain. Often, I feel that pain. But, the worst pain and biggest loss of all is if I would let that betrayal make me close my heart off, and I need to have the courage to preserve that.
A sort-of example of this is making dear friends here in South Africa. The wise thing to do is to keep my heart to myself. We all live on separate continents. Why would I get attached? I don’t accept that. I’ve thrown my heart to people here and, when they leave, it breaks. But I would rather feel love, loss, and pain than nothing at all.
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