Stepping out the front door that night on some or other half-planned errand, I noticed quickly that it was a warm night for a change. Winter has finally broken and the highveld is starting to see dry nights, where unchanged winter duvets will keep you hot and restless. Jasmine had also started to raise its head somewhere, with its teasing sweetness starting to mingle with the heavy scent of bushveld burned somewhere nearby. That particularly dark smell that you taste as much as you breathe it in. Unmistakably African in its tones, reinforcing the evening’s announcement that summer had arrived, sending ahead of herself one of her finest messengers in that perfectly balanced evening. A good evening to be going out. To be finding new purposes in the world, new tasks that matter. Or simply awakening to an appreciation of what you were doing already. Regardless, pausing briefly to take in a little more of the warmth, burning and jasmine, I wondered whether it would be like this night then? When, having moved or sold everything else here, I will step out into as warm a night with all that remains of my life in Johannesburg on my back. Departing these surroundings and gently, quietly stirring the night as I melt into the beginnings of a new story.
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