going to church

High above the city, on Table Mountain's slopes, there is a loop up through forest and fynbos that I used to walk/run along frequently. Sometimes I went with my dad. After he'd passed, I'd go with just my Weimaraner, Lucy, until the steep twists and turns became too much for her – and then I went alone.

Since getting to Cape Town in January, I'd only done that loop once. This was not intentional neglect but my priorities, I suppose, had shifted to a lower plane – towards swimming, gymming, time in my new office space.

But last week, the pull back to the mountain was too insistent to defer. (Or maybe it's just that I needed it with too great an urgency?) As I started climbing, it was waiting like it always was – with generosity, spaciousness, a tender dappling of light and shade, the rambunctious tumble of water down ravines, the rustling of birds, their welcoming songs.

In the remnants of its indigenous Afromontane forest, some of the large trees were dead or dying (their bark stripped for tradition and profit).

The stands of (alien) eucalyptus we walked through were hushed, ominous, thriving. Out in the open again, silver trees (endangered and endemic to Table Mountain) shimmered in the winter light.

This is the latest in a sequence of irregular Field Notes from a swimming pool library.