Road tripping

In the popular culture road trips have been quite romanticised. A group of young people pile into a car; go on an adventure; find love; find themselves and arrive with a new sense of perspective. The Road trip is one of the most over-used metaphors for adolescence.

Having had taken about 19 road trips between Bloemfontein and Grahamstown I can safely say that road trips aren’t always that… metaphorical. They aren’t inherently adventurous. They usually involve long hours staring into the distance pretending to be deep and thoughtful. Recently one of my best friends, Roxanne, and I drove back to Grahamstown together. Roxy lives in Kimberly which is about a 2 hour drive away from Bloemfontein, so it was a long day of driving. My dad dropped me off in Kimberly at 8am and we jumped into Roxy’s adorable little Golf for the long trip.

I was meant to be the navigator/ food passer/ DJ for the trip, but about an hour in I passed and slept for about 2 hours; forcing Rox to naturally take embarrassing photos of me which she then passed on to all our friends in res. After those 2 hours we stopped in some Children-of-the-corn town to use the bathroom and like an idiot I close my door without checking if Roxy had taken the keys out of the car. For a moment we both panicked about being stuck in the town in which House of Wax could have been filmed. Luckily the boot opened and Rox clambered in over our luggage to get the keys. So we were off again!

After that our trip was fairly uninteresting. We listened to good music, caught each other up on our holidays and laughed at stupid radio interviews. Along the way Rox would slow down so that I could take photos of the Eastern Cape landscape, sky-divers and even monkeys.

A road trip is what you make it. It becomes a little adventures if you want it to be. Not every road trip is going to be epic, or particularly exciting, but the little memories will be enough for me.

John Green, the king of road trip literature (or any contemporary literature actually) once wrote:

"As long as we don't die, this is gonna be one hell of a story."

Maybe the story is just a part of life. Maybe the story is just the few extra hours I got to spend hanging out with my best friend. 

Home is...

Home is being woken up by a rooster even though I live in the middle of town. It’s the smell of bacon in the morning. It’s the fresh laundry. My sister unpacking my suitcase for me and the time I have to wait for the phone while my brother talks to his girlfriend. And It’s about wasting his time later by watching the finale of Teen Wolf with her.

Home is watching Glee with Lisa until midnight, while enjoying the pink cocktails my mom threw together. The pink cocktail that is spilled all over bed about 10 minutes later. It’s the hours I actually spent sleeping. Home is going for a hike with a friend and her Chou chow and then having to wrestle that Chou chow into the shower to wash all the swamp mud off.

Litte Luna in the shower.

The home-cooked meals and the take-aways from McD’s. It’s the sushi days and cocktail nights. It’s my Ouma’s cakes and home-made fudge. It’s the questions about my love life. The “Aren’t there any nice boys at Rhodes?” The nights sokke-ing at a club. The expensive drinks that make me miss the Rat. It’s about flirting with the cute bartenders. It’s about being bounced from a club for not having my ID for the time in years.

Home is sitting in the rain to watch my favourite rugby team play. It’s the lame Afrikaans music; the biltong; the old men shouting instructions to the team from the stands. It’s cheering for my team even though I don’t understand all the rules. Home is the group of Afrikaans Matric boys destroying our kitchen at 10am in search of food. It’s about watching a cute movie in the cinema for the first time in over a year.

Home is driving around town with our music blasting loud enough to make the people in the cars next to us stare. It’s mine and Ashmina’s rendition of “Drops of Jupiter.” It’s drinking wine with pilots and listening to their flying stories around an unlit fireplace. It’s the fake horror movies we film on Ash’s Iphone. It’s the lame pick-up lines Ash and I thought up. “Hey! I didn’t know you were back from exchange?!” The dysfunctional days with Ash, where everything goes wrong, but they’re great anyway. ‘Elri, I just broke my lamp.”

 It’s the days spent in bed reading books and watching the whole of season 7 of Dexter. The silly games my friends and I have been playing for years and can’t seem to stop. The new haircuts, new buildings and other changes that crop up when I’m gone. The girl’s nights, with wine, cheesy movies and general gossip. The secrets worth telling only those that have known you long enough to truly care.

Home is Sunday night church services worshipping a God I don’t understand, but love anyway. Home is my sister’s unrelenting faith. It’s my brother’s constant humour despite the fact we both had to study during vac.

Home is house warmings and soft carpets. It’s listening to old songs with even older friends. It’s the random moments with my siblings and a certain green sponge. It’s the nights that William passes out on my bed and refuses to leave. The nights that we go out dressed in Grahamstown chic. a.k.a Bloem shabby. Home means going to watch U/14 hockey in the middle of a hot day. The perfect hug from a good friend. Home is about ex loves and old flames. It’s about the memories. The nostalgia.

Home is the way in which the months that I have been gone seem to fall way. It’s the familiarity, the comfort, the safety. Even if that safety is behind the newly installed security alarms that my dad forgot to tell me about.