14/09/2023
Synchronicity.
I'm busy reading The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey. This is her debut novel and it is utterly engrossing and absorbing. The descriptions of life in the cold, snowy, rough terrains of Alaska threaten to overwhelm the plot at times. But they don't. There is a suspense that is so skillfully managed by the author that the reader is compelled to keep turning every page. Each section is defined by a perfect snowflake. Like an asterisk , but not. For the book is also about the art in nature, and, particularly in a snowflake
I am only halfway through. I feel as if I'm in a different world and I don't want to leave it. So I'm trying to read the book as slowly as possible.
Such is the synchronicity of life that I need to make two points. One is to do with weather and the other to do with time management during leisure.
We are experiencing an exceptionally cold winter here in Cape Town. The effort of keeping warm can take up a good proportion of every day. We have loadshedding which means that warm clothes are seldom enough. Hot water bottles are sometimes the only things that keep me warm as I don't have gas. So I have to remember to fill my kettle before the power goes off. It is very quiet where I live at night. There are no televisions or radios to disturb or distract during loadshedding. Without lights in the complex, it is dark and strangely peaceful. I am now very used to the calm. And at ease with only the sounds of winter weather.
Life is normally so full of noise.
So, here I am in the dark, with my two hot water bottles and blankets. The wind howls, the rain pours down in spurts. Sometimes it's violent, sometimes it's gentle; but it's constant.
I read at night with my phone torch and I'm transported to a world where conditions are so hard and winter so cold that I can barely imagine living like that by choice.
The movie Land explores the reason that a woman would choose this type of life to deal with grief. One is left pondering on the survival instinct. An unanswerable question. Especially in the face of such unbearable emotional suffering. The book explores the same theme, coincidentally.
I watched the movie last week. It was okay, not particularly impactful. But interesting enough. Then I started on The Snow Child.
I have had hours and hours of absorbing reading, my mind being filled and fused with ice and snow and animal life in the wild. And it never ceases to amaze me how much more satisfaction is provided by a good book than a 90 minute movie.
The book will stay with me for months if not years. The movie will be forgotten quite soon. But not the song that expresses Robyn's pain as she drives away from her old life. That song is still going through my head and echoing in the mountains.
