CHARMAIN NAIDOO: The unbearable heaviness of endings
'Jacob Zuma didn’t want his reign to end. Robert Mugabe hung on for 37 years. Endings can cause great anger'
EXTRACT
There are three conversations in this steamy café this morning: the benefits of hot yoga, also known as Bikram yoga; the taxi violence here in Cape Town that has meant a stay-away en masse of domestic help; and the fate of beleaguered Cape Town mayor, Patricia De Lille.
Having just alighted from their cars, the women had obviously been listening to 702 talk show host Eusebius McKaiser’s interview with DA leader Musi Maimane.
It soon became a communal conversation across the small space with its round wooden tables and stripy black and white plastic chairs.
On the table for discussion was Maimane’s failure to illuminate the reason for the DA’s displeasure with De Lille, even after being given an open platform on radio to make the party’s case.
All good things must come to an end, goes the proverb attributed to Geoffrey Chaucer, and said to date back to 1374. Endings are often painful and frustrating… the end of a love affair; divorce; retrenchment from a well loved job; moving house; leaving home for the first time. All heart wrenching. For me, sad endings extend to throwing away much loved clothes: a well-worn cashmere sweater that has kept me warm through happy and sad winters, memories imbued in the woollen weave; too-tight favourite jeans that tell of thinner, younger days…There’s a new “capsule wardrobe” trend that encourages, mostly women, to limit the number of clothes in their cupboard to make space for the new. The creators recommend a turf-out of garments not worn in a year. The hardest part, they warn, is giving oneself permission to begin the tossing out process. Endings are hard, even good endings that are accompanied by a sigh of relief; leaving a bad marriage, walking away from toxic friendships. It’s the m...
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