Seven-ping Sunday (8)

Apologies for Monday rendering of Sunday stuff, but the glitch in my matrix deemed external events receive higher ping priority …

Photo ping: The return of four creative photographic renderings of Sea Point swimming pool from the framer. Bought for my partner’s birthday and Christmas last year, the pictures by local photographer Nicky Newman brought with them the desire to replicate and spread far and wide news of her talent. The result: a card form of one of the series for my nephew, who was married in a simple and exquisitely beautiful ceremony at Rockhaven Farm in Elgin on Saturday. Click here.

Historical ping: South African microhistorian and meticulous researcher Mansell Upham, who has spent decades of nitpicking in the Cape archives, gives an in-depth lowdown on the origins of the spanspek at https://mansellupham.wordpress.com/: “Notwithstanding the urban legend set out in https://www.facebook.com/reel/26342643202066897, the term spanspek (‘Spanish bacon’) was already in use by 1681 when the German Elias Hesse (1658-1689) stopped over at the Cape of Good Hope as evidenced by his comments later published in Dresden (1687) as His Ost-Indianische Reisebeschreibung: ‘… But all the refreshments of the land proved to us more damaging than helpful, since from them most of us suffered from the flux; but the reason was that they observed no measure of diet, but drank all too much wine, and ate too many Spanish Speck [spanspek][my emphasis] and water-melons, and thus fell into a mortal sickness” …’

Also found yet another earlier reference (1718) to the name spanspek (for cantaloupe or musk melon) at the Cape of Good Hope that predates the current recycled myth that the name ‘originates’ with the Spanish wife of Sir Harry Smith’s penchant for eating ‘Spanish bacon’ (meaning cantaloupe) for breakfast: ‘… But the company [VOC – Dutch East India Company] has yet another beautiful garden at the Cabo de Bona Esperance, and this is the largest and contains all kinds of European trees and plants which the company had planted there … Of vegetable and plants for the kitchen there are firstly cauliflower, savoy cabbage … pumpkins, melons, various kinds of sweet melons, all sorts of grapes … which last-mentioned appears in the original German text as … Melonen, spanisch speck [my emphasis] von allerleij sort … - A faithful account and description of the Cabo de Goede Hoop and of its native inhabitants, their customs, activities and character, together with a description of the plants found in these parts of the country and of the domestic and wild animals, compiled by Johan Daniel Büttner as copied by Joachim Nicolaus von Dessin and transcribed, translated by G.S. Nienaber (1970)

These references (Elias Hesse and Johan Daniel Büttner), despite earlier publication, I have yet to see in any published ‘reputable’ Afrikaans and English South African dictionaries.”

Substack of the week: The title says it all: When in difficulty, read a book, by Jeanette Winterson. Click here.

Faith ping: When you leave your scarf on the plane and you report it a few days later, and, when you eventually find the flight office, through a series of detours because passenger thoroughfare has been diverted after an airport fire, the receptionist tells you she looked after it with love because she reckoned it was a sentimental piece.

Delight of the week: Penned by South African journalist Darrel Bristow-Bovey on his website www.bristowbovey.com, which he is slowly updating with his sumptuous body of work and columns since 1997, Daily Delights is a daily spritz of the standout feature of the day. Ranging from the ridiculous to the practical to the sublime, the spritzes are mostly in Greece, where he lives with his wife Jo. I loved 19 March, which took place on Crete: “There was strange weather around, a system out to sea that pushed the big swells into the harbour and caused waves to suddenly slap over the sea wall with no warning. The sea itself was blue in some places, jade green in others. Walking on the inside of the western sea wall was a kind of Cretan Roulette – waves would burst over the top just behind us or just ahead, missing us but leaving a fine particular mist. A jogger ran past, only to collect a load of water on her head about ten metres in front of us. You had to hole your nerve, trusting it wouldn’t break precisely where you happened to be. “It’s like our lives,” said Jo. “There are bad things happening all around but they never quite catch us. You can’t plan or change course, the only thing to do is to keep enjoying the walk.” ”

Muse of the week: We were talking about delight and joy and what constitutes them at lunch today. Earlier in the week, I had read English novelist Zadie Smith’s essay about joy and the belief, despite experiencing a little bit of pleasure every day, that she had only experienced true joy five or six times in her life. Which left us vacillating about what to call what I experience when I get a ‘like’ for a substack story and what he experiences when he catches a fish. And whether mindfulness, or cultivating the habit of spotting potentials, increases one’s capacity to experience delight. Besides underlying peace being an obvious ingredient, we both decided expectation was a key factor, and that receiving an unexpected surprise or moment of pleasure got first prize. He asked me to name one thing that would increase my joy, and I said more engaging substacks. To which he replied, “We need to find a way of doing that then.” The reaction to which was even more unexpected than an unanticipated joy. I balked at the suggestion. Reflexively. Unthought through. Vociferously.

He balked at me balking.

We both balked together.

And then I got home, where it is peaceful, and debalked the balking.

Turns out, however reciprocal we wish our emotional lives to be, writing space — like fishing space — is personal space. I would be over the moon if he could feed the five thousand, he would be happy if I could resonate with five thousand, but the prep is entirely personal. Am I alone in thinking like this?

Death ping: Duolingo, which has been driving me slowly dilly since I started it with Swahili and a bang 437 days ago. I also initially dabbled in Klingon, what they converse in in Star Trek, such was the genuine overwhelm of interest when I first started out. And progressed to Greek, Spanish and French, the latter of which I’ve stuck to the longest because it was the most romantic. Suffice to say, the app comes with in-built gaming pings, which, together with constant pressure to upgrade to a paid version, eventually turned me off. Can’t say how much, or how useful, the language I retained either, since it was mostly written or pushing the right button.

Till next week,

Ping with purpose,

Sharonski