Hi ho, hi ho!

Resting up and dreaming.

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After a weekend sleeping off the worst flu I’ve had in years, I stumbled over my own feet in the general direction of the doctor’s office on Monday morning. After navigating some German healthcare bureaucracy and lifting up my shirt so that the doctor could listen to my lungs, I was sent home with a sick note for the week. I flung open my door and lay on top of my bed, still wearing my jeans and a brown, woollen, hand-me-down jumper I got from my girlfriend’s dad. Cold sweat covered my back and neck. Despite feeling much better than I had over the weekend, I was still quite sick and the four hundred metre round-trip to the doctor’s office was more than my body was prepared for, apparently. A little dizzy and staring up at my ceiling, I was torn between feeling relief at having the week at home to recover properly from my flu and guilt at not going to work in spite of my sickness. Whether it’s a pattern of thinking I inherited from my family or from my country, I feel that even if the doctor tells me to stay at home, doing so is weak or somehow shows poor work ethic or even potentially endangers my employment status. Perhaps this notion is built in the South African economical and social framework that doesn’t have the luxury of institutionalised governmental social support, unlike Germany.

My guilt didn’t linger. It wasn’t long before I was tucked under my duvet, watching YouTube videos and drinking Earl Grey by the potful. I took my job of recovery very seriously and confined myself to my bed. I played video games. I rediscovered a series I first watched in the first weeks of the COVID lock-downs. My copy of John Green’s new non-fiction book, Everything is Tuberculosis, was delivered and now has a position of honour in my bookshelf.

While trawling YouTube I rewatched an ancient Australia’s Got Talent clip that I used to love. Lead in by the pianist, the singer in a family band starts with a stunning, clear, high-pitched note. The band performs a beautiful cover of a song the original of which I’ve never heard. The crowd is immediately enraptured, as are the judges. They applaud the band and insist that they’ve never heard anyone quite as good. With ample compliments and four yeses, the band walks off the stage, overjoyed. I found myself welling up, almost weeping, watching that clip. Like the judges, I’d also had goosebumps watching the performance, and not for the first time. I had known how fabulous the performance would be, but I wasn’t brought to tears by their musical excellence. I was very nearly crying because I was suddenly struck by the band’s bravery and achievement. After decades of playing together and making ends meet, dreaming of making a career out of music, they swung at their opportunity and hit a home run.

The series I watched was initially created by a group of friends and posted to YouTube, but in the five years since I discovered them, their popularity has soared. They now have their own, exclusive streaming platform with a proper custom tv-show-esque animated introduction set to the tune of a song written just for the show. Even John Green, despite hitting gold some years ago with the incredible reception of his novel The Fault in our Stars, seems only to have continued from strength to strength.

Sick in my bed, listening to that song, I longed to leave my mark on the world. I find myself magnetically drawn to my legacy. I dream of being a legendary photographer, featured in magazines and sought after by companies and celebrities. I think of writing something so fantastic that it resonates with millions of people. I long to cultivate a skill or collection of skills to such a degree that I begin to practise it with excellence that is all but incomparable. Would excellence without mass recognition scratch that itch? When I think of how fun it’d be for my grandkids to stumble upon stacks of interviews and a body of work, is it the work or the fame that tickles my fancy? I spend all this time dreaming about breaking ground, perhaps once I’ve spent the week in bed recovering from the flu, it’ll be time to pick up a pickaxe.

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I just want to try! To strive, to make something great! How do I do that in between grocery shopping and paying the bills? If you enjoyed this journal, please subscribe.