When the possibilities become possible again

When the possibilities once more become possible, let me tell you, experience is out there waiting, with just one more road trip into the great and bounteous unknown.

We were young and irresponsible, so of course we went. Garve drove, because he was sober. I immediately passed out, swearing all the while that I was going to take over as soon as he got tired.

As it turned out, I woke up on the beach at Wacky Point. Wacky is a right-hand point break, which is to say, a surf spot. It is precisely 256km from where our journey started, in the erstwhile Grahamstown.

We had apparently picked up our surfboards on the way out of town and we could therefore just about manage a hungover surf in the limpid morning waves.

We watched a last perfect set of chest-high right-handers reel down the point; we winked at each other and climbed aboard for the three-hour journey back to the G-spot. That day’s lectures would be a write-off.

The other time, Grahamstown was the destination. Smiler and myself were in Port Elizabeth, again looking for waves. Finding none, we drove past Bluewater Bay and just kept on going for the 120km to eRhini, where we knew we would find a town full of willing party partners. And why not? We were irresponsible, we had the use of a car and the open road.

That experience was out there waiting for us, that road trip. As it always was. We just needed a small gap in our schedule and the strength of purpose to grasp it.

That trip was one of a million possibilities that lay glistening around us, every minute of every day, back then. We could just as easily have hit Nelspruit, Mbabane or Maputo, any time we felt like it. Really felt like it.

Or we could have stayed in. Watched something on the TV and chilled on the couch, which is what we actually ended up doing most days.

We let those million gems of possibility lie glistening in vain, unexamined, all around us.

That, though, has been done to death. That chilling on the couch. When those possibilities once more become possible, let me tell you. That is when we once again start prospecting for gems.

Hagen Engler. Picture: Supplied

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