” Sitting in the back of the darkened car at night, travelling through the Karoo and heading home, I wondered what the sprinkling of lonely lights in the far distances were. The thought of human habitation out in that lonely darkness would shake me from the comfort zone of the speeding, enclosed family environment. At that age, the idea of living out there, in the dark, terrified me. Arriving back home and tucked snug in my bed, I would think of the lonely lights we had driven past hours before, wondering what they were doing at that moment and if they were safe?

It’s that maddening thing again, wisdom with age: if only I knew the things I know now back then. I now drive at length in the Karoo, avoiding the N1 that we used to speed up and down. I amble along the desolate back roads with no destination or arrival time in mind. The lone distant lights I was once afraid of pull me in like a moth to a stoep light. No more asking how much longer to go, but rather, how much longer can I stay. The silence at times broken by a distant barking dog, or better still, a jackal at night, is addictive. It’s getting difficult, the older I get, to go home.”