Fangirl

I had a tear-inducing fangirl moment earlier this week when I opened my Substack app in a moment of boredom and discovered the illustrious Marita van der Vyver had restacked my recent essay on grief.

It was- and I kid you not- an even bigger moment that when Sia Kolisi ‘liked’ an Instagram reel I put up following a rugby game played at Ellis Park, Johannesburg in 2023.

Obviously being restacked by this auspicious Afrikaans author was going to be more emotional than a mere ‘like’ by the quite famous Springbok rugby captain.

I mean, reading and writing has been part of my core being since I was at least 6 years old, while the Springbok rugby team only featured properly on my peripheries when I was 17 and we took the 1995 Rugby World Cup title (for the first time). (Before that all I knew was The Sharks from their own famous Curry Cup win in 1990, following a century long title hiatus, but that’s a story for another day).

But getting back to being ‘restacked’ by a famous Afrikaans author. I actually did cry, although not so much crocodile tears because I’ve become quite adept at crying quietly. Then I screenshotted that (much as I did when Sia Kolisi liked that reel) and promptly shared the screenshot with some of my favourite people who would cheer with me.

But why has it made me emotional? My tears weren’t necessarily sad tears. They were just emotional tears and honestly, that’s my go-to action. Regardless of what the situation is.

Marita did a kind thing by sharing my words. Kindness is a beautiful gift, and it cost her nothing.

Aside from being blown away by kindness, I also suspect I was surprised by her sharing my words. I’m an amateur scribbler, and if I hadn’t gone down the culinary career I might have actually seen myself attending university to study journalism. (Except one teacher reminded me journalists are gutsy truth seekers, and that didn’t line up with my personality. That teacher did actually teach me ‘home economics’- a very 1990’s subject that allowed me to cook, a passion that I had had for as long as my reading and writing passion, but somehow my English teachers never developed that line very successfully at high school).

So, while I am not a journalist nor a writer, I am a lover of words and not-so-secretly wish I could escape to a far-away mountain, a moody moor or desolate island where I could live out my days in (almost) solitude writing my memoirs or just anything that people might pay me to. Okay, perhaps not the latter. Perhaps it should say “write anything that people will pay to read”.

Thus, getting a little nod from one of South Africa’s greatest literary exports (hero may be an more appropriate noun here) was like a serendipitous birthday present. After all, she was being kind, but would she have shared it if it was terrible?

Being a very-much-KwaZuluNatal-Midlander South African, I’m should confess that Marita’s work did not fall into my school curriculum like so of the Afrikaans kids’.

However, having moved to north-east France in 2013, like-minded circles have overlapped like a Venn diagram, the centre being The Oracle of a Sud Af’s in France farcebook group, and when I discovered the real life South African author of iconic reputation who not only lived in France and rubbed shoulders with regular people but also managed to write food articles for the Daily Maverick (an independent newspaper in South Africa) - naturally I became a fan.

Food and writing. My two favourite things. And here was a woman doing just that. Of course I put her into a list of people who I would like to meet.

Perhaps now, in my era of widowhood, with daughters who can almost take care of themselves, maybe I will save up some hard earned centimes to maybe sign up for a food journey across parts of France to fulfil this space I find myself in, and arrive on Marita’s doorstep with a serving of Alsacienne choucroute.

Why, you ask, has this essay featured in your email?

Well, one strangers random act of kindness has rendered two handfuls of new subscribers so now I have an exciting new array of readers to entertain, and in a bit of a different way than I do out there on my Pinot Bretzels and Cathedrals newsletter. Or perhaps not. Time will tell.

Typically I end off my essays with a prosaic line of gratitude or a lesson I’ve learnt while writing. It has always been therapeutic, this infliction of putting pen to paper (or thumbs to phone keyboard).

The prosaic gratitude thing is a habit I’ve formed to downplay my (usual) writings of annoyance or my current misgivings. Life is hard but have you tried living under a cardboard box in the middle of winter thing - if you know what I mean?

So, inspire me with your presence and encourage me to write about anything but grief and widowhood.

Best,

GC.