musing – hudson biko

Taxi Musing II

March 6, 2017July 12, 2017 Biko17 Comments

Peter Kasprzyk.jpg

On Friday afternoon, I took two taxi rides.

On my first, I was on my way somewhere. I didn’t know exactly where I was going. I didn’t know exactly how I would reach there. I really just hoped that the driver taking me would.

He didn’t.

But he did have an idea. An idea of where that place was. An idea of the roads that might lead there. An idea of the path to our destination.

On my second, I was on my way home. I knew exactly where I was going. I knew exactly how I would reach there. I really just hoped that the driver taking me would.

He did.

But amongst the congestion and confusion we call traffic on a Friday afternoon, we got stuck in the middle of each highway or pathway we eventually got on.

Both times, I eventually got to exactly where I wanted to go. Albeit from contrasting starting points.

On the first, we found our way based on an idea. Based on our perception of what the end would like.

On the second, we had to divert from pre-conceived notions. We had to find alternative pathways to reach where we wanted to go.

I think that sometimes that’s the oxymoron we find ourselves in-between.

In-between working towards something we don’t really visualize and finding alternative ways of achieving what we’ve already visualized, especially in the midst of unexpected constraints.

But I also think that those are the moments that define us. The moments where we have to believe in our own beliefs. The moments where we have to overcome unprecedented barriers. The moments where the journey makes the destination truly worthwhile.

Photograph: Peter Kasprzyk

Cobbler Musing

February 3, 2017January 9, 2018 BikoLeave a comment

I took a pair of shoes to the cobbler today. Only one was actually being fixed. The other was more or less a point of reference. A point of understanding how I wanted the tattered one to look.

Soon after the cobbler began fixing mine, a young boy came in with his own shoe. With exactly the same problem I had. At this point I began looking around the cobbler’s stall, looking to find other similarities. And I soon realized that it was surrounded by a myriad of other shoes, each differing in their purpose and construction but most times only one of a pair.

Even though the pairs took the same path, one was often the one that was spoiled, deconstructed.

But in its own way, this represents our own path.

It represents how facets of our lives can be congruently held together whilst being torn apart.

It represents the parallelism of experiences across same paths.

It represents how irrespective of its construction, everything has a capacity to fall apart.

But it also represents the value of experience, the importance of taking the journey to begin with. Of walking all possible paths and taking everything that comes with it.

It also represents the capacity to construct from the deconstructed. To build from what has been torn apart. To stitch and sew experiences to create something whole.

Something that makes the path truly worthwhile.

Taxi Musing

January 20, 2017January 9, 2018 Biko3 Comments

I was sitting in the car, eating the banana he bought me.

he bought two
but i can only assume
he wasn’t too
hungry
because he gave me the bigger one.

I never asked for it. I never even said I was hungry. But he gave it to me.
And in return, all I could say was the customary thank you.

He didn’t know it but that was my first meal of the day. Created out of
an instantaneous interaction from a succession of unpredictable actions.

In a myriad of other realities, I could have been anywhere else or with anyone else. But I wasn’t. In its own way, the universe conspired to put me exactly where I was meant to be. With exactly who I was meant to be with.

Sometimes, that is all there is. A collation of ‘random’ moments and actions morphing into exactly what we need.

Thank You Stephen! 🙂