Life- First Up, Then Down, Then Slowly Up Again

To say my life is currently like a roller-coaster out of control would be just about right. I feel like a passenger strapped in, control handed over, me just waiting to see what the ride will bring next.

Last week started with good news Tuesday morning. The negotiations between Sapphire Press and the production company Vanilla Productions had neared conclusion. My books Kwaito Love and Can He Be The One? were among the thirteen titles that Vanilla Productions had optioned to potentially be made into TV movies. It involved some money coming my way and the potential that my characters may be transformed into flesh and blood. This was fantastic news and I was flying high.

And then Tuesday afternoon the good mood took a serious nosedive. My husband came to my office and said something had happened to my cat, Catman. When I got in the house Catman was trying to move around, but it was as if both her back legs were broken. In Mahalapye, we don't have private vets, only government vets that see to large animals. The vets that tend to my pets live in Lobatse, hundreds of kilometres away. I called them. Luckily they were coming on Thursday and in the meantime I should keep the cat caged and sedated. He warned me that if her legs or hips were broken she could be saved, but if her back was broken she would need to be put down. So began two days of hope. Hoping so badly all would be okay.

On Thursday when they arrived (it's a husband and wife vet team) he felt along the cat's back and he said it was broken and the answer I didn't want was delivered. Then to make matters worse, he told me it was clear her back was broken by someone beating her hard with a stick or club. He had to put her down.

Of course the whole thing was devastating. She was only three years old. I don't know what could have happened that would have led a person to beat her so. Cats roam. Maybe she went in some one's house. Some people are very afraid of cats, that might lead them to react so violently. Though our garden is fenced, cats can escape. I can only have faith that this terrible thing will not happen again to her son Ramon. Hope and faith, the tenuous threads I hold, this woman who claims to be agnostic.

The days pass and the sadness softens its sharp edges and slowly slowly life drips back to normal.

Today is my first day back in my office trying to attend to emails and get some work done.
And then I see the people at New Internationalist are happy with my column and would like me to write for them. And the famous author I asked for a blurb for my soon to be out short story collection has received the request from his agent I took a chance and sent to, and his PA assures me she will pass it on. And I feel myself slowly rising.

Up and down and up and down and maybe that's the thing that keeps us moving, the simple unstoppable, undeniable energy of life. And it goes on.