FREE TO READ | Wanted's February issue kicks off the year with a much-needed punch of positivity

Ed’s letter | I get by with a little help

You’re driving to Woolies and your mind wanders: “Perhaps I should do drinks with mates later.” Then — bam — it hits you! No, not a bad driver, but the most utterly wretched thought. There’s no booze for sale and you’d be insane to rendezvous with friends at all right now.

Or you open your eyes first thing in the morning and there is a flash where you contemplate a regular day. It’s a brief moment before you see the headlines in your morning news emails and the full force of our current reality smacks you over the head.

Beyond actually living in a pandemic, is there anything worse than those nanoseconds where you forget about it, and then the blunt-force cruelty of it all comes rushing in?

I’ve had this feeling a lot over the past few weeks. Lying in the garden, the sun distracts me. Reading the newest Craig Brown about The Beatles, I get consumed by the Fab Four. Banging out a column and I’m in the zone.

And then I remember Covid.

It’s sickening, truly, but it’s also forced me to realise that the only way I’m going to get through these presumably vaccine-less next few months is by concentrating on the small stuff. The tiny distractions. It’s going to require some real mental fortitude and dexterity, but I am going to try to find escape, joy, levity, respite, and a modicum of normality (what is that, even?) in the minutiae of life.

Like glimpsing the clever and upbeat design of the amazing adjacent houses in Cape Town’s Clarens development that we’ve featured in this issue. Or meditating on the dream of actually visiting Diana’s Point in Oman (pg 19) when it’s safe to do so again. There’s a glass of wine at the end of day (praise be! we can buy it again). And long walks up Northcliff Hill with a friend, rating all the houses as we go.

LOOK | Page through the digital copy of Wanted's February issue (enlarge for easy viewing):

I’m also getting my kicks from the Duke in Bridgerton, my sister’s rescue Chihuahuas — they are a total tonic — and, hopefully, some more escaping into books will help, though frankly my concentration is currently patchy at best.

I hope you will also find relief in a similar way. 2021 is proving to be pretty hideous for everyone, but I trust you’ll find the bright spots where you can — and that Wanted is one of the most constant and luminous of them all.

Stay safe,
Sarah

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