Union Square

Farmers mosh pit Market.

The bridge over the Letaba River

It is Brooklyn, on a September day that feels like fall.

Rewind three months.

Early, dry winter in the north of South Africa, 2, 000 kilometers from Cape Town where the first winter rains had begun to fall, and where the mountains we left behind us were dusted with snow.

Five nights from home, and three days into the Kruger Park, we woke up in little Balule camp, collapsed the tent, packed up, and headed north.

We stopped on a bridge. There were a couple of other cars, too, and an old Jeep. People stretching their legs. One is only allowed out of vehicles on the long bridges, where the approach of a predator is easier to see. It was a wide, shallow river, the Letaba. Flanked by the enormous green trees that I grew to love in this part of the country - marulas, jackal berry, sycamore fig, Natal mahogany, fever trees. As we looked upstream a movement down a dusty gully to the left of the water caught our attention. A herd of elephants was coming down to the water, sliding and slipping as they negotiated the steep descent.

They gathered for a while on the banks of the river, waiting for another group to arrive, and then they began to cross, single file - small babies, teenagers, adults. We watched.

Something in me broke.

The way the air moved, carrying that scent that had followed us through the park, the way these animals looked small inside the silence of the landscape. The cinematic quality of it. The sense of being beyond time. Tears fell.

The elephants crossed for a long while, their dry hides staining dark with water, walked out onto the broad white beach on the other side, and moved into and under those great trees like cathedrals.

Later I thought, this feeling, its memory will pass. Later, I thought, now you're only going to say that your life changed on this bridge because the emotion you felt made you think your life should change on this bridge.

And maybe that is true. If you say - or decide? - your life changes at a certain point, perhaps it changes.

But something happened.

We stayed longer,  looking at another elephant on the other side of the bridge, a lonely tusker standing at the edge of the water, at a group of giant catfish suspended in the clear water beneath us, and at a sleeping crocodile on a sandbank.

Then we drove on, towards Tzendze, our next camp. It was a long time before I could speak.

Our Trip so Far:

Cape Town to Bloemfontein
Bloemfontein to Dullstroom
Dullstroom to Tamboti
Tamboti - Camp Life
Tamboti to Olifants
Morning in the Kruger
Balule - the Tiny Camp

Cape gooseberries under siege

Photo: Vincent Mounier

I sowed them from seed collected from the Cape gooseberries that grow in the pots next to the swimming pool in my mother's garden.

It bears repeating that it is South Africans who call this fruit a Cape gooseberry. Physalis peruviana is the botanical name, but there are many species of Physalis. In the States, these would be called ground cherries, although that common name usually refers to a more ground-hugging plant. That plant's fruit is very sweet, with a bit of funk.

These fruit, the Cape Town ones, bear plumper berries on longer, more upright arms. The colour is more intense: a deep orange-yellow, to the ground cherries' muddier yellow. And there is a tart tang with the sweetness.

But a so-called English or American gooseberry (Ribes uva-crispa, R. hirtellum and hybrids) it is not.

So. There they were. Delicious, in theory. Three little bushes on the roof. Lots of fruit forming.

I looked closely. What the...

The papery capsules have holes drilled in them. One perfect hole, each. And what was inside? Nothing, except some nondescript and dessicated debris. Whatever drilled the hole ate the berry inside and then just...left? It's a bloody mystery. Should I blame the cucumber beetles? This does not happen in Cape Town. The nerve.

As if that wasn't enough. We sat there this evening, with our drinks, looking at the whipping water of New York Harbor in the September sunlight, buffeted by the cold wind. I glanced over at the gooseberries to our left.

Leafless.

I knew. The bare branches had tobacco hornworm caterpillar written all over them. They'll eat anything in the Solanacea family and here was a smorgasboard in a row: tomatoes, eggplant, Cape gooseberries.

Photo: Vincent Mounier

I did not give him a bungee cord.

Later Vince went hunting and found four more. He hunts them like he hunts chameleons.

He can post his Frankenvurm images, later.

Let's just say they landed up in a cocktail glass. A caterpillar departure lounge.

Cat water

The cat was a little surprised to find a small boat in his water bowl, recently. He has water sources scattered all around his roaming grounds. This one is in the little patch of violets under one of the antique wrought iron chairs that a long-ago garden design client and antique dealer gave me.

His thirst is best satisfied by outdoor or running water. Then there's the bath. He never used to drink enough and would get into regular urinary tract trouble, long, long before his hyperthyroidism was an issue - the only cure for it was water. We float his pellets in it (wet food does not fix the problem), and we give him all these water bowls, now. Twice-annual trips to the vet to be "unblocked" (horrible euphemism) ceased, years ago, once I figured the water thing out. He has known many vets: the Park Slope Sadist ("the cat resisted me!" - after she inserted a catheter into his er,...cat penis. I mean, who would not resist that?), the Chopped Hog Vet (rode a Harley and was a Vietnam veteran  - Estorbo never hissed or growled in his presence), the Traumatized Argentinian ("Estorbo ees a terrible name for a cat!" Three hours later: "...now I understand why you call heem Estorbo!").

And others.

The boat was French, apparently.

A new leaf

The fig cutting has taken root.

Alpine strawberries

...in a very, very small bottle.

How to leave

Around 6 o' clock last evening I went up to water the farm, and to pick some eggplants (I still want to call them aubergines) for our supper.

I wondered about planting cool weather greens. There is an open pot, now, calling for salad leaves. But we will be leaving at the end of October

While the Frenchman and I were prepared to absorb the radical, $600/month rent increase our landlord had imposed, we were not prepared for some of the conditions in his new lease. Like no cats. After ten years. While there is plenty of room for legal maneuvering, this is a battle in which we have chosen not to engage. It is clear that it is time to retreat, and to cut our ties with this lovely little space.

And it will cease to be lovely the minute we leave the building. Loveliness is the ember we carry with us.

It goes where we go.

At least, that is what I am telling myself.

I cannot pretend to be happy about it. But I feel strangely at peace. At least we know, now.

There will be moments of raw sadness, especially at this time of year, when the light is heartbreaking. The colours and shapes and textures I know so well change with the rising and falling light. The intense comfort of familiarity. The terrace's botanical clock.

There is a lot to look forward to. A new New York adventure. Murmurs of an apartment around the corner. Thoughts about Jackson Heights, Queens, and its glittering hot rooftops and Babelesque inhabitants. New food, new sounds, new subway line. The first step on a longer journey that will take us even farther away.

Perhaps it is easier to leave by degrees.