So what are you going to do next? seems to be the only sentence that anyone can muster upon hearing my travel tales. In order to prevent an inevitable panic attack I usually try and distract them by assaulting them instantly with another story – Oh but did I tell you how I befriended an entire Chinese village and ended up dancing with them on a stage in Lijiang? Or how about the time I went swimming with sharks and rays?…
When I’ve asked myself the same question I found it harder to avoid. Harder but not impossible. I reassure myself that I’ll start thinking about all that properly when I have more time. I had my sister’s wedding and a trip to Berlin to occupy myself, followed by a few weeks seeing all my friends in The Netherlands. Sure I couldn’t give my future the time and attention it properly deserved.
But now I am living at home, just my mother and me with nothing to distract apart from what seems like twenty-four hour coverage of Coronation Street. I’ll start dealing with my serious life issues when I find out who has been killed in the tram crash I told myself. I can’t think clearly worried that Rita was going to smoother underneath all that pick ‘n’ mix. And after my fears on that score were assuaged there was the fact that the country is bankrupt and not even one of our politicians is competent enough to pass an audition for the Muppet Show. Eventually I ran out excuses, even the most feeble or imaginative of justifications.
And then it came to me in a glorious moment of crystal enlightenment. I’ll become a photographer! I love taking photos and I already have an extensive portfolio from my travels. Qualifications? Sure why would I need them when I am obviously a natural and can just send my pictures to the on-line stock photography websites and earn a small fortune when they sell them to newspapers, magazines and countless other high profile media who will be crying out for more Conortje originals.
I hunkered down and set up profiles with a few agencies and sent off my samples that they insisted on reviewing before they would sign me up. I waited impatiently for their acceptance so I could begin sending them the hundreds of photos I had decided would make me the most money.
Within days the various companies got back to me. Inside of singing my praises and offering me a fortune they regretted to inform me, one after the other that my white balances were off or my photos had limited commercial appeal or they simply thought I was a rubbish photographer. I was gutted. This meant that not only would I now not become the internationally famous artist I had always dreamed of but I would, again, have to sit down and decide in earnest what I was to do with my life. Where was I going to live? What job could I reasonably expect to get? What did I actually want to do?
So here I am, asking you the same questions while I wait in hope for someone to arrive mysteriously at my door and offer the job of my dreams. In the meantime did I tell you about the time I befriended a python in Vietnam? Or even better how I briefly and accidentally became a representative of the communist party in Nepal…
Conortje 