Sunday 28th September

When we were in 4th year, we had to direct one act plays as part of our Directing course. I, of course, did a very silly farce that was great fun and aimed really just to amuse – which it did, admirably. (My rather pompous and erudite lecturers and some peers did not quite agree with the audience’s opinion that it was amusing, but what the hell!)

One of my classmates directed a play called After Magritte, which was about a bunch of people who had been to see an exhibition by the surrealist painter, Rene Magritte. I enjoy paintings and art that is more realist or naturalist rather than works that are a bit ‘out there’, or a bit weird, at least according to me. (I do, however, really love Lichstenstein, who is a pop artist.)

Surrealism, though, has a kind of appeal. I get what the artists are doing and some of the works sometimes make more sense than others. Right now, though, I have a far greater appreciation for anything surreal.

In many ways, I feel as though I could be inhabiting a painting by Magritte – living in the surreal world he creates. Everything is normal looking. Everybody is going about real life, as needs to happen. Underneath all this, though, is an entire ‘other’ world that is unfolding. As I sit here, I am being invaded by something I can’t see and can’t really conceptualise, although I do understand everything that has been explained to me. Even the thought of having the mastectomy is surreal. Exactly at the same time that I think and talk about it, as though it is ‘normal’, my mind is baulking at the very idea and wants, effectively, to run away from it.

Everyone around me in the family is much the same. We watch tv, load the dishwasher, brush teeth – all the normal, necessary things one does. Staring us right in the face, though, is that ‘elephant in the room’. We do talk about the cancer and what will happen. In fact, every so often Michael will ask me a question, or I will get a look from someone. It never goes away. And, yet, it is not actually here. It is like a random cello hanging in the air in the middle of an otherwise apparently realist painting: you can try to look past it to appreciate the scene; you can even manage, for a moment, to pretend it isn’t there – but it is, large and looming. It never goes away.

At exactly the same time, though, I look around me at the real things like the weather and the world. Aren’t we so damn lucky?

We went for a drive out to a place near Magaliesburg yesterday, just for an outing and for some food. The countryside we drove through was sporadically built up, very dry, very brown – and so beautiful. Yesterday was a beautiful day. Today, again, is a beautiful day.

I am surrounded by all this. I am surrounded by so many loving, caring people.

In the middle of all this surreal feeling, those are the reality.