The vertiginous nature of yes

March 2013
1.
Vanessa and I are sitting outside a cafe, each in front of our laptop, working. Sometimes we are talking, but mostly we are writing. A woman comes along whom Vanessa knows. They've not seen each other in a while and it turns out she is the head of journalism at City Varsity, an educational establishment just down the road from here. A place where the man I fell for lectured on his specialist subject. My mind wanders to him as they talk. He has left town now, which is good... but sometimes my mind trots over to him like a forgetful old dog, hoping to have a good lean against someone it has forgotten died years ago.
I vere back into the conversation as this woman asks who I am and what I'm up to. She says she's heard of the show, but that she couldn't make it. I say not to worry, and, as I mostly do, mean it. I say it might have been interesting for her students, that we're always looking for places to perform it, people who might want to see it. She asks me if I'll do a lecture on journalist safety for her journalism students. I say yes. She heads off. Within the hour she has emailed me and we have agreed a date and time for my lecture.
Hahahahahaha! I'm going to be doing a lecture on journalist safety.
Oh.
2.
Tracey takes me to a lecture by a very eminent African academic. The place is heaving - we get there early to get good seats, and this is a town where you don't arrive on time as a point of principal. During the lecture I take lots of notes... but I struggle to understand what he was talking about - not the finer detail but, you know, what he's talking about at all. By halfway through I had concluded that I am still a ghastly academic, that age has not withered my massive ignorance. He's taking questions and I want to ask Tracey if she has some colouring with her, or a book with pictures. I am such a disappointment.
There were, though, drinks afterwards and I inevitably bump into folk who'd seen the show. Cape Town is a small place. Well, no, it's more complicated than that, but let's say that the pools in which I find myself pleasantly eddying are very small, especially, I guess, if you are used to the enormo-city that is London and its absurdly big, beautiful and bounteous arts scene there.
There are also snacks, which was good, as I am probably having more wine than is right and proper.
A point comes where Tracey introduces me to two men, one of whom seems to be called Zavick. Obviously that can't be right, but I can't for the life of me work out what his name really is. He's an artist. The two chaps and I talk about the lecture a bit, by this stage the wine has loosened my ability to be bold and brazen about my cluelessness. The other chap is a doctor who has practiced in the UK. I do a great deal of communication skills training, including with doctors, and he and I have a ball discussing various matters surrounding communication in the UK and here. Tracey is eddying around the reception - she knows everyone - and then 'Zavick' is suggesting I do the show at his studio, cards are exchanged, farewells are hugged and Tracey drops me home.
In the morning someone called Zavick has befriended me on facebook. Zavick....? Zavick! And he messages me to say that he means business, I need to come over to see the studio, to make a date for the show.
****************************
And there you have it. I bump into people, they ask us to do the show, they ask me to do a lecture. These are the things that happen in a small place when you're the kind of person who gets talking to people. Or maybe it's because I'm 5'4". Who can say? I just know that when people say I am brave or adventurous, I understand that, deep down, all I am doing is stumbling from one preposterous even to another, or, better put, putting one foot in front of the last just as the previous one does not seem to be holding my weight anymore. It's a question of saying yes or plummeting to the floor. Mostly I have a sense of running away from the tidal wave, out of the burning building, rowing away from the sinking liner.
I have no idea how we will do the show in Studio41, but I go there and see it, I understand that Zavick means business, and so we will.
I cannot imagine putting a lecture together, but I cannot shy away. It is my duty to do the lecture: I have been forced, kicking and screaming into a better understanding than most of journalist safety and if someone wants me to tell their students what I have learnt then, quite frankly, it's not about what I think or feel any more. It is about talking about the dangers, telling the stories of those who have died, of those who live now in fear to those who are yet to start out. It's not about whether I feel qualified to talk about any of this, whether it makes me uncomfortable, it's about speaking out for journalists who need our protection and I have to get over myself and do the right thing.