If I could go back to the land that raised me, I’d visit all the places which make up the patchwork of my life before adulthood. A trip of many stops in my home town of Durban.

I’d start at the beginning: The tiny, one-bedroom flat which holds my earliest memories.

Bathtime with a blue and orange toy boat which delighted, and a makeshift play area where we’d race those old cars on a track, nothing ever working perfectly because the brush in the car bottoms were troublesome.

That was also the spot where my brother relieved me of my bubblegum while it still had flavour; warning me to give it to him before the “germs” came to get me.

The lounge, which held the TV, was the home of my earliest silver screen viewing: a kids show which terrified me (somehow related to cheesecake…don’t ask how, because I don’t remember), the line man (“La Linea“),  and later, my first favourites: Knight Rider and The A Team.

Candy drops as a bribe (/reward?) for cutting my nails, and sweet incentives before going to nursery school in the morning…it’s no secret when my sugar addiction began.

It was where my brother broke his foot, and where I first encountered the notion of suicide – the neighbour on the far end of the block taking his own life, long before I could ever understand why a person would do such a thing.

And once I’d walked through those memories that barely still reside in me, I’d move on, to our first house:

Brown face bricks and a castle-like tower. Huge chameleons on the wall, and an under-stair playroom which held more fear than joy, for this was a house built in once-wild land, and other creatures still called it home – much to my dislike.

We’d play cops and robbers in the back yard, and I’d be terrified of the dormant anaconda which slept under concrete at the start of the sandy side which refused to blossom into a garden of green. That, too, was a tall tale by my big brother – ever ready to scare me, though he mixed such episodes with love and care, too. I still remember the Lego house we built in his blue-carpeted room: the adventure of kids who snuck into the kitchen’s sweet box when their parents were out…perhaps so thrilling because it mirrored my desire to snatch what I could from our coveted green treat box…treasures of immeasurable value to my young heart.

This home was where I encountered the red-suited terror of “Thriller”, and chose my very first favourite song (by Miami Sound Machine). I felt my first (and only) tremor there, and lived through the floods of ‘87 – our TV room soaking, though many others had it far worse.

The karate school behind our house never got built, though the students still trained on the unfinished roof.

I doubt if I ever slept in my own room, always being scared to sleep alone…my brother, again, showing his caring side, by letting me sleep in his room for all those years. Those nights together were often filled with discussions, along with loud fights over the fan and ‘stealing’ each other’s ‘coldness’ from the other’s pillow, often resulting in our angry father’s reprimands.

I didn’t outgrow the fear of sleeping alone until my teenage years, a few years before my brother left to university.

Before adolescence, though, came my next destination: a house out of our racial group’s designated area. It wasn’t unfamiliar, though, for we’d shopped in the area for years before, in those last few years of Apartheid’s reign.

We built on to the seemingly-ancient structure already there, and painted it all a peachy pink. I got to choose my furniture style in my room, and – for the first time – had my very own bathroom. Over the shower, I stuck a “Wayne’s World” sign – cutout from a magazine ad, in the days when the goofy humour I still love took root.

We had grass in the garden, this time, but we preferred the paved section for countless games of cricket, soccer, rugby (very briefly – during the ’95 World Cup which our nation won), and even mini-tennis. Real-size courts were close by, though, and we spent hours upon hours there, once playing past sunset, when a bat chased me and I fled – holding my racquet up as a defence mechanism with which to swat the aggressor, lest it got too close.

I still play with that racquet today, introducing my kids to the very first sport which captured my heart in childhood.

Life felt safe back then. I marvel at how far I could travel without my parents – with my brother, but more often alone – to shopping centres, medical appointments, and even surrounding areas kilometres away, always on foot, because my lack of balance, and overriding fear of falling, never allowed me to master the art of riding a bike. I didn’t mind, though. My legs were all I needed.

Every once in a while, in school holidays, we’d gather a group of friends and their acquaintances and hold full-size cricket matches in the nearby park, on a clay pitch which was never maintained to proper levels (because they’d put down astroturf when they needed to use it for official games). I’d always fear us getting kicked out, for our games were never played with the permission of authorities. We didn’t even know who to ask.

The theme of such trouble followed during our basketball phase, when the Dream Team reigned, and the NBA was a new attraction to our star-struck young minds. The courts – both outside and once inside – belonged to my brother’s high school, but we’d never sought permission to play, always crawling through a hole in the fence to get in. It was there that we were challenged by a group of strangers, but the game ended badly for me when one – his (nick?)name was ‘Pope’ – winded me by throwing the ball straight into my stomach when I wasn’t ready. I felt like I was dying, even after my brother and friend helped me home that day.

The video shop was a treasure, in those days when the internet didn’t exist, and VHS tapes were the standard. (Yes, I always rewound the tapes before returning them 😊.)

The nearby mall was a favourite spot for me – home to cinemas (back when movies and snacks weren’t extortionately priced) and the news agent, where I’d spend hours upon hours reading sports magazines, some of which came home with me and provided the many, many posters which lined my room walls. In my earlier years, that mall hosted the library where I’d do research for my school projects – in the years before computers, when catalogue cards, encyclopaedias, and endless photocopies were the only ways to access the knowledge we needed.

Our homes, though, weren’t the only dwellings I’d revisit, for many hours of my childhood were spent in the house of family friends – some not so well off, and others boasting enough room for a personal squash court (which, one night, played host to a rousing game of improvised cricket). Family houses, too, are etched into my memory: the peaceful cul de sac of my grandmother’s home, my other grandmother’s home (which I’ve previously written about), and the huge back yard of my cousin’s house, along with the road outside that we’d skateboard on (which the faded scar on my knee still bears witness to).

I would revisit our holiday locations, too – most of them resorts in the Drakensberg, which bred within me a love of hiking and mountains, along with early experiences of trail running (though for us, we were simply racing each other down the mountain). One particular hotel became the scene of a night of terror, when a loose spark from the fireplace birthed a fire which burnt much of the hotel down. We were evacuated in the middle of the night, taking the bare minimum, unsure of whether our belongings would survive the blaze. (Fortunately, our room wasn’t impacted, and my beloved tennis racquet survived.)

Graveyards, too, would be on my list of locations, for death was a frequent visitor. Before I turned 12, I’d lost 3 grandparents, an uncle, and a beloved baby cousin. I was 8 years old and her funeral was, for me, the saddest experience of my life up to that point. I still remember having to hide my mourning the next day at school, because I didn’t want anyone to see me crying.

Schools, too, occupy large chunks of those childhood years, and most of mine were spent at a privileged primary school, where I was one of the very few faces of colour. It was a stark contrast to the Indian school I’d spent my first term of Grade 1 in – where I made friends almost instantly, and was rarely alone at break time. The other school – which I’d remain at for seven years (a lifetime, at that age) – was a lonely experience. My introversion and shyness, mixed with feelings of inferiority (given my ‘other’-ness) and social anxiety prevented me from much social interaction, aside from birthday parties where the whole class had to be invited (both my own and other boys’). I always hated those. But I eventually did make a friend, who become my closest company during my last three years there.

Still, though, I appreciated the school and I hold the place dear. It was my base from ages 6 to 12, and it provided an excellent educational foundation for me, and enriched my young life in ways I would not have experienced in other institutions.

High school was a whole new experience: co-ed, more diversity (though people of colour were still the minority), and very different cultural exposure. I fitted in more easily, and enjoyed the company of a group – though I would really only call one of them a friend through all those years. The stands next to the field felt massive, and it always amused me how the ground staff would water the grass when it was raining. The pool, though, induced anxiety, because I always feared swimming. In my younger days, I’d often get physically sick around the time of galas, so I didn’t have to swim. (The illnesses were through no deliberate efforts of mine, mind you…but they were convenient 😊.)

If I could return to that place, I would wander through those school halls and take a seat in the classroom which was my base for my first year there – Grade 8, when I was a rare newcomer amidst the others who had spent their entire primary school career together. I still remember the magnificent view of the ocean from that room’s window…an invitation to freedom from the educational imprisonment of school, especially on a Friday afternoon, when the weekend beckoned.

Up the hill from that school was a Christian school (which we called “Convent”), whose facilities we shared. I’d have Drama there on Mondays, which was an odd choice for someone so shy. But it was still preferable to Art, in which I had zero talent for visual crafts.

Outside of school, my father being a runner, we’d go jogging at the racecourse – on Sundays at first, and then during the week only. We only ever attended horse races once, but I knew that track so well – both inside on the grass, and outside on the street, where we’d run if we wanted to take the longer route.

The nearby shopping centre was a frequent stop afterwards, and as unglamorous as it was, I still liked it. My uncle had a fabric shop there, I had an indoor cricket party there once, and it was also the place where Knight Rider’s KITT visited us. I even got to ask the car a question, which I remember to this day.

Also on my list would be the food places we’d frequent in the city centre – particularly on a Saturday night, along with the beachfront – where the rides were a childhood staple for so many generations of Durbanites. Sadly, over the last few decades, those rides were neglected and decayed, while the area became unsafe, and they were all shut down last year.

Still in town, though, I’d visit the Playhouse, where we went many times with my school (and sometimes privately, too). I never really appreciated live theatre, and still detest musicals (both live and on screen), but it was a magical place that exposed me to the performing arts, and there’s just a special atmosphere there which no other arena can offer.

Next to that building is the Royal Hotel – once a grand feature of the city, and also the host of the squash courts we’d use on Sunday mornings in my high school years. We stayed there for a few nights when our house was being fumigated, and it was an odd experience doing homework in a hotel room in the middle of a school week.

What’s the point?

While there are probably thousands of other places I could mention in this list, I know that even if I were able to go back, it would never be the same. Everything changes, as do we, and our memories of past haunts remain within us – glorified nostalgia which likely doesn’t exactly match the circumstances and feelings we had back when we lived these experiences.

So, I guess, this trip down memory lane is nothing more than an unreachable wish list. But I hold on to it, nonetheless, because it’s my life, and I want to capture it – in tangible form – before these memories fade.

And if I get to Paradise, I’ll replay it all, and go back to the world I left behind.

But for now, all I can do is remember and record – memories of a land I left behind 25 years ago, when I left my home city, and started what became a new life on the other side of the country.