I’m not sure what combination of events lead me to developing my trait of ‘waiting things out’. You could say it’s remarkable patience, but if you’ve ever seen me pack a dishwasher you’d realise I have little of that in the collective sense.

The particular brand of patience I’m referring to is better described as an obstinate refusal to cave into the immediate gratification of Capitalism, the buying of material acquisitions, when I believe that – with the right ingredients, making the thing in question is not out of my reach. 

In the wake of these thoughts, a brutal storm by our usual winter standards, has battered the coastlines of the Cape. Aside from the damage to homes and infrastructure, the beaches lie under a turbulent expulsion of seaweed. Mounds of it. Entire forests of the ocean, tangled and unmoored from their swaying vertical beds.

It was a storm just like this several years ago that resulted in my finally being able to make something I longed for, but refused to buy.

Several years prior, browsing an upmarket home design store I came upon an enormous mirror framed in driftwood. It was breathtaking. Shades of time sculpted by the soft see-saw hands of the tides contrasting so beautifully with the slick mercurial reflections. It was a creation right up my ally but well without the bounds of my back account. Still, my fingers trailed over all the many jigsaw bits of washed up debris neatly arranged into this flotsam frame. One day, one day, was all I knew for certain.

I walked away wondering where or how I could bring something like that into being, but released the urge all the same. 

Then the storm came. Coffee cups in hand, a misty morning called my husband and I out from the warmth of lounge and curled up cats to the echoing chant of gulls along our nearby beach.

That storm too had ripped seaweed by the tons from their barnicled roots. But I guess the current must have come from a different direction. In among all the kelp we scooped up one after the other – bits of sculpted wood, boat hull or abandoned ocean debris – each one more peculiar than the next. Victor could see the twinkle of realisation in my eyes. We rushed off home, returning to the beach with buckets and containers large enough to carry all we were about to collect.

Several hours we combed up and down the seaweed strewn shoreline, picking up one after the other. It felt like Easter, finding treasures of delight tucked into the ordinary.

After a few sunny afternoons spent rinsing off all the sand and patiently waiting for one more basking of sunshine, my driftwood tiles were baked clean and glazed dry. 

We cleared some space on the dining room floor for the large mounting board, and dragged the old vertical mirror that stood at the end of the hallway out from her upright post. She was chipped and tarnished in some spots, but she was here, and I love nothing more than to work with what you’ve got.

What ensued felt like hours of deep time, acquainting myself with each and every piece of oceanic wood. Detritus to others, but in the hands of a long slumbering vision, gems of potential. I arranged them into straight bits, curved bits, wonky bits and edge bits, realising mid way through that this was exactly like building a family sized jigsaw puzzle – the kind that hogs the coffee table for many weeks during winter.

Some pieces were perfect for inside corners, others found their home on outside edges. 

It occurred to me in gentle swashes of absolution, like knowledge that lived on the ocean floor and could only be scooped out of a deep bowl with a shallow ladle a little bit at a time – that most things in life meant for you must be tidal. Sure we can control what we acquire by force, an exchange that money easily facilitates. I give you this, and for its value you give me that. An act executed by will.

But what about the things that your heart longs for that you cannot will into being or buy? A friendship, a lover, a place to call home, a family, a vocation that sits well with you. These are the things we stumble upon, pick up dust off and try to fit into the flotsam frames of our own lives, knowing full well that they don’t come to us clean and new. They come to us after their own tumbling, often stormy, journey, a little bit eroded, but uniquely beautiful in their own way. And only when walking as unexpectant gatherers, our arms empty and free can we scoop up what jetsam greets us on our journey.

You might not find it now, nor tomorrow or next month. But if you long for an experience of co-creativity and beauty, I do believe it will spill up on your path when you have the capacity to embrace it fully.

Those things, when found after many moons of patiently observing only that which already is, are worth far more, than anything ordered from a catalogue. I do believe it applies to kists, couches and companions for life. The ones we cobble together or restore and vow to love, nicks and all, will offer richer stories every time.