Introduction
This year brought me a lot. The last year of university, an editing course, and my first job. It was tough. A lot of tears and a lot of happiness. But this year also brought me something that I wanted the most. Something that I never knew I wanted.
Context
In 2021 December I met a poet on instagram. I instantly fell in love with this stranger not knowing who they are or even how they look. My heart just knew. It was that feeling that my mother always told me about. It was my twin flame. And now in 2024 the 22nd of June, I got engaged to him. My dear, @fermentedphil.
I wanted to post our story, because as Shakespeare said:
“So long as men can breathe or eyes can
see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”
By penning it down, our story will live on forevermore. Every time that this is read, it will give a breath to the 22nd of June of this year.
The tale
After another month of long-distancing, I finally got the time to fly to Cape Town. @fermentedphil was waiting for me with some flowers he grew himself. The surreal feeling we always get after we don’t see each other for a while, lingered between us. The sun also made its appearance after a week of rain. We spent the day together, appreciating what we missed in the month apart. My flight was quite early that morning and I decided rest for a bit in the afternoon and @fermentedphil went to do some yard work.
He woke me up and asked me if I wanted to go watch the sunset with some pizza. I gladly obliged. We got our things and just as we climbed into the car @fermentedphil said that he forgot his phone in our room. As this usually happened, I wasn’t surprised and waited for him to go get it.
I got a call after a few minutes and it was @fermentedphil. He told me to look in the glove compartment and abruptly ended the call. This was unusual indeed. I opened the glove compartment to see a letter with my name on it. I opened it and started to read. It gave instructions on how to play a game; a type of treasure hunt. First thought that popped into my head was that @fermentedphil made plans for an elaborate date. He is quite the romantic, so I was excited to see what he had in store.
The first clue led me to his room with its mini library. I found a pile of books on the floor and started looking for a poet called Johan de Lange. When we were on FaceTime at night, we read Johan de Lange and talked about his poetry. Sometimes we giggled about the sexual nature of the poems. A paper fell out of Die Algebra Van Nood which was the second clue and with excitement I read through it.
The second clue was @fermentedphil’s favourite artist, Koos Kombuis. As you may know, @fermentedphil loves whisky so of course one of his favourite songs are “Onder in My Whiskeyglas”. Immediately I knew that the next clue waited for me in his whisky cupboard. My heart started to pound because maybe I could see him somewhere. But unlike the clue, he was nowhere to be found.
The third clue sat in the corner of the whisky cupboard. With haste I opened it and read through it. Somewhere in the kitchen, between bread and butter, I had to find the next clue. @fermentedphil is a poet but he is also a baker. All the types of bread he bakes are the best I have ever had and will ever have. Under the lid of the butter dish I found the next clue.
The fourth clue took me to his weights that he works out with. With great food you have to balance exercise. Under a few of the lighter weights I found another envelope, but this time with a key. At first I tried the wrong door which surprisingly opened, bit I could not open the gate with the keys I had. I tried another door which opened the door and the gate. I made my way to my next clue, the clothing line.
The fifth clue was under the lavender bush. It was tucked under some dirt in a bag to prevent it from getting dirty. @fermentedphil has a passion for gardening and nature. The next clue was similar to this one. A project to grow yellow flowers just as he had grown his lavender.
The sixth clue was the yellow flowers that rested in a few bushes looking out over the mountains. My heart started to beat when I read the clue. It dwelled on all the dates we had where he picked these specific yellow flowers for me, even though we were kilometres apart. The letter also instructed me to look at the mountains and take the sight in. My throat started to sting and I felt tears forming. This is when I started to suspect that it was more than just a game. I wanted to see @fermentedphil so desperately so I followed the next clue that took me to our special place.
The seventh clue layed on the tree stump under our tree, the Wit Stinkhout. This was where @fermentedphil sat when I took a leap of faith to message him. Under this tree the road to love started to blossom. Our story was starting. It was here where the fictional characters, Jo & Sam of @fermentedphil’s poetry that was written under this exact tree, changed into us. I sat on the stump and started crying whilst reading the last letter.
The two cards I gave @fermentedphil last year with my answer to the question that he was about to ask was also inside. It was a Jack and an Ace of hearts that spelled out “JA” which is Afrikaans for “Yes”. I cried and followed the instruction of the last clue to go to the trash bin.
There was a card on the bin saying to look left. There I saw a path made out of stones and candles leading me into @fermentedphil’s garden. I started bawling and came upon a shrine of candles with a small box in the middle. The box was wrapped with paper with my nickname “klippies”. It was the name @fermentedphil gave me because of my love for crystals and rocks.
I opened the box and there it was. A ring with a Tsavorite stone. The stone that I never even knew I wrote about two years ago. The poem was called “Jaja ring”. “Jaja” is Swahili for daisy and I wrote about @fermentedphil making me a promise through this daisy ring. An eternal promise of love, an engagement. The stone in my ring came from Tanzania, the place where the “Jaja” is found. Our love was predicted by the past and captured in the present.
@fermentedphil appeared and I hugged him. I cried into his shoulder about all of the difficult times we went through, about all the time we spent apart. I cried about how we were so blessed to find each other in this life, and about how we get to know true love and happiness in this world. We held each other knowing that we are meant to be. When we broke our embrace he went down on one knee and asked me to be his wife. I nodded while he slipped the ring on my finger.
The end
And that is the story of how we got engaged. I decided to post it today, precisely one month after our engagement. Happy one month anniversary my dear, @fermentedphil. I love you.
(This post is my own creation and the photographs were either taken with @fermentedphil’s Nikon D300 or my iPhone)