I met Audrey Hepburn

Zebula is in the middle of nowhere. I mean, it's in Limpopo but it's really in the middle of nowhere in comparison with where I was coming from. On the way there, on a sweltering Saturday afternoon, I stopped at one of those quintessentially South African road side shops.

You know, a bottle store, rusted old shells of what used to be cars on the lawn and an old bath - rusted on the outside filled with soil and bright blooming daisies on the inside.

I walked in, bought some suppliers for my weekend (read; beer) and then looked up and there she was. Audrey Hepburn, framed, in black and white, her eyes fixed on me, that sly familiar stare taking stock of me, measuring me, asking me questions. Are you man enough for me?

I couldn't resist. I had to have her - she reminded me of someone. So I asked the cashier how much, told her to ring it up and put her in my car.

I met her...

in a place like this.



When I was younger I never really understood what all the fuss around Audrey Hepburn was about. I mean I'm not blind - the woman is flawlessly beautiful - but as a kid I was more a of Kylie Minogue kind of guy. Then in high school I was more of a Nicole Kidman kind of guy and at varsity, a Renee Zellwegger kind of guy. But standing there, in the middle of bloody nowhere, at 34-years-old, I finally got it.

I finally understood what all the fuss was, or even still, is about. She is flawless. Alabaster skin, raven hair and the most melancholy eyes I have ever seen. That's what got me - the eyes.

I once wrote about the Algea. I think a lot of people thought I meant algae at the bottom of the ocean. I didn't. I meant the Greek Goddesses of Suffering.

There is beauty which comes from surviving pain. That beauty - the one that comes from hurt - is found in a person's eyes.

I don't know when I outgrew Kylie, Nicole and Renee but it's a good thing that I did because if I hadn't I wouldn't have been hit by a lightning bolt while standing in a farm stall in the middle of nowhere.

Perhaps, as I have grown older, I have grown to appreciate the beauty that lingers in the eyes of a woman who has experienced life. A woman who has taken the best, or worst, life has to throw at her and emerged at the other end of her struggles more confident, more radiant, more flawed and as a result more flawless.

Perhaps, that is why in recent times I have found myself more drawn to Audrey Hepburn and why my taste has changed. Perhaps, that is why I get it.

Or perhaps, as usual, I am just over-analysing everything and it simply dawned on me how beautiful she is.

I don't know. What I do know is that I get it. I get the fuss over Audrey Hepburn.

Anyway I don't have that picture anymore. I gave it to the person it reminded me of. She has eyes like Audrey Hepburn.