Saturn Signals Change [1]
I was employed as an architect by the Cape Divisional Council in its Housing Office on the Cape Flats. My personal life was a mess, but passion for my work allowed me to sublimate my intense feelings to some extent and to avoid focusing on the pain of deception and betrayal within my failed marriage.
During 1977, returning to my home studio after work, I continued working late into the night on an architectural competition for low-cost housing. I submitted my entry as an individual in competition with established firms around the country and received an honourable mention.
So, this was an intensive time with professional highlights and emotional upheavals. But, by the end of 1977 I was starting to have a breakdown.
A close male friend was going to the States for post-graduate work, and I felt I needed to use this exit route too. I applied to both United States and UK universities. These interviews and applications were undertaken during the time of my instability in late 1977.
Then in early 1978, I was persuaded to join a large architectural practice, which hoped to expand into ‘low-cost housing’. Feeling extremely fragile – I think I’d even forgotten about my applications – I agreed and moved to the office in the city centre.
In my new role, feeling out of touch with my ‘reality’, or any reality, I felt uncomfortably and increasingly like a fraud. Perceived as an asset with their intention to work in the low-cost housing market, there were high expectations of me. But I felt more and more vulnerable and less and less confident about anything. I was pretending, unable to deliver, feeling as though I was there under false pretenses. And absolutely miserable and shaky and ill.
And then came the news that my father had his first huge heart attack and was in intensive care in Port Elizabeth. I believe this was in early 1978. Flying up and confronting his mortality really tipped the balance. I was now also in a state of deep grief. My hair started falling out in handfuls.
On my return to Cape Town, I found I’d been contacted by the British Council in my absence. They had awarded me the scholarship. There was a delicate moment when they’d found that I was no longer at the Divisional Council but accepted the reason for my move being my role in the low-cost housing initiative.
So, the Universe had provided me with a safety valve. I’d been offered a way out –a dignified exit from the office and an escape from the marriage.
I started preparing for my departure to London shortly after. It felt so final, as if I would never return. Taking off from Cape Town airport, the plane circled around Table Mountain as the lights of the city were coming on in the dusk. Heartbreakingly beautiful. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I stifled sobs.
In September 1978 I arrived in London and started to restructure my life at the age of 27. Of course nothing had yet been finalised with the ‘marriage’, although in my mind it was final and over. At one level, I felt free.
I was in the middle of my ‘first Saturn return’, that tumultuous period in most of our lives around the age of 27-29. It was likely to be still quite a ride.
[1] This material was written in January 2008, as I was entering the period leading up to my Second Saturn Return. My confidante and friend Rose suggested I reflect deeply on the events and time leading up to and during my first Saturn Return.