Our new editor Nelia Andrag reflects on peak experiences, inner landscapes, and a new chapter at the helm of Stellenbosch Visio.
POETS RHAPSODISE about it, mere mortals aspire to it, and every now and then, you reach a peak experience that stays imprinted on your mind forever.
For me and my family, this became real when we summited the Pieke, one of the mountains towering above Stellenbosch. What I felt was elation at an achievement, yes – but also something more: a moment of pure joy. Transcendental, almost. Looking down on the gentle undulations of valleys and rises spread out before me, I realised that, like the contour lines on a map, our lives are shaped by every high and low we experience. An inner topography, drawn by moments of challenge and triumph.
The closer the contour lines, the steeper the climb, but also the more powerful the growth. In the end, it’s not the peaks alone that define us, but the entire landscape we’ve traversed to get there.
It is often a moment experienced in nature that brings us closer to the sublime. I felt it on a mountaintop, Richard Holmes felt it in the raw beauty surrounding him as he stood
on the deep-field ice sheets of Antarctica: “a landscape both breathtaking and beguiling – unearthly in its beauty yet staggering in its hostility” (p. 76).
In this, my first issue as editor of Stellenbosch Visio, I’m also experiencing a different kind of peak: to be entrusted with a magazine that has captured the hearts of locals and visitors, and the trust of advertisers. It has deservedly earned many industry accolades. With the help of a dynamic team and some of the country’s most esteemed writers, Stellenbosch Visio will continue to earn its place on the bedside and coffee tables of our readers.
One of the must-reads in this issue is the interview with the new rector and vice-chancellor of Stellenbosch University, Prof. Deresh Ramjugernath, in conversation with Jean Meiring, another of our exceptional contributors (p. 100).
While keeping abreast of the news, our eyes fixed on the future, we take care not to lose sight of the past. As Servaas de Kock of Malherbe Rust Architects told Marguerite van Wyk for her article on legacy architecture: “Everybody has a nostalgic memory bank” (p. 62). Respecting the cultural roots and values of our people and our region is what gives this magazine a texture of its own.
Daarom maak dit sin dat ons in hierdie uitgawe met “Deur die ranke en die rym”, saam met Lanzerac kan hulde bring aan sowel Pinotage as Afrikaans wat vanjaar 100 jaar oud is en die amptelike erkenning van die taal met soveel feestelikheid herdenk (bl. 86).
Ons ken ons komvandaan, en wie kan dit beter verwoord as Dominique Botha, kind van die Vrystaat, wat nou op Stellenbosch woon? In haar essay, “Die boom van kennis dra ’n wintervrug”, skryf sy: “In jou winter pluk jy die pennevrug van die boom van kennis, met hande verknot soos wingerdstok. Skryf is ’n poging om tyd te laat stol, maar die geheue roer nooit dieselfde beslag nie en hermeng die bestanddele sodat jy vir jouself altyd nuwe broodjies kan bak (bl. 128).
En so ruik ons weer in ons verbeelding ouma se kombuis….
