subject: The Wanderer: Part 11 of 73 [print this page] It feels as if Xaba is listening when I continue. "I was probably in about my fourth year at University when I took part in a big athletics meeting at the Pilditch Stadium.
Purely by chance; I was never a really good athlete. That day I came in
second last. Another man and I fought tooth and nail for the last place. The two of
us were so far behind that if they had left a space for a photograph of us on the
front page of the next Sunday's papers, we would only have made page six or
seven! But I took part. It was an important race. They announced over the public
address system that it was the fastest hundred metre race ever run in our country.
It was good for me just to be there, Xaba. My life had changed."
"And today, how do you feel after all this?" asks Xaba. "I wish I had known or
understood more when I was a child. Then I might have learned to think about
things earlier and differently. I might have been able to sort things out more easily,
moved on sooner."
"But you didn't," says Xaba. "For you, it was not the right time. The right time is
different for each of us." "Yes, but I wasted so much time," I counter. "Not time,"
Xaba responds quickly, "but opportunity. Time is not the problem," he says. "What
matters is what happens in that time." "What do you mean?" I ask. "That period
was not yet your time. It had to happen that way, so that you could learn." "I don't
understand," I say. "Look, who you are is different from who I am. Your story is not
my story." "Yes, but think of all that lost time. I might have been able to run faster
much sooner." "Well, you didn't." "So?" I say.
"You couldn't," he says. "You first had to learn something else." "What?" I ask.
