When I moved house in early October last year, I found a burgundy briefcase, the kind with a built-in lock on the handle that comes set at four zeros, which you move around to create your own combination.
It belonged to my lovely headmaster dad, who carried it to school with him, importantly carrying all his papers and, of course, sandwiches wrapped in greaseproof paper that he, my mother or Patricia our redoubtable helper had made, usually the remains of last night’s curry slathered between two slices of white bread.
When I found it after he died, this briefcase that had fascinated me all my young life, I kept it close, refusing to open it lest it give up its secrets too easily and I was left without the anticipation of not knowing its contents. I feared that the mundanity of knowing would ruin the years of wondering.
When my dad died, my mother clung fiercely to his belongings – his pyjamas folded on the night stand (she complained after three years that they’d lost the smell of him); his slippers under his side of the bed.
When my mom died, I found the burgundy case, slightly scuffed on one edge but otherwise perfectly functional, on a shelf in my dad’s wardrobe, which was empty of all his clothes bar a white Crimplene safari suit hanging on a lonely wooden hanger. This was his signature look inspired by the French designer Ted Lapidus, who made these suits famous in the 1960s. Another thing she refused to part with.
Wash and wear, he’d say of his three safari suits, made by next-door aunty: two white, one beige, with a full house of button-down pleated pockets and the obligatory belt that tied around his ample middle.
And it was true. Crimplene, that most synthetic of fabrics that defied creasing and came with an “avoid open flame” warning and proved to be indestructible, was indeed wash and wear, drip dry, no ironing needed.
So, this rectangular, box-shaped mystery has travelled with me through 20-odd house moves, lived in storage when I was out of the country, been relegated variously to attics, bottoms of cupboards, inside disused suitcases. Until this past October move, when it was unearthed and placed within view.
It’s time, I thought. There was the problem of solving the keylock combination. I tried the year of Mom and Dad’s birth, 1923. No. Extended my childhood address: 7777. Nothing.
And then, because I was growing impatient, I tried the year of my birth – 1958. Click. The snaps were stiff but opened with some coaxing.
The contents were surprising. Certified copies of my and my siblings’ abridged birth certificates. All my university degrees, still rolled up in their discoloured cardboard tubes. And every letter I had written home, when hand-written letters were still a thing, before WhatsApp calls were free.
Long letters from Dallas, Texas: “Loving the paper (the Dallas Morning News) and the people I work with. Can you believe that 90% of the journalists are church going, and most of the women (like you Mama) wear frocks and stockings. I suppose Dallas is the buckle of the bible belt…”
My gripe was that hard-to-resist Tex-Mex cuisine: fajitas and burritos and enchiladas had resulted in a considerable weight gain.
Letters sent from London when I was the Sunday Times’ correspondent there in the very early 1990s complained about the dark and how sad it made me. A lot was devoted to the weight I’d put on, confessing to enjoying too many full English breakfasts and fish and chips.
More letters from New York in the late 1990s. (This time bagels and TGI Fridays’ buffalo wings and fried breadsticks were blamed for my increasing girth.)
Every day was a Bridget Jones day: diary entries recording weight and food consumed. Exhausting.
I remember being asked at a team-building session, where you’re expected to bare your soul in front of your colleagues (the truth will set you free?): what would I change to improve my life if I could go back to my childhood? I said I’d be thin.
A distended belly, love (really?) handles, thunder thighs – belittling, demeaning terms. Ask anyone who is carrying extra weight and they will tell you that being thin is nirvana.
No matter that it has become infra dig to “fat shame” (a six-year-old scolded me, saying the word “fat” is a bad word and not allowed) – the extra-large who are burdened under their oppressive weight know that being overweight is undermining.
Shopping for clothes? Frustration. Climbing stairs, hills, ladders? Hot, airless, breathless. Seats on the bus, aeroplane, subway, in the theatre? Challenging.
The plaintive cry of those non-moderate people who (like me) can’t stop at one square of chocolate has always been: if only there was a pill you could take that made you thin.
Then this new bouquet of injectable drugs – targeting type 2 diabetes by regulating insulin levels with the happy, miraculous side-effect of removing craving and hunger – appeared on the market. Ozempic. Wegovy. Mounjaro. Saxenda… Hey presto. Hope.
In a column I wrote in mid-2024, I said that I’d joined the Ozempic craze that has made Hollywood thin. On 1 September, I began a rigid programme, committing to eating no ultra-processed food, cooking for myself at home, and intermittent fasting (eating strictly in a six-hour period). I’ve lost 23kg and come down four dress sizes.
I’ve dieted like this before, gone down then up again then down again, so this is not new to me. Here’s the difference: Ozempic has quieted my brain. It’s taken away the obsession and literally freed me up to just get on with my life.
There is no fighting to stay on track, no nagging voice in my head – give me just one slice of bread, one wedge of carrot cake. I’m calm around a dessert cart.
Here’s something new: on Christmas Day I ate a slice of Christmas cake. In the past, when I “broke my diet” I would be triggered. Being out of “the zone”, my strict programme broken, my resolve would crumble, the whisper “You’ll start again next week” a refrain in my head.
My Christmas Day indulgence (I blame it on the sugar) gave me a headache within four hours, made my heart beat fast and my arthritic finger ache. Before, I’d have eaten my way through the discomfort.
Not this time. On Boxing Day, without even thinking about it, I went back to eating cleanly within my six-hour window. What’s changed? Not me.
I have to credit the insulin-balancing diabetic drug that I jab into my diminishing fat every week. I’ve been lucky in that I have suffered no side-effects. My cousin has constant nausea, and there are a host of unspeakably embarrassing possibilities, all of which I’ve been spared.
Following a big star trend, I’m about to start microdosing to see if I can reduce both my semaglutide intake and the hefty monthly cost of Ozempic. I suspect the cost will come down once the drug’s research and development phase is over, or a generic becomes available.
I’m also writing a triumphant letter to my 12-year-old self, which will go into Dad’s burgundy briefcase: “It’s taken a lifetime, but the noise in our head has stopped. Phew. It’s a relief.”
Let’s see if it works in the long term this time. Fingers crossed. DM
This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.
