The City

This city is home,
for a minute
or a day.
One day I will
work it out,
If I can stay.

The city that gave birth to me,
the city that cradled me:
is more foreign than most.

The city that taught me,
the ABC, my 123;
the city that shaped
the way I smell, taste, see
is so far from me.

Another city sang to me,
some time ago,
some distance between us,
turned it into,
the city of memories.
Musty nostalgia fills the album.

Yet another city
laughed with me,
embraced me,
shared its shorelines,
its gaiety,
and sobriety.

And then I came back to this,
this city of youth,
this place to be,
this heart of me.

I might just stay,
someday.

Touch...

The sense of touch is difficult to write about. Some things have a distinct taste about them, smell pungent or sweet or anything in between and look a certain way. Sounds can evoke emotions and cause anxiety; each of the senses can be a tool of seduction or terror. My recent interviews with a woman who spent some time in prison brought many memories out of the simple sounds of a dripping tap, the clamber of keys and the wardens footsteps.

Touch is all of these and more. It is also a new word on my nieces lips.

"Touch" she said with curiosity, when she wanted to stroke the sheep in the backyard yesterday. "Touch" she said in earnest, when she wanted to kiss my aunt's baby. "Touch" she repeated with glee just now when she sat on my lap in front of my pc because we were looking at stock images of birdiiiieeeessss :)

And with the essence of touch, we managed to groom her from whole palms treating the keyboard like the drums of a rockstar to her using one or two delicately poised fingertips on the touchpad, just after I aligned the cursor arrow on the 'next' button. She waited with her hands in the air; watched my fingers intently, and then touched the touchpad ever so lightly until the next piccie loaded.
"Hi Birdie!" she squealed each time. Giggles punctuated the delight in her voice.
And then on to the next one again.
Ooooh, I said. This one's so pretty!
"So, pwettyyyy," she giggled.
Hmm. Next up, an owl.
"WhooOooo!" she said; her eyes widening with the drama of the large eyed bird.
And then to accent her distaste:
"Tata, Whooo!" she signaled both to the imposing bird and to me.
Lol. Moving on :P

Of course, the sounds in the kitchen have distracted her and so she's tottered off in that direction. Which gives me some time to write again ;) But I miss her antics, so instead of getting back to the manuscript, I am writing a tribute to her...
And to the things that she teaches me. She's a wise little one, that. She reminds me of her mother...

When we were growing up, Dilshaad was the voice of reason to my acts of daring. She was the nurturing, caring epitome of sisterhood. And she continues to be this warm and loving soul. I guess that people touch our lives in various ways, reminding us of that innate ability that we have to heal each other with compassion. It is that same compassionate nature that we are able to dig up in the most adverse situations that remind us of an energy of humanity that extends beyond the warring and destruction around the world.

We need to be reminded.

We need to touch and be touched; to feel the tingling of our senses when we are reminded of our power to do great things. To feel the rush of energy that makes us want to be a better person and then some. To be inspired because someone believes in us; because we believe in them. And because we believe in us.

It takes a touch. A word. A care. It takes sharing. And forgiving. And loving the human in us in spite of, and because of everything that we do and are. I am touched everyday by the sheer wonder of it all.

My heart is filled and emptied and filled again.

My soul is full.

Confessions of a Callgirl

I have just stumbled upon this weblog: Confessions of a College CallGirl; the writings are as real as it gets, extremely well-written and emotionally charged. The story of a callgirl in New York City...she uses her blog to get rid of the burdens that sit on her heart and the dust that settles on her soul from her experiences, but then she also has this no-nonsense take on life and survival... one tends to pick up on some amount of self-doubt in her ability to really hold on to a worthwhile relationship (this is beyond the scope of her 'job')..ie. once she's retired. Even so, she speaks of the number of times she has in fact, tried to retire... and the ways in which the tide pulls her back in again...

Factual accounts written here are fascinating in the humanity and necessary compassion evoked by this blogger. The link love leads to what I thought was the most distinguished of her new articles in terms of who she is as a woman. I also enjoyed the style of writing...

misplaced intentions

these can get so twisted:
intentions, misplaced

like a set of keys;

leaving just a bitter
memory
of the ringing
sound
they made as they
dangled
from the wardens hands,

and a cold
memory
of the day i strode
barefoot
across the stone floor
of that
castle of promises.

bitter and cold;

this handful of
misplaced intentions
remind me just
of temporariness
and my own mortality.

the night he died...

My family never talks about the night that my grandfather died. I heard it all at the hearing. They came at 2am. They broke down the door. They dragged him out into the street. And they shot him.
I listened as people told their bits of the story. I pieced together these bits like a puzzle. The picture of that night formed in my mind. The little girl crouched under the dining table was my mother. I recognized the sad terror in her eyes that she carries with her still.
My grandmother’s grip on my hand tightened. We sat in the gallery as they spoke. We didn’t look at each other. Not once. But we knew. The pieces we collected here were important. They were pieces of his body. And of a wounded families soul.

I grew up in a small town in the North. Giyani, it was called. This was my mother’s family. A humble people, the sePedi. My grandmother packed up her things and moved back to her home soon after he died. She took whatever she could, the children, chickens, the furniture from the wedding, the old gramophone that made them the envy of the neighbours in Orlando. Even the photo’s of her white wedding.
They lived a glorious life. I heard it all. But not once did they talk about that dreadful night when it all changed.

He was a gentlemen, she said. He listened to those fancy radio shows, and read the poetry of those great English poets. I paged through some of his books. Yeats, Shakespeare, Byron. Im sure, if he was alive today, I would have been an educated man. Still, I knew I was meant to live different from the rest of the gents out here in Alex. My name is the same as his. David Zondo. Same blood. Same vision of better times and better things. He was David Zondo the school teacher, and great thinker of his time. I am David Zondo taxi driver, with great hopes. My father left before I opened my eyes to this world. It didn’t matter. I was the offspring of a hero. A martyr. That was all I knew. That was enough.

Writing Crime/Suspense

Fear was an exhilarating thing. It meant that the hunter was in his prime. That the prey had been brought to a point where it knew who was king. It signaled finality. The end. That's what he would remember of her face. The fear, the trembling, the loathing and the disbelief playing out all at once, contorting her features. She had lied, and cheated. She had angered him. And so these nightmares plagued him to no end. The flash of memory occurred almost as quickly as the dream ended. The glint of the knife blade, the contrast of blood and her pale skin. Paul's eyes adjusted to the light streaming into his bedroom window. He must have passed out on the floor in a drunken stupor, but the memory of last night was enough to bring him out of his sleep state. It dawned on him, that it hadn't really been a dream..