Post- post-ism's and colliding bodies in space

I studied Architecture for three years before I read for my Arts degree. Back then, what struck me as an (perhaps rather impressionable) design student, was that beyond the need to create form and function, habitat and structure, there was this inherent need to present spatial recognition for the body; a theatrical stage for life to be played out. And so the experience of life and the articulation of the body in that space became primary to the ways in which I conceptualised design. If anything, I have taken these learnings onward into the way that I write, both in structural intent and in literary composition.

Literature meets the post-modern when we collide against traditional notions of knowledge production and what we deem palatable for public consumption. Real life allows for as many interpretations of the individual experience as there are people. We've just noted the birth of number 7 billion. Go figure.

This is the dynamic with which the contemporary short story and poetic musing is breathed life into. The -ism's of the sociologist's realm step aside for that brief moment when hegemony gives way to anarchy; and we're made to witness an explosion of ideas, of ways of making sense of the lived world, of the many truths that reside herein.

If change is the most reliable constant, then so is the embraced and engaged surrender of ongoing dialogue, unbridled narrative and the body as an instrument in space, and in this, the theatre of life. Literature meets art meets cinema meets life. Belly of Fire is dancing to this rhythm as we 'speak' ...

Rumi, Journey and Discovery

Pilgrims
why are you turning round in circles,
what are you looking for?
The Beloved is here, why search in the desert?

If you look deep in your heart
you will find Him within yourself.
You have made the pilgrimage and
trod the path to Mecca many times.

You rave about the holy place
and say you've visited God's garden
but where is your bunch of flowers?
You tell stories about diving deep into the ocean
but where is your pearl?

There is some merit
in the suffering you have endured,
but what a pity you have not discovered
the Mecca that's inside.

J. Rumi

(Gardens of the Beloved)

Beyond the surface...

You see a Mirror when you look at me;
I am the surface of a pond.
Be drunk with the idea of drowning,
Don't come here just to look at yourself.

Shafinaaz Hassim (c) 2011

someday

someday,
i will write a poem about you...

someday,
when my fingers have wrinkled
more than my face
from all the makeshift laughter
and the inherited sorrow,
when my tears have dried
and the scent of rose
only just lingers, fleeting
like a memory.

someday,
when the titter of children
playing in the street below
aren't very different from
birds flying past my window,
i will write a poem
about you.

when mothers no longer bury their
dead babies,
partying lovers don't drown their laughter
in tears, or shroud their tears in laughter.
someday,
when it is all silent again,
when the light has dimmed
and the noise has cleared.

someday,
when all is restored
as it was meant to be;
then on that day,
i will write that poem about you.

This Journey

I am nothing more than bemused at the accent on time and the markers that it seems to have left along my journey so far. If there are more kimyatic ramblings at this space to come in commemoration, then so be it!

The journey is more than fraught with entertainment, if we just let it be. If you read this blog regularly, then you will have noticed that the banner has undergone yet another change. What began as simply mymemoirs, evolved over time to become SoApBoX Shafinaaz: A World of Words. A rather grandiose title, perhaps. This time, it has come to it's final naming: 'Memoirs For Kimya' - in this way immortalising the essence of why this blog began in Kimya's name. The difference now, is that I have, since the publication of the blog-to-book version, put my name to the writings and ramblings of these virtual pages. I used to scribble here in 2005 simply as 'kimya'. She was the veil behind which I wrote. Perhaps it made it easier to share with the outside world. Or it was a clever way of silencing self-censorship. Either way, its entirely possible that the flavour of writings has changed with the intentions and hence reinventions of the blog. I have not changed a word of early bloggings since I laid full claim. So if anyone has the slightest curiosity, go ahead and search for earlier posts. Forgive the grammatical errors. As you know, they continue to speckle my path; a symbol of my insolence, my refusal to edit the raw matter that forms my art of vanity and other such luxuries displayed here. All else is evolving as we speak. And so am I.

Kimya, naming, and being. All range across the spectrum of interrogation that has used this canvas to pull me through my challenges, my fears, my childish rants and my somewhat poetic, often academic musings. I have arrived. And yet another new road beckons. This is what it was all about to begin with.

Note: Search this blog for A Rose By Any Other... A reflective post circa Oct 2006 about my making sense of identity, naming, and the interplay of layers of identification.

Free imaginings

The way we live our life seems to be a function of our imagination. We imagine that we are at a certain point, measured only by our relative perceptions. And we make our way along a path that we deem is wrought with difficulty or strewn with rose petals, often to our own detriment or perhaps a precursor to little bouts of disappointment and some level of joy upon discovering that we have far exceeded our own expectations.

So. Most of all, the relevance of life is measured by how we prioritize matters, beliefs, people and things in general. How deeply we felt something, only to have it washed aside in a moment of disparate agitation, speaks much of the frivolity with which we might splash emotion or withhold it, even.

Above all else is the dire need to foster this growing, thriving fuel of imagination.
It's the foundation for everything that we delve in, the inspired gas of our oblivion, the grease on the the wheels that pull a cart of memories and the glue that holds us together in times of trauma and distress.

Imagine a world without this essential element?

;)

fail to see

you say that you cannot find me

and here i am
where i've always been

i am the poet

i am the ink

i am the bark of the tree

and that blade of grass

i am the wispy cloud
the gravel on the road
the hay stack

and the humming bird

i am the poem
and the pebble

and inevitably,
i am the rock.

i am also the
person looking
out the window
every now
and then

just
in case
you come home
again.

Top 50 Blogs: in humanity

I'm having a pretty random day. And so a random search for my blog brought me to discover this:

Apparently, SoapBox Shafinaaz makes some random list by NetworkedBlogs as number 19 on the Top 50 Blogs: in humanity.

I had no idea that such a thing existed. Nor was I notified.
But it's obviously some part of the Networks way of marketing readable blogs at various stages; making blogs known to the rest of the blogosphere, and to pretty much the rest of the virtual surfers out there... What I am curious about is the criteria involved in making this assessment. The social scientist in me wants to know :P

In related news, "Memoirs For Kimya", the blog-to-book, is having an inspired new year so far :D

I'm the one that's at a loss for words, for the most part.
Yes, stranger things do occur.

Peaceful thoughts to all...

S

Interview with Fordsburg Independent; Local community paper in Johannesburg.

Dedication

Voices

There are many ways in which thoughts, emotions and the experience of life that flows through us may be expressed or even shared with those around us. Facial expressiveness, and the use of varied tones of voice are perhaps the most obvious forms. Some people paint, or write poetry, prose or stories; while other's create masterworks of cullinary genius, fashion sculptures in the form of fabulous architecture or perform daredevil acts in full view of an awestruck audience.

I write.

I am no poker face, and that is something that I have come to terms with. I dabble in oil colours and do various other things like firewalking and the like. But if I had to really draw that dotted line along my path, then the realisation of who I am is linked by the need, love and joy of writing. I have journals going as far back as those primary school scribble notes in perfumed diaries with delicate locks. I dare not read those for fear of throwing them out. Or something.

These years of journals are housed in a little metal chest that used to be my toy box as a child; and while the journals carry traits of their evolutionary nature over time, the metal trunk lays claim to a history of its own: it began as a carrier for cinema reels that came from the subcontinent back in the 60's, was discovered at some point by my maternal grandfather at the cinema house that belonged to a friend of his, and brought home for mom to use as a storage box for her teenage magazine and music collection. And so I came to inherit it some twenty years later, and it remains with me still, now repainted and revived, albeit almost half a century old.

Hinges of history hold its tinkering walls together to carry the evolution of me; the years of growth in my voice. Aside from the layers of paper dreams, hopes, fears and songs of lament and joy, are to be found those early floppy disks and stiffys of my first soiree into the world of digital media. The only signs of my earlier girly journals on these computer disks of memory, are the glittery name stickers that leave tinsel on my fingertips, and declare just the year of their imprint: "Shafs Ramblings, 2001"

And then, these memoirs were born. For kimya, and for me. Sometime in 2005, when I emerged from years of sociology and more time spent discovering a life of corporate surrealism that I may have been unwittingly groomed for, and found myself to be flourishing in, against my every expectation. It is quite amazing how we might exceed our self-judged limitations.

Memoirs For Kimya evolved in its own right. It started off as a canvas of silence, made noisy only by the echo of thoughts in my head.

Now a trumpet blares. No. Make that, a vuvuzela.

It called to me, once. Now it rages outwardly, to those who will hear with understanding; those who will engage it's ramblings, shared spewing forth of words and all things manifest therein.

And this great sea of voice occurred to me most profoundly when, at the Cape Town launch, my guest speaker, fellow writer and dear friend, Nazia Peer, read two of my newest works out aloud to the booklaunch audience.

I was mesmerized. No, don't get me wrong. Not as if to think, Oh my word, I wrote that! The spark of a soul moment was the realisation that all this time, the voice in my head gave life to these words, and for the first time ever, a reflective post like Revelatory Moments, or an emotive piece like Cut was being read in a voice of someone else, but more so by someone I have had the opportunity to know dearly, and who has been the source of inspiration and soul-coolness to me. Another voice. A loaded moment. A celebration, in more ways than my humble soul can count.

And yes, it all makes sense. This now and where. The why and how.
It all makes perfect sense.

reclaiming authenticity

Standing on the paved concourse just in front of the old Market Theatre complex, a wave of elation washes over me. The wind flicks wisps of hair around my face. Pigeons scatter across the tarmac in front of me; a minibus trundles by. I twirl around to face my host, and the old building proudly bares it's chest to reveal it's status as Museum Africa. This is where it's all being happening; the launch of my new book: Memoirs For Kimya, the networks of creativity and all things bookish, and the energy of the literary arts infiltrating the Jozi CBD.

It's the end, now. Everything has been packed into the boots of our cars, and the backseats heave with some posters and flyers and layers of pink cloth that gave temporary flesh to the skeletons of steel tables. The azaan from the nearby Newtown mosque punctuates the calm air, spreading its sweet fragrance through the Newtown precinct. Calmness prevails. I have so much to be thankful for. To Him who renders me speechless by the Beauty that is revealed in my life.

Cars speed by on the highway within view; we're tucked away underneath the bustle of it all. I appreciate the variance: usually, I am one of those car's speeding between the North and the South on the upper levels of the highway networks, little realising the authentic value of spaces that lie beneath all that craziness. Spaces that wait to be reclaimed as the Real forces of life. Not drenched in hastiness, but rather quenched by contentment and a simple gratitude of the creative life of a city filled with history and activism; a celebration of life in every way.

And this, really, was the theme for this years Jozi Book Fair: the intention to reclaim authentic space in the city. When I met with the organisers for the last time yesterday, accolade was passed between us in a wholesome relay. A general happiness prevailed. And I know for certain that a shift in my consciousness has occurred. And I have remembered many things long forgotten in my choice to take the rollercoaster through my days. Stillness speaks :)

And there's more. Coincidence? You decide: About two weeks ago, I ordered a gift for myself. I knew at that point already, that it was a significant gift to present to myself. A gift of tranquility. A gift of seeking rest. In content, it may seem superficial compared to the symbolism in context. Let me explain...
As a child of five, I remember visiting my mother's grandfather in Potgietersrus in the Limpopo Province. He was a tall man, as even his photo's confirm, and even more so to a tiny person as a toddler might be. He used to call me 'Sakeenah' instead of 'Shafinaaz'. I often asked my mom why he chose to do this, and she would say: He knows secrets that we have yet to learn. And she would smile when saying this. I thought it was meant to pacify me. But sakeenah means tranquility. I may have been the coolness of his eyes... :)

And so in an effort to celebrate my layered forms of self-identification, I bought myself a little work of art by the artist of Soul&Paper. It's called 'Sakeenah', and was delivered to my delight, on Saturday night. Thank you!

Indeed. Stillness speaks!