Once on a beach at the edge of the world near the small sea I had to cross to reach the island where the shells broke open my feet, I wrote your name and I didn’t look back to watch the shore wash it away. I never looked back.
So I know what it’s like. The searching. The wondering. The waiting. The walking through the streets. I know what it’s like. I was there. Running through those same streets. The face it breaks at the turn. The sitting on the floor. The trembling hands. The mindlessness. I know what […]
Sometimes as it happens in life you find yourself with two empty seats between you and a stranger in the middle row of an overnight flight. Now there is an unspoken rule about these miraculous empty two seats that are found next to each other on a full flight; each […]
I was so busy living,I did not seethe poinsettia flowershad emergedoutside my window, last winterthe tree was struggling;losing a battle towhite ants and blight,the leaves dried up,the stems turned hollow, gradually turning intoa monument todefeat (still, I took a spade to itand cleaned it out,applied medication,said a prayer) all winter […]
Once while reading of Nikolai’s dying in Tolstoy, I remembered my grandfather and my regret. And overcome by tears I could read no longer. My grandfather was a good man. Gentle and loved.
Once I was walking on the path in Hudson and I found a frozen pond. I went around to take photos, unaware yet of the story of the man who had drowned there one morning while swimming. In the distance a big black dog began to bark and run […]
Once JC and I left the airport and we didn’t realise there were not metros after 11 and we had to go back to the hotel after dropping Z and we both were worried. And we walked up and down the airport trying to figure it out and I thanked […]
Once while standing in the patio I looked up the bougainvillea and they were no longer dead and dying but suddenly blooming and beginning to climb up the steel structure around the pool the way my father had envisioned and I said to him, look it’s becoming how you wanted […]
It was all that and more. It was the parting in the crowd. The first glance. The spotlight on the face.The intake of breath. The dream in reality. It was the dance of life. The shape of truth. The lump in the throat. The gulp. It was all that and […]
Today Muneeza died and it made me so angry. I dug in my drawers until I found my village file and I pulled out a letter from her. And her letter said, I love you and give my salaams to your parents and Hashim Amla. Forgive me if I did […]
