Notebook Entry: Key West 2008

It has been said that if one thoughtlessly crosses a river of unknown depths and shallows, he will die in its currents without ever reaching the other side. If one is interested in confronting the unknown one first has to become unattached to life and to death.

I am thinking a lot of my foremothers.

Europeans from 1756 onwards embarked on wooden schooners and sailed violent waters to dark Africa. Some died from disease and  water deaths. The survivors made landfall on a mapless continent where the unknown was best divided into that of monsters and demons. They braved on. Crossing mountains, valleys and savannah facing lion, mamba and the mighty Zulu. Only the lucky survived. They will settle in what seemed to be folds of protection amongst rivers and valleys. Mother Africa made sure she visited each family sooner or later. She breeds her own deadly diseases and came knocking on their doors to deliver her unwelcome package. Through these very dark nights the demons and monsters had a tendency to grow extra heads. Still Mother Africa was giving, like a twisted crow she opened her wings and revealed everything shiny; diamond, gold, copper and iron. The old world woke up to this far off ‘barbaric’ world, wringing their greedy hands together. They showed up with guns and fire. They raped and execute and the weak were thrown into the carcass of concentration camps. The riches were theirs for the taking. Our pioneers became yellow hollowed and defeated. The monster and demons with their multiple heads merged with the darkness to create a concoction of hate and revenge. It seeped into hollow chests and soon our humble brave pioneer became the monster himself.

And we the grandchildren, we are not European, we are not African, we have outgrown the monster and maybe all that is left in us is the pioneer.

By Anja Marais

I was born from the flesh of a tree, my skin torn from bark, my veins filled with sap. I was hiding in my Mother’s shade, always listening to the rustle of her leaves. The ocean washed over our roots, the foam tickled my toes. When a storm eventually rose from the ocean and strained her branches she begged me to go. I obeyed, shaking the sea creatures from my legs. I uncurled my roots from the spiny rocks. I saw her body taken by the unforgiving sea; tumbling graciously she slid away in a cloak of water.

The cruelty of the ocean pushed me inland.  I searched for new kindness and warmth to rest my now frail and parched roots. The brooks were dry, the bushes filled with thorns and the rocks spit heat back up at the sun. With indifference they grazed my skin and tore my flesh. I lay in a barren enclave; my roots nothing more than knobby warts and my sap now running thick and dark through brittle veins. With every slow pump of my heart my veins shuddered like a shy dance on the beat of a faint drum. It flowed slowly and built into a crescendo. I could see the drummer sitting cross-legged while her pale hands bounced off the tightly stretched animal hide. As she kept the rhythm, the veins in her hands swayed like branches in the wind and swam up her arms like deltas into an ocean. In them I could see the outline of my Mother and every Mother before her. They were tightly crocheted in an intricate mesh of red all the way into my own vascular. A warm pulsating stream murmured repeatedly in unison: “….life, this is eternal life.”

My cracked feet started moving again, following this innate map of voices and patterns until I found myself back on a long forgotten shore. It was low tide and the ocean spit out furballs of debris and remnants of what once was. Among these were lengths of driftwood with smooth bodies buffed by a long journey in turgid waters. I picked a particularly gnarled but monumental trunk that lay on its side as if were a reclining Buddha contemplating life. The sand was warm and the ocean playful.

It is here that I am standing today with my daughter saplings sheltered at my base, while I peer into the firmament awaiting the next unavoidable coming storm.