South Africa: Should I hold on to you or let go?

~ marobbie ~ Leave a comment

I am revisiting my chosen home. The visit conicides with the exact date of my departure 15 years ago. It has been a long journey spanning three continents with half a dozen of moves and relocations. As I try to pick up the pieces in my apartment, and get up to date with my admin at the notorious Department of Home Affairs (DHA), I am trying to figure out what my final relationship with this place will be.

I have wandered down here in the waning years of the last century. I lived with a husband in Johannesburg, East London, and Cape Town. I birthed my son here and bought my first property. I made friends with whom I still maintain contact. I come here on Home Leave every other year. But it is painfully obvious to me that I lack the familial ties, and I feel that my emotional attachment to this place is weakening.

My son had a traumatic experience at the DHA last year, and he feels that he does not want to come here EVER again. I know, he is a teenager and at his age we also misused the word EVER and its adjacents like never and forever, but given the efficiency of this government bureaucracy, it is possible that he won’t be able to come here. His passport application was complicated by the fact that he needed an old green ID, and an ID is a prerequisite for a passport, so he might get stuck in a closed loop that only providence is capable of breaking. So now my ties with my chosen country are simply one close friend, one old friend, and an apartment that needs lots of maintenance after long years of absence and short-term rental abuse.

The place is a money pit. My close friend is doing okay, but my other friend is in dire financial straits. The apartment needs a fortune to be brought back into shape, and even though I try to upgrade and fix it every time I come here, things take very long, with African workmanship and African delivery timelines. The worst, however, is that the quality of things has visibly deteriorated, or perhaps I have gotten used to Western quality standards; I now see the flaws of what is on offer here.

Another disturbing thing is the city poverty I witness regularly in Cape Town. I remember when I first came here; I worked in town, and I sometimes walked the streets in the city and spent time in the Company Gardens. Now the place is depressing and threatening. A few hundred meters away from museums and the national gallery, vagrants take the sunny grass as bedding. I saw at least a dozen of them still dozing in the middle of the morning when I walked back from one of my admin errands in town. Now I understand my son’s sentiment of not feeling safe while walking in Cape Town. I had an unpleasant experience in the CBD a few hundred meters away from Lower Plein Street, where a security guard warned me it was not safe where I was heading. I waved him away, thinking that I knew the dangers having lived in this city for over six years. I am glad that it was just a short harassment without loss or damage to self or property, but I am sure I will never walk in the CBD again. The city I left 15 years ago no longer exists.

I still think SA is incredibly beautiful. Last week I took a road trip with my close friend and her son. We went to Addo Elephant Park, then drove all the way from the Eastern Cape through the Garden Route with stops along the way in Knysna and Mossel Bay. The scenery is incredible, and the difference between the country lifestyle and Cape Town is obvious. Even my close friend is rethinking her stay here after over 20 years in the country. Looking at her, I wondered whether we both suffer different stages of an attachment to a sunk cost.

We were travelers on the same journey at different times. She observed my struggle as a single mom and the amount of blood, sweat, and tears I expended on this journey. South Africa to me is synonymous with all this. I worked hard to gain access to it, to become a citizen, and to survive as a single mom. I still return here even after my ex-husband has long left. I found out that his 3rd ex-wife, my successor in the victimhood of narcissistic abuse, has also left SA. The only people who are left are my close friend and my first housemate in Cape Town when I moved here in 2005. And I think that they are both questioning their reasons for staying. And if they leave, then I have no more reason to maintain this place, so distant from everything I now have.

It is perhaps too early to make a decision yet, but it is time to start thinking about it.

Rereading My Past

~ marobbie ~ Leave a comment

I have made a tour of my blog recently. I was amazed, yet again, at how much I changed in the span of seven years. And here I remember – and double check- a trivia fact that I have seen in the past. Yes, it is true, with some variations, that the cells of the human body completely regenerate within a span of 7-10 years. So technically, biologically, and -thank providence- also emotionally, nothing is left of the pining female who wrote here one lovelorn post after another. I feel bad for that person who cried so many tears, wrote terrible haikus, and never-ending heartache text, for something that was a little more than an illusion. I came back here today, and hid some of the texts that were truly terrible, and left the ones that were still terrible, but less so. They shall remain, as a memory and a lesson for the future. Next time, I will use an old-fashioned, and burnable, journal.

Here, I have to send silent thanks to the former subject of my adoration. Really, it was great that he did not go along with any of that madness, although he might have been tempted to. I am also glad that I resisted the temptation to give him the URL of this blog, because by now I would have been so embarassed that I would have needed to migrate it again, elsewhere.

There will always be these two sides of me. The rational twin will be forever at odds with the emotional and impulsive one. I also realise that I have lied when I told myself that I am incapable of being in love again. I know I am. Perhaps I am heading there soon. But I have learned not to chase illusions and mirages, and look for people who are really available, and show it. This time I will trust what I see, not what I imagine.

Love Letter to Ukraine

~ marobbie ~ Leave a comment

Six months ago I hardly knew anything about you. I remember waking up early on a cold February morning. My son stopped at my bedside before he left for school. While he walked out the door he announced without any emotions : “Russia invaded Ukraine, true story”. Initially I thought it was his idea of a sick joke. Since that morning, a country I could hardly find on the world map found its way into my heart, and stayed there.

Now I recognise the colours of your flag wherever I go, I am heartened by the sight of an Antonov flying over, I have developed a fondness for sunflowers, and I only befriend people who support you. Ukraine, the country on the edge, the border land, has become a land marking my own life, and the day you were wrongfully invaded was a day I will never forget.

I am a sucker for coming of age stories. Those where the main character finds her way after long search, or finds her strength and voice to stand up for herself and defeat an arrogant bully. The worst ones are those where a grave injustice is perpetrated and remains unpunished. Those few days at the end of February were the stuff of nightmares. I waited fearfully for the bullies to win, and watched that ominous column of tanks rolling towards Kyiv. I opened my eyes every morning to check whether Ukraine’s wartime president was still alive. I had never heard of Volodymyr Zelenskyy before, but for a while he became my hero. The man who deserves win against all odds. Many world citizens, with no connection to Ukraine, felt the same. Regular people all over the world assembled in city squares, and cried with rage at the injustice of the invasion, while governments just made some noise and hesitated to act. Nobody wanted to shake the world order and unsettle Russia. But the resilience and resistance of your heroes was decisive. You found your strength and your voice, and even those who hated to mess with the neighbourhood bully had to show some support, or risk their image. Nobody dreamed you would hold on this long. And while the privileged complained about what this did or will do to the economy, or trembled in fear of not getting enough oil and gas, one the poorest countries in Europe continued fighting. And yes, it wouldn’t have been possible without foreign aid and huge defence packages provided by western countries, but Ukrainians are still the ones who are offering the greatest sacrifices. They are risking their lives, their safety and the violence of war, because they did not want to swap the future they dreamed of with the bleak reality that Russia planned for them.

And today it has been exactly six month since this unjust war started. It is also 31 years since you gained your independence. You still inspire. You are able to mobilise people all over the world. Your people are showing up for you, picking up arms, crowdfunding drones and technological equipment, and taking your voice to the world. You are perhaps the first country in the world whose war effort is partly funded by individuals, Ukrainians in the diaspora and world citizens who believe.

Ukraine has become a moral refuge and a symbol of self determination against all odds. We are all outsiders, pushed towards the edge in our lives, desperately seeking meaning. And those refugees and outsiders have found a cause to rally around, to bring us all together. We the people believe in the right of Ukraine to all its territory, and the right of its citizens to choose their path. This is the true story

Happy Birthday Ukraine. Slava Ukraini. One day I would love to meet you in person.

Photos (left to write): Anti war slogan and Ukrainian flag at St. Stephan Cathedral in central Vienna. Ukrainian theme at the entrance of the Tiki Bar, Diani Beach, Kenya. Ukrainian flag ribbon and card at Augarten Vienna today: “1/2 year war: Enough killing, maiming, bombing and lying: Russia out of Ukraine. Slava Ukrajini”

Man’s Legacy of Destruction

~ marobbie ~ Leave a comment

There are six anti-aircraft towers in Vienna. I can see two of them from my apartment. At close proximity they are imposing, grey and ugly. Two geometrically shaped, fat middle fingers gestured at the sky and the peaceful creation nearby, a crass reminder of the destruction of man, and an antithesis to everything the city wants to stand for with its delicate architecture and charming civility, passed over two Millennia of its history.

They remain, two ominous centre-pieces of modern destruction in a baroque garden, because, as some believe they were too much trouble to remove. Or perhaps they stay to remind the locals of what they would rather forget. I think that there are still a few Vienna residents who have living memories of WWII, but the survival of these ornaments of destruction has become more poignant now, as we witness the consequences of yet another bloody war in Europe.

I have walked around the Flakturms many times, and read the inscriptions about them. They are more sombre in the winter, when the avenues of black ghostly trees frame them and the wide gravel paths seem to lead directly towards their concrete frame. I noticed once that the graffiti around the lower parts of the G-tower was the only colour in the freezing garden. “Never Again” The bold larger than man-sized letters screamed on the cracked concrete. But we never listened.

Spring has managed to screen the ugliness, somewhat for now, but it still pokes out of the foliage of nature, and the orderly topiaries of surrounding trees. There are some rambling vines growing on the side of one tower, and grass on a flat piece of the other. I also noticed that the pigeons seem to have nested in the crevices and open niches. One day when we are no longer there, nature might take them over completely. And this final thought is not sad at all.

Man supposedly inherited the earth, and in a blink of an eye managed to squander the inheritance. The earth will survive without us, and hopefully nature will recover before the next sentient beings wreak havoc on creation yet again.

The photo is of what the locals call the Flakturm. It is a “G-Tower”, cylindrical in shape and was used to launch anti aircraft rockets. The second tower in the garden is an L-Tower, and used as a control tower for radar equipment. Both were built by prisoners from the concentration camps of Nazi Germany.

Love in action… And Words of Advice

~ marobbie ~ Leave a comment

A few years ago I became a convert to the religion of love. I used to believe it was a gimmick to sell books, movies and red valentine hearts. Now I know it is real, and it is something beautiful. And it really doesn’t matter whether its source is chemical, emotional or spiritual. The real thing, if you encounter it, is earth-shattering and unsettling. And even though my story was not what romance readers would call a HEA story, it is still a positive one that inspired me to run a marathon, write a very bad Nanorimo novel, and post profusely on this blog. It also deepened my curiosity about a range of subjects from philosophy and meta-physics, to spirituality and religion, and literature and life in general.

I have come away from that experience a bit wounded, but also a bit wiser and more empathic. I am unable now to recapture the Love, as a noun, that expanded my heart to fit the whole wounded world. But in exchange I gained an ability to experience love as a verb, as an action that helps me get through the challenges of life. I love my teenage son, even when he is difficult, rude, or ungrateful. I find opportunities to love my colleagues by showing appreciation. I love the world by understanding its failings and limitation and acknowledging that I am part of it. I love my parents and family by being there for them and being kind. Some of this is hard work, but I do it, because it is better to act out love than any other emotion. It is the glue that holds us together, as individuals, families, societies. It is perhaps the substance of the universe itself. I write this with true conviction, and without sniffling or tears in my eyes, so I know that my love-outcome was positive, even after I packed away my love letters and quit looking at my older heartache posts. And although I did not leave the battlefield of love without losses, some of which have proven irreversible, I still believe that it was worth all the pain and the suffering.

It has been over a year now since I had my last (now I say final) intense conversation with the man I loved. It lasted over two hours, and it was one of the times when I told him I could not forget about him. He listened empathically. I remember him saying that if he brought this problem to the attention of wise people in his family, like his daughter, they would advise him to “cut loose”. I heard only what I wanted to hear from this. But I also suggested that he should write me a goodbye letter, I even drafted the text. He read it and said, that I wrote well. I never received that note or any other from him, and this again was misinterpreted. When I read these lines now, I smile at my naive self, but I also rejoice at the sincerity of the sentiment and the depth of my devotion.

I will send this note to myself now on his behalf, and do as I/he said.

Dear x. I appreciate that the feelings you carry for me are genuine and sincere. But I see that they are neither healthy for you nor helpful for me. I therefore allow you to let go of them without resistance. I set you free from any hold I might have unconsciously placed upon you by things I said or withheld. Think of me if you wish with fondness and compassion but release me from your heart as I will also release you in this life. Until the soul can decide where it will dwell in the next one.

Here are a few things that I learned from that experience. I would have liked to share them with the man who inspired them, but as I said, I already folded my unsent love letters and drafted my silent goodbye. Now it would be counterproductive to get in touch after months of silence just to say farewell. I am sure he will understand my silence for the goodbye that it is. It is possible that he will be even relieved that I finally cut him loose.

To all my girlfriends and women in love, you are important, so look after yourselves:

What you think he feels is irrelevant. Don’t try to interpret his messages, the jokes he makes, and the ambiguous phrases in his emails. If he did not spell out his feelings to you clearly, there might be a million different interpretations to the words he says. The interpretation you want is just one of them. Understand the odds and know that he might be only trying to be friendly, polite, joking, flirting or just humouring you. This is especially important to understand if you have been open about your feelings for him. If he is afraid to tell you how he feels after that then he has problems. You do not need that.

Take what he says at face value only. Never try to dig deeper or feel that you understand him better than he understands himself. Even if it is true, some people want to stay in their world of denial. It is not your job to fix them. Allow him to be what he believes he is.

If he is married, or in a committed relationship, always assume that the relationship is fine, and that his partner is a thousand times better than he will ever be. If he claims that his wife is not treating him well, always assume that she probably gives him the cold shoulder because he is an ass, and that he would happily kneel at her feet like a loyal dog if she decided to look at him kindly.

If you suspect that he is separated, divorced, or living in an open marriage, be bold and try to confirm this. Do not try to interpret the signs of missing wedding rings or removed family photographs. Most importantly, do not take his word for it. If any of these things are true then the partner or her friends would corroborate the story and you can take action accordingly.

If you want an affair you can do whatever you like, but it is also best to announce your intention so that the other person knows where they stand.

Remember: There are no rules. These are only guidelines for your own protection. All is fair in love and war is a correct statement but whatever you do, be aware of the consequences and take responsibility for your own actions. Do not blame the man for things you chose to misunderstand or misinterpret.

And if you have a girlfriend or someone you care about in a situation of heartache and endless wondering, try to be the sound of reason. Do not be a “pick me” friend by empowering and validating the emotional high. If she makes it, and gets the love of her life, you will be happy for her, and she will be so overjoyed that she will forget your scepticism. But if things fall apart you will at least be able to pick up the pieces with her and support her. This will not happen if you constantly validated her feelings and encouraged them. You might even end up as one of the people she wants to forget, a symbol of the emotional and irrational state she does not want to return to.

Some Final Words: Not everything I wrote above is reflection of my own experience, they are just imagined scenarios inspired by what I felt. I have written perhaps hundreds of pages on the man I loved, on how he made me feel and think. Only a fraction of my words made it to this blog. I recalled every detail of our few conversations, phone calls, and text messages, trying to analyse them and glean some meaning. This was a huge waste of time and energy and my best achievement and best work were done when I turned this energy outwards and created something out of it. I swapped the unattainable for the difficult but achievable, and loved those who wanted and needed my love, including myself. Love is powerful and beautiful, it holds the universe together, but we are mere mortals with finite time on this earth (or in this life) so we cannot hold its intensity for very long. This is not a limitation, it is a function of us existing in time. The transience of our experience enables us to survive through the trials and joys of our limited time. Nothing, not even enlightenment and transcendence, can be held for a long time. In the biography of the late Ram Dass, he wrote about his experience with psychedelics and how he progressively increased the dosage to achieve a transcendent state of consciousness. And every addict knows this, whether it is a drug, alcohol or sex, the more you turn to them the more you crave, and the less effective they become. In a sense, for us humans, less is always more. We should crave the doses of pleasure that we can handle. Or as Alan Watts said, “if you get the message hang up the phone”. I got the message loud and clear, and it is time to hang up that phone.

Love rules. Always. Acknowledge it, honour it, and experience it. If it doesn’t lead you to happiness, it will grant you kindness and wisdom.

.

Don’t Grasp …

~ marobbie ~ Leave a comment

The parting gift of 2021 for me was a little bit of wisdom and understanding. It did not come to me cheaply or quickly, but I still believe it arrived on time.

Intellectually, and from my pervious dabbling with mindfulness mediation, I already understand that life is only the present. Yesterdays are gone, and the future is an uncertain gamble, at best. Those who grasp at moments of past happiness are reconstructing remembered experience in hindsight from the viewpoint of the present. On the other hand, dreams of the future are sometimes just an escape from present discomfort. Living this way is a permanent sleep-walking state. We become completely or partly oblivious of the present moment, either imagining a future that might never arrive, or re-interpreting the past. In either case we are missing the point. Life is moving along in ever-changing patterns of good and bad times. All of them are temporary, and the point of it might not actually be where we have been or where we want to be next. The point is just the journey, the dance we perform and the music we play along the way.

In the past few months I was stuck in such a futile pattern. I came here, to the city of music and culture from a place where I knew I was happy. It was a place where I found love and glimpsed my own version of enlightenment. I missed Kenya. I missed Africa, the sunshine, the people, the coffee, the avocados, the simple uncomplicated life. I felt overwhelmed by learning about my new job, the challenges of raising a demanding teenager, the difficulties of adapting to a different lifestyle, and of simply finding a place for myself in foreign city. Most of all I missed the person that I became when I was fully embraced by my beloved Africa. So I tried hard to recapture that luminous phase of my life, and I grasped at everything I thought I lost. When I went shopping I tried to buy the exact same tools and utensils I had in my previous life. When I lost my beloved chain bracelet I tried to order an exact replica. I looked for Kenyan coffee, to recapture the taste of sunshine and inject life-giving warmth into my cold mornings. I grasped with desperation at memories, at moments where I felt my heart expand to encompass the whole universe, when I reached out to receive the world’s loving embrace. I remembered how well I loved, that I became wholesome in loving, and the universe seemed to hold and lift me, even while my beloved remained aloof and silent. I desperately wanted all that again.

The inevitable failure of my grasping phase came in little pointers and signs. The replacement bracelet was expensive and underwhelming, not at all like the one I lost, and the tools and utensils became useless white elephants, unsuitable for my modern European apartment. The coffee tasted like cardboard, and did not live up to my idolised version of African coffee. Each little failure was another loss, and another reason to wallow in misery and grasp even more at the past. In Kenya, I thought, everything fell into place for me, whereas here, everything went wrong. My spirit suffered as well. My attempts at recapturing the spiritual heights I experienced through running, yoga and meditation were half-hearted to non-existent. My heart felt closed and constricted and no longer capable of unconditional loving. I regained my cynicism in matters of the heart and started to re-interpret my emotional experience more rationally.

Comparing my present state of mind with the past one I remembered was jarring and unsettling. Sometimes I felt like I fell from grace, and descended from paradise to earthly suffering. At other times I thought that I must have been floating on an opioid cloud for the past six years, and just sobered up now to cold reality.

Eventually, and perhaps with the help of a lecture I listened to from Alan Watts, it dawned on me that neither my emotional nor my rational interpretations were correct. I simply failed to understand one basic lessons. Life is a flowing river, and it is a bad idea to grasp at flowing water. The clenching fingers fail to hold a single drop, and the tense limbs are no match for strong currents. That lesson holds for some things in the physical world too, like trying to fall asleep or trying hard to float in a pool. Trying too hard is sometimes the surest guarantee of failure.

Today, I have decided to float freely and stop grasping. However, in doing that, I also want to remember that I should not try too hard. True acceptance after all, is the absence of resistance, and sometimes the pull of the past will still be felt, but I need to understand it for what it is, an illusion, a re-imagining of the past from the viewpoint of the present.

There will always be things that I can, and should, work harder at, like getting more exercise or practicing meditation. But the present experience should be the heart of the practice. I should enjoy the meditation session, the single run, and the yoga lesson. And while the end goal of running another marathon or getting fit and flexible in my middle age years could work as a motivator, the end goal is not as important as the present experience. My present moment is all I have, and I will make it count.

The Test and Lessons of Time

~ marobbie ~ Leave a comment

There is no going back on some things you do, and no recovery of some pieces you give from yourself. Some people have deep pockets and shallow hearts. They give their word today and forget it tomorrow. They give their hearts forever, but that “forever” turns out to be just a day or a year. I am one of the unlucky few. I only say what I sincerely feel, and then only when I know that I truly mean it.

In loving, my regrets do not extend to the casual losses of heartache. My hurt is not for the wasted time, the squandered pride, and unrequited feelings. To my mind, the people I loved were worthy of the time I spent, the heartache I felt, and the pieces of my heart that I will never be able to fully heal. And even if they were not, then the love itself was worth it, in its sincerity and purity.

What I regret most, is giving people once loved a window to my truest self, and then knowing, long after they have proven transient in my life, that they might be still watching, through that window, lurking on the fringes of my existence, and silently judging me.

And it wouldn’t have mattered at all if the dishonesty they accused me of was real, because only I know that what I gave was my very essence. It was the only thing, that remained unchanged, after life presented me with challenges and bottomless heartbreaks in ten different cities on four continents.

Some people agonise over the secrets that they surrendered to the ears of lovers or friends, in the heat of passion, or on the coals of remorse. I do not care if the world knew about my petty secrets. It would not bother me if everyone found out about the men I loved; even my teenage follies and the occasional bad choices. But I am grateful that the objects of my old desires cannot look at my words here, to know what I think of them now. Let them cling to the bliss of ignorance, and think what makes them happy. That I still remember, or that I really forgot. Let them keep and shape their memories of me, as a foolish woman, as a slut, or as the one they should have kept. And at least I have this magical place to laugh and to cry about things that happened, or almost did, or never came to pass. I can reflect on old loves, like I reflect and whinge on my rivals without fearing judgment.

For all my foolishness in love, I am grateful that at least I kept a space to myself to reflect where my former lovers cannot reach me. I think there was always a part of me that mistrusted men, and prevented me, sometimes at the last minute, from throwing caution completely to the wind. But I wish that feminine self-preservation extended further to my close female friends.

I wish I was woman enough to carry my pain alone, and bury it in this little wrinkle in the anonymous cyberspace, and not seek validation from anyone. It is a lesson I learned now. If I were observant, I would have learnt it earlier from the same woman who caused this regret. She always kept much of herself hidden, and only chose to show me things that I could relate to. But I was too much in pain to notice, and only started waking up when something inside me decided to rebel against my familiar, and house-trained, sorrow.

There are things now that I cannot talk about. It is the price I have to pay for being untrustworthy with the workings of my inner self. It is my punishment for giving a bit too much. But I will not allow it to be the end of the world for me, and it is not the end of giving parts of myself.

Some people I know in real life read this, and have access to my deepest thoughts. Most have proven their worth, not by being as foolish and open as I am to them, but by being always honest, empowering me to see things differently, rather than enabling my weakness. Not all of them are women. Some are family and some are decade-long friends. But all of them waited long enough for the privilege and understood it as an opportunity to critique, not a request for validation.

Almost 15 years ago I had to migrate my blog because my then husband and his family used to read it. It started as simple baby blog then turned into a space to chronicle my struggle with divorce and conflicts with my child’s father. I painstakingly removed all identifying information from blog posts, and started to speak freely about my ex. It was difficult at first to go past the self-imposed barriers of loyalty and pride. It became easier as time passed. Now my ex and I are so distant physically and mentally that it no longer matters to me if he reads here and how he judges it.

Time renders many things irrelevant, and perhaps this is also one of them. So I will turn the page on this story for now and speak about other things. From now on I will try to put things to the test of time, will what I say and do today matter next year? Will I love you next year like I love you today? Will I trust you next year like I trust you today?

The answer has to be a clear YES before I write about it here. There will be no place for “I am not sure”, or “I do not know”. And this cancels out most matters of the heart, because hearts are fickle and prone to change. It also cancels out dreams, aspirations and desires. The same is true for best laid plans. When I arrived in Kenya in 2015, I said to myself that I came home. I believed that I will never leave the sunshine of Africa again. Six years later I am here, staring out of a window into the darkness of the incoming European winter. I could tell myself that this is only transitory, that I will return in five years, when my son finished school, but I fear that the fates are already laughing at me, that my destiny might be to stay here into my old age, or to die here before I even get to enjoy my twilight years.

Will it matter in a year? Will this hold true in a year? Even if I say a clear YES today, the outline of a NO might be already drawn for me on the pages of destiny.

Time is such a joker, so keep a space to yourself, to change your mind about everything, and to erase what you have written yesterday, with great conviction.

Diamonds and Frost

~ marobbie ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes, the pain of your soul will reveal, where your heart truly dwells.

Sometimes, 
I welcome the pain.
when it means I'm alive, 
that my heart still beats, 
With something beyond its mechanics of survival, 
the rush of life's blood, and the rhythm of  breathing.

Sometimes, 
it's good to wake up with a memory of muddled dreams, 
where I fought for something undefined 
and awoke with a vague sense of loss
that tells me I'm struggling for meaning, 
I haven't yet sold my soul 
for a fist-full of gold

And sometimes, 
When I surrender to the urge,
to own, to buy and to consume, 
I remember that sunshine was free, 
as was love, friendship and the scent of rain

I still miss the red dust of Africa on my shoes, 
And the warm smiles cracking 
on tanned, work-weary faces
I miss the belief that I had plenty, 
that I did not need to ease the pain of existence, 
with shopping online

And it hurts me so, that I will soon surrender
the kiss of copper and bronze on my skin, 
to the blue-tinge of winter cold, 
And although I am privileged and envied 
I  know what I lost
I traded golden sunshine and hearts,  
the perpetual green, and the smell of warm earth 
for expensive perfume,
for style and high culture, 
at a great cost
for gold that only glitters, 
for diamonds and  frost.

Somehow I’ll Find My Way Home

~ marobbie ~ Leave a comment

I spend long times dwelling on the questions of being and belonging, in a place, in a time or within a group. And after over half a century on this earth, I realize that I relate most to people who have similar questions about belonging. I gradually drifted from people who closely identified with ideals, from a nationalistic or religious angle. My nature is a questioning one, and I feel that my personality, my likes and dislikes are not fixed. Nothing ever remains the same so why should people relate closely to identities and groups they did not even choose.

If we can rethink our choices of careers, partners, friends and favourite activities, why can’t we revise our ideas of home, culture, religion and tribe? The identities we were born with were imposed on us and we should have the power to question and change them. If I take this thinking further I can venture to say that the least interesting people I know are those who were born into certain categories of existence and spent their lives defending them and trying to tell me and others that theirs was the only way to live. When I am faced with such arguments I mostly nod my head sadly and wonder about where their convictions came from when they haven’t tried other options. The most powerful arguments of this type come from religious or nationalistic camps. It is easy to get trapped into logical fallacies when you proclaim your way as the only way, given that you have tried no other options. That is why religious propaganda and missionary work often relies on converts who have found their true saviours in Allah, Jesus or Jehovah after being failed by one of the former or by any other styles of belief or non-belief that exist in the world today.

The most compelling spiritual stories are about people who have spent a long time on their journey and altered their destination or worldview to arrive where they are. None of the inspiring people we know was born into the lifestyle and existence that inspired us. We are mostly inspired by change, by moving from one state into the next and this in essence is what we seek for our spiritual life.

I type these words now as I look outside my window into a back courtyard of a European residential building. The neighbouring buildings are hiding behind the green veil of tall trees swaying in the breeze. The oak trees are still carrying their full foliage and haven’t yet turned colour and I am looking forward to the autumn palette that I have not seen in many years.

My own journey of belonging is taking another turn, and I now live in Europe. I still feel the pain of leaving Africa. Today I re-organised some of my things, most of which are still packed in suitcases. I came across some gifts I received and items I cherished. The vibrant colours of Africa spilled out of my luggage from shirts, clothing items, kikoys, shopping bags, and masks. The ache is still there, and I miss the friendly faces of my Kenyan friends who became like family to me. But I also notice that I am slowly making this city my own. I walk the streets and see myself in many people, the crazy, the non-conformist, the woman who wears fluffy fur sandals in the mall, and the woman who sings audibly as she awaits the traffic light to change colour. I see myself in the ageing man with a pot belly wearing his socks with his sandals and in the young-looking grandma choosing her three apples carefully in the market.

I love the colourful markets and the niches of counter-culture I discover every day. I have even developed a secret admiration for graffiti artists and those who stick copies of their poems on the bridges that cross the river and its canals.

I used to identify as African, defying my son who branded me with cultural appropriation. I still relate to the simple African lifestyle, to the spirit of the good people, their patience and benevolence. How they are ready to welcome a stranger into their lives and make him or her feel at home. I felt at home in Kenya, and I believe that I shall return to visit often. But after over two decades of moving places, countries and continents, I learned that the only home I need to make for myself is within my own heart. I learned to welcome and accept myself at every stage of my life, and acknowledge that I had a blessed one. I am lucky to be where I am now, and I was lucky to stay six years in Kenya. I now know that I was even lucky for my four years in New York. In those four years I did not learn to befriend the city and its people, but now I know that it was possible to find my niche even in that wild city. I could have hidden somewhere from its blatant consumerist culture and found a space where art and counter-culture thrive on the challenge the city’s existence created.

There is always a place to call home. And it changes with time. Ten years ago, I visited South Africa for the first time after moving to New York. My friend and her children met me at Cape Town airport. They held signs that welcomed me and my son home, decorated with stars, hearts, and glitter. The childish colourful drawing and words touched me deeply, and I kept these signs for a long time. When I moved to Nairobi I stuck the welcome signs on the wall of my bedroom. The rising sun shone on them every morning, and I gazed upon them every night as I drifted to sleep. The symbolism of the sign was that I was truly home, safely in my bed, in Africa.

I gave up that symbol after six years. I now understand that a gypsy like me might always be on the lookout for a home. That the home that I am looking for might not be an actual place, just a feeling that I have when I like myself just as I am in this moment. And somehow I’ll find my way home. Somehow, I will be going somewhere.

I Wish You Knew

~ marobbie ~ Leave a comment

I would like to call you sometime. To tell you that you visited me in a dream, after a long absence. I would mention perhaps that we kissed, in the dream. I tasted your lips that remained forbidden to me in my waking life.

I would like to tell you that I am struggling to belong, in a place that you have never visited. That I feel like a stranger here, although I have been here before, I speak the language, and know how the locals operate. I wish I could tell you that this gypsy only found home in your eyes. I wish I could tell you what you meant to me, what you still mean.

I wish you knew that no matter how far I walked away, you always remain with me. I wish I could tell you that the best version of me was the woman who experienced the intensity of joy and suffering in loving you. I would tell you she was free from suffering for now, but lived in a shadowland, away from your light.

I am no longer the creature of fire and light that burned brightly in your presence. I am just a soul that soared once on the wings of angels, then crashed to the ground. But sometimes I can feel the remaining embers of that fire glowing in my innermost core, and I recall how it felt, to fly. And I still want to be gentle with every human I meet, because you walk this earth.