I've never written about her

I've never written about her. TP. I hope that from wherever she is after her soul vacated, leaving her container barren and bald, that she smiles knowing that she does exist in my memory.
I don't know about her family, not much. I don't know if they speak of her while they sit out by the fire or during dinner. After 14 years of silent whispers, I write for all to see.

Who was she?
Well, she was my first. The first girl to really look at me. We were young, teenage love in boarding school. She was my senior, three years older and was my first hug when I was scared of being alone, away from home in another city.

She possessed a glow which hid a sorrow I had never seen. She was an amazing vocalist. The most beautiful singing in the school, they told me.

We connected in the most unusual ways. She'd lay in her bed, ill - "another attack" they said calmly. Not for me though, I was a panic-stricken chicken. I wanted to help, needed to help. She'd ask me to sing her a song from the 90s until her asthma attack calmed down. I'd hold her hand and smile with her as we played song games.

Its probably an insignificant love affair considering I was only 13, but its definitely worth remembering. The days in the dining hall where she would walk across the overcrowded hall to bring me an extra piece of chicken from her plate. Sunset watching from the balcony of the 'sickbay'. The times I'd be ill in my bed and she's the first to come make sure i was warm, and the last to leave even if she was risking detention.The little love words scribbled on a torn page from exercise book, and the perfume on valentine's day. She was my first kiss and realisation of what seemed at the time a curse. the simple pleasures at the smallest gestures of love.

It was a few months and a fewer days. Then a phone call - she was dead.

I've spoken about her in gasps, whispers, in the evening night secretly among only the closest people that i know would never dare utter my words to anyone.

Its 14years now and i finally realise that love is that innocence, that connection and that lesson she taught me before she finished dying and started living. For we are born to die, that means she's finally alive.

So my words today, to whomever will read, is a dedication to an unspoken hero, a lost love a teacher, my long lost best friend. A girl who hadn't become a woman - a lady of my past.

Dear T.P. 

Your memory is embedded in my being... for as long as i continue dying i will keep your memory alive.

 Love

Joan

somebody change the world. . .

my heart sits at the bottom of my stomach,
everything i live for means nothing,
my pellucid heart heart seeks understanding from humanity-
even though my mind knows that the men that partake in my sentencing know not of such. Before it is said, my condemnation has been stated
i hold my children's hands and bid them goodbye
i smiled as if tomorrow would be no different.
i swallowed the lump in my throat sending tears to burn my eyelids,
i’ve known not of any such freedom,
death is on surprise when judgement is passed
i hold my hijab tightly to my face,
my heart longing to seek some grace
non of it matters when a whimper escapes my mouth as tears roll down my cheek,
their echoes deafen my ears,
“she shouldn’t be this way, she should be left to die”
i say my last prayer right before the first stone hits my eye. . .

For Soraya M. (The Stoning of Soraya M.)

Ohhhh...

most times you don’t realise shit is wild until you have realised that you have realised that shit is wild. it always impacts in an “ohhhh. . .” sorta kinda way.

i recently journeyed to South Africa. I love travelling by bus going long distances because well i get to view life in a different way and get to enjoy the silent vibrations ascending from under the bus.

oh yeah? lets not go there. . .

by JOAN on NOVEMBER 9, 2011 in UNCATEGORIZED

On the front row, right window was my seat on the double deck sleep-liner. i was sitting next to a woman who was seemingly young but acting old and cold, literally, could have easily been my last stroll. she whined most the way and kept begging me to give up my seat for her husband who sat in the seat behind mine.

as if!

Why do you think i went days before the trip to secure the front top seat, lazy bum?? She slowly started getting on my nerves but when i looked outside though, and watch the trees running past my window and spotting wild animals in wild Africa i felt as though i belong on the road. i love the thought of travelling through weird lands and meeting the strangely beautiful and capturing it all.

So overall, i had a really fantastic trip. i love bonding with my cousin and talking about things i’d rather we hadn’t. Meeting her beautiful little girls. Laughing and having such a great time. Thats when i realised that i’ve realized i indeed don’t have a place to call home. i’m a nomad!

ohhhh. .

motherhood…?

THE FOLLOWING CONTENT IS BASED ON A TRUE STORY. IT CONTAINS SEENS THAT HAVE BEEN A NIGHTMARE SINCE ITS OCCURENCE. READ AT OWN RISK

A long time ago, maybe 5 – 4 years ago i was walking home after a tough day at work, or was is school? i had my friend invite me for dinner which i accepted quickly, i wasn’t in the mood of cooking for myself on this particular day. On my way down the hill was a woman laying on the side of the road seemingly in pain, next to her was a face i recognised. It was my friend, the same friend i was going to have dinner with. At the sight of me an in one long word it seemed she yelled “pleasestayhere-gottago-berightback!”. I was obviously confused about these instructions but i figured she’d be back and was going for help since there is a woman rolling around in what seemed to be pain. Walking closer i asked the one man amoung many of the all-male spectators that had gathered around what was wrong with the woman. He told me she was pregnant.

Great! Pregnant! how hard could this be?

I stepped closer to her and she was rolling uncomfotably and obviously in pain. Instantly she started yelling she’s hungry and thirsty and needed to poop. I felt the blood rushing to my head, my brain was obviously not processing the information correctly and was in overtime as i was trying to recall any episode of ER or Greys Anatomy, for fucks sake, any medical show that had labour pains and giving birth in the twist. All i got was “breathe and push!”. Ii wasn’t ready for her to push!? Why no thank you, i was hoping to keep my appetite for dinner. She like charlie’s next angel took off her underwear effortlessly in a sleeping position. I smiled at her, pretty amazed at her ability. I am thinking how sexy that could be if i’d pull that one off in bed…*insert one brow raise + smirk here*

I’m nudged back to reality when she starts to push. Somehow in it all, she starts trying to close her legs while pushing. *PAUSE* Now who in their right minds close their legs when their pushing?? The baby needs a door, open it! But then again she wasn’t really in her right mind. *PLAY* I’m speaking in tongues trying to stop her from crossing her legs and not show my disgust to the audience who had now made themselves comfortble to watch the reality show. Real life labour on the side of the road…no pressure to perform now! Well since i was the midwife i then told her to breathe and push and she seemed to be doing well. Finaly i gained the courage to look at the horrors of childbirth, there i saw the crown – the top of the baby’s head – covered in a white paste. a deep red colored blood trickled down the side and the flow was met by – wait for it – POOP!

Dinner? No thank you i think i’ll pass.

 So i’m gag-instructing, the thought of poop, blood and probably sperm? *insert gag here* I began desperately looking for an older woman, anyone older. Anyone to take this baby out. The head was half way out by now, i’m now in omplete panic when i saw the woman, a much older woman…*insert cloudy heavenly pictures of smiling older woman with orchestra soundtrack*

So after the dificult odeal, the baby was out. The older lady arrived in the nick of time and finished the delivery just as the head popped out. She had turned to me and joyfully and declared that i will be a midwife one day! ermmm no thank you, i like my dinner everynight! where was i taking this? oh yeah. I think i would want a child of my own one day, I could just about raise a kid now, i have it all, experience and patience. and lots love for those little buggers! lol

mmmmeditate. . .

by JOAN on DECEMBER 28, 2011 in UNCATEGORIZED

when i woke today i was in one of those random ‘me time’ moods. yeah, i know i’m surprised too. this is almost as impossible as saying Michael Jackson is a white man! or maybe. . .

the result was my staying in bed in an attempt to sleep late. i fondled my laptop for things to do, ended up working. i know its against the code of conduct. i am not supposed to be working on me time day.

so i suddenly came up with a brilliant idea to meditate. after googling a few techniques i lay on my bed, slowly taking deep breathes. my body actually reacting to my sorry attempts. i was kicking ass at this.

suddenly my door violently opened jerking me up. my 1year old nephew walks in, feet slapping the floor as cute as ever. he pointed to his jacket.
“wow josh, thats a great jacket!”

he smiles and leaves satisfied. i lay on my back, closed my eyes and started taking deep breathes and relaxing. my heart rate was slowing down. i figured any slower i’d be meeting st paul. i suppressed a giggle with a frown of disapproval. i had to be serious to nail this.

i must have done it all too well, i figured, when i turned over to my side and pulled the blanket over my shoulder. . .

zzZzz

voices

They say the first step of healing is accepting you have a problem. I find myself sometimes trying to admit to things I don’t understand I do. I’ve often been left behind by time and I miss on saying things I needed to say or do in the moment, or sometimes I say it too fast for my brain. . .

by JOAN on JULY 2, 2014 in UNCATEGORIZED

Would this be an opportune time to say I have heard voices. I know the first thing you will think is “oh my goodness she’s a nutjob.” Perhaps. For the record, the voices haven’t told me to steal or do anything drastic. It just seemed to be instructions I was telling myself to do, except I heard it so loud it hurt. Its like being in my own mind instructing myself to take the next step and the next and the next. I literally told myself to walk, turn, switch the light on, and even pee! What would it mean if I am somewhat insane? If I had a piece of me wired the wrong way. I wonder if my acceptance of that hinders acceptance from all else around me.

The voices haven’t really been back that loud. They appear in gasps, creativity flows in trickles sometimes, in floods and most times it floats just out but in reach and it keeps me up at night. I toss and turn waiting for it, whatever IT is. and when I wake up, if I sleep, I wake up looking for something, anything. things to hold on to. I guess I am okay being weird, not wanting to talk when I have to, not needing to connect unless I want to. keeping to myself, living in myself. maybe thats what the voices are, me looking to me, being in me. or maybe not. . .

Maybe voices arent as bad as having a scar on your face…a brown spot that publicly shows your impurities. Maybe i think them a better companion than everyone i’ve ever met?

Chaotic… but wouldn’t that be alright…?

Chaos

•      a condition or place of great disorder or confusion/ a state of utter confusion or disorder

What to do, what to do, what to not do when you don’t. It was a beautiful morning and my young self stubbled out of bed and joined the older birds for a breakfast walk 3000m above sea level. The skies where rolling in a deliberate fashion, an eagle gracefully gliding – its head tracing movements of nothing too small. Innate existance of  an unordinary world surrounded the untamed land and uncontructed conversation, that skipped from life to politics and anything before i was born, was all in German or maybe not. I sat, my words rumbling inside my head, beyond my eyes.

I sat across The Wife of a Man i think i knew and her smile and untimely translations brought me a reality, once in a while, of the unprecidented company i seemed to be. Next to The Wife was Tongue Chewer, a woman who was a genius at detail. Beside me on the right was the Colonial Woman with her opinions of poorly run countries and great belief of video clips and white farmers. On my left sat The Observer, the woman with a hoody on her head, her grey hair peeking out after being summoned by the blowing winds. Everything she said seemed profound, thoughtful. Next to her sat her husband, a quiet man with a warm face. The doctor. He laughed at every other sentense he said, i guess he literally cracked himself up. The doctor wrote a book on a German man who was killed by German criminals in 1912, and the dead man’s very small and saddly insignificant tombstone sat on the side of one of the hills we passed as we made our way.

“have you tried the Jam? I made it for you,” said the observer and immediately i grabbed a slice of homemade seadloaf and splattered the jam in heeps and smallowed hard. I didnt quite like it. I was the only young, african woman without grey silky hair flying in chaotic directions making a mess. Contently confused i sat, watching their wrinkled lips move in slow emphases of pensioneer talk.

The ideology behind such an intimate weekly occurance was more than refreshiing to my so called growing mind. Again i had to acknowledge the curse of the old soul. I learnt to stop and flow with the slow paced time out there in nothingness. I learnt to be disorderly. But wouldn’t that be alright…?

“One must still have chaos in one self to give birth

to a dancing star”     

                                      –  Nietzch

The end of me (Vivir sin aire)

Its the weirdest feeling, feeling you are alone, sola as you say it in español. Feeling out of place in a world of statuses, postures and pre-written traditions of how to live. I sat in a taxi going to get lunch, and window shopping and I was thinking of how many people I feel comfortable calling when I just need to hang with someone, una. I thought out many of my friends and of course, those x-communicated because of many reasons and I feel like I need to get into hibernation. I barely can identify the good in people that is if in actual fact there still is. I feel unnatural in a world of robotic, un-intimate habits of zombie existence. I prefer to be locked up in my room feeding on the silence that I cultivated around me..

by JOAN on JUNE 27, 2014 in UNCATEGORIZED

Existance has become a solitary movement for me. It makes  more sense being alone,sola. The last of my kind, the end of me. It is like the last stage of reincarnation. There is no other body out there for my already very old soul.

Vivir sin aire

So what surprises could there be? being in a world of billions, surrounded by millions, living with hundred thousands but actually being alone, sola. I’m only intrigues by philosophies, ways of thinking and perceptions. I live only on music, my sanity pill and soul clenser. And lastly i dine, i really taste, eat slowly, swallow vanity and social standing, my orgasmic experiences have run away from sexual encounters and replaced by a silent toast of sweet red under the midnight sky. I’m surving in a superficial relm in a very stuffy world. Sola, alone.

So maybe that is it, the death of the afterlife. The ending of the soul and maybe the reality is that death isn’t actually a beginning but an end. Stillness, silence. Floating in blackness. A dark, warm space of nothing ness. Death may be silence from thoughts words, things. Maybe death is nothing. Rightfully so, it wouldnt matter because it really is just me, sola, alone. There may be no other…

Quiza…

by JOAN on JUNE 21, 2014 in UNCATEGORIZED

I listened to a colleague steal the company phone to call those who are back home. His friends, sisters, brother, wife perhaps. And before the phone was placed back on the hook, he listed the names of all the people deserving of his greetings. He’d almost forget one, then add one and one more before he put down the phone only to call another person. It felt like i needed to do MY duty and call someone…
Perhaps i should be the last one of my kind? perhapa thats all it is, a journey to a far away place we could never know. I have never been close to alot of people at the same time. I ususally get overwhelmed by the constant need to communicate to show that perhaps i havent forgotten about them…that i care. It seems the lack of this reaching out means the contrary. Perhaps.

I am estranged to many people, but the ones i do hold dearly are ever so dear. I think in my own understanding of connectivity is not in the communication but in the relationship. i feel like if i have a connection with someone, even if i live without a phone, that connection can never be lost. On the contrary, i’m estranged to family, friends yet they text every other second reaching out in vain. Unfortunately it overwhelms my already mess-loaded brain and makes me slowly withdraw from the complications of pretense and fake smiley faces. Too much perhaps?

I could barely explain what being close is, what missing someone is. Perhaps i’ve lost touch to cling on to feeling quite like that. Perhaps i have learnt to be lonesomely happy without the stresses of reaching out to people i care less to reach out to. Perhaps i have grown in a certain mystical magic way, in which i couldn’t be bother to feign affection to people who cling on to me because of everything else but the right real relationship. Perhaps it all means nothing, i lose nothing. Instead i work harder to establish a connection to the language i am learning, y quiza un dia, yo hablo muy bien. Quiza

beauty

by JOAN on DECEMBER 11, 2013 in UNCATEGORIZED

In my world i have so much i in through and deal with without anyone ever getting a hint. this happens to all of us. We wake up everyday at the same time and use the same routine. before we’ve known or realised we’re sitting in the same space, doing that job thats just another routine. the count down clock begins to the time we can leave the desk. In all it we forget of the beauty that makes us humans. the art- exquisite paintings of nothingness, music we are able to create.

My life seems so insignificant as i listened to the song playing. my heart warm, goosebumps covered my body and tears burning my eyelids. this song has been around forever. my sister had the album for over five years and we’d listened to the songs together.

Sometimes the answer is so obvious but means nothing until the time you are ready to see it. i tremble as every note get to my ear drum

Flying Termites – Alates

LOVE IS JUST THAT…an unpredictable piece of emotion that makes us all insane. Its completly crazy that today when i stand under the African sun and i wonder about my world when i have lost her that has been that – my world. I was like the alate, a flying termite ..a practice queen which spends its childhood practising to be that – a queen. I knew exactly what i want, and not sure at all weather i will find it or more importantly if it exists. Regardless of this very vage reality, i buzz around the anthill until the rain has fallen and the sun has comeout. Attracted to the light, i fly to it in search of a mate, my forever to start a colony with. Alates find each other and that becomes their forever. They shed their wings, mate and live happily watching their offspring grow and subsequently ventue out into the world too. If only it were that simple…instead its a far complex case… a case many claim to know and more fear. If only love had a page in wiki-how *Opens new tab and checks – LOL there is a how to love page* – if only it were as simple as that page…instead its a far complex case.

by JOAN on DECEMBER 11, 2013 in UNCATEGORIZED

Love is not the issue. When we have it its crazy-amazing-exhilirating-mind blowing-TakeMeLord kinda flying feeling. When love is present its just LOVE-ly. The problem arises when love is gone. When we wake up in the morning and they are not beside us anymore. We stop getting the calls and stop ourselves from calling them all the time. When we look up in the sky and all we see are the wings we’d shed after we flew out to find our mate, slowly floating down. It sounds sad, a cruel reality of love but that is what makes it worth while. After all, we are jewels, we are heated and molded and taught to face the stresses inflicted on us not to kill us, but to make us priceless and ready and fitting for the one who is meant for us.

It may be too hot to handle when you lose someone, but time heals, we cool down and we come out a better person – well most of us anyway 

So why write here? A blog i havent touched in months? maybe years? Well this is the last time i felt ‘me’. 2013 has been a challnging year for this earth dragon and usually when things are tough out in the world, we go home. I needed to get back to what i know which is to express in words the thoughts of my singing feet.

So here i am an Alate stripped of its wings and found its way home.

the raindance?

by JOAN on FEBRUARY 13, 2012 in UNCATEGORIZED

- mvura naya naya, tidye m’punga-

i danced on the dusty African ground, my shrieking voice cascading into the heavens joining my best friend Karen and the 5 other boys and girls with us. It could easily be called the rain dance, or a cry for help and mercy from the droughts we faced each year. Dust bursted from under my feet everytime my feet touched the ground in this rhythmatic skip

-rain fall fall, so we eat rice-

maybe there are such things as rain dances. it all started with one drop from the sky on a dry, thirsty, water seeking African soil, just at the cross over from the burning summer to the rainy season. Another drop landing on my forehead confirming that the rains were indeed about to gush out from the skies. Instantly we’d start the chant about-well- rice. i mean, shouldn’t the rain chant be about – i don’t know- blessings? Hell no! This is Africa- its all about the food:)

-mvura naya naya, tidye m’punga-

The skipping circle goes faster, the yelling louder and the raindrops start falling. A shout of exhilaration drown the noise of the raindrops attack on the African soil. We did it! Or not. Our celebrations stop as bodies scatter as we are all summoned to our respective homes. Being only 8, i realised i’d cursed myself to a week of indoor boredom. i’d slap my barefeet around the house seeking salvation. i picked up the phone.

“hi Karen, is there a song you know to stop the rain?”