The woman who knocked at my door wore a pair of cheap white sunglasses. She asked for something to eat. Then another woman came, and she knocked at my door and said that she was from the Patriotic Alliance. She asked me who I was voting for could she come inside and speak to me. And I wondered to myself, these women, could they understand that I carried bitterness and sweetness in my bones, order and routine, guilt and shame, love and care? Could they understand that my heart was now sour from the effort of loving too little, too much? Could they understand that I liked to sit in the garden and drink tea by myself, completely unbothered, untethered, the only human connection a small child talking to the garden gnome, a mute elderly father who had dedicated his life to education, to study, to quiet unseen observation? Yes, my body and mind found meaning in that action. In the action of the preparation of the cup of tea, slowly drinking it, my fingertips absorbing the heat of the tea coming from the cup and the heat of the summer-ish day. What would they feel if I told them that another man had broken my heart not too long ago, that I cared about their situation, their wellbeing, their pain, the complicated nature of their lives.
Did they have an amazing skill? I ached to know that. Were they afraid of going to church like I was, were they afraid of rejection, of being labelled an outsider, of living on the fringes of society, or were they hurt in the church? Were they afraid of crowds, of shopping malls, of ignorance, and war? Were they as complex as I was, as unafraid of being vulnerable, as anxious, as forgetful of the world’s beauties? And could they write away their pain, could they write love poems, or political poems, or sad poems, could they recreate history or creation, did they believe in God, their own self-transformation, change in society, the reality that marginalised and disenfranchised women found themselves in, were they mentally ill?
Could they see that I kept a bird in a mental cage inside my head? Could they tell that I kept secrets, that I often shouted, got angry, and that I didn’t obey, that sometimes I refused to listen to my mother?
Could they tell that there were days and nights that I was trapped in an endless cycle, and could they tell that they were trapped in a cycle with no end in sight too? Could they tell that I struggled to find adventure in my life?
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The woman who used to breastfeed her child on my stoop doesn’t come anymore. She asked me for curtains and sheets. I didn’t think that request was strange. Their questions, burdens and pains used to exhaust me. I don’t remember their hands. The hands that took the bread I prepared for them or the answers that came quickly to my tongue. Did they know their arrival welcomed a sun, a moon, another planet into my life? I would take their warmth, their moonlight, the wildflowers found on their planet, the memory of the daylight and make poetry to my heart’s content at my desk in my writing room. That in their departure came a healing that sustained me, that it was a healing that offered me sustenance, that their departure also provided me with a sense of closure, emotional stability and security, relationship, friendship. That I no longer felt isolated. Sometimes I would speak to them. Sometimes I would just look at them, look past them and see a younger or older version of myself. A version of myself wearing a pair of cheap white sunglasses begging for something to eat, or I would become a mother breastfeeding her child, or I would become a woman saying, “Darling, do you know who you are going to vote for in the upcoming elections?”
