When I’m sad I dream of home. Of lying on a dusty ground under a blue sky. And if I lie there long enough, the world forgets. So, when I turn on my side to face the climbing trunk of the Acacia tree, the sand wraps its arms around me and swallows me into the ground – where my heart beats and my soul pulses.
It burns. Searing hurt – the kind that only love knows. Notes of home dance on the wind, resting on my skin in the glow of an orange sky only to be snatched away by the sting of right now. My heart opens, bleeding. If only…
Memories are folded into mountains. Preserved and protected – the hope, the hurt, the happiness absorbed into rock and tree, blighted only by the elements. Bit by bit wind and rain chisel away at time, at certainty – it blows from the heights, it runs through gorges and into crevices. Shifting. Moving. But never lost. Only hidden. Reabsorbed. Waiting to come alive. Awoken at the breath of the beholder – an unspoken tear. No matter how long it takes.
Author & Storyteller: Andrea Zanin
Andrea is a writer, wife, mother and dreamer; also the author of this website. She moved to London in 2006 to earn £s, travel, see bands and buy 24-up Dr Martens—which she did, and then ended up staying. Andrea lives in North London with her husband (also a Saffa) and five children. She loves this grand old city but misses her home and wishes her children could say “lekker” (like a South African) and knew what a “khoki” is.
