Lying between my folded arms
Held awkwardly against my body
As I strain to see over your curves.
I gently caress your strings
And let your music ring out into the silence.

My fingers are the instruments
As they pluck out the melody
Fret after fret,
Chord after chord.
You are just the vessel for my creative mind.
My tool.
My means to an end.
Without me you would be empty and silent,
Gathering dust,
Your strings rusting to uselessness.

Without me you are nothing.
Without you I am silenced.

I walked down the street this morning and it felt like something had changed. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. The same bits of rubbish still clung to the edges of the street, the buildings still wore the same shawl of dust, the neighbours still eyeballed me as I made my way down the street pretending to be oblivious to their stares. The world was the same, but I was different.

Suddenly I wasn't shuffling along, watching my feet and only looking up to glance at my reflection in tinted car windows. Suddenly I wasn't shying away from the gazes or blushing under the scrutinizing eyes. Instead, I was walking with my head held high, catching their glances and throwing them back, not self-consciously picking at my hair or clothes every time my reflection flashed past, but reveling in it. Damn, I looked good.

These were the same streets that I walked down yesterday, but then they had been unfamiliar, awkward, uncomfortable streets. They were someone else's. Today they belonged to me. I walked down them with a confidence that I didn't know I had.

I don't know where it came from. I don't think it was there when I woke up and tiptoed my way across my apartment, trying to avoid the landmines of clothing. Maybe it flew in with the breeze that is playing on the back of my neck or is stored within the sunlight that is warming my hair. Maybe it descended with the dust from the passing cars.

I don't know where it came from, but I like it. I am taking it as my own. It is mine. You can't take it from me now.

I remember when I first cried while listening to a song.

It wasn't the first time I had heard it, and I have listened to it many times since then without a tear coming to my eye. But, for some reason, on that day the words of “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls really spoke to me.

I remember connecting it to Terrence Pearson. He was my “boyfriend” at the time (though I doubt that he considered me his girlfriend - probably just saw me as a fling). Listening to the lyrics made my heart ache, and I immediately thought of him.

I had heard love songs before, but none of them spoke to me like this one did. It was romantic and heart-wrenching simultaneously, and I still cannot hear it without thinking to myself: “Now that's love for you!” But I am not so sure that the song linked well with Terrence.

I didn't love him. My feelings for him didn't even come close to love. But for that moment, while listening to that song – focussing on the cello-and-violin instrumental and the simple, yet slightly unconventional lyrics – I felt that I should feel that way. It didn't need to be for Terrence, and it didn't need to be right then, but I knew that this was love.

It was then that I found myself sifting through my sister's CD rack, trying to find Dizzy Up The Girl. I knew that, somewhere in between Madonna, Matchbox 20 and Rodriguez, I had seen the Goo Goo Dolls. I took it on myself to sift through my sister's collection on a regular basis, and though I had seen the album before, it had never appealed to me, bringing up as it did images of drugs and raves. But, now that I had found a song on the CD that I enjoyed, I felt that it was time to give it a try.

I played the first song, “Dizzy”, and almost gave up on my efforts. It was angry and loud and not at all what I wanted to hear. I turned to the next song, and found myself listening to “Slide”, and my mood cheered slightly. I went through the entire album, one song at a time, and each one brought out a different emotion. As I listened, I went from feeling angry, to lonely, to sad, to happy. I had never listened to music that made me feel so many emotions in such a short period of time.

My sister was far away at Rhodes, so I took the CD from her collection and began keeping it in my room. When I started University, I brought it with me to Grahamstown along with my own personal CD collection. I didn't segregate them. It had become my own, regardless of what my sister said when she found out that I had taken it.

Over the years, I found more music that spoke to me, and the Goo Goo Dolls began to fade into the background. I no longer listen to Dizzy Up The Girl as much as I used to. But it sits amongst my collection, and whenever I begin to feel lonely or sad, and occasionally when I begin to feel happy, I bring it out and play a song or two. And each time I hear “Iris”, I am reminded of the first time I cried when listening to a song.

The Years of Rice and Salt. The sound of it conjures up images of cheap Chinese restaurants – restaurants that try to be authentic, but are filled with red paper lanterns hanging from the roofs, young women speaking in Chinese accents before running off to talk to their Afrikaans boyfriends and food dripping with oil.

I have never been to Asia, so my introduction to eastern culture was through Chinese, Indian and Thai restaurants that horde all the kitsch faux-authentic items onto every surface. Even though I knew that this was not the real Asia, the bold colours and the fragrant spices still enticed me. I wanted to know more! And so I started reading.

I know little about reincarnation, and little about religion. The novels that I have read over the years have provided me with a sense of Asian culture, but not with the details. Kim Stanley Robinson provides that same sense of culture, but mixes it with a web of knowledge. The Years of Rice and Salt is a melting pot of knowledge about eastern religions.

The first book of the novel begins in about 1405 A.D. after most of Europe has been wiped out by the Black Plague. The reader is introduced to six characters, most of Asian decent, and the nine books that follow tell the tales of their reincarnation into different religions and different parts of the world. The reader first meets Kyu, for example, as an African slave aboard a Chinese ship and follows his story as he is reincarnated as Kya, a tiger who decides to help a lost man or Katima, a Sultana who attempts to change the Islamic religion to be more accepting of women.

I found myself relating to the characters in a number of ways because of this constant changing. With each philosophical question that was asked, I found myself questioning my culture and my history. Each time that details of religion were mentioned, I found myself looking at my own religion, and comparing it to that of the characters.

I would often get so involved in the book, that I would forget where I was until some sound or movement brought me out of the fantasy world and back to reality. I could imagine that I lived through those different times in history, that I had those experiences, that perhaps I, myself, was a reincarnated spirit. Maybe that is why, when I go to Chinese, Indian and Thai restaurants, I scorn the decorations that adorn the walls, ceilings and tables. Perhaps it is because I have known the real Asia, far back in my history, and appreciate its true beauty rather than the falsity that these restaurants provide.

Straight-backed, I sit in silence
but for the R3.30 in five cent pieces
rattling in my ashtray
and the wind whistling through the crack in my window.
My hands taut on the steering wheel
as I swerve from pothole, sheep, pothole, warthog, pedestrian, pothole.

I keep my eyes fixed on the road
but my mind drifts to prayers said untruthfully,
lies told unwillingly,
duties shirked unashamedly,
in between snippets of songs playing in my head
that I refrain from singing for her sake.

Occasionally I look at her –
eyes closed and peaceful –
and wonder what is happening in her head.
But then I hit a pothole
and am jerked from my reverie
to concentrate again on pothole, goat, pothole, pedestrian, pothole.

What could we learn from these four walls
If we just listened to what they know?


Would they tell of the horrors that they had witnessed –
the anger, the sorrow, the pain?
Would they shudder to recall the hatred,
the violence and the murder
that caused their essence to be tainted?
Would they weep as they spoke of stains and peeling paint
or of petty arguments over electricity?
Arguments that tore relationships apart.


Or would they smile to remember
the secrets, gossip and games of Never Have I Ever shared over dinner parties;
the posters that clothed them and filled them with beauty and colour;
the loud laughter and music
reverberating through the plaster and cement
to become a part of them?


The walls are a part of every family that resides within them -
the black sheep; the forgotten daughter
who sees all but is never acknowledged.
They willingly open themselves to pain and heartbreak, joy and friendship.
They alone have seen how the world has truly changed,
without ever going anywhere.

The phone rings at the other end of the house and I run to pick it up, just in time to see my

mother answer it. Even though I wasn't able to get there first, I sit around in the kitchen, waiting for her to finish so that I can ask her what it was about. It's not that I want to know. It's that I need to. I

need to know everything – I am four and a half, after all. I should know everything already!

“She won't be able to come,” Mom says, watching me out of the corner of her eye. “Lara's sick.” Now I know that the call is about me, and I become more desperate. Who is it? Where are they going? Why can

't I come? I run up to Mom and start tugging on her sleeve, wanting to know what I am missing out on. She hangs up the phone, and starts walking away.

“Who was it?” I ask, almost in hysterics. She is doing it to me on purpose, keeping me in suspense.

“That was Jeffrey's mom. You remember Jeffrey, don't you?”

I've been following Mom around the kitchen, but I freeze in my tracks when I hear the name. I haven't heard it in a long time.

Jeffrey and I used used to go to playschool together. We even used to live up the road from each other. We would play all the time and, besides Judy, he was my best friend. He was two years older than me and had started primary school the year before. My family had moved at the same time, so I never saw him any more. I missed him. I still wore the bracelet that he gave me, even though it didn't go with any of my clothes. It was bright blue plastic, and was made up of little hearts. Every time I looked at it, I remembered the day he gave it to me. We were at his house, and h

is brother walked in on us, and started mocking us, saying that we should kiss. We both looked away shyly, embarrassed at the thought.

“Please Mom! Please!” Not only would I get to see Jeffrey again, but we would be going up Table Mountain. I ha

ven't been before. It's his birthday party, and he's taking some friends up in the cable car for a picnic.

“I'm not sick,” I choke out, trying to hold back a sneeze. “I'm all better, I promise!” I can't hold the sneeze back any longer. I let it out, and it ruins everything.

“You're not goin

g,” Mom says, “and that's final.”

I try everything to get Mom to let me go. I try throwing tantrums, hoping that she will just want to get me out of the house. I try begging, hoping that she will give in to my puppy-dog eyes. But to no avail. Th

e day of the party arrives, and I am still not allowed to go. Up until this point, I have been hoping that Mom will change her mind and let me go. When it doesn't happen, I resolve that I will hate her forever. By dinnertime, I have discovered that hating takes a lot of energy, and I give up.

It snowed on Table Mountain that year. Though there have been a couple of occasions since then where the mountain has been dusted with snow, it has never been as glorious as it was that year. My family

m

oved again

a couple of months later. We didn't move far, but it was still further away from where Jeffrey was

. I never saw him again, and a couple of years later Mom heard that his family had left Cape Town and moved to the Transvaal.

At the back of my bathroom cupboard in my parents' house, I keep a little box. It is filled with odds and ends

from my childhood. Right on top of everything else lies a bracelet. It is bright blue plastic and is made up of little hearts.

A light wind blows and the scent of jasmine wafts into my room. I close my eyes and breathe it in, and for a moment I am transported away from my computer screen, away from Grahamstown, to the other side of the world.

I am in a secret garden, surrounded by the white blossoms. They sit like diamonds on branches of jade and emerald, yet smell like the most exquisite perfume. The scent is calming and I walk amongst the shrubs, brushing them with my fingertips and taking in the scent as though it is oxygen.

I gently pluck one strand of flowers and place it carefully behind one ear so as not to compress the delicate blossoms with the weight of my hair. I look down and find myself in a beautiful white silk dress. I twirl around in it, feeling glorious and beautiful and freed by the scent of the flowers. I cannot contain the laughter that bubbles up through my body. It flows out from me, into the garden, joining in with the sound of a river trickling past, almost unnoticed.

I am one with nature, unburdened by the problems of the real world. This, I think to myself, is my reality. The work that I have left behind in my room, the problems and the worries, are all in my mind. They are unnecessary nightmares, and they fade away one at a time with each breath that I take.

I lie down in the grass that is at my feet and close my eyes, breathing deeply and enjoying the textures around me. I softly run my hand through the soft grass and allow my fingers to lightly touch the silk of my dress. Each touch feels wonderfully fresh and new. I close my eyes and allow my senses to take over. The textures, the sounds and the scents are so calming that I begin to fall into a light sleep.

There is a knock on the front door, and I open my eyes. The scent has faded and I find myself back at my computer. I try to shut it all out again and force myself back into the garden, but the image is gone. I go to answer the door, but the person has left. I sit back at my desk for a while, mesmerised by the daydream. Eventually I get up and walk into the courtyard.

I find the jasmine shrub and sit on the ground beside it, hoping that being close to it might bring the image back. I breathe in the scent, and close my eyes, waiting to be taken away. It doesn't work. The pure scent is mingled with those of clay and wet paint. I try to breathe in deeper, and choke on the dusty air. I run my hand across the ground before me, and my finger is cut by a stray piece of broken glass.

I give up, opening my eyes again and finding myself sitting on dirty bricks with my neighbours watching me strangely. I get up awkwardly and wave at them, giving an embarrassed smile. When they have retreated into their houses, I pick a strand of the flowers and bring it back into the house with me.

I sit back down at my desk, with the flowers in a vase beside me. I resign myself to the nightmare of day-to-day life. Yet, though I know that I was never standing in a garden in a beautiful dress, surrounded by jasmine and water, I still feel as though a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I feel calmer and more ready for the day.

I glance once more at the jasmine, and begin to write.