I am from Africa.

Quote and song for the day: 

The Sound Of Silence
(Paul Simon, 1964)

Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.

Africa

A while ago, I attended a writing workshop presented by Susan Conley. She was still living in Beijing with her family, and finishing her book: The Foremost Good Fortune. Her book has been selected by the Oprah Magazine Book Club for their February reading room.

I am of course very happy for her, as well as being jealous as hell! It is a strange dichotomy of emotion; on the one hand cheering a writer on and on the other, gnashing your teeth and vowing to spend more time working on that WiP.

So, jealousy is actually a good thing … right?

Well, during that workshop, we had two minutes to write about where we came from. This is what I wrote:

I am from …

I am from Africa.  I am from snow-capped mountains and empty grassy plains, impenetrable jungles and barren deserts.  I am from the dusty markets where hollow-eyed children beg with outstretched hands, pleading not to go hungry for another day.  I am from the City of Gold, where my designer ball gowns go unnoticed in an ocean of sameness.  I am the Zambezi River, wild, savage, screaming with fury and destroying everything in my path.  I am Lake Tanganyika, calm, placid and member of the PTA.  I am the 2 faces of Africa.

Africa

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