Wednesday, March 27, 2013

The stillness of the body

The following entry is an excerpt from an email sent to my mum only a short time ago:

Hi mum, it is 1pm here, so I'm guessing it must be 9.30pm there... Or something like that. Zanzibar has a gentle, lulling rhythm. It has rained every morning, and on most days this has given way to deep blue skies over tranquil, turquoise shallows. Today is a grey and gradual emptiness, stretching white sand into coral green before dissolving back into the paper white lines of surf that can't be heard. I cannot see the reef, but I can see where it must be. The ocean breaks so far out, and all between here and there is sand so soft it is like cake between your toes. Women wrapped in brilliant colour find their way between the jagged stones with bundles of seaweed born upon their heads. Since our arrival, we have cooked fish over hot coals by moonlight on the beach. We have heard the noontime call to prayer while waist deep in an African sea. We have drunk our coffee while lightning shoots like ripples creasing cross the sky.


In short, it is beautiful here. Yesterday we drove to Stone Town (about 45 minutes away). It is a bit of a tourist Mecca, though we are lucky enough to be here out of season. The Zanzibar coffee house would make the ideal setting for reading Bolano and Rimbaud (I came good on one of these), and the labyrinthine streets remind me of Barcelona. The Barrie Gothic, only tropical. And African. And very, very poor... And the art is in the street and no sign of Picasso or Goya. And the old men and the veils... and the monkey huddled in the Rasta's crooked arm. 

No... I guess it is not so much like Barcelona. Only a labyrinth of shops and art and smells like spices cooking and cafes. "You turn your head away. Oh the new love! You turn your head back. Oh the new love!" And I remember Hemingway's utterance about blunting the pencil while wondering the world, so that new illuminations may be written once back in the chambers of familiarity and the mundane. But this place inspires and seduces, and it is easy to imagine never having lived anywhere else and to never leave again. And still my heart peers anxiously to a world remembered, made accessible through the burdened blessings of technology.

The tide is coming in. It rises like blood or milk flowing into the heart. Tiny boats now bobbing gently, that until an hour ago sat lifeless on awkward pillars of stone. Flies are dancing on my food. Without meaning to do so, I have used this email as a rehearsal for a blog entry. Sorry for that. But I am comfortable, well fed and well rested. And I am in a beautiful part of the world.

I hope that you are well. I love you all.

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