In honor of Election Day in America being exactly ONE week away, I’m sharing a little something special from my time abroad.
SO. Here’s the scene:
Continue reading “Make America Mariachi Again: Revisiting my favorite prank of 2019”Stories of travel, of tribulation, and of learning to tell the difference.
In honor of Election Day in America being exactly ONE week away, I’m sharing a little something special from my time abroad.
SO. Here’s the scene:
Continue reading “Make America Mariachi Again: Revisiting my favorite prank of 2019”And anybody who knows Justice knows what I’m talking about.
Justice Shamba is one of my favorite people that I encounter during my frequent outings in the town of Stellenbosch, where I live. Earlier this year, I used to see him nearly every morning after class at my favorite local yoga studio on Andringa Street. He worked next door, serving up Hazz coffee behind a neighboring retail shop window.
Continue reading “Justice ‘Restored’ in Stellenbosch”When I woke this morning, I heard you fighting across the street with Cleopatra in the vacant lot that you both regularly inhabit.
A Wednesday morning turf war.
We started calling her Cleopatra when we moved in last year.
Every night I would hear her from the vacant lot, screaming the most pearl-clutching Afrikaans profanities at phantom companions.
I would count the number of times she would shriek “Jou ma se….####!” until I could finally fall asleep.
On the off-ramp to Stellenbosch, men stand on the median divider, selling arm-fulls of dramatic green stalks capped with delicate white trumpets, all bundled together with twine.
Continue reading “Protea Season”On Sunday, May 31st, my favorite newspaper, The New York Times, published a list of nearly 100,000 names of the victims of COVID-19 in the United States. On its front cover were the names of 1,000 victims, along with their ages, locations, and a brief line from their obituaries.
I was struck by the array. Some of the lines read like poetry, some made me laugh aloud, and some made my heart ache in their brevity. I imagined each of the people behind these names, and I winced painfully at the thought of many of them dying alone, without their families surrounding them. This tribute from the Times affords them even the slightest recognition of a life lived and now concluded, with dignity.
Continue reading “To the Lost: A bricolage poetry series”