I never knew my father; his shadowy presence prowled around the edges of my consciousness. Once or twice, we met. Central to the plot of my own existence, lies the mythology of my father’s life. Why would I want to write? Would I have this connection to Africa if I hadn’t been carried away by his books? On a lazy L A Sunday, I would be lost on the shores of Lake Nyasa, plunged in the hot white sands of the Kalahari or enclosed, on a dark, clear night, in the circle of a bushman fire. My imagination was fed by the fierce pull of Africa. All the possibilities imagined in the mysterious, pulsating places of this continent offered obscurity to a stranger. Remember, this was long before the personal computer, the Internet, the mobile phone, satellites… People in Africa could and did vanish, resurfacing later in another place, as someone other.
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| Lake Nyasa |
This is to those of you, confined in the cold, impenetrable gloom of the Northern winter as you wait for the spring. I’ve been there, in the soundless chill just after dawn; my footsteps silent in new snow, seeking the comfort and the warmth of some cozy shelter. January and February creep along in an agony of cold, grey vagueness; with the enjoyments of the holiday season over, spring seems so very far away… but it is coming and our summer is really a promise to you of its eminent arrival.
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| The Serengeti Plain - Tanzania |
How can I convey the magnificence of the light, the warmth, the very huge-ness of the sky overhead? The smell of the summer rain long before it falls; the steam rising from the savannah as it passes. Then, as the earth collectively breathes a sigh of relief for the release from the dryness and dust, thousands of tiny living creatures explode into sound. And the lungs of the world breathe in and out…
Images today courtesy of Wikipedia
