I stood gazing, trying to tattoo it on my would-be memories when the time would come to remember it. I wanted to paste it on my soul, imprint my being with its essence. I had to dip myself and saturate in the trueness of what my eyes were seeing. What my aura perceived. 

I had come a long way, though not for the first time. I felt fortunate that I had the incredible chance to see the Thing. It was serendipity. (My mind was scrambling around for the loftiest vocabulary she had ever heard, even if not used, to grasp how awe inspiring this moment was) 

I took a step forward and felt a self-conscious little whisper-giggle escape me, like when you meet your idol and they say your name. I sighed a little too loudly and drew stares, eyes passing behind me with the too silent walk of a person trying to figure out if they should run from you. But I didn’t think I should care. I didn’t think. I wasn’t capable of thinking. I was a captive in the nearness of It, snatching shallow breaths, too afraid to disturb this eureka.

 

A part of me (a few fingers in one of my palms, really) uncurled to reach to my bag for my camera and then folded right back in to my fist, a hexagonal mound now dewy with sweat. The fingers then stretched out paper-flat and I folded my elbow to dry the now damp palms on my kitenge skirt (thank you batik makers of Nigeria for creating thick fabric that could have killed me in the Sahel but is saving me from my pink slimy palms)

I turned my feet, eyes firmly fixed on the Thing and gliding sensuously over it. Up and down, and up and down. It should have felt the intensity of my glare, at once greedily lapping up its beauty and gently caressing its delicate spaces.

I had to get closer.

I found an entrance, to my right, to an enclosure protecting It. A gentle hiss of a passenger train sounded far away and I was transported with the Object of my mania to the edge of the river Rûvingacî where women ululated four times when I was born. We touched our tips to the muddy water and were whisked away to the hills of Addis and there we sat, choking in the density of history. The smog lifted us to the hyacinths of Kisumu on who we floated in pregnant bliss, wrapping lake snakes around our wrists and wringing our hands bliss.

A raucous havoc of collective laughter from little boys slapping each other with their baby sister’s diapers brought me back…Standing here bleeding from this shattering vision of virtue, too pure to touch.

“Can I help you?” I heard a voice say. I couldn’t find my words. I shook my head no and then yes and then the whisper-giggle tore out of me before I could worry about embarrassing myself.

“See something you like?” I stiffened in surprise, at the brazen inquiry. I found my voice, at least one word.

“Yes.”

Something moved behind me but I couldn’t turn and look. I instead put one foot in front of the other and got closer, as close as I could before my knees began to give in from overwhelming desire.

“It’s alright. Closer is fine.” The voice said. Closer I went.

“You want to venture a touch?”

“I want to venture a touch,” I wanted to say.

My friend moved again behind me anxious feet tapping the floor. “I think we should go” I heard her say.

I closed my eyes and the once-balmy-now-drier-palm smoothed over the Thing and my body began to lift.  I felt the years of searching for who I was, the wails of a lost people, the allure of the authentic, the pride of creating and the newness of being wash over me. The lines on this mystical Thing, like tarot cards telling my past and foretelling my future. The shapes and the color, a picture of the plains my father grazed his father’s cows on. The Thing was who we were. Who we were meant to be, where we are going and where we came from. I opened my eyes and sighed.

“There are different colors and designs if you’d like to see them” the voice said. I said I would and the attendant with the voice at the shop showed me skirts, shawls and socks just like the sweater that had called to me. The attendant told me that the garments had been in Paris and Senegal the previous week, at a fashion showcase. She said that the shapes were modeled on Xhosa geometric art and that they were designed based on Xhosa culture and way of dressing. I had never wanted to be Xhosa so much, not since Mazwai, Madikizela, Makeba and Mandela happened to me. These garments were made with me in mind. With Xhosas in mind. With culture in mind, us in mind. The consciousness that drives the designer is labored with the desires of a continent wanting to regain itself.

I sighed again, heavier this time and found a few more words.

“You are gorgeous,” I said to the sweater, to my grandfather’s cows, to river Ruvingaci, to Kisumu, to me and to my people.

I quickly sank in to hyperbole, now that I had found my words and declared out loud for all of Johannesburg to hear, ”This is why I travel!”

My friend shot me an awkward glance, smarting from my melodramatic response to a piece of clothing hang on a mannequin. Only it wasn’t a piece of clothing.

It was Maxhosa by Laduma.

Wahanga Gakere