Everything a place gave to me — a soundtrack

I stepped into a large pool of I don’t know and I didn’t even know it. I stood right in the center of it, of everything I was about to be familiar with, as if I could peak into what was to come but feel none of it. Imagine feeling completely okay with all of that information you were about to soak in, staring right at you; while you got off the flight and searched eagerly for your booked vehicle, while you stared out of the window of that same vehicle taking in first impressions of what it was like outside, all the while being nervous and therefore prepared, for the absolute worst. You sense the fear around you, mostly created by — you. You feel it clench your calm. Slowly you begin releasing the tension with the occasional deep breath. A gloomy weather that overcasts this new city obfuscates you further. Before you get comfortable moving towards, you have arrived at the gate of your next step. That first climb to your going to be home. Your first encounter with a possible friend but a definite flatmate awaits. Will these next 6 months be my everything?

They gave me Masego. I sat on a terrace of the home that gave me my everything and while the sun was setting on us(who?) on a pace so rapid it made the unsettling-ness go away instead making room for a brief infinity to be felt under that perfectly angled sun. In the midst of another such day a darling lady, named after the goddess that is she, played us all, a tune that went something like “…I know you see it girl, this ain’t nanananan good ..something…soul, everywhere this little girl goes, she pick up another obstacle”.

Now you tell me if you don’t relate to this goddamn line. In hindsight it feels so appropriate in so many contexts but that day on the roof with perfect angles of the evening sun? I felt like fate had brought this darling lady into my life just for that exact moment when she would play me that song which felt like the only artistic representation of everything my life had been. “Everywhere this little girl goes, she pick up another obstacle”. Now if I look back, I am pretty sure she said she relates to this song, first, and that I only reminded her of it because at some point in the song it said, “…I thought she was an Indian! nananan”, which of course was meant for the Navajo Indian(the americans referred to as native american for god knows who) which I later learned was also the name of the song — Navajo. But I made it entirely about myself, as I do so often…(little narcissist). Despite it though this person who played us this song is most special in that she made me feel special despite all of me. She made my days of sunshine far sunnier just because she accepted my bubbly, sometimes pretentious, always loud, five foot three and 65 kilos of powerful bodied existence just the way I was. But enough about this mystery lady, this piece, letter if you will, started out as an expose of a gift a place gave to me, in part being Masego, the artist who gave my whole time there a soundtrack. A soundtrack for my adventure that was lived mostly internally.

Masego, masego. There was Tash Sultana too. She represented my first months of pure immersion. She told me about my age. She taught me about what it feels to participate in contemporary artistic narratives rather than dwell on the sentiments and thoughts and battles of a life lived decades ago whose music still felt more relatable. No bother that this transaction was (is) one-sided. Perhaps some of us who complain our way out of ill-representation, don’t want to make an effort to shape our present narrative. So many people my age would much rather criticise it passively and then turn to a time they understood, for music deemed timeless by a magazine here a nostalgic-over-feeling elder there, as though our times lacked the fight and vigour of the years prior.

They don’t.

I feel like the consumers of art hold the power to inculcate the current fabric of fears and fights just as much as the artists responsible; whether it is music, film, graphic art, dance. What we indulge in for solace ultimately depends on how willing we are to find something that represents us rather than adjust ourselves to be represented by something that is already out there. If we project what we are feeling outward won’t we find someone or something or inspire someone to build on those feelings and create? I found Tash this way and then fate gave me Masego. When I heard Tash’s 11 minute California Roots concert I felt understood. I felt a sigh of relief that there is a they who must be feeling some of what I feel. Even though nothing gave me relief up until that point, I can and must, expect my present to represent me. The present is wholly up for grabs.

You have control. You must write. You must expect. You must let it out. You must root for voices of the present. You must fight to be and create leaders that harmonize with you when you disrupt. People who represent us. We can’t rely on the martyrs from our freedom struggles back when or the women who fought for an opportunity to work. Our contexts change everyday and we must grow to become the fighter rather than anchor onto those battles which have been won. Our sorrows cannot come from how things once were but about what they still aren’t. It is true that what we fight today might not entirely be our creation but it will be fought by us and by those to come. What we do today to fix, to prevent, to change is our narrative.

But I live mine with a nice-ass soundtrack.