“The tree stands.
Whatsoever stands has strength.
Once we stand we learn to move and stand still.
The journey, our story, continues when standing leads to walking.
Trees stand.”
~ Alida Gersie and Nancy King (1990)
**Coming soon to a sunny day in a park near you: a creative workshop on identity, passage and belonging!
*If you are in the Porto area and interested in participating, please contact me: ddmatthee@gmail.com
“Language is the house with lamplight in its windows,
visible across fields. Approaching, you can hear
music; closer, smell
soup, bay leaves, bread – a meal for anyone
who has only his tongue left.
It’s a country; home; family;
abandoned; burned down; whole lines dead, unmarried.
For those who can’t read their way in the streets,
or in the gestures and faces of strangers,
language is the house to run to;
in wild nights, chased by dogs and other sounds,
when you’ve been lost a long time,
when you have no other place.”
~ Anne Michaels
Learning the language I moved (in)to, I hold it to my ear like a shell,
hearing waving white noise and (be)longing;
gradually letting it soften and salt my tongue.
My (own) language is an ocean away; I keep walking its shore in my dreams.
*How do you place yourself in a foreign language? ~RSVP
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