I broke routine this morning and put aside my keyboard.  I spent time reading Alice Walker’s Now is the Time to Open Your Heart.

Perhaps November is not the time for such readings – of a woman on a spiritual journey, on an adventure quest, on a search for self.  It is a little disconcerting, for I am such a woman.  I have been on this long and rocky road for many a day, searching for my own lost self.

I left my motherland many years ago, not of my own accord.  I followed my mother as she left her house and home.  We left our village.  We left our country and countrymen.  We left the aunties and grandmothers.  We left the cousins.  We crossed oceans and continents to Gold Mountain to join my father and others like him in search of THE DREAM.

Here I am many years later, still in Gold Mountain, still searching for THE DREAM.  I am tap, tapping on the keyboard.  I wonder if anyone can hear my taps.  Is it like Morse Code to them?  Can they decipher my words?

 November is a harsh month.  The cold grey of the sky sends shivers through my marrow. I am not fooled by its watery cool sunlight.  I am wary, on guard against all possibles.  I am warmed by the aromas of soup simmering on the stove.  That is what you do on grey November days.  You bring the warmth of summer and autumn into your house and heart however you can.  All the colours of the garden- the gold of squash, the red of tomatoes and beets, the green of kale – are simmering in the pot.