Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Brand: Notes to Belonging


Dionne Brand, A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging

Too much has been made of origins. All origins are arbitrary.

||||

I try to tell him, you don't write about racism, you write about life.

||||

Why is all geography irony?
||||

In a new city there are ghosts of old cities. There are lies and re-creations. Everyone thinks that a city is full of hope, but it isn't. Sometimes it is the end of imagination.

||||
I stepped into the cool opening of the Door of No Return. My feet landed where my thoughts were. This is the trick of the door - to step through and be where you want to be. Our ancestors were bewildered because they had a sense of origins - some country, some village, some family where they belonged and from which they were rent. We, on the other hand, have no such immediate sense of belonging, only of drift.



No comments: