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.

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

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Why is all geography irony?

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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.

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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.