The lovers who stole my lonely

"Mommy the paper's here" that was me every Sunday morning when I saw the worse for wear company vehicle finally make its way to our house to deliver the South African Sunday Times. I lived for the Sunday lifestyle magazine, frantically turning the pages to the Blondie cartoon strip by Chic Young, Dean Young and John Marshall. Once I found Blondie I walked around the house looking for whichever parent wasn’t too busy to read to me. I was 2 years old and I couldn’t read but those little yellow people fascinated me. I started pre-school in that year and I’d take my magazines, worn and dog-eared from me staring at the pictures and touching Blondie and Dagwood, to school so my teacher could read it to me again.


Like all good stories, that was the beginning of my relationship with words. I’m a journalist and I always tell the story of how I became a journalist as though it were by pure chance. I matriculated in 2005 and I was still delusional enough to think I could be a lawyer – my skin’s not tough enough, I moisturize too much. In 2006 I took a gap year to find my purpose and I stumbled on journalism. That’s how I tell the story but the evidence of me being born to be a journalist was always there.

When I was in Grade 1, my mother left us and left my dad knee-deep in raising 3 girls. My dad loved us but he couldn’t relate to us so that messed me up. I was the poster child of insecurity, like my own secret albatross it hung around my neck and hid in the crinkles of my smile. In Grade 1 my teacher was Mrs Penny Boden. She was friends with my mother because we were neighbours at the time so when mom left I turned to her hard, I don’t think she knows that. Every time she gave me a gold star for acing a spelling test I took that and hid it in my heart, I translated it into still being loveable. She gave me confidence and her belief in me fostered my non-compromising attitude towards perfect spelling. She ruined me for everyone.

In Grade 6 I was taught by Mrs Jenny Barbour, she had a shock of dirty blond curls on her head and was always humming a tune, every class in the school looked forward to being taught by the eccentric headmaster’s wife whose speech was constantly peppered with “old English sayings”. Mrs Barbour nurtured my writing of horrible poetry, she entered me into local and international writing competitions, even though I never won anything she believed my talent was enough to share with strangers. She lent colour to my writing. She gave it weight.

When I got to High School, all short natural hair, small inquisitive eyes and shy unassuming amazing I wasn’t ashamed of my love of words, they served as a refuge when fickle friends weren’t there, they stayed constant when in grade 7 my skirt started to blush and my school tunic became tighter around my chest. Towards the end of Grade 10 an American teacher walked into my life, he was heavy on that Texas swagger. Mr Dixon Barry changed my entire life. He did things with Ian McEwan’s Atonement that I never thought the English language was capable of. He pushed my mind; he asked me questions that I fought to answer long after class was over. I woke up at night because I finally had answers. They always came in a rush and it was always more than one answer with Mr Barry. When he passed on I felt like my writing would always be hollow, echoing with the memory of a man who gave my love of words wings.

By the time I got to the Durban University of Technology and met the breathtakingly beautiful Ayesha Mall I was damaged goods. All these teachers who had loved me with words, kissed my mind till my lips bled they left me for her. She came into my life when I understood what it was to hide behind words. I was a student number and submitted assignments. Ayesha was always strict with me, if I submitted work even an hour late she would deduct marks. She listened patiently, sympathetically to how my memory stick had been formatted or how the printer refused to work, then she’d stretch out her arm and accept my assignment but still keep 5% for herself. I couldn’t be frustrated with her, she used silence the way Mrs Barbour used “old English sayings” I wanted to be perfect for her. I wanted her to sit down to mark assignments, tie her curly dark hair in an untidy ponytail, curl her feet under her, perch her glasses on her nose and walk away remembering my work. I don’t know if she did but I know that her style of teaching made me want to better for me, better for us, in my mind we were a team her and I, relentless on our path to making me the best writer I could be. When I told her I got an internship at Soul Magazine, she gave me a reaction only she could “Oh, well done Nono, work hard and enjoy it. Don’t forget to write to us” knowing her taught me that that was the equivalent of her jumping up and down like I did when I realized she had successfully protected my commas and full stops to finally pass me on to someone else who’d get a chance to add to the page with still too many blank places.

Every time I write these are the four people who split me open. They force-fed me words until I swallowed them willingly. My heart bleeds onto a page everytime I write, I love them more than I love myself sometimes, because they loved me before I could stare at the mirror, look into the insecurity that never quite moved out of the eyes that stared back and loved her anyway. They loved me first.


I love her now