One day I was coming home from school, all of ten-and-a-half little me. Then a lone leaf just came dancing its way down from a tree and landed on my shoulder. I did not think anything strange like- this leaf has been sent! But I do clearly remember thinking- A leaf! In a way I had never thought of any other leaf falling on my shoulder.
I also recalled having been told that if a leaf fell on your shoulders it means you'll receive a letter. I never gave it a second thought though. I was too young to give second thought to anything. My biggest think in my little world at that very moment was putting my school bag down and getting to play bladder and kati with the rest of the neighborhood kids till sunset. So I get home and my mother says to me- You received a letter! Blow me!
For a split second my child's mind exploded into a cosmos with ethereal possibilities, and just as quickly surrendered the awesomeness of that moment; a split-second moment filled with entertaining notions of life's fleeting surrealism that has words like superstition and dejavu coined out of it. Instead I took in the more tangible, graspable awesomeness of the moment - receiving the first letter ever in my little life.
I stared at it, wide-eyed. White envelope with blue and red stripes around the edges, my name on it, dad's office address and a real stamp on it. Written by someone, to me, mailed and delivered. Wow. If I could package that moment in my childhood, its worth could very well be in the same line with the wonder of Livingstone's first gaze upon Mosi-oa-Tunya - which he passed off as the "discovery of Victoria Falls", but that's a beef for tomorrow.
I opened it. It was from my big sister who'd gone off to boarding school that year. I don't even remember the content - maybe about how she must place her morning slice of bread on the desert plate and never on the big plate or a prefect will see her grievous crockery violations with the compound eyes at the back of their prefect-heads and book her -50; maybe about omnipresent Sr. Gemma who could see noisemakers in a classroom and late arrivals at assembly and sun-baskers in the yard all at the exact same time; maybe about the bell that rang at 5:30am for you wake up and screw your head on and it rang again at 9:30pm for you to screw your head off and put it to bed...
I don't recall the content, but I never forgot the receiving of that letter. And the lone leaf that foreran its arrival.
I also recalled having been told that if a leaf fell on your shoulders it means you'll receive a letter. I never gave it a second thought though. I was too young to give second thought to anything. My biggest think in my little world at that very moment was putting my school bag down and getting to play bladder and kati with the rest of the neighborhood kids till sunset. So I get home and my mother says to me- You received a letter! Blow me!
For a split second my child's mind exploded into a cosmos with ethereal possibilities, and just as quickly surrendered the awesomeness of that moment; a split-second moment filled with entertaining notions of life's fleeting surrealism that has words like superstition and dejavu coined out of it. Instead I took in the more tangible, graspable awesomeness of the moment - receiving the first letter ever in my little life.
I stared at it, wide-eyed. White envelope with blue and red stripes around the edges, my name on it, dad's office address and a real stamp on it. Written by someone, to me, mailed and delivered. Wow. If I could package that moment in my childhood, its worth could very well be in the same line with the wonder of Livingstone's first gaze upon Mosi-oa-Tunya - which he passed off as the "discovery of Victoria Falls", but that's a beef for tomorrow.
I opened it. It was from my big sister who'd gone off to boarding school that year. I don't even remember the content - maybe about how she must place her morning slice of bread on the desert plate and never on the big plate or a prefect will see her grievous crockery violations with the compound eyes at the back of their prefect-heads and book her -50; maybe about omnipresent Sr. Gemma who could see noisemakers in a classroom and late arrivals at assembly and sun-baskers in the yard all at the exact same time; maybe about the bell that rang at 5:30am for you wake up and screw your head on and it rang again at 9:30pm for you to screw your head off and put it to bed...
I don't recall the content, but I never forgot the receiving of that letter. And the lone leaf that foreran its arrival.
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| Mosi-oa-Tunya -"the smoke that thunders" (Victoria Falls) on the Zambezi River |
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