sunset cruise on Table Bay, from the deck of the Maharani

I wake to the sound of wind swirling around our old house, tiny streams of air slipping between old cracks and windows made of lines not quite meeting in all the right places. Dave is missing from the tangle of sheets and blankets beside, gone no doubt to chase away midnight monsters from under Madeleine’s bed.

We are home after sixteen days away, though our bodies lie and keep Cape Town time out of loyalty to our shared adventure, now so far away. We’ve been walking around the house, feeling strange, remembering the rhythm of this place we call home. I find myself hiding in old routines, not wanting to lose my sense of feeling most myself overseas, not wanting to forget each face, each tender conversation about dreams and longing.

The best way to do this is a zine, I decide. I go through the rituals of preparing quietly as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening. I run my hands over hot pressed paper at the art store. I pull the sheets, pet the fat yellow cat that rises from the shop counter to brush his face against my chin. Add more ink to my pile, ask polite questions about watercolor, while mentally cutting the paper in my mind–one sheet, 12 squares? Is that right? Meryl will know.

I promise myself ten days to commit to paper whatever pours from my heart. I promise myself two more at the beginning to make a studio space, now that John who used to rent the attic space has drifted off. I pick a color at the hardware store in under five minutes, a never before imagined miracle. I paint my little cave of light that overlooks the back yard the color of sky–Song Blue. I worry it’s too blue, until I see how the yellow blossoms on the trees come on fire from my perch, until I see how the spring greens speak their thanks from our unruly yard below.

I buy a wall map of Africa online so I can learn a new geography for my soul to flourish and grow.

Everything that happens for the next two weeks will be from a space of creative overflow. There will be times when I can not put another line on the page. I know now from experience that this will be a sign for me to turn back to my keyboard and putter around for a few hours with writing a children’s book. There will be times when I will face a deadend and not know which page goes where. This will be my sign to turn back to my sketchpad and spend an afternoon on something else instead–wide open sunflowers for James with pale green leaves curled upward toward the sun, piles of radishes just pulled from the deep dark earth, one vine ripe tomato in full color.

Being in Africa was a Mondo Beyondo dream come true. Even more surprising than that for me was how being in that place reminded me of other dreams on that same list—things that seem so preposterous or impossible. Unless, of course, you are feeling your soul nurtured under the wide open Africa sky.

Blessings all in these early hours of dawn. I am happy to report that I met so many people in Cape Town, Franschhoek and Knysna, South Africa, who are holding close their own wild dreams, looking for the way to open soon, soon, soon. These stories and more will be my focus for a hand full of pages. Or so I hope on the onset of a new zine adventure.