In Honor of the Mother Line

My mother is in the middle with her mother and two sisters

April 17, today is the annivesary of my mothers death , Doreen Marais, and I dedicate this blog to her and honor the mother line of my family and all mothers everywhere. What I know and love to remember about my mother was her strength and her peace making. A school teacher for some of her time on this earth, I know she loved to guide the kids in creative projects. As a young woman she was a strong runner something I inherited from her for a time. One story she told was when she jumped her first hurdle, she was running from a cobra who was chasing her! She kept our family together when it must have been a struggle to settle in a brand new alien land (London) from South Africa. She had an adventurous spirit and a wonder lust for travel. Every year she saved enough money from my father's low salary as a teacher, to travel all over Europe. She loved having family around her at all times infact she lived for those moments when we were all together.

I loved Easter as a little girl! My mother would curl my hair in ringlets with her finger, and dress me in a party dress, white socks and shoes and take me to Battersea funfair. She told me to never go to bed with a partner on an argument and if she were gay she would like to be with Ingrid Bergman! At Christmas when all our relatives gathered and at times there were as many as 25 she would insist that no matter where we were we had to come home in time for midnight on Christmas Eve and it was ok to bring all our friends with us. My mother carried the spirit of Ubuntu and the South African hospitality that she knew, it was extended to ALL who came across her path. She was a rock, a solid being. Her door was always open to any family member or stranger that happened to knock on the blue door with the black knocker. She was raised by the hand on occasion and in our family she tended to be the one to give out the punishment. If she hit us she would go and cry in her bedroom as it hurt her to do that.

She died of lung cancer 10 years ago today. I believe the deep grief she carried was for the loss of her life partner, lover and friend my father who died in his early fifties and the fact that as the years went on we all went our ways and the family nucleus that she loved so, became disconnected. My mother though was a pretty progressive woman, with a sardonic but sharp sense of humor and she loved to lose her self in the cinema, often leaving us all to sneak into a movie by herself. It was her way of finding some peace and solace, far from the "maddening crowd" which I know we could all be at times.

I don't remember her controlling us, her own love of adventure only served as a mirror for us to draw from and I certainly inherit that from her. Nieces and nephews often went to her to seek her counsel arond love, relationships and their own mothers. She counseled with love and compassion often teaching about the importance of forgiveness and tolerance her wisdom born out of many years of a curious match with my father, an introverted man of integrity and substance.

After she passed she left me a little money and I was able to return to the USA which I had visited the year before for the first time. It allowed me a years sabbatical and I returned to live, this has changed the course of my life, my soul work time and time again and for that I am deeply grateful. I stayed with a friend in Laguna Beach in a house overlooking the Ocean. One hot summers day I dozed off on the deck and was dreaming of her, she came to tell me she was alright. I awoke with a start to find a huge bird sitting quietly watching me, I believe it was her messenger.

Her mother, grandma Elizabeth was quite something else. A white skinned colored woman that sometimes laid the sharp end of the heel of her high heeled shoes on our unsuspecting buttocks. Her expression of rage was I believe due to the indiginty she suffered of having to leave her homeland because she refused to be treated inhumanely. She was always dressed immaculately and sometimes sat at the dinner table wearing a hat. Her head was cocked high with dignity. (see picture on right) She often used to tell me to hold my head up high. Aparantly I heard from a friend in South Africa who knew her, that, that generation were devoted to Queen Elizabeth, they wanted to copy her! Royalists and Queen groupies who dressed like her! I carry a second name of Elizabeth. These women were powerful in their way. I am honored that they now stand behind me in line as ancestors. I feel their strength, I carry their strength as do all my beautiful neices, their grandaughters, great grandaughters. They say when the mother dies your soul work begins -and so it was. I love and miss you.

Paul Robeson

A Hero For All Time

On Wednesday I had my singing debut at Oakland City Hall Rotunda with Vukani Mawethu. It was where the city of Oakland commemorated the 110th anniversary of the birth of Paul Robeson, world- renowned scholar, athlete, singer, actor and fighter for freedom, peace and social justice for all. There is an exhibition on until April 30,2008. http://www.bayarearobeson.org. Amongst all Robeson's achievements he was a scholar first and foremost and everywhere he went he spoke out strongly against injustice and for the rights of all working people throughout the world. He also spoke for peace among all peoples, including the Soviet Union. Branded a communist by the House UnAmerican Committee, his scheduled concerts were cancelled and in the 1950's the US Government banned Robeson's music from the radio and concert halls.

After revoking his passport and denying him the right to earn a living abroad they tried to erase him from history. He was a pioneer in promoting political and material support to the liberation movement of South Africa. On October 11, 1978, the United Nations bestowed an award on him posthumously in recognition of his great contribution to the international campaign against apartheid. In a message to the conference of the African National Congress he said of South Africa "I know that I am ever by your side. I am deeply proud that you are my brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces. We come from a mighty courageous people, creators of great civilizations in the past, creators of new ways of life in our own time and in the future. We shall win our freedoms together. Our folk will have their place in the ranks of those shaping human destiny"

In the 1930's he lived in England and it is there he studied his African roots, through history, cultures, languages and music of Africa. He added to his repetoire folklore and music of many nations often singing in their original languages. Robeson sang his way around the world to the elite, royalty and working people. He is known for, amongst many other songs, "Ole Man River " from Showboat, (1928) which he turned into a fighting protest song and removed the word nigger. He was loved by millions and he believed he had a responsibility to use his talents for the common good, often performing benefit concerts for social justice causes, civil rights, equality, workers rights, peace and democracy. He said "There truly is a kinship among us all , a basis for mutual respect and brotherly love ''He put forth a vision of what he called "the oneness of humankind" Ubuntu, and his son Paul Jr. remembers one of his principles as being " Succeeding without helping others is of little worth. As you climb help lift those left behind" and "A deeper understanding of one's own culture will lead to better understanding  of other cultures . There is only one race the Human one." 

Also performing at the gathering was Tayo Aluko who has written and produced a play about Paul Robeson. A Nigerian, Tayo lives in Liverpool and has brought the play for it's first tour of the USA. "Call Mr. Robeson" is being performed in Irvine, San Francisco Dearborn and Detroit. I also had the honor of meeting Tayo and seeing the play last night. Tayo plays Paul Robeson. It is currently a one man play with an accompanist Micheal Conliffe. Aluko, through stories and song portrays a deeply moving account of an introduction to Robeson's journey. I knew very little of Paul Robeson as a freedom fighter prior to seeing the play, but through Tayo's eyes, voice and dedication to telling the story of this amazing man, he brought to life for me a vivid and heart warming picture of Robeson's courage, strength and resiliance as well as his despair. Tayo's voice is rich and dark, like the man himself and it carries in it the promise of a new day as well as shedding historical tears, reminding us that the past connects us to the future. Our beloved ancestor Paul Robeson was definately in the house last night! Book this play near you now! www.tayoalukoandfriends.com Tayo, your friends in the USA welcome you back anytime, thank you for your work, we are touched by your gentle and beautiful spirit!

Sizongena~Coming Home

April 27, 1994 Voters for a free South Africa

This morning I went to my favorite cafe Arizmendi to partake in my ritual of decafinated tea and the best oat scone in the East Bay. I ran into a brother, an elder who I had seen a couple of times before but we had never conversed. I joined him at his table. A beautiful gentle spirit with salt and pepper dreadlocks. Our conversation began with him asking me what I had been up to, "singing" I said. He told me he had come up in a family of singers and musicians. He mentioned them all by name. except the elder brother. I was curious about that. Our conversation meandered into the fact that he had recently come across photos of his grandparents who are from St. Kitts. The line "one fine St. Kitts woman" came into my head from a song Taj Mahal sang, Clara (St. Kitts Woman ) which is a song about his grandparents " my grandfather married one fine ST. Kitts woman She would hold you love you and scold you. Making sure she could tell you everything she feel and now I feel the spirit that spirit deep down in my soul, make me think about my ancestors who lived a long time ago." We discussed the importance of knowing where we came from and that he plans to go to St Kitts for the first time. It reminded me of my own journey in finding my way home. Something kept me wanting to know about his elder brother~ yes- it was Taj Mahal, and I was touched by this man's humbleness in not wanting to mention his elder brother's name.

He talked about this upcoming change in the USA, a black man as president, was a long time coming, and I suggested that his ancestors had suffered and worked and struggled for the freedom of their children and grandchildren. And that it is their strength like the people of my homeland that have paved the way for us. We talked about the importance of knowing our home and who came before us and we lamented the fact that neither of us knew all our grandparents. He said if they can be strong so can I, and we parted having connected through song, story and our ancestors.

On saturday I went and saw a woman sing and read poetry. Charlotte Oneil " Mama C" is an x black panther that exiled to Tanzania. A powerful woman who sang about her having to leave her country of birth but landed in the mother land only to find that she cannot forget where she came from, even though she is a child of Africa and that it is important to go home. She now provides a multicultural experience and a community center not only for Tanzanians but also to provide an exchange program for the youth here in America to visit Tanzania as a place for them to return home and participate in the program and vice versa www.uaacc.habari.co.tz/ and we parted after connecting through song, story and our ancestors.

Coming home for me has been an amazing journey. Touching the soil of my homeland for the first time in 52 years re awoke a part of me that I had denied, had died and shoved deep down into a place I thought I did not want to access. I had planned to go in October of 2006 but suddenly I changed my plans and left in May of that year. I stayed with a cousin who I had not seen since I was three, he and his wife recounted many stories of my parents, they knew more about them than I did. Three weeks after I returned to the USA my cousin passed. And so he had stayed to pass the stories on to me... October would have been too late.

I did ritual on the land where we had lived as children bringing soil from USA and London to Cape Town. It is now a creche and school. I "felt the spirit deep down in my soul, make me think about the ancestors who live a long time ago"...... I announced to them that their great grand daughter had returned home. I inhaled the whispers in the wind of the ancestors that, came from Table Mountain, and I cleansed my face and feet and head in the Indian and Atlantic Oceans that meet at the foot of the town.

Every name I had heard somewhere from my family, and every view was familiar. I remember standing outside the house of my grandmother and looking down the street, it was though my bones were rumbling as I remembered, but I was also re awakening the pain of leaving my homeland and that even at three years old, somewhere I carried that memory in the cells of my body, but also what it must have been like for all those who had to leave their land and be exiled and worse still have their land taken away. To have returned but more important to re remember was traumatic and deeply healing all at the same time.

Remembering where we come from is important, touching the motherland is indeed a healing journey, and if you cannot do that, to know your ancestors is to know who you are. Millions of black and colored and white people stood in line for hours and hours to vote on April 27 1994 for a free South Africa. They stood for the first time in unity in Ubuntu, no one said you do not belong here, and it is to them we owe our gratitude, they stayed they protested and spoke out and, they taught us about truth, peaceful protest and reconciliation.... so that we can now~ come home.