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Victoria Muthiani’s Dear Sharon is formatted as a screen grab of an email yet to be sent.
To: Sharon Neema
Cc:
Subject:
Dear Sharon,
I am writing to you because you once asked the question. Not to me but to us all.
You asked about the thing I've learnt as I've grown older.
Here what I've learnt. Being a human, is a complex, messy affair.
Sinking into me. Who else could be there, except me? Why do I expect find somebody else? Anything, except this me.
How do you paint what is colourless?
How do you fill up a void?
Growing, older, is figuring out
what
to do, with the void, within ourselves.
Void, not emptiness, Void- a space of infinite possibilities.
What do you do with boundlessness?
What do you do with hands, and voices, and thoughts, and feelings.
What do we do with our aliveness? Consciousness.
What do we do with our us? Our I? Our we? Our you?
I am a tree. I have roots. But I am closing my eyes, oblivious, to my obvious grounding. My heritage.
Am I still me, a someone, from somewhere, if my jacaranda doesn't purple flowers and my acacia does not prick?
What can I do with my me? Especially when I see you's, feeling more us than I ever will.
Being a human, is a complex, messy affair.
Sharon, have you ever held your hand and pretended it was someone else's?
