The one word that actually might be true is Failed. Failed I have. It has been extremely difficult for me to write. I have started a few essays and, in despair, gave up usually less than halfway through unsure of why everything just sounds wrong, why my fingers just freeze up at the keyboard as I stare blankly at the screen. It seems I can’t focus on summoning the force necessary to pull the thoughts out of my mind and, simultaneously, navigate the through the words on the page. It is exhausting. (Picture me as Sesame Street’s Don Music ending his masterpiece composition by banging his head on his piano keyboard in frustration, “I’ll NEVER get it right!”)
And there is already a lot of banging your head in frustration South Africa! And even more exhaustion. So I think I’ve chosen to avoid the frustration and exhaustion that would come from writing about the day-to-day frustration and exhaustion. Having said that, my New Year’s resolution was to write- to post blogs for the people who are interested, and to journal as a reference for my future book (which my mentor/preceptor has already entitled “Trials and Tribulations in South Africa: a series of short and not-so-short stories from Andrea Dean.” This was right before she officially crowned me the most unlucky Yale-associated student ever to grace University of Pretoria. A position I feel honored- amongst other emotions- to hold considering one of the last students had her car stolen.) So it is now January 28th and I am attempting to write, my surgery providing a legitimate excuse for the late start. I suppose it isn’t so bad. At least it is the opposite of the gym-goers who start Jan 1st and are only now gradually letting you annoyed regulars have your treadmills and free-weights back. I can still follow through.
Before I started writing, I needed to think about why I couldn’t write. I love to write. I thrive on it. It keeps me sharp and sane. But here, why couldn’t I do it?
My answer began to reveal itself as I began reading Rian Malan’s more recent book “Resident Alien.”
(Note: Some of you know Malan’s “My Traitor’s Heart” which I read as a junior undergraduate student and again during my time in Namibia when my class was able to meet him briefly only to be, quite frankly, unimpressed by his blasé and seemingly sour character. Nevertheless, as a white (half Afrikaans and half English) male who lived through the height and fall of apartheid, Malan presented a view of South Africa that was unlike all others. It wasn’t hateful, but was not an outpouring of blind compassion either. It wasn’t unrevealing of the errors of the country, but it wasn’t full of desperation either. It wasn’t graceful. It wasn’t angsty. It wasn’t cold. What was it?. I often cursed Malan for his negativity, yet somehow he resonated with me. I admired him in spite of myself. All this unconsciously, in a paradox I'm not sure I could appreciate at the time. A paradox I now understand as, well, “South Africa.”)
As I opened Malan’s introduction, he started by quoting an American journalist friend who said “No one can write fast enough to tell a true story.” I paused to roll my eyes. It brought to mind college hill in Providence, where colored plastic body parts are wrapped around tree trunks in the name of art and hipsters in tight jeans are scattered along the sidewalk, where I’ve been known to mutter “Fucking RISD students” as I drive past. But Malan was a step ahead of me.
His next paragraph starts, “In America, this is an artsy verdict on the limitations of the form. In South Africa, it’s like a law of nature: there is no such thing as a true story here. The facts might be correct, but the truth they embody is always a lie to someone else… Atop all this, we live in a country where mutually annihilating truths coexist entirely amicably. We are a light unto nations. We are an abject failure. We are progressing even as we hurtle backward. The blessing of living here is that every day presents you with material whose richness beggars the imagination of those who live in saner places. The curse is that you can never, ever get it quite right, and if you get it close, the results are unpublishable.”
At this point I pictured Malan banging his head on his typewriter (I still picture all journalists with typewriters) and crying “I’ll never get it right!” and I thought of Don Music at his piano and I thought of me at my laptop… and I knew Malan was onto something.
I won’t try to rephrase Malan because he nailed it- this confusing and impossible experience that is South Africa. I want to write about everything, but nothing I write will actually be worthwhile.
I can’t bring you the usually sentiments from the third-world, the ones about the injustice of dire poverty, the ones that I used to spit out like rapid fire when I went abroad, the ones that make you feel connected to something you’ll never actually know. (Though I have some of those.)
And I can’t bring you tales of the rainbow-nation, the ones about progress that is thick in the air, the ones that make us believe in humanity, the ones that leave us feeling hopeful for the future. (Though I have some of those.)
I can’t bring you the stories of being in what appears to be persistent apartheid South Africa, the ones where people are full of hate and fear, the ones where we curse the powerful, rich, white men, the ones that make us assess our own privilege. (Though I have some of those.)
… and the list of “some of those” could go on…
The problem is, I can’t write one without writing the others. I can’t even tell one story separate from the others. In this country, they are intertwined, co-experienced, fluid, yet persistent, all are alive in every moment, moving, but not changing. Where in most places, to tell the partial story is merely inadequate, here i in South Africa, the partial story fares much worse. It is a lie.
Perhaps even at a deeper level than suggested by Malan, I don’t even feel comfortable relaying the facts. It seems straightforward enough to transcribe the series of events which happened when I was mugged, or I travelled to Kruger National Park, or I started work in Kalafong Hospital, or any other adventure. But even these facts are confusing and impossible on their own. On their own, these facts are untrue. Without including the subjective (the fear, the guilt, the intrigue, the anger) the objective does not exists.
Art is about expressing the subjective, which naturally fluctuates with experience and time (as it is to be human.) This task is not entirely difficult under normal circumstances. But South Africa, things are different because not only is the subjective fluid, but the objective moves quickly and erratically. The subjective chases it around, flapping its wings breathlessly and rarely lands long enough to see and appreciate it, much less capture it or describe it in words.
I realize this blog says nothing. That is ok with me. I am using today to premise what will come, since request have been made. I’ll try for at least some small stories, antidotes if you will, probably seemingly without substance. But I assure you, it is in these short stories (ones that take less than 15 minutes to write) that truth lies and only in them that I can accurately record at least a hint of my experience. I’ll do my best…
“We yaw between terror and ecstasy. Sometimes we complete the round trip in just fifteen minutes.” –Rian Malan.
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