Zanzibar Shores

There was an Island and it was far away from now, and the sky was almost always blue. The city was ancient and you could lose yourself there amongst the jagged narrow streets. I can't speak but for the hundreds of images that I still recall. There was a crack of blue overhead in the streets almost always in shadow- and the scents of coffee, and ginger, and cloves. The ocean broke ever peacefully upon a shore where once Portuguese cannon balls flew, where once great ivory tusks were piled high on limestone floors, where once men were chained and sold and sent away forever in exchange for gold. Every morning, callers greeted the rising sun from minarets. Bright red, purple and yellow fabrics dried above rusted tin roofs. I'd wander aimlessly for hours until my eyes were full. I'd go to a small roofed dock on the Indian Ocean, and fill notebooks that were sent from America. I didn't flirt with tourists, or dive, or go on spice tours. I'd spend nights sleeping buried in labyrinth-like rooms within the heart of stone town. Very often I'd find I was feverish from some illness. Was it typhoid or malaria? I did not know. I was ill three days once, with fevers near 104 and all I did was read William Carlos Williams until my mind was gone. I beat the fevers though, and came out of those dark rooms with new sketches of Muslim tessellations. I sought the sun and the ocean breezes, and the solace of still having nowhere to go for days. I ate for strength and swore off beer. I turned back to my writing. Did my writing have a purpose? I worked things out through writing. Put things in their places, uncovered old wounds and sought to heal them. I explored. I played with ideas. I was never more content than when I was there surrounded by turquoise waters creating my stories. I'd write til afternoon. Some who knew me never understood why I spent the time alone, but I was never alone. I was surrounded by foreigners in a foreign place. How odd it was that I was the true foreigner and felt like I was home. I was the true expatriate then. The exile, self-exiled because I could see my real home more clearly from the great distance I'd put myself in -geologically, culturally, socially, intellectually. But I was close enough to things to splash my feet in the ocean, or draw my finger across some interesting pattern or object. I'd encounter malnourished kittens as they scrounged through trash heaps. Shutters would slowly close, or from three stories up I'd hear giggles. Looking up, I'd see a green colored sleeve disappear into a long narrow window. I'd go to ruins and sit on the grass before some long-ago-collapsed structure and sketch it on the inside cover of my notebook. I was there, and it felt so real, and time- Time, it seemed to stop there. I distanced myself from time too. Always I tried to distance myself from Him, from God. I thought I had, but God is infinite and the further you run away from everything in your life the closer you approach Him, or rather the closer He approaches you.