Homecoming

By. Neema Murimi

It would start softly, like the muted buzz of a honeybee. Then slowly her voice would rise in song, paralleling the sun. My mother’s hymns would greet my ears on a Saturday morning as the smell of crackling bacon reached my nostrils. I did not know what the words were saying, but I knew that they meant love. They were always sung in a dialect both familiar and foreign to my ears. The language was Swahili or Kikuyu depending on the tone: the former being smooth, and the latter more sharp and staccato. But with both, the notes emanating out of her mouth sounded different than when she sang in English. They were more soulful and natural, and held a richness that is more often found in the feeling of coming home.

It was as though her voice was calling forth the memories of walking down dirt roads in Kenya, skipping to school for miles with the taste of breakfast still on her tongue. The oil from Chapati bread that my grandmother rolled, pounded, and crisped on the pan still glistening on her lips. She absorbed all that she could bottle up from her home in her heart, and it reverberated throughout our house on those days.

There is something to be said for the motherland and for our hometowns. I haven’t lived in mine for about seven years. Things are sleepy there. The air is thick, the laughs are deep in the belly, and no one is in any particular hurry. The trees wrap themselves around anything they can get ahold of. Drives on back roads entail curves and hills that have you wondering what is coming around the corner. Fried seafood is always available, and sweet tea is no stranger to any palate. Ruston, Louisiana, is my home. It is Southern to its core and makes no pretense of being otherwise.

When I go back to visit, something is filled up in me that cannot be filled in other places. I feel understood by the vegetation, the air, and the spaces surrounding me. They have heard and observed my loves, hurts, failures, and victories. The stories that compose me are written on street corners and flow in the streams of water there. I left an imprint that cannot be erased. I meet with my old self every time I return and she reminds me of the parts of myself that I am not allowed to forget. I breathe in deeply and a restoration occurs that gives way to newness. I find myself grounded and earthed with pregnant dreams that give birth to reality.

At times we try to run away from where we come from. We try to blind ourselves from the past if the present fits much better. We want to board up the house that endured a catastrophic storm, spray paint X marks and move on to higher ground. But we are not where we are now without the foundation that was established in our beginnings. Sometimes it was shaky or the roots were torn up, but the steps still lead up and the tree still stands. Our hometown memories, be they happy or sad, have brought us to where we need to be.

Dear Woman, listen to me: your strength, your power is found in the porcelain parts of you that cracked, the titanium that held you up, and the soft gold that was malleable and adapted to create the monument you are now. Stand erect on that podium. You have been carved out of all kinds of clay, and every portion is worthy of a captivated audience. We stand rapt and at attention to your history, to the cities and towns that made you, to what tried to break you, and to the hard won scars from every battle you waged and war that you won.

We honor the sound of your first cry out of your mother’s womb, where your feet first toddled, and the taste of your first kiss. You are your hometown’s hero. You are your current cities’ treasure. You are your own homecoming.

Neema Murimi is a writer, poet, artist, adventurer, and professional laugher who does not take herself very seriously. She works with children in foster care and is currently saving up money to launch her business focused on helping people get where they want to be. 

Website: www.theratalk.org
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Email: neema.maria.murimi@gmail.com