Once upon a time, I assumed a queen-like status beside a man who lived as a Rastafarian king on the islands of Zanzibar. I towered over him, but that didn’t matter among the hot pink bougainvillea bursting through the bright sunshine on his coastal compound. We were an unlikely pair, formed out of a single utterance one tipsy night in the velvety darkness: “tumpumzishane,” he said—“let’s soothe one another.”
And so began a strange, impossible love affair with a man more legend than discernible fact (at least to me). I noted his mother’s ledge of green plants in metal cans lined up on her verandah in the city, thriving in the tropical heat. I noted his care for the land and his willingness to dole out hours of listening to neighbors as he stroked his scraggly, braided beard in the shade. I noted his soft tones and his exhausted bones, worn down by decades of building bungalows with his own calloused hands.
I also noted, though, his drunken deep dives—days at a time—into pools full of demons, his endless litany of rages and complaints, his incoherent babble in the middle of the night that woke the sleeping dogs, and those tepid apologies days later in the harsh judgment of the morning sun.
I know we tried to love each other in ways that felt familiar, but there was no “we” for the duration—just an I and a You, coordinates in a current constellation in the night sky. I kept mistaking proximity for possibility.
I lost myself in endless reggae playlists. I sipped moringa shakes by the pool, rolling cigarette after cigarette while chatting with the many single Italian mothers who came with their children to swim and splash in the pool (carved in the shape of the continent.) I wore a magenta bathing suit that matched the bougainvillea and tried to forget that I had a self.
Let me say more about all this later, because I want to talk now about a different kind of love I learned on the islands—a Sufi kind of love.
One night, as a freelance journalist covering a famous music festival, I took a long walk down dark, winding roads on the outskirts of Stone Town to a small, unassuming madrasa lit like a lighthouse in the darkness. We arrived at Zizi la Ng’ombe, where men in crisp white kanzu and kofia quickly organized busati (mats) to accommodate the boys and men who would kneel for the Maulidi ya Homu performance.
What transpired was a spellbinding form of dance and praise poetry rooted in Swahili Islamic tradition. Maulidi usually refers to festivities related to the birth of the Prophet Mohammed, but this particular performance--ya homu—is a rare form that invokes the motion of a “steady wind.”
The performance locked me into a percussive trance, the dancers swaying as a collective body, their faces lit, eyes wide with exaltation, cringing or pinged with ecstasy. Sibilant sounds slithered through the song. They moved as one in praise of Allah, a choreographed crescendo of sheer passion.
At its climax, the dancers shuddered and shook on their knees, swooping backward onto their backs and rolling up again into undulating ocean waves of sound. They pounded their fists to the floor, then abruptly lifted themselves, reaching their hands in unison into the air, as if reaching for God’s love, receiving it, and placing it immediately back into the folds of the dance itself.
These Sufi songs felt like "love letters to God," I wrote in my notebook, attempting to describe the slow build, frenzied climax, and gentle release back into the mundane world of the everyday. "The form taps unabashedly into the eros of spirituality, expressing through mind, body, and voice a love much larger than ourselves."
These quotes are borrowed notes from an article I eventually published (the magazine no longer exists) about this experience. All of it still holds true as a snapshot in my body’s memory of what I felt that night, sitting barefoot on the floor of a packed madrasa on the outskirts of town.
Witnessing Maulidi ya Homu dancers changed something in me about the way I want to experience love—of self, God, lovers alike—exaltation and reverence.
I keep thinking about Martin Buber’s notion of the “mysteries of reciprocity.” It’s through the alchemy of relationships that God sneaks in and rearranges the furniture while we’re making dinner in the kitchen. This really only works when I can show up inside myself, however.
So many past loves experienced me as only half-here, and that wasn't fair to me or them. But that’s the way it is sometimes with love-in-becoming.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
Transit Slips, #14
And so began a strange, impossible love affair with a man more legend than discernible fact (at least to me). I noted his mother’s ledge of green plants in metal cans lined up on her verandah in the city, thriving in the tropical heat. I noted his care for the land and his willingness to dole out hours of listening to neighbors as he stroked his scraggly, braided beard in the shade. I noted his soft tones and his exhausted bones, worn down by decades of building bungalows with his own calloused hands.
I also noted, though, his drunken deep dives—days at a time—into pools full of demons, his endless litany of rages and complaints, his incoherent babble in the middle of the night that woke the sleeping dogs, and those tepid apologies days later in the harsh judgment of the morning sun.
I know we tried to love each other in ways that felt familiar, but there was no “we” for the duration—just an I and a You, coordinates in a current constellation in the night sky. I kept mistaking proximity for possibility.
I lost myself in endless reggae playlists. I sipped moringa shakes by the pool, rolling cigarette after cigarette while chatting with the many single Italian mothers who came with their children to swim and splash in the pool (carved in the shape of the continent.) I wore a magenta bathing suit that matched the bougainvillea and tried to forget that I had a self.
Let me say more about all this later, because I want to talk now about a different kind of love I learned on the islands—a Sufi kind of love.
One night, as a freelance journalist covering a famous music festival, I took a long walk down dark, winding roads on the outskirts of Stone Town to a small, unassuming madrasa lit like a lighthouse in the darkness. We arrived at Zizi la Ng’ombe, where men in crisp white kanzu and kofia quickly organized busati (mats) to accommodate the boys and men who would kneel for the Maulidi ya Homu performance.
What transpired was a spellbinding form of dance and praise poetry rooted in Swahili Islamic tradition. Maulidi usually refers to festivities related to the birth of the Prophet Mohammed, but this particular performance--ya homu—is a rare form that invokes the motion of a “steady wind.”
The performance locked me into a percussive trance, the dancers swaying as a collective body, their faces lit, eyes wide with exaltation, cringing or pinged with ecstasy. Sibilant sounds slithered through the song. They moved as one in praise of Allah, a choreographed crescendo of sheer passion.
At its climax, the dancers shuddered and shook on their knees, swooping backward onto their backs and rolling up again into undulating ocean waves of sound. They pounded their fists to the floor, then abruptly lifted themselves, reaching their hands in unison into the air, as if reaching for God’s love, receiving it, and placing it immediately back into the folds of the dance itself.
These Sufi songs felt like "love letters to God," I wrote in my notebook, attempting to describe the slow build, frenzied climax, and gentle release back into the mundane world of the everyday. "The form taps unabashedly into the eros of spirituality, expressing through mind, body, and voice a love much larger than ourselves."
These quotes are borrowed notes from an article I eventually published (the magazine no longer exists) about this experience. All of it still holds true as a snapshot in my body’s memory of what I felt that night, sitting barefoot on the floor of a packed madrasa on the outskirts of town.
Witnessing Maulidi ya Homu dancers changed something in me about the way I want to experience love—of self, God, lovers alike—exaltation and reverence.
I keep thinking about Martin Buber’s notion of the “mysteries of reciprocity.” It’s through the alchemy of relationships that God sneaks in and rearranges the furniture while we’re making dinner in the kitchen. This really only works when I can show up inside myself, however.
So many past loves experienced me as only half-here, and that wasn't fair to me or them. But that’s the way it is sometimes with love-in-becoming.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
Transit Slips, #14
