Michelle Burton
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What is the defining moment in a piece of writing? Does it begin with an idea that unfurls within the recesses of your mind, or is it inspired by prosaic imagery that demands translation? Perhaps. For me, it was a three-in-the-morning moment – a distinct pinprick on the mind-map of my life
It was March 2001 and I had decided to leave Zimbabwe for the same reasons as countless others before me. Sound reasons. Sensible in their weighting. But the conflict between daytime logic and night time irrationality kept at bay the comfort of sleep. Could I really leave it all behind and begin again?
One night, and endless glasses of hot milk into post-midnight meridian, I was seized by a compulsion to write. This was it. My panacea for sorrow. I would write about everything I could remember - paint with words the picture of my life so it couldn’t be forgotten.
My first task was to create a workspace, a cramped collection of office things that filled one corner of my bedroom but, more than that - as symbolic as practical - a statement of intent. Shrine to my night offerings.
And so it began. A journey of recollection from childhood to adulthood. A collaboration of past and present in two-dimensional format. And a three-month foray into the inchoate mass of unexpected emotion such self-indulgence brings.
All too quickly it was finished. Fifty pages of life distilled. A personal manifesto infinitely more satisfying to write than to read, but a tribute nonetheless to the continent that shaped me.
Too raw for the consideration of others, it travelled well across the oceans - stored safely in the vinyl clutches of a floppy disk. Until 2003. Seized at the start of an English summer by a second compulsion, I opened the document, celebrated the memories, and added to it.