I

Three pilgrims journeyed from the shantytown to the mountain pass above the city where they knelt in the grove overlooking the coastal waters and elegant beachfront buildings. Their climb up the mountain seemed like a premonition come to bear. Having reached the pass, they knelt by the foot of another hill and found a bit of privacy from city eyes in the shadow of the mountain and under the cover of the darkening sky. Once nestled in the branches of the forest trees, the pilgrims began their lamentations to the creator. The pilgrims’ prayers echoed in the valley like pained screams. Theirs was the only sound to be heard in the gentle hush of the mountain air, like the proverbial voice in the wilderness. Except with no promise of salvation, but only desperate pleas and cries trying to pierce the empty space between rocks and mountains.

II

Perhaps I shall be pressed upon to find words in the deep blue of the sea, to search for them in the far-reaching sight of the sky. Words for troubled souls like mine and others, children lost in a forgotten world. Words for a troubled yet understanding response to watching a performance of ancient existential longings as expressed in song and rituals. For the quiet revulsion of seeing the expression of a need so desperate, it nears the state of being utterly barren; a crude perhaps pitiable excess of the worst sort of such longings.

III

I have never known heaven nor felt the lightness of those who claim or have chanced to fly upon the lightness of the clouds into the dizzying heights of the gateways to paradise. On some occasion I may have caught a mere glimpse of such a vision. Whilst I have certainty in a potential to visit such vistas, I cannot say I know what it is like. What I do know are the words which blow upon rugged country sides of night-time miseries and despair. Words of pilgrims who ascend city tops like prophets of doom come to announce the impending end of the world.

IV

These are also the words of the wind, bearing witness to a grace in a battle against mountainsides thick with the foundation of ancient stoic rocks. The pilgrims pray for blessings against the face of hardship. They give thanks for their perseverance. There is beauty and perhaps meaning in even the most painful struggles. And there is also what seems to be nothing but an almost repulsive and ugly morass in absconding one’s duty to themselves in favour of seeking a benevolent comfort and reassurance. Then again, maybe that choice is not available to everyone. Yet, there lies a truth in this dreadful battle which is sometimes masked by the dizzying heights of prayers and soothing hymns. It almost mocks the faithful’s need for salvation because it is vulnerable yet sometimes unyielding like the force of blades of grass planted firmly in hills overlooking stone cities.

V

This grass, lush and green, contrasts the dusty brown worn out frills of the pilgrims’ trousers and waistcoats. It is as if it was mocking faith and the endurance of their hardship whilst it basks in the delights of the city sun whilst affirming one of the most primordial living instincts – to fight. For there is something so very fragile in relinquishing a duty to fight for one’s own, sometimes, a struggle for survival. But they also whisper an eternal dance of time; they echo strength in the voice of prayers – even to the wind – and tell an enduring story of hope and faith. And their voices paint a mosaic of the world as if it were a motionless landscape frozen in space.

VI

So perhaps the voices of the unspoken prayers of God’s children intervened to scold what appeared to be a jaded young self, quick to pass judgement in harsh words spoken only in the twilight of youth. The words of this song are not mine to tell. They are the story of travellers who journeyed across towns and cities. Yet they are spread over my body like the chill of a shiver on a winter evening. And they lie buried with the prayers of the travellers, upon the horizon beyond my reach, there by the setting sun where they mix with the crashing of ocean waves into a cascade of sounds and music as old as the earth itself. The pilgrims offer the last of their protestations with one final gusto beckoned by the swelling wind and depart for their homes under the last light of the sky baked in warm purple and gold.

VII

On their journey back to the shantytown, the pilgrims walk as if carrying a memory reminding them that there are, and will be, days when it seems as if the all songs that give joy and meaning to life are silent. When there will be no words to be heard except in the movement of things, the flow of the seasons. On days with no music to comfort sorrows or mellow melodies to soothe turbulent emotions. The sky grows dark as they leave the city heading into settlements where the street lighting is few and far between. They seem to take solace in the hope of prayers to be fulfilled, like a faith anchored in the rising and setting of the sun. I look and wonder what the break of the following day will look like when the sun shines on the other side of town.

* The title of this post borrows from Curtis Mayfield’s song “the other side of town”. I adapt Mayfield’s metaphor of the sun never shining on the other side of town and use it as a lens to reflect on a pilgrimage of sorts. Biblically, from the days of Moses right to the crucifixion of Jesus, mountains are sacred/holy. Hence why some denominations and people go up to pray there – partly because one is “closer to God”. In a place like Cape Town most mountains are only accessible in the wealthier parts of town, and that most (or at least some or a large part) of the things (presumably) people pray for, like a better life and all, don’t seem to be where they live, but are in fact closer to the mountain i.e. the suburbs. Therefore, I use the idea of the sun shining on the other side of town to explore this relationship.

I know a good piece of writing should explain itself but I’m only including this note in case someone finds the piece offensive, because I’m not the most religious person, so you might find it a bit *insert whatever appropriate word and such*.