About me

I remember sitting at a colossal, cream-coloured computer in the corner of the open living area of one of the homes we lived in, in Harare. My mother and her close friend were having what they thought to be a private conversation on the sofa. My 13 year-old shoulders were hunched over the keyboard, as I scribbled some words across my left thigh, simultaneously clicking the mouse in a very competitive game of Solitaire. As soon as the game was over and I had won, my mother’s friend called out my name, commanding my attention. She was Australian, so her pronunciation of Colleen went on for long enough for me to acknowledge her, stand up, feel the prick of my hairs and start chewing on another finger nail. “What have you done to your leg?”, she asked. With absolute conviction I responded, “I don’t know.”, and looked down to the words eccentric, travel the way, children and beyond your control. Unwittingly I had selected the kings and queens of the words from their conversation and written them down.

“She’s a Writer”

my mother’s Australian friend said.

But I had other plans for myself. I was going to be something else, I thought. I wanted to act. So I went on to study theatre and film in Dublin, London and Cape Town. To determine if most continents had the same approach to Chekhov. In order to survive that ambitious dream, I flirted with almost every industry out there, so as to not leave any stone unturned. Butcher, baker, coffee maker. Nanny, teacher, find myself preacher. I lived out the roles that I was writing for my grand play without much awareness of direction, or flare for costume design. I was doing it, regardless of any audience, hitting the fourth wall, chasing the light. I performed the role of the exploration of an eccentric life, travelling the way, like a child would, at times giving in and allowing it be – quite simply – beyond my control.

And thus, that friend of my mother’s from Australia – who happened to be a teacher – relentlessly crept her way into my sleep at night and woke me up with her words. As if I was being summoned. So I write.