She had left the city. Her 82 year old bones had carried her away from it just as 72 years ago they had carried her then featherlight body to that city from that other country that her mum had called home. The morning had been cold, so she had hardly managed to make herself some tea. Her fingers were so stiff. After her tea she had picked up her bible from her nightstand next to the bed and had put it in her bag. Her walking stick was next to the kitchen door. She had heard all noises from her family, her daughter with her children and the man she was with now. They were rowdy this morning. She didn’t feel like mingling so she had dressed and drank her tea on her own bed. Looking at the sun shining on her curtain wall giving her the privacy she longed for. Her ears couldn’t’ take the rowdiness from her family that morning. She popped her head in at the kitchen door looked at the chaos and her family.  “I’m out for the day”, she said and walked out. Her walking stick with her. The steps down took her long. They lived high up, the railing gave support but it was dirty some places, so she had to look where she put her left hand while her right hand found the floor with her stick.

Once out of the brown and greasy building, the crowd was around her, she had walked into the morning traffic rush. She wished she could keep on walking, to the koppies, like she had done many many Sundays, when she was still preaching, but her bones couldn’t carry her body for that long any more. She had to take a taxi from Bree station. While she waited she took her mind away from the smells, colours and the winds of people around her, longing for the quiet of her destination.  Having her mind closed off from the outside world. The outside world was too much for her to take in that morning. She climbed in the taxi, she found a window place and she settled her face on the window away from her neighbour who had a bad smell. Her body was restless, itchy, cause it took so long before she was at her stop. Her body didn’t want to sit still and being moved to her stop. Her body still wanted to walk the roads and have the space around her of air and sacred space. Like she had done when she preached. She would use the walking to talk, she walked and she talked all the way to the Koppies. It was her way of preparing her sermon and to check in with God if she had heard his words all right. She walked and she talked. Only stopping when she was at the foot of the Koppies, there keeping her air for her body to use to climb up to the stone circle on the Koppies.  She couldn’t do that anymore and in the taxi she couldn’t walk and talk, so she forced her body to surrender to the driving force that brought her close to her old preaching place. At Melville she got out and walked the two streets down to the entrance of the Koppies. Glad to be out in the open air she stickwalked up to the gate. The climb was difficult, her bones were cranky but her walking stick helped. On the top she sat down on her rock, her silent seat she called it. She looked around her, air, mountains, houses, red grass, dead and dying flowers, black soil. Her body uncranked and her head softened she took out her bible, her stick lay on the floor, the sun warmed her up slowly. She fell down on her knees and her back straightened, her hands folded up in the air, her voice burst out in a loud talk with her God. She talked and she sang, she shouted, she asked, she murmured, her hands moved with her voice, her body rocked with her voice. She preached. Her bible lay next to her stick.

She was home. This was her home.