Christmas eve saw us drive the long road to my husband's rural home. Originally named after Queen Victoria, Queenstown is now officially called Komani. A gentle kind of victory floated to me every time I saw the new name on road signs as we flew through the dark, closer and closer to the earth that my daughter's ancestors rest in. The names that spatter this land are a constant reminder of colonial history, an echo of a not so distant past that is etched in the faces of people here. It has made up so much of what I ponder, and how I filter who I am.

We arrived close to midnight in a little hire car, rain had fallen for days and enormous puddles posed on the side of the rickety roads we bumped over. We got stuck in the mud, greeted family members who came to pull us out and let our heads hit the pillows with our baby girl meeting another one of her many homes for the first time.

It was morning when she greeted her grandmother who rejoiced to have Alatha in her arms. Already Makhulu to seven other grandsons, she was finally with the baby girl she had been praying to God for. Feathers ruffled from the long road and startled by new surroundings, our daughter clung to me as we walked about the house. "Ohh! I didn't do this yet..." her grandmother exclaimed as she remembered a welcome ritual and swooped in to hold her. She sat her granddaughter by the door, turned her to face each direction, and blessed her forehead with dirt from the ground. "She must know that this is her home" she continued as she reached to the soles of her own feet and into her underarms gathering her scent, to then wave her aura towards our baby.

Nephews, aunts and uncles smothered her face with kisses and pinched all the smiles out of her big cheeks. We defended her from the engulfing love with break times at the cottage. Rituals were happening and my Mama and I cooked up big pots of vegan food. Dressed as a traditional wife I felt how deeply I've assimilated to a very different way of being, how my husband's culture is engraved into my life story in irreversible ways. I move through the space with ease, fill buckets of water instead of running a tap, greet in isiXhosa and weave a few more words into my body. Converse with our nephews, many of which won't remember a life without me in it. It's forever paradoxical the way I relate to the rurals. Through my daughter my blood belongs with the land indisputably, and at the same time, I will always be a foreigner.

My Mama moved to the UK for my Dad. Raised us in a home away from her own. When our Papa Fif passed away, we were bound to the English language and she vowed to get us all through our schooling. My sister was three then, now she is eighteen and in her final year of A Levels. This marks the year that my Mama fulfills that promise and frees herself to roam the world again. The peculiarity in how life spins itself in cycles never ceases to entertain me. I used to watch my Mama struggle to fit in a foreign land, and declared boldly that "I'll never move to a foreign country for a man" - yet here I am now, in South Africa, because I followed love the way she showed me how.

We drove through the night back to Johannesburg on New Year's Eve, arrived in the morning to drop off the car and slept through the day. As night fell, I came face to face with a raging beast that threatened to walk into the next year with me. Something in my spirit knew I couldn't. That the beast had to roar all it could until its fire died out. I spat ugly words, I threw a phone at the wall for the first time in my life, I heaved and sobbed and beat pillows. I let it all out. The vulnerability of being left home alone with my daughter for so long, the storms that blew through my body as I struggled with my husband being away, the details that are not to be entertained, but that cut so deep. Let me never be this alone in my vulnerability again.

I ran to the hammock and sobbed, hugging myself. Mama came to soothe me, and spoke words of wisdom. "Yana, the past isn't coming back. It's there for us to learn from. Forgive and claim your lessons from this time so you can all move forward differently." As my anger choked, spluttered and ran out, I began to find clarity. Reached out my hand to my husband and invited everyone to light a fire for the transition. We sat and set intentions, lit floating candles in a bowl of water and smudged with palo santo. We toasted to the year ahead and things felt new.

Since then a spring has sprung. My heart is ready for the world again. It's summer here in South Africa, but my body remembers home in the northern hemisphere, where the light is returning and snowdrop flowers will soon push their pretty heads through the ground. I am emerging from a mama nest. Wings stretch, big yawn and I see how important this writing has been to me. To everyone who has read, listened and given loving words along the way, thank you! This emerging marks the closing of a winter, the death of a cocoon, and a deep breath in for the next chapter with our baby girl, Alatha Ukukhanya Sabine Fay Dzedze.

Alatha Ukukhanya, point to the light (in isiXhosa)
Sabine, my Mama's name
Fay, my own middle name after a midwife who supported my Mama during her labour with me
Dzedze, a name that holds her father's ancestry.