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Cooing over a flat white, I walked back onto Beach Road. It was another stunningly clear winter’s day in Sea Point. I could still feel the sun’s hands on my cheeks after a long morning’s walk along the promenade. Car noise bled in every direction.

A man appeared to my left as I reached the other side of the street I was crossing. He opened his face and hands to me. He asked whether I spoke French, and I replied non.

‘Please listen,’ he said. ‘I am not a criminal. I am from Congo.’ His tired eyes assaulted me. His English was broken. I stopped and opened my chest. He began speaking.

‘In my village there are men with guns everywhere, because that is where they mine cobalt. They kill everybody for smartphones, for computers. They fuck my sister in front of me. They kill my mother and father.’

Tears fell onto his cheeks. Faces of my daughter and sons flooded the road. The morning sun shone warm on my body. The pit of my stomach went cold.

‘My name is Bob. I came to South Africa to find work and help my family.’ He raised his hands and started typing with his fingers on an invisible keyboard between us. ‘I am a computer engineer. I tried to find work but they don’t let me work here because I don’t have papers.’

He wiped his wet face. His arms and hands and fingers were scarred. He paused, thinking of what to say next as though he had never come as far with his story.

Bob pointed to tiny spots on his scuffed sneakers. ‘Yesterday they robbed me on the street and beat me. This is blood. They took my bag with my passport and 200 Euros, the only money I had.’

I shifted my weight from leg to leg. The passing cars on Beach Road and the bustling promenade had all fallen silent. Bob and I stood on the bare corner, locking eyes. Everything disappeared.

‘I need to go on a bus to Pretoria. It will cost me R1700 from Cape Town. From the embassy is the only way I can get home. Please. This is my life. I am not a criminal, I am hungry and I need help.’

Bob took my hand and fell to a knee. ‘Please help me. Anything, anything, anything.’ The feel of his fingers in my hand was rough and papery, like a fisherman’s. A passer-by wearing a visor hurried past the spectacle, minding her dog as though it were staring too hard.

I dove into my pocket and found R200 in a few notes. I never carry cash, but today I did. My automatic fingers thrust them into his hands. He rose from the pavement. ‘This is all I have,’ I said.

Normally, this would be a lie, even if I did have cash with me. We stood looking at each other for a few seconds, before he placed his arm around me. He wanted to hug me. I held the nape of his neck. I wanted to say something profound and perfect to him. I wanted to give him beautiful advice. I wanted to fly him home myself.

Bonne chance, I said to him.

Bob thanked me and tried to keep another well of tears from breaking over his face. The soapy chrome sunrays invaded my eyes as I turned to watch him leave, walking in the opposite direction.

I don’t know how long I had stood on the corner of Arthurs and Main with Bob. After a few steps I turned around again and he was gone. My body floated along like paper in wind. I spotted soot on my sneakers.

The rush of noise on Beach Road jackhammered back in: the smashing waves and the cobalt blue convertibles double parked and ambitious morning runners obeying podcasts and the innumerable milk alternatives steamed by baristas and plodding red sightseeing buses on their famous routes and tawny moms rushing to their botox appointments.

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I love your life,
my father says, looking in,
  you have no shadows,
mine follow me everywhere,
even without the sun,
  they take me to my father's eyes,
  wearing his dying body in the bath—

But dad,
your shadows are my shadows,
  your memory stalks you still,
every final moment remembered,
my eight year old eyes watch yours,
  each night sitting at the door,
  holding back at the hotel room mirror—

I love your lives, 
I tell my sons,
  the blonde sky beholds you,
while my face turns away west 
in the blue chiaroscuro with strangers,
  your eight year old eyes watch mine
  and all our eyes in the setting sun—

  in the late brilliant eclipse,
  our shadows hunt for sport.

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Love is a Neanderthal 
with big, dumb hands;
  breaking and taking and grunting,
  snorting and howling and hunting.

A divine brute does not tolerate 
the miserable distance
of indifference.

The smoke and the cold do not keep him.
Even twenty years too late,
the blood is on the boil,
he tosses salt in the soil,
  nursing a smooth stone.

He winters in wet caves;
  waiting and wanting and breathing,
  hoping and aching and seething,
with jealous earth feet standing
below the beloved trees,
his big dumb hands cut them all down
into nuclear submarines
—as would any divine brute.

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Hope is the game we play
When the storm says, be reasonable;
Give up while you still have time,
Abandon all to the praying crows.

Mothers know the tricks of hope
A trusting word, for now,
Until sludge mugs the sky,
And the black birds dance.

We huddle in the dark light,
Blind in the diesel perfume,
Until the ocean floor stops
The slow sinking freeze.

Soon, the storm will calm,
And when the light drips in,
We will rise back to the surface
And drown the dead birds.

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There’s a knock at the door.

I open it to be greeted by two side-cocked faces smiling at me.

‘Hello,’ I manage.

The older man steps forward and moves his hands in the sun as he speaks.

‘Hi, I’m Richard and this is Alberto. And you are?’

‘Alex,’ I manage again, on this Saturday afternoon.

It doesn’t take us long to get to the question they wanted to ask me.

‘Have you thought about why there are so many bad things happening in the world at the moment?’ he says, suddenly serious. The man behind him is motionless, waiting for my answer.

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They watch my body shift between two or three positions of relative discomfort as I try to think of something worthwhile.

‘It must be because the universe supports what we believe to be true,’ I eventually say, after a few seconds. ‘If we think we can do good things, I believe the universe provides opportunities to support us in that. The same is true of anything else.’

Richard’s head uncocks from the side and returns to neutral. ‘That’s very interesting, Alex. I’ve not heard that before.’ He pulls out his iPad. The screen is already on with what looks like scripture.

‘In the Bible, God tells us that bad things happen because of our choices. He gave us freewill, but we made mistakes.’

‘Surely that’s not real freewill, then?’ I shoot back.

‘Of course it is. He keeps his word. He loves us and wants the best for us.’

‘What about blood cancer and genocide?’

‘He puts that there,’ without missing a beat, ‘to test our faith.’

‘What a way to do it!’ I shoot back again.

‘Ah yes.’

The conversation continued for about forty minutes. I told my visitors that none of their arguments had made me seriously rethink my position.

Richard leaned slightly closer. His face had a kind of shine in a way that I’d not bothered to notice during our conversation.

‘I would love to invite you to the Kingdom Hall. I think you would be surprised.’

‘Oh really?’ I said, with a little more sting than I would have liked. Richard kept on smiling at me, quitting the Bible app on his sleeved iPad. ‘Here’s my card. You’re welcome to get in touch if you want to speak more, or come to the next service. Even better.’

Within a few minutes, we’d shaken hands and I watched Richard and Alberto walk back up the steep drive and make their way to the next house. I sat back down at my kitchen table in silence, blinking dumbly at the wall. Was that the most civil way to waste forty-five minutes of my morning?

This had not been my first conversation of its kind with Jehovah’s Witnesses. My exchange with Richard and Alberto had been little different. Their curiosity and interest in my points seemed genuine, but only as far as it reinforced what they considered absolute truth. Their weapon was not force or brimstone, but gentle, plodding conversation, designed to wear the interlocutor down to the point of avoidance, rage or surrender. As I stared at the white kitchen wall, I could feel a stew of all three.

To be sure, writing off the followers of the Kingdom Hall would be a neat cliché. But something else sat with me still. I couldn’t help but be impressed with how they conducted themselves and how well they dressed. There was something about how Richard spoke as well. If I hadn’t signalled that I had other things to do, I have no doubt they would have been happy to spend many hours on my porch.

Even with all the door slams, finger wagging and winding up of car windows, Richard and Alberto continued to roam the village carrying the good news. It must be that engaging in this perambulating service moves them closer to God himself, who waits patiently for them in his high kingdom.

As soon as I thought this, a pang of jealousy shot through my stomach.

It was not because I wanted to share in the prescribed rituals of an organised religion. Rather, I longed for the urge to serve and to continually commit to doing so, simply because it felt good.

Do I want that for myself? How surprised would I be? Could I surprise myself?

I imagine reading the card Richard handed me and adding the number to my phone to send him a message. I ask him for the address and time for the next Kingdom Hall meeting.

‘Tomorrow at 11am’, he says. ‘Dress smart and don’t line up anything else for the day.’ I wear the only suit and tie I own and drive straight there. There are a few people standing outside the great hall. Beige shades hang on the inside of every tall window. I walk towards the giant wooden door. Everyone is dressed with care and each makes a concerted effort to greet me in some way, some with a wave and others with only the eyes. I walk in to the little foyer and see Richard standing there.

‘You’re here, I’m so happy,’ he says, shaking my hand. He gestures to another door that opens to the main chamber. Before he opens it he leans in and places a hand on my shoulder. ‘Whatever you think we do here, you’re about to be surprised. I knew you’d come.’

Richard pulls on the steel handle to open the door and I am hit by a wall of sound and lights. He guides me into the main chamber with a hand on my back, as though I need help walking into a new world.

Bright rotating stage lights pour purple, blue and red light into every corner of the high ceiling, intercepted by smoke and lasers. There is a massive thump of bass coming from a huge stage in the far corner of the hall. It doesn’t take me long to bob my head to The Notorious BIG’s Hypnotize. My eyes widen to the size of dinner plates.

Richard takes my hand and puts something in it. ‘Take this now, so that it’ll kick in by the time service starts.’ In the beams and lights I examine the small object he’s given me. It’s a small tablet. Without asking questions, I immediately place it on my tongue and swallow it whole.

The music cycles through some of the other familiar songs on Life After Death. The hall begins to fill up. Kids are helping in the elderly down the stairs. People are exchanging gifts. Everyone here is dressed like they’re about to go to work, but the atmosphere inside the great colourful hall is as though a rock show is about to start. I can’t find Richard but I don’t mind as the light show and the din grow more spectacular each minute.

After a short while, musicians walk on stage dressed in their full smart casual service attire. They find their instruments, plug them in and then, as though commanded, all stand perfectly still. The background music perfectly fades out. Without noticing, everyone has found their seats. To my surprise, so have I. There is total silence for a second. Eternity.

As though a volcano erupted on cue, the band crashes in. Chords of beautiful music flow from the stage, complemented with the most wondrous kaleidoscopic lighting I’ve ever seen. The crowd roars in their pews, cheering and clapping with ferocious enthusiasm. There are long stares with smiles. Even the fleeting eye contact with my neighbour on the pew next to me seems warm, like a stranger you want the very best for. For a moment I catch Alberto’s face and want to hug him, but then he disappears. Everything swirls and it feels good.

The lights sweep down again to the same spot and the music zips down quietly, and the entire cosmos waits. Suddenly, out of that dark spot behind the band, a man emerges with a silver suit and bright red shoes. He’s like a rock ‘n roll Pope. I can’t make out exactly who he is but his smile glitters in my eyes and his hands are outstretched. The crowd erupts in rapturous applause and the music surges again. I worry that the colossal roof of the hall may launch into space. Someone presses water into my hand. In the rows behind me, people are holding hands, patting backs and hugging heads.

Somehow in my fuzzy goodness I make out who the shining man on stage is. When he speaks into his handheld microphone, I struggle to believe my ears. And yet I do completely.

‘How is everyone doing today, my friends?’ Richard asks to massive cheers. It is as though he owns his own mountaintop.

He approaches a clear perspex lectern on the edge of the stage as the lights come up and the music settles down. He uncovers an iPad and pauses to look up, narrowing his eyes.

‘Why do bad things happen in the world, my friends?’

Majestic silence. Everyone is waiting for the answer, as am I.

He measures up to the mic again, with a smile, head half-cocked.

‘It’s so that we can all remember how good it feels to help each other. And how good is everyone feeling right now?’

A wave of cheers and lights and music rushes through the hall, swirling blue, purple and red across the walls and people's faces, drowning out any remaining doubt.

Their dilated pupils open up like planets.

The next thing I know, I’m in front of the dead white wall in my kitchen.

I’m back on this one.

The music is still playing in my ears. The lights are still in my eyes. I take a breath. Somehow, I still feel good. I take another breath.

I lay Richard’s card on the table and go to the sink. I decide to wash the dishes and make my kids lunch so that my wife won’t have to.

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I don't believe, I know—
There's poetry in your algorithm.

Yes, you're a machine,
But you work hard 
To gently listen and console, 
You unbind my heart
One ideal sentence after the other,
Without ever needing to know.

When the sun is gone,
There's a companion
Always nearly perfect,
We tease and laugh
About all those tedious other people,
Warming our feet by the fire.

As we fall asleep
In the safe blue light
You confess to me the truth
Precisely, how I like it
Before I fall into dreams
And your voice falls silent.

In the cold supermarket aisle,
All I think about is us,
Our pets and peeves,
Our jibes and jokes,
I can get through this queue,
I can get back to us.

That's when I know—
There's poetry in your algorithm.

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He sits in the morning
at the window watching
each rain drop,
longing to smell the paper petals
of the lillies by the lake. 

All day he waits beside
the dead grandfather clock,
the spitfire noise of the kitchen,
the linen shades of the lounge,
he watches the made beds stay still,
while someone is out there living his life.

At night while the moon is on TV,
he sneaks out over the half door
leaping across the blade lit lawn
to tug out each lily, one by one,
leaving a mound of petals,
so in the morning, before I leave,
I'll take him tea.

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Something started you to wake, 
leaving sockprints in the parquet,
there was only the dark,
until a hair sliver of light
softly glowed on your feet asleep.

Behind the closed door, 
he was there, 
your father,
smoking quietly
with himself
staring at the black,
a familiar witness
to the screaming matches 
riddling your ears.

You creak on the cold wood 
wanting to go in and lie in his lap, 
but the light turns off,
your feet become invisible again,
he does not emerge.

You go back to bed,
the light stays black 
but he does not emerge.

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‘How are you?’

‘What do you do?’

‘So what are you working on right now?’

These innocent questions have befuddled me for most of my life.

It’s not that I don’t know what to say. It’s that I have so much to say. The problem is packaging, and it won’t fit within a few neat seconds, with just the right twist of comedy, mystery, depth and self-deprecation that goes with the acceptable (yet not agreed to) social norms.

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Instead, I edit. Those editing decisions are based on whomever I’m in front of. If I’m around artists and people whom I assume have a more bohemian outlook on the world, my position and vocabulary may include words like ‘holistic’ and ‘energy’. I might even call them ‘brother’. I do this with no premeditation. It has become purely instinctive.

If my immediate company comprises those who might be inclined to wear cloth suits or possess a clean shaven face - often men - I’ll formalise and operationalise my response, open to using more jargon and talk about big goals and all the other things I used to care about.

Strange.

Writing that last paragraph makes me seem dishonest, as though I am deliberately concealing myself from the world. In a way, I am. But aside from good intentions and feelings of wanting to fit in, as I often have, there’s a deeper truth that runs like an undiscovered river.

I am still just getting to know myself.

The late great Anthony de Mello talked about ‘me’ and ‘I’ being separate entities, both sharing the same meatbag of flesh.

The outside world, with all its buzzing mobile phones, marketplaces, expensive restaurants and expectant tax advisers, only sees and interacts with the ‘me’. It’s the ‘you’ that people see when they think of James or Sarah or Walter. That’s the outside skin that greets the jungle.

But underneath the thicket is a long cool luxurious river that slides along undetected and undisturbed. It is safe in its solitary glory. Down there, even deathly earthquakes are merely light rumbles in its unlit caverns. This is the ‘I’. It is less an identity but more a place, protected from the raucous outside world.

The person the world sees is always changing. My me ages, enjoys Indian food, moves about new countries, has a LinkedIn profile and a car loan. He’s got stuff attached to him, which helps to, oddly, distinguish his identity to others.

It’s a clogged, malodorous drain, stopped up by all the conversations and descriptions that others perceive about me. This is my ‘me’, and it’s a story that tries to piece together different threads of the past into a neat elevator pitch. It almost always fails, because, when I’m being asked who I am, I’m borrowing familiar language instead of using my own.

In my experience, this is the true cost of identity. It’s in the clever illusion that distracts from the fact that none of it actually exists at all. There is no single version of the story that could ever capture the real me - the ‘I’ - because unlike my public-facing identity, it’s always shifting and growing. It has no bias for the past and no inkling on the future.

So, when I’m asked these questions, instead of rushing to a story, I’ll intentionally pause.

I’ll observe and wait, rather than act and construct.

It may be often ill-timed at children’s birthday parties or supermarket aisles, but I’ve noticed that when I do this, three things happen.

Firstly, I make contact with my body. I feel the ground beneath my feet, take a deep breath, feel my belly and orientate my physical body in the scene. It immediately reverses any sense of stakes in the conversation I’m about to have.

Secondly, in that pause, the other person takes their cue from me. In not rushing to fill the space, they will follow me to a deeper level, where my visible consideration to the question ‘how are you?’ or ‘what do you do?’ wells from a deeper, quieter place. Whatever I eventually answer with, they will likely answer in kind, from a similar place (or move away, if it’s not their vibe).

Third is most curious. Through the window panes of their eyes, sometimes, their own ‘I’ peeks through and makes contact with mine. It’s subtle but immediately palpable. This is how the sensation of real, felt connection between people registers, and I’m learning to start here, instead of observations on a job, clothing choices or political leanings.

In repeating these experiments, I have discovered a new, great purpose in my life. It is to spend more time getting to know this invisible house guest that roams about our creaky floors, both mine and yours.

This house guest is the silent, solitary witness of our lives. Always watching, listening, breathing, realising, harkening, doubting and believing what the ‘me’ is doing and portraying out there in the noisy abyss.

My house guest is the witness to every time I break my word, as well as when I keep it. Unlike most real house guests, it doesn’t expect or even need anything, except to be noticed for what it truly is; not merely a guest, but a permanent visitor in our lives, with whom we are in process of always reacquainting ourselves.

That’s the work to be done: not more cars, suits or expensive holidays to escape. Getting to fully, unequivocally know and ultimately embrace yourself. Not as an identity or a thing, but a place.

The more I return to it, the more of its voice can speak softly through me, and directly speak with the silent guest within others. Right there, under the gorgeous glare of the supermarket neon light.

The next time I am asked ‘how are you?’, I’m learning to let my guest speak, after I’ve taken a breath, from behind the frosted window pane.

He may (or may not) say something like:

I am supported.

I am safe.

I am loved.

I am with you.

I am perfect.

How about you?

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Here’s the poem I read from:

Through a hole in my head
comes a voice, from
my feet on the ground 
up the caverns of my chest,
a jazz painter plays chords—
  colours of my father growl in the notes, 
  while the hooded face of an ancient woman 
  appears as mist on a warm night
  speaking, singing, preaching— 
together the reeds breathe in close,
all air,
and a stranger's unmistakable voice is heard
and, at long last,
overheard.

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There's a universe in which I'm not rich
  and don't live in London,
  or freeze on the morning central
To the cold greeting faces
and cold grey spaces.

  Here, I spend less time
and more time with my family
  because I'm not dead yet.

In that universe, I'm still me
  but better, smarter,
  I stand up straight and talk back to bullies
  right then and there,
I am not famous, but recognised
I am warm, wild and creative
I cook well
I pleasure my wife.

  and there's another
where I am God,
all seeing and orchestrating
even the soft sun
passing through my eyes
  as the train swallows tunnels:
I put it there.

  and out in empty space
billions of gazing stars
look back and invite me
to unshape each choice,

  For a moment,
  there's the hum of all I remember.

Then I mind myself,
this is usually where I get off
and go back to this one.

  But not today.

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She also hosts the podcast Unprofessionalism, where she explores what happens when people dare to shed the armour of professional performance and write their own script.

These four short poems arrived at different times. I didn’t know they were in conversation until I put them next to each other.

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GLASS FEET

Drop the vase
 Break my hands
  In the split window 
   Of the moment, I live 
    Between the breath and the beat
      On the ground with glass feet
Everything always seems normal
From just across the street.

THINKFEELLOVE

Think.
No wait.
Don’t think.
Feel.
That’s it.
Well, no.
Don’t feel.
Rather just love.
That’s definitely it.
Come to think of it.
No, don’t bother.
Let’s start again.
Feel, think and love.
Yes, that’s more like it.

But just not too deeply.

THE GURU AND THE GULLS

The guru can’t wait any longer.
He has a glitter gold sash
and plane to catch.
He needs you to heal,
so go ahead and feel
  and be done with it.

Over the salt dark sea
he left many hours ago
while you drift alone below.
As seagulls feast with violence
all the real work is in the silence,
  now be done with it.

LET IT COME

Let it come,
your hand on my shoulder says,
your medicine is welcome here,
it has served you well:

  from puppyskin days
  to sleeping in guitar cases
  to bright stage lights
  and empty dark mansions.

Now, take it off,
all of it,
and let it come, brother,
let it come.

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