I very rarely find it necessary to apologise for who I am. I do not apologise for not speaking Afrikaans. It doesn't bother me that most people don't know which way to look when I tell them that I am a drop-out. I owe no one an explanation for why I dress like a '60's hippie, why I don't like 5fm and why I strategically eat lunch after 14:30 to avoid office-kitchen small-talk. I am by no means suggesting to be without flaws, but I am borderline perfect.
If I am to think of one specific moment in my life that led to my unwavering, and often unwarranted, self-confidence I suppose I can - like most things - blame it on my mother. I was a rather big-boned 10 year old, with wild hair and teeth too large for my mousy gums. And although my taste in over-sized men's shirts (retrieved from my brother's "for the homeless" pile of clothes) left much to be desired for any would-be suitor, I was as happy as the size of my waste band, and equally invincible. I was never a nervous child, and my bravado was sculpted by the hands of an abusive older brother and sensitive-yet-protective older sister. Few ten year olds could be found who were as fond of themselves as I was and as a result I was massively (no pun intended) content.
The first time I can remember that confidence wavering was on a family trip to Namibia. As had become customary of all of my family's adventures, we were running horribly late and only crossed the border as the sun was getting ready for bed behind the quiet African expanse, which in Namibia is any time after 8 pm. We were expected to meet up with my dad's friend (who I later learned was a member of the Namibian government) at a lodge hours before, but arrived with our growling tummies long after the dinner pots had been washed and the cooking stoves scrubbed clean. I was not sure what strings were pulled or by whom, but we were welcomed to have dinner in the restaurant, where the owner would see what he could put together for us.
Walking through the restaurant, it didn't take me long to notice that the pale faces were all focused on our small group: father, mother, children and vaguely familiar black man. In my rounder days, I did not know what racism was. I knew that I was light brown, that there were people that were dark brown and that there were still others who were colourless. I also knew that people called these different shades coloured, black and white. But I knew these terms to mean little much more than distinguishing a stool from a couch - both chairs, when you come right down to it. I didn't know that these simple descriptions carried with them a history and a meaning that resonates in the honest soul of every person. I didn't know that there were places where people were treated differently (mostly badly) if their skin colour did not match the one of the man hanging in a picture frame at the front of the room. I didn't notice that the frame in this place was occupied by a colourless face, and that the flag on the walls had been destroyed by most [liberal] Southern Africans in 1994, four years earlier.
I felt ashamed, and I didn't know why. I was 10, and I did not understand what it meant to feel inadequate. But that's what I felt. Suddenly, and for the first time ever, I was ashamed of who I was, and why I was and wished with all my might that I could be someone else. I didn't know why, but clearly something we had done caused these people to feel antagonistic towards us, and I was apologetic of our presence in their space. Without knowing what it was, I knew that we had done something wrong to offend these kind people, and all I wanted was to run away. I wanted to go some place, far away, where I could find my blemish, and fix it. Because if these people could tell what was wrong with me, without even knowing my name or hearing me speak or finding out that I am really good at Maths and English and like to act, well then, maybe everyone saw this problem. And if all these people could tell what the problem was, surely I needed to find out as soon as possible before the kids at school would see the same problem, too. Maybe they had seen the problem, but maybe they couldn't tell me because it was just that bad.
I looked up at my mom, who's left arm I clung to like a sloth on holiday, and noticed something that frightened me even more than realising that there was something wrong with my family. The look in my mother's eyes seemed to suggest that she was not feeling the same shame that had so suddenly and intensely fallen on me. She did not look scared, worried or embarrassed. She looked just like she always did: strong, calm, knowing. My shame was replaced by a strong fear that the problem wasn't my family. The problem was me. Clearly I was the only one that these people were silently detesting, because my mother (who had the power to heal a broken toe with a tiny kiss, who knew how to make even broccoli taste good, and who had the best magic for sore tummies) was not ashamed at all.
I wish I had known then that what I saw in my mother's face was pride; a silent dignity that had been refined by years of fighting for it. I wish I knew then that my mother didn't feel shame, because it's an emotion that she had to learn to shed, and that she was still learning to lose the fear that she had been born with. I wish I knew then that the look I saw in my mother's eyes was the most glorious look that I had ever seen, because then I would have taken a picture and framed it with the same respect and admiration that these people had for the bald man that hung on their wall.
But I didn't know those things, and so I continued to grapple with the fear that I had somehow, in the last 24 hours, developed a cursed disease, and that I needed to be fixed. I stared up at my mother, and whispered (so as not to upset the people whose space we were invading) "Mommy, why are they staring at us?"
I don't really know what I expected the answer to be. Perhaps it's better that way, because if I were to speculate what I thought she would say I probably never would have asked. You see, I had always had a belief in my awesomeness that was more than what we were being told by Disney and Enid Blyton. I knew that God made me, and that he'd made me perfectly, but if I am to be completely honest, that's not really the reason I was so sure about myself. I clearly didn't wear the right clothes, know the lyrics to any of the right songs or tell the right jokes. I was by far not the prettiest girl in my class and although I was fairly bright, my early-onset laziness meant I wasn't the smartest kid, either. I cannot really tell you where my surety came from. I guess I was just born that way. But that night in a small rural lodge, a few kms from the Namibian/South African border, I lost that confidence. I'm not sure where it went, or even what chased it away. But there I was, walking through a sea of displeased eyes, held breaths, silent mumbles and head shakes. If I were to guess what my mother would say, I would have thought, beyond a doubt, that my mother was about to tell me that I had done something wrong and that I should immediately apologise for ruining these nice people's dinner.
I will never forget what she said to me. Partly because I was really shocked by it. But mostly because she found it: she went to the secret dark place that my confidence had gone to, and nurtured her back to strength like she had done many times to me when I had the terrible case of the sniffles. And Confidence came back even stronger than before. And thanks to my mother's words, She has never left.
My mom, smiling, looked down at me and said in a voice that clearly did not mind ruining those nice people's dinner, "They've just never seen such beautiful people before."
'For such as we are made of, such we be" - Viola, Twelfth Night
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