REVOLUTION DAILY

by Alexia Webster

What is your favourite childhood memory?

I have an early, elusive memory of my mother singing to me around an open fire at night. She was singing to keep me from crying, but the song she sang was so sad it made me weep. It was about a princess who lived in a castle with her prince; she had a milk-white steed, a fine-feathered bed and many fine dresses. One night, three gypsies sang outside the palace gate. The highs and lows of their songs captured her heart, and the next morning she ran away with them. The prince searched for her day and night, and eventually found her sleeping in a cold, open field. He could not understand how she could leave her life of pleasures and wealth and exchange it for a life of poverty and living with the gypsies. She, of course, could not explain to him how she felt. But I understood. That song dug a deep tunnel into my heart. We lived in a hippy commune for the first few years of my life and that laced my childhood with a certain feeling; a mix of pine nuts and grass, goats, donkeys and water tanks, guitars and the night air, stars, voices, baked potatoes and salad, hand made toys, naked feet and forests.

Where would you go if you could go anywhere?

Right now, I think if I could choose any place on earth to go, I’d visit Peru.

Whats the strangest thing you’ve ever found lying around?

A dead, dry, completely flat cat. That was back in 2001, in Mitchells Plain. I was painting a wall with the NME crew. Mike tied a string around its foot and swung it around his head. Oh, and a penguin.

If you could go back in time where and when would you go to?

I think I would like to live amongst the North American Indians. They seem to me to be one of the old cultures that had a real understanding of how to live in harmony with nature, without imposing on it.

What do you think you were in a past life?

Oh I’ve been old, very old. I’ve also died young. I’ve been mean and unkind. In war. In love. Alone and blind. I’ve walked mountains. Spent months in prison. I’ve killed and raped. And I’ve thrown bones to tell the future. My children have carried me though countless deaths. Meak. I’ve been religious and I’ve denied the devil. I was in Japan, Norway and the Congo. I’ve been underwater and nested in high trees. I drank blood. I healed wounded children. I’ve been around and around in this circle, raised on high and subsequently diminished. Several times. We all have. I want to leave the circle now. I’m tired.

What makes you laugh out loud?

Seeing political voting street pole posters that have become the make-shift shelters of the homeless under bridges. That’s kind of a laugh. But also it’s not. And it’s not really out loud either.

If you were a tree what kind of tree would you be?

Now that’s a tricky question. I don’t think i could commit to an answer on that. Trees have a specific mood and it’s difficult for them to change, whereas my moods change so much. I think i’d need to be many trees.

The new Faith 47 book, available from Revolution, 223 Long Street, Cape Town.