annedegraaf.com

International—Intrigue—Injustice

Excerpt from page 1

I could not know, would not know. I could not know how Africa would touch me, bend me, remold my heart, grant me hope . . . And change my child, giving me another.

Sometimes there is a place you do not know about, but it is still there, outside your knowing. When you reach this place you change, and you wonder how you could possibly have lived without the knowledge of it inside you. It is as a third dimension to a flat two, color to black and white, a sixth sense to a mere five.

For some, such places may be in their minds, milestones of healing, memory, revelation. For others, as it is for me, this place has physical, geographical characteristics. I can point to it on a twirling globe, rest my finger over the spot on a map, close my eyes, and I am back there again, seeing as ravenously as a near-blind woman, reveling in the assurance that only in darkness can I sense the parallel dimension.

Before, I just barely missed, barely caught glimpses of it. Now I know it is there and it has redeemed the rest. For everything I see now is through eyes that could not see before, ears that did not hear, and a heart that would not understand. . . .

Baobab Tree in Africa

Into the Nevernight