On Ambivalence of Oldhood

This is what you call a piece of literature that haunt you for days.

“How the Old Ones would have danced around the strange word, home, poured into it their yearning for a break from the mud and wattle and hide shelters of hunter-gatherers who followed their herds, who muttered under the breath their supplications to the moon, who relied on the seasons to assuage the restlessness of the soul by moving on. Even before the word, there would surely have been old women who sucked their gums in despair and dreamt of living as staying, dreamt of seeds taking root in the earth, growing into ripeness, even as a headman announced the decision to decamp. If nowadays ambition cannot accommodate the old notion of home, there has surely always been ambivalence, the impatience for something new, for moving on, across the world, whilst at the same time, at times, feeling the centripetal tug of the earth.”

Excerpt From the novel 'October' by Zoe Wicomb