Tim and I went to the 35th annual Highland Games in New Hampshire, the gathering of the clans, of which there were about 60! Who knew? There were literally thousands of men dressed in kilts, with sgian dubhs (daggers) tucked into the top of their socks, highly decorative sporrans and the like.
My mother would have loved it all! We have Scottish blood and hers ran strong, stirring a love of bagpipe music, highland dancing and of the lochs and misty mountains of Scotland itself.
I think many of us must share this blood, because so many people I know are touched by bagpipe music, brought to tears by its mournful beauty. (It doesn't take much to bring me to tears, as my children will all attest to).
Watching all these people so splendidly wearing their tartan, bearing their flags, shouting their war-cries as each clan-name was announced, I thought about how human beings have a great need to belong to a group, a clan, a family, something to love, to fight for, to be proud of, to make them proud of you. (The announcer went through the clans alphabetically, and I had to stifle laughter when the public address system blared forth, "MacNipple!" to loud applause and battle-cries. I think it must have been McNichol, but I had funny pictures in my head.)
I have adopted Massachusetts as my home and feel pride when I hear that we have the highest standard of education in the whole country, when I take visitors into Boston on the harbour water taxi, seeing that skyline that is now part of my idea of home, driving home to my little town which I love. But it is nothing like my deep gut knowledge of my true country, the country of my heart, my roots, my Table Mountain, my Indian Ocean, my Great Karroo, my dry summer earth, my rainy winter streets.
And how easy it was long ago for people to feel this great bond with a locality, because they were born there, lived their lives there, and died in the same place. Whereas someone like me (and of course I am not alone, this is a common occurrence, especially nowadays) is torn into several pieces, being a South African of mainly British, Swedish and Scottish descent, now living in America. So when Maureen MacMullen, a Scottish singer, sang the national anthems of the three main countries represented at the games, God Bless our gracious Queen, "because Scotland is still part of the United Kingdom", Oh Canada, for all the Canadians taking part, and of course The Star-Spangled Banner, I felt some kind of affinity with at least two of those anthems. And I missed of my own national anthem, Nkosi Sikelel 'iAfrika, wrought from four languages, a composite of ideas, so much pain and injustice and long years before it became the official anthem. And so much a part of my personal growth, when I was a teacher at Nombulelo, and learned so much myself.
There was a Mass Highland Fling, which I could see only vaguely, as the dancers were behind some gathered clans, but the sound of that music brought back the familiarity of those steps and gestures, and my limbs wished to join them. I actually danced at the Highland Games in Scotland and won a silver medal when I was eight years old. And when the Canadian Mounties Pipe Band struck up Scotland the Brave, I had to put on my sunglasses while tears poured down my cheeks.
The whole day my mother was with me, her warm arm around me as the sun on my back, her strong smiling voice singing out the words for my ears alone, "Land of my high endeavour, Land of the shining river, Land of my heart forever, Scotland the Brave!"
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