Salted Landscapes

It all started as the older woman followed behind the younger with a bag of salt firmly in her right hand. The grains poured out and trailed along as she carefully salted each of the younger woman’s footsteps.

Within the changing landscape beneath the sand, the archive of who she was and who she could be, was waiting there to be found. The bits of her – skin shedding and transformed; history.

And so, she sat down and took it all in, the sand and salt between her palms. Seeping through and mixing together, she watched as tradition and folklore trickled through her fingertips.

She decided to put it all together: the stories of her past that could construct her future and create a second skin. Something that is both old and new, intertwined, layered, and evolved. The site of constant change. A blanket of protection. And so, she wore it, putting the cloth, the mixed bits of fabric around her shoulders.

The feel of herself around herself. Waves of calm and discomfort. Heaviness. Ease. Potentially a vessel of her future self, a new mode of being.... but not just yet.

It was just then when the other woman arrived, the older one from before.

“Put it on,” the older woman said.
“No.” the younger replied.
“Yes,” the older one said again, holding it up to her.
Slowly she took it. Their eyes met, locking for more than just a simple second. “Maybe tomorrow.” The young woman eventually decided.

The women then stood together holding onto the blanket. Both of them existing right there, between each other.

With the blanket secured around her skin, she began to think of the practices, lures, and rituals that built her being. The feel of her grandmother’s hand on her forehead as she secured a dot of ash above her brow. The smell of agarbatti smoking through her lungs. The sweet taste of the coconut’s water on her tongue.

A circle of salt, a spreading of ash, the breaking of a coconut by a woman that was once thought taboo. With the ripping of curry leaves a comfort arose akin to koeksisters and coffee on a Sunday morning. Dhania laced kisses across your munga stained skin, the bite into the elaichi will signal your full stop.

As she danced around the spread of ingredients from her life, the ritual of her creation unravelled. Her blended flesh woven together by two worlds: stars and seas. She told a story that day of transformation and rebirth. From below the sands into the salt of the skies, The Myth of Self was seen.