Tuesday 8 November 2011

Lets get writing

I've been back from South Africa for a few weeks now my bags still aren't unpacked and my half opened rucksack lies on the floor of my bedroom like a disembowled carcus, luckily all the clothes in there are clean. Every so often in my travelling career I get glimmers of the concept 'travelling light' only the be rendered defenceless on the bigger journeys, not knowing what to wear will kill you or knowing that your are entering an unknown season of inter-season in a climate that you've never been to. That's what I'll blame it on.

In the immedicey of my own life here in Britain the socio and economic realities of South African living ressurect a teenaged longing to find something other. To climb out the windows and on to the street to find out what's going on in the in between spaces, of these surburban houses occupied by the destitute. It's a nice idea to be able to live outside all year round in the open, but why are they here in the rich white suburbs is it to beg? or when the campfires go out is there somewhere else to go? Or are they just hiding out until another days 'work'. Why are they here they clearly don't belong and aren't welcome here beside the new well kept cars, the insumounatble electified fences and all the white people. We don't see them, the car owners in the streets there faces hidden by the leafy reflections of Jacaranda bloom in the there front and side windscreens. The maids or the supposedly pc term 'domestic workers' sit on the grass verges outside the houses like teennaged kids with nowhere to be. These are not teenaged kids they are grown women, kitted out with uniforms that would be outdated even on our grandmothers, they look like servants and it would seem treated like them when they 'live in'. Is it code for no life of there own except for this space on this grass verge. That's what I see. The distiction for me is not one of race but one of circumstance as I see this invisible wall chained to the ideas of privilige and poverty. I see the inability for a shift in perspective, that revolves around the ridicule of the poor and the embarressment of the rich. These peoples can't integrate fully without the glaring inequalities of their society taking centre fold and what educated informed priviliged person couldn't be embarrased or ashamed of the outlook.

I like to walk and I wonder does that make me poor? Here in Britain I feel rich that I can that there's something to look at beyond concrete, car parks and some nicely landscaped streets with no pavements.

So in the immedicey of my life as it is here in Britain I feel the pressure to write to create, to correct, to input the output into this weary little machine. The puter. There almost finished stories, half started essays, completed recordings, blossoming blogs and a pretty dodgy song. I remind myself of Brendan's statement "whenever you put a set of keys down they instantly explode". I asked Mark what he thought of the interior of my house after a visit to a grey pub. He said "Busy, in every way imaginable". I'm trying to stay that way. Next.