What's next?

Time flies. I've lost count of the months since I came home. Without money, without a job. Plug back into life at home. The most frightening realisation was how little everything had changed, ultimately making me feel like i hadn't. Everyone started by asking me how it was. I found it difficult to summarise over a years worth of experience in a quick 'catch up' conversation. These questions slowly evaporated leaving the next inevitable question "What's next?".

New City

Excitement doused by some trepidation. Let the doors slide. Don’t think about what’s on the other end, just walk through. When you can’t go back, forwards will treat you well. You’ve read the advice and heeded the warnings. Sometimes you break your own rules. Unmarked taxi, the sun is gone but the people are on the roads. The buildings, the people, the roads, language, taxis, smell, weather all familiar by themselves, but together build something new. Landmarks and stereotypes peppered with corporate logos make you feel secure and ashamed. What’s it say about us if we feel comfortable when we see the Shell logo?

Frantic scampering with straight faces and scooters. I smile, the noise is pure energy and it’s recharging me. No sleep. Air conditioner stands guard, kills the humidity and the nose. First port of call, Revolutionary Museum. Crossing the road is mistakingly referred to as an ‘art form’. Just cross. Horns will let you know you’re where they want to be. This is done without the aggression of the West. I haven’t worked out why we don’t like horns back home.

Museum is shut for another hour. Find a park. Wait. Contemplate. Need to learn how to say ‘no thank you’ politely. The eagerness and persistance of street commerce can be extinguished by distracting the vendor with some clumsy attempt at the language. Need to learn some more words. Off the road and into the park Thans bounces towards me on a scooter. Excited he asks the next questions before i’ve answered the previous. What’s your name? Where are you from? Do you like Hanoi. I’ll take you to some wonderful places not for money, just for friendship. After the interrogation petrol and some food seems fair. A lap of the revolutionary museum reminds me of what ‘mobilised’ people are capable of. What attention they can create and what reprisals they receive from the brutes. From here, we ride the highway, to a restaurant near the river. We’ll eat dock. Dock? Must mean duck. Later discover here ‘g’ is pronounced like a ‘ck. And we’ve ordered dog. What did it taste like? Like dog. Would I eat it again? No. Was I violently ill? Ask me tomorrow.

Watch This

I leave my time at home.
It’s loyal enough and will wait for me.
I saw an old man in my old man.
Today I saw one in me.
The buses breath heavily in the humidity
Small talk is worth a tip.
Against the fence
that shifts the mood to unwelcome
A lady wearing dark glasses and a yellow dress.
Performs ballet.
a headscarf
and
all the dignity of a Hollywood starlet from yesteryear.
Interrupted by her underwear.
The Poise and grace of a bottle of whiskey
She dances.
Against the fence.
Just imagine what she imagines...
It’s beautiful.

El mano y la mesa

This morning he woke and before he had the motivation to face the others in the house he rested his hand against the edge of a nearby table. With the back of wrist to the stained wood he straightened his fingers. Pointing them towards the high ceiling of the kitchen. Letting his fingers relaxed they fell, making a ninety degree angle with his hand. By letting his wrist relax meant the top of the hand became parallel with the table top. This action was repeated. Looped. There was a childlike fascination with the mechanics of his fingers and how they remained horizontal for two of the three positions. When his mind wandered from this experiment he stopped and studied the hand in detail. The knuckle of his index finger made a sharp mountain through the skin, which for some reason seemed thinner than yesterday. He saw the hands of an old man.

Something in Buenos Aires

And this is what it must feel like to create something. Something artistic, something real, something that breathes, that will be understood by others. Interpreted and criticized. Revered, respected, misunderstood or feared. Something that changes as it gets older. Changes as the world changes around it. Something that was intentional but not planned. Unpredictable but inevitable. Something beautiful in it’s flaws and flawed by it’s beauty. Contradictions and nonsense. Lost in the corner of the room, in the bookshelf, or on the wall, lost amongst the screaming of life in the city. Ignored, traumatized, dusty. Yearning for fresh eyes, fresh ears, fresh touch, taste and smell. Appreciation of nothing where nothing is ever appreciated. Where nothing is never appreciated. Close your eyes and listen. Cover your ears and look. Pick up the world that exists at your feet. Surrounded by this. Consumed you get dragged along. People just like us. Just like us. I’m like us and I like this. I saw options. Paths, and journeys. Like a roadmap. Freedom, needing fuel and a decision. I was at the beginning of the end scratching my head. Looking for a direction I now find myself in the middle of the ocean. No path. No road. No control. Only those which I impose on myself. I am the key, and the door wasn’t even locked. I decide against paragraphs. No time to pause, thinking won’t help me. I’m too indoctrinated. To damaged and traumatized. Like so many others. Wage slave. Consumer. Safety in safety. Reassurance in the ordinary. Jealousy of the extraordinary. What I’ve done not good enough. Too much fear to do anything about it. I speak for myself, but I see my reflection everywhere. So in the heat of this city, I drink her water, and eat her food. Sleep under her sky. I see her people, and live my life in this context. Something will be born of this. A manifestation, we come together, and we create. I couldn’t do it without her, but she will continue to do it without me.