today is my six year anniversary of my arrival in london.

in many ways, i think i learned more about myself by getting on that plane than probably anything else i’ve ever done in my life.  charging off into a completely unknown future.  it felt like both a running away, and a running towards – what? at the time i couldn’t have said.

i know now, that that indescribable, ineffable *something*, was a self i sensed existed somewhere within, but couldn’t quite visualise, and it took throwing myself up against some hard things to begin to determine her outline.  yet while the emergence of this new self coincided with landing in new city, it wasn’t the scenery that changed so much as the internal landscape.  although i arrived lugging two heavy suitcases full of stuff, i left a whole lot of baggage behind.

“wherever you go, there you are.”  any expat or traveller will tell you how true that is.  there is something about the act of uprooting that challenges you beyond the superficial acclimatisation.  it forces you to take stock of yourself in a way few other experiences can.  it tests your ability to be independent, your ability to operate outside your comfort zone, your ability to make and maintain relationships, your ability to learn and internalise language and customs, your ability to deal with loneliness and obstacles, your ability to navigate new environments.  in short, it gets to the core of everything you know about your place in the world, and turns it upside down.  then gives it a good shake, like a snowglobe, just for fun.

the trick is not in learning to right yourself – the trick is in learning to live upside down.  and be happy in it.

because getting off the plane was just the beginning.  getting off the plane and stepping into the unknown, was actually the easiest part.

it’s taken me 6 years to learn all that, in lessons big and small.  so as i contemplate uprooting in the near future, for canada (or perhaps other parts as yet unknown), i look back and wonder: can i really do it all again?

some days it is louder than others, to be sure -  but that piece of my brain that lights up, and the pit in my stomach that leaps up into my chest like it’s cresting a rollercoaster, ring out with a resounding and definitive answer:

hellz yeah.

the prize fighter inferno – the going price for home

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

1 person likes this post.

Unlike

i’ve had a hard time sitting down to write this.  it’s been difficult to find the words.

the fact is, i’m not really allowed to have an opinion.  i don’t live there.  last time i went to south africa, i wrote about some of the amazing contrasts that made the country so fascinating, so beautiful, so rich.  i was so looking forward to seeing more.

that was four years ago, and a lot has changed since then.  this time, i was not given the opportunity to be a dispassionate observer, to make up my own mind.  instead i was inundated with your stories about how bad things are, how broken the people, government and environment have become.

i know that violence is an ever-present reality in south africa.  i know people are scared – i have only to look at the barred houses, gated streets, and plethora of guards to see that.  things are getting worse, of that there is no doubt.  i didn’t need to hear the endless litany of murders, carjackings, and armed robberies to corroborate that.  but you’re scared, so you talk about it.  i can sympathise.

i know that the a.n.c. has faltered.  the party once lead by the great nelson mandela has in many ways become a victim of its own success – absolute power corrupts absolutely.  and there is justifiable anger that the coming elections – which will see the installation of jacob zuma (accused of rape, racketeering, and perversion of justice) as president -  are a foregone conclusion.  there is an intense loyalty to the party which brought down apartheid, and people are afraid of changing course, even when they know things are going awry.  i understand the bitter disappointment that comes when you see your countrymen voting counter to their own best interests simply out of fear.

i know that economically, things are difficult for everyone.  the crumbling infrastructure, adaptation to the business reforms and black economic empowerment initiatives, the new minimum wage standards – these are all huge challenges.  for a long time, things were very wrong, and putting them right, sometimes to the frustration of others, is not easy.  people are struggling, you are struggling, and it has hit home for you.  i can see that.

i know that all these myriad growing pains, in what is still a fledgling democracy, are tough to handle.  you don’t have to tell me.

and yet you do – you tell me all the stories of anger and fear and pent up resentment.  i taste the bitterness in your voice and sense the undercurrent of tension as account after account pours forth.  you see the country becoming lawless, corrosive and chaotic – a place you no longer understand or feel comfortable in.  it unsettles you, all this change.  and when i chime in to say that in fact, none of this is new, that these are problems that face many modern countries, that soaring crime and corrupt politicians and urban blight and failing economies are not unique to south africa and certainly have nothing to do with race, you tell me i’m naive.  yours is a version of south africa borne of hard experience and an even harder history.

and i’m not allowed to have one.  i don’t live there.  i can’t know.  which is true.  there is no rejoinder to that.  we must agree to disagree.

but it’s difficult.  i want to learn to love this country, but you make it hard.  i don’t get a chance to draw my own conclusions, to experience it on my own terms.  there is so much more to south africa than just the picture your paint, though all of that is undeniably part of it.  it’s a complex place – let me figure that out for myself.  i’m not saying anything new here -  but for all the frank (and heated) discussion we had, i never got to get that point across.

you live there.  you love your country, in spite of all its flaws. let me love it too.

Like this post

Unlike

back from south africa – i have so much i want to say about the whole experience, but need to spend some time formulating my thoughts.

in the meantime, however, a few photos:

Like this post

Unlike

still in south africa at the moment, but couldn’t allow this to go by without a heartfelt hat tip – curt schilling annouced his retirement today.

whatever you may think of the man’s abrasive personality, the simple story is this: few people in the history of baseball have ever played the game harder, or with more integrity, than schilling. he was quite simply, a class act sportsman, and a truly great pitcher. he will be sorely missed.

thanks for everything curt. love, sox fans everywhere.

Like this post

Unlike

j and i are headed off to south africa late tomorrow evening.  really looking forward to it, as haven’t been there since our wedding 4 years ago.  going to get a tan or die trying!

all of which is by way of saying blogging will likely be non-existent for the next two weeks  – play nice everyone, and see you when i get back!

Like this post

Unlike

i swear one day immigration is going to arrive at my front door and revoke my burgundy passport on the spot. i simply *cannot* get the hang of a proper bath.

i’ve written here about my difficulty with baths before, but they say god loves a tryer. i had scoured the bathroom yesterday ceiling to floor – a not-small feat considering the things that were growing in there – followed by a run and some yoga. after all that exertion, and with a pristine bathroom to take advantage of, i decided to make good use of some of the lovely lush bath stuff my dear husband gave me on our anniversary the other day.

i ran the bath in optimistic anticipation as it filled up with clouds of scented foam. dimmed the lights, grabbed a book, and hopped in.

unfortunately a) i hadn’t regulated the temperature of the bathwater well enough and b) had grabbed a less than compelling book, so after a mere few minutes, i was smelling good, but bored and chilly and cursing the waste of a gorgeous bath bomb. i managed to hold out for a full fifteen minutes before conceding defeat.

today, i had a 12 mile run in the damp and cold, as well as a still-sparkling tub, and decided that this presented a perfect opportunity to enjoy-this-if-it-kills-me-dammit! determined to avert the problems of the previous evening, i selected another luxurious bath fizzy, ran a *hot* bath, and brought my ipod to listen to. sorted.

except that after about 5 minutes, i began to perspire – lightly at first, then sweating profusely. the room was a bit steamy, the too-hot water was weighing heavily on my chest, and i was suddenly having a hard time breathing and feeling a bit faint. hanging over the side of the tub, trying to figure out how to put my head between my knees when my knees were underwater, i felt like an idiot – visions of the headlines after i drowned from passing out in the bath swimming before my eyes.

i officially give up. i have two more bathballs left in the box. they smell fantastic, but after my near death experience this evening, i think they’ll be relegated to perfuming the back of my closet.

Like this post

Unlike

“What are the dangers to a democracy of a national police organization, like the FBI, which operates secretly and is unresponsive to public criticism?” – (optional question on the University of California’s 1959 English aptitude test for high school applicants, said to have infuriated j.edgar hoover)

(via andy)

met police hold a secret databank on thousands of protesters.

Police are targeting thousands of political campaigners in surveillance operations and storing their details on a database for at least seven years, an investigation by the Guardian can reveal.

Photographs, names and video ­footage of people attending protests are ­routinely obtained by surveillance units and stored on an “intelligence system”. The ­Metropolitan police, which has ­pioneered surveillance at demonstrations and advises other forces on the tactic, stores details of protesters on Crimint, the general database used daily by all police staff to catalogue criminal intelligence. It lists campaigners by name, allowing police to search which demonstrations or political meetings individuals have attended.

Disclosures through the Freedom of Information Act, court testimony, an interview with a senior Met officer and police surveillance footage obtained by the Guardian have ­established that ­private information about activists ­gathered through surveillance is being stored without the knowledge of the people monitored.

Police surveillance teams are also ­targeting journalists who cover demonstrations, and are believed to have ­monitored members of the press during at least eight protests over the last year.

The Guardian has found:

•Activists “seen on a regular basis” as well as those deemed on the “periphery” of demonstrations are included on the police databases, regardless of whether they have been convicted or arrested.

•Names, political associations and photographs of protesters from across the political spectrum – from campaigners against the third runway at Heathrow to anti-war activists – are catalogued.

•Police forces are exchanging information about pro­testers stored on their intelligence systems, enabling officers from different forces to search which political events an individual has attended.

if all this sounds terribly familiar, it’s because it’s almost the exact same tactics employed under hoover’s fbi and specifically the “cointelpro” covert surveillance programme which kept secret information files on people it believed to be possible political dissidents, potential radicals, or their sympathisers.

according to the church committee report which investigated the cointelpro programme:

The Government has often undertaken the secret surveillance of citizens on the basis of their political beliefs, even when those beliefs posed no threat of violence or illegal acts on behalf of a hostile foreign power. The Government… has swept in vast amounts of information about the personal lives, views, and associations of American citizens. Investigations of groups deemed potentially dangerous — and even of groups suspected of associating with potentially dangerous organizations — have continued for decades, despite the fact that those groups did not engage in unlawful activity. Groups and individuals have been harassed and disrupted because of their political views and their lifestyles. Investigations have been based upon vague standards whose breadth made excessive collection inevitable…Intelligence agencies have served the political and personal objectives of presidents and other high officials. While the agencies often committed excesses in response to pressure from high officials in the Executive branch and Congress, they also occasionally initiated improper activities and then concealed them from officials whom they had a duty to inform.

try substituting “british” for “american”, “prime minister” for “president”, and “parliament” for “congress”, and then see how it reads.

particularly distressing is the police surveillance of the journalists:

The National Union of Journalists… documented at least eight ­protests since last March where its ­members were “routinely” photographed and filmed by police. Several journalists said police officers they had never met knew their names. “We have put this to police and the Home Office several times but they have always denied the practice or sought to avoid answering the question,” said Jeremy Dear, the union’s general secretary. “With this evidence there is no credibility in doing so any longer.”

a free press is one of the cornerstones and guardians of democracy. this too, however, harkens back to the more nefarious hoover tactics. in particular, cointelpro also targeted the alternative media and press, for the purposes of intimidation and harrassment.

ringing any (alarm) bells yet?

Like this post

Unlike

sunday, march 8th is international women’s day – since 1911, this day has been recognised as a day to promote the social, political and economic equality of women.

today, amnesty international uk is using international women’s day to draw attention to their 1:10 campaign, highlighting the unconscionable statistic that one in ten women in the uk are the victims of rape or gender-related violence every year (domestic violence/female genital mutilation/forced marriages/”honour” violence/sexual abuse/sex trafficking).

i’ve written many times here about how the uk law enforcement and judicial systems are failing rape victims in horrifying fashion, and one in four local authorities offers no services for violence against women.

if you live in the uk, go to the map of gaps to petition your mp for services and funding to combat violence against women.  if you live elsewhere, take action on amnesty’s global campaign to combat rape against women in conflict zones – “rape is cheaper than bullets”.

international women’s day has been much needed for nearly a hundred years now – how many more?

Like this post

Unlike

thanks to the miracle of podcasts, i now find myself spending much of my free time listening to public radio and news.  i am fast turning into my mother – which simultaneously scary and comforting.

however, if i begin to lose my glasses every 30 seconds, or start collecting endless piles of tupperware, someone please take me out behind the shed and shoot me.

Like this post

Unlike

watching television does not make babies smarter.

duh.

now, i’m certainly not one to tell parents what to do – i fully recognise that we live in a world where television is a inescapable and pervasive medium.  today’s childhood is not like it was when i grew up.

when i grew up, we had one television.  it was black and white, and had about 7 watchable channels.  the only children’s programming on offer at my house was “sesame street”, “the brady bunch” and a few mild cartoons.  we didn’t get a colour television until i was 10.  my television viewing was limited to the hours after my parents got home from work, and until i hit the teen years, i wasn’t even allowed to watch t.v. after 9pm.  adult shows like “hill street blues” were off limits until i was about 15.  my dad used to go so far as to put a lock on the television during the afterschool period so we couldn’t watch it until he’d made sure we’d done our homework and chores.  certainly no surprise then,  that we never had our own televisions, and we definitely never had cable.

and this was in the *70s and early 80s* – an era that looks positively innocent, nearly virginal really, by comparison with today’s standards.

i would never suggest that today’s parents be quite so draconian as my parents were, because quite frankly, these measures resulted in a lengthy period in my early adulthood when i was positively glued to the t.v. set, ingesting television like a starving man at a junk food buffet, as if to make up for lost time.  moderation in all things, i say.

but my parents (and many others) knew back then what many of today’s parents have lived in denial of for far too long: t.v. is not good for the developing brain.  we are, by nature, creatures who learn best through social interaction, and a brightly lit box simply cannot substitute for a parents attention and engagement. my parents generation called it the “idiot box” when they saw us sitting in front of it, gazing at it adoringly with glazed eyes – and they weren’t far off.

yes, i learned a lot of spanish through watching “sesame street”.  but i learned a great deal more by reading and playing and creating and imagining.  and my parents ensured that i did a lot more of the latter than i did of the former.

the “baby einstein” programmes and their ilk offer too many parents a panacea – assuaging their guilt at using the television as a substitute babysitter by convincing them they’re actually enhancing their child’s brain power.  hopefully this study puts paid to that.

and though i don’t praise my parents often enough, let me give credit where credit is due.  while you may have tried too hard at times, you never took the easy way out, and i benefited enormously from that – thanks mom and dad.  you may have saved me a few extra i.q. points

Like this post

Unlike

if ever there was an upside to the ever-deepening economic recession, this is it:

fewer people may die as a result of the death penalty in the u.s.

nine states have bills seeking to abolish or repeal the death penalty, while others are delaying or halting costly death penalty trials.

A 2008 study by the Urban Institute, an economic and social policy research group based in Maryland, found that an average capital murder trial in the state resulting in a death sentence costs about $3 million, or $1.9 million more than a case where the death penalty is not sought.

people may not care much about the principle of “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”, but they sure care when the state coffers are empty.

Like this post

Unlike

i saw them out of the corner of my eye as i ran past – the shy yellow heads peeking above the muddy parapet, the gentle green hue touching the ends of bleakbarren branches.  so subtle, i could almost believe they were a trick of the eye.

every year, there comes a day when i sense it – some primordial intuition which signals at the back of my brain.  it’s here, it’s arrived.  independent of any calendar, there comes a day when i know i can begin to breathe a little easier, that the worst is over, because spring is here.

today was that day.

They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold, familiar wind—

Now the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf

One by one objects are defined—
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf

But now the stark dignity of
entrance—Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted they
grip down and begin to awaken

from “spring and all”, william carlos williams

Like this post

Unlike