Getting lost: some notes: part 2

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Leaving a forest

Getting lost: some notes: part 2

6. When I ask for directions people are invariably very pleased to give them. Giving directions is a way of giving advice and this,of course, is an extremely popular human activity. I think it gives them tremendous pleasure to see how lost I am and thus confirm how they aren't lost at all and what fine people they are. They love how attentively I listen, how important their every word is. They love to detail exactly which junction one should turn left at (the one after the garage...) by which point I glaze over and start to become lost in the instructions themselves,  quickly confusing one corner, garage, set of traffic lights, corner shop, sharp bend, estate agent, big tree etc with another. Sometimes the direction giver is so overwhelmed by the desire to help that they offer a second option, or you could take the second left......and, needless to say, this is utterly disastrous.

 They also love to use you being lost as a vehicle for other conversation and find out where you are from. This seems very popular in Brazil and can be charming. 

7. There is that weird thing where certain cultures consider it shameful not to be able to help, and thus in response to where is the bus station will reply, straight on turn left, or a vague, but enthusiastically stated over there, all the while beaming at you, despite not having the least idea where your intended destination lies. And thus you find yourself wondering into some huge slum. I've heard this is common in the Far East but in Peru this happened to me, in Santa Cruz, twice. 

8. You can't miss it. A fatal expression

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Getting lost: some notes: part 1

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Spreading Tree

 

Although I have been to the woods many times I can still, bizzarely, get lost. I got lost about two months ago. I have very little instinct for direction. I can even get lost in Manhattan with its absurdly straightforward grid plan. I guess some of these things will become less familiar thanks to google maps.

Getting lost: some notes: part 1

1. There`s always this weird point when you realise I am lost. It comes as as a revelation, sometimes gradual (shouldn't we be there by now?) or sudden (isn't that the river?). Or that horribly perplexing Venetian experience: O God, we're back at the square!

2. There must be a moment just before where you are lost where you weren't lost. So are there a daze moments  where you are sleepwalking. 

3. Retrace your steps. This is extraordinarily depressing. It means accepting that you've wasted time and energy and there is moreover no easy way ahead, no short cut. Also it means seeing everything from the a 180 degree turn and this is, in itself, confusing.

4. Getting lost is much easier when you are in a place without a thing high above to refer to. Marrakesh is like this, there is no tower or hill and the network of tiny streets is quite extraordinary. In additional, all the buildings are painted a similar dirty peach colour.

5. Some say that men are too proud to ask for help when they get lost, and that women do not mind. Perhaps women don`t labour under the societal expectation that, as a gender they shouldn't get lost and therefore feel no shame in asking for help? Certainly, I dislike asking directions. Partly this is, indeed, pride, and the issue is exacerbated by the fact that I am hopeless at following instructions of any sort except possible food recipes. 

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Bouncing balls

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Bouncing balls

I suppose with the increased use of cards fewer of us leave the shop with change and consequently are far less likely to insert coins into these excellent machines to receive, from a metal, shuttered orifice,  our bouncing balls. 

This is a pity as these bouncing balls are superb. They are in a wide range of stunning colours and patterns: striped or marbleized or even weird faces or skulls. Most have a smooth surface, but others are lightly mottled.

 And they have the loveliest smell, a rubber-plastic chemical scent so divine that the first thing I do on getting mine is to hold it against my nostril and inhale. For those moments I feel utterly at peace with the universe.

And...they really do bounce extremely well, reaching phenomenal heights and then bouncing repeatedly with hysterical unpredictability over and over so you have to be careful about bouncing them outside the shop as, for sure, they will bounce onto the road and you`ll feel compelled to run after them, perhaps (alas!) into the bumper of an oncoming car.

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Vargem Grande, evening

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Vargem Grande, evening

There are some smallholdings and houses. Boggy fields with bits of rubbish strewn here and there. Soft hills in the background. 

There is a stables here. Two children rode past on bareback. They were laughing. The kids here seem to be jolly without that air of menace that British children sometime bring.

It's a pity the evenings aren't longer here, it's such a kind time of day.

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The beginnning of a story in a notebook

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The Beginnning of a story in a notebook

He was never a close friend of mine - he had charm and I have always believed that charismatic people should be kept at arm's length.

I first knew him at university. I would not have spent time with him but for a chance meeting on St James Street near Willow's.

This is the start of a story -uncompleted- which owes, or promised to owe- a lot to F.S. Fitzgerald. I did complete about twenty stories, of which maybe five can be reread without wincing. I often started them in these little notebooks which could be carried around easily. 

One set of stores was called The Annie Stories and consisted mainly of very short dialogues in various settings - cafes, parks and so on, in which she showed her sympathy for her friend, the narrator. I think the Annie character was similar to Mr Rabbit, in the beautifully named Charlotte Zolotow and  Maurice Sendak's Mr Rabbit and The Lovely Present crossed with Richard Brautigan and maybe a dash of  Salinger's sister in Catcher in the Rye. In idle moments, I think of resuscitating these but usually when I think like that it is because of sentimentality and not because the idea has a relevance any more.

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I've always been interested in very short forms,- the Haiku, the very short story, the limerick,  aphorisms, fairy tales or parables- which are often characterized by wit, and a refusal to preach. And with these pieces, I suppose I'm trying to continue this with little reflections and digressions to accompany photographs of mainly, rather modest items and the thoughts they bring. 

The photo gives a starting point, and usually I start by responding very simply to what the picture is of. Then, later, when I am relaxedly engaging in other stuff like folding my clothes another train of thought enters, often with some force, to augment the initial, often somewhat banal offering. Sometimes the train of thought presents an idea so personal that I worry that it might be too revealing of some darkness in me, or some wicked actions I partook of. But that would be my own affair.

Far worse, were it to cause some needless unhappiness in others. It isn't right to say something nasty just because it is true, or because others might enjoy reading it, or because it will gain an audience.

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Landscape

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Landscape of a tree

Imagine if, by some peculiar and, most likely, unpleasant turn of events, you became very very small, so very small that each of these cones was a mountain, and you lived here, eking out a livelihood in the grooves and ridges of the bark? Naked and cold.

What with the rain, flooding every cranny with dreary force, farming wouldn't be much of option. You would be better to forage, seeking fresh bacteria in those woody valleys. Or to scrape into the surface with your tiny nails in the hope of some edible slivers.

Where would you live? In a hovel made of grains of bark, or could you find a crack and slip into it every night for safety?

An ant casting its shadow on your home would represent a divine terror. You might live in fearful reverence of these vengeful creatures, with maggots, spiders and bees as other deities? Would you, weekly, present them desperate offerings: fresh piles of microbes and bacteria on rudimentary alters? Accompanying these with solemn pledges of love, of obedience, much mournful singing, and prayers that one day you might return to your previous, innocuous existence as a kitchen fitter or marketing assistant or suchlike (only now chastened, resolute in your humility before the Divine)?

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Vehicle

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Vehicle

I don't get what this thing is for.

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