About 6 weeks here so we've passed through several stages:
The: "Oh, this is no big deal" phase
The: "Oh my god, what the hell are we doing here" phase
The: "I LOVE CHIPS!!!" phase
The: "Wow, the UK is just so much better than the US" phase
The: "I love 1 and 2 pound coins, nice heft" phase
The: "Wow, the US is just so much better than the UK" phase
The: "Why is that person staring at me" phase
The: "I love chips but not more than 3x a week" phase
The: "I have nothing to wear for this climate-- its cloudy, drizzling and 50 degrees but I'm sweating in my jacket" phase
The: "Please, please be my friend--oh wait do I seem desperate" phase
The: "Don't people know how to make way on the sidewalk, dear lord please get out of my personal space" phase
The: "I love chips but maybe only 1x a week" phase
The: "Hey, I think I've got the hang of walking right next to someone without touching them, who would have thought" phase
The: "Prawn cocktail, roasted chicken, BBQ bacon potato crisps--Really?" phase
The: "Could there possibly be more bureaucracy" phase
The: "I love chips and could have them 2x a week" phase
The: "How in god's name can beer be more expensive in the UK" phase
The: "I am tracking the dollar every day on-line and terrified of the exchange rate plunging any more" phase
The: "Am I supposed to leave now?" phase
The: "What are those girls thinking with their tights and shirt barely covering their ass" phase
The: "So it really is free (ie healthcare)" phase
The: "I don't think I can live without Mexican food" phase
The: "Why is Guinness made in Nigera when Ireland is right here" phase
The: "Oh my god the public option on the House bill is going to be linked to current insurance pricing and therefore provide no incentive for prices to drop while forcing the uninsured to now purchase insurance they can't afford what the hell ever happened to single payer ..." phase
The: "Gorse, heather, and horse chesnuts--I must be in an English novel" phase
The: "I love chips unconditionally" phase
The: "You mean there are 50 different brands of hard cider in the supermarket" phase
The: "4 visits from the plumber later we might have hot water or maybe not, is this New Mexico" phase
The: "I love Indian food" phase
The: "Why is the 10 pence bigger than the 20 pence?" phase
The: "Asian markets are crazy cool" phase
The: "Seagulls call to me every morning trying to lure me to the sea but I'm not going" phase
The: "Seagulls call to me every morning trying to lure me to the sea and I have to go" phase
The: "Walking in the rain without a raincoat and not caring" phase ......
Friday 30 October 2009
Thursday 22 October 2009
wind and duende
Note: Oh great readership of 7 here, alas, is a rather lyric and maudlin contribution. Please skip if you're not in the mood ....
21 October
Fall comes with wind. Maybe this is true all over the world. Is it because the trees, itching to be free of their leaves, ready to plunge down into the dark sleep of winter, call out to it? I’ve wondered. In Los Angeles, despite arguments to the contrary, Fall does come … but it comes late, and sometimes with the winds come fire, not crisp nights, or snow. I remember my first real deciduous autumn, in Colorado, marveling that the golden leaved trees (cottonwoods, aspens) had only just fully turned, when they were raked by those sweeping winds off the Divide. It happens in New Mexico. In Iowa. In Pennsylvania. In New York.
Storms coming in off the Atlantic, over Ireland. From up on our hill today I saw the Bristol Channel was green (a certain kind of stone, lit by a certain kind of light …), rough. Clouds and light. Winds started a couple days ago. Leaves on the ground. Wet with rain. Hard rain … (until now the rain has been so soft, so fine, that from indoors the world appears to be wet with a rain that just passed by, but as soon as you go outside, there it is, falling all around you).
It is hard to break the habit of these late hours. Because in all of my time zones it is early evening, afternoon. Gives the sensation of being somehow unhinged … the body detached from the mind, the mind detached from time.
Went to a lecture by an American poet/teacher tonight. Three teachers and two students were there. I felt sorry for him. But of course he was fine, on his way to Ireland to do a reading. He lived in Swansea on a study abroad year 15 years ago. He’s from Iowa, studied for a while in New Mexico. His presentation all about the importance of going abroad for writers.
He brought up an interesting point—a relation to what the poet Federico Garcia Lorca called Duende … To Lorca the force, the essential struggle, of the artist is not with muse or angel as some have written, but rather with death. Duende is the dance on the edge of death, the dark blossoming into decay, the impish god inside us who, when we face him at last, is the skeleton in the mirror. It is the dark edge to the flamenco dancer’s rhythm, to the gypsy song. Zachary Jack (the lecturer) aligned the act of the writer in living abroad, with facing mortality, confronting duende.
To go away is to die. The self that was before the journey will never return again. It can’t. It will have changed. Heraclitus gave us this idea with his river. I said this before I left, and it was true: I feel as if I died at least a dozen times this past year. Between April and September we said goodbye, and goodbye, and goodbye. And each time it was a small death--not in that I imagined I would never see these people and places again … but that when I do, we will be, as we must be, all changed.
I wonder if trees, facing their own small death every year, ever hope the winds, this time, won’t come. Or if they stand in the wild whipping air and feel the earth below them, feel that the wind is bringing them news from far away.
21 October
Fall comes with wind. Maybe this is true all over the world. Is it because the trees, itching to be free of their leaves, ready to plunge down into the dark sleep of winter, call out to it? I’ve wondered. In Los Angeles, despite arguments to the contrary, Fall does come … but it comes late, and sometimes with the winds come fire, not crisp nights, or snow. I remember my first real deciduous autumn, in Colorado, marveling that the golden leaved trees (cottonwoods, aspens) had only just fully turned, when they were raked by those sweeping winds off the Divide. It happens in New Mexico. In Iowa. In Pennsylvania. In New York.
Storms coming in off the Atlantic, over Ireland. From up on our hill today I saw the Bristol Channel was green (a certain kind of stone, lit by a certain kind of light …), rough. Clouds and light. Winds started a couple days ago. Leaves on the ground. Wet with rain. Hard rain … (until now the rain has been so soft, so fine, that from indoors the world appears to be wet with a rain that just passed by, but as soon as you go outside, there it is, falling all around you).
It is hard to break the habit of these late hours. Because in all of my time zones it is early evening, afternoon. Gives the sensation of being somehow unhinged … the body detached from the mind, the mind detached from time.
Went to a lecture by an American poet/teacher tonight. Three teachers and two students were there. I felt sorry for him. But of course he was fine, on his way to Ireland to do a reading. He lived in Swansea on a study abroad year 15 years ago. He’s from Iowa, studied for a while in New Mexico. His presentation all about the importance of going abroad for writers.
He brought up an interesting point—a relation to what the poet Federico Garcia Lorca called Duende … To Lorca the force, the essential struggle, of the artist is not with muse or angel as some have written, but rather with death. Duende is the dance on the edge of death, the dark blossoming into decay, the impish god inside us who, when we face him at last, is the skeleton in the mirror. It is the dark edge to the flamenco dancer’s rhythm, to the gypsy song. Zachary Jack (the lecturer) aligned the act of the writer in living abroad, with facing mortality, confronting duende.
To go away is to die. The self that was before the journey will never return again. It can’t. It will have changed. Heraclitus gave us this idea with his river. I said this before I left, and it was true: I feel as if I died at least a dozen times this past year. Between April and September we said goodbye, and goodbye, and goodbye. And each time it was a small death--not in that I imagined I would never see these people and places again … but that when I do, we will be, as we must be, all changed.
I wonder if trees, facing their own small death every year, ever hope the winds, this time, won’t come. Or if they stand in the wild whipping air and feel the earth below them, feel that the wind is bringing them news from far away.
Saturday 17 October 2009
Goodbye Salsa, Hello Lemon Pickle
16 October
It’s 8 p.m. here and ah the long long hours of daylight you all still have left to play in.
Apologies for the significant pause in between blogs. There’s been a lot on my mind. But first off the good news is that Heather is healthy and so is baby James (and the rest of the crew). And that C’s dad had a successful surgery yesterday. A lot of relief on this side of the Atlantic.
Made spinach dal, basmati rice and besan pancakes (which are pancakes made from chickpea flour mixed with spices, garlic, veggies, cilantro, and ginger). We’ve discovered that our standby for a cheap and quick dinner, Mexican food, is really not much of an option here. Corn tortillas do not seem to exist on this island …. The only ones we did find had wheat in them, were 8 to a pack and cost the equivalent of $3.50! Ah, the long gone days of a pack of 25 corn tortillas for under $1. Latin America seems far away. So the new ethnic will be Indian. Goodbye salsa, hello lemon pickle. Other random and strangely expensive items include all paper products (after all they deforested centuries ago, I suppose … take that as a warning America), prunes (why do dried plums cost $10/lbs here?), peanut butter (it’s just not their thing), beer (I know, what’s that about?), mid-range wine (nary a California cab to be found), rice (again, huh?), nuts in general, tofu, steel-cut oats (pin-oats here) …. However, surprisingly and refreshingly lower priced are things like vegan margarine, soy yogurt, gluten-free corn pasta, crackers (oat cakes, ryvita), rice milk, hummus, potatoes, canned tomatoes….
It’s a month that we’ve been here. Seems both shorter and longer. I’ve gotten used to the tiny cars (it’s not so much the size—although when you see a camper smaller than a tahoe, it’s pretty stunning--it’s that they are ALL small), the shapes of the row houses, the narrow streets, and I even look right first when I cross the street. The accents are many and varied and I am mostly used to hearing and deciphering them. The only ones that give much trouble are the thick Welsh and thick Scottish. The more subtle things are coming into play now—like knowing when a presentation, meeting, or event is over … I am bad at that sort of thing to begin with so between my cluelessness of “get the hell out of here” signals and the very gentle and polite way that Brits seem to let things trail off to nothing … I might be hanging on well past my welcome for a few months to come.
Saturday morning: Well, his is certainly not the most entertaining or enlightening of blogs, but the main reason for it was to notify that there are several new albums of photos of Swansea on my facebook page (which I think all of you are on). I will just have to promise more sharp wit, insight, and searing social commentary in the future. For now I return to a few more minutes of 19th century novel (I’ve read three Nathanial West books in a row now and just had to take a breather between Miss Lonelyhearts and Day of the Locust) before I get myself back to work on my own. Perhaps a walk toward Black Pill today and the lure of this weekend’s Cider Festival ….. Love you all.
It’s 8 p.m. here and ah the long long hours of daylight you all still have left to play in.
Apologies for the significant pause in between blogs. There’s been a lot on my mind. But first off the good news is that Heather is healthy and so is baby James (and the rest of the crew). And that C’s dad had a successful surgery yesterday. A lot of relief on this side of the Atlantic.
Made spinach dal, basmati rice and besan pancakes (which are pancakes made from chickpea flour mixed with spices, garlic, veggies, cilantro, and ginger). We’ve discovered that our standby for a cheap and quick dinner, Mexican food, is really not much of an option here. Corn tortillas do not seem to exist on this island …. The only ones we did find had wheat in them, were 8 to a pack and cost the equivalent of $3.50! Ah, the long gone days of a pack of 25 corn tortillas for under $1. Latin America seems far away. So the new ethnic will be Indian. Goodbye salsa, hello lemon pickle. Other random and strangely expensive items include all paper products (after all they deforested centuries ago, I suppose … take that as a warning America), prunes (why do dried plums cost $10/lbs here?), peanut butter (it’s just not their thing), beer (I know, what’s that about?), mid-range wine (nary a California cab to be found), rice (again, huh?), nuts in general, tofu, steel-cut oats (pin-oats here) …. However, surprisingly and refreshingly lower priced are things like vegan margarine, soy yogurt, gluten-free corn pasta, crackers (oat cakes, ryvita), rice milk, hummus, potatoes, canned tomatoes….
It’s a month that we’ve been here. Seems both shorter and longer. I’ve gotten used to the tiny cars (it’s not so much the size—although when you see a camper smaller than a tahoe, it’s pretty stunning--it’s that they are ALL small), the shapes of the row houses, the narrow streets, and I even look right first when I cross the street. The accents are many and varied and I am mostly used to hearing and deciphering them. The only ones that give much trouble are the thick Welsh and thick Scottish. The more subtle things are coming into play now—like knowing when a presentation, meeting, or event is over … I am bad at that sort of thing to begin with so between my cluelessness of “get the hell out of here” signals and the very gentle and polite way that Brits seem to let things trail off to nothing … I might be hanging on well past my welcome for a few months to come.
Saturday morning: Well, his is certainly not the most entertaining or enlightening of blogs, but the main reason for it was to notify that there are several new albums of photos of Swansea on my facebook page (which I think all of you are on). I will just have to promise more sharp wit, insight, and searing social commentary in the future. For now I return to a few more minutes of 19th century novel (I’ve read three Nathanial West books in a row now and just had to take a breather between Miss Lonelyhearts and Day of the Locust) before I get myself back to work on my own. Perhaps a walk toward Black Pill today and the lure of this weekend’s Cider Festival ….. Love you all.
Sunday 4 October 2009
Elizabeth Gaskell and Shepherd’s Pie
4 October
We’re off to the library in a bit to get a couple more books, AND to check out the media room, where apparently there are hundreds of DVDs to be checked out for “free” (if you think of £9,000 tuition as free?). In fact, a little bird told me that they have the entire 7 seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer … and all 5 of Angel …. WHAT!!!? (And for those relatives and friends to whom I’ve just outed us, yes, we are die-hard BTVS fans. What can I say?)
Yesterday was a nice day of alternating rain and sun. We visited a Charity Shop (ie Thrift Store) right down the street and I found a casserole dish and a very tiny tortish type pan for baking (I’m thinking miniature apple cake …). And a copy of Elizabeth Gaskell’s, Cranford. Another shopper saw my Gaskell and asked if I’d read Cranford. “No, but I love North & South and Wives & Daughters.” “Oh, you’ll love it!” And when I passed the casserole over I was telling Christien, “Now we can make Shepherd’s Pie!” (Meaning of course our vegan version, Lentil Shepherd’s Pie, which, by the way, is scrumptious!) and the woman behind the counter said—“Ahh! Shepherd’s Pie--my kids love it--but I’d need a much bigger pan than that!” -- Of course you have to imagine all this in a Welsh accent …
Anyway, what is this place where shoppers on the street know about 19th century women authors and everyone loves a good potato mash??? Why, we’re in Britain!
We’re off to the library in a bit to get a couple more books, AND to check out the media room, where apparently there are hundreds of DVDs to be checked out for “free” (if you think of £9,000 tuition as free?). In fact, a little bird told me that they have the entire 7 seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer … and all 5 of Angel …. WHAT!!!? (And for those relatives and friends to whom I’ve just outed us, yes, we are die-hard BTVS fans. What can I say?)
Yesterday was a nice day of alternating rain and sun. We visited a Charity Shop (ie Thrift Store) right down the street and I found a casserole dish and a very tiny tortish type pan for baking (I’m thinking miniature apple cake …). And a copy of Elizabeth Gaskell’s, Cranford. Another shopper saw my Gaskell and asked if I’d read Cranford. “No, but I love North & South and Wives & Daughters.” “Oh, you’ll love it!” And when I passed the casserole over I was telling Christien, “Now we can make Shepherd’s Pie!” (Meaning of course our vegan version, Lentil Shepherd’s Pie, which, by the way, is scrumptious!) and the woman behind the counter said—“Ahh! Shepherd’s Pie--my kids love it--but I’d need a much bigger pan than that!” -- Of course you have to imagine all this in a Welsh accent …
Anyway, what is this place where shoppers on the street know about 19th century women authors and everyone loves a good potato mash??? Why, we’re in Britain!
Saturday 3 October 2009
Cognitive dissonance
I was planning to write another blog about being here in Swansea and getting settled focusing on the walk around Swansea with Nigel Jenkins on Tuesday (which was great—and I will do) … but –
I think instead I will be very bloggerly and write about the first thing I’ve noticed that reveals a very large gap between British & American thinking: Healthcare.
Front page of the Guardian today was an article about how it’s been discovered that millions upon millions have been spent to combat Obama’s healthcare plan. Noted was that there are 6 health industry lobbyist for every member of congress ….
Healthcare has already come up several times in talking to people here. Intellectually they seem to understand that in America there is no public healthcare. But when I mentioned, “No, I haven’t had insurance for 5 years ago now… so I just haven’t been to the doctor.” The reaction is a blinking moment of silence. And when I told them about a friend’s son, age 21, who died of appendicitis in Los Angeles 8 years ago after being refused entry into two hospitals, they actually gape. The words don’t quite register. We mentioned how the famous poet, Ted Berrigan, died for want of healthcare, years ago in New York. One person I talked to said that when he was visiting friends in the states years ago one of his friends had gotten very sick, but rather than take him into the hospital, they had mopped his brow through the night, hoping for the best because they were uninsured. As he told the story of something that had happened so long ago, he still seemed perplexed by it. The response is: Shameful; Appalling; Horrific. The look on faces is one of total incomprehension of how a country so rich could fail to provide basic medical care for all its citizens. They don’t understand how insurance companies could have become such a huge part of the medical process. (Don’t think I do, either, really.)
I think their inability to fully grasp our system (or lack thereof) is mirrored by our own inability to really grasp the system here. We registered at the clinic. Appointments? No charge. Tests? No charge. And here in Wales--prescriptions? No charge. We received our NHS cards and on the back was text about, “make sure to present this if you are going to a doctor who is not your registered service provider… blah blah, or you might be charged.” And I thought, “AH HA!” But no, then you look down and read that you can get a refund of your money; it just means a lot of paperwork …
There is a lot to say about healthcare, insurance companies, Obama’s plan and the rest—I’ll leave that for another forum. Mostly I am trying to express, and maybe even trying to understand, to really feel, what it is like to be in a place where the idea of someone dying of something curable for the sole reason that they are poor has been written out of the lexicon. In the U.S. we hear anecdotes of insurance companies denying treatment, we see news stories, or know friends who have lost loved ones. Some of us are uninsured. But I think maybe eventually, even the horror we feel becomes habit. And the numbing, the repetition, eat away at our humanity and our outrage…
It is interesting to know there are places in the world where people can’t comprehend the US healthcare system.
I think instead I will be very bloggerly and write about the first thing I’ve noticed that reveals a very large gap between British & American thinking: Healthcare.
Front page of the Guardian today was an article about how it’s been discovered that millions upon millions have been spent to combat Obama’s healthcare plan. Noted was that there are 6 health industry lobbyist for every member of congress ….
Healthcare has already come up several times in talking to people here. Intellectually they seem to understand that in America there is no public healthcare. But when I mentioned, “No, I haven’t had insurance for 5 years ago now… so I just haven’t been to the doctor.” The reaction is a blinking moment of silence. And when I told them about a friend’s son, age 21, who died of appendicitis in Los Angeles 8 years ago after being refused entry into two hospitals, they actually gape. The words don’t quite register. We mentioned how the famous poet, Ted Berrigan, died for want of healthcare, years ago in New York. One person I talked to said that when he was visiting friends in the states years ago one of his friends had gotten very sick, but rather than take him into the hospital, they had mopped his brow through the night, hoping for the best because they were uninsured. As he told the story of something that had happened so long ago, he still seemed perplexed by it. The response is: Shameful; Appalling; Horrific. The look on faces is one of total incomprehension of how a country so rich could fail to provide basic medical care for all its citizens. They don’t understand how insurance companies could have become such a huge part of the medical process. (Don’t think I do, either, really.)
I think their inability to fully grasp our system (or lack thereof) is mirrored by our own inability to really grasp the system here. We registered at the clinic. Appointments? No charge. Tests? No charge. And here in Wales--prescriptions? No charge. We received our NHS cards and on the back was text about, “make sure to present this if you are going to a doctor who is not your registered service provider… blah blah, or you might be charged.” And I thought, “AH HA!” But no, then you look down and read that you can get a refund of your money; it just means a lot of paperwork …
There is a lot to say about healthcare, insurance companies, Obama’s plan and the rest—I’ll leave that for another forum. Mostly I am trying to express, and maybe even trying to understand, to really feel, what it is like to be in a place where the idea of someone dying of something curable for the sole reason that they are poor has been written out of the lexicon. In the U.S. we hear anecdotes of insurance companies denying treatment, we see news stories, or know friends who have lost loved ones. Some of us are uninsured. But I think maybe eventually, even the horror we feel becomes habit. And the numbing, the repetition, eat away at our humanity and our outrage…
It is interesting to know there are places in the world where people can’t comprehend the US healthcare system.
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