To America With Love

I knew, at the back of my mind, that the US Government was shutting down today, but it didn't hit home until I checked out Twitter to discover that 'NASA' and 'Curiosity Rover' are both mothballed for the duration. 

Imagine this!  The one and only extra-terrestrial motor vehicle in the audible universe, is on vacation because of a spat over a paltry trillion bucks in Washington DC.

Curiosity will speak to me again soon, of this I have no doubt, and in the meantime I WILL spare a thought for all US citizens seriously affected by this robust lesson in the separation of powers away 'over the pond'. ( Yes, I HAVE studied US governance, and it HAS proved of more use than knowing the means of execution of several of Henry VIII 's six wives, if a little less riveting.)

SO. There's my starting point. Here's the rest:-

This is what I am doing, as the Leader of The Free World plays hooky:

I have attempted to bottom out the riches of my access to the OU online resource library, so have read neuroscience in 'Nature' (and learned that rowers in Oxford are better motivated when training as a team. Oh! YES!)  I have visited the National Gallery and made 'Avignon From The South West' my screensaver.  

Bored with academia, I flew to Washington State, via Google Earth, to find the theatre in Issaquah where I saw a musical, but still couldn't remember the name of either, so I sat for a while with Darlene in Redmond where 40th NE meets the Bel-Red Rd right in front of the Chinese Temple.  Then, what the hell, it's a free ride, I checked out the terrain at Giant's Castle, in The Drakensburg Mountains, RSA,  where I spent a magical dawn, walking alone, on my fifty-sixth birthday.

I then recalled I should be researching, so  I found Philip Larkin on Spotify and persuaded him, with just one click, to read 'The Less Deceived'.  I had forgotten how perfect 'Churchgoing ' is and why 'No Road' always brings smiles and tears in about equal measure.

Time for something new, so after Coleridge on meter, I discovered THIS.  And I invite you to appreciate it too. I reproduce it with deep love, and gratitude, to all my American friends:

 Topography 

 After you flew across the country we

 got in bed, laid our bodies

 delicately together, like maps laid

 face to face, East to West, my

 San Francisco against your New York, your

 Fire Island against my Sonoma, my

 New Orleans deep in your Texas, your Idaho

 bright on my Great Lakes, my Kansas

 burning against your Kansas your Kansas

 burning against my Kansas, your Eastern

 Standard Time pressing into my

 Pacific Time, my Mountain Time

 beating against your Central Time, your

 sun rising swiftly from the right my

 sun rising swiftly from the left your

 moon rising slowly from the left my

 moon rising slowly from the right until

 all four bodies of the sky

 burn above us, sealing us together,

 all our cities twin cities,

 all our states united, one

 nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

-- Sharon Olds 

Giant's Castle

Giant’s Castle 28th October 2006

The minibus rattles and crunches over the unmade roads that lead from the Jo’berg to Durban Highway to 'Giant’s Castle' resort in the Drakensberg  Mountains that lace between Lesotho and Kwa-Zulu Natal. 

The afternoon sun slips intermittently between the mountains, reddening as it dips, casting lengthening shadows and giving rise to the fear that this group of twelve head teachers, on a break , wouldn’t make their destination before nightfall.

We amble through small villages, each a cluster of thatched mud-bricked roundhouses, each with its own lush garden, each connected to the next, to the river, to the road, by a network of well-worn paths that snake over the landscape like cracks in a glaze.

Sharp scrutiny of the sky and the bush are rewarded with sightings of various unidentifiable antelope leaping from view, and a brace of eagles riding the thermals.  Each is inevitably accompanied by a shout of excitement from the spotter and a collective groan of disappointment from 
those who’d missed it.

 Driving erratically, climbing steadily, we arrive just before dusk. The thatched cottage I share with Maxine, is simply furnished in a faux-African style that is both austere and comfortable.  Greedy for light, I make the hastiest of preparations for the evening meal, and step out into the cool, brief evening, within minutes of setting my cases down.

The air is moist, with an abrasive tang of wood smoke and as I turn my face towards the peaks, I draw in a deep, deep breath that is rewarded with the faint aroma of an exotic bloom, one that I  shall ultimately fail to identify, that will, within the hour, offer a feast of nectar to the night-feeding insects that emerge with the stars.

‘I’ll leave at five, it should be light by then, walk for two hours, then turn around and come back, I’m not bothered about breakfast. I’m going to make the most of the few hours we have here. ‘
‘Remember, the bus leaves at ten!’  Maxine calls back, as she makes her way over to the restaurant for pre-dinner drinks
.
Magic!   My fifty-sixth birthday dawns, and its magic.  

Stepping out onto the deck, my ears are assailed by the high-pitched ‘zing-zing-zing ‘ of an orchestra of bush  crickets that were awake long  before I was.  Instead of staying with the moment, I rush off to pick up my voice recorder. Predictably, on my return, the cacophony has 
ceased. 

Shrugging off disappointment , I walk briskly down to the trail that will take me to the caves where, centuries ago, the Bushmen sheltered.  There are no physical traces of them now, apart from the stunning cave paintings that are sacred testimonies to their nomadic lives. They were 
daubed with skill, by the light of firebrands,  in the colours of the earth; yellow ochre, blood red, chalk white and charcoal black. Here are ghostly eland, masked shaman and birthing women, each pictogram carrying meaning that can only be guessed at by most modern observers.

Not for my eyes though, not today.  I shall be leaving for the airport at the precise time that the caves, safe behind their steel barricades, open to the public .

The mountains, stark companions on my solitary walk, are  swathed in mist. The strengthening sun energises it with a golden glow, so unearthly, I catch my breath in wonder. The path is an easy meander, a slow descent for about an hour to a river basin where a fast flowing stream stays a moment, in a hollow, in a glade, before pouring over a lip and hastening on to meet another wanderer far  below.  

Here I rest, reveling in the beauty of the place.  Across the valley, bare of trees, the precipice is radiant in 
full sun. I am warmer too, so I remove my jacket and drink deeply from my water bottle.  I listen for the chatter of women and children, pausing here from root-digging, berry-picking, to refresh themselves.  I am being fanciful; nevertheless, I sense that their laughter is only just out of hearing.

My walk is not without purpose.  I have photographed many of the flowers that I have discovered (all but one, unknown to me) and before I move on, I pull out my field guide to check them out.  I amuse myself by allowing the !Xhosa names to roll over my tongue, iqalaba, (sugar-bush) isichwe, (candelabra flower)umsobo wesinja (sobobo berry). 

This day, this time, this place.  Pure gift.