Bodhisatta (n): In the Pali canon, the Bodhissata Siddhartha Gotama is described thus:
Before my awakening, when I was an unawakened Bodhisatta, being subject myself to birth, sought what was likewise subject to birth. Being subject myself to aging… illness… death… sorrow… defilement, I sought happiness in what was likewise subject to illness… death… sorrow… defilement.
Those first blank pages are intimidating. Judgmental. As though the entire book might be spoiled with the careless stroke of a pen. As with any superstition, I don’t believe it. Not rationally anyway. But I go and buy six of my favourite pens. Just in case. Don’t go to the ball without a tuxedo, y’know?
Fingers press the stories insistently into the keyboard. Sometimes gently, or sarcastically, or desperately weaving something that happened into a wordpicture that my smile – or yours – will find in some time hence. Sometimes finding a story is hard. Sometimes finding it is easy, but recalling it is harder. Memory fades and few stories remain untarnished under time’s gentle and persistent breath. Other times they are as close as the ring that brushes the space bar. A gentle discomfort whose value keeps it close.
Away from telling stories for a second, and on to asking questions of travel writing. Stylistically and storytellingly (yes, that is a word now) At Matador, the question occasionally pops up as to what makes for honest, compelling travel writing – the stuff that makes you read to the end, leaves an impression and makes you want to do something, change something, see things differently? In journ. class, particularly the literary style course, there are questions of how to make a story which is more than simply a recounting of events, how to connect a story so that it engages, moves the reader. For what it’s worth, these are my thoughts on what can work.
My plan on returning home was always to pass right through and into something new. Not to turn my back on the people I know and the work I do in that place they call the Real World, but to augment it. To do more. More of the things that excite me. More of the things that fill not just a day, but a life with purpose. It’s that plan that has drawn me to the beautiful but oh-so-tiny town of Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape of South Africa for the remainder of this year. To study photojournalism.
“I wonder“, he said
And because he did, he went.
Embracing his fear, he freed it for the wind
To carry in the currents of the scent of tomorrow
Of the just beyond
“I wonder”, he said
“I wonder where the road goes”
And because he did, he went
- 11 days to go
Traveling from Cape Town to Cairo is something that I may quite likely only do once in this life. So I’ve been spending no small amount of thought trying to decide how I want to write and record it, what I want to record, and most importantly, what I hope the journey will come to mean in the end. It seems like a futile question to consider at the outset, when the journey has yet to begin and its conclusion cannot possibly be known. Seems like. But isn’t.
It’s a warm Sunday, dry from the suggestion of highveld dust on the sleeping air. Mixed in with the breeze, sweetening it, the sound of praises being sung in a nearby suburban park. An innocuous place on any other day, Sunday has transformed it, becoming a church to the jubilant celebration of Christ. Worshippers in robes of lush blue and impossibly brilliant white shuffle, sway and weave between the ululating and singing of the possessed. No walking dog or pedestrian picnic will intrude on this space today. As if fuelled by the afternoon, drifting lazily past, their worship blooms, wanes, flickers and explodes with the birth and death of each Sunday moment. Thousands burned in a day. Read the rest of this entry »
Every day begins fundamentally the same way. In a bed. Asleep. The first move in practically every scenario is usually the sticking of my warm and sleepy snout out of whatever it is that I happen to be sleeping in. More recently a nice, fluffed, duck-downed duvet – but in days past often other, less obviously comfy snout-holders. Hostel dorms, tents in varying conditions and on some occasions simply a sleeping bag on a floor somewhere interesting.
Unrealised, called upon yourself. At other times uninvited, unasked for. Never unrequired, you are the North Wind. Blowing in cold, fast, shaking loose the tiles and sowing disruption and mess.
