Of mermaids and mountains...

[copyright Jade Gibson 2007]

Well, I saw my first mountains again, in the real sense. When they stand stark and solemn against a night sky, with a three quarter moon rising above a swelling sea coated with a sheen of moonlight. A friend drove me down the coast towards Kalk Bay (harbour), Fishhoek (beach) and Boulders beach (where the penguins are) in the evening, after I declared I hadn't seen Cape Town properly yet. The dark streets with firmly shuttered and burglar-barred shops turned into an open stretch of sky with bright stars circling the moon.

'I can breathe again,' I said. After a year in London, I could see far again, across a sea that suggested new horizons, a vast sky unmasked by buildings, neon signs and massive crowds.

I remembered once, seeing over Kalk Bay harbour wall on a dark night, a luminescent seal shooting through the waves. 'Red tide', explained my friend, 'when the algae come in they float in the water, and when they are disturbed they give off fluorescence. The squid come in too, and people fish for squid.' I remembered the seal; a flash of bright phosphorus green, spectral in the water, as it chased food, the squid also luminescent, darting in bright sparks under the waves. The seal swirled in the dark, appearing translucent as it awoke a haze of spinning green light around its body, seeming almost human in its silhouette. I understood then how sailors could easily believe in mermaids, strange spectres that ghostily haunted the waves with fish-like tails.

Earlier, I danced, my own spectral mermaid, amongst a sea of floating colours. Up to now, I have been looking at Cape Town from the outside inside; as a visitor, a spectator. There comes a time when you move from living in a place from the outside, to a time when the place takes over and encloses you, becomes shell-like, protective, and the two of you are in unison. I am not sure if I am there yet, a little torn between two places, but, slowly, I feel I am growing wings here, and soon, like the seal, will be sailing in my own light.

LONDON SHRINKS, INTO CAPE TOWN DARKNESS

[image from Wikipaedia, London page]

Leaving London; the plane rose, the houses shrank, red buses moved like beetles along the streets, slowly shrinking too, the streets became smaller and smaller. What was I doing there? I thought. As if the jaws of a steel cage had suddenly released. It was a beautiful day as the coast receded and became blue sea. I arrived 6am in Cape Town, dark and in a thunderstorm. But, out in the dark, there was mountains and space. And, at the airport, was my sister, wondering why the plane was two hours late.

I explained that as we were about to take off from Frankfurt, and approached the main runway, the pilot explained there had been an urgent telex from airport control and he was waiting for it. After a while he explained they had found landing parts of an airbus of the type we were in on the runway, and needed to send an engineer to check it was not our plane. After another very long wait, we were told our plane was safe, the parts had not fallen from it. As we turned into the main runway, and gathered speed, one of the passengers shouted out, 'We are now in God's hands...'

Well, whoever's hands it was, we got to Cape Town, although the luggage of my co-passenger, a young Scottish woman headed to work on a game park, didn't. So she headed off without any kit to her next destination as I entered Cape Town. I had over-optimistically expected to see the mountains as we came in, but all was dark as the sun was out and the wind and rain were howling (haven't you heard rain howl before?). They had been working on the airport car park so we entered a building site as we came out of the airport.

Despite expecting major cultural shock, as I had always had coming back to London, I didn't have any going back to Cape Town. Nothing much has changed, only salsa venues, and the weather maybe, which is apparently more wet than normal. No jokes about bringing the British weather with me, please. On the salsa floor, people were much the same, in fact, most of them looked better than before. It may have been my jet lag affecting me though, as I was a bit tired after packing and working non-stop before leaving the UK.

So, I'm off to explore culture and look at the theory of how creativity and practice crosses nations; hence my own translocation as my own guinea pig. And, as they say on the dance floor, one step at a time, before the spinning begins....

EXCERPTS FROM NEWSLETTER

EXCERPTS FROM NEWSLETTER NO. 2: AN ANTHROPOLOGIST/ARTIST/WRITER INCAPE TOWN 9/12/06

Ah yes, I guess you thought I got swallowed up byLondon, and indeed it did feel a bit like that;something similar to Jonah and the Whale; I wasswallowed by the big underbelly of London for a whileand South Africa seemed like a tiny desperate pinprick on the other side of the Universe which I closedfrom my mind as it seemed so difficult to reach...

But then one bounces back and finds your way out ofLondon, up through its gullet and somehow back in thewaves - rocky and unpredictable, yet with some form ofhorizon and sense of journey in sight. I spent some oftoday looking at sites on arts events, research andevents in South Africa and feel a sense of comfort andwarmth again, as well as finding the research and workitself exciting. Perhaps local dispute and contentioncan appear frustrating and difficult; but from theother side it also shows a society that is dynamic andcontroversial; whereas here it feels bureaucratic andeverything is organised through call centres on theother side of the earth and it's always 'thegovernments fault' and never ones own personalresponsibility.

I have tried very hard to imagine the grey andbrown-brick buildings and more contemporary building'smetallic surfaces are high-walled mountains and rockycrags but seem to have failed to. And undergroundrailway lines cannot resemble wild tufts of grass andprotea, and, despite the fact there are (unbelievably)seagulls here that peer over the Thames on grey murkydays, the only thing resembling the sea is the heavingmass of bodies that throng through Oxford Street atthe end of the day.

There is hope, it seems. The distant pin-prick hasbecome a promising ray of sun and I realise things arenever so far away that they are untouchable, in yourmind at least.

RESEARCH NEWS

So, what has created this sudden burst of optimism andconnection with South Africa again? Partly I can nowfind my way around London again without feelingtotally lost, and secondly because I'm looking intoresearch opportunities one the net through university topossibly be able to link with South Africa, and seeing pictures of similar places and faces. At the momentit is just talk and ideas and looming grant proposals,but I am considering two main ideas - one concerningissues around diversity and perceived culturaldifferences, and how museum and art artefacts and/ordisplays relate to this, and thus may be challengedand changed (comparing London and Cape Town, ofcourse) - and the second a bit more cognitive - alongthe same lines - or maybe even linking in - which Ihave not quite resolved as yet as I need to talk withpeople and read a bit more. There is apparently a lotof work here on how people 'read' and 'interpret'objects.

DANCE NEWS

Enough of that. Those who are not interested inresearch will be yawning by now, so I move to thesalsa and dance scene here. I am proud to say I wentto my first Eastern European Balkan (I think) eventwith an additional polish gypsy band. The band camedown and danced with the crowd after and by the end ofthe evening I could dance to Balkan music (actuallyit's not that hard but it's a lot of jumping - veryenergetic). Salsa however is still full of guys who think it is'Strictly Ballroom' and discuss dance moves like theywould cars and stereos, and when I dance with them Ifeel like a clockwork doll. Occasionally I come acrosssomeone who dances with the feel of the music and ampleasantly reminded of Cape Town jazz (now turned salsa, methinks) dancers who have real rhythm. Is thisnostalgia setting in, I wonder? An altruistic androsy-pink view of life in Cape Town? But there is ahuge difference between a society where music anddance permeates the environment and social events andone where music is absent. A South American friend once told me this true storyof his first time at an English party. He went in andpeople were standing around drinking and talking andnibbling little snacks. He waited, and they keptnibbling and talking. He waited more, and still the same. Finally, he went up to the host and asked him,'excuse me, when is the party going to start?' The host looked puzzled and said, ''but this IS theparty!' I meander. Time to move on to the next subject....

VISUAL ART


Well, I helped edit a forthcoming book on Thupelo workshops for a while for Gasworks (Triangle Network),and they graciously included a tiny excerpt from mydoctorate on the workshops I attended (mostly attendeeartists quotes), but hey, I'm not complaining. It wasfun, and I learnt a lot about the Triangle network. For those who don't know about it, you can alwaysgoogle. I went to the Tate Modern for the first time the otherday and saw the Kandinsky show and realised there wasquite a lot variety to his work than one usually sees.One of my favourite paintings was very dark and madeone feel slightly nauseous when looking at it. Andthere was another very lovely very figurative painting on glass, although to be truthful, the postcardversion was better. So it got me thinking I should take up paint andpaintbrush again and deprive myself no longer. Build asketchbook.And now for another topic...

WRITING

I formed my own writing group! At present it consistsof three regular writers and three totally unreliableones. But the important thing is the other tworegulars have published already and the group is verysupportive. I have my three chapters ready and a roughdraft for a cover letter and an agent contact, but thetruth is my job hunting has taken priority as I needto get work soon to pay the bills and get a place onmy own as I'm in a very temporary space. I think alsothe cultural shock, missing SA and the pressure ofneeding to find work took over my book and made it hard to edit. I think that things are easier now, and going better.

London is surprisingly devoid of enthusiasm for serious writers groups. I went to a large writer's meeting and was a bit shocked to turn up to a meeting where I can truly say two of the 'writers' (and possibly a few more) shouldhave been certified insane. One member argued that, aseveryone was an 'intellectual', that the next sessionshould start with a general knowledge questionnairelike 'who wants to be a millionaire', and he thenstarted firing general knowledge questions at everyoneand didn't stop. The other asked if anyone couldrecommend a book no longer than 80 pages as he couldnever read a book longer than that, and then added that people who have read the film AND the book amaze him, as he usually has done neither. He also tookcopious notes on the first man's general knowledge questions and answers. Not quite like the Touch of Madness Group in Obs - but maybe the two groups should change names...?

Enough of that. Back to...

MORE NEWS AND VIEWS

Today is 9/11 and British TV is full of programmes onterrorism and even feature films on it. The situationblurs reality and fantasy; when the British thirst forthrillers and suspense on TV is replaced by 'truestories' of conspiracy and secret 'cells' in the UK breeding terrorists in numbers. There is an amazingparanoia about anyone who is muslim and, it seems,resentment for the large numbers of Eastern Europeans flocking to London. People are often tense about crimein SA, but I see a different form of tension here onthe underground, a nervousness. Or maybe it is mynervousness. The converse thing is it's safe to walkaround the centre of London on my own, but feels lesssafe to be on public transport. At first, it was very hard to take the British newsseriously compared with South African news - it seemedvery 'tame' and a bit of a joke. News like do British children eat too much sugar, etc. The last week or so it's been much more serious.