lady and i each have 5 minutes to recite tonight alongside beat-inspired poet jazzman john clarke – we’re performing as Two Olde Farts & A Chick (john’s 59, i’m 61, and lady’s 34, so i thought the title apropos). this gives lady 4 reads and me 3, so london has been more than kind to us.
however, we are tiring of this grey chilled damp english weather. we’ve had 2 weeks of sun in the past 8 – which is a shock to my system because the 3 months previous were spent under moroccan sun. we left 100+ degree daze to come to 60 degree haze. of course the hot heat there had no cool poetry readings, while the cool readings here do have heat.
been in london 5 weeks. leave for france in 8 days. it took me 3 weeks this time to bounce back from our 6 residence changes in 4 cities on 2 continents the previous 4 weeks. the more months we’re on the road and the more moves we make, the longer it takes me to bounce back after each. i began tiring of our journey last april in spain enroute from france to marrakech. of course the painful spanish trainful to barcelona, the madrid airport food poisoning, and the multiple diarrhea attacks in morocco didn’t help me body or soul.
humans take comfort from familiar surroundings, from having a home base, a circle of known aquaintances, knowing where to buy what they need, how to get around, where what is. lady and my not having a link to the familiar has cost us enormously emotionally and mentally – even physically.
we started a ‘process’ when we sold our place, gave away our possessions, and began open-ended world travel. we more or less choose where we’re going next, and for how long, but beyond that, it’s been out of our hands because it’s always in a new place with unknown people unknown problems unknown rules. we’re in never-ending turbulant waters trying constantly to stay upright. we have little control, even less focus. we’re process, not procedure.
we began this journey knowing it would change us, refine us, strengthen us, fulfill us, charge up our creative databases. and it has – we’re just not sure yet how because we’ve not stopped in familiar grounds to evaluate where and what we are.
i’ll be good to stop our wandering after 16 months and settle down in chicago for a year or two in december (before we hopefully begin wandering all over again). i’m tired of being homeless bound.
