Early days

It has been a whirlwind few days since my arrival in Bangalore. And I have to keep reminding myself about the quantitative aspect of that sentence - a few DAYS - not weeks not months but days. Because it feels like I have been here a lot longer. It also feels like I have been here no time at all.

The arrival has been smooth. The good folk at Stonehill International School have gone to great ends to ensure that all of the new hire staff (17 in total) feel comfortable, well fed, prioritised. They value their staff and this shines through in the attention to detail. The size and facilities of my apartment far exceed my needs. After sharing with students, artists, academics and cafe staff for the best part of ten years, I now have a 13th floor apartment all to myself. Gym, swimming pool and tennis courts. The muslims that run the local grocery store stare at me with unexpected affection and ask questions that might be considered invasive in Western countries. It is novel to be a novel animal.

The school itself is remarkable. Large, open designed workspaces and optional outdoor learning environments for the primary years. The gardens are beautiful and security guards pepper the lawns. A bus collects the staff for delivery to the school each morning (a practice that shall be maintained until the end of the year - by which point we are expected to have our own transport - on these roads?). Upon arrival at the heavily fortified gate a guard checks the front of the bus for explosives - then gives us the ok to proceed.

The school has great facilities and employs a full-time snake catcher. Yesterday he caught a seven foot long cobra just out front of the admin building. Several staff members ran to his aid as he held the snake by the tail and warded off its coiling stabs with a short stick. He trapped its erratic movements before seizing its head while the body thrashed in opposition. A guard appeared with a fabric bag (apparently designed for the occasion) and our hero nonchalantly held the snake aloft while it bounded against his arm and shoulder. He popped it into the bag as though he were Santa delivering a sweet into a stocking, then carried it about, smiling while we marvelled at its contents. The school employs a great number of people to fulfil its many requirements.

Way back in January I was employed as an English teacher. When I arrived at the school on Monday morning I was introduced as the Drama teacher. This created some confusion. I will be teaching some English. But I am the new Drama teacher. Which spins me out a little.

Any of you who have followed my blog will know that I was, as a writer, at my most industrious when last I was travelling. I continued to write after I got back to Melbourne, but the spark had gone out of my pen - I had stopped journalling, and the occasions for publishing were separated by greater intervals. It was the desire to rediscover this spark that sat behind my decision to move overseas. I believed that working with motivated students in a foreign land might create the necessary context for reigniting that creative fire. But the subtle difference between being an English teacher and a Drama teacher makes me wonder if it might be a different set of coals that receive the stoking. I haven't written a scrap in my journal yet - and this first blog entry comes five days after my arrival - which might not sound unreasonable, but I had expected to be wilfully blogging by day two at the very latest. Perhaps it is because my arrival has been so carefully planned and catered for - I have yet to find the deep end. Perhaps it will be as simple as taking away a few ingredients, or adding a few. Or maybe a different skill set will need to be cultivated. I have only been here a few days. It has been an extremely busy few days. And it is way too soon to know.

From amid the whirling winds of Bangalore, thank you for reading.

dream

A cocoon left on a table special made new born cots and spinal correction beds. Weightless sinking into fire the corpse left beneath a bridge in late winter. I stand expectant as the military sky thunders all and quaking.

One wing strums and then another. Transparent and web formed glistening wet halogens. Struggling like a larvae

Waking.

Waking found a man not sure were it dreamt of being a butterfly? Were it now a butterfly dreaming of a man?

through the chaos of the night and the honking of the horns

Five weeks from now I will have moved out of my house in Fitzroy. I will have worked my final day with the wild youth of Melbourne's northern district. I will have packed some things, smiled at my sister, kissed my mother's cheek and held my father's arm. I will be boarding a plane for India, for a new job in a new city surrounded by new people. Five weeks from now.

It was nearly a year ago when I made the first preparatory step toward my imminent adventure. I was concerned with other things and dedicated little thought to how my decisions/actions would affect the landscape of my life. If anything, the last twelve months provide testimony to a separation between the lived trajectory and the torments of conscious thought. We make decisions and move toward outcomes and all the while our heads chase chickens up a tree.

I remember a friend saying that she would be sad if my plan was a success. I remember receiving an email and filling out a form. I remember asking my principal for a reference.

The application was not an easy process. It took time, preparation and sustained effort, and not once did I question my decision. This must be what others speak of, when they know that something is right. When they feel that they are on the right track. When everything "just works".

This sensation was... not a sensation. If Freud is right, that the only true feeling is anxiety (all others are simply variations thereof), then this was the one thing that was free of feeling. With dumb determination I just signed another page and transferred the set amount.

My brother, my sister, and many of our friends have stood before themselves and said "I do".

I have said "I doubt".

"I doubt" myself and all things.

This move to Bangalore? Of course I am worried. But there is little thought and little fear and only quiet anticipation. It is a gentle sense that something is about to change. That soon that which has long been still shall once again be moving, quickly... dancing through the chaos of the night and the honking of the horns.

winds calling

For the longest time I have not felt the inclination to scribble down the random thoughts and occurrences that constitute my life. What have I done? Little. J'existe.

The desire (need) to write and create was smote when I returned to Melbourne. For a while there I chattered like an estranged lunatic about the bitterness of home and the will to overcome. Then there were codified grumblings and resentments, some romantic, some just cursing at the sky.

But for the first time in that topsy turvy to and fro, I feel the gypsy of my soul reach for the known not yet. My work as a teacher casts light on new direction. A confidence swells in the quiet darkness, and I feel the winds calling. Recently I applied to an agency that assists the professional courtship that brings teachers and international schools together. An interview awaits, and will be followed by further inquiries and a trip to Sydney. In a year I should be settled some place new. Some place known not yet. I let my fancy tip toe here and there, and picture cluttered streets in Shanghai, onion domes in Moscow, or the calm inlets of Basque country. It is a long time yet, and time will bring it's mysteries and lay them at my feet. Let's pray our feet find their way, and deliver us new happiness.

Maybe I will find myself in Persia...

This construct is in sight

Our rusted cages sadly sway, some second close,
some far away,
Bitter breath that blows between, now heard my voice,
my dance, unseen,

And this, my corpse, which I forgot,
I hold,
between two broken fingers.

My palms meet in morbid prayer, communal love,
communal fair,
For it is time, and he has risen, alone he walks,
in lonely wisdom,

And though your heart may wish it not,
he hangs, aloft,
between two broken fingers.

We are alone, my desert flower, "don't, not yet!"
no not this hour,
For what it was and now lays dying, cannot go on,
cannot keep crying,

And you, my friend, who I must kill, I leave you now
so you may end,
O! spiteful thing, that we must die, and still we dance,
still. . . we try,

And you, my heart. . .

you shall someday stop your beating,
my tiny life, crushed,
between two broken fingers.

my child

You do know who you are talking to? You do have some awareness of who I am, right? This morning, heaving with autumn, breaks apart as burnt paper beneath a whales tongue. Sweet memory of summer, held between our teeth. The old air of London, holds aloft a single hair. That old air, of London...

The sores in my mouth are better today. The canker tells of strange, acidic vapors - my teeth are cagey with it all. Perhaps one must dilute the existing quaquaqua... to up and have done with viscosities and verbose wall hangings. One oily figure melts into the next. An uncluttered life reflects an uncluttered head. And still there is movement in that old air. The spinning leaves remind me so.

If one should experience disasters within, then the world will bear the marks of strife. But if the mind is witness to a troubled world, and refuses to call it so, then surely strife will pollute the soul. I know from my own lies, the corrosive fictions that scatter here, now there.

Is that your fist you shake beneath the table? We have such intimate contempt for one another. Better to walk against the wind - to hear the wooden nail scratch your grimy window. It is all up with us. My body creaks like a wind blown cellar. Each bottle sings unto the melting snow - blow my child. Blow.

Sun, arise.

Here, amid such ruined things,
Words, in dust, crawl and cry.
Here, alone, where symbols sing,
Set in stone, or sung to die.

Still! my breath, my beating heart,
Broken clock, or time unwind.
Alone, again, be not in fright,
Up! ol boy. Sun, arise.