A Space with Possibilities

Fair Day in February guided me to the Australian Museum in March. The rainbow lanyard around the neck of the customer service person reminded me of the institutional progressivism, and I put more effort into smiling, as I asked my questions.

‘Surviving Australia’ was the free exhibition that had drawn me in, and I learned that my country’s rural landscapes could be described as ‘surprisingly diverse’. That such a sizeable land mass has change both dramatic and incremental in the unfolding makes sense to me: diversity does not only belong inside boardrooms. Nature is the origin of a concept I associate most readily with humanity.

Here in the city, the animals that *can* survive artificial lighting at night, do. Those who can evade the prowl of feline pets live to see another day. Those that can find their meals with the help of rubbish bins, like ibises, co-exist with our taller, more potentially sophisticated species. Some humans choose to perceive themselves as uniquely distinct from nature. Others still walk back to something more intuitive: we *are* nature. 

An awareness of global heating was appropriate towards the end - perhaps there is no animal more dangerous than the human being, given that we are driving extinction events. Those, too, appear incremental, dramatic, and everything in between. Unpredictable, yet we have the illusion of ever-increasing knowledge on the topic, due to our application of scientific methods. I fear for the future of the planet. 

There are still possibilities for getting out of our own way and working *with* the rest of nature… I look for ways to do activism, and duly noted that the Australian Museum encourages letter writing to politicians. There seems to be a collective which has mobilised around this very lobbying. I only need to be mindful of Greta Thunberg’s impact to remember that I, too, have some sort of influence. You, too, can help.

Part 2 - Zadie Smith in Sydney

I like Zadie Smith's feminist imagination. In response to a recent book calling out the misogyny of '90s pop culture, she referenced 'Keeping up with the Kardashians' and the influence of Donald Trump as reasons why she feels less free now than she did back then. I agree with her view that 'some things get better, some things get worse' over time - this rejection of the modernist idea of Progress was nice. 

Perhaps less illuminating is her approach to the Cultural Appropriation debate. As a mixed race individual, she suggests that she is being asked not to write from the perspective of Black people and white people. She finds such exclusion 'an insult to my soul'. Personally, I am a fan of Lived Experience in writing. I may not write fiction, but I don't feel that it limits me to acknowledge that I can only speak for myself. Taking stock of my imagination offers much fruit, and I offer it to the world knowing that my readers will each have their unique interpretations. I cannot write their stories for them. They must find their own voices. 

I'm pleased to have read Zadie's choice of Book Every Woman Should Read, 'A Room of One's Own' by Virginia Woolf. I enjoyed a room of my own through the great majority of my life, including most of my childhood. In terms of desks, too, I was fortunate: IKEA provided me with a shiny, white one brandishing a representation of the globe, with each country in a different colour. I learnt to strategically place a 'KNOCK! before you enter' sign at my parents' eye level, protecting my privacy some more. 

In some ways, I am fortunate. In other ways, not so much. It's a mixed reality.

My experience of Zadie Smith is that she is sensitive, multi-faceted and incisive. She isn't afraid to improvise in front of thousands of people. She is candid about second-guessing herself, which she knows she has in common with most women. I felt inspired by her humbleness, as well as confidence. I hope to seek her out again sometime soon. 

Zadie Smith in Sydney

I return, irritated and in need of alone time, from the Sydney Opera House. I could hear the voice of Zadie Smith there, and read her body language from a distance. I am not irritated by the author herself, but rather the journey to and fro this sometime site of noteworthy performance. 

A public interview is a performance, with Zadie mentioning that singing is a vocation she considered instead of writing, but shrugged off when that kind of performance proved too dramatic. We are therefore treated to the rare kind of public figure who prefers staying at home with her family than gallivanting all over the globe. An unassuming figure who keeps ambiguity in mind, drawing on her powers of articulation to question the relationship between the diverse mindsets co-existing within.  

Zadie aims for language which can appeal to a reader with a limited literary education. Using everyday words, she creates worlds of complexity. She doesn't feel that this reduces the nuances or scope of that complexity. This makes me wonder why, even now, I resort to a style she would call 'elevated'. What good is it to be a bit pretentious, when I can focus on making my work accessible?

Elevated was the mode in which she began writing for publication, so it's nice to see that she no longer feels the need to prove something. She joins people like Elizabeth Gilbert, who recently claimed that she wants 'no reader to be left behind' as her stories progress. 

I was intrigued to hear that the author doesn't possess a smartphone and has no Facebook account (to paraphrase this interview, she doesn't want to spend time on a platform made by people she really dislikes). She does claim to watch a lot of TV, including soap operas like 'Home and Away' and 'Neighbours'. I guess it's "pick your poison."

While not a new idea to my world, Zadie claimed that she relies on writing to make meaning of her thoughts. This controlled process of selecting certain thoughts and discarding others allows her to build a reality. Absent from this analysis are the pressures of capitalism, where it's crucial to monetise some part of your human experience or activity. Zadie gave us a caveat that "I am not an economist" even as she spoke to the worsening of 'the commons' in the UK (e.g. university has gone from free to paid in her lifetime, public libraries face defunding, the National Health Service (comparable to Australia's Medicare) is in a weaker position). I guess not everyone is going to offer democratic socialist ideas through the political economy lens. In part because I would like to see her strengthen her argument (and perhaps make it more radical), it would be nice to receive such rhetoric. 

Satellite

I orbit around many bodies

And sometimes it feels like

I live out my life

In pleasing others

A beat here, then 

A transfer of attention -

Only to find

I've neglected myself

For extended periods 

Of time -

And now I feel 

Left behind

But tuning in

To my own frequency

Requires time, requires space

Furthermore requires conviction 

That the others can wait

And who am I

To claim that time

Is something I can use for me?

Who am I 

To know that I

Would love to spend the time with me?

 

Revisiting the City

Moving between Elizabeth St and George St (central thoroughfares in Sydney), I noticed that a Korean café I once visited with my friend appeared to have closed. I looked for other points of interest, so as not to dwell on disappointment. Across the street, a café by the name of Golden Brown seemed promising, but a police squad were right in front of it, hovering over a man on the ground. I kept walking. 

 

Closer to the George St side, a new area for dining had opened up with Japanese and Chinese restaurants in the most prominent locations. A text full of hanzi (Chinese characters) had been painted on the wall on a faint blue background, along with fluffy white clouds. Entering the World Square shopping complex, to which it was connected, these were more familiar grounds, and didn't have much to offer, except to whisk me into George St.

Catching a glimpse of something very colourful, at first I thought I was looking at a sculpture for the Chinese New Year, but the tell-tale outlines and patterns of a tuk-tuk soon made themselves known. The body of the vehicle was stark in red and blue, and attached to the rear was a fountain of large, red and golden cards. Getting close to the opaque cards, I admired the raindrops glistening on them. On top of the structure was a big bowl of popular Thai fruit, bringing pinks, yellows and oranges into the pallette. I noticed the wheel leading the tuk-tuk was a shade of purple, and the sign at the top marked the area as Thai Town. A celebration of the community.

I reached my destination when I ascended to the highest accessible floor of Central Park Mall. You can't miss the Japan Foundation once the lift delivers you there. Toyo Ito was the man (it's usually a man) of the hour: a respected architect since the 1970s, this exhibition showcased three of his large-scale public buildings. All three were in regional cities, and encouraged the people moving within them to relax. Ito believes that when people leave behind nature to enter a man-made structure, they take on a degree of tension. Whether through rounded forms, innovative cooling/heating, subtle asymmetry or as few walls as possible, his goal was to create attractive spaces people would adopt as their own. He appeared happy that many visitors felt at home in his public buildings. 

Like me, Toyo Ito doesn't care for the abundant modernist architecture of Japan. However, I can't help but notice that his work, as highlighted in this exhibition, is not that radical a departure from the style he seeks to differentiate himself from. I can see the box shape in the frame of each building - at first glance it appears to have more in common with the status quo than Zaha Hadid or BIG. But it's true that, the more you look, the more irregularities you can see. The subversion is there. It may be more modest than I would ideally like, but it was fun to wrap my brain around something new. I would like to move through some of these buildings, finding variety in their multi-faceted lighting, furniture and textures. 

The city stimulates through many moving parts, not all of them good, but when there's a lot to please me, it's well worth the journey. 

To feel one’s feelings

Previously I discussed being reminded of European cultures at every turn. From my current position, in my room, my gaze tends to rest upon the vivid yet intricate commercial art of my Pylones bags. They are a world one can immerse oneself in. I do.

If I redirect my gaze, I catch sight of another artwork, this time a rainbow-splattered Berlin skyline. I’ve had it since 2016, and I feel ambiguously about it, but I like it enough to keep it. It reminds me of: serendipity (meeting a fellow traveller who helped guide me to the market’s location), the grit of the urban centre meeting the vibrancy and innovation of its people, previous infatuations with cityscapes, a romance which morphed into an enduring friendship, and a multitude of other things. 

Pylones is also many things, including: a charming aesthetic, a reminder of Paris and also Lyon (where I first wandered into one of its shops), my adventures in learning French (including confusing my Parisian summer fling when I claimed the word ‘apparate’ existed in English, and my sense of pride when I bought two pâtisseries using only this foreign language and received friendly smiles from the elderly Lyonnais behind the counter)…

There are other things I associate with Germany and France, too.

As part of my French language study, I downloaded a 19th century novella called Ourika, first in French, and, failing to make much progress down this avenue, then in English translation. The overwhelming negation of the presence of a Black woman in the white aristocracy of the time was evoked with powerful, disturbing imagery. Ourika was analysed in a subsequent book which made an even bigger impact on me, Robin Mitchell’s Vénus Noire: Black women and colonial fantasies in 19th-century France. It brings to life the immense cruelty and sadism that was a frequent part of the picture. It was written by an African-American woman who travelled to Paris for her research, and I got the impression she was horrified by the whole experience.

One doesn’t have to look very far to find examples of German racism. The current Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said he had a problem with the ‘Stadtbild’ (city image), and you should ask ‘our daughters’ what he meant. It’s obvious he dislikes the presence of men of colour in everyday life, and sees them, collectively, as rapacious towards white women. Protests followed, but he remains in the nation’s most powerful position.

The enchanting and the atrocious co-exist in Europe. There are no easy answers to the question of: How do I make space for all of the feelings they generate in me? The wonder and the disgust. The curiosity and the suspicion. The emboldenment and the intimidation. It’s an ongoing process, and there is some hard-won maturity too, but I have yet more to do.

Towards Love

In the aftermath of the traumatic events at Bondi Beach in December, I was feeling heavy feelings and a whole lot of irritability. I wanted to write about something which would take my mind off the topic, and process some of the disillusionment I was carrying towards Germany, in particular, and developed Europe, in general. Some of those heavy and irritable feelings crossed over into the subject matter, perhaps creating unnecessary negativity. 

I intend to return to Germany every year, there being a lot to draw me back. I feel like I can relax there, enjoy quality company, and find deeper insights into an interesting culture. 

I only criticise because I care. 

The disillusionment comes from having placed Germany on a pedestal. I wanted to escape from reality, and I spent a lot of time idealising Northern Europe.

When I look at myself now, I feel a little lost. 

From the fridge magnets of numerous European tourist attractions, to the postcard that reminds me of my German ex-partner, to the T-shirts and caps I wear every day which usually have some sort of European signifier... I've built my life around the wish to be somewhere else, a type of unrequited love. 

I used to think that I had left unrequited love behind a long time ago, but it continued in an existential form... Who am I, then, when pining is pointless? When yearning for a geographical locale no longer makes sense?

Radical acceptance is needed. 

Deep forgiveness, too. 

And a lot of self-love. 

*

Thankfully, I have quality company in Sydney as well. 

Wherever I go, there I am. I have a lot of experiences. Abundant wisdom.

I help my family, friends, and community. I am helped by them. 

The love is not only from within, but external sources.