I mean I want to see

Questions of Travel
Elizabeth Bishop

There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams
hurry too rapidly down to the sea,
and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops
makes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion,
turning to waterfalls under our very eyes.
–For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains,
aren’t waterfalls yet,
in a quick age or so, as ages go here,
they probably will be.
But if the streams and clouds keep travelling, travelling,
the mountains look like the hulls of capsized ships,
slime-hung and barnacled.

Think of the long trip home.
Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?
Where should we be today?
Is it right to be watching strangers in a play
in this strangest of theatres?
What childishness is it that while there’s a breath of life
in our bodies, we are determined to rush
to see the sun the other way around?
The tiniest green hummingbird in the world?
To stare at some inexplicable old stonework,
inexplicable and impenetrable,
at any view,
instantly seen and always, always delightful?
Oh, must we dream our dreams
and have them, too?
And have we room
for one more folded sunset, still quite warm?

But surely it would have been a pity
not to have seen the trees along this road,
really exaggerated in their beauty,
not to have seen them gesturing
like noble pantomimists, robed in pink.
–Not to have had to stop for gas and heard
the sad, two-noted, wooden tune
of disparate wooden clogs
carelessly clacking over
a grease-stained filling-station floor.
(In another country the clogs would all be tested.
Each pair there would have identical pitch.)
–A pity not to have heard
the other, less primitive music of the fat brown bird
who sings above the broken gasoline pump
in a bamboo church of Jesuit baroque:
three towers, five silver crosses.
–Yes, a pity not to have pondered,
blurr’dly and inconclusively,
on what connection can exist for centuries
between the crudest wooden footwear
and, careful and finicky,
the whittled fantasies of wooden footwear
and, careful and finicky,
the whittled fantasies of wooden cages.
–Never to have studied history in
the weak calligraphy of songbirds’ cages.
–And never to have had to listen to rain
so much like politicians’ speeches:
two hours of unrelenting oratory
and then a sudden golden silence
in which the traveller takes a notebook, writes:

“Is it lack of imagination that makes us come
to imagined places, not just stay at home?
Or could Pascal have been not entirely right
about just sitting quietly in one’s room?

Continent, city, country, society:
the choice is never wide and never free.
And here, or there . . . No. Should we have stayed at home,
wherever that may be?”

SHAKESPEARE again, singing along to JJ Goldman life-affirming songs, BBC’s music programmes, lots of fruits and vegetables, trying to beat the fatigue by eating well, sleeping well and breathing deeply. Meeting old friends (the usual patter). Doing pilates, it makes me feel supple. Can now read annual reports in a basic manner, looking on at the markets and waiting. Twitching a bit, but sitting firmly otherwise. I also love talking to biologists, we have a whole cornucopia of life-forms in the tropics, though the prognosis is not so good for the large mammals.

French verbs, history books, books on Christianity, working on detachment and patience and trying to be more gentle with myself. Little by little, day by day.

“When theology becomes overly abstract, conceptual, systematic, it separates thought and life, belief and practice, words and their embodiment, making it more difficult, if not impossible, for us to believe in our hearts what we confess with our lips.”

– Sallie McFague, Speaking in Parables: A study in metaphor and theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1975)

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INTERESTING conversation about literary territory, then escapism, exploration and alternate worlds in stories — books, TV serials, MMORPGs, Second Life. (Apparently World of Warcraft* is so addictive that it has broken up relationships and put hard-core gamers out of jobs.)

An amalgation of imagination and what’s IRL: Tokyo and New York in various comics and manga. Oxford in Pullman’s Dark Materials, Venice in Kai Meyer’s Dark Reflections trilogy, magical incarnations of London. Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino.

Writers’ spots: Joyce’s Dublin. Basho’s Japan. Bai Xianyong’s Taipei. London, again, of various authors such as Woolf. Pamuk’s Istanbul (Interesting link, takes you to other cities in the BBC Sense Of A City programme). Vienna in Bachmann’s Malina. Sayers’ Oxford. Rushdie’s Kashmir in Shalimar The Clown. Balzac’s Paris.

In film: Wong Kar Wai’s Hong Kong. Tokyo in Kurosawa and Lost In Translation.

Let me know if you think of others? I’d love to read about a writer’s Beijing or Kyoto, for instance.

Recommended reading: The Child That Books Built, Francis Spufford.

AFTER reading about Kai Meyer’s inventive Dark Reflections trilogy from Minzhi, I had to get hold of the books. Venice, Venice, with razor-toothed mermaids in the lagoons and magic mirror makers, under the protection of the Flowing Queen. Battles with pharaohs and Hell’s emissaries. Sacrifices and mysteries and parentages revealed. I want more of Vermithrax, the flying stone lion!

Also, I’ve forgotten how fond I am of Big Cat Diaries; hopefully the 2007 session will come out soon. More action from Kike the cheetah, the Marsh Pride, and the stealthy leopards in the Masai Mara reserve! The sleek quicksilver grace of the cheetahs, the inimitable attitude of the lions, the delightfully curious cubs. With our old friends Jonathan Scott, Simon King and Saba Douglas-Hamilton. Oh, how I love armchair safaris.

(The Tsavo lions Earthwatch expedition sounds good, doesn’t it? I’m absolutely hankering for a safari in Kenya or Tanzania. Or Ranthambor in Rajasthan.)

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Read a second Gordimer; still not hooked. And oh! There are Big Cat tie-in books, which offer a wealth of detail with large colour photographs!

SINGING Tears For Fears’ Head Over Heels in the car (gotta love these ’80s synthesizer songs — “Something happens and I’m head over heels, I never find out, till I’m head over heeels”), watching BBC’s Big Cat Diaries and David Attenboroughs, checking out all the Pamuks I can get my hands on and the first Nadine Gordimer I’ve read, recreational eating while I lounge around, ice-cold tea and neatly-cut fruits, swimming slow laps, reading annual reports, interesting talks with the bookshop owner, playing with a friend’s dog at the beach, learning more about the story-tellers’ skills and the Meiji Restoration, poring over grammar primers, doling out dating advice, etc.

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Gordimer: Reading My Son’s Story. Her writing reminds me of Coetzee and Greene, though I find Coetzee more experimental and Greene more evocative. Will have to read more to get a better sense.

Online reading:

- Country studies
- Le Grand Meaulnes

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There are not many people with beautiful manners around, are there? I was thinking at work that it’s a good idea to be gracious, courteous and attentive to everyone you meet, no matter how tight deadline is, no matter how “junior” the other person is, whatever stresses you’re facing. Manners are kindnesses, and consideration is a habit of character — it doesn’t have to be contrived, it just comes out of not always putting yourself first.

It just takes one inappropriate temper tantrum or careless cruel remark at work, for instance, to ruin a reputation. And if something needs to be done, don’t fuss and do a song and dance routine, just get on with it.

“Audrey definitely had a good heart, there was nothing mean or petty — it’s a character thing. She had a good character, so I think people picked up on that too. She didn’t have any of the backstabbing, grasping, petty, gossipy personalities that you see in this business. I liked her a lot; in fact, I loved Audrey. It was easy to love her.”

– Gregory Peck on Audrey Hepburn