AUDIO OUTREACH 2 (broadcast live Tues 19/10/2010)
Beyond the Totnesian relating solidly to terra firma
Claimed and named through clan blood and hard work and choice and marriage and dreamlike quality. It’s all a bit TQ9
These dreams are built upon foundations, romantic, Fastness, a lookout:
From the Moors,
To the sea,
We measure ourselves against our place,
Its changes, yours, you love home for no other reason than it is-like a mother it nurtures you, like a father it teaches, like a brother or sister it plays and competes, like a lover, it holds you tenderly, touches you as you lean over a railing or the bridge, feeling the water move below, its history both displacing and supporting you.
When your youthful head, first peeps over the bridge and catches the breeze, hair wildly whipping, the realization, that soon that view will be yours is like a prize- the river, reaching down the valley, it is something worth stopping for, leaning forward, craning neck, Buoys, float bys and jetsam flotsam, red water, black, the valleys' framing of ship wrecked shopping trolleys, bicycles, lost statues of Quan yin, ducks, rocks and rubble being worn by currents and rapid time.
I would wonder about Saxon hordes, streaming over the top of breaks, and Vikings rowing, silently speeding, rolling wake at the ships prow, weapons glinting in the dawn light, seeking battle for mastership of this fertile ground.
The horizon is the soft inclines of the valley around, a land hug, held in against gravitations pull- it feels like the outside and us, hello
PLAIN SPEAKING Dogs know this town better than I- but only by smelling lampposts and street corners, its mine, I hold it in my heart when ever I glance down or look up, in my hand every time I touch a surface, in my minds eye every time I think on home.
A creation, led forward by its ancient heritage, like a informed town gossip, hear say and inferred justifications, layer over layer of tradition, the bricks and mortar and red valerian staining the boundaries- Quarried walls, enclosing a set of dreams and possibilities, a bubble of stasis, comforting lanes and alleyways the lead through past instances toward a trusted future experience- we know where we are and thus where we are going.
The high street plays out like a pinball game of recognition –we shape it as we walk it, it remembers itself through our journeys…
Our calls and greetings and stiff silences echo from the overseeing shops- crooked architecture and glass facades, windows reflecting tourists and locals alike.
I am a local. No other self describer- this way to be here and now- I can’t deny that I am a product, in production, of this small town, its holding me in its tight naming, the circles and cliques and shop staff and shoppers and dog walkers and police personnel and coffee shop clientele and doctors and homeless and council office staff and librarians and road sweepers and taxi cab drivers and eccentrics all smile and nod friendly- the smile of others caught in its embracing web… we rub along, its ok, not much violence, pretty accepting, we tolerate and are tolerated in return, the characters that enliven this community walk hand in hand with those that hold the status quo-
What is this place? Sacred well, castle, and ford – a place of change and a fortress against change, a lookout, a safe hold, a keep that now could not hold the whole of the smallest school…
(I stood on the BRUTUS STONE and made my DECLARATION)
To Totnes,
My darling my sweet, I guess our roles have morphed since we started- I feel it needs to be me to tell you- not to hear it from another in the pub, gossip on the grape vine- I’m leaving you. The time we have shared- it means more to me than you will ever know- I have loved you since I was a child- sought your probation, your recognition, sought to be a credit to you, to honour your attributes, I’ve celebrated your glories and turned a blind eye to you remisses too- I trusted you to change, but I have stayed too long I have to leave now- it has to end- before it becomes a stifflement- before I resent you, and our love turns to bitter recrimination. I forgive you; I’m leaving you.
Everything beautiful, all the gifts you gave me- please know, their value is recognised, but if you want me to be able to honour your teachings you’ve got to let me go!!!
I won’t take anything from you – you are part of me- I’ll take no memento to weigh me down, indulge no backward glances, because though I felt in recent times our relationship has been one sided, you have been trying... Too little too late, and though it could be my fault too, I won’t except but that you have some serious flaws- ones that I have learnt from- whatever, I’ve got to go away and heal and make some sense of all this.
I will try not to feel jealous of your many others, those new arrivals with shiny eyes, who haven’t yet seen so many sides of you - flirting with you at events, keen to get involved…
If you love someone set them free….
We move so well together- I know your curves, how your steps and short cuts begin, where they lead, which roads to take when the sun shines and warms your skin, which ones to take when the rain lashes you- where to catch water on my head, and sweet glimpses down and up your valley, where you are uncomfortable- where you break and crumble, scared, when it was caused, when the pressures got to much- what was beautiful but is no longer there- you see, we know each other- but me- I care, and you stand kind of distant, indifferent.
Do you remember when we first started seeing each other- I had no idea where it was all going to lead? I trusted you, naively, to show me the way, to guide me to protect me. I think that the valley offered solace and a kind of distancing from the outside world that led to a self-absorbedness of such extreme unawareness that in a way we gave each other permission- to develop, to fantasize, a held space for experiment, just don’t be too crazy.
I've taken part, like a union of sorts- cleaned you- this infers intimacy- the litter pick, the doorstep sweep, a little graffiti removal (because my hand writing was so recognisable) some public plantings- shows of affections and civic pride. The eyes that watch the town go by from the churchyard walls -empty, ageless, drama and replay unfolding below, the bells chiming on through seasons and ages.
I fucking love this place. I want to erect a great big beautiful public arts piece right in the centre- the civic square – a monument like Gaudi’s to that place he obviously loved- his home. It would have a hundred seats within it, be a lattice of living plants and cast iron, a stone and oak circle, a meeting space, made by the artists of the town- meeting place, shady for the afternoon sunshine, shelter form the rain, why not a fountain, drinkable yet ornamental and at night a bit of sympathetic lighting (solar powered, you knows dat!)
My place my dharma my yard my habitat. What is it built of? The red soil marks me- inside, my blood is Totnesian, a mongrel, and a hybrid- the daughter of these hills this valley, Londoner hippies, its dreams and its decisions…. I watched, from my girl hood, those in power, those in defiance, the old and the would-be new, a struggle, a unbalanced confusion, a bright heart, with a dark soul- a experimental relation between stasis and transformation, with no breaks, only the social conscience and civic pride to keep it from being any other small town- we all want the same thing- for our children and grandchildren to have the same possibilities that we have, or better- to forge the promised land in this small corner of the south hams…
And what? A awareness of the mess that is human- kind- humane, cruel, accepting, accusing, all here all on desperate show, demanding allegiance, demanding participation…
Hippy traveller new age farmer gypsies, aristocracy, fox hunting and rope swings, red mud in winter, fudge in 20 flavours, cycle rides and camp fires...
And a river and three bridges and a leach well and a cobblers and 8 charity shops, 4 churches, 12 pubs, 2 vets, 2 travel agents, 4 health food shops, 6 alternative therapy centres, a good dump, three newsagents, 4 bookshops and two super markets-
I want to believe, that all is ok, here in your cafés, soft gentle, white, kind, no worries, no stresses, no problems, nothing needed to be done, 'cept keeping the soya decaf mocha conna panna flowing… slow gossip, spinning stories and legends and mythologies around the sleepy cauldron of lost potential, that is this café, town, country, civilization, have another, dream a little long on…
Valleys I dallied in, hills I leapt from, pavements I wiped out over spilling blood or teenage vomit, I’ve gathered your grit into my body breathed deeply of you scents. Curbs I spat on, steps I basked upon in the sun, watching the day spring by, forgetting the other outside world, options that don’t recommend themselves, just because they are not you, not comfortable and offer little recognisable in the way of family and home.
So its not just genes, its not just mother and father and lack and luck, its this place, its got under my skin-
I have born with your irrepressible irrational behaviours for too long- I love your barefooted chalk drawings, your graffiti cream tease-
When you express yourself against all odds- that you can assert yourself, undefeated, the castle a symbol for the will of the protection of the people, the river a sign for keeping open a stream of potentiality, the commerce of ideas, a natural untameable flow- thank you for being you, thank you for making me I
