Allows me to write a stream of consciousness - maybe punctuated by a proofread and grammar check but otherwise a more abstract blog. I surveyed this yellow, parched, dead field. Everything that is happening in the world swamped in. The despair of everything. Seeing the empty field resonated. Hopelessness is rife, with Covid-19 overshadowing issues of climate change, inequalities and hate crime. Divided community, divided nations - divided continents! Why this image is so strong in my imagination I do not know why - perhaps, bleak deadness of this field, the horizon of rich greenness, but not enough and definitely not evenly distributed - just like life.

Yet, look closer, beyond the yellow parched deceased things and there is defiance. Unconnected at the moment but spreading it’s essence. It’s struggling against the elements and the physical damage - there is a lot less of it than there is of the devastation. And the devastation itself is so calm and collected - it doesn’t complain or brood or disrupt the living things - it is just sitting there reminding. A reminder of the battles and that the battles are never won. And then gaze your eyes over to a green clump, there on the left. And even in the middle, there, where the yellow dominates, there is green emerging. The groups joining, banding together, making a connection and the rouge grass seemingly battling against all the odds. Infiltrating from the inside. All hope, all continuing despite the apparent inedible.

After this pause, cycle on, barely green images of Devon, rolling hills, trees over fields. Animals grazing, feeding the system. Still though concrete - flattering earth, denying anything to come through. Grey with white designed to deny, but even in the impregnable design cracks as bits of weed escape. No matter how many times it is relaid, grass wins.

My mind returns to this field though as if a picture has been burnt onto my thinking

Where we were positioned, the most brown and yellow. An effort is needed to look up and escape. Choose to focus on the green - choose where to gaze, what deserves to be gazed upon and what should be given - let’s not forget.

I wonder by design, is this field left like this? Is there some kind of master plan to leave in the middle of the countryside an unused plot? My ignorance of farming, agriculture, the local industry that feeds everyone is lost on me. All I see is abandonment with rogue grass fighting back, an institution covered in ungrowing things being challenged by life. Maybe, it’s the other way round, maybe the green is the unwanted and this field will over grow above my head the lush crop. but for now, sadness and hope not in equal proportions

The rotting things in my life:

Inequality
Unable to dine out
Empty theatres and stadiums
Institutionalised hegemony
Assessments, Assessments, Assessments
Inescapable thing of …
Always being judged by what I cannot do
Coronavirus
Any virus
Computer virus
Political virus
Whiteness, middleclassness, ableness
Keeping under the RADAR - although with this blog I may have started to resow
Explicit racism
Explicit biased education system
Lies and hidden truths
Political mud and dirt slinging
Unorganised bitter left
Battered Beef Bites that are no longer available on delivery
Throwing stuff away
Fuel being wasted
Time and things ending before they really began

The green grass:

Community
People - loads of them, individual names and those I will never meet
Terry Pratchett’s Discworld
Doorstep!
Young people!
Protest
Yes, the US election
Enough is enough
Allies standing with
The ability to share these thoughts
Pockets of resistance
Scrutiny
Probity
Support

Choosing to focus on the green grass in the field. Cycling coach noticed a drop in my power. Congratulated me on the hills that have been climbed, but reminding me of the hills that haven’t. Devon and an easy cycle does not go in the same sentence well - Growing up and developing in Torbay similar. Lugging a heavy tandem bike up a hill is difficult - having two pairs of legs makes it slightly easier - belonging in a community in an all too parched of opportunity landscape urges you on to be the green grass.

Life is still suspended and I am hanging around although evidently not alone - friends, neighbours and families subverting this feeling of uncertainty the grass seems greener. Join us virtually from 18:30 28th September to see an archive presenting how individual people, find themselves in the situation I am in choosing to connect, to share, to be part - LifeInSuspension Archive will soon be live!!!

The Abstract Field

Very, very

Keeping What Matters