March 6th 2021
This morning, in bed, after masturbating, I decided I was going to get high.
I got up and put on one of the many pairs of jogging pants I’ve gotten over the past year.
I made myself a coffee that was roasted in Espanola, the old Pulp and Paper company town 70 kilometres west of Sudbury.
I poured the hot coffee in my William Morris travel cup.
Standing on my 4 feet x 4 feet sized second floor balcony I smoke my joint and sway to the Psych & Groove playlist I’ve chosen to accompany my morning.
There are birds hanging out and singing on the chimney of the house next to me
And it gets me thinking about how absolutely amazing birds are.
Did you know that dinosaurs are thought to be the closest relatives of birds? that birds are actually dinosaurs?
The coffee is keeping my hands warm in the -19 degree weather.
It's cold but it's sunny.
The streets are quiet, it's only 8:30.
I remember reading William Morris in university.
He was a British textile designer, poet, novelist, translator and socialist activist.
I was a 20 year old english literature major at Laurentian University in Sudbury.
All I did was talk about books and wait for the trees to dictate my mood by the colour of their leaves.
I’m home after being away for 6 years.
After 6 years of living in THE government town.
After 6 years of working in a profession that I only timidly dared dream about when I was a kid but, because I had no idea how I was ever actually going to go to Africa I didn’t talk about it too much.
I knew I needed to break away from something.
I started studying theatre.
I believe I would have been a good actor. A successful one.
Fear is one thing.
But the engrained script of needing a real job that is stable and has a pension is an even bigger thing.
Luckily english literature can get you a teaching degree.
So I talked about William Morris for 4 years.
I believe I would have been a bad teacher for a few years.
Then, I would have been a mediocre teacher for a few more years.
And, if the school board and bureaucracy didn’t destroy me, I would have been an influential teacher for more years.
Instead I went to Ghana and Burkina Faso and Tanzania and Niger and Uganda and Ethiopia and Kenya and Sénégal.
After 6 years.
This year.
There was no travelling.
Work yes, but no opportunity to sit in the African sun surrounded by people who speak 70 different languages but not yours.
So I’m standing on my 4 feet x 4 feet sized second floor balcony, a little stoned, watching some birds and listening to music.
I’m home.
The world is still out there and we will be able to live in it again
Soon enough.
The cities went to sleep so we could wake up.
Let’s not blow it.
Unless we blow it ALL up.
