Street life - Oh how lucky we are, man
This being a street life column I am somewhat stuck in a green, murky pond that smells rather foul, with the tadpoles of my mind just waiting to croak. I am desperately reaching for the smelling salts, knowing that the slow, sinking feeling is only...
This being a street life column I am somewhat stuck in a green, murky pond that smells rather foul, with the tadpoles of my mind just waiting to croak. I am desperately reaching for the smelling salts, knowing that the slow, sinking feeling is only temporary, knowing that when the rain comes down and the wind bites once more I will yearn for a bit of this hazy life - but right now I hear only the crickets and the buzzing mosquitoes and the screeching of psychotic rubber tyres on the molten asphalt, all muffled, all distant, all so pleasant and suffocating.
Those sounds come from the outside, where I have ventured only with great trepidation and always for very brief periods. Oh how lucky we are to live on a scorched island, where the deep blue sea is never too far from your dust-filled courtyard.
Though it may sound like I think the glass is half empty, nothing could be further from the truth. The Maltese goblet is indeed half full. And these last few days of hot winds that make you mad and deaf and blind have forced me to retreat indoors when the sun is climbing to its zenith, only emerging in the early evening respite for Sundowners at Rita's in Ghar Lapsi and a lazy swim in the sea with Filfla straight ahead. Having spent the day indoors I reflect upon how lucky we are to live on an island in the sun, the go out and seize the day.
Yet despite this passion for high times in high summer, there is the slight echo of a warning tone, Albert Camus talks about this dangerous oblivion in his essays on summer in Algiers. To live like this is perhaps, not enough. To run from garden shade to cliff and soggy chips means that you will miss out on the street life, where the fresh air and troglodyte toothless munchers are replaced by full sets of gleaming teeth that chatter with exuberance of a very different sort.
So it is that sometimes we sit quietly but eventually we must step out into the street where smart heels click with self-satisfaction and haste and become intoxicated with the profusion and the progress.
And always we must believe that the glass is always, always half full, no matter which side of the street you are walking. As Thomas Mann's Dilettante (1897) is careful to point out at the beginning of his tale: If you take care not to be a man of action, if you seek peace in solitude, you will find that life's vicissitudes fall upon you from within and it is upon that stage you must prove yourself a hero or a fool.
Those sounds come from the outside, where I have ventured only with great trepidation and always for very brief periods. Oh how lucky we are to live on a scorched island, where the deep blue sea is never too far from your dust-filled courtyard.
Though it may sound like I think the glass is half empty, nothing could be further from the truth. The Maltese goblet is indeed half full. And these last few days of hot winds that make you mad and deaf and blind have forced me to retreat indoors when the sun is climbing to its zenith, only emerging in the early evening respite for Sundowners at Rita's in Ghar Lapsi and a lazy swim in the sea with Filfla straight ahead. Having spent the day indoors I reflect upon how lucky we are to live on an island in the sun, the go out and seize the day.
Yet despite this passion for high times in high summer, there is the slight echo of a warning tone, Albert Camus talks about this dangerous oblivion in his essays on summer in Algiers. To live like this is perhaps, not enough. To run from garden shade to cliff and soggy chips means that you will miss out on the street life, where the fresh air and troglodyte toothless munchers are replaced by full sets of gleaming teeth that chatter with exuberance of a very different sort.
So it is that sometimes we sit quietly but eventually we must step out into the street where smart heels click with self-satisfaction and haste and become intoxicated with the profusion and the progress.
And always we must believe that the glass is always, always half full, no matter which side of the street you are walking. As Thomas Mann's Dilettante (1897) is careful to point out at the beginning of his tale: If you take care not to be a man of action, if you seek peace in solitude, you will find that life's vicissitudes fall upon you from within and it is upon that stage you must prove yourself a hero or a fool.