breathe/the city
i love living in this city. love walking down streets with cliff-like buildings looming over, or spattered with the colourful bits and remains of posters and sticker art; love the chatter of the pedestrian lights as they change to draw a swarm of people across or the sound of laughter in 17 different languages. i [...]
under the party tree
around this time last year we had the end of year christmas picnic at hamilton north school, where i was a relieving teacher aide for a while. 2009 was the first time i had any extended contact with intellectually disabled children, and i was coming to the end of that experience. it was almost gratifying [...]
the light
onehunga reminds me very much of madanriting. a little tacky, a little rough around the edges, and not always ‘nice’; but just as much laughter and singing as any-richer-where else. i missed many opportunities to learn from madanriting when i lived there, nor did i give back as much as i could have. and sometimes, [...]
old rangitoto
rangitoto is a volcanic island just off auckland’s northern coastline, and can be seen from many parts of the city. it erupted about 600 years ago (within memory of the local maori tribes) and has entered their mythology. the ‘horizons’ refer, i guess, to the geographic and cultural positions of rangitoto…always horizons, rarely centre stage. [...]
a brown study
when i was much younger, mamma would dress me up in brown. brown criss-cross sandals, dark brown pants and lighter brown shirts. and why not? for brown is the smell of the garden, sodden after last week’s rain. it is the feel of your hand, twined in mine. the taste of bread, fresh and warm. [...]
red+green
off on a tangent: i wonder how it would be if we we replaced the idea of ‘black or white’ with ‘red or green’. that still shows contrast (the obvious traffic light metaphor) but seems less charged with angry emotions. to jam off roland barthés’ ‘mythologies’, maybe black-white is *too full of meaning to be [...]
