Swedish Spirit Camp 5.

We begin to wind down and think about leaving. Everything is cleaned, packed away and stored for next year. Oh and for DSing we all get a lovely backwoods knife and in our final DS meeting a small piece of brown bearskin with hair. Holding it I was immediately flooded with its wild life, an experience that can’t be taught or told or set to words. So what is this group of souls, a caravan club, the Baptist Church on acid, a boot camp for the wacky? No, they’re beautiful, genuine and generous observers of a simple yet powerful ancient traditional way. The rest was my stuff. It’s not my way but who am I to know? And on the ferry home, reflecting alone on a cloud covered sun deck, a crewman in dirty day-glow overalls glances at my beer in one hand and a fag in the other and gives me a big jolly smile, “That’s the life.” It was as if my deity had paid me a personal visit to round off my trip. I smiled back.

Swedish Spirit Camp 4.

I begin to acclimatise and see the many good sides of this experience. Everyone is open hearted and lovely carrying that deeper attractiveness as well as more outward beauty and handsomeness. The organisation is brilliant and spirits are undaunted by the rain and mud. There is a blessed absence of media and its mind bending turgid requirement to regiment to its tunes. It is an oasis quite different from my normal life. As the dancers build and prepare for their ceremony we DS’s put up a few extra tents, toilets and wash stands, and finish off the electrics and plumbing between rounds of the aforementioned poo slinging. In respect I won’t describe the ceremony except to say it lasts three days and nights and we DS’s must keep a fire going the whole time in shifts. Though a large amount of DSing is sitting and waiting it’s strangely tiring. Day by day I feel weariness creeping up on me. At the end of the ceremony there’s a feast and an impromptu show. I put my name down for a turn. It begins with the children and, seeing their beautiful naivety, I ditch my plan for a ‘trying to be clever’ song in favour of enacting a sketch of how we DS’s work together. I depict me, the gormless forgetful private, and Evanmouse, the prone to stress general, that culminates in the inevitable strangulation scene, sort of one-man slapstick Shakespeare. Apparently tears were shed and pants nearly soiled. A triumph. Not being used to playing a 150 strong post- ceremony, post- feast high as a kite audience I took their rapturous applause to mean they wanted more, so I did the song too; a lovely, appropriate James Taylor song. And thus I became the star of the show; mostly because I was so tired I could hardly stand up or keep up any sort of pretence. I had achieved reality through exhaustion. The following day after many plaudits I took to hiding. 

Swedish Spirit camp 3.

The inaugural meeting lasts several days. After welcoming everyone and his brother there’s a safety talk; fifteen minutes of what a teenager might or might not consider in the time it takes to buy a ticket to a festival. Also a dreadful American woman who became overcome with emotion appropriately. It wasn’t that she wasn’t genuinely emotional it was, well you work it out. I sensed a wildly late Osmonds concert coupled with a school prize giving. As the Am Wom mentioned ‘love and freewill’ I got out of there, my free will being sorely tested by ‘the collective.’ The collective idea was tested in the 60’s and most lasted less than a year, collapsing due to factional bullying. Human nature is not arranged that way. Hell is not other people, it’s being co-dependant on other people in the bloody ‘collective.’ Perhaps I should explain my reasons for writing all this. I’ve found writing my anger, awkwardness and upset into a glorious imaginative cartoon is an enjoyable way to dispel them. Yes I mean it but as I write I mean it less. So I begin my work as a Dog Soldier. We DS’s run the infrastructure to support the ceremony. I am a member of a team of around ten led by two lovely guys, Markusmouse and Evanmouse, and Beatemouse. Beatemouse tells me how, what, where and when because she has lists. The rest range from 16 to 68, male to female. Three of us learn the ways of throwing bags of poo from buckets. I notice the many possible ways of counting to three. 1,2,3, throw; 1,2 and throw; 1,2,3 and then throw, 1 and throw. Am Wom then gives us talk on awareness. A snippet. “And if we want to know what the clouds are doing where do we look?” After a short awkward silence Beatemouse helpfully suggest, “Up?” “Exactly, we look up. Well done. We look up to see what the clouds are doing”……”and when we put our fibres into the road what do we feel?” Beatemouse again, “We look for cars?” “Exactly, well done, we look for cars on the road. What else might we be aware of?” By this time my patience with Am Wom is running out so I helpfully suggest, “The surface.” “Good, well done, the surface.” She hesitates, I suspect in well-concealed confusion, “And could you tell us about the surface?” “Well it’s gravel which is slippy and cars stopping distance is longer on gravel.” “Yes, well done. You see, there are many things we must be aware of.” We move on to being with trees. I like being with trees, except for one that was really depressed, so joined one in conversation. Thus engrossed I was late for the group reconvening to tell what we found. “So what did you find?” Well sometimes maybe honesty isn’t the best policy. When it came to my turn I said, “It felt like a Swedish tree.” Being in the middle of a forest in Sweden, which as far as I can see is all forest, this could, in retrospect, have been seen as sarcasm but it honestly wasn’t. It felt very confident and at home amongst its many brothers and sisters, quite different from our often solitary, under threat English trees. After this Am Wom blanked me for the duration.

Swedish Spirit camp 2.

And don’t start me on laughing. Are you a woman? Do you post-face every utterance with 3 to 5 gafores? If so you have a problem, if not generally then with me. The gafores in effect state, ‘I have just uttered a banal stupidity that’s totally unworthy of your attention.’ Let me assure you my weak empathic smile thinly covers loathing. People thus think I’m shy or more honestly just poor company. Not true, I’d just rather be elsewhere sharing glorious mock misery with those of more delinquent sensibilities. I laugh to think ‘God help me I should laugh this much’, which again shows the conundrum, the un-straight answer. I clean the toilets as though my life depends on it. Eager, eager, eager, I sense the first signs of smugness. I sit alone to regain my composure. I get my first reprimand. Beatemouse’s tension rises, “You must never put the sponge back in the box after you’ve cleaned the toilets.” “Sorry I just put it back where I got it from.” A dumb mistake I apologise for making and smile honestly; a case of two indisputable good caravanning rules coming into conflict. A combination of arrogance, a joy of chaos and the wonder of imagination make me too serious for caravaners, and somehow this wilderness campsite seems governed by the transparent rules of some local authority. I enrol. This entails visiting six stations. At the second, ‘do I have a bundle?’ No. You can buy one for 25Euro. I consult my higher authority. ‘Sod that!’ “Can I hire one?” A little Swedish “Irski shmooda fa vinta poo?” and I get one free. Station 5, “Do you want a book of life reading to learn what you need to work on in the year ahead?” (70Euros) Sweetheart I’m 68, I couldn’t give a fuck so long as I’m alive at the end of it and still getting some money back from the pension company that’s been screwing me for the last twenty years. This is the work for me, humility, that’s why I’m here and I’m not doing very well. The problem is ‘I know’. My friends also know in a perishable happenstance fashion. We know it’s incomplete, half arsed, problematic but I don’t think we’d want it any other way. It’s my unique construction and I’m OK with it. In fact I fiercely defend it, yes to the death if needs be. The ancient wisdom is good but it’s not mine, not found by me. These days I learn from animals. How our cat Britney follows her intent as closely as she follows her own nose without pity or prejudice. How cows stand and flirt, how pigs negotiate with ferocious intent over food and how swallows delight in air. It’s all there. And in my gut a white joy swells up into tears of just existing. Who taught me that I don’t know. I sense there is a place of going, a wordless vapour loved of the heart, gentle and accepting like grass.

Sweden Spirit Camp 1.

It’s Sweden Spirit Camp and I appear to have joined a caravan club. Lovely happy people but pick up a spoon and there’ll be a swarm offering advice on how to use it better. I’ve never been in a caravan club but I imagine they’re the low in sodium salt of the earth. Resourceful when it’s raining, tied securely to a rock and a hard place when it’s blowing and singing when it’s sunny. They’re wise and experienced in the ways of caravanning, knowing for example the double flush valve in the later model Tow-a-Home Barracuda S300 is prone to blowback. Ask them nicely, and even if you don’t, even if you haven’t heard of a Barracuda S300 and have no intention of buying one they’ll share with hearty laughter how messy a blowback can be, and how to unlock the supply grommet half a turn so it’ll never happen again. But they will help each other out selflessly. Should you decide to redecorate your S300 on a weekend’s jaunt to Filey there’ll be a crew of eager souls cueing into the next bay ready to sand and strip, paint and paper before you can say Dulux Carsick Green on woodchip. This though comes with a hint of fascism. Rules are rules and the runes of ancient caravanning must be followed otherwise there would be chaos. Unfortunately I like a bit of chaos. Yesterday for example in continuous heavy rain I was the only one sensible enough to wear pink shorts and sandals on the basis you don’t wear rain gear and wellies to go swimming. But today we’re waking to sunshine and I’m sitting in long johns on a wet chair, but that’s just a mistake. I’m currently thinking, “Life is a perennial process of trying to get comfortable, but if you achieve it you’ve failed.” That’s how spirit is; always a sting in the tail, never a straight answer. At the moment amongst breakfast chat I feel like the Hunchback of Notradame, his hands clasped tightly over his ears crying, “The rules, argh the rules.” My son says 90% of talk is simply testing, “Do you like me, ‘cos I like you, so do you? I mean are we OK, I mean really?” However true it doesn’t help one’s powers of chitchat.

I Hear Farting.

In an oblique way South Park summed up the Murdock/Nof theW debacle as only they can. In last nights episode one of the fab four began to hear the pop ‘Teen Wave’ youth music in a new way as he passed his tenth birthday. It was overlaid with a constant stream of trouser rupturing farts. “It sounds like shit”, which it literally did. Pretty soon shit was coming out of peoples mouths, TV showed shit, fast food was shit, literally. Well graphically. This was put down to him getting older and grumpy-er and generally more miserable. His friends discarded him; he was no fun anymore. Where his friends were content to listen, watch, eat, hear people in unquestioning acceptance of what they were provided with he perceived them covered in the brown smears and turds of excrement. As deft and succinct as a Michael Angelo cartoon, South Park painted our dilemma. Can the misery of not being able to stand for it any longer be explained away as the curmudgeonness of old age? Is the hip happening new-speak of advertising, management, finance and politics youthful virility or turgid excreta? Seeing this portrayed graphically was worth a thousand arguments. After it I could actually see the younger Murdock’s expertly polished speech distancing his honourable newspaper from a despicable few individuals as a series of smelly putrid turds exiting his mouth splattering his chin and me in brownness. So next time I’m invited to counter-argue with someone extruding that kind of shit I’ll stand well back and just say, “I hear farting.”

Under hedge, not Undergrad.

Dennis couldn’t get into Cambridge; he’s our hedgehog. But we’re very proud of him all the same. I think those intellectual red brick conservatives have something against honest toilers. Because he works nights though we’re not sure what he’s building. Some say a shed but I favour a moderate expanse of decking. But my God he puts his back into it. I could hear him over my teeth cleaning last night grunting away on his latest project. Which may be a nursery. I know. I mean he’s probably finished the bathroom by now, maybe even a downstairs loo, which we don’t have by the way. So we troop downstairs with a head torch to see. Behind the big blue pot with the bay tree in it Dennis is grunting away like a good ‘un, AND beside him is a sleek smaller companion. Beside his coarse portly spines she, one presumes, is petite and slightly more glossy. They are nosing behind the big blue pot with the bay tree in it. Mothermouse rushes inside to get some Felix and spoons some out for when they finish nosing. And has to pull four cats out by the tail to leave them and the Felix alone. So Dennis, our down to earth garden toiler, is arranging his kingdom for him and his mate, his feet on the ground, absorbed in the practicalities of life. So what if he didn’t get into Cambridge. Lets face it, he wouldn’t have fitted in, not with those Conservatives. Each to his own.

The Third Degree.

Granted my degree was 45 years ago but we had around 23 hours of lecture time. Last year the average was 13.4, down an hour from the year before. At £9,000 student fee and a 30 week uniyear that’s just over 400 hours per year with the students paying £22 per hour for them. With a class of say 40 students that’s £895 per hour. Now I don’t think lecturers get that much, more like £45k pa, i.e. around £38 per hour. So one wonders where the other £857 per hour goes. Obviously this ratio of 23:1 goes on the grand buildings, loan repayments, management, accountants, ancillary staff, library, nurse, counselling service, window cleaning, prospectus printing, in house Café Nero and student union. In comparison our building was19th century, we had a kiosk where you could buy crisps and a nurse that came once a week. I don’t remember if we had a library, I did maths. My obvious point is the vast majority of a student’s fee goes on the non-educational aspects of their uni experience. Now imagine visiting your favourite local restaurant for the purchase of a £15 meal. It also has overheads not directly involved in the preparation of your meal but lets say they account for two thirds of your bill. So ingredients, gas, chef and waiter salaries account for £5. From the above 23:1 ratio this modest meal under the structure of our universities model would present you with a bill for £115. But don’t worry, they’ll loan you the extra hundred quid and you can pay it back out of your wages and only if you do really well and manage to get a job that pays only slightly more than the minimum wage. Then again there’s something inherently noble about a young friend wanting to do “Textile Design and Fashion at University”. It appears to show imagination, zest, and an intense desire to be creative. Unfortunately she has none of these necessary attributes, it’s solely based on her liking for dressing up and clubbing. It’s like wanting to do an English degree because you love reading Heat. It’s not their fault, it’s us making them an offer they can’t refuse and using their understandable naivety to mortgage their future pay in order to pay off our current deficit! Sorry it just makes me mad.

A Little Yes.

Apparently one speed camera in Stains or somewhere took over £2 million in fines last year, and that’s without tax and Vat to pay. No wonder authorities are slow on the uptake of the warningy ones. These show your speed and if it’s over 30 they show a sad face and under 30 a smiley face. My guess is they think people will ignore them if there’s no fine to pay. Well today Mothermouse was driving us into town and I was listening to Bill Bailey on the radio and we happened on one of these warningy ones. As we passed it showed 30 and then the smiley face and Mothermouse, in a lovely glowing whisper of self approbation, issued a barely audible “Yes!” Yep, give Mothermouse a smiley face and it’ll go further than any number of fines. I love her for that. After 5 Rhythms last evening we were talking about people who’re hard work to be with. A woman who spent hours describing every detail of her depressing situation ended with, “I don’t know what to do.” Sad, but was she open to change, fluid enough to experiment, willing to risk dancing a new path, listen even? No. It’s amazing how easy it is to want change without being willing to make change happen. How illogical is that! We decided the appropriate response to such a person is, “You haven’t put enough hard work into becoming a lovely person. Fuck off.” Harsh but some people need to be hit with a shovel. Maybe then they will make a little change, which will bring a little success, which will warrant a little, “Yes.”