Wadiya
Chapter 2 - When the running stops, the writing starts.
I came here for two reasons.
I moved to this country, which I’ll graciously refrain from naming, because things quite simply weren’t working out where I was. I’d somehow got myself shunned from various levels of society and I was quite surprised and rather impressed with myself to be frank.
But I moved here for two reasons. The first was to try and start a ceramics practice. I figured that my dollar would go a lot further here than if I stayed in the states. My second reason was to find some time, peace and quiet, to start writing about my life. The first didn’t work out in the end, though I learned a lot about ceramics, such as how to make your own clay, and how to develop glazes, and all the materials, minerals, and sciences of the ceramic arts. I learned all of it from books, websites, and watching videos. I taught myself ceramics from the ground up.
I also learned how to not get ripped off, and how cheap these materials really are, and how to rely on yourself and make from scratch what doesn’t exist, when there’s no industry or set of companies catering to the ceramics hobbyist. I really learned a lot about how sociopolitical barriers impact access to technology and information, especially in the arts.
The failure of my ceramics practice actually revealed the iceberg in the room. I like to mix metaphors sometimes.
It became clear that the bigger problem was me. My reputation, or rather, my infamy was following me around and screwing things up for me.
My other reason for coming here has in fact paid off. Not financially, but personally, it’s been a god send. The writing is what’s working out. This is ironic for me, because most of my life I’ve been terrible with words and hopeless at explaining myself. Yet, by resetting my environment, I’ve also reset my understanding of who I am and everything that has happened to me since I became an adult.
When I came to this country I found myself writing a lot. At first I thought I was going to settle in the south, and live a rather quiet and idyllic life by the river—writing in my mornings under open air. That plan changed to living in the country’s capital- that same one that I grew up in. Village life really just wasn’t for me. And also…hmm…people were being weird again.
It was like in states, but clearer. I can’t explain it. Unreliable. They zig and then they zag. They’re happy to see me one day, and the next they’re not. Or they’ve agreed to rent to me one day and the next the plan has changed. Flimsy. Flip-Floppy. Tricky. Just with me though, and I had no idea why. So I bounced around again, a lot in the new country. The new country that’s also my old country.
These odd interactions had a very different flavor to them. It was one that I rather appreciated. I think people here have always worn their emotions more on their sleeves. When we laugh, we laugh big. When we’re upset, all bets are off. And when we’re angry, all decorum is gone. So when my people are intrigued by the entrance of a stranger, it’s all over their faces. You can see their eyes light up as they run through potentials and possibilities in their head, trying to match what they see with what they’ve heard.
And you can see on their faces who they are. What type of person they are. That’s something I’ll get back to-- the three kinds of people you meet on a journey like mine: