socially distanced

Freundschaft!

Waking into the new day, struck by a wall of warmth already weighing down the air of the early hour, three coffees and a cold shower later finding myself back upon the top of the bed lying down, wearied thoughts flicker, memories rising.

Once upon a time we would have gathered last night for the Beltane on Calton Hill a collection of shadows and familiar faces, bonfires burning the night into a netherworld outwith the boundaries of the city sleeping beneath, jumping the embers as the first faint traces of light reached across the dark waters of the eastern horizon, wandering home through early morning light, footsteps winding through streets carrying that other world setting out upon the daily commute while we were coming down from our misadventures on the hill. Watching as the festival became diluted, political pressure from the council infecting the spirit of the gathering, the mutations into a sanitised and monetised parody to be placed alongside other products upon the corporate calendar. The last time I went up the transformation was complete, a theme park cordoned off behind boundaries, health and safety ensuring that interaction and participation was kept to a bare minimum; a tourist attraction parading a pallid and soulless reconstruction of what had been a celebration not so long before....

And then there was Wien, early mornings fuelled by Milady Gaggia, setting off towards the Rathaus beneath red flags, watching as the representatives of each district gathered in procession around the Ringstrasse and then, later, listening to this years rationale for not getting up early enough to participate. Later in the day there would be gatherings in the Prater or Anarchist street parties in the 2rd district, the sound of bands playing, the remnants of another era, some kind of social connection, watching the gatherings being dispersed by the police as the curfewed evening falls, congregations reforming in local pubs and clubs...

Finding some kind of momentum, heading off towards the hills. At the foot of the steps there's an ambulance and a fire engine, groups waiting around the corner shop drinking iced tea to ward against the heat and humidity choking the city. Monks passing, grey cloaked beneath woven hats while, descending, paramedics carrying a stretcher, a figure in a head brace, towards the ambulance. The paths are busy, the humidity wearing beneath the weight of darkening clouds, a shortened wander around to the cat temple as the skies continue to darken, the wind departing, stilled air offering the threat of thunder.

Later, sipping upon a dram of Talisker, faces and voices gathering in the glass, refrains of friendships, a sense of time and geography colliding, filaments flowing from shared histories and reaching out across the quietened traffic of the surrounding day. Maybe it's a convergence of ghosts, gathering today rather than waiting for Halloween, distances now more pronounced within the embrace of the pandemic, acute silences and the uncertainty of how our maps will be redrawn in the aftermath. Or, maybe, it's sustenance. A collection of people and events which are more than enough to balance these doldrums that we find ourselves inhabiting, a catalyst for that aftermath where, once again, we find in eachother the fuel to both dance and to rage. And who knows, but now that the flaws in the system have been illuminated, the definition of essential occupations altered beyond recognition and the accepted hierarchy shown to be just another illusion...





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=409j70D8Nm8