Oh dear. By May 5th we will have a new government, probably the same old government as before, with the same old lying Tony as President. A vote for Blair is a vote for Bush, but what can you do when the Left has become the Right, and the Right is like something appearing from a nightmare?
I have finished my tour of the USA and Canada, and I am very glad to be home - a flight a day is a lot, and as I spent the night in Washington in a bathroom, the night in Philadelphia in a bathroom, and two nights in New York in a wardrobe, it is nice to be in my own bed.
The hotels were great - no actually, The George in Washington is not great, too small, too dark, too trendy to get anything right, and for my money what you want you to be right is good quality dark and good quality quiet. When I could get neither, I made up a mouse nest in bathrooms or closets, and it worked. It helps if you are small.
People think how glamorous it must be to live the writer's life. Try a night in the wardrobe. I have spent my life staying out of the closet, how can it be that I must now pass my nights in a wardrobe?
My other problem was food; on tour, either you eat and drink too much or you give up both. By the final three days I was down to an apple, an orange, organic milk I was carrying around like the Holy Grail, and a carrot if I could get one. I lost 2 pounds in weight on the trip, which is saying something, as I began at 108, and came back at 106.
When did the Land of Plenty become the Land of Excess?
So much food. So much food that nobody should ever eat. So much weight. Yes, it worries me, whatever the giants say about Fat is Freedom. From where I am standing it looks like slowness, joint strain, heart problems, hormone imbalance, and fuck you to the people on the planet who go hungry. The West will have to consume less. Much less. America could lead the way.
Now I will get hate mail. Who cares? We're not talking a few pounds of good living; we're talking HUGE. And it's happening here too, but not on the same scale, and in France, it's still only 10% of the population who has a weight problem. I believe in balance, in moderation, in pleasure in wonderful food and wine. I would rather have less than more.
But the people... so good. I met the best people, and I was looked after and loved, and feel glad about all of that, and special thank you to Nellie and Danny in Miami for making it all right when I was just about to go mad.
One thing you learn on tour is to make peace with necessity. You have to do it, so do it well. Airports will overwhelm you by day 8, so find Zen and the art of Airports. Everyone you meet has to come away feeling better from the encounter, and includes ticket clerks, bar tenders, cab drivers...
It was 545 in the morning and I was leaving Chicago - not sorry because one of the joys of my room was a Bug and Bacteria Destroyer, which I unplugged of course, because it hummed, and I reckoned I preferred silence and few bugs to noise and sterility.
My cab driver came from Serbia. She was educated, lovely, and going mad because of the American Dream. Or that it wasn't working. She drove 16 hours a day to send money back home. She had brought over her son, got him in school, he had got into trouble, been One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest hospitalised at $2500 A DAY. She got Medicaid, thank god she could fill in the forms. She sent him back home. He's poor. He's fine. What should she do?
I got to the airport. The Check-in lady was Swiss.' I have been here ten years for my husband. I long to go back home.'
'Go home' I'm saying all morning. 'Go home.'
It's a great country. It has changed lives. It has changed the world. But now, maybe, the world needs to change America.
Look, I don't know. There is something strange about city after city, life after life, and on these tours I ask people to tell me their story, all of them, any of them, alone in a bar, at dawn in a cab, to the interviewer, to the bookseller, to the person in line to get a book signed, to the guys begging on the streets. So many stories. So many lives. A great country. A great nation. Too great to go wrong. Maybe it's just George Bush, but he has half America behind him.
How come the smart people couldn't keep the stupid people out of power?
Remember this column is personal space. It's not in a newspaper or a magazine. It's talking as I would to you, with all the doubts, hesitations, anger, mistakes, misreadings, but all the moment flooding in. If I start to censor it, we lose a space we share. Remember you can change your mind as time goes on. So can I.
The problem with being a writer, the problem with public space, is that you say something and it stays put, which is not what happens in conversation. We try things out. We argue with our friends and ourselves. We do that here, in this column. It is not tablets of stone.
But I am glad I was in Canada and the USA. I am glad of the chance of all that.
Now it's back home and remembering that the difference between a good gardener and a bad gardener is two weeks.
I shall be at the Brighton Festival on Saturday May 7th, so get details from the site - Brighton Festival.co.uk, or come along to the Aquarium at 7pm. I have no idea why I am in the Aquarium, but I am taking my swimming suit just in case.
LIGHTHOUSEKEEPING is out in paperback in the UK on May 4 th, so if you don't have a copy, get one soon.
Silver the cat will have kittens any second. Plus, a duck from the river at the bottom of my garden has decided to nest right by the house, so now, being a Virgo, I have to feed her bread soaked in milk, in the hope that she will be strong and hatch the ducklings. I know she can manage without me, but somehow, coming to the house, puts her under my care. Can anyone escape their Star Sign?
It is May, month of Taurus the Bull, and I know more bulls than any other sign. This makes May a very expensive month, but as one friend is taking me to the Fat Duck at Bray for her birthday, which has just been voted the Best Restaurant in the World, I cannot complain. Actually, her husband is taking her, the kids, and she can invite two friends. Thank God one of them is me!
So to pay for it, please buy your tickets now for BILLY ELLIOT the musical, so that Lee Hall gets his royalties.
It is going to be a great show!
And if you are in the UK, and you haven't yet seen Eve Best in Hedda Gabler, directed by Richard Eyre, GO NOW.
Thank you for all your support. All of you. Everywhere. It means a lot. Writing is about communication, about change, about beginning again, always. And we do.
Back to top« Go back |
feed
