 26 April 2007Life in the provincesForgive me blog lord for I have lapsed. It has been two months since my last post! I’m not sure what the excuse is – perhaps I should just stop thinking of one and get on with writing again…. Seeing as life in the provinces is still a novelty for me, I’m going to focus on that. I see from recent media coverage that I am once again running with the flock in fleeing Auckland. Garth George’s article in the NZ Herald generated a lively stream of support and dissent for moving out of the big smoke. The obvious corners where filled – Auckland’s a fantastic place to live, Auckland sucks. But somewhere in the middle of it all was an interesting yearning for a sense of community and a sense of loss of that in big cities. I’ve long believed that humans over-rate their ability to function in very large groups. That old cliché about a city being the loneliest place to be ring loud and true for me. I’ve lived in some of the biggest and ugliest cities in the world and can vouch for the isolation that is possible in them. When you’re young and reckless, sometimes that isolation is a benefit. We’ve all behaved in ways that we’d rather no-one we know remembers while going through the turbulent younger days. A city allows you to get away with that and by simply moving from one bar to another to create a new reality for yourself. But it’s when you grow out of that, usually accompanied by the arrival of children and the mortgage that I found city life started to lose its gloss. One particular incident stands out. My first born was three weeks old and I was pushing her along in her pram on a London street during a school day. Suddenly my way was barred by a couple of rough looking (and frankly a bit scary) chaps aged about 10 demanding cigarettes from me. So many things about that scene bother me. They were kids and yet I was scared of them in broad daylight. I was a new mother. Surely everyone knows that smoking’s a bad idea around babies in particular. These boys should have been at school and not demanding cigarettes from a stranger. Hadn’t any of the anti-smoking campaigning got through to them. I had no way of doing anything that could help to redirect them. I couldn’t tell what school they came from, who their parents were or even who on earth I might tell. The sense of being totally impotent to do anything about this was overwhelmingly depressing. It was at that point that the urge to live in a smaller community really gripped me. It took me another 12 years travelling via Auckland but finally I’m in a small community. And after only 3 months here I’m pretty sure that if I’m approached in a similar way, I’ll know exactly who to call to get the errant youngsters pulled back into line. At the root of what I’m feeling is a sense of being empowered. It’s not like I can solve world peace yet, but it’s a step and that feels good. Labels: city, community, provinces
posted by Copy Ant @ 4:08 PM
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