June 2012

Water ripples across the salt-encrusted surface of the ancient land. In the crush of earth, salt crystals linger on running shoes from urban centres: unfamiliar territory for feet used to pavements.

 Sunlight dances on the shoes now squelching in the watery salt basin, sucking and singing to rhythms made of mud. A seagull in the desert squawks defiantly at fringe dwellers now braving the centre of a continent flooded with rains from the east.

 Bugs, rats and beetles are caught in the receding pull of water as it is blown by spectral winds on the flat land. The salty tempura prove easy pickings for the seagull who quickly abandons feathered outrage at human interlopers for the twisted shapes, motionless and still.

 The shoes sink.  Caught in layers of salt, mud and mire the travellers pause and survey sky-earth and wind-waves.  Somebody sighs.

 “Do we need to take off our shoes?” asks the youngest.

“If you want to get to the water, you’ll need to take them off and also roll up your trackies”, answers a smiling father.

 The shuffling and sucking sounds of shoes peeling from soft skin are caught by the wind, a melodious hum punctured by excited gasps for air, cool and crisp. Bubbles of mud ooze through tentative toes, tickling and wooing feet to adventure: farther on, deeper in.

 Feel the salt on your skin calls the voice of the wind. 

 Each wanders, feet rolling, through layered earth memories softened by rains, yearned for and longed for and cursed for til come.  Silenced by wonder, the dance has begun. 

 A soundscape of wind-blown whispering stories tug at the human shapes tilting and thrusting angular lines; bent, lengthened and tossed, twirling limbs in full flight. The giggle of voices splash, fling, fall: recover in waves undulating and stung white by the sun.  Faces tip skyward, ankle-deep spiralling warmly inviting dreams for the dreaming: unfolding and bursting, carried high on the winds. 

 The dance has begun.

 In the most unlikely of places: the ditch in the desert, with the barefooted and curious, the dance has begun.

Photography by Julian Masters, reprinted with permission.

Let’s make: shape, craft, sweep, arc, spiral, tilt, run.  Marvel at dawn swept fragments tossed in thermals; warmed by sun.

Let’s make stuff up: create, explore, uncover, discover, let go: embrace.  Release, contract, smile and face to face laugh out loud to fall: softly, sweetly.  Hold. Breathe in.  Exhale in guffaws of light delight.  Believe.  Trust.

Let’s make believe: move well, see through, reach high; catch the sky in fists splayed wide.  Catch the eye when a stranger smiles.  Strip back, shape words, listen well: call your thoughts to sing.

Let’s make.

Have we stumbled into a generation of lost verbs seeking new places in sentences with proper nouns and punctuation still demanding lexical accuracy and traditional syntax?

These new, young and seemingly lost verbs don’t seem to know if they’re meant to be passive or active or should be present continuous. Is this a new generation of verbs making up their own sultry rules? What are they thinking?!

Little lost verbs seem remarkably flexible and bold as they reshape their letters to suit any context. Nouns, prepositions and the much maligned full stop, comma; even the colon, find themselves jostling in response to verbs seeking new places in new sentences. Although, I’m pretty sure it’s the conjunctions that feel the stress most by accommodating maverick verbs and their predilections for flaunting grammatical structure and linguistic expectations.

More disturbing still is the response to verbs that challenge sentence structure: adjectives have gone into hiding and nouns are now longing to become verbs themselves! Text is no longer something you read: it’s something you do. It’s all about getting a message across. Google is no longer a number; it’s an action billions of people delight in doing every second of the day. As for a web log? No: we don’t just have blogs.. we blog.

Verbs have even infiltrated the vernacular in everyday conversation. It seems we no longer have friends, but we friend someone on facebook. Even facebook’s status as a new noun has been challenged by usage: we facebook people.

Generation Verb is changing nouns into active and passive verbs, distorting grammar and showing utter disregard for punctuation: shocking! It’s a quick, impulsive, active Gen Verb that is reshaping the way we relate (called social networking) as well as talk (called messaging).

But (we must pay homage to the faithful conjunction): how exciting! We are living with a generation that wants to be active: to challenge convention by renaming and reshaping. Gen V is on the move, clearly evidenced in the destruction of syntax.

Yes: this can be disturbing for those who revere the subtlety and beauty of finely sculpted language.

However, in playing with linguistic convention, perhaps Gen V is pointing to a shift in social consciousness. It’s time to be active: to do.

Perhaps it is time to be wildly inventive, have a go, get up and move: to be, yes! But to be alive and responsive and utterly creative in the action of making up new sentences in the stories of the lives we are writing in and about.

Reach. Let the unexpected thought arrive. Open up a little: utter the first syllable.

Feels awkward? A squawk more than the dulcet tones you were anticipating? Try again.

Clear your throat. Purse your lips. Run your tongue across tremoring skin from which you will begin. Breathe in through the nose. Open the mouth. Let the air vibrate through the vocal chords. You have begun. Celebrate! Rejoice! Sing!

Let the syllables warble and watch how your eyebrows arc, your chin tilts, your hands float in response to deep diaphragmatic breathing. See your body sway; your toes wriggle a rhythm. You speak, you move, you dance! Celebrate! Create!

Still not happy? Oh? It doesn’t seem like good singing or real dancing? Perhaps not. Does that really matter?

It’s beginning: it’s creating. You are making and sensing and trying. You are bold and brave and adventurous. You have begun a journey of creativity with nothing but skin and bone and soul: a magnificent accomplishment! Bravo! Hear the applause of winged angels riding zephyrs whilst hoop-la-ing in giddy delight. Keep at it!

Warble in strange places. Dance in your kitchen.. after you put down the knife. Or perhaps not?

Tell stories with eyes flashing and teeth grinding. Tell even stranger stories with whatever you have; however it comes. Reach for it! Seek out the laughter in the moment of despair. It’s there: it’s always there..

There are no rules: only courage. Reach. Try out those tentative thoughts. Go on and ask.

And ask lots of questions with your mind and your eyes and your body and your spirit. Challenge your own thoughts and try. Make up new questions that reduce people to tears in strange revelations of joy.. through your very own tentative warbling.

And then, try again!

Utter the first syllable: open up a little. Let the unexpected thought arrive. Reach and begin.