Wild Sovereign Development Site

Tag: ignorance

  • opportunista

    In the supermarket I was queuing in front of a woman with a lot of groceries. Her arms were laden and I stepped aside to offer her the space to put her stuff down on the conveyor. Germans are possessive about their conveyor space and it remains the only country where I have ever had someone not only install one of the little dividers between my groceries and his, but then lean across me to reinstate the missing divider between mine and the person’s in front of me; then rock back on his heels and give a satisfied nod, saying to himself almost sweetly, “Hmmphf.”

    The woman spilled her goods onto the belt and said, “Ich hab’ gerade ‘was vergessen. Kannst du…” She had forgotten something, she darted away into the aisles and disappeared. I said hello to the guy with all the piercings who works the register. He scanned my bunches of vegetables one at a time. The woman slipped back into her place in the queue and put one of those toilet ducks on the belt beside her things. She smiled at me. Her smile, and the fact that she’d used du rather than Sie earlier, gave me a slender opportunity and I made the most of it.

    “Kannst du bitte – das nächste Mal – vielleicht daran denken, etwas ein kleines bisschen umweltgesunder zu probieren?” Couldn’t you please, next time, perhaps think of trying something a bit environmentally healthy? I tipped the plastic duck-beaked bottle to show her. “This stuff is complete poison. It goes down the drain and comes back out the tap, goes into our rivers. There is a brand called – Frog, I think they sell it here, you might try it.” I strove to sound as casual and off-handed as I could. This is perhaps the five hundredth such conversation I have had in a grocery store with a stranger and I’ve got skills. “Have you ever thought about trying the recycled paper toilet tissue?” I’ll ask, sidling up like a flasher in the aisle. “Ah, no,” they might say, looking startled. Often they confide they have sensitive skin and it’s supposed to be much scratchier. Oh, good god. Around us in the shadows rainforests fall to bulldozers and orangutans limp away from palm oil plantations so that we can eat our corn chips and make our soap. “Actually, it’s softer,” I always say. I’m smiling. “I mean – it’s been pulped twice.”

  • citizen’s arrest

    I walked into one of those joyless lunchtime buffets so ill-suited to Chinese cuisine. The name of the place was China-Haus, China-Garten, something like that. They had long ranks of bains marie, tepid with cornflour. Another woman came in behind me, rather young with a lot of glossy hair spilling over her parka, and stood there pulling off her gloves. “Do you have coffee?” she asked the waitress. “Not… not really.” “Oh good. I’ll have a latte machiatto. Do you have aloe vera juice?” I started to laugh. The waitress looked over her shoulder at the kitchen, uneasily. “We basically just have normal coffee.” “Oh,” said the coffee loving yoga monster, dismally. She was so bewildered that I sort of fell in love with her humanity.

  • hero, shero

    hero, shero

    Are ignorance & arrogance the same thing? I think they are. My friend and I argue. He says, ignorance goes inside, arrogance goes towards the outside. Yes I say; but as you destroy your ignorance, as you realize we are all connected and part of one another, it becomes impossible to be arrogant. (Arrogantly I am thinking: I’m not arrogant!) Well but then, he says, you become cynical. And then… you become sarcastic. I’m not cynical, I remind him (arrogantly). No, he says: you’re not. And you’re not ignorant.

    I am preening. But! he suddenly realises: you are far more arrogant than me! Yes, I say proudly, it’s true, I am. I’m a horrible snob. You have Adelbrain, he says, synthesising a new German-English compound: aristocrat’s brain. I have no money and come from a family of farmers but I realise: this is true. Leaving the room he says over his shoulder: No. You’re not arrogant. You’re just a queen. Perching four splayed fingers over his breastbone like an insect walking on an upright wall of water he explains: Birthright.

    Queen Latifah, I have heard, calls herself so because she believes every woman is a queen. Similarly I began in my 20s signing my name Cathoel Shero, having made up the word ‘shero’ to serve as an equal opposite to ‘hero.’ Here’s a cartoon I made for it in 1999. In my mind I was imagining every woman signing herself Sarah, Blessed, Dewi, Dagmar Shero: a race of super women. I thought by recognising the dignity in ourselves and calling it out, being unafraid of our strength, we could call up men all around us to be heroes. Kings and princes. Titles would be common as muck. We’d all be happy as pigs in straw castles. My theory fell to pieces when I discovered Oprah Winfrey had invented the same word around the same time and instead of feeling pleased ~ the light is rising! ~ I was annoyed. This self-centring response felt not very sheroic; not very princely. But I like to be queen of my own inner world and I like that other people are king and queen of theirs.

    hero shero