Always Thinking

I once saw a picture of an imagined futuristic image of how people would evolve; how they’d look in years to come judging by human behaviour. Essentially it involved alarmingly long fingers, a deeply curved spine, and a seriously overweight body – a future born from sitting hunched over a screen, typing. When I thought of my daily life, much of it sitting at a computer, it got me thinking – I have to get out more!

Since typing exercises the fingers and little else, I take daily walks and, once in a blue moon, head out on my bike for miles along the river, but I can’t kid myself; it just doesn’t cut it. Then I saw a community initiative, Free Moovement – a clever use of the double ‘o’ so as not to confuse social media. A simple but effective thing: turn up in the park and exercise for free alongside people in your local community. It’s great, not least because it reminds me of playing out as I kid, which is essentially what I was doing whenever I wasn’t at school. Fresh air, exercise, and meet new people. Amazing how so many of us rarely meet the people on our own street, let alone talk to them. So far at Free Moovement I’ve chatted to three people I didn’t know, only to realise they live two doors down or across the street – we’ve been neighbours for years!

So I’ve just returned from a sunny morning of exercises in the park, exercising the body, relaxing the mind, for a while at least. The big day is coming, when my debut novel will be released into the world, and as I prepare to choose extracts to read, I think back to all that inspired me, what snippets from past travels went into layering and texturing the land of Shendi. I think of the markets in the Sudan, shopping in the hot sun, hearing the rushing sound of dried beans being poured into vats, and the rattling sound of coffee beans roasting in tins over hot coals. Even now, whenever I smell bonfires I think of trekking through the lanes of the township in South Africa, and the fire room, mjondolo, where an old woman spent hours patiently stoking the embers while simmering beans; I would poke my head in from time to time, my eyes soon stinging from the thick smoke. I remember the pungent smell of cow hide soaking in big barrels of water and then dragged out to dry in the sun, ready for making drums. I can almost hear the soothing rhythm of drumbeats.

Thinking, always thinking.