So Much Things To Say
As per usual so many things to say because I’ve been in such poor blog-form. However I’m not as bad as some! We are fourteen days from camp and I’m feeling calm. And I’m not taking drugs, I am taking vitamins and I’m basically taking care of myself.

Excellent aye.

I was driving through Ponsonby back onto the northern side of the Harbour Bridge the other day. I say a sign painted onto a fence – one of those concrete plastered fences that has a special wooden frame reserving space for posting bills. It’s kinda archaic and yet nice that Ponsonby, and the outskirts of Ponsonby so desperately want to stay down to the People’s People. Anyway – it was a painted advertisement for the Freeman’s Bay School fair. Got me thinking about the kids that go to Freeman’s Bay School. For the most part, they are some of the least free children in our city.

They are trapped by mountainous expectations, parents who have sacrificed so much to gain so little, when it comes to being in the trendy suburbs. Today I read an article archived online, about Onehunga being about to become the next ‘It’ suburb. Well, ten years on from that 1995 piece of brilliance.. Onehunga is still Onehunga – and I still am not that cool, for having gone to Royal Oak Primary. My short stay at Gladstone is now something to crow about – depending on how you feel about the modernisation of Mt Albert, with it’s hip, new designer families .. breaking out from artsy Grey Lynn and Kingsland to the outer cool of semi-suburban droll.

Seems so pointless to me, because according to the creativity and design being applied to that painted boardsign on Jervois Rd, the latest hip, up-and-coming zone is going to be Freeman’s Bay. Where no-one’s really free, especially not the land underneath the houses, or the sand that was reclaimed from the sea to build upon.

Freeman – whoever was he, that lived so close to a city, that longs to be more than it is, and could be, it breathes possibility.

Nathan King
I went to a Nathan King Showcase last week. It was phenomenal .. mainly because of the amazing energy of the gats & kit. It was earthy and new and fresh, and had tired edges where you could see the pools of sweat and emotion that have marinated it as a project. I’m not sure whether the true project is the album that’s been produced at the end of it, or the life and spark it gave those who birthed it .. and in there is something to ponder, for those of us who are ‘midwiving’ in our day-to-day.

Midwiving
The offer has been made, and the deadline set. I think it was unexpected that I wouldn’t accept the job offer first hat. I have some concerns.. firstly it’s a one year project to redesign and shape creative ministries in the process of the community it’s serving being under examination and review. Seems a little scary to put a timeline of achievement on that. However – I understand the need to see me prove myself .. I just haven’t wrestled through the implications of that yet… although I need to. By Thursday.

Wish me luck, this baby may well be breech.