The Power of reading,the power of the mind.

‘I love New Orleans but the old New Orleans. The 50s, the jazz era. Bohemian-chic when it was really alive. That time is over; I wouldn’t go there now but it is still possible to live those times; through books and music.’

A middle-aged man wearing a knitted jumper and large round glasses told me this in a cool, split level record shop on a quiet, tall-housed street in Amsterdam. He sold records from days bygone; stepping into the shop was like stepping back in time.  Disco, Bowie, Jazz, The Rolling Stones, Rock; genres which have died or transformed into something else were available; in their true, exquisite flavours.

 {In another space I recall….‘This is such a tune!...’ I declared and began to weave and bop my head to a dub beat. Bad man riddim dat!

Bad boys inna London, Rude boys inna England, Bad boys inna jherico, rude Boys inna England.

‘Not from your time, ha!’ I am told.

This tune cannot be mine. Is this due to my 1990 birth? Which would make me in true fact a Wotsit eater at the time of the tune’s hay day? A time in which my father would have been weaving and bopping in a darkened room somewhere and a time in which I would be watching Postman Pat and the Power Rangers?

I don’t believe in time.

 A my tune dat! Nah-nee-nee-woh-oh, zig-ee-Nah-Nah-no-no-no.

Do you know it?}

‘These days people walk around as if they are in a tunnel.’ He told me through a clicky, back of the throat, Dutch accent. Laying back in a chair and arranging a new record, he pointed to the painting on the wall of 1950s New Orleans.

‘They don’t look around them, they don’t see the world.’

 To some extend I agreed. As much as I find life beautiful I also find it frustrating. I have a love and hate relationship with this era we are living in. A time of over-sharing in cyberspace and being disconnected from the people in our physical space. A time of money of greed. A time of gentrification, of demolition of reconstruction.  A time of luxury housing. Social mobility. House prices. Generic thought processes. Media assigned ideas which become our reality. Did I create that thought in my head or have I just read it and heard it being said so many times that it has now become a part of my reality? A time where the most powerful country in the world can go from being led by a black man to an orange man. Is this my time?

I agree with the Dutch philosopher in the record shop, a title he knows not he possesses. People are sleeping. They like us sleepy. Yet, we do have the power, the power is in our minds. We can go anywhere, see anything and learn anything though reading.

I have just finished reading Augustown by Kei Miller, a book which transports you to troubled Jamaica, to opportunity and hope, to a failing system, to death, poverty, to division, tension – to reality. It is one of the best books I have read, with an ending which is; truly magical. I am half Jamaican but am yet to travel to the land of my forefathers. Or am I? Through reading this book; the emotions I felt, the pictures I saw, the roads I walked down – I was there. In my mind.

I declare this to be the power of reading.

The Dutch Philosopher was right, you can go to 1950s New Orleans if you want to but you need a good imagination and some well written verses.

Stephanie