Thinking about markets, remembering Marrakesh
I have always been drawn to markets - something deep within me loves the disorder of the stalls, the hoarse cries of the vendors, the sharp eyes of the women, examining fruit with the concentration of a diamond cutter - there is, I think, something primeval, something anarchic, about markets -
In Mornings in Mexico, Lawrence talks about markets being above all a means of humans coming into contact with each other, bargaining, communicating - he describes a market in a small pueblo, lost in a parched plain, surrounded by mountains - he sees the Zapotec Indians, arriving with their merchandise, faggots of wood, sacks of charcoal, the men, shining in their white cotton garments, the women, with their blue black hair -
I have heard some voices mocking Lawrence - but I am beguiled by what he says here - how, all day, the Indians "have had the sound of strangers' voices in their ears, they have asked and been answered in unaccustomed ways" -
I have skulked and stared in markets in Turkey and Morocco - I can remember the glorious vegetables heaped up like a dragon's amazing hoard in the weekly market held at Mugla - the dark unfathomable faces of the old women, weighing fat tomatoes in scales held by hand - the bright eyes of thin boys, darting round the stalls, with orders for cay -
So, in Salisbury, reeling with sadness after visiting the cathedral, I went to the market - I hid behind a stall selling crocs, and spied upon the man selling second hand CDs - I had had seen that same guarded expression under brilliant skies, worlds away - I love music, and I remembered the tiny kiosk I'd lingered at in the Jeema el Fna - I'd handed over half a breeze block of dirhams for some Rai CDs - Tim, the Australian, had lent me some wrap around shades - to avoid eye contact, he said - he also advised me to say I was Irish if asked my nationality -
Standing in the freezing market, under a leaden sky, I thought about Marrakesh - how markets, proper markets - not ersatz markets, frequented by the privileged - were a universal phenomenon - in their ragged precincts, surely, there was to be found evidence of shared humanity - the power of the powerless -
I have always been drawn to markets - something deep within me loves the disorder of the stalls, the hoarse cries of the vendors, the sharp eyes of the women, examining fruit with the concentration of a diamond cutter - there is, I think, something primeval, something anarchic, about markets -
In Mornings in Mexico, Lawrence talks about markets being above all a means of humans coming into contact with each other, bargaining, communicating - he describes a market in a small pueblo, lost in a parched plain, surrounded by mountains - he sees the Zapotec Indians, arriving with their merchandise, faggots of wood, sacks of charcoal, the men, shining in their white cotton garments, the women, with their blue black hair -
I have heard some voices mocking Lawrence - but I am beguiled by what he says here - how, all day, the Indians "have had the sound of strangers' voices in their ears, they have asked and been answered in unaccustomed ways" -
I have skulked and stared in markets in Turkey and Morocco - I can remember the glorious vegetables heaped up like a dragon's amazing hoard in the weekly market held at Mugla - the dark unfathomable faces of the old women, weighing fat tomatoes in scales held by hand - the bright eyes of thin boys, darting round the stalls, with orders for cay -
So, in Salisbury, reeling with sadness after visiting the cathedral, I went to the market - I hid behind a stall selling crocs, and spied upon the man selling second hand CDs - I had had seen that same guarded expression under brilliant skies, worlds away - I love music, and I remembered the tiny kiosk I'd lingered at in the Jeema el Fna - I'd handed over half a breeze block of dirhams for some Rai CDs - Tim, the Australian, had lent me some wrap around shades - to avoid eye contact, he said - he also advised me to say I was Irish if asked my nationality -
Standing in the freezing market, under a leaden sky, I thought about Marrakesh - how markets, proper markets - not ersatz markets, frequented by the privileged - were a universal phenomenon - in their ragged precincts, surely, there was to be found evidence of shared humanity - the power of the powerless -
No comments:
Post a Comment