Octavia, a member of the writing group at x-church, prompted me to join in somehow. The word she gave me was ‘everyday’. At the time, it was Saturday afternoon, I was in the thick of it, meaning I was with my family, helping with homework whilst doing some of the much overdue household chores. Octavia messaged me saying that she hoped that I had some time to myself. Well, I definitely didn’t have that.
Yet being busy with Saturday life made me realize that reflecting about the word ‘everyday’ and what it might and might not imply warrants to take a step back. To introduce a certain distance to see that little bit clearer.
When Michel de Certeau wrote ‘The Practice of Everyday Life’ (first published in French, 1980) he had, in my opinion at least, a very particular bone to grind. Above all, I think of the chapter where he described how a walker moves on the streets and how social life can perceived. His dig was at mainstream social theories und urban planning with their neat schemata und all too clear statistics. To make his point, De Certeau uses as example the vantage from the world Trade Center in New York, a view that in itself has become anachronistic. He compares this with how being on the street is immersive and likely to give a totally different perspective. According to him, cities ought not to be drafted on paper but should emerge out of the experience of everyday practice which consists of a constant stream of micro-negotiations. Yes, de Certeau was an avid believer in the everyday and that most theories are too removed from what is really going on whilst feeding into strategies that inform the planning of our public and not so public spaces. However, de Certeau also put forward that we as individuals with our daily routines and idiosyncrasies are good at subverting things. Mostly without noticing we can single-handedly adjust planned usage and at times we excel in temporary space poaching and not necessarily unfriendly trespassing.
Personally, I love gorilla gardening and the corners omitted by the local council give me a real buzz. I love subverting the usage of street furniture and I regularly put my unwanted things on the garden wall turning it into a real time gumtree with a ‘free for all’. I love that the owners of my favorite grocer shop put boxes with plants on the pavement, that they expand shop life into the street. That they make me stop if ever so briefly is priceless.
The other day I saw writing scratched into the bricks at x-church I simply had to photograph it, even more so as graffiti has such a long history going back to the Romans if not longer. I love accidental spillages on the pavement that seem to go on forever. Encountering a shopping trolley on the pavement makes me smile. It tells me that somebody solved their transport problems in a straight forward manner. Four shopping trolleys parked in a row in the street astound me endlessly purely because I can’t work out how that many got lose and still managed to come together for a gathering. Can shopping trolleys ever get lonely? Or, because of their outgoing nature, are they born socialites?
I even delight in colourful wrappers dropped by children in the street, because it reminds me that young people have other priorities. Their friend coming around the corner, that race to be finished, that joke to be told. Mess per se can be very beautiful as it shows us something taken out of context. It raises questions about the objects we seem to need, about their relatively short lifespan. I know fly tipping is also very annoying as it trashes a neighbourhood and I am not one who would encourage it. However, it also makes me think about how as adults we tend to conform to the rigidity of space management and how a council might not provide enough free services to get rid of obsolete objects.
But you don’t have to place your rubbish in the local park as part of your everyday practice of questioning or actively subverting your environment. Have you ever tried to take your friends for a picnic in the local shopping mall? With blanket, barbeque and all the trimmings? I still need to do that, partly because I want to see what happens.
Yes, I think that the practice of everyday life is exciting and without it the world would be not the same. It is also simple as you do it on a day to day basis and most times without thinking about it. How you go about things can nevertheless make a difference in your life and it might even change the bigger picture. Who knows? Reclaiming space that is called public though it is actually privately owned by staging a picnic might be the first step or set the next trend. That is as a demonstration of slow living of course!
This was first published under https://loosespace.wordpress.com/2018/02/06/accidental-spillages-and-everyday-life/
