‘Pelicans have a wingspan second only to the condor’, he said.
He was standing just near where Anadi and I had stopped on our run to look at the Pelicans in the Park – St James Park – and he’d been listening, and laughing as I recited ‘The Pelican poem…’
Eyes of blue; a camera around his neck
‘In about two months they will be completely pink’, he added…
‘There is one who is more intelligent than the rest, she’s really inquisitive, she keeps escaping and going off on her own adventures’…
I told him about the vision of pink I encountered ‘somewhere in Spain’ as I made my way barefoot from one end of the country to the other.
I had come over the brow of a hill, a huge lake lay to my right and there I saw an array of pink – “a brief”, “ a pod”, “ a pouch”, “ a scoop”, “ a squadron” of pelicans!
‘You’re brave’ he commented, pointing to my feet, as we crossed the road near Leicester Square Tube station… He was settled in a doorway, looking quite relaxed in the sun, a coffee in his hand. His belongings in a bag beside him.
‘Would you like some money?’ I asked, ‘no, I don’t take any cash – I drink and smoke’, he added as way of explanation; ‘So I don’t take cash’.
‘How do you live?’ I asked… ‘People buy me food’; he proffered his coffee, ‘I get by’.
‘Would you like some food then’? I asked…‘A croissant would be nice’ he replied
‘What flavour?’
‘Almond…’
‘My favourite’, I said…
We stopped near the end of our run at Pret for a ‘nearly end of run coffee and a cookie to share’…
‘My African sister’ Akim, our new friend there, called out as we entered… And then as we approached the counter, he turned to his supervisor… ‘Guess where she was born?Africa’, he answered before she had time to guess – ‘“The” Africa where I was born… She is my African sister’.
He gave us an extra cookie on the house, and we sat in the sun in our improvised outdoor cafe in front of Saatchi Gallery…
My feet felt strong today, the terrain easy… Sometimes they are more sensitive than others, today everything felt easy. I felt strong relaxed and the miles floated by.
Conversations on the run.
The space between.
Twisting and weaving, creating new things, ideas and dreams full of colour and magic, manifesting in the space between, the tapestry of life.
Our worlds expand or are limited by the amount of conversations we are open to.
Airports, taxis, shops, restaurants, on the street…
A never ending dialogue