The Orphans at Christmas.

I am climbing back to my old tree top house... I climb back to a tree that I put this tree house in years
before, I remember the route, I have to go up the cliff and climb off the cliff to the top of the tree... Its very high, at the top of a straight pine tree, 50 ft up. A friend of mine finds me and decides to come and join me , but I warn him that it is a bad idea because the tree top house can only support the weight of one person, because it is only supported by one nail, but he ignores me. The tree top house crashes to the ground and my friend breaks his back, but I am ok because I climbed to the ground down the tree trunk.

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Its Christmas time, I am with Pete and some of the coop lot in the basement of a house. Me and Pete are singing songs together, using our voice like trumpets, singing blues songs in harmony, melodies of the soul.

The orphan children are playing on the street outside. It is dark. I see the light from their gypsy wagons, and the fire around which they cook their food. Their is a certain appeal about the way they
live, a simplicity and communal sharing attitude which attracts me, and I fall in love with the idea of living like one of them. It is sparked off by all the excess around me, the wealth and over abundance
of stuff which feels like a burden, a weight to the spirit.

As if called by our singing, these children from the orphan camp come over bringing hot baked potatoes, with cheese on, as a Christmas offering. To me it seems like the most wonderful gift, a true sign of what Christmas should be about. Here are these people who barely have enough to eat well, sharing what is most precious to them.

I see in the distance the mother of these children stood next top the fire with her colourful clothing, and she looks in our direction, with a hopeful look that we will accept her gift.  It emphasizes the contrast between our cultures; the huge wealth divide between the rich and the poor.

I gladly receive one of these potatoes, but I am the only one. My other friends are suspicious of the food. My mum is walking along and she sees I have accepted a potato from them, and warns me about it; "you should not eat food from them, it is dirty, unhealthy and contaminated" she says in a voice that echos a condescending or disproving tone.

This statement makes me so angry. I have finished my hot yummy potato now and I begin arguing with my mum, having a go at her.
 "I can't stand your prejudices toward these poor people, they have nothing and offer their food to me, their most precious thing, and we have all this wealth but cold hearts toward those who have non..."

I am very angry and sad. My mum is just repeating the ideas that were put into her as a child so I can't really blame her. Its a part of our cultural conditioning
...

When present opening comes, I open some gifts for me, one from my parents wrapped in expensive wrapping paper.  It is some books. All the books are about ecology, and caring for the earth. It seems so ironic. I can still see the price tag on the inside of one of these books, and its not cheap.
The irony is in the fact that there are all these orphan people living just round the corner, who are living embodiments of the inequality of our world, and I have these expensive books to tell me the same thing wrapped up for Christmas. I am ungrateful for the gift. I go and sit by myself and cry, thinking about my orphan friends and their gift. My tears role onto the books and spoil the shiny new pages of them.  I feel bad for not appreciating the gift from mt parents.

My mum finds me sitting by myself down stairs and comes in to start hoovering. I have to walk out, I can't stand the noise, it destroys my melancholic mood.

I go up into the sitting room to continue with the tears. My brother Joe senses I am sad and comes to join me. He stands behind me and does a strange art performance, where he holds up his hands and says " in this hand red , in this hand grey "

The colours refer to my states of mind and the different sides of my brain, the red is my left side, the right is the grey side.