Hobo Soup

I wondered at the scene today. I found myself, for the last month or two, infact since before Christmas, continually watching news via social media, and the mainstream well in part. Perhaps because of the wars in the Middle East, but, I guess, the problem started to occur when some things in the news did not add up. So when confusion is sewn, it is like a badly programmed computer. The more you try to untangle it the more it seems to become like a spaghetti junction. It is like looking into a drawer of old wiring or plugs. The sort of draw or bag, where everything is tangled and you sit there trying to pull this end and that end to try to untangle the mess.

The people in Gaza need food. The people of Israel, have deprived them of their homesteads. We are talking about 2.3million souls to feed. The USA/UK alliance is something to wonder at. Because the people of Gaza are also now starving, and being bombed at the same time, in full view of cameras, it is very hard to ignore leadership is at an all time low. Perhaps if someone could at least get food to the people of Gaza, the Houthis might allow some cargo through to the Suez Canal. I keep thinking of scenarios where even a small flotilla of boats with food arriving on Gazan beaches might be the only way in. I keep imagining soup kitchens of beautiful things, like crepes with nutritious fillings. Pancakes French-style are quick to cook and prepare, and perhaps the nightmare momentarily could stop.

There is nothing wrong with the people of Gaza, they are all professional teachers; dentists; doctors; students; they are capable people. So everything about this scene is weird. God made all people. And since Jesus at least all people can obtain heaven, make no mistake this is true. There is no logic to allowing Netanyahu’s rule of destroying a whole nation. I think he needs to be arrested and charged with genocide. It is a very harmful situation.

What to make of the ‘media’?

I published a new story this week amidst the mayhem. I had a good time through my youth, and most part working life in London, exploring, and discovering, perhaps not so big on the achieving part, but, that is life. I have benefited many times over from the viewing of exhibitions of art, and reading of great literature. And it cannot be said that London was lacking in this area. In fact the galleries and the book publishers and bookshops, have kept me going for many years in the pursuit of my interests. A thing can only come to fruition in the right environment. And since moving out of the London area to the south, the change has been quite a good thing in all. 

I feel very rested, at this time, and that is a good thing. I have had time to mull, I have had time to sort even my file drawers! I have also had time to do some writing, but, this is now the focus, along with making art. There is something to be said for being in the right frame of mind, and creativity, has to have the right ingredients for it to flourish. Being in good health too there is much to be said about that.

I thought of calling this BIG SOUP….amidst the throng of information about this and that in news items. The planet is undergoing changes too. Iceland’s volcano has got very active, Vesuvius too, has started spewing lava, Yellowstone Park is exhibiting changes with seizmic measurements and forecasts suggesting it might ‘blow’ soon. And there have been tzunami-like waves arriving on Californian beaches. ‘Whereforart thou?’ God might say that to us? As He descends to Eden in search of humanity, whom He created. We are capable of good reason.

I just looked up Hobo Soup and it gave a beautiful recipe of ground beef ; onions; caneloni beans; carrots; etc.. so do please look this up.

My newest story Hilda Fortune, started as just an idea of something I wanted to talk about. Survival as a woman with career potential, well, mainly survival in the capital city of London, and it needs to say more but as a shortish novel it is not too bad for quick reading material. I reference my own experience jumbled and fictionalized. In the story there is a working woman who does the nine to five, but, also experiences the cafe culture and the kind of thing that produces, the unexpected strangers at the table. Everyone has a story to tell, and I seem to have listened to a fair number of them too over the years. It is hard being solo. You have to rely on yourself for payment of everything. The singletons out there have their hands full in this respect. And too, safety for women in a big city. Is it possible? When I first came to London, I was nineteen and had started my first year of art school. There was a huge news item about a man who was killing gay men then, and in the case of this first story, he had lured them to his apartment, got them drunk/drugged, strangled them, and then butchered them into pieces, and the pieces were found stuffed down the drainpipes possibly in the sewer. The first person to discover this was a plumber. The tenent responsible had moved out. There was more than one body in the pipes. I lived at Tufnell Park when that story broke, I was entering my second year of college, and I too had walked through to Kentish Town on many occasions, to go do the shopping at a local Sainsbury. I lived frugally then. I had no phone at home, in my student accomodation, and relied on the old red phone booths that now are antiques! So many things have changed. We are all on mobiles now. I think because too I was new to ‘the world’ and everything seemed to startle me, the city never slept. Children in the London area, were home alone, and therefore ‘free’ to roam and cause lots of trouble. I would sit in the launderette, and lads would come in in the winter and play. When I say play, they would play at jumping in and out of the driers to get warm. I should feel blessed, that I survived. Everyone, passes through London at some point.

We are now 2024, and this seems to me unimaginable! It is the NEW YEAR, and that really feels the best statement. There is a lot to do still with writing projects, but the other day I produced two small painting sketches, one of poppies in a vase and the other more of a very loose painting style so abstracted but more in the line of Kandinsky, but with some figurative thing like the form of a woman.

My amazon e-books are very low priced, and easy to download on payment via amazon.. thank you for listening.

Kathy Da Silva

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Hobo Stew