back up blog

Don’t fall over, I willed myself as I walked down the aisle to where they stood. Don’t you dare fucking fall over. I balanced on Italian leather pincers purchased in a panic the day before the wedding. Tuscan sun set over hills that stretched further than my eye could see, and she looked as stunning up close, all hair and eyelashes and white, flowing chiffon, as she had done as she held onto her father’s arm and first turned the corner of the Italian estate. He looked… well. Like the cat that had gotten the cream, the lucky bastard. Bridesmaids to the right, groomsmen on the left, and the officiator (their mate Dave) on my shoulder, I gripped onto a microphone heavier than lead and took a breath to say, voice shaking and eyes damp, because saying things you mean is scary, let alone saying things you mean to people you love, in front of seventy-five mostly strangers:   It’s a privilege to be asked to share some words with you this evening, just as it’s a privilege to watch two people I

It’s the words we use to talk about refugees that bother me the most. It bothers me because I’ve done it too, not realising, without thinking, because I had (have) no real context for the plight of other people. Other people who are a different colour, a different religion, a different tongue, and all that way away. I am white, and British, and middle class, and whilst I can nod and add a pseudo-intellectual aside recycled from the comments section of The Guardian at cocktail hour, noting how sad the misfortune of those not of my (purely by luck) geographical standing is, I’ve never really, truly, felt before like I had to do something. That I could play a role in the lives of some “poor brown folks”, photographed crying and desperate on the homepage of my favourite website as I skip through to read my horoscope, not so much ignoring the headlines and not seeing them in the first place. Any glimmers of guilt tugging at the hem of my conscience could, should they seldom arise, be quiete