How refreshing to have time again. To experience a momentary reprieve from working to pay bills.

The last week has been incredible. People will ask when I return to work: “what did you do?”. I’ll answer: “nothing, absolutely nothing”.

Actually my answer will be false, but it will be necessary, as in their eyes, I have done nothing. The truth will be that my week off has been like a breath of fresh air and with it a breeze of hope for the future.

I have spent time with my family and enjoyed being around them, in their presence. I have relaxed and yet had the time to research things that interest me and that are important. Remarkably, I’ve also written to friends whom I haven’t had time to keep in touch with in a whole year. Most essentially, I have had time to work with photography again. It’s been a real joy to play with images again and reflect on the nature of photography.

To have done these simple things, has been incredible to me. It’s also reminded me that I haven’t always felt jaded, used-up and on the edge; that another way might be possible.

To be able to strike a balance between the essential, and the necessary in life is vital. However, lately it seems that it is becoming more elusive to me. I seem to be working harder but for less. I don’t expect the greatest material comforts, I’m willing to sacrifice those things for the more important things in life. But even to work for the basic needs of life has become more demanding. The fights that the working class fought and won in the past have one by one been called back. Education, health, 8 hour working day, state services.

I know from speaking with friends that they have experienced unreasonable demands on their time and resources, just to keep their heads afloat. It seems that the recent “good times” have been fuelled by our governments throwing our hard won rights on the bonfire. Some of us have been tricked by the light and allowed them to sell it as economic progress, etc.

Others of us know that the time was always going to come for ‘pay-back’, and that the progress wasn’t ever progress anyway.

For myself, I merely wish that at some point in the near future I can do something that allows me to escape “working for the man” and to return to the more essential and important things in life: family, political consciousness and art.