I have got a Waitrose special Valentine's meal deal for two for twenty quid. If you want to know what's on the menu (and why wouldn't you?) it is: a starter of smoked salmon and lemon pate, main course of Gressingham duck (red cabbage + mangetouts), dessert of chocolate and passionfruit assiette. Plus a box of Belgian chocolates and a bottle of Rioja. Candles, incense and music I got, plus partner. We have been together for over thirty years, and twenty eight years ago, having stated very clearly at the outset that he would never want to marry, he proposed to me. Never mind that it took more than eight years for us to get round to doing it, and by then our two children were born and old enough to come to the wedding dressed in elephant suits. The gesture counts.
Romantic love - the heightened kind that has the power to transform your world. It isn't just about me and him. It isn't just about you and whoever you are with, wish you were with, desire, yearn for, think about in secret, blast with curses and tears, celebrate in sweetness and flowers. In every good friend I have had since childhood there has been an element of romantic love. The freckled red-head who built dens in the bracken made something happen to my heart (I could feel it filling up) when she called me her best friend, and again when she later chose someone else instead of me. The friend who moved schools to be with me, and whose trust I betrayed. The ones who matter, and not just the friends and lovers. The niece who stares at you as though seeing you for the first time and says she loves your face. The small sister with a fever who waits up late for you to come home from boarding school. The children. On bonfire night, a few days after my daughter's birth, I felt every firework in the sky (seen from a hospital window) was incandescent with the fact of her existence. When my newborn son first looked at me I understood afresh what it meant to know someone - the shock of recognition. And what about the brief encounters, the connections that are good for nothing but the particular moment, which might be in a train, a conference hall or a post office queue? Times when you catch a person whole, or they catch you, though nothing comes of it that you can name, but something is changed - the heart is stretched, made bigger. Perhaps not romantic love, but almost.
And the animals, can I mention them? Not just my own cat who loves, in her fashion, and though it is to some extent about the food, it is more than this (I meet her at the point of need and she restores my soul); once you really love an animal, you learn how to love the others more, even if you are a lapsed vegetarian. It's a hard world, and ultimately (as someone said to me the other day), we all forgive each other. I don't yet believe this, but I want to. Perhaps this is a step away from romantic love. And so is Raymond Carver's 'Late Fragment', but I will put it here all the same.
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
This Li'l Light
We find ourselves in birthday territory again. I say 'we' because sometimes I find I think of myself as a plural, almost as though there is the 'I' that carries on with the business of daily life and another 'I' that observes it. A morning of writing with two writerly friends with whom I have met for many years. We meet, if we can, once a week and write without workshopping. We do this for about an hour and fifteen minutes and then share what we have written. We honour each others' birthdays - so the lit candle in the scone is for me. There is my hand holding the knife, my hard-backed turquoise notebook in which I will soon (after eating the scone) write three pages of words, mostly inspired by thoughts about the moon because of the birthday cards (here is one).
The writing did not come easy, the inner flame, compromised by my unwelcome but faithful companion Fatigue, was low and it is easy to lose the plot. Poetry is sometimes forgiving about this because the plot of a poem is always just whatever is happening in the poem and one doesn't even need to know what that is. Sometimes, even with the meanest measure of vitality, it is possible to find oneself carried along with the flow of words. And then there is this magic, that where there was nothing, now there is something.
It is that small candle, though, that has stayed with me. A flame is a flame. I have been thinking about the many extraordinary people I have come to know - those who live with the more severe kind of M.E. Whether they have been made extraordinary by the fact of having endured conditions that most people would find unthinkable, with little support, scant respect and an uncertain future, or whether they were already extraordinary I don't feel the need to speculate. I just feel lucky to know them - see how they shine.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
alive-alive-oh
Another trip to the dentist in Darkest Kent, held up by a meandering sheep en route who stood in the middle of the road sniffing the air and looking about in a delicate and very unsheeplike way as though unable to decide on the best course of action. We eyeballed each other (sympathetically, I felt) for a few minutes while a few of its friends joined and waited for some kind of instruction or inner prompting as to what the next move should be. They moseyed off thoughtfully onto the open heathland of the forest. I went to get my tooth fixed.
A long drive like that (three-hour round trip, counting time spent in chair with mouth open) is not a good thing but this time was unaccountably better than last week - plus, I was not charged for the work, as I feared I might be. And on the journey back I listened to The Best of Kirsty McColl and sang along. So many good songs on that album, mostly love songs, a couple of the most quotable lines being, I fell out of favour with heaven somewhere, and I'm here for the hell of it now.
And then this (see above, by artist Yoshitomo Nara) waited for me on the doormat when I got home - a birthday postcard from a friend in Berlin, with lovely and funny words that uplifted me - just when I might have toppled into an afternoon's trough of miserableness. Well, we have pain and fatigue but the spirits are badassly high. And the title of the picture is Too Young To Die, which is spot on. Sheep, friends, good words - what else is there? (A cigarette, obviously - sshhh).
Friday, November 26, 2010
only human
London writerfriend came for a Brighton sleepover. We had a delicious time - meaning, of course, nice food, including the oyster late breakfast (creme caramel for desert) followed by a beach walk - the sun always shines on these oyster breakfasts and I am thinking there must be some correlation here. Meaning also that we had a delicious time talking about life and stuff - and The Writing. I have given up on Nano in the sense that I am no longer adding up the word count and realising for the second time of trying that pushing myself in that way is incompatible with having ME/CFIDS and is therefore unlikely to work But on the other hand, having a month where one focusses on the novel, or any creative project, is a good thing and potentially sets something up for (slowly) working on - in bed, eating lots of toast (I listen to you, Ms Pants).
I am reading my first Kindle book. I have had the Kindle (birthday present from Mr. Signs) since September but have struggled to find what I wanted and find it extraordinary and frustrating that I couldn't get books by Tim Winton, Marilynne Robinson, Lorrie Moore and various other good, well-known writers. The book I am reading is not a novel but a kind of buddhist self-help book called How To Be Sick by Toni Bernhard. No surprises, it basically peddles the route of acceptance and positive thinking and it is perhaps a measure of how recently clobbered I have been with Symptoms that I pressed the order button for it, having seen it recommended on various sites. But the writer does herself have M.E. and it is strangely reassuring to be reminded of what we are up against and the importance of being kind and forgiving to oneself. I do not accept, though, the notion that when bad things happen there is inevitably some kind of silver lining or higher purpose. Sometimes shit just happens and it is just shit. And sometimes it is right and fitting to give utterance to this in ways that might not seem immediately compatible with Upekkha (equanimity; a mind that is at peace in all circumstances). And I do have a sneaking suspicion that those who continually harp about the benefits of the Ten Steps and things of that kind do perhaps protest too much and that Metta (loving-kindness, wishing well to others and to ourselves) can manifest in mysterious and apparently contradictory ways because, peeps, we are human and therefore complex, innit. I was at a poetry reading the other day, reading some of my own stuff as well as listening to others. One of the readers announced that she used to write miserable poetry until she discovered - well I won't say what, but you know the kind of thing - and now she just writes happy poetry. Nuff said. And another thing. My current Shrink (whose days are definitely numbered), on learning my interest in the teachings of a certain Jeepers of Nazareth drew my attention to the time he threw over the tables of the money-lenders in the Temple, not the first time my attention has been drawn to this when someone wants to make some point about the Son of God being angry and therefore human, just like us. But I prefer the story about when he blasted the fig tree to damnation for not giving him fruit when he wanted it. Now there's a Son of Man for you.
What was the point I was about to make? I have forgotten. And I have a script to read - something devilishly good written by the daughter. Oh yes.
I am reading my first Kindle book. I have had the Kindle (birthday present from Mr. Signs) since September but have struggled to find what I wanted and find it extraordinary and frustrating that I couldn't get books by Tim Winton, Marilynne Robinson, Lorrie Moore and various other good, well-known writers. The book I am reading is not a novel but a kind of buddhist self-help book called How To Be Sick by Toni Bernhard. No surprises, it basically peddles the route of acceptance and positive thinking and it is perhaps a measure of how recently clobbered I have been with Symptoms that I pressed the order button for it, having seen it recommended on various sites. But the writer does herself have M.E. and it is strangely reassuring to be reminded of what we are up against and the importance of being kind and forgiving to oneself. I do not accept, though, the notion that when bad things happen there is inevitably some kind of silver lining or higher purpose. Sometimes shit just happens and it is just shit. And sometimes it is right and fitting to give utterance to this in ways that might not seem immediately compatible with Upekkha (equanimity; a mind that is at peace in all circumstances). And I do have a sneaking suspicion that those who continually harp about the benefits of the Ten Steps and things of that kind do perhaps protest too much and that Metta (loving-kindness, wishing well to others and to ourselves) can manifest in mysterious and apparently contradictory ways because, peeps, we are human and therefore complex, innit. I was at a poetry reading the other day, reading some of my own stuff as well as listening to others. One of the readers announced that she used to write miserable poetry until she discovered - well I won't say what, but you know the kind of thing - and now she just writes happy poetry. Nuff said. And another thing. My current Shrink (whose days are definitely numbered), on learning my interest in the teachings of a certain Jeepers of Nazareth drew my attention to the time he threw over the tables of the money-lenders in the Temple, not the first time my attention has been drawn to this when someone wants to make some point about the Son of God being angry and therefore human, just like us. But I prefer the story about when he blasted the fig tree to damnation for not giving him fruit when he wanted it. Now there's a Son of Man for you.
What was the point I was about to make? I have forgotten. And I have a script to read - something devilishly good written by the daughter. Oh yes.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
books, buddies and backbone
Peoples, hello. I was waiting for Ms North to put up something on her blog about winning the Kelpies Prize, drumming my fingers, wondering what my small tribe of dearly beloved writer friends have in common, and I think it is that no sooner have they dashed off one fine thing than they are on with the next and attending to the work in progress rather than trumpeting about the one that has just been published, though trumpeting, one feels, is in order.
So yes, she, (a.k.a. Janis Mackay), did win it, and I was there to witness the event which took place in a beautiful building close to the Edinburgh book fair, with wine, crisps, chocolate muffins and sweeties in little dishes – well it was a children's book prize, and it was Scotland. It will be published by Floris at the end of October and it will be lovely – a story about a boy called Magnus Finn who is half selkie. I have always been drawn by the selkie and even wrote a short story myself about one of them. Ms North has written an adventure story. I remember speaking to her on the phone after she had begun it. She was working on another project at the time but something on the beach where she lives caught her attention, she says, and she went home and the story of Magnus began. In her own words about this here. So it goes with creative process. You go hell for leather after one story and then another one comes and pulls at you.
Another long time writer friend I would like to trumpet is Wendy Wallace, whose book Daughter of Dust was published by Simon and Schuster in August. In Wendy's words:
Leila began life in an orphanage where most babies had been abandoned after being born outside marriage. Later, she uncovered the complex story behind her abandonment. She met - and looked after - her mother, and discovered not one father but two. She sang for President Numeiri, and came within a breath of living on the streets...
I met her when in Sudan in 2007 researching a piece for Woman's Hour on the issue of abandonment. In northern Sudan, babies continue to be born to unmarried women, despite the strict Islamic laws. Mygoma orphanage continues to receive abandoned newborns.
Leila's story moved me. I wanted to tell it, and she had always wanted it told. We formed a close friendship and agreed that if we succeeded in finding a publisher, we would split any proceeds.
Most important to Leila is that people in Sudan and elsewhere think again about their attitudes to those without families. The aim of her charity - Sunrise - is to dispel the stigma faced by 'children of sin' and its message is simple. "We are not guilty."
I love this book. I love Wendy's writing. She has a talent for creating mood and place (from which the story unfolds) which catches at the breath. I hope the book grows wings and is read by many. You can find it on Amazon, in Waterstone's or Borders under Biography, or you can order it for the discounted price of £6.50 plus £3.00 p&p (UK 1st class) by contacting Wendy at wendywallace@clara.co.uk
Already mentioned (and on my sidebar), if you haven't already spotted it, is Julie Corbin, whose first book, a thriller called Tell Me No Secrets was the only good reason I found for staying awake into the small hours. An erstwhile student of mine, she came into the classroom and one knew from the outset that she was one of those can write/will write people with both talent and determination.
Three writers, all different, but what they have in common is something I can't really find a satisfying word for: they are dedicated to the business of writing and have given themselves to the work, for the love of it, the doing of it. The success, when and if it comes, is good, but they are busy with the new work – dedicated.
Next post will have something about the life and strivings of Signs. But for the moment, suffice to say that today I fell on the patio, bashed my head and put my back out. But I wrote my thousand words.
So yes, she, (a.k.a. Janis Mackay), did win it, and I was there to witness the event which took place in a beautiful building close to the Edinburgh book fair, with wine, crisps, chocolate muffins and sweeties in little dishes – well it was a children's book prize, and it was Scotland. It will be published by Floris at the end of October and it will be lovely – a story about a boy called Magnus Finn who is half selkie. I have always been drawn by the selkie and even wrote a short story myself about one of them. Ms North has written an adventure story. I remember speaking to her on the phone after she had begun it. She was working on another project at the time but something on the beach where she lives caught her attention, she says, and she went home and the story of Magnus began. In her own words about this here. So it goes with creative process. You go hell for leather after one story and then another one comes and pulls at you.
Another long time writer friend I would like to trumpet is Wendy Wallace, whose book Daughter of Dust was published by Simon and Schuster in August. In Wendy's words:
Leila began life in an orphanage where most babies had been abandoned after being born outside marriage. Later, she uncovered the complex story behind her abandonment. She met - and looked after - her mother, and discovered not one father but two. She sang for President Numeiri, and came within a breath of living on the streets...
I met her when in Sudan in 2007 researching a piece for Woman's Hour on the issue of abandonment. In northern Sudan, babies continue to be born to unmarried women, despite the strict Islamic laws. Mygoma orphanage continues to receive abandoned newborns.
Leila's story moved me. I wanted to tell it, and she had always wanted it told. We formed a close friendship and agreed that if we succeeded in finding a publisher, we would split any proceeds.
Most important to Leila is that people in Sudan and elsewhere think again about their attitudes to those without families. The aim of her charity - Sunrise - is to dispel the stigma faced by 'children of sin' and its message is simple. "We are not guilty."
I love this book. I love Wendy's writing. She has a talent for creating mood and place (from which the story unfolds) which catches at the breath. I hope the book grows wings and is read by many. You can find it on Amazon, in Waterstone's or Borders under Biography, or you can order it for the discounted price of £6.50 plus £3.00 p&p (UK 1st class) by contacting Wendy at wendywallace@clara.co.uk
Already mentioned (and on my sidebar), if you haven't already spotted it, is Julie Corbin, whose first book, a thriller called Tell Me No Secrets was the only good reason I found for staying awake into the small hours. An erstwhile student of mine, she came into the classroom and one knew from the outset that she was one of those can write/will write people with both talent and determination.
Three writers, all different, but what they have in common is something I can't really find a satisfying word for: they are dedicated to the business of writing and have given themselves to the work, for the love of it, the doing of it. The success, when and if it comes, is good, but they are busy with the new work – dedicated.
Next post will have something about the life and strivings of Signs. But for the moment, suffice to say that today I fell on the patio, bashed my head and put my back out. But I wrote my thousand words.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Beavering
I have got the mother of all colds. Well at any rate, I have got a cold. For me this is a Good Sign as my bonkers immune system usually overrides such things, but not in a good way. I am glad it is there in all its manifestations today rather than yesterday.
Yesterday my first ever writing friend came for the day. We used to live around the corner from each other in Hackney and laugh about how one day we would look back and talk about how we used to live around the corner from each other. It didn’t seem quite real that time would shoot on in the way it has done and we would no longer be wheeling our babies around on Chatsworth Road, sitting in the Three Sons fish and chip shop, spending mornings drinking very strong coffee and reading out the latest of what we had been working on. Her novel is coming out in August and she is busy working on her second. I am working on how to keep my writerly head above water at all, or how to dive deep without drowning, or how to carry on driving without lights. Friend likes to draw her ideas out on very large pieces of paper and began showing me how it could be done (even though I only had A4). While I talked, she drew, scribbled and jotted, then she stuck the pieces of paper together with sellotape. It is a strange thing to see what is going round in your head set down as a visual thing, like a map with arrows pointing to where you might travel.
The daughter is beavering away at creative projects, writing a musical, son is beavering away at working towards finals (getting up at the crack of dawn), Mr. Signs is beavering away at his second career, training to be a psychotherapist, while continuing to work full time and going to art classes. Everyone who is doing anything of anything that amounts to real work is beavering, apart from Mrs. Beaver here who is trying to keep one foot in front of the other. To work creatively you have to be more than a bit obsessed with what you are doing and let the Daemon in. The Daemon is elemental, it is what it is and cares nothing about whether you have a cold, your general state of health, your domestic issues or anything other than the work at hand. If you are not able or willing to accommodate, it will bugger off and find someone else who will.
I can feel it roaring around the house, seeking entrance. Excuse me while I go and hide under the bedcovers.
Yesterday my first ever writing friend came for the day. We used to live around the corner from each other in Hackney and laugh about how one day we would look back and talk about how we used to live around the corner from each other. It didn’t seem quite real that time would shoot on in the way it has done and we would no longer be wheeling our babies around on Chatsworth Road, sitting in the Three Sons fish and chip shop, spending mornings drinking very strong coffee and reading out the latest of what we had been working on. Her novel is coming out in August and she is busy working on her second. I am working on how to keep my writerly head above water at all, or how to dive deep without drowning, or how to carry on driving without lights. Friend likes to draw her ideas out on very large pieces of paper and began showing me how it could be done (even though I only had A4). While I talked, she drew, scribbled and jotted, then she stuck the pieces of paper together with sellotape. It is a strange thing to see what is going round in your head set down as a visual thing, like a map with arrows pointing to where you might travel.
The daughter is beavering away at creative projects, writing a musical, son is beavering away at working towards finals (getting up at the crack of dawn), Mr. Signs is beavering away at his second career, training to be a psychotherapist, while continuing to work full time and going to art classes. Everyone who is doing anything of anything that amounts to real work is beavering, apart from Mrs. Beaver here who is trying to keep one foot in front of the other. To work creatively you have to be more than a bit obsessed with what you are doing and let the Daemon in. The Daemon is elemental, it is what it is and cares nothing about whether you have a cold, your general state of health, your domestic issues or anything other than the work at hand. If you are not able or willing to accommodate, it will bugger off and find someone else who will.
I can feel it roaring around the house, seeking entrance. Excuse me while I go and hide under the bedcovers.
Monday, December 22, 2008
The Icemaiden Cometh
I would like to say that I am looking forward to Christmas and not planning to top myself. Just thought that needed spelling out in case anyone got the wrong end of the stick after my last post. Desolation angel is only one of my personas. Personae. I don’t know who I am most of the time so no reason why you should.
I would also like to say that Mr. Signs and I have spent a ghastly day at the Croydon IKEA. Of course they never have the exact (or even approximate) thing that you really want: settee covers no longer available because settee in question is no longer made; lamps are still from the planet Zob, in fact I think that they are all extra terrestrials cleverly disguised as lamps and I fully expected The Doctor (Christmas Day, oh yesss!) to come charging through the IKEAn maze hotly pursued by an office chair. That was on the list too, but we couldn’t find one that felt comfortable and they were expensive. Mr. Signs lost his mobile phone while trying out various mattresses (this was the main purpose of the expedition, to replace the broken one on son’s bed). We found it handed in at customer services, but not before we had scurried around the place like headless chickens looking for it. We had our usual consolation prize meal of meatballs and chips with lingonberries and beige gravy and I stocked up on more of the same to put in the freezer so we can play IKEA back in Signs Cottage. The gravy comes in packets, one mixes it with water and cream and it is weirdly delicious if one doesn’t look at the small print and find out what is in it.
And I would also like to say that I am looking forward to a visit from The Icemaiden herself who is due to arrive chez Signs on the first day of next year – not long to wait now, yippee! We will of course have a very interesting time of it when trying to communicate because, as everyone should know by now she actually speaks by making strange, unintelligible (to the uninitiated) seal sounds, and she uses a special instant translation facility when coming to talk to us on Blogger, but we have an empathetic connection and can always wave our arms around so all will be well. I will be asking her to bring some proper Finnish snow and a real, live penguin – hoping this won’t cause problems at customs.
But first we have Christmas and a steady trickle of relatives, half-relatives, ex-step siblings and sundry others to cater for in the postage stamp of a kitchen with two tables pushed together and the collapsible garden chairs brought in so we can all sit and get stuffed. Stuffing I have not yet made, nor the bread pudding, nor anything else other than a few sorry-looking spelt (sugar-free) mince pies and some gingerbread mixture that went wrong (but I got some nice ready-made heart-shaped things at IKEA to hang on the tree). No, everything has to be got ready tomorrow – tree, marathon shop at supermarket, getting crib set, lights and other paraphernalia down from the loft. Not to mention taking son’s friend to the airport so he can get back to the States for Christmas Eve. And the bed linen must be changed so daughter can sleep on fresh sheets (also new from IKEA). And the place is a mess. But Son of Signs has asked if he can cook the dinner on Christmas day and I have said yes please. And the angels and elemental beings will (have to) come and sort everything else out.
I would also like to say that Mr. Signs and I have spent a ghastly day at the Croydon IKEA. Of course they never have the exact (or even approximate) thing that you really want: settee covers no longer available because settee in question is no longer made; lamps are still from the planet Zob, in fact I think that they are all extra terrestrials cleverly disguised as lamps and I fully expected The Doctor (Christmas Day, oh yesss!) to come charging through the IKEAn maze hotly pursued by an office chair. That was on the list too, but we couldn’t find one that felt comfortable and they were expensive. Mr. Signs lost his mobile phone while trying out various mattresses (this was the main purpose of the expedition, to replace the broken one on son’s bed). We found it handed in at customer services, but not before we had scurried around the place like headless chickens looking for it. We had our usual consolation prize meal of meatballs and chips with lingonberries and beige gravy and I stocked up on more of the same to put in the freezer so we can play IKEA back in Signs Cottage. The gravy comes in packets, one mixes it with water and cream and it is weirdly delicious if one doesn’t look at the small print and find out what is in it.
And I would also like to say that I am looking forward to a visit from The Icemaiden herself who is due to arrive chez Signs on the first day of next year – not long to wait now, yippee! We will of course have a very interesting time of it when trying to communicate because, as everyone should know by now she actually speaks by making strange, unintelligible (to the uninitiated) seal sounds, and she uses a special instant translation facility when coming to talk to us on Blogger, but we have an empathetic connection and can always wave our arms around so all will be well. I will be asking her to bring some proper Finnish snow and a real, live penguin – hoping this won’t cause problems at customs.
But first we have Christmas and a steady trickle of relatives, half-relatives, ex-step siblings and sundry others to cater for in the postage stamp of a kitchen with two tables pushed together and the collapsible garden chairs brought in so we can all sit and get stuffed. Stuffing I have not yet made, nor the bread pudding, nor anything else other than a few sorry-looking spelt (sugar-free) mince pies and some gingerbread mixture that went wrong (but I got some nice ready-made heart-shaped things at IKEA to hang on the tree). No, everything has to be got ready tomorrow – tree, marathon shop at supermarket, getting crib set, lights and other paraphernalia down from the loft. Not to mention taking son’s friend to the airport so he can get back to the States for Christmas Eve. And the bed linen must be changed so daughter can sleep on fresh sheets (also new from IKEA). And the place is a mess. But Son of Signs has asked if he can cook the dinner on Christmas day and I have said yes please. And the angels and elemental beings will (have to) come and sort everything else out.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
the trouble with being born (2)
He rented a bungalow near Watford for next to nothing because it was run down and the landlady liked him. There was a collapsible brown sofa in the living room. It was frayed at the edges and bald on the seats. When I stayed the night he put an old army rug on the sofa and I lay wrapped in the blue caul of a thin sleeping bag looking out of a big expanse of window into trees that were lit either by moonlight or the single Narnian lamp that stood sentry in the garden, where the landlady’s chickens were. At new year we watched Old Grey Whistle Test with whispering Bob Harris, drank Hirondelle and smoked whatever there was to smoke. He cooked steak and kidney stew by boiling it up in water with a bayleaf and adding Bisto gravy powder when the meat had softened. We had it with mash and tinned marrowfat peas. The bright green liquid from the peas bled into the potato and merged with the brown Bisto sauce. A bit of white pepper, he said. I like a bit of pepper with stew. It was delicious. Afterwards we had tea with milk that was made up from dried milk powder. Saves faffing about and it’s cheaper, he said.
He had two cats – one called Monty and the other called Nancy Boy. Monty only had three legs and Nancy Boy had no tail. He couldn’t remember where they had come from, they were just there when he rented the house. He was kind to them in a rough sort of way, made sure they were fed and called to them when they came in from outside: hey Monty, Nancy Boy – how you doing, lads – alright?
There was a girl he was seeing on and off. I never met her but one day I saw her stockings hanging up to dry on the bathroom rail. Sex, he said, was very good for you, but having a screw was no big deal and people made too much of a song and a dance about it. When he turned cool on her she rang him up crying and threatening to kill herself. So I went round with a bottle of aspirin, he said. She went berserk. I asked what he would have done if she’d killed herself. Nah, he said. The ones that wanna do it just go ahead and get on with it.
He had two cats – one called Monty and the other called Nancy Boy. Monty only had three legs and Nancy Boy had no tail. He couldn’t remember where they had come from, they were just there when he rented the house. He was kind to them in a rough sort of way, made sure they were fed and called to them when they came in from outside: hey Monty, Nancy Boy – how you doing, lads – alright?
There was a girl he was seeing on and off. I never met her but one day I saw her stockings hanging up to dry on the bathroom rail. Sex, he said, was very good for you, but having a screw was no big deal and people made too much of a song and a dance about it. When he turned cool on her she rang him up crying and threatening to kill herself. So I went round with a bottle of aspirin, he said. She went berserk. I asked what he would have done if she’d killed herself. Nah, he said. The ones that wanna do it just go ahead and get on with it.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
back atcha
I am changeable as the wind, why is that? Reader, do not believe anything I say. Or rather, believe it to be true (perhaps) for the moment, but tomorrow is another day. Recently I thought I might be getting a bit better, stronger, and I said so. Why can’t I learn to keep my mouth shut when this happens – be like the people who vow never to openly name the thing they prize most for fear of attracting the evil eye? But there it is, I am caught by the moment and fall for it. Today is different and I am back, and having to tread carefully. It’s ok, I know this terrain. I loved the walks I was having, took too many perhaps and now I go softly, pad pad, so as not to awaken the tiger.
I’ve heard the good news of two friends having their novels accepted by publishers: The first is a friend from my Hackney days – we were in a writing group together and had our stories published in an anthology. We are close friends, have touched on each other's lives in all kinds of ways, but the rock of our friendship is The Writing. I put capitals because that’s what I hear when we refer to it; when we speak on the phone or sit with coffee and the cigarettes we are supposed to have given up and say, so shall we talk about The Writing? I remember when she decided to write this book; how she went to another country to find the bones and flesh of the story whose essence was already gathering in her, and the email that came one day saying she had found what she was looking for and had begun the work. Somehow there was never any doubt that the book would be written and published.
The second was a student in one of the night classes I taught five years ago. I remember how when she came we were all crammed into a small room next to a language class that was clearly audible through the thin walls and how as soon as she read from her notebook I could hear that she was already a writer, a wordsmith in the making. She has just been offered a three-book deal by a big publisher. This too was something I envisaged happening, though it is still a shock of surprise when the dream becomes real.
Everyone has their own path and the thing is to keep going along it. It feels like a great calamity when one is prevented from doing that because of health or something else getting in the way. But on the other hand, that is perhaps the nature of the journey, an aspect of the path. So how can one refuse to walk it? I walk it - pad pad.
Cusp has kindly given me an award. I am taking it as something bestowed rather than earned.
I’ve heard the good news of two friends having their novels accepted by publishers: The first is a friend from my Hackney days – we were in a writing group together and had our stories published in an anthology. We are close friends, have touched on each other's lives in all kinds of ways, but the rock of our friendship is The Writing. I put capitals because that’s what I hear when we refer to it; when we speak on the phone or sit with coffee and the cigarettes we are supposed to have given up and say, so shall we talk about The Writing? I remember when she decided to write this book; how she went to another country to find the bones and flesh of the story whose essence was already gathering in her, and the email that came one day saying she had found what she was looking for and had begun the work. Somehow there was never any doubt that the book would be written and published.
The second was a student in one of the night classes I taught five years ago. I remember how when she came we were all crammed into a small room next to a language class that was clearly audible through the thin walls and how as soon as she read from her notebook I could hear that she was already a writer, a wordsmith in the making. She has just been offered a three-book deal by a big publisher. This too was something I envisaged happening, though it is still a shock of surprise when the dream becomes real.
Everyone has their own path and the thing is to keep going along it. It feels like a great calamity when one is prevented from doing that because of health or something else getting in the way. But on the other hand, that is perhaps the nature of the journey, an aspect of the path. So how can one refuse to walk it? I walk it - pad pad.
Cusp has kindly given me an award. I am taking it as something bestowed rather than earned.
Friday, October 3, 2008
the trouble with being born
One day he said, I’m going to show you what it’s like to be born. Please do, I thought, show me what that might be like, and I will steel myself for the surprise, whatever it might be. But he began smoking hash, the strong stuff, then Ecstasy took him, the substance. Oh, he said, it was so good, I had such a good time. And I knew he would never show me, that being born was, for him, too dark and heavy, without the possibilities given to the never-quite-born of taking flight. So he excarnated. Et excarnatus est, courtesy of Ecstasy. He became unmade, fragmented, splintered into particles of light that were ground into dust and blown away. Then there was nothing but echo, the same old words repeated. Or perhaps he was really showing me, as he promised he would, what it might be like. For we are born, one way or another, from this one or that, into this place or that and there may be white silk coverlets, there may be broken glass or a manger full of hay. And sometimes there may be no life at all to be born into, but you fall at once into the arms of death. So many ways to be born.
I think of him now, living in his damp underground rooms like a mole, coming out in the small hours to walk along a stony beach littered with broken bottles, finding a public telephone to dial my number, his voice like a thin wind blowing through reeds: yeah right, yeah good, see you before too long, take care.
I think of him now, living in his damp underground rooms like a mole, coming out in the small hours to walk along a stony beach littered with broken bottles, finding a public telephone to dial my number, his voice like a thin wind blowing through reeds: yeah right, yeah good, see you before too long, take care.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Signs En Route
Yesterday I went for a walk on the forest with my ancient friend. At the age of eighty seven and three quarters, she is not as near ninety as I thought. She has a face that is more carved on than WH Auden’s and is a tiny hobbit of a woman, with a dicky heart and a ridiculous amount of energy. Mr. Signs picked her up from Gatwick airport where she had just arrived from a holiday in Siberia, with a German friend in tow. They were holed up for a couple of nights in Irkutsk en route to St. Petersburg and hadn’t had baths for weeks because there was no hot water in any of the taps. They were high in spirits and in strong body odours, and lovely company as we padded over the beautiful forest terrain with the heather all coming in the meadows and the sun looking down through the trees. She makes eighty seven and three quarters look like a breeze, being almost weightless and of a sunny and tranquil disposition. She is the closest thing I’ve got to a fairy godmother and I reckon she could get me to the ball without a wand, a pumpkin or a coach-and-four. An old refugee, she was with my mother in internment camp in the Isle of Man, those days when the Brits were locking up all the Jewish forriners in case they were spies or in cahoots with Madalf Heatlump. She never married but spent her life looking after special needs children in Camphill communities.
After a lunch of red lentil and vegetable soup, the black Russian bread she brought with her, cream cheese and radishes, I was flat out, literally, on the bed; but agitated by the thought of all I needed and wanted to get done before going away, and immediately on my return. My lilac jacket came back from the dry cleaners clearly untouched (they just hadn’t bothered or forgot to do it) and this threw me into a spin – it just seemed horribly inauspicious that simple thing like that couldn’t be sorted, and I so wanted something for being bright and gay (original meaning) in Edinburgh, where my daughter’s play, Strippers and Gentlemen, has been awarded five stars by the Festival newspaper, Three Weeks and been called “One of the secret gems of this year’s Fringe.” Imminently expecting something to appear in the Guardian, who have been to review it – but one never knows. On account of having to be back for the poetry week, I'll be missing son's gig with his band of jazz singers, as they don't start until the 17th. Will try and catch them in rehearsal.
Well I may be gone some time, folks, but hopefully the blog’s loss will be the notebook’s gain. I gotta write more pomes and, well – I just gotta write more. Sick of competition judges who do not seem to recognise my towering genius, I’ve started to send things out to poetry magazines, beginning with The Rialto. Apparently they take forever to get back, but hey – I got all the time in the world.
This time tomorrow I’ll be on the train reading Nasim Marie Jafry’s novel, The State of Me, which is not just good – it’s M.E. brain-friendly.
Keep rockin, people.
After a lunch of red lentil and vegetable soup, the black Russian bread she brought with her, cream cheese and radishes, I was flat out, literally, on the bed; but agitated by the thought of all I needed and wanted to get done before going away, and immediately on my return. My lilac jacket came back from the dry cleaners clearly untouched (they just hadn’t bothered or forgot to do it) and this threw me into a spin – it just seemed horribly inauspicious that simple thing like that couldn’t be sorted, and I so wanted something for being bright and gay (original meaning) in Edinburgh, where my daughter’s play, Strippers and Gentlemen, has been awarded five stars by the Festival newspaper, Three Weeks and been called “One of the secret gems of this year’s Fringe.” Imminently expecting something to appear in the Guardian, who have been to review it – but one never knows. On account of having to be back for the poetry week, I'll be missing son's gig with his band of jazz singers, as they don't start until the 17th. Will try and catch them in rehearsal.
Well I may be gone some time, folks, but hopefully the blog’s loss will be the notebook’s gain. I gotta write more pomes and, well – I just gotta write more. Sick of competition judges who do not seem to recognise my towering genius, I’ve started to send things out to poetry magazines, beginning with The Rialto. Apparently they take forever to get back, but hey – I got all the time in the world.
This time tomorrow I’ll be on the train reading Nasim Marie Jafry’s novel, The State of Me, which is not just good – it’s M.E. brain-friendly.
Keep rockin, people.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
The Rhythm of Signs
Well it isn’t Lent any more and I can report that poetry boot camp was a partial success in that I did what I said out to do for some of the time. Not enough, obviously, but better than nothing. Next task is to polish up some of the stuff I’ve got and send the poems off, which I find myself strangely reluctant to do. I don’t know if this is fear of rejection or some deep condition of laziness or a combination of both. Have decided not to analyse too much, or at all, actually. I have poems, I have envelopes, I have stamps. No, I don’t have stamps, I will need to get some from the post office. You see? Already a hitch. And I am post-Easter discombobulated from disturbed sleep and a creeping undercurrent of general anxiety disorder of the sort which makes small run-of-the-mill tasks into conundrums which quite unravel and obscure the Signs.
The thing is that I can only really cope with the most plodding of everyday tasks in the great scheme of things. I was about to speak of the rhythm of life but of course, because I am (allow me to speak euphemistically) loosely put together, my life has no particular rhythm, even boot camp has to accede to this: sometimes I wake at six in the morning, sometimes nearer mid-day, and it may take a couple of hours before I properly incarnate into the luminous being that is the person of Signs. Hello world, I say at three in the afternoon, or nine in the morning – or even midnight. Signs, replies the world, the party is over but welcome anyway, there’s room for e’en such as you. We chunter along like that for quite a while, me and the world. Then blow me if it isn’t time to put a load of washing into the machine, get the supper cooked, and so to bed. You get the picture. In spite of which, I heroically manage to turn up for poetry workshops and meet with significant others, for the world would be poor without such things – she has told me this in confidence and I believe her.
I am going to London on Friday to visit good friends, watch Son of Signs in performance with his jazz a cappella group – and touch in with Daughter, who has been in Edinburgh a-fixing of a venue for her show (yess!), to be staged there at the fringe Festival in August. Mr. Signs will be away for the weekend a-conferencing with other psychotherapy shrinks-in-the-making. I feel increasingly unable to deal with travelling on the underground, particularly as my journey always seems to take in the rush hour. Also, if I am to be honest, I spend so much time in Signs Cottage that leaving it begins to feel as though one is a tortoise without its shell. This has to be challenged, obviously – and I do, I do. Plans are in place to fly to Scotland at the end of April and Berlin in May. I just carry on, pretending it’s ok. It isn’t but then, in a way, it also is, and has to be. Or I don’t know what.
The thing is that I can only really cope with the most plodding of everyday tasks in the great scheme of things. I was about to speak of the rhythm of life but of course, because I am (allow me to speak euphemistically) loosely put together, my life has no particular rhythm, even boot camp has to accede to this: sometimes I wake at six in the morning, sometimes nearer mid-day, and it may take a couple of hours before I properly incarnate into the luminous being that is the person of Signs. Hello world, I say at three in the afternoon, or nine in the morning – or even midnight. Signs, replies the world, the party is over but welcome anyway, there’s room for e’en such as you. We chunter along like that for quite a while, me and the world. Then blow me if it isn’t time to put a load of washing into the machine, get the supper cooked, and so to bed. You get the picture. In spite of which, I heroically manage to turn up for poetry workshops and meet with significant others, for the world would be poor without such things – she has told me this in confidence and I believe her.
I am going to London on Friday to visit good friends, watch Son of Signs in performance with his jazz a cappella group – and touch in with Daughter, who has been in Edinburgh a-fixing of a venue for her show (yess!), to be staged there at the fringe Festival in August. Mr. Signs will be away for the weekend a-conferencing with other psychotherapy shrinks-in-the-making. I feel increasingly unable to deal with travelling on the underground, particularly as my journey always seems to take in the rush hour. Also, if I am to be honest, I spend so much time in Signs Cottage that leaving it begins to feel as though one is a tortoise without its shell. This has to be challenged, obviously – and I do, I do. Plans are in place to fly to Scotland at the end of April and Berlin in May. I just carry on, pretending it’s ok. It isn’t but then, in a way, it also is, and has to be. Or I don’t know what.
Monday, August 6, 2007
Auspicious Signs
On the weekend I spent a day with a friend who came up from London on the best of all possible days, the weather being warm and blue and gold with just the right amount of breeze. We sat outside on the terrace of a country hotel that used to be a convent, looking at the monkey puzzle tree and close-cut grass that sloped down to the lake with ornamental fountains, drinking white wine spritzers with cassis, eating Caesar salads with fresh prawns. There was a wedding party and we watched the guests gather on the lawn and considered the strange Queen Mother-style clothes that women wear for such occasions. There was one, though - a striking and very large dark-haired woman who wore a white trouser suit that made no apology for her size and clothed her beautifully. An added adornment was the shine of kindness on her face and in the way she accompanied a much older woman as she walked away from the party and back into the hotel. Watching her it felt, somehow, auspicious. But then, you know me.
My friend and I both used to live in Hackney, round the corner from each other, we belonged to the same women’s writing group. Our children played together and we saw each other most days. Being with a good friend means one can breathe more easily, properly inhabit one’s body and skin. She poured coffee straight from the packet into the cafetiere. We liked coffee and books and writing. The first time she heard me read my stuff she said I was possessed and I felt newly and exuberantly gifted. She too could write up a storm. I had M.E. then but I could still find pockets of strength with which to override it. It cost me, but really there was no choice, I had found the thing I wanted to do and I sat at the kitchen table in the late hours, in the early hours, and I did it. We published stories and then I moved here to the edge, we both did all kinds of other things, my illness became more entrenched, but whenever we met we talked about writing; about everything else too, but it always flows back, as a river goes to the sea, to the writing, the process, the notebooks, the others, the words, the writing.
After the Caesar salads, strong Americanos and an absence of cigarettes (we have both given up again), I spilled my misgivings about the formal, paid work I was about to undertake, how the small strength I had would be taken by it. Her judgement was swift and uncompromising. Don’t do it, she said. Life is too short and we are women of a certain age and must grasp it, life, the nettle or the thing that won’t be pushed aside, the writing. Sometimes it takes someone else to say the obvious and the road ahead suddenly rises to meet you.
The novel-racing, competition-hosting, good Mr. Moon has given me an Inspirational Blogger Award. So cloth-headed do I feel that I can’t for the moment figure out how to upload the nice badge thing so it appears where I want it to. But I’ll see to this and everything else because just now – what with the woman in white, the perfect advice of a friend, good words from a blog-pal and a very attractive black and gold award – everything looks very, very auspicious. Of course, there is always the possibility that I am losing my marbles. At present, however, I remain,
yours truly,
Reading the Signs.
My friend and I both used to live in Hackney, round the corner from each other, we belonged to the same women’s writing group. Our children played together and we saw each other most days. Being with a good friend means one can breathe more easily, properly inhabit one’s body and skin. She poured coffee straight from the packet into the cafetiere. We liked coffee and books and writing. The first time she heard me read my stuff she said I was possessed and I felt newly and exuberantly gifted. She too could write up a storm. I had M.E. then but I could still find pockets of strength with which to override it. It cost me, but really there was no choice, I had found the thing I wanted to do and I sat at the kitchen table in the late hours, in the early hours, and I did it. We published stories and then I moved here to the edge, we both did all kinds of other things, my illness became more entrenched, but whenever we met we talked about writing; about everything else too, but it always flows back, as a river goes to the sea, to the writing, the process, the notebooks, the others, the words, the writing.
After the Caesar salads, strong Americanos and an absence of cigarettes (we have both given up again), I spilled my misgivings about the formal, paid work I was about to undertake, how the small strength I had would be taken by it. Her judgement was swift and uncompromising. Don’t do it, she said. Life is too short and we are women of a certain age and must grasp it, life, the nettle or the thing that won’t be pushed aside, the writing. Sometimes it takes someone else to say the obvious and the road ahead suddenly rises to meet you.
The novel-racing, competition-hosting, good Mr. Moon has given me an Inspirational Blogger Award. So cloth-headed do I feel that I can’t for the moment figure out how to upload the nice badge thing so it appears where I want it to. But I’ll see to this and everything else because just now – what with the woman in white, the perfect advice of a friend, good words from a blog-pal and a very attractive black and gold award – everything looks very, very auspicious. Of course, there is always the possibility that I am losing my marbles. At present, however, I remain,
yours truly,
Reading the Signs.
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