Joy

Signs and Labels

I have been looking at the various labels on my sidebar. Here are the top ten:

1. Writing
2. Life and Stuff
3. M.E.
4. Reasons to be Cheerful
5. Creativity
6. Food
7. How to Live
8. The Signs
9. Poetry
10. Process

Interesting (to me) that Writing is number one, though perhaps not surprising. When I am not writing, it is always what I want to be coming back to. And even if too ill to be doing much, I love thinking and reading about it, and talking about it with others who are on a writing path of one kind or another. When I began this blog, five years ago, I was having a gap year from teaching creative writing. The gap turned into something more permanent even though I had accepted a post to teach at a university, and even though I loved doing what I did. Still, the fact of not teaching any more has not diminished my interest in in creative language, process - and people. There are so many ways, hidden and manifest, to be and think creatively, even if (particularly if?) one finds oneself on a path that is not of one's choosing.

I have a small window of time each day when it feels possible to attend to something that is properly creative. I have been liking the word 'properly' recently, as you might have noticed. I think what I mean by 'properly' here is: with my whole heart. But also with enough vital forces at my disposal for me to be able to put my heart into whatever it is. And actually, I only have this window on a good day.

On new year's eve we threw the coins, as we always do. The I Ching says I have to "inquire of the Oracle again" to see if I possess "sublimity, constancy and perseverance." I think I can tick the last two. Full marks for constancy and perseverance, and I don't need the Oracle to pronounce on that. As for sublimity - posterity will tell. Or not, as the case may be. Perhaps I will throw the coins again after all, to get a sneak preview.

**

splitting apart

So lets talk about lard. I have jars of it in the fridge, courtesy of an unimaginably expensive goose that we cooked for Christmas. I have been eating some of it (temporarily lapsed vegetarian) on toast. It reminds me of the schmalzbrot I used to eat as a child. In case you don't know, schmalz means lard - pork lard, usually, made flavoursome with onions, apples and juniper berries, perhaps. It doesn't figure much in what most people hereabouts nowadays think of as a healthy diet. But if you're going to kill a goose at least give it the respect of eating and appreciating every bit of it, even if most of it is lard. I boiled up the carcass and made two substantial soups out of that. The lard, though, is going to be a problem unless I can find a way of sharing it around, unlikely as I'm surrounded on all sides by vegetarians. People used to make soap out of goose fat and ashes, or rub it on wounds. Perhaps I'll get to work making useful products out of lard and set up a stall in the village centre where there is much enthusiasm for recycling of all kinds. I might even recycle myself as I am fast turning into a tub of schmalz. Yes indeed, I feel a meltdown coming on. Actually, lets stop talking about lard. But lardy cake, just saying, is a wonderful thing, especially if you want to gain a pound or two in the eating. Which I don't.

So lets talk about resolutions. You don't need to have made any to talk about those, but I actually did make some on the cusp between last year's end and this one's beginning, which is already feeling some distance away. Something to do with managing my emotions better so as to conserve energy - and what writing project to focus on. Poetry was what I decided but, like I said, that was then, and I am drawn also by the idea of continuing with prose project. Last year I wanted a clear Sign as to which way I should go and I did win a poetry prize. But on the other hand I also got a story short-listed. On the third hand, poetry is probably going to win because it's simply more practical for me to focus on that now. So managing emotions is going to be much more of an issue, but as I've made a resolution about those it's all in the bag. Sorted.

The post heading, by the way, is from I Ching and the less said about it the better, although it could by a stretch of the imagination be referring to my trousers if I carry on with the lard. The judgement says: "It does not further one to go anywhere."

"it furthers one to have somewhere to go"

From the tail end of the year, from the middle of the holy nights that probably no shepherd or wise man is watching, from the most pure and pristine exhaustion whereby mortal coil is all but shuffled off, from the Edge, the razor edge, the margin, from no-man's-land - greetings to y'all, dear peeps, and may the new year find you as it leaves me: hopeful and trusting that great goodness in all its extraordinary manifestations will find us open-hearted and ready, but please god not so stupid in the hereafter as in the heretofore and with clout enough to kick the enemy a good one up the tucchus should need arise.

Getting ready to consult the I Ching oracle now - and if the Signs are not manifestly and exceedingly auspicious then I'll be calling on the ghost of Richard Wilhelm to tell me the reason why.

Doing Porridge

No news is perhaps good news because it means I'm doing The Writing. There was Christmas, the befores and afters of which seem to go on longer than in days of yore, not entirely sure why that is, the shopping thing hasn't got any worse than it was. I am ambivalent about the whole thing. What I like: tree, holy nights, cards, connections, mulling, carols. Don't like: shopping, waste, stuffed-up fridge, getting fat. So basically there's more to like than not, but some of what I like - seeing people, fitting that in over the Season, as though the world might end after epiphany - leaves me well into the red, vitalitywise. I begin to feel like one of those wraiths from Lord of the Rings, all gone on the inside (but without the malevolence, obviously). All gone on the inside and fat on the outside. Not a good way to be. So I have taken up eating porridge. I recently discovered how to make it properly and it is my new best friend, except that I like it with cream and muscovado sugar or maple syrup. Never mind, I am on the right road, and porridge is part of my new year's new regime, to which I have given the working title of How To Get Out Of Bed.


1. Wake up. By ordinary standards, late - can't be helped, c'est la vie M.E. - but whenever that is, imagine Gustav Holst's Planets playing as I rise to the new day, even if it is close to mid-day.

2. Eat porridge. Do not smoke a cigarette (especially when this packet of Golden Virginia is finished - a small seasonal blip). Have coffee, but only if immediately progressing to stage 3.

3. Write. Do not switch on computer, and do not get dressed. This is important, getting dressed plus ablutions, will stall me. Go straight to soft brown Moleskine Cahier and pick up Papermate Flexigrip ballpoint.

And so on. You are thinking, probably, that this must be some kind of Shangri-la existence I have here, but bear in mind that these three activities (waking up counts as one) might be the most I can reasonably expect of myself in one day and I haven't even touched on the other stuff of daily life, the duties and the pleasures thereof, all requiring energy - inner substance. I also want to

4. Read. At the moment I have Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah for my book group next week, Kay Syrad's The Milliner and the Phrenologist and Herta Mueller's The Appointment on the go. And poetry: John Burnside's The Hunt in the Forest. Not to mention this quarter's Granta. I've only read the first Petina Gappah stories and don't yet feel as blown away as I might have expected, but this may change. The rest of my list - good, good stuff, is as much a review as I can give in the circumstances, and they are all waiting to be finished. As time goes on, I find reading more difficult than writing, this not helped by failing eyesight (eye test scheduled) but mostly not helped by ongoing neurological crappiness. By the time I get to the newspapers, if I get to them, I am tearing through them, trying to get stuff, take something in, before the curfew.

The snow was intense here, being in the south east, our road quite impossible, Mr. S trudged into the village for newspaper and bread, but mainly we managed with what we had. Too feeble to venture out in it much, my life was not particularly disrupted, and the view from the windows was pretty. Milder weather, however, might mean that I can

5. Walk. Keep one foot moving in front of the other.