What joins the moments together -
strung on a fine thread like glass beads
or mortared into a wall
or tenuous and fleeting
as the quivering bubbles in my bath?
Or are they in fact not joined at all,
but leaves falling,
flying fast from the branches
of one tree, or many, or none?
Monday, 30 August 2010
Saturday, 28 August 2010
The Way Certain People's Minds Work
A screwdriver kept in every room,
tucked away somewhere inconspicuous
just in case the door latches malfunction,
because what, in fact, would you do
if you could not leave the bathroom,
were wrapped in a towel, unable
to open the door? It's either the screwdriver,
or a set of clothes and some iron rations,
and in the bedroom, where at least
you'd be warm, iron rations and a bucket.
tucked away somewhere inconspicuous
just in case the door latches malfunction,
because what, in fact, would you do
if you could not leave the bathroom,
were wrapped in a towel, unable
to open the door? It's either the screwdriver,
or a set of clothes and some iron rations,
and in the bedroom, where at least
you'd be warm, iron rations and a bucket.
Friday, 27 August 2010
Digging
And now it's Friday, with a bank holiday weekend in prospect, not that it makes a huge amount of difference in my life as it is currently. L returned happily from Filey, having breezed through the camping, and sat on a lovely beach in glorious sunshine, eaten fantastic fish and chips, and pottered about Filey Brigg with her good friend S. I had a hard day yesterday with old and almost intolerable feelings surfacing. But I made it through, and learned something along the way. As I prepare once again to work with young children, being in touch with the excruciating pain of childhood separations and fears opens my heart, and brings empathy, the capacity to imagine my way back into the experience of a child.
And today we went to the allotment. The attentive among you may have noticed I haven't blogged about it much, and it is true that it has tended to feel too much for both myself and L to manage during these last nine or ten months, when we've had what you might call a hard row to hoe in our lives, never mind our allotment. However, we have proudly harvested potatoes and chard, and raspberries and rhubarb and gooseberries (though we can take little credit for the fruit, which was well-established before we took over the plot.) Also today the first calabrese, and the garlic and red onions, which were the very first things we planted, now drying in the kitchen, with beetroot still in the ground, growing slowly for autumn cropping. Along with my work project and the poetry, I am making a commitment, along with L, to put regular work into the digging and clearing that needs doing to get the plot under control for next growing season. Clearing areas, then covering them with carpet or black plastic to keep the weeds from returning, then planting next spring. Also we decided today to buy a cordless strimmer so we can keep the grass along the paths and round the edges under control. Slowly slowly, catchy monkey.
And here's a proud picture of Franceline potatoes and rainbow chard!
And today we went to the allotment. The attentive among you may have noticed I haven't blogged about it much, and it is true that it has tended to feel too much for both myself and L to manage during these last nine or ten months, when we've had what you might call a hard row to hoe in our lives, never mind our allotment. However, we have proudly harvested potatoes and chard, and raspberries and rhubarb and gooseberries (though we can take little credit for the fruit, which was well-established before we took over the plot.) Also today the first calabrese, and the garlic and red onions, which were the very first things we planted, now drying in the kitchen, with beetroot still in the ground, growing slowly for autumn cropping. Along with my work project and the poetry, I am making a commitment, along with L, to put regular work into the digging and clearing that needs doing to get the plot under control for next growing season. Clearing areas, then covering them with carpet or black plastic to keep the weeds from returning, then planting next spring. Also we decided today to buy a cordless strimmer so we can keep the grass along the paths and round the edges under control. Slowly slowly, catchy monkey.
And here's a proud picture of Franceline potatoes and rainbow chard!
Wednesday, 25 August 2010
Why Not Smile?
I'm just back from the Hare and Hounds where friend H kindly stood me dinner, as a thankyou in anticipation for cat care while she is in Pembrokeshire. Yes, she's off to camp alongside the yurt for five nights, and I think I'm feeling a bit melancholy-envious. Still, the red Thai prawn curry was delicious...
L's last text from Filey read Sitting on beach in hot sun. Loads of families here. We hired deck chairs. So I'm guessing she's having a pretty good time.
The meeting with my supervisor went so well that I seem to have regressed to about 6 in the aftermath, suddenly overwhelmed by the responsibilities of adulthood. What I mean is that C is so very confident in my abilities that I feel I have an unreserved green light, and the project suddenly feels very very real, and the back-wash to that seems to be a tidal wave of fear. All of this is fine really. It's how I am. Three steps forward, one step back, but always generally moving forward. The main thing is to hold the little girl's hand when she wobbles.
I'm listening to REM, something reserved for L's absences, and something I did a great deal the year I was commuting back and forth to London - in the kitchen during the London part of the week. My friend K made this compilation tape (yes, a tape!) for me, and I simply love it, though I know REM in no other context.
You've been so sad,
it makes me worry,
why not smile?
You've been sad for a while.
Why not smile?
Which possibly sounds quite inane out of context...
L's last text from Filey read Sitting on beach in hot sun. Loads of families here. We hired deck chairs. So I'm guessing she's having a pretty good time.
The meeting with my supervisor went so well that I seem to have regressed to about 6 in the aftermath, suddenly overwhelmed by the responsibilities of adulthood. What I mean is that C is so very confident in my abilities that I feel I have an unreserved green light, and the project suddenly feels very very real, and the back-wash to that seems to be a tidal wave of fear. All of this is fine really. It's how I am. Three steps forward, one step back, but always generally moving forward. The main thing is to hold the little girl's hand when she wobbles.
I'm listening to REM, something reserved for L's absences, and something I did a great deal the year I was commuting back and forth to London - in the kitchen during the London part of the week. My friend K made this compilation tape (yes, a tape!) for me, and I simply love it, though I know REM in no other context.
You've been so sad,
it makes me worry,
why not smile?
You've been sad for a while.
Why not smile?
Which possibly sounds quite inane out of context...
Tuesday, 24 August 2010
Nocturne
I unzip the tent flap in the small hours -
that narrow business-like sound -
and climb out into damp night.
Squatting on the grass in the dark,
the wind off the sea cooling my buttocks,
the stars are enormous blurred balls of light,
heavy, pulling down a soft blanket of sky.
that narrow business-like sound -
and climb out into damp night.
Squatting on the grass in the dark,
the wind off the sea cooling my buttocks,
the stars are enormous blurred balls of light,
heavy, pulling down a soft blanket of sky.
Rattle and Shake
Wild weather today - almost as wild as my last night in Wales, when even earplugs could not conceal the persistent and violent, loud, sail-like flappings of the tent and the mostly undifferentiated roar of rain on canvas (though it isn't actually canvas any more is it, but, you know, plasticised fabric stuff), and nothing could even try to conceal the way the tent lurched and the inner and outer layers threatened to part company with an unearthly ripping sound, during certain choice squalls - and L has gone off for a two-day jaunt with friend S, you guessed it camping!! (Entering contest for longest blog sentence.) How it has happened that two of the most inveterate non-campers throughout most of their respective adult lives you could ever wish to meet, have been separately inveigled by their closest friends into 'under canvas' experiences during unreliable August weather, in exposed locations on the British coast, I do not know. But so it is, and L will spend tonight in a campsite in Filey, North Yorkshire. S has a camper van, and I guess they will be fighting not to sleep in the tent although there was talk of one night each in each. Also some talk of finding a B&B if wind and rain all got too much...
So I am home alone. The first time, unless my memory is actually even worse than I suspected, since we moved here 7 months ago. The wind has eased, and there is now rather lovely early evening sun streaming in. The fact that I am calling 5.20 'early evening' can only mean one thing. It is a thing that others have been mentioning on their blogs. The summer is preparing to strike camp, shoulder its back-pack, and head for the hills. Not that it's been a summer worthy of the name here in the Pennines, except for the month of June, which was hot and dry, allowing us to enjoy the newly rediscovered pleasures of a garden. July came, and with it the clouds. Which have only parted for maybe another 3 or 4 days or parts of days since. Well, we didn't move here for the weather, and if I ever leave it will be solely and exclusively because of the weather.
I made the mistake of adding a small top-up of caffeinated coffee beans to the grinder this afternoon, the decaff having run out, just short of the required amount. Just a timely reminder that I really cannot tolerate the stuff. Little jitters in my chest, an uneasy gurgle in my guts. I dont expect the decaffeinating chemicals are doing me a whole lot of good either, but I can't feel that!
This has all really been preamble. But to what? I am going tomorrow to see my supervisor - former and to-be - to talk about the private work with children. The last time I saw her was a day of torrential rain last November, when she gave me wonderful support and advice about the unfolding blogging-about-work-complaint drama, and then I came out of the session, got on a bus, and found the letter on my BlackBerry, summoning me to the disciplinary hearing at dismissal stage. So going back to see her tomorrow will be stirring for me. Perhaps will also mark the dawning of a new era, the end of that dastardly chapter. I like to begin new things in the autumn. It suits me. I was born in the autumn, and of course, as is the convention in these parts, began school, university etc etc in autumn. I'll see my first young client for the first time on the first day of school, so there it is well-marked.
I also want to be writing more. Want to be writing more poetry. I will tell you something, not to boast, but only to try and rally myself and get your help perhaps in the rallying. While I was away, L met S, my first writing teacher up here, (a fine poet, with three collections to her name), and her son in town. He is starting secondary school in September, and was proudly holding his newly cut front-door key. They talked for a few minutes about that, then S turned to L and asked her if I was writing. 'Some', said L, or 'not much', or something non-committal. 'Tell her to get on with it' says S, 'she should get on with it - she's got talent, and not many people have that...' S has told me before she wants to see me writing more. And so do I so do I so do I. OK autumn, let's try and use you - the wild wind, the low golden sunlight, the burnished leaves - not to descend into cliche - but to inspire and energise me into another new beginning. Let's start laying some 'track' as Julia Cameron would say, piece by piece on the page. I tend to stay too long with the edgy and quite charged feeling of ideas and stuff rattling about inside me, and find all sorts of displacement activities to stay away from the page the page the page.
Like this.
Though of course this too is writing.
But not poetry.
See you soon.
So I am home alone. The first time, unless my memory is actually even worse than I suspected, since we moved here 7 months ago. The wind has eased, and there is now rather lovely early evening sun streaming in. The fact that I am calling 5.20 'early evening' can only mean one thing. It is a thing that others have been mentioning on their blogs. The summer is preparing to strike camp, shoulder its back-pack, and head for the hills. Not that it's been a summer worthy of the name here in the Pennines, except for the month of June, which was hot and dry, allowing us to enjoy the newly rediscovered pleasures of a garden. July came, and with it the clouds. Which have only parted for maybe another 3 or 4 days or parts of days since. Well, we didn't move here for the weather, and if I ever leave it will be solely and exclusively because of the weather.
I made the mistake of adding a small top-up of caffeinated coffee beans to the grinder this afternoon, the decaff having run out, just short of the required amount. Just a timely reminder that I really cannot tolerate the stuff. Little jitters in my chest, an uneasy gurgle in my guts. I dont expect the decaffeinating chemicals are doing me a whole lot of good either, but I can't feel that!
This has all really been preamble. But to what? I am going tomorrow to see my supervisor - former and to-be - to talk about the private work with children. The last time I saw her was a day of torrential rain last November, when she gave me wonderful support and advice about the unfolding blogging-about-work-complaint drama, and then I came out of the session, got on a bus, and found the letter on my BlackBerry, summoning me to the disciplinary hearing at dismissal stage. So going back to see her tomorrow will be stirring for me. Perhaps will also mark the dawning of a new era, the end of that dastardly chapter. I like to begin new things in the autumn. It suits me. I was born in the autumn, and of course, as is the convention in these parts, began school, university etc etc in autumn. I'll see my first young client for the first time on the first day of school, so there it is well-marked.
I also want to be writing more. Want to be writing more poetry. I will tell you something, not to boast, but only to try and rally myself and get your help perhaps in the rallying. While I was away, L met S, my first writing teacher up here, (a fine poet, with three collections to her name), and her son in town. He is starting secondary school in September, and was proudly holding his newly cut front-door key. They talked for a few minutes about that, then S turned to L and asked her if I was writing. 'Some', said L, or 'not much', or something non-committal. 'Tell her to get on with it' says S, 'she should get on with it - she's got talent, and not many people have that...' S has told me before she wants to see me writing more. And so do I so do I so do I. OK autumn, let's try and use you - the wild wind, the low golden sunlight, the burnished leaves - not to descend into cliche - but to inspire and energise me into another new beginning. Let's start laying some 'track' as Julia Cameron would say, piece by piece on the page. I tend to stay too long with the edgy and quite charged feeling of ideas and stuff rattling about inside me, and find all sorts of displacement activities to stay away from the page the page the page.
Like this.
Though of course this too is writing.
But not poetry.
See you soon.
Monday, 23 August 2010
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