I can't remember what I was listening to yesterday - oh yes I can, it was BBC Radio 4's 'Word of Mouth' - and they were talking about speech bubbles. In comics, graphic novels and the like.
Apparently there's a cultural difference between 'Aaargh!' and 'Aieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!'
Meanwhile, there is a funny (as in odd-and-mildly-disturbing rather than ha-ha) dripping noise in the corner of the room just to the right of where I'm sitting. In a corner where no dripping should be (given that the corner where the dripping noise usually is is to the left of me and then only when when it's raining) . . .
Aieeeeeeeeeee.
Wednesday, 30 April 2008
Saturday, 26 April 2008
What I keep meaning to do
No. 1: write fewer lists. Meanwhile I must
- get down to the beach. It's only five minutes' walk away, for heaven's sake, and there have been days - today was one - when the sun shone and if I hadn't had to go to work and do some shopping on the way back so's to have something to eat in the house (and toilet paper) for the weekend and if I hadn't been hungry when I got in and had to make a ham and cheese sandwich and read the paper I'd have got there, really I would, only after I'd eaten the sandwich and drunk a couple of glasses of wine I was feeling so so tired (on account of having woken up at just gone five this morning and not been able to get back to sleep) that I had to go to bed for a couple of hours and by the time I surfaced it was just starting to rain and I had to dash to get the washing in that had been out since yesterday
- get down to the beach. Tomorrow - today now - the forecast is for warm sunshine. I've been reading Simon Gray's Smoking Diaries this week (in between Coal: a human history, Disobedience and a book about how to discover my inner artist), in which he spends a lot of time sitting watching people here and abroad and writing about who he imagines them to be and what he sees and hears and is reminded of. I could do that, I think. Except I don't know the Harold Pinters or have a past that anybody could possibly want to know about . . .
- get down to the beach. I had the whole thing planned out yesterday - down to the pencil I was going to take with me and the book I was going to write in and exactly where I was going to park the car and how the stones would feel under my bottom until I'd smoothed out a place for it to sit with my back against the sea wall and feel the sun on my face, but now I can't quite remember where yesterday went and why I didn't do it
- get down to the beach.
- get down to the beach. It's only five minutes' walk away, for heaven's sake, and there have been days - today was one - when the sun shone and if I hadn't had to go to work and do some shopping on the way back so's to have something to eat in the house (and toilet paper) for the weekend and if I hadn't been hungry when I got in and had to make a ham and cheese sandwich and read the paper I'd have got there, really I would, only after I'd eaten the sandwich and drunk a couple of glasses of wine I was feeling so so tired (on account of having woken up at just gone five this morning and not been able to get back to sleep) that I had to go to bed for a couple of hours and by the time I surfaced it was just starting to rain and I had to dash to get the washing in that had been out since yesterday
- get down to the beach. Tomorrow - today now - the forecast is for warm sunshine. I've been reading Simon Gray's Smoking Diaries this week (in between Coal: a human history, Disobedience and a book about how to discover my inner artist), in which he spends a lot of time sitting watching people here and abroad and writing about who he imagines them to be and what he sees and hears and is reminded of. I could do that, I think. Except I don't know the Harold Pinters or have a past that anybody could possibly want to know about . . .
- get down to the beach. I had the whole thing planned out yesterday - down to the pencil I was going to take with me and the book I was going to write in and exactly where I was going to park the car and how the stones would feel under my bottom until I'd smoothed out a place for it to sit with my back against the sea wall and feel the sun on my face, but now I can't quite remember where yesterday went and why I didn't do it
- get down to the beach.
Sunday, 20 April 2008
Gone midnight on a Saturday
My neck creaks when I turn my head. The sound travels up into my ears and is loud.
On the desk:
- an empty packet of Tesco potato chips
- four shiny bright pennies in a stack
- a yellow highlighter
- The Very Best of Cat Stevens
- two ashtrays (one empty, one full)
- other empty things: a Games Workshop t-shirt packet and one that used to contain Sainsbury's breadsticks (or, because it's Sainsbury's and not Tesco, grissini), a glass, a can of John Smith's Original Bitter, a blue cigarette lighter, a one-pint plastic container of full-fat milk
- a tea towel
- the end of a roll of toilet tissue
- a tiny pillow made out of a shiny gold fabric with 'ANNIE X' written on it
- a hole punch
- some money-off Tesco vouchers
- several unpaid bills (including one from the Norwich Diocesan Board of Finance. The ground rent I owe it - from 2001 at £1.25 a year - is now £10), and some unanswered letters
- a phone
- speakers attached to the computer and music coming out of them:
Days (Kirsty MacColl)
There's a CD player on top of a fridge in a torrid Nicosia kitchen. It hasn't rained for months and everything is burning and I am in tears realising that there is nowhere to go from here except away. The children must have been in bed (they were very small then)
Out of time (Rolling Stones)
I am at a concert. Chris Farlowe continues singing this when the power fails and there's only his voice and the drums until it comes back on
Sun arise (Rolf Harris)
I can harmonise with this, but am ashamed to admit it
Stir it up (Bob Marley and the Wailers)
I am a teacher working at a high school in the Jamaican bush when I buy Johnny Nash's Greatest Hits and hear this for the first time. I am in my early 20s. Along with Guava Jelly, it introduces me to the idea that music can enter you via your ears and the soles of your feet and reach the parts that nothing else does.
My students take me to parties you can only get to by walking miles and miles and miles in pitch blackness because roads don't go anywhere near there and people are all very tall and dark and handsome and whisper things in your ear and dance far too close and hold you with a hand in the small of your back while they touch your body with theirs and yours wonders how on earth it can carry on doing this for a single moment longer because surely any minute now it'll dissolve and sink to the ground or somebody will notice and word will get back and you'll be out of a job . . . oh
One day some time later I leave the Johnny Nash LP too long in the sun and it melts.
Back in the high life (Steve Winwood)
I am driving very fast along tiny Norfolk by-roads to the hotel where I'm running a week-long training course for junior civil-service managers. The hotel is being renovated and there's no hot water and the group dynamic is becoming quite interesting. It's lunchtime and I've been home to have a shower. I am now on my way back. The car windows are open and I've turned the music up loud.
Later, after the scheduled training's finished and before we all go to our separate rooms to get ready for dinner, some of us are sitting in the bar and I'm drawn into conversation by someone who looks straight through my eyes and holds my hand and tells me things.
I am captivated.
+++
My mother used to tell me that I was too easily led. Maybe she just didn't want to believe that I rarely went anywhere I didn't want to go . . .
On the desk:
- an empty packet of Tesco potato chips
- four shiny bright pennies in a stack
- a yellow highlighter
- The Very Best of Cat Stevens
- two ashtrays (one empty, one full)
- other empty things: a Games Workshop t-shirt packet and one that used to contain Sainsbury's breadsticks (or, because it's Sainsbury's and not Tesco, grissini), a glass, a can of John Smith's Original Bitter, a blue cigarette lighter, a one-pint plastic container of full-fat milk
- a tea towel
- the end of a roll of toilet tissue
- a tiny pillow made out of a shiny gold fabric with 'ANNIE X' written on it
- a hole punch
- some money-off Tesco vouchers
- several unpaid bills (including one from the Norwich Diocesan Board of Finance. The ground rent I owe it - from 2001 at £1.25 a year - is now £10), and some unanswered letters
- a phone
- speakers attached to the computer and music coming out of them:
Days (Kirsty MacColl)
There's a CD player on top of a fridge in a torrid Nicosia kitchen. It hasn't rained for months and everything is burning and I am in tears realising that there is nowhere to go from here except away. The children must have been in bed (they were very small then)
Out of time (Rolling Stones)
I am at a concert. Chris Farlowe continues singing this when the power fails and there's only his voice and the drums until it comes back on
Sun arise (Rolf Harris)
I can harmonise with this, but am ashamed to admit it
Stir it up (Bob Marley and the Wailers)
I am a teacher working at a high school in the Jamaican bush when I buy Johnny Nash's Greatest Hits and hear this for the first time. I am in my early 20s. Along with Guava Jelly, it introduces me to the idea that music can enter you via your ears and the soles of your feet and reach the parts that nothing else does.
My students take me to parties you can only get to by walking miles and miles and miles in pitch blackness because roads don't go anywhere near there and people are all very tall and dark and handsome and whisper things in your ear and dance far too close and hold you with a hand in the small of your back while they touch your body with theirs and yours wonders how on earth it can carry on doing this for a single moment longer because surely any minute now it'll dissolve and sink to the ground or somebody will notice and word will get back and you'll be out of a job . . . oh
One day some time later I leave the Johnny Nash LP too long in the sun and it melts.
Back in the high life (Steve Winwood)
I am driving very fast along tiny Norfolk by-roads to the hotel where I'm running a week-long training course for junior civil-service managers. The hotel is being renovated and there's no hot water and the group dynamic is becoming quite interesting. It's lunchtime and I've been home to have a shower. I am now on my way back. The car windows are open and I've turned the music up loud.
Later, after the scheduled training's finished and before we all go to our separate rooms to get ready for dinner, some of us are sitting in the bar and I'm drawn into conversation by someone who looks straight through my eyes and holds my hand and tells me things.
I am captivated.
+++
My mother used to tell me that I was too easily led. Maybe she just didn't want to believe that I rarely went anywhere I didn't want to go . . .
Wednesday, 16 April 2008
Opening windows
Windows are the things that stay between you and the outside world. Occasionally they shatter but most times they are just there.
After a long English winter, the temptation is to open them as soon as the sun shines. The idea is to let the warmth in.
(I used to work with someone called Bengt, who was Swedish. He told me that winter nights in Sweden are very very long and dark, and that the darkness lasts for months. The first time the sun shines in Spring, office workers all over the country abandon their desks. They can be seen on the streets, everywhere, turning their faces to the sky and soaking up its warmth.)
In England, when you open the windows - and the front door and the back door - the first time the sun shines after a long winter and the mornings are bright and blue-skied and it doesn't rain until four o'clock in the afternoon so you can get the washing dry if you're up early enough, one or more of the following things will happen:
- a cat will get in
- somebody will moan about how cold it is and wrap themselves in all the jumpers, duvets, gloves, hats and thermal underwear they couldn't possibly have worn when it was really cold and which, if they had when it was, could probably single-handedly have postponed global warming by at least 100 years
- you will think 'Ooo. I can send all these hair-brushings out of the bathroom window so that a passing bird can seize on them and recycle them cunningly into its nest'
- any hair-brushings sent out of the bathroom window will be blown back in
- the back door will crash shut every time you open the front so you'll have to use any conveniently placed draught-snake or pile of old newspapers to wedge them both open and prevent the kind of bang-type noise that will cause elderly neighbours to drop dead from heart attacks
- the cat that got in earlier will twine itself around your ankles and cause you to drop things
- you'll remember that you should have bought cat food when you were out and, because you didn't, the twining will go on until you do
- one or more of your children will creep up on you while you're sitting reading a book and minding your own business in the back garden and say 'For goodness sake, mother! ANYbody could have walked in!'
I like opening windows.
I've lived in hot countries where you only opened them at night, because night-time was the only time it was cool enough to let the air in. You could sit on the verandah after your children had gone to bed and watch the city's lights. Write love letters to someone you hadn't met yet, over and over again because the first one didn't quite say what you meant and you wanted to get it right. Buy a fountain pen because ballpoints are something you write shopping lists with and what you wanted to write was most definitely not a shopping list.
After a long English winter, the temptation is to open them as soon as the sun shines. The idea is to let the warmth in.
(I used to work with someone called Bengt, who was Swedish. He told me that winter nights in Sweden are very very long and dark, and that the darkness lasts for months. The first time the sun shines in Spring, office workers all over the country abandon their desks. They can be seen on the streets, everywhere, turning their faces to the sky and soaking up its warmth.)
In England, when you open the windows - and the front door and the back door - the first time the sun shines after a long winter and the mornings are bright and blue-skied and it doesn't rain until four o'clock in the afternoon so you can get the washing dry if you're up early enough, one or more of the following things will happen:
- a cat will get in
- somebody will moan about how cold it is and wrap themselves in all the jumpers, duvets, gloves, hats and thermal underwear they couldn't possibly have worn when it was really cold and which, if they had when it was, could probably single-handedly have postponed global warming by at least 100 years
- you will think 'Ooo. I can send all these hair-brushings out of the bathroom window so that a passing bird can seize on them and recycle them cunningly into its nest'
- any hair-brushings sent out of the bathroom window will be blown back in
- the back door will crash shut every time you open the front so you'll have to use any conveniently placed draught-snake or pile of old newspapers to wedge them both open and prevent the kind of bang-type noise that will cause elderly neighbours to drop dead from heart attacks
- the cat that got in earlier will twine itself around your ankles and cause you to drop things
- you'll remember that you should have bought cat food when you were out and, because you didn't, the twining will go on until you do
- one or more of your children will creep up on you while you're sitting reading a book and minding your own business in the back garden and say 'For goodness sake, mother! ANYbody could have walked in!'
I like opening windows.
I've lived in hot countries where you only opened them at night, because night-time was the only time it was cool enough to let the air in. You could sit on the verandah after your children had gone to bed and watch the city's lights. Write love letters to someone you hadn't met yet, over and over again because the first one didn't quite say what you meant and you wanted to get it right. Buy a fountain pen because ballpoints are something you write shopping lists with and what you wanted to write was most definitely not a shopping list.
Saturday, 12 April 2008
I will go
I won’t stay long
I just have to
tune this guitar
I’ll fly in and out.
Honestly
you’ll never know I’m here
But I do
I won’t take up your space
or
breathe your air
But you do
Just ignore me. Pretend
you didn't see me come in
There are other rooms you could have chosen.
Empty ones.
Rooms where I am not.
It would have been kinder
I'll sit here in the corner.
When I'm sure
(despite your turned back)
I have your complete
undivided
attention
When I can tell
by the way your head tilts
(to the right)
and your eyes close
and you take a deep breath
and
will not look at me
(and not before)
I will go
I just have to
tune this guitar
I’ll fly in and out.
Honestly
you’ll never know I’m here
But I do
I won’t take up your space
or
breathe your air
But you do
Just ignore me. Pretend
you didn't see me come in
There are other rooms you could have chosen.
Empty ones.
Rooms where I am not.
It would have been kinder
I'll sit here in the corner.
When I'm sure
(despite your turned back)
I have your complete
undivided
attention
When I can tell
by the way your head tilts
(to the right)
and your eyes close
and you take a deep breath
and
will not look at me
(and not before)
I will go
Monday, 7 April 2008
Inside, I am the woman who shrieks
When I walk down the street
(apparently and perfectly normal)
I am the one with bare feet in midwinter,
screaming silently at the cold
It’s me in the supermarket
forgetting I need bread until I pass Tea and coffee
and Table sauces
and having to go back
(Fresh fruit and vegetables
Dairy
Frozen
Cooking oils and spices)
It’s me
filling my basket
against hurricanes, holidays
and the end
of the world
Open my doors. See
store-cupboard perfection, a selection
of cant-do-without supplies:
pasta, rice, anchovies,
the cereal bars my daughter likes for breakfast,
the Shreddies my son used to but doesn’t seem to now,
tuna in sunflower oil.
Watch me at the checkout -
I don’t need help with my packing.
I can remember my PIN
and how to ask for cashback -
I don’t get in anybody’s way and when they get in mine
I hardly ever snarl
but inside my head the shrieking
never
stops
(apparently and perfectly normal)
I am the one with bare feet in midwinter,
screaming silently at the cold
It’s me in the supermarket
forgetting I need bread until I pass Tea and coffee
and Table sauces
and having to go back
(Fresh fruit and vegetables
Dairy
Frozen
Cooking oils and spices)
It’s me
filling my basket
against hurricanes, holidays
and the end
of the world
Open my doors. See
store-cupboard perfection, a selection
of cant-do-without supplies:
pasta, rice, anchovies,
the cereal bars my daughter likes for breakfast,
the Shreddies my son used to but doesn’t seem to now,
tuna in sunflower oil.
Watch me at the checkout -
I don’t need help with my packing.
I can remember my PIN
and how to ask for cashback -
I don’t get in anybody’s way and when they get in mine
I hardly ever snarl
but inside my head the shrieking
never
stops
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
