Where do you see yourself?

 

'In five years' time?, the managing director says over dinner, having just outlined her role in the future of the company, its fifty million pound turnover and how the major utility companies are tracking her work.  Her work.  Her creative work.  'Keep the ideas coming, give me ideas.  They're watching you, they're imitating tomorrow what you're doing today.'

Creativity springs from her like a constant stream of rightness.  It is so much a part of what she is; her sense of zeitgeist, the way she spots the moment and is ready with a creative response.  When Jonathan Jones replied to, 'Who invented art?' his response could have been describing S.  Lyrical, as he speculated that art may be millions of years old:

'If art is as old as that, it probably did not need to be invented.  It is as natural to our species as smiling and running.  And who invented those?'

Well my girl can smile and run and show herself through creativity.  This is to the art teacher who tried to talk her out of training for the fashion industry because she thought she was too shy; paraphrased from Frances Burney, it appeared in S's sixteenth birthday card and it so turned out to be true:

  'You are not, indeed, like some modern young women, to be known in half-an-hour; your modest worth, and fearful excellence, require both time and encouragement to show themselves.  You do not, beautiful as you are, seize the soul by surprise, but with more dangerous fascination, you steal it almost imperceptibly.'

You stole mine the day you were born my darling.  Today you gave me music, the Lumineers.

 

Rabbit

As children we thought as one.  We shared values without the language to articulate them and certainly without the insight to question from where they came.

Playing chase was as instinctive to us as breathing.  Everyone wanted to be the chased, not the chaser.  The chaser could fail, he or she had all to risk but the chased could practise skill and cunning stimulated by fear.

Running then, through tracks in long grass, we understood and were in tune with the nature of our childish gait, with the nature of our chaser's need for speed, the mistakes that might be made as plimsolled foot followed plimsolled foot. 

If sufficient time could be gained it was short work to duck or pretend to fall, grab a handful of long grass from either side of the narrow track, and tie a rabbit trap; high enough to catch a rabbit - high enough to catch a foot - if the knot was tight enough. 

Sweating in the summer sun that gave sweetness to the meadow, down would come the chaser, howling outrage, ' 'snot fair!'  It was seldom fair if you were on the receiving end of it but it always seemed entirely reasonable to experience the burst of jubilant triumph that haled  you a hero among your peers when your trap succeeded. 

It seldom did succeed though and there was no-one more surprised than the hero when it did; who, in my case, was always left wondering if it was really possible to catch a rabbit that way, and what on earth was I to do with it if it happened.   

Mary Hopkin singing 'Those Were the Days'

Ain't got no...

New Year resolutions.  None, not at all.  Nothing, absolutely none. Per niente. Not even a Google+ profile to 'call out' or a page from my blog to help people notice my post.  Nulla.

I've got a glass teapot and a bag of chamomile, nettle, lemon balm and peppermint tea, labelled 'evening calm'.  I've got honey and a pretty picture and that's enough.  For now.

It's going to be a happy Christmas

I'm going to paint my nails red and re-connect with the kitchen: mince pies with butter pastry; baked rice pudding with Jersey gold top, double cream and vanilla pods; potatoes roasted in goose fat; crispy salted crackling; deep rich gravy.  The best part is that it's cold enough to justify saturated fats cut by swooshing red wine... burp.  'Tis the season to be jolly.

And music, lots and lots of music!

 Especially Les Douze Noels which I love to play but which the family, frankly, have enough of by Christmas Eve.

Discipline has to come from somewhere

messy desk

One month at a time                              
A week at a time

Focus on what you can influence
and change and what is a priority
Debunk big things,
make lists and tick off.

One of my daughters said to me, 'What would you do if you had a child who
wasn't attractive?'  Without hesitation my response was, 'Encourage her to
develop a life of the mind.'  As she laughed spontaneously I ruminated on the
implication in her question; that she and her siblings were attractive enough not
to require any such drastic intervention.

tidy desk

 But I do require drastic intervention as my resolve slips into the dark days of December.  In my attempt to recapture something of my mind, I set to this afternoon to clear my desk.

Gone are the black things; the work laptop and the inordinately over-sized printer.  Removed are books I might need within reach or at least where I can see them to remind me that I have actually read them. Gone are the boxes that cluttered, heap of papers waiting to be filed.

In their place, in its purity, lies my own laptop, ready for tomorrow's work.  I have an external deadline. I can and will keep.  I have internal deadlines, which I will fail.  But it's OK  because no-one will know how bad I am, will they?

Here's my old school song.  I can still remember singing it proudly at my high school and I remember being read Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress at my Church of England primary school.  These words meant something to me then because they were about human endeavour.  Since then the combination of catholic guilt and protestant work ethic have wrought their effect and I'm only too aware of my weakness.

Who would true valour see,
Let him come hither;
One here will constant be,
Come wind, come weather
There's no discouragement
Shall make him once relent
His first avowed intent,
To be a pilgrim.
Whoso beset him round
With dismal stories
Do but themselves confound;
His strength the more is.
No lion can him fright,
He'll with a giant fight,
But he will have a right
To be a pilgrim..
Hobgoblin, nor foul fiend,
Can daunt his spirit:
He knows, he at the end
Shall life inherit.
Then fancies fly away,
He'll fear not what men say,
He'll labour night and day
To be a pilgrim.

I really like the hobgoblin bit.  And here it is sung the way we never sang it:

Inside out

First glass of beautifully smooth Remy Martin fixes the blues; the second one is liquid Lethe.  Who needs reality.  Home cooked poetry and performance curry married to discipline encourages confidence.

Remember 'woman must write, just write' said Cixous.  Well Helene, belle Helene, de longue haleine, here are the words, words, words, wors, wors, wors, rows, rows, rows, dros, dros, dros, drows, drows, drows.  Ah the power of three.  Ha, ha Perseus, it's all yours. There you go!

Requiem

All mechanical things are done.
There is nothing left in me now.

Laughter is a betrayal.
In which I want no solace.

Surrender is the imperative.
Humanity exposed.

Raw, open wound into which
blows dirt, grit, spit, pain.

Into this vacuum, a new bedfellow
comes - joy thief of my years.