We're all in this together

1956

2013

'Be a good girl,' they said so I put my hands together in prayer because I was told a praying child was a good thing.  So the photograph was taken; by a peripatetic photographer with little sense of setting - in this case against the frosted glass of the kitchen door

The grown up version - a selfie on an iPad - also with little sense of setting but the wise advantage of gravity.  Did I say grown-up?  I suppose it's time. 

Two images, fifty-seven years between and, to my mind, very little difference between them - except my mother doesn't cut my fringe any more. 

There's a great impulse to somehow reflect on the the intervening years: countries visited, children born, trials, triumphs, loves and losses. I leave a marker here.  There have been more gains than losses and if it all ended now, I'd howl in protest because it's been good.  It is good. The heart that beat in that little chest beats still and still is full of excitement and expectation. People still to meet, to know, to love, to grieve over. Mistakes still to make, lessons still to learn. And still trying to be good.  And still failing, happily.

Gabby Young

Writing exercise

Sir John Tavener oil on canvas (Michael Taylor 2001)

8 June 2013 - writing inspired by a postcard

Today I am going to write and write until the theme is set firmly down.  All night the thoughts came through my mind, so here I sit with my face turned towards my God, my light and my inspiration.

I have all I need and I am going to tell my listeners that there is nothing to fear from death for it is but a passing thing.  The music plays and will play.  I will not tell you listeners that there is nothing to fear from dying, for I do not know you but I do believe that death is but a passing thing.  My gift is is in me, I am filled with it and my only ambition now is to leave as much as possible before my time grows cold.

It has to be Song for Athene which was played at my mother's funeral. 

My hanging man

She watched him climb, hand over hand.  She didn't watch him climb.  Gone were the superstitious days when she thought a mother’s gaze, a mother’s thoughts should be locked on her child as if the creature couldn't exist without constant vigilance.

‘I’ll just take a picture,’ she quipped ‘so his unborn child with have a record of its father’s face before it hits the ground.’  The Facebook series already in composition: Going, going, gone.  Or more satirically:  chain saw masacree – will this mean a pocket-money increase? 

She watched him climb; stop, check himself, assess, focus, make his decision, careful, cognisant of his own safety.  His belt, heavy with tools, chain saw rumbling.

‘Won’t it cut his leg?’ she asked.

‘No, the safety catch is on, it’s only the motor running,’ an artificial calm coming from his father; another type of men’s work: don’t unnecessarily agitate the women unless for strategic gain, don't show your anxiety. Such is the nature of honesty.

She watched him climb.  Up swung the saw; caught expertly echoing the barman’s flaring he used to show off.  Scream, cut, catch the branch, aim, throw to the ground.  The next one: size up, measure by eye, by skill.  Scream, cut, catch, throw. Again, scream, cut, catch, throw.

Her aching shoulders relaxed but her neck remained stretched, stiff, watching.  More climbing, more cutting, catching, throwing.  Until the job was done.

She experienced neither his climb nor his descent.  What she experienced was his growth, his manliness, his care for himself and for the future of his child.  She was satisfied; a man who loves himself will love his child.

NYC 3

Rocked to the top and guggened out
Bring it on...

http://youtu.be/icXB25Ltg3w

NYC 2

Tennessee William's Glass Menagerie on Broadway.
Va Penserio at Columbus Circle.
Frozen custard.
http://youtu.be/DzdDf9hKfJw

NYC 1 of who knows

Just this
http://youtu.be/aTch3AC7tQ0

Gotta have more guitars and find a way to get past Google+

Water

 

 

 

 

 

 

The drop of water on my hand

is drawn from the Ganges and the Nile,

from the sky-ascending hoar on a seal’s whisker,

from broken jars in the cities of Ys and Tyre.

On my index-finger

the Caspian Sea is an open sea

and the Pacific meekly drains into the Rudawa,

the very river that sailed in a cloud over Paris

in the year seventeen-hundred-and-sixty-four

on the seventh of May at three in the morning.

There aren’t enough lips to utter

Your fleeting names, Oh water!

I would need to name you in every tongue,

voicing together every single vowel

and simultaneously keep mum – for the benefit

of the lake still awaiting a name,

with no place on earth – and for

the heavenly star reflected in it.

Someone’s been drowning, someone dying has been calling you.

That was long ago and happened yesterday.

You’ve dowsed homes, you’ve snatched them

Like trees, snatched forests like cities.

You were present in baptismal fonts and courtesans’ baths.

In kisses, in shrouds.

Biting stones, feeding rainbows.

In the sweat and dew of pyramids and lilacs.

How light a drop of rain,

How gently the world touches me.

Wherever, whenever, whatever took place

is recorded on the waters of Babel.

Wislawa Szymborska