Posts

Keen

Image
I am keen. On Life. Every minute every excruciating minutiae Detail of it. This afternoon we drove towards home: from Kent to Cornwall Hot behind car glass because the air con is broken Open windows sporadically: beautiful relief. Over Blackhill Downs a cloud had dropped, split like a fallen craft- Into the mist we drove it was neither Recognisably, day, night? The sun was barely shining, a plain disc Until hilltops: there it glared And in the valleys, dense, debris vapour And the evening came. We drove as the sun dipped to the earths’s edge Seemed to set it on fire: cloud or smoke forming in the sky The sky: Rubescent, turquoise, molten gold Expanse beyond detail Gestaltist, joyous: Keen, the experience of everything.

Jealous, Not Or Much

Image
Jealous, Not: that was the intended title. Such wise things I would write; of things you are supposed to want to make your incomplete life connected, of dangerous comparisons pressed upon us. About how we should not daydream of ‘when’ but look to our hearts and know what it is that we truly wish for, and figure out what can be done to work towards this, figure out what is it that we have all ready that is part of this. For example, I love outdoor life. I dream of outdoor bathrooms and kitchens. I have a garden. Mr has built a lean-to space, where the loganberries go berserk, with a mouldering work table. This has been stuck with junk, which slowly, slowly I am clearing: an outdoor kitchen will grow from this determination. A friend has even given us a sink and draining board. It’s propped, waiting.The hose pipe will be our outdoor plumbing. And how splendid it is simply to say, I should like a sink, and there one is! And while I’m trailing round, putting things in piles fo

Interval Training

Image
This is not a characteristic, but a type of getting or maintaining fitness with exercise that changes intensity.  This morning I used the walk, jog, sprint interval method to travel two hilly miles and now my leg muscles feel appreciated.  I am pleased to have a physical body to interact with the physical world. I love movement; the push of an uphill sprint, the breeze trailing lost twine from a tree, the dip of birds in flight; and how the light interplays; how pale the sky is today, opal blue, and the light seems pasted on behind it, opaquely collaged. Dog and I and even the hedgerow flowers are ridiculously solid in comparison.  Primrose, violet, tulips, daffodils in frills; the light has hewn them into stone.  None of which comes up when you google ‘interval training.’ The mind’s input is directed instead to envy, perhaps, through photoshopped abdominals, and other such nonsense. Exercise is a distraction, there, but it shouldn’t be: it should be something to emb

Hapless

Image
What is a hap? A word of Scandinavian root, it seems, meaning chance, good luck. This morning was supposed to be met earlier. ‘Rest’ is the item most overlooked on the To Do list, so this was acceptable. There was sun, strong, no clouds to see. If there had been mist, I had missed it. Toast and coffee on the lawn- or rather the picnic table, no mishaps here. Breakfast was simple and fantastic. Something cheeky had scratched up the onions in the raised bed, suspects were many. Blackbirds had their mouths full of bugs and could not tell. I had pushed the little sets back into the dry earth, added rows of wooden stakes (for the garlic was untouched, it could have been vampires…) and gone inside to wash the loose dust from my hands. One nublet of old coal tar soap in the dish, and I was thinking how much I love that smell, one of those evocative childhood scents, and I have no idea how the trajectory of washing sent that nub skidding under the cabinet. My hands went into

Grateful

Image
Open window, sunlight, whir of bird feathers.  Shadow of a pigeon darts across the windowsill, slides on the white gloss.  Out on the grass the mist has left her marbles, dropped them in a bright scatter as she left, as she hastened to the river. Over the broad water she lets go of everything, she unbecomes.  Choruses of birds sing and their sound spins out melodic, avant-garde.  The crop fields are ploughed, earthy and rich-dark.  In a grazing field four horses flick tails and chew up sparkling grass. Somewhere a tractor rumbles. In each detail, gratitude.

Furious

Image
(The theme of my April A-Z challenge is 'That which I am or have been,' I should inform: 'Furious' luckily is rare.) This anger is chemical. It has a fuse. It will burn somewhere, even if you never see it.  If you worked to get this reaction, perhaps you will be disappointed.  The faster the flare the safer you will keep. Slow burn can sear through anything. Deflection increases heat. You will be cauterised, sealed out. Only open dialogue can defuse.

Efflorescent

Image
Grandchild Two decides that we need balloons with breakfast. She has found a pack and a pumper. Here’s a long pink balloon, she calls it a sausage ice-cream. She eats toast dipped in ketchup, why on earth would she want an egg? Grandchild One, that mischievous fox, tilts his head, slants his eyes. ‘Granma Lisa,’ he confides, ‘I fluffed.’ (Fluff being slang for a soft noised fart.) It is apparent his stomach is not quite right today. Everyone with a nose has it under cover. This is nothing after the vomit bug had his home floors awash. As soon as it was done, he was laughing, his mother says: especially as she was slipping over. She is laughing too. Grandchild Four is ill, staying at home (not alone- he has Dad there with him). Either teething or the bug has the boy miserable. On a better day he makes the best growl noises and loves all hugs. Grandchild Three seems weary. She has followed her cousin round and round, her big cousin, calling his name, over and over. S

Ditsy

Image
Ditsy has a brain made of polka dots. Or is it ice cream? You can ask her why she is wearing a flowerpot for a hat, she’ll say it’s not a hat, she just didn’t have a pocket the right size for it. One never knows when one will need a flowerpot. But why the shoes on her feet don’t match: mystery. Because, Tuesday? Ditsy has an apron, a polka dot apron. It has exactly the right sized pocket for a flowerpot. But if she moves the pot now, her hair will look silly! She will put her hat in the pocket instead. And a stick of rhubarb. And some sequins, for later.

Cranky

Image
(Scratches scalp, sighs) I should remember how to add this code into my blog? I did it before. I can’t remember. Distract and come back to it? Oh, fine. Everyone on Facebook is feeling blessed. Think I’ll take a walk. See if I can remember to appreciate my legs. ‘How’s it going, hun?’ (Huffs: can't think with that racket going on!) ‘Do you want some wine?’ Neither question requires an answer.

Bodacious

Image
‘Bodily, totally, root and branch,’ a phrase pressed into one word, ‘bodyaciously’ is given as the etymology for this word: slang from South Carolina.  Bodacious, in use from 1837 or earlier, may also be a blend of bold and audacious: a word composited from two synonyms. It was also the name of a bull famous for head butting rodeo contestants. Comedic chaos. Language should be this: like us: it requires play to fully live. 

Anarchic

Image
I am ruled as the birds sing. I am open to weather. ~ There was that phase where I tried to live without cutlery (aged about 8?) The soup bowl had a lip, most awkward. In the end I gave in to a spoon. Cutlery began to make sense to me. But on the beach a shell was my spoon. It is still. When the gulls call, it sounds like they are laughing.

The Buff And Shine

Image
Tiredness is an arse. An inconsiderate underminer, riddling calm. Over and over, grace rises from stress, is interrupted. Focus slips to the floor, broken; mindfulness is kicked crossly into a metaphorical bin. It is not even a good shot. It rolls in shame, crumpled, to a halt. Oh gosh, we say, or something like that. And then wonder, what is all this work for? And what is to show for it? Did we need something- a house, perhaps? Being warm? No one remembers, only feels that it is unfair. But none of that was the point. It was finding the eternal in the moment: the spark, the genius, the serendipity! How did we forget? The jaw dropping splendour of the whole universe? Somehow, we forgot. Tiredness is a repetitive arse. It is not the only thing that tangles us: there are many recurrent debilities. They tangle our steps, like dirty shirts dumped on the floor. Same old shirts and quirks of fear. Never mind. Fill up the wash basket. Run yourself a bath. B

A Revisiting Review

Image
This paperback of The Catcher In The Rye is a second reprint from 1987. It has age spots and a typeface I like (Monotype Bembo) and I would have been 17 in that year but I don’t remember if that’s when I bought it.  Surely I had read the book earlier, maybe even in hardback?   I remember Holden Caulfield though; disaffected antihero, soul in a soulless world, thinker in a thoughtless world. He acted on impulses born of that odd mix of emotion and moral responses. He had a keen insight into people, even if he was confused by what he saw: he saw it, reacted to it. He had stubbornness and integrity and that  individualistic  red hat. (If you don’t know the plot and/or the palaver of this book, have a quick cheat here: The Catcher In The Rye .) Rereading was a gamble - what if I’d left my old friend Holden too far behind? Perhaps I would find him gauche, all acne and embarrassment? If old JD had been having a laugh? What if I wanted to save him? What if I’m a phoney now

A Week In Which We Find Ourselves Incredibly Alive

Image
Tuesday Is A  Calm Day Peelings piled in a pot, hob-simmered; dots of herb leaf turning, jade flecks in amber convections.  This onion, roasted to a sweet paste. Bone stock brewed overnight, tucked into the Rayburn’s dinky oven. This makes soup, a shimmering dark gold soup, edged in lemon zest, earthed with turmeric. But we are so hungry we add rice, pale rice, carrot, broccoli, red leaf, a fresh shine of onion, orange lentils, tomatoes; all the colours slippery rich with good oils. We put hot food in deep plates and we eat our feast outdoors. At the end house the clearance men are working. We hear their chatter. The house is being emptied: we speak of it briefly, sadly. Our lawn is mowed. The sun shines and the breeze does not steal that warmth. In the polytunnel, flora is waking; we speak of this, the spring miracle, the full happiness of it. There will be left overs for supper, we say, and this is how life should be. Wednesday Is A Travel Day  Our car become

Vernal On Sunday

Image
My calendar says it is the 15th day of the 3rd month of the 15th year of the 21st century, a specificity that should focus a mind to the present point. My head says, is this Sunday? Possibly it is… No real decisions are made but we find ourselves stalking the moorlands with a sharp wind and a shovel.  We heft a small sack of horse poo half a mile or so, a circular route, back to the car. Unburdened then up Cox Tor, all the way to the panorama and the full push of wind. We hide for a while in the dip of a rock nest. Dog wags patiently. We climb down over knolls of buried stone; matted in grass, it reminds me of sloth hair and giant knucklebones. Gargantuan knuckle dragging sloth monsters slumbering under our feet. In every pool, ladles of frogspawn, rich bubbles of life.  Even here, where the vegetation is dwarfed by harsh weathering, there is succulence in this waking season. The sloths will be dreaming of warming sun. We sit in the car, heater on; we ar

Seeds

Image
If we are lucky, there is a recollection from childhood that we revere for being a time when expectations were delivered upon. Impatience at the waiting will have existed, but we remember the thrill better. Ingratitude may have been present, but not held in memory. We were open to the immensity of receiving and satiated by the result. It could have been a toy, a feast, a visit, any number of details. If we are lucky, we have this in memory. This is the uncomplicated bliss with which I hold a new seed catalogue. Those who garden understand, those who don’t feel let down perhaps - a seed catalogue? Recaptures all that? Not recapture, not nostalgia. A development of the grateful receipt that allows true happiness. As adults, we must do the work ourselves of course, it is a more proactive experience. We make decisions - here the priorities are edible and medicinal - towards constructing our lives, living how we wish to live in order to make the most of being alive: not ex

A Night Drive

Image
When I click the beams full, my car has the eyes of a giant. The road and the night are one colour. I follow a line of stars homeward. All the sky is stars: a maze of lights: the eyes of my car gape. How simple it would be to amble up, meander, squint-bleary, marvel time away. How would we find our way back? I don’t know. I think we would be laughing too much, but then find a bean stalk, helter-skelter, plonk, back on the driveway. Find a pot of gold in the footwell.

St Piran's Day

Image
Frost held the grass still, early this morning. Birds sang. Daffodils, without the nods of breeze, seemed lost in dreams. Today they took Clarrie to the crematorium. There will be a fine view over the woods from there. Maybe the starlings will fly, make sympathetic murmurations over the canopy of Cardinham.  Grandchild 2 passed the pegs, while we hung out washing on the rotary lines. My back ached from levelling soil, from making new beds in the polytunnel: we will grow melons for the summer. ‘It is sad, Granma,’ the little one says. ‘Your friend is died.’ And she says, ‘Oh! I love melons!’ She helped to seal the envelope of the memoriam card, carried it to Carol next door, for passing on at the service. Ron was going up to feed the chickens: the little one went up too, made backward skips away from the pecking. ‘Remember Clarrie’s sweet peas?’ Carol said. ‘We collected seeds in September, you can have some. We can all grow sweet peas at the side of our houses.’

Cliff Top Tea

Image
This skyline is a pale bleed, cloud into sea, dissolving. The sea is salt-milk, wind churned, flung in daubs, white froth on fish-silver sheen. Above the wind-line clouds edge inland, sun on their backs, grey fleece and opal. A three-quarter moon in the clear sky sits, pulling tides. Mr and me, in the car with the bad starter motor, sit, eat bargain bucket cream tea from regrettable plastic. Gulls are calling, in flight, at the fierce air. Gorse shivers non-stop. This show is fantastic. It has everything. Cloud swallows moon. Crumbs of scone skim out into the road.

Whispering Earth

Image
Winter melts. In breezes Spring, the unfurler, the light of wing. Wind comes cold without bite: a soother of fevers, a sweeper of fears. Warmth comes, in beams of sun. What is it that you want, the earth whispers: I can grow it. Up in the field the old barn is breaking. ‘Entropy.’ I point: Dog has an air of trying not to laugh in my face. (What is it that she knows?) At home mess has vigorous regrowth. Today it signifies creative abundance. Crumbs of bread because our soup was delicious. Mud prints over the kitchen floor because the garden begins its bloom. Drain still blocked and this matters not: if anything, how the water spills, the foam from washed clothes, the icky slick of dish water, it is lively, jaunty even, over the messed up gravel. Washing whips on the line till we pull it in out of the hail. The sun comes back, beaming warm.