Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

The old red car did not pass the MOT. Too many things to fix so we had to let it go. I had turned out all the bits of shell and pebble, untangled the travelling charm from the rear view mirror. Wondered how many hours would add up to equal time spent viewing the world in that back looking glass. Breathed in the earth-salt squalor, the mould, the spills of coffee. Heard myself singing. Ouch. It is only a material thing, a car, no matter how immersed, how we feel our fibres are joined. Everything is a shell, I think: me too, I am made of stuff, so what I feel for the car is a universal compassion, personified, made specific to my story. I lent life to it, and now I’m taking it back. The thought of it crushed was saddening. It was a reprieve when the young mechanic asked, could he have it: I signed it over, handed him a key. So, no car, for me, for a moment. While I think and headache over figures, projections of cost and risk, while I long to live in a hedge. Why c

7 May, 2015 Rain lingered but it could not rain: the sky was so full of birdsong, there was no room. Only sunlight could shine through that clear mass of sound. Lawnmowers and birds, singing, and somewhere above, an aeroplane; a ruffle of foliage from an indulgent breeze. All the weekend noise: speeches from Churchill on VE Day, knives and forks and spoons scooping up pie and mash and suet puddings, the band were fun, people were dancing and trying to dance; the hoot of grandchildren wrestling on a lawn while the barbecue spits and somebody catches a ball, the glee sounds of toddlers with chocolate cake; makes us smile to ourselves. Striding around the garden, planning doom and repellence for pests, planting seeds; smiling.  8 May, 1945 9 May, 2015

It rains. Car park trees hemmed in, captive. Symbolic of a lessened world? If the roots go rogue, then what? Dream of growing beans up the sides of the prisoner trees, of everyone planting and making car parks futile. A power of fertility. More rain, in spite of the blossoms and pretty leaf: autumn weather. Under the copper beeches, light and water drops. Nearly a rainbow. The leaves are russet-rosé. Under the copper beeches you can bathe in a sparkling pink Raise a toast to autumn: To future harvests.

Friday Here begins the last calendar month of Spring. Half-fledged pheasants flee car wheels. Has the frost left? It had clung to the land for too long. This morning’s air is warmly damp. The hedges have grown lace, kept colour. To the beach we traipse; one Granma, one grandchild, one grandchild’s friend, one dog. We are lucky with weather. Mild-damp until the ice creams are eaten up. Fat drops smack on the way home, burst on the bonnet. The girls sleep. At home we hear giggling, and the crunch of apples bitten. They watch a film, they say, ‘Oh I love that. Do you love that?’ Anything with sequins rocks. Grandma agrees. Evening comes, it brings wine. Saturday A garden day. The barrow rolls badly, inner tube beyond repair. Another expense: leafed green growth, the recompense. Future dinners, medicines, sweets, inebriations, perfumery, decorations; the story of our year wiggles up, shakes in the wind. This is the year we added a scarecrow and all the arches need

Zeugma (as explained by the Collins online dictionary) ‘noun: a figure of speech in which a word is used to modify or govern two or more words although appropriate to only one of them or making a different sense with each, as in the sentence Mr. Pickwick took his hat and his leave (Charles Dickens)’ Dickens loved to turn such a phrase, Alexander Pope was prone also: ‘Here Thou, great Anna! whom three Realms obey, Dost sometimes Counsel take – and sometimes Tea.’ And Shakespeare, and The Bible, and more. Used as appropriate to only one word as in ‘weeping eyes and hearts’ it strays (I think) into metaphor territory, some of it fantastically comic; potentially bombastic, pathetic, overdone. In good writing, amazing, in bad writing, a great deal of unintended entertainment. Old pulp fiction is a fine source. Alas, the best example I ever had was tragically lost in a kitchen swamping some years ago - I forget the title but this sentence ‘I felt a sitting duck’ has st

Me with my first yoga teacher, my Mum. Here we are up a mountain, typical us :-) Word History: The word yoga comes from Sanskrit yogaḥ, "yoking, joining together" and by extension "harnessing of one's mental faculties to a purpose" and thus "yoga." The Sanskrit word descends from the Indo-European root *yeug-, "to join, yoke." In the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, *yeug- developed into yuk-, represented in Old English by geoc, the ancestor of Modern English yoke. The root *yeug- is continued by words in most of the branches of the Indo-European language family, which indicates that the speakers of Proto-Indo-European used draft animals to pull their plows and draw their wagons. [American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.] ‘Whoever desires whatever ob

Xanthippe is by legend a nagging wife. Her contemporaries do not report this. Her husband, Socrates, is given words that when I read them stand as admirably commemorative: "None of your soft-mouthed, docile animals for me, the horse for me to own must show some spirit" (Her name means Yellow Horse.) It is said that once she followed up loud words by upending a chamber pot over the head of Socrates, to which he remarked, ‘after thunder comes the rain.’ It seems to me that this was a lively household: two strong minded parents, three young sons. (The chamberpot in other accounts is merely ‘washing water.’) I like the stride of the Yellow Horse, and catch a glint of amusement in those imagined eyes.

W was the letter I would have featured yesterday- Were I so inclined- What was it that I was doing? It was Monday so: One adventure before breakfast (in the Dead Tree Field, an unexpected lake, ice shadows, an outpost of Badgerland) One grandchild was here, for her second breakfast, to draw a face for a scarecrow, to plant melons and snail shells, to mispronounce windmills (minnedwills, millwynds, whealmills, windmiles). ‘Snail shells, do they grow into flowers?’ ‘Nooo, Granma, it makes a tree!’  

I loathe crosswords. This no one expects, because I love words. But if you want to share a word with me why be oblique? I don’t want clues, I’d like to know what word and why you are bringing it to my attention. That it intersects with other words does not inspire. But I do love playing with words. So my new word game hobby is vandalising a book. Not any book, just one I found in the ‘3 for £1’ box at Launceston’s secondhand book store. It has no date in it, but the story is set at the end of the First World War, the binding looks suitably shabby-chic, the paper is impressively thick, it suggests something put together in the 1930s. (Wikipedia says this novel came out in 1923.) Scandalous to mess with it, as an object. But as I found the story objectionable, the ending depressing, the writing imbued with racism and anti-Semitism, I decided to change its history. The game is to find in each page a set of words and/or phrases that form a pleasing flow, then cover over the re

Un- the prefix of rejection. Bold. Untouchable. Up- the prefix of raising up. Celebratory. Upbeat. One of these I would have chosen for today's U themed topic... I did not choose anything but walking out with dogs, once in the pale early sun, when the hedge flowers were half open, as though colour had just been invented, was making a shy start. Once in a fine moorland mist, as though colour had been a mistake, and rubbed out, to start again, perhaps with metallics? Or tones of mud? Undecided. Uproarious.

Every moment is not meant to be neatly sketched. Details are best daubed. Grab any size of brush any way you please. Mix colour. Don’t mix. Express bold, hide in shade. Put your head in the pot, if you like.  All of the pictures ever created, stitched like patchwork, still make only one sliver of eternity. What of all this would ever matter? If everything is not simply transient but lost in vastness? What is it that you feel; closed eyes, open in mind, in soul?

How does one surprise oneself?  1) By an unknown process, otherwise is it really a surprise? If you are too much under control, you may have squished your soul. You may be living with an unhealthy level of fear, oppressed by expectations, social or personal. Seek help. Try dancing, even if it’s in a locked room with no audience, it’s a start. Some would advocate intoxication but be wary of replacing control with substance based escapism. It can go wrong. By wrong I mean leading to addiction, not waking up in a tree dressed as a pirate. The latter seems fine. 2) Try something new. Preferably something that crosses a boundary (whilst drawing a firm line at anything nonconsensual). Small things, like a different route home, like having a digestive instead of a tea biscuit; mid range things, like taking up kayaking; long range things, like going to live in a different country.  3) Try something you don’t think you can do. Set yourself a goal if you like. A half maratho

Sun.  A weight of it - of the specific measure, no one cares. Absorb like leaves, all opened up. Sun on me like the nectar-dusted legs of a bee. Laughing, just because - Flowers at work: we should be this: simply to exist is to fulfil. Ah, but the floors need sweeping, they are horrid. But we can push the windows wide, and if we feel nice - work is not work at all.

Questioneer is not a typo. It is an attempt to climb, to make the summit of How To Live. Every question should have an answer, in a balanced world, but every answer can create several questions. Avalanche!! It is not easy, except to be overwhelmed. One hold at a time, we get and keep our grip. (And if ever you need to practice, spend time with a three year old. They question everything except their own spontaneity.)

This morning, early, early-ish. Coffee bubbles. Eggs are poached in domes. Air is clear, cool to touch. Buttocks press on damp bench-plank. The view, half green, half blue. Out of this protein and caffeine draw some wakefulness. Protean: this is how the word wanders up in my mind. A mix of protein and caffeine? Versatile, changeable. Reluctant to be driving. Open window. Clock watch. On time, parking is easy. Feel competent, even, yes, sociable. In the big hall, one thousand white suits, one thousand voices, one thousand techniques: or thereabouts. It sounds like one thousand, it feels like one thousand. Every one happy, breaks sweat, body moving, brain connecting - this move goes here because - aha! How to smite your enemies! All the lovely relaxing loss of tension - I would describe as ebbs in swirls - how it leaves you as you should be, happy, glowing. And for the journey home, no satellite navigational advice. Follow a whim to Glastonbury instead, decide to vis

Lacking a geopolitical stronghold (unless the polytunnel counts) I am not a true oligarch. I dream of a stronghold, as any oligarchic candidate would - a vague yet vivid dream involving wide open space, water, natural materials, a sense of sparkle… I have four hired venues for my teaching, however, in which I strut up and down waving a stop watch, issuing orders, organising, delegating , reviewing, assessing, correcting, planning, answering questions, provoking thought, promoting harmony and progression on as many levels as possible. I suspect my pay is below oligarchic average; job satisfaction, above. 

Dog's first train ride... She gets the hang of it quickly- as long as she can sit in the middle of the walkway... The round house was much admired. This says 'tree also elephant baby with hands.' Seaweed hair extensions. Crutches on sand, this was amusing. Yesterday we wrote in the sand. There was not time for any other scribing. We found a square of part pebbled beach, where the waves curled around a tall harbour wall, curled around the river currents, clear and shining. Gulls sat, iconic and thievish, watching. Here we lingered over possibilities of real estate, digesting our fine lunch, working up appetites for ice cream.  Back from our day trip in time to fly to work, home again with time to watch a film before our eyes would not stay open. Yes and No both are empowering words: it is all in the context. Yesterday I chose: no other scribing.

[Centile: one of 99 actual or notional values of a variable dividing its distribution into 100 groups with equal frequencies; the 90th centile is the value of a variable such that 90% of the relevant population is below that value.] Magnificentile: a scale on which you measure the magnificence of your life. On which you choose what the centiles represent. Today I choose bluebells, eating outdoors, the noise of bees. Measuring a full quotient, as is usual. Dog agrees. She is no mathematician, merely a genius.

A sprouting, unnecessary yet exuberant, from the word ‘lovely,’ this expression conveys a deal done to the favour of the expresser, or some unearned luck. Not a phrase so often used these days; perhaps from the taint of 1980s greed; though it has a jolly twang, a satisfaction to it. Something of the child holds in the simplicity of it, and the element of gloating. So I use it to convey here an uncomplicated swell of pride. It is my wolfish appreciation at the shelves of seedlings in the polytunnel, at the fertile garden, of how this work reaps reward. It is the grin at a grandchild, engrossed, who in all the paradise of fauna has set herself up on the driveway to play with items retrieved from the recycling bag and pots of borrowed pond water. ‘Making soup dear? Lovely jubbly!’

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.