Dear December, nineteen to twenty-two: lumiere.

It's the winter solstice today, so: the shortest day and the longest night of the year. I'm sitting by the window just now and I can tell you: it's pretty dark out there. The solstice also signals that autumn is over and winter is here. It has officially arrived. If it’s anything like last year, I know it’s going to be cold. Cold, and dark, and rainy, and biting. I’ll need to stock up on hand-cream. I should really buy an anorak. The underbellies of my fingernails will no doubt soon be filled with frost from the windscreen, my fingers stinging from the spray of the can, the click and shake and the ice dissolving.

But even so, I can’t help letting out a small sigh at the thought of it: Thank God, that’s it. The worst of the darkness has been now (...right?) Light will be coming back. It might take a while, yes. The sun will continue to disappear mid-afternoon. My breath will turn to cloud on my walk into uni and there will be days where not even steam from the bath will be enough to melt the shiver in my bones. At times, the idea of ‘anything other than this’ will seem impossible. I know that. I know it. It's been like that all autumn. I’m bracing myself. 

But even if it comes slowly, inch by inch, it is coming. The darkness has been: the light is coming back. It will come back. (These are words to repeat on heavy days: It will come back. It will come back. It seems dark now, but light will come back.)

♥

Related to light: these (slightly fuzzy iPhone) pictures are from the Lumiere Festival in Durham back in November which I've been meaning to post for a while.  I was there for a weekend, giving my first ever (joint) conference paper (on 'fostering originality in student writing') at the National Association of Writers in Education conference ...and this quite, quite breathtaking festival of light happened to be taking place in the city at the same time. I’ve never seen anything like it before: both beautiful and eerie. Moving light installations all along the river, projections beamed onto the side of the cathedral and castle walls, double decker buses lit from the inside, street benches glowing. It felt like we’d stumbled into a city under enchantment.

Snatches from the weekend: walking round the streets and along the river in the dark - rain hammering down, seeping through my hat into my hair - but not feeling afraid. My heart in my throat. Moving images – stars, numbers, planets, stained glass figures – sliding up and down and along the sides of the cathedral. Standing on the grass, mud underfoot, eyes wide, and music surrounding us: so loud and drumming and achingly beautiful that I could feel it inside my veins. 

Sitting on a pew inside the cathedral for a few moments, arching my neck back, back, back to stare at the light lines moving, twitching, above our heads. Sitting quiet. Discordant choral music playing underneath the squeaking of boots and wet jeans slapping together as the crowd moved closer, forward, forward, towards the alter with gripped iPhone cameras. (‘How does it make you feel?’ Looking up at the light. Holding my breath, the lines shivering. Unsure how to put it into words. ‘Unsettled, I guess. Uneasy? There’s something kind of unsettling about the movement, isn't there?').

‘Do you want to light a candle?’ Thinking of Paris*, but unsure what to pray. Back outside and following signs for ‘fog this way’. Rain catching in the light, putting on a show itself. Twinkle lights strung up along the water's edge and then: the Fogscape. Fog pouring down the hill on the other side of the river, pushing through the trees, spilling onto the water, stretching closer and closer towards my shivering fingers like a spell had just been whispered. 

(*the conference and Lumiere took place over the weekend of the Paris attacks - and also the weekend my grandfather passed away - which made the rain feel more chilling, and the light seem more important.)  

♥

Song a day 

Saturday’s song: The Wisp Sings by Winter Aid. Sunday: Believe by Mumford and Sons (though I've actually been listening more to Only Love but can't find a good version online. Buy it). Monday: In Dreams by Ben Howard. Today: Allegri's Miserere (part of which was played during the festival.

p.s. // Technical question: I'm testing out changing the font on the blog. What do you think of this? I've been trying to figure out an alternative for 'Courier' for years... but all other fonts seem either too big or small for blogspot (and I can't figure out how to adjust size to anything between 'normal' and 'large' on here). Comments appreciated below or you can send me a note on my facebook page.

swooning.

The line ‘fill your paper with the breathings of your heart’ came into my head this afternoon... and I’ve been unable to get it out.

(Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.

With the breathings of your heart.

Fill your paper) 

I read a while ago that those words belong to Wordworth, but I was reluctant to look them up. I was nervous I'd find out that he said them in the midst of something ugly. Or that the words aren’t his at all... they belong to someone sort've boring called Fred*.

(With the breathings of your heart. Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.)

My own words have been coming out quite clunkily today. Too many lists. Too much ‘telling’. Not enough poetry. Too many hyphens, and commas (and parenthesis) and falterings. So eventually I threw down my pen (metaphorically – I’ve been writing on a keyboard) and decided to type the line into Google. "To seek out the source." Why not?

Anyway - that's all a very long explanation to account for why I’m posting the following love letter snippet on here. It made my heart stop for a second. That’s all. The line ('fill your paper...') comes from this closing paragraph in (yes) a letter Wordsworth wrote to his wife, Mary. Here it is:  

‘I have infinite pleasure in the thought of seeing thee again in Wales; and travelling with thee. – I long for the day. Love me and think of me & wish for me, and be assured that I am repaying thee in the same coin [...] Write to me frequently & the longest Letters possible; never mind whether you have facts or no to communicate; fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. Most tenderly your friend & Husband W.W.’

Goodness!

I’m glad I looked. (‘Write to me frequently & the longest Letters possible...)

Beautiful.

♥

(Note: *No offense to Fred, whoever he is. I suppose writing that lovely line would show he has a beautiful soul. And his anonymity doesn’t make his poetry any less valuable than W.W’s. (Yeahyeah. I know.) But I wanted Wordsworth to’ve said this. He wrote so many other great lines – ‘Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting’, pretty much every line in ‘The world is too much with us’ – and I just wanted these words to be his also.)

(Pictures: the first is Glasgow and the rest are from around my friend Christi's beautiful light-filled house.)

there's a certain slant of light.

After dinner tonight, the evening air was so still and the dipping light so inviting that we (me, my brother, my dad) decided to go for a small walk around Skelmorlie. It's a quiet little village, full of hills and cherry blossom trees and old crumbly houses made of red stone. 

When we came to the top of the hill we stopped walking and just stood, taking it all in: the birds singing, the sound of someone practising piano in a nearby house, the pink and orange light glowing behind the mountains, a tabby cat sauntering across the road, the midges gathering in little swarms (not so nice, alas), the deep green of the grass. Beautiful.

The light this evening made me think of the Emily Dickinson poem that begins: 'There's a certain slant of light-' ('When it comes, the landscape listens,' she writes. 'Shadows hold their breath...'). Only, the light she is writing about is one of 'winter afternoons'.  

That sort of golden light that's almost intensely beautiful, but tinged with sadness ('[it] oppresses, like the weight/Of cathedral tunes') because it is always followed by darkness. The Spring light tonight did quite the opposite: it sent me home glowing, the weight of worry that I'd been dragging about all day dissolving, disappearing, until it felt like I was floating up the path, tiny wings beating softly inside my chest. Hope.

come away to a quiet place

This weekend, I took the train to Perth for a silent retreat at St Mary’s Monastery, Kinnoull. 

It was a trip with two intentions: One.) to take focussed time out of my regular routine to be still, reflect, re-centre; and two.) to pay close attention to the sounds, textures, light quality, atmosphere etc of living in the house itself (...research for the novel. The monastery is an example of neo-gothic architecture and shares aspects with the house in my story).

Sitting on the train up – suitcase on the seat beside me, my journal open on my lap – I felt slightly apprehensive. Travelling alone is always – I hesitate to say ‘nerve-wracking’. That’s too strong. But there’s something different about going places alone. There’s no one to hide behind or lean into. 

You have to pay attention in a different way than you would if you were with other people. You have to stay alert – stand boldly and speak up. I also wasn’t at all sure what to expect. What was I going to do when I got there? What would I say? Would I have to explain myself? What if I went that shy way I go when I’m nervous? Why exactly had I decided to come again? (etc, etc.)

My worries, though, were unfounded. Such a restorative ‘enriching’ weekend (which went far beyond simply being ‘useful’ for gathering authentic story details). It was beautiful. Quiet. Peaceful.

Birdsong filtering through the wind as I wrote by the window in my little room. The sound of footsteps scuffing on the stone stairs. The warm smell of varnish as my fingers slid down, down, across the wooden banisters. Light silhouettes from arched patchwork-glass windows falling across the carpet in the oratory – appearing and disappearing, appearing and disappearing – as the priest read aloud psalms in the morning in his deep voice.

The smell of roast chicken filling the whole house before lunch. Eating in silence and tasting, really tasting, each burst of flavour. Whispered ‘thank-you’s in the kitchen. Plates clinking in the sink. Walking in the gardens, sticks and pinecones cracking underfoot, apple blossom branches dipping and bouncing in the wind. My fringe blowing across my face. Closing my eyes: the feel of air rushing against my skin, the force of the wind almost knocking me back, back. 

Back inside – the sound of someone whistling in the hallway. Golden light causing the trees below to glow. Sweeping crumbs from homemade scones into my hand. Daylight fading as we – me and nine other women – sat together in silence. Latin words sung without music. The window in my bedroom rattling, shaking, at night. Waking, after a deep sleep, to the sound of birdsong. Again. Their song coming gently through the wind.

Ah, it was beautiful. And interesting how refreshing just being quiet was. Being quiet, and listening. Not checking my phone every three minutes – not trying to think up chitchat while eating dinner – not playing music full volume while I got dressed. Just being – paying attention and finding space to think and let words from the day properly soak in. I want to leave more space for silence now that I’m back home. The world is noisy, but there are moments of quiet. I just need to listen out for them.

(Pictures taken on my iPhone throughout the weekend. My phone is the main reason I am unable to be still and rest most of the time. It beeps and purrs and flashes and whistles and I have very little self control when it comes to leaving it alone. It is a great Time Waster. But I am grateful for the camera. It helps me see ordinary details as artworks.)

starry starry night.

This is one of my favourite things about Christmas: the star blanket over Royal Exchange Square, Glasgow.

(Nevertheless I'm in denial about it being mid-December. I should really start getting gifts soon...) 

Morning Fog

I found this today (by Brittney Lee, an artist for Disney) and loved it. Enjoy! (Her blog is: here). 

♥

I really am jealous of other people's talent sometimes...

watching Ivy read

I recently came across a description at the start of one of Carol Shields’ short stories. It made me pause, and remember why I love her writing. (A bit of context: in the story, the narrator and his wife, Ivy, are flying over the Rocky mountains. She is reading a paperback, and he is wondering wondering whether he should interrupt her, to show her the view out the window...)

‘In a purely selfish sense, watching Ivy read is as interesting as peering down at those snowy mountains. She turns the pages of a book in the same way she handles every object, with a peculiar respectful gentleness, as though the air around it were more tender than ordinary air. I’ve watched her lift a cup of tea with this same abstracted grace, cradling a thick mug in a way that transforms it into something precious and fragile. It’s a gift some people have.'

~ From ‘Fragility’ by Carol Shields, in Collected Stories (2004). 

Read some of her stories, if you haven't already. I am continually surprised by them. In the best sort of way.

♥

(This picture was taken a few weeks ago in Inverness, in a quirky coffee-shop/bicycle workshop called Velocity. I was 'up north' visiting my friend, travelling about on trains, note-taking for story-research purposes - and I stopped in here a few times for coffee and space to write).

spring in the city.

I went for a walk around the west end of Glasgow yesterday and had to keep stopping to take pictures (on my phone, would you believe. The iPhone does have a terrific camera). I wandered. I went to Charlie Rocks for breakfast. I read my book*. I wrote a little bit. I looked round the Oxfam bookshop, and bought some old postcards. Lovely.

(*I aspire to be the sort of person that can casually, comfortably read novels in coffee shops. At the moment, it takes me at least a quarter of an hour to stop being self-conscious. There are all sorts of questions that need to be answered... like how to hold the book. Do I rest it on the table? Put it on my lap? Hold it in front of me with one hand, and hold the tea cup in the other? Prop it up against the sugar bowl? I don't know. Small questions. Real worries. I'm eternally awkward.)

♥

I'm away to America on Monday with my sister (I'm so very excited! I have lots of notebooks to jot down interesting things. I'm especially excited about people-watching in the airport, watching a film on the plane, and chatting to the nice family we're going to visit). I'll post some other-side-of-the-ocean noticings once I get back.

a veil of quietness

I thought I’d post up a recent article I wrote about the novel Unless by Carol Shields (probably the author that has had the most influence on my development as a writer over the past few years. My mum found her, quite serendipitously in our local library about eight years ago; often the best things are stumbled upon by accident). 

The article came as part of a series in the arts section of the paper, where different writers wrote about their ‘essential read’ each issue. It’s not so much a review, as a reflection... so have a read, if y'like.

♥ 

Essential Book: Unless by Carol Shields

(From the Strathclyde Telegraph. Edition 6. May 2013)

When I first read Unless – the little-known, but quietly powerful last novel of Canadian author, Carol Shields – I was sixteen and realised, almost straight away, that this wasn’t like most other books I’d come across. It wasn’t just ‘a good story’ or ‘an interesting idea’. It wasn’t simply escapism, or a nice alternative to television-watching. This wasn’t going to be the sort of book that would slip in and out of my life, hardly leaving a trace. No. Before I was even halfway through, I knew that this was one of those rare novels that (to borrow a phrase from Pablo Neruda) would somehow, softly, ‘befriend my existence’.

Unless tells the story of Reta Winters – writer, mother, translator, wife – who finds the rhythm of her life disrupted when her nineteen year-old daughter, Norah, drops out of university without warning, choosing instead to sit cross legged on a street corner wearing a sign that reads: ‘goodness’. Norah’s withdrawal from normal life distresses and perplexes Reta, and the narrative follows her attempts to come to terms with the new shape her life has taken, and her struggles over how to live now.

Muted, reflective, and often lyrical, the novel engages with a number of powerful ideas; the notion of ‘goodness’, for example, comes up repeatedly. ‘I don’t know what that word really means,’ Reta writes in the first chapter, and finding out becomes a preoccupation for her, leading her to question how ‘goodness’ compares to the notion of ‘greatness’, an ideal more commonly sought after in society. As well as an exploration of this word, the novel also meditates on themes such as the life of a writer, the loss of innocence, and women’s place in society, a society which seems determined to treat them as if they are invisible.

While the themes in the novel may sound heavy, the book is never pretentious or ‘preachy’. Instead, Shield’s deceptively light, and often very funny, prose is honest, at times even wise. What I love about Shields’ writing is the subtle way it affirms, without sentimentality, the value of ‘ordinary’ experience. So much of her writing – both here and elsewhere in her fiction – is about ordinary people doing ‘ordinary’ things: going to the library, buying a scarf, taking the train, going out for dinner. All seemingly small activities, and not very ‘literary’ perhaps, but Shields’ treats these subjects with an element of quiet dignity. It is through her focus on ‘the everyday’ that she reveals what is important in her characters’ lives, and here that she touches on truths about what it means to be human.

While Reta openly admits that she is ‘going through a period of great unhappiness and loss’, her voice never rises to the pitch of gushy self-pity, nor drops into cold cynicism. Instead, her tone throughout is muted, hushed, honest, even hopeful. The novel seems to acknowledge the idea that unhappiness is not a ‘thing’ set apart from everyday life; instead, it is something which happens in the midst of it and Reta’s reflections on this, and her continued engagement with the ordinary details of her life that make her such an engaging and authentic character, one with streak of gentle courage.

One word, one thought, I keep coming back to when trying to capture the essence of Unless is: ‘quietness’. It is a quiet novel, one that causes a veil of quietness to fall over you while you are reading. The title itself – ‘unless’ – seems to whisper, to hold its breath. ‘It flies like a moth around the ear,’ Reta writes, reflecting on the word, ‘you hardly hear it, and yet everything depends on its breathy presence’. I have read Unless numerous times now, and each time I come away feeling a sense of renewal. Unlike other novels where, after putting them down, I find myself wishing I was living a different life – one that was a little bit more thrilling, a little bit more wild or romantic – after reading this book, I find myself more attentive, more thoughtful, more curious about the life I am already living. It is a beautiful book, one that deeply resonates; if that isn’t the definition of an essential read then I don’t know what is. 

♥

(Pictures: various snapshots from around my bedroom recently)