words fail me.

Over the past few days in work I’ve noticed: a lady with a necklace made out of toy cars (like this one... quite unusual), a baby with yellow and black stripy socks on (like bumblebees), and rain-soaked mothers and primary school children pouring into the cafe for ice-cream (yesterday was the last day of school, i.e. the official beginning of the summer holidays). 

 

I also was reminded of how important and useful it is to try and think about what you’re going to say before you speak (unlike earlier on today, when I had a slightly awkward mind-blank moment:

 

INT. Cafe kitchen – afternoon

Very noisy (plates clattering, fish fryers bubbling, chefs shouting). Gruff looking MAN enters wearing a black t-shirt and a tool-belt. MAN approaches ME.

    MAN: I’m here to fix the cold room.

    ME: (pause) What was that, sorry?

    MAN: The cold room. I’m here to fix the cold room.

    ME: (slightly confused) The cold room?

    MAN: (slightly irritated) Aye. The cold room.

    ME: Oh! (walking to the walk-in fridge and opening the door) Do you mean the fridge?

MAN looks at me blankly.



    ME: (turning to the walk-in freezer and opening that door... it’s cold. It could technically be called a ‘room’.) Or the freezer?

    MAN: (narrowing his eyes) I was called about the cold room. I’m here to fix it.

    ME: (pause) I’ll go get my manager.

INT. Cafe floor

A minute later. Very noisy (babies crying, saxophonist playing, coffee grinder ...grinding)

    ME: (standing on my tiptoes, because I’m short and my voice doesn’t carry very far) There’s a man here --- something about ‘the cold room’ --- he’s in the kitchen --- he wants to see you.

    MANAGER: (can't hear because of the noise) What’s that?

    ME: (louder) A man --- in the kitchen --- to see you---?

    MANAGER: What sort of man?

    ME: (walking and talking over my shoulder) He’s a --- um, a man with tools (walking towards the kitchen) --- he’s a --- he’s a fixer.

    MANAGER: (following me through doors to kitchen) a fixer?

INT. Kitchen

    ME: Yes. Um --- he’s --- a fixer --- a fixer of freezers --- or fridges --- a fixer.

    MANAGER: (not understanding) A ‘fixer’?

    ME: (getting a bit flustered because I've forgotten the word) A --- he’s a freezer fixer or something ---you know? He’s here to fix the cold room --- he’s a fixer... person.

    MANAGR: What ---?

    ME: A fixer --- he’s a ---

We arrive back where MAN is standing.

    ME: (relief) Oh! He’s over there.

I leave them to it and hurry away to avoid further word-fails.)

♥

The word I was looking for (which I didn’t come across until about half an hour later, and only with the help of another waitress) was handyman. Handyman! Not ‘fixer’ (!) Ah dear...

(Pictures from: Yelena Bryksenkova. Beautiful pictures... which are, again, unrelated to the actaul content of the post!)

gifted.

Hello! The next few weeks I'm going to be studying for my 20th Century Literature exam, but I will endeavour to keep updating on here! So... I thought I'd put up another one of my columns from the Strathclyde Telegraph.  

  

Something I've Noticed: What's in a Name? 
(from the Strathclyde Telegraph. Issue 2. November 2011)

   There's a queue of about twenty people snaking around the shop. They are all waiting for the self-service checkouts. ‘Insert cash or press: Pay with Card.’ ‘Unexpected item in bagging area.’ ‘Notes are dispensed below the scanner.’ A chorus of the same voice grows louder the closer I get to the machines. I abandon this queue and opt for the real-person checkout.

    ‘Do y’need a hand to pack?’ the assistant asks. I shake my head and she scans the items. While I’m rummaging for my purse, she continues her conversation with the assistant at the next till.

    'Oh I know how you feel, Happiness,’ she is saying. ‘Tell me about it.’

    I look over at the other lady. She has tired brown eyes and lets out a long weary-filled sigh. I glance at her nametag and (yes, I heard that right) her name is Happiness. It’s almost ironic as, today at least, she looks positively UN-happy.

    'We’re just too tired, love,’ my assistant tells me, handing over my change. ‘Been working too hard.’ Happiness nods. ‘Receipt okay in the bag?’

    On the bus home, I find that ‘Happiness’ is still floating around my head. It’s an unusual name, but a lovely one. No hidden meanings, it gets straight to the point. It’s almost fairytale-like, like a wish her parents whispered over her when she was sleeping: ‘May happiness follow you all the days of your life.’ I wonder, though, if she finds her name difficult to live up to. I’m sure that she, like everyone else, has bad days – days where she wishes she hadn’t got out of bed, or when people have said words that cast clouds over her eyes; days when the idea of ‘happiness’ couldn’t seem further away. And yet, there it is: it’s her name and a part of who she is.

    The bus rumbles along the motorway. My ears pop as someone shuts a window. I’m remembering one night when I helped to choose a name. My mum was pregnant with my little brother, and my sister and I were sitting with her on the sofa, feet dangling off the end.

   'Luke.' 'Christopher.' 'Ben.'

   We spoke out all the names we liked best. We were trying to imagine a little boy in our house called one of them.

   'Lewis.' 'Matthew.' 'Tom.'

   I wanted to call him Mowgli, mostly because I was just three-and-a-half and I thought it would be hilarious. It wasn’t until he was born, though, that my mum knew his real name. She looked at him and she knew he wasn’t a Michael or a Winnie the Pooh (another of my suggestions). He was Evan. Nothing else would fit.

 

    Beneath the hum of the engine, I catch muffled sounds: a murmur of conversation, the rustle as someone opens a crisp packet. I’m trying to imagine a world without names. It is a cold world: impersonal. I wonder if when people stop thinking about each other in terms of their names, they stop thinking about them as individuals. I read a story once where this happened. It was written by lady who lived through a World War II concentration camp. She described how the camp’s prisoners were stripped bare – stripped not only of their hair and clothes, but also of their names. Names were replaced with numbers, and in the process identities were lost.

    As the bus slows down at my stop, I hop off and start walking towards home. I’m remembering how Madeleine L’Engle, one of my favourite writers, thought that ‘Naming’ was an act connected to loving. Giving someone, or something, a name shows that you think they’re worth something – worth your notice, worth your time, worth your love.

    Our names, I think, are more than simply a collection of symbols and sounds. They have meaning. They are chosen. They are gifts.

 ♥

(Pictures are from various summer birthdays in my family.)

these made me laugh.

♥

(...not a hysterical, nose-snorting, knee-slapping, can't-actually-breathe sort of laugh. Just a satisfying but small, smiling 'hmmf' to myself, if you know what I mean.)

(Pictures from: here.)

...more writing will come soon. At the moment though, I am researching paint (for a short story). I love the names of some paints: muddy puddle, sorbet, soft gooseberry, mint whisper, natural calico. They are delicious words to say.

Happy New Year!

I spent the first few hours of 2011 at work, serving drinks, cleaning wine glasses, sweeping up confetti. Just before the stroke of midnight though, everyone who was working was given a small glass of champagne. All the customers gathered by the stage in bow ties and sparkly purple dresses, and all the workers huddled together a little way off.

'Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven! Six! Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Happy New Year!!'

And for a few minutes we were allowed to drop our roles – waitress, bar staff, chef, dish washer – and just be people, toasting in the New Year. A few moments of excitement, hugging people you wouldn't normally, asking about ambitions...and then back to work.

...that is the thing about being a waitress, it is a role. Once I put the uniform on, once I button up the shirt and tie a bow at the back of the apron, I become: The Waitress. Which is fine, but sometimes (during the summer especially, when I’m working for months at a time) it feel quite anonymous, like my 'self' gets lost inside crumpled napkins and dirty dishes... 

There was one day, two summers ago, when the cafe was mobbed – clinking tea cups, piano music, talking, talking, a small child whining, laughing, cutlery rattling – and I had been running about all day bringing ice-cream sundaes and coffees to customers, when I came to a table I’d served earlier. Table 39: a lady, and a man with blue eyes, and their little boy, and his granny who was wearing a bright pink t-shirt. And the man said,

‘I hope they pay you well, because you work very hard.’

And then the granny asked,

‘What’s your name, love?’

‘Melissa.’

And soon I was back to whizzing about with more trays of drinks, but that was lovely. Kindness is beautiful, even if it comes in the form of a few words and a naming.

‘Melissa. My name is Melissa.’

Yes! I am not a uniform. I am a literature student. I had tuggy hair when I was a little girl. I am in love with the idea of love, but frightened of the reality of it. I am an aspiring ‘doer of good’. I am a person.

I try hard to see the customers as people, and not just table numbers. They are living stories, characters with quirks and ambitions. I like it when they remember, and remind me, that I am story too. Just now is only a chapter.

(pictures from Matte Stephens. The last one isn't related, I just thought it was funny...)