an ordinary mystery.

So I want to write about my pumpkin-spice-infused visit to the States last month (I don't think I've fully adjusted to being back in rainy Glasgow yet. Such a good trip and such lovely friends). Before that though... I wanted to write a small something about the literary magazine I’m involved in setting up at university.

It’s called Quotidian (meaning ‘ordinary’ or ‘everyday’), and will be launching online in Jan/Feb 2015 with poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction and beautiful images from students across Scotland. (Cue part where I look directly into the camera and say in a velvet voice: ‘If you’re a student studying in Scotland and are interested in writing then check out our website at double-you-double-you-double-you-dot…’ Ho ho. Just kidding*). Anyway! Just to say: keep an eye out for the magazine. I hope you'll like it. And here's a fun thing that happened relating to it:

On a drizzly Wednesday afternoon earlier this week, we (the 'Quotidian team') took a group of students (willing volunteers) on a ‘mystery field trip’ to help them gather some writing-inspiration. It was a ‘mystery’ in so far as we didn’t tell them where we were going until we’d stepped off the bus, got our feet wet walking through puddle-filled car-parks, and crossed a busy road or two till we found ourselves staring at...

IKEA!** Land of the Everyday. (The obvious location for a writing workshop, right?)

The idea of the day was to try and encourage everyone to look at ordinary things with fresh eyes. To slow down and notice – really notice – the things that most of us, most of the time, don’t really pay attention to. As one writer's put it: 'it's not so much interesting things but unique ways of seeing ordinary things that makes the most original and satisfying fiction' (words: Lesley Glaister). Hear hear. (Although I think her words apply to all writing, not just fiction).

We sat in fake kitchens, we noticed clocks and lace curtains and identical bookshelves. We watched people testing out mattresses, we got lost when we strayed from the arrows. (We did not eat meatballs.) We looked closely, listened deeply, tried to see the 'familiar things' all around as unfamiliar, as new and unusual. And some pretty good writing ideas were born (we sat round a fake fireplace when we all came back together again and chatted about what we’d noticed.)

A jolly fun day. Here are three things I spotted:

[one.] Mirrors. Lots of them. I kept catching myself just walking ‘out of frame’, like my reflection was made of the same stuff as Pan’s shadow. Like it didn’t quite belong to me. Like it wanted me to chase it.

[two.] A red-jumpered three-year-old sitting in a shopping trolley being fed chocolate by a (seemingly body-less) arm as though he was a little monkey in a cage.

[three.] These Characters from Red Riding Hood toys (above) with tiny eat-able grannys. Slightly disturbing I think. (But if you buy them, one euro goes to UNICEF apparently. Good to know that even if your child is traumatised, at least someone else’s is benefiting).

Stay tuned!

Notes:

*(Seriously though: if you are a student studying in Scotland interested in writing for us then you can find out more: here. Or @quotidianmag on twitter.)  

**Is it IKEA or Ikea? I always want to capitalise it… but I’m not sure if that gives the impression I’m shouting. (“IKEAAAAAA!!”)

think it's time to look out my woolly hat.

  

Yesterday was the autumnal equinox (according to the Darth Vader and Son calendar in our kitchen anyway). This makes me happy for two reasons. One: the word equinox is a crispy sort of word to say (it causes a similar sensation in the mouth to taking a bite out of a really delicious biscuit). Plus I like how it isn’t discriminatory against difficult letters (‘C’mon over Q and X. We want you guys at our party’ ‘...only if U can come too’). Two: I’m taking an exciting trip at the end of October, and the turning leaves signal it’s getting pretty close.

(Pictures: the arrival of autumn, as seen through my iPhone lens - a handful of leaves my Mum brought home after a walk, some leaf-kicking on the way to the train, a sky full of leaves, the view from my window on the early train into Glasgow this morning, Paisley Gilmore Street station glowing in the sun. Okay... time to do some writing now.)

♥

noticing light

Light and shadows. They make me catch my breath.

Our kitchen table in spring .. the dipping light of June as seen through a pine cone .. Paisley Gilmore Street Station .. the Royal College Building at Strathclyde .. a line of light at Wemyss Bay station .. Sonny and Vito's in Glasgow (lemon polenta cake, decaf latte, pink lemonade) .. my brother's room .. my room pre-tidy .. waiting for the bus. All snapped on my iPhone, first posted on my instagram feed (@teaandascone).

passing shadows

As university draws to a close - how strange to write that - deadlines have stepped up a notch. 

So, in the interim period... I thought I’d pop another one of last year’s columns for the Strathclyde Telegraph on here (p.s. This was the very first one I wrote):

♥

Something I’ve Noticed: Peripheral People
(From the Strathclyde Telegraph. Issue 1. October 2011)

I try to live with my eyes wide open – partly because walking about with closed eyes is kind of dangerous, but also I don’t want to miss anything. I am a third year English and Creative Writing student, and I’m looking forward to writing for you over the coming months. What can you expect from this column? A collection of ‘noticings’: anything from overheard conversations, to observations from the bizarre world of public transport. Hello, friend, and happy reading!

I thought I’d start by telling you about the man who walks past my house every day. He is stout with a rather gruff expression, but what’s particularly fascinating about him is his hair: it is striped. A white stripe runs from the back of his head down into his moustache, almost as though someone painted it there. My sister spotted this soon after we moved. ‘It makes him look a bit like a skunk, doesn’t it?’ We all peeked out the window, and - ‘Yes!’ - it really did! Since then, we have always (rather fondly) referred to him as ‘The Skunk’.

I walked past him recently. He was on his phone, and didn’t look up. As I was walking, it suddenly struck me how odd it was. I have seen The Skunk nearly every day for the past thirteen years – I have had conversations about him, I have worried that he’s ill when no one’s seen him for a few days – and yet he probably doesn’t even know I exist. It’s almost surreal to think how he has been going about his life for years, not realising that he has somehow become a part of mine.

It made me wonder how many people’s stories we all stumble into, unaware. Do people on my street notice me running like a maniac – buttons bursting open, scarf unravelling – to catch the bus? They must: I do it often enough. Maybe I have become part of their daily routine. (‘What’s the time, Marge?’ ‘It must be nearly half nine, Phil. That strange girl just ran past.’)

It’s easy, especially in the city, to feel like we’re invisible – to feel insignificant in the midst of a crowd. It can be frightening – mixed in among a-hundred other faces on a train – to feel like we have lost ourselves, like we have become nothing more than passing shadows.

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot, though, about all the people who have quietly affected me. I don’t mean friends, or even acquaintances. I mean the peripheral people – people like The Skunk, or the couple in my work who always order white coffees, or the lady I saw once lifting her little boy up to the post-box so he could pop the letters in. 

I’m thinking about people like the boy with the blue t-shirt last week who played the harmonica while crossing the road; he  left music trailing behind him as he went. I'm thinking abut people like the old man on my bus a few months ago who I overhead talking to the lady beside him. He was telling her about his wife – about how she ‘made a great Shepherd’s Pie’, and how she was from the Highlands, and how she was a ‘good lass’ – and he was laughing. And then, his face suddenly fell and he became very quiet. And he whispered in a hoarse voice: ‘I’ve lost her now – I’ve lost her.’ And even though he wasn’t even talking to me, I found myself crying into my scarf.

All these people – they make up the story that is my life. They may not be major characters – I might not know their names, or even remember their faces – but something about them, the essence of them, has stuck with me. Maybe my life wouldn’t be dramatically different without them. But it wouldn’t be the same.

Our lives are constantly overlapping. We might not realise the effect we’re having on other people, but we do have an effect. We don’t pass though life unnoticed; we are connected. 

♥

(Pictures from: Will Freeborn - a Scottish artist. Quite a lot of these pictures are from familiar places)

noticings through instagram.

In the midst of all the busyness, I've been trying to capture life through snapshots. I'm saving up for a DSLR camera at the moment (they are bloomin' expensive), but there's really something to be said for a good camera on your phone. So much easier to carry about, and much more subtle. Here are few things I've been noticing recently:

 

[one.] autumn is here.

[two.] sunlight and sea through my train window. I do like to live beside the seaside.

 

 

[three.] the first train ticket of the semester (this is my last year as an undergraduate ...which is kind of terrifying. Fourth year, so far, has been a return to form though. Looking forward to the rest of the year!)

 

[four.] editing the Strathclyde Telegraph is well under way. The Fresher's edition has already been published, Issue One is out this week, and I'm writing, gathering and editing Issue Two at the moment!

 

[five.] After about six years in one of the smallest rooms in the house, I've moved (into my sister's old room). Much warmer, brighter, and bigger.

 

 

[six.] me at the Theatre Royal reviewing a Scottish Ballet performance for the paper.

 

[seven, eight, and nine.] Trying to notice beauty in the autumn weather. A rainbow at the station...

 

...blue sky in a puddle...

 

...mist on my train journey.

 

 

(Also... I realised that I forgot to mention earlier on here that the literary magazine, Octavius, that included my short story has now been published. It has been since August, in fact!

 

Quite exciting to see my own words in print!)

 

♥

 

the things they leave behind.

I thought I'd post another one of my columns for the Strathclyde Telegraph. This is one of the last ones I wrote for the paper before the summer... but, for a number of reasons, the paper-version of this issue never actually ended up going to print (which was a pity, because I was quite pleased with it). So here it is: a kind of exclusive! (*wink*)

Something I've Noticed: discarded.

(from the Strathclyde Telegraph. Issue 7. April 2012.) 

It started with a handkerchief.

I was waiting at the bus stop when I spotted it by my feet: a crumpled, green, tartan handkerchief. 'What can it be doing there?' I wondered.

‘The erstwhile-owner of this handkerchief,’ I decided, after a bit of thought, ‘was most likely a tweed-clad gentleman with a slight curvature of the spine. He had probably been the victim of a violent sneeze, a sneeze which exploded from his nostrils with such force that this, his favourite handkerchief, was blown from his fingers straight into a puddle. Because his bus must have arrived at just that moment, the tweedy gentleman was, no doubt, forced to abandon the hankie in favour of alighting as, in all likelihood, he had an important appointment with his lady-friend to keep.’

Satisfied with this reasonable explanation, I put all thoughts of stray handkerchiefs out of my mind for the day. But ho! Little did I know this was only the beginning...

Throughout the following weeks I stumbled upon other stray items scattered about the streets: a purple glove perched on a fence, a woolly scarf draped over a wall, a body warmer lying among fallen leaves. I found a pair of chunky black boots just sitting in the middle of the pavement, and a mangled umbrella stuffed inside a bush; I found two full bags of groceries from Morrisons, forsaken, in a ditch.  

'How curious,' I thought. 'Perhaps the people in my village are just particularly forgetful.' Leaving your shoes behind is an easy mistake to make, I suppose. Just imagine that you were walking home one day and felt your toes wiggling against two stones. It would be quite understandable if, after unfastening your laces and shaking the stones out, you were to resume your walk without remembering to put the shoes back on. Perfectly understandable. I’ve even done it myself a few times.

After a few train journeys to and from Glasgow, however, it became increasingly apparent that this ‘discarding of random objects’ is not something specific to where I live. Quite the contrary. As my train hurtled past woods overrun with neglected buggies, kitchen sinks and perfectly intact-looking leather sofas, I began to suspect that something other than mere forgetfulness lurked behind these cast-offs. My suspicions were confirmed when, just last week, I looked out the window and there, smashed to pieces at the bottom of a gully, was (I kid you not) an enormous grand piano!

People of Strathclyde, I believe there is a gap in the collective knowledge of this country. Good citizens up and down the land are forced into lives of littering because they are helplessly unaware of the other options available. But fear not, dear friends! Be in the dark no longer! I have taken it upon myself to show you the light!

To those of you inclined towards abandoning groceries: I know that putting the shopping away can be a bit of a grind – all those tins! All that cheese you’ll have to rearrange in the fridge! But! I have a solution: if you’re not going to take your food home with you, why not give it to a friend? (Or why not save yourself some money and, y'know, don’t buy it at all?)

To shedders of random garments: isn’t the charity shop a more suitable place for unloading your old clothes? How about a car-boot sale? Have you ever heard of eBay?

 

And to those of you who are tired of grand pianos cluttering up your living rooms: hold off from those destructive we’ll-lug-it-up-a-hill-then-chuck-it-over-the-edge type plans that you are currently formulating. Hear me out! Would it not be better, would it not be kinder, to sell the piano (or even gift it) to an aspiring young musician? Think of the talent you might help to unlock. (Think of the pain you will spare your back!)

Don’t throw away your undesirables like used banana skins (which, by the way, should go in a bin). It might start today with discarding a handkerchief, but what will it be tomorrow...? Beware the slippery slope!

♥

(Pictures taken over the past few years: a glove in Glasgow, the handkerchief itself, a baby's hat on a bench, a scarf on a wall, some socks at the bus-stop, a bear by a bin, an origami bird on a train, a seat on the street, a couch by the road. I haven't managed to get a picture of the piano yet, because the train is too fast. But it's still there, as far as I'm aware. I'll keep trying.)