yellow.

One morning a little while ago, I was reading in the lounge – listening vaguely to the rhythm of rain pattering against the windows – when I happened to glance up and see an anoraked man walking past our house. His anorak was red, with a luminous yellow reflective hood. It would've been difficult to miss him.

As he ambled along the street, my eyes followed him lazily, and I found myself wondering what owning such a loud, retro-reflective jacket might say about him "as a person". Someone did say once that "the clothes make the man”.

The hood definitely shouted: 'this gentleman is safety conscious'! More concerned with not-being-knocked-down, than staying on trend. It also seemed to whisper: 'anxious'. Or maybe just: 'cautious'. There were even murmurs of: 'admirable' as, I guessed, there was something to be admired in a person who was so unashamedly yellow-hooded. It suggested a lack of concern for what others might think (i.e. ‘he looks a bit silly’) and a determination to get out and about, whatever the conditions outside.

One thought skipped along after another, and I began to wonder whether I should buy something reflective – a little armband, perhaps, or something to stick on my bag if I'm ever walking at night. 'I probably should,' I supposed. It would be sensible (even if I’m not exactly prone to nightly saunters. Muggers, murderers, moths etc: too many potential dangers lurking in the dark).

But, I continued to think (the highly-visible man now out of sight, my book, unread, in my lap), in spite of the fact that – yes – it would be sensible to buy a reflective something-or-other, it’s highly unlikely that I ever will. What with all the other things I need to do, need to spend my money on, it’s not really high on the priority list. 

So really, I realised, if I were to go out of my way to buy a – I don’t know – a glow-in-the-dark wrist band or something ...it would be strange, wouldn’t it? Even if it was prudent. It would say something. (‘Poor Melissa! Such a worrier. Loosen up a little, won't you?’)

Not that I particularly want to buy a reflective garment. But how strange, I thought (rain still falling, less vibrant anoraks now passing the window), how interesting to think: if I ever did decide to go out and buy a reflective-something-or-other, that decision might be interpreted as symptomatic of something deeper. Of what? A distrust of all seeming well, maybe. An overly keen awareness of life’s unpredictability. An inarticulated fear, perhaps, of the real world, of risk taking, of love...

♥

(P.S. I’m not trying to 'diagnose' all people who wear reflective clothes, by the way. I’m just remembering a thought that I followed... and wondering where the boundary lies between being cautious and afraid.)

(P.P.S. After musing on the Case of the Sensible albeit Somewhat Silly Looking Anoraked Man - and also knowing the difficulties of seeing dog walkers when I'm driving at night - I actually think Topshop et al. should start making coats with luminous yellow reflective belts or stripes or fun glow-in-the-dark shapes so that being safe wouldn't be such a big deal. It would actually be sort of cool. I might sell this idea to the high street... y'all heard it from me first.)

(P.P.P.S. The pictures are kind of unrelated to the words. Just a small collection of things that have made me pause recently and - click - need to take a picture of.)

doodles and deafness.

I thought I'd post my latest column for the Strathclyde Telegraph on here. The columns are all around the theme of 'something I've noticed' as well... so it ties in quite nicely with this blog!

I've mixed up the writing with pictures of tea from various cafes ...partly because the article is about a cafe (my work), but mainly because when I see huge blocks of text on a blog, it kind of puts me off. (Probably a shocking confession for someone who is studying literature - i.e. the study of very, very long texts - to make, but hey!). So don't be off-put, friend. Enjoy the pictures and happy reading to you!)

♥

Something I've Noticed: Brian was Here
(from the Strathclyde Telegraph. Issue 6. March 2012)

As I walked to their table, the old man was pulling a pen out of his shirt pocket.

‘Hi there,’ I said. They looked up from their menus. ‘Are you ready to order?’

It seemed like some sort of family event. One by one, they called out their orders – cheese toasties, minestrone soup, ginger beer. The old man at the end didn’t say a word. He had taken out a tiny black notebook and was now scribbling something in it.

I always feel an affinity with fellow notebook-keepers, and couldn’t help wishing I was closer so I could see what he was writing.

‘And a bowl of chips to share,’ said the lady in blue, ‘and I think that’s it.’

I collected together their menus but just before turning to leave, I noticed the old man had stopped scribbling. He was adjusting his glasses, and then he ripped the page from his notebook and slipped it under the sugar bowl.

My curiosity began to hum.

About two hours later, the family paid their bill and bustled out the door. As usual the table was strewn with napkins and dirty dishes but – yes! – there it was! That mysterious piece of paper! It was a little drawing: a long-nosed man peeking over a wall. Underneath were the words: Brian was here.

Customers often leave things behind: seashells, reading glasses, broaches, keys. Someone left a walking stick once; we kept it for weeks, but I don’t think anyone ever came back to claim it. All these forgotten objects – they whisper at stories.

What is the story behind this drawing?

I imagine that it starts with something quite banal, like the old man was just trying to pass the time. I don’t remember seeing him talking much. Maybe his hearing aid was playing up – it was picking up too much background noise and his ears were full of rattling cutlery, and the rumble of hundreds of voices speaking at once, and tinkling piano music, and teaspoons clinking against china. Maybe he had just switched it off, and sat quiet.

Maybe this doodling has become something of a regular occurrence for Brian, if that is his name; maybe it’s a way of coping with this new age of silence. He’s aware that he has become something of a nuisance at family gatherings. No one knows what to do with him. He can’t hear what they’re saying so they avoid sitting beside him because ‘it’s awkward’ – yes, he heard his granddaughter say that at Christmas. He pretended not to, but he heard it. Maybe this doodling is an attempt to reconnect with them again, to try and make them laugh.

Because he slipped it under the sugar bowl, and because he left it there, I almost think he put it there for us, the waitresses. I think he wanted us to find it.

Sometimes, on rainy, wistful days, I’ve wondered what it would be like for a customer to look back and see me clearing their table. They might glance through the window and catch me crumpling their empty sugar packets, catch me stacking their teacups, sweeping away their scone crumbs, wiping away their spilt coffee and sticky fingerprints, catch me wiping and wiping until every last trace of them is gone. I wonder if they would feel a slight tug of – not quite sadness, not as concrete as that – but a creeping impression that they had just witnessed themselves being rubbed out.

I wonder if Brian has felt like this. Maybe that is why he left the picture. He was leaving behind a piece of himself, a remnant. Of course there was the risk that it might get thrown away with the rest of the rubbish. But then, there was also the possibility, the hope, that someone might find it. Someone might find it, and then someone would know, he wanted someone to know: Brian was here.

♥

Le Morte d'Dignité

♥

Tonight I noticed... a very large and gigantic beetle in my bedroom! (How long's it been there for? And does it have cousins? And aren't all insects supposed to be taking a holiday from frightening people at this time of year?? For goodness sake!) As much as I hate to think of myself as a damsel in distress, bugs make chivalrous acts not only desirable but, indeed, necessary. I was rescued from the fearsome beast by two kind gentlemen (father and brother).

Thank-ye kindly, sirs. Now excuse me while I go and search for my fallen dignity under that pile of books.

(picture from: here.)

♥

[insert horse related pun]

I saw a lady passing our house this evening... on a horse. Not only was she on a horse, she was also on her mobile. Are you allowed to be on the phone while riding a horse? Or does that part of the Highway Code only apply to inanimate vehicles?

Odd. I guess we’ll neigh-ver know!

(Picture from: here.)

Thinking of moustaches...

I saw a moustachioed man at the train station on Tuesday. He looked rather like a walrus. He was fat, with braces to keep his trousers up. And it was a large moustache - a big, looping white one that covered half his face... but in such a way that it wasn’t a beard. Quite clever, really.

It must be very itchy to have so much hair on your face, though. And his wife must find him tickly to kiss. If he has a wife, that is. (One shouldn’t assume.) Maybe he can’t find one because of the hair-up-the-nose issue. Or maybe he chose to have the moustache instead of the wife. He might of. I can imagine it was an active decision that he made after his pie-loving sweetheart – Marion Appleberry – told him she would ‘only ever marry a clean-shaven man’.

He might have stood in front of the mirror the day after she said it – face covered in shaving foam, hand clutching his razor – wondering: did he love her enough?

‘Can I sacrifice this hairy beauty to marry Marion? Marion – my soul mate, my one true love, the apple(berry) of my eye? Will I shave it all off to be with her – that fine figure of a women who shares my passion for marmite on scones, and finds my interest in small-rodent taxidermy endearing? Will I? Will I?’

A dilemma to be sure.

‘Marion or moustache? Marion or moustache? Marion or ---’

 

He threw the razor to the floor. He splashed his cheeks with water.

‘Damn her facial-hair preferences!’ He (maybe) cried. ‘The moustache will always be first in my heart!’

Now he spends his days drifting around train stations, a living monument of how staying true to yourself, no matter what the cost, is possible!

 

(He’ll never admit it, but sometimes, when he is picking scone crumbs out his whiskers, he does feel a little lonely.)

♥

Pictures from: marc johns (again).

out and about.

On the bus the other day I found lots of (Disney Princesses) wrapping paper on the floor. There must have been an on-the-go birthday party earlier that morning. (In one way this is quite cute; in another way, this is technically littering. Come on, people. Bin your rubbish. Recycle it, even. ‘Save the trees, man.’)

I saw this abandoned bear at the bus station today. It looked so sad, with its little bow-tie. Who left him, and why?

My sister and I went out for lunch to the (amazing) Butterfly and the Pig this weekend and halfway through my cheese and tomato toastie I noticed that the stairs above us were decorated with hand and foot prints. My first thoughts were: ‘Cool.' And then: 'That guy must have really big hands. And big feet.’ And then: ‘How on earth did he get his feet up there?’ Did he bounce, head first, on a trampoline? Or did he stand on his head? If so, how tall is this person?? He must be fearsome to behold.

♥

Whoever said that there is no mystery left in the world obviously needs to clean their glasses. I'm off to read some more Romantic poetry (with a capital R) now.

Bibliothèque de l'Absurde.

This week I noticed someone walking around the university library in a banana costume. I wonder why...?

♥

I also spotted an army-man doll hanging from one of the library signs. Again, why? Who put it there? Why did they put it there? Why did they have a plastic army-man doll with them in the first place? (...Are they okay?)

Also (!) I keep on finding library books like this, covered from margin to margin in other people's scribbling and highlighting.

Very distracting. My eye is pulled towards the underlined sections, and then I end up scanning over the parts that have not been underlined because someone, somewhere, for some reason thought that these sections were less important. But hang on! Why should I trust these underlining menaces? Who are these people? They might be skinny tuxedoed men with crooked moustaches and phony French accents, who tip-toe around from library to library, underlining completely irrelevant sections of books out of sheer badness. Now that I'm on to them, I shall be influenced by their pencil marks no more!

(I also noticed this little star on the train. It is not related to libraries, although I probably had seven or eight books in my backpack, it just made me smile.)

...off to read some more of 'Tom Jones' now.

(p.s. I thought I should add that the title of this post is meant to be 'library of the absurd'. If my very poor French, and freetranslation.com, have led me into to saying something frightfully rude: apologies.)

an interesting sentence.

Picture from: here.

'If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. ‘Dark’ would be a word without meaning.’

~ C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity, 1952).

I read this on the way to buy Christmas presents last week. An interesting idea. I probably think along the same lines. It seems strange to think there is no meaning when humans are so preoccupied with finding meaning in everything they do. Health professionals, philosophers, psychologists, artists: they all recognise this. Human instincts seem to be there for a reason. Hunger signals that we need food. Loneliness reminds us that it is not good for us to be alone, that we are better, stronger, when we're together. Emptiness, the longing for something more, for answers... surely this desire, this niggling feeling that something is missing whispers that there is something more to be found... that life is a quest.