september.

July began with the hottest day of the year, full of light and promise, a moth’s wing*. It ended with what was probably one of the rainiest days, if not of the year, then at least of the summer so far (the holes in the road outside our house overflowed, the gutter outside my window spluttered and woke me up). After posting on here mostly every day that month, I didn’t seem to get round to posting a 'goodbye to July' (which is a pest, because I was super-pleased with myself for being so consistent. Ah well).

This is a bit of a pattern I'm noticing in myself. I’ve been keeping journals since I was about thirteen but I still freeze when it gets to the last page. Like a sort of writing-related stage fright. Sometimes I leave that page blank for weeks, avoiding it (only half-consciously)... which means all the everyday words and ideas and thoughts and happenings that I could write about are not noted down – they fall out my head and get lost – because, irrational as it might be (no one will be reading those journals besides me), I have this feeling that I need to say something quite remarkable and profound on the last page before I can close the book and start a new one...

Here’s a nugget of wisdom I know, but am yet to properly learn: when you tell yourself you need to write something remarkable and profound, ten times out of eleven you’re not going to write anything at all. You can only really get into a flow with writing when you allow yourself to write rubbish. When you give yourself permission to be remarkably un-profound.

So, that’s what this post is. Rather un-profound. But it's something. I am not writing a ‘conclusion’ to July (or August, because that month also slipped by since the last time I posted). The summer was quite beautiful and confusing and sunny and cloudy and maddening and exhausting and productive and not. But I'm not going to cement it - finished - in words.

I’m just writing to say: hello. I’m still here. It’s September now. And I’ll be back to writing soon. 

♥

Notes:

*click the link if the 'moth's wing' thing doesn't make sense.

Pictures: from here and there over the last few weeks. Arran, Millport, Largs (Viking Festival - thus the "dead" soldiers), home. Scotland's been showing itself off in quite a nice light recently.

Dear July, seventeen to twenty: Budapest heat.

Dear July,

Today, a rather dark rainy heat-up-some-chicken-soup-to-make-yourself-feel-better kind of Monday, I’ve been thinking about Hungary.

The year I turned twelve, my family spent the summer in Budapest. My Dad was working over there for a few months, so we went to be with him. It was hot. The hottest it had been in years, apparently. We watched a lot of BBC World in our little apartment (the only TV channel in English and we grew thirsty for words we recognised) and there were continual cries of ‘Heat wave! Heat wave!’ on the news. On the days we went into the city – our feet clapping in flip flops, collecting dust from the streets – we’d practically sprint from one café to the next, buying bottles of cold water or Lipton’s lemon iced tea to gulp down. We spent all of our days in shorts or swimming costumes, jumping and splashing into the blue pool outside, diving for coins with goggles sucked onto to our faces. We had to sleep with the fan on full and windows cracked open – the sound of crickets and dogs barking and the opera singer next door practicing scales echoing long into the night.

We wiped watermelon juice from our chins, and licked peach juice off our wrists. We ate lemon sorbet ice-cream every other day. We put ketchup on pizza like the locals. We ate the best thing I've ever eaten - a big deep-fried fritter-type thing topped with sour cream and grated cheese called 'Lángos' - and have never found again since. Almost every time we went out for dinner, we’d order 'cucumber salad' as a side: cucumbers soaked in a vinaigrette dressing. One time we ordered ‘Grandma’s special cucumber salad’ because the name made us laugh, but when it arrived, it was just a plate of fat dill pickles (which forevermore made us suspicious of food described as ‘special’). They had bizarre translations for things on the menus. ‘Diced curd with graves’ was one option on the desert menu (literally no idea). ‘Chicken throat shaped pasta’ was another.

We went to the circus while we were there – silver clad trapeze artists, cats jumping from great heights onto red cushions. We visited a park full of old communist statues. We went to Lake Balaton and felt the mud squelching between our toes. We went into supermarkets so big the staff had to roller-skate from one end to the next. We bought vegetables that came straight from the fields, meaning they hadn’t been prettified, meaning the closer you got to the produce stalls, the stronger the smell got, meaning sometimes you’d pick up a nectarine and it would look deliciously juicy face up, but when you turned it over the reverse side would be crawling with flies. 

♥

Living in a country where we were constantly faced with things we didn’t know – food, words, buildings, customs – could have been a small disaster. The three of us – my brother, my sister, me – were still quite young so were prone to whining, as children sometimes are (‘Whatsthat?’ ‘Idontlikeit.’ ‘Idontwantit’ ‘Whatsthat?’). But that summer knocked it out of us, I think. We had so much fun, and my Mum taught us to think of everything as "an experience".

‘We might not like it,’ she said. ‘But it’s all an experience, so we’ll just give it a go.’

‘It’s an experience,’ has now became short-hand for: ‘That was weird, but strangely wonderful’. By the end of the summer, we’d all grown a few inches; our hair had turned a few shades lighter, our skin had turned a few shades darker, and we’d stopped complaining as much. We spent the last few weeks laughing our heads off at things that no one seemed to find as funny as us when we got back home – ‘Well, you just had to be there, I guess.’ – but that was okay. We didn’t mind (#heatstroke).

♥

I came across Anya Silver’s poem 'Doing Laundry in Budapest' today, which set me off on this path of reminiscing. (Forgive me. I hope this post isn't too long or self-indulgently nostalgic to read.) We have no photographs of it – they all got lost – but it’s a summer I remember in warm bursts of colour. Orange and browns and reds.

Silver (the poet I was reading today) writes about pickles, and covering her shoulders to get into churches, and the begging ladies on the street who sold half-dead flowers to passers-by and I recognised the images in her words: I’ve been there, I thought. I’ve seen those things. I’ve eaten those pickles. I bought those flowers. 

♥

(Pictures - letters of the Hungarian alphabet - by: Anna Kövecses. 

Also: this song by reminds me so much of being there - it was 2003, after all. My sister and I listened to Delta Goodrem's album on repeat the first night we were there. We'd somehow managed to convince ourselves that there were terrorists running about outside our hotel so were trying to distract ourselves. Like I said, we were pretty young and had poor geographical knowledge so we had no idea where in the world Hungary actually was. Ha.)

Dear July, seven & eight: yes or no, or maybe

Dear July,

Another poem for you. Tuesday’s poem was William Stafford’s ‘A Ritual to Read to Each Another’ (see below). All the poems I’ve been reading so far have been by women, so I thought I’d try and balance things out a little by reading a male poet.

There are so many lines in this poem that echo... even if I feel like I need to sit with it for a while longer to fully ‘get it’ – if that’s even something worth trying to do. I’m reminded of John Keats words on understanding poetry:

‘A poem needs understanding through the senses. The point of diving in a lake is not immediately to swim to the shore; it’s to be in the lake, to luxuriate in the sensation of water. You do not work the lake out. It is an experience beyond thought. Poetry soothes and emboldens the soul to accept mystery.’

(I think this exact quote actually comes from the film Bright Star – really beautiful, albeit devastating film, if you can get over the silly hats. But it sounds like something – or the whisper of something – Keats would have said somewhere in his letters.)

So: luxuriate in this poem (sidenote: sometimes when other people post poems, I skip them out because they take too much effort to read. But really: don't do that. Read this ones a few times. Carry it about in your pocket. It's worth it). What stands out to you?

A Ritual to Read to Each Another

William Stafford

If you don't know the kind of person I am

and I don't know the kind of person you are

a pattern that others made may prevail in the world

and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,

a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break

sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood

storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,

but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,

I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty

to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,

a remote important region in all who talk:

though we could fool each other, we should consider--

lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,

or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;

the signals we give --yes or no, or maybe--

should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

♥

Pictures from yesterday: the light in our kitchen, sun on a walk around the village, light in the lounge (reflecting twinkle lights around the windows and illuminating a slither of the bookcase in my brother's room). It wasn’t #hottestdayoftheyear kind of heat – like last Wednesday – but it was warm enough to hang my bed-sheets outside and have the window open most of the day (promptly shut, of course, when a bee tried to get in. I'm imagining bugs will be mentioned a number of times this month. It’s an issue, July. You’re a nice month, but if you could do something about all the bugs that come with you that’d be great.)

(p.s. By the by... I’ve made a writer’s page on Facebook. If you’d like to like it I’d like that. You can find it: here.)

Dear July, three & four: snapshots.

Dear July,

Yesterday was: waking up to sun, eating apples in the garden, painted toenails, driving in the heat with the air con up and the windows down justacrack (because, as I still haven’t shaken my insect phobia, I've pledged an oath to myself ‘to never – not even on the three sweltering days Scotland has in the year – open the car windows wider than a pinkie’s width while driving’ – because if a wasp flew in, I would surely die). It was sun on my shoulders, and buskers by the library, and sunglasses reflecting steeples. A conversation that wound up and down and around a hill and in and out of city streets. It was promenading Shakespeare in the park, bumping shoulders with close-packed play-watchers, laughter and ridiculous disguises and then holding-our-breath silence (the city beyond the park gates humming) as the play took a turn from the comic to tragic – ‘Worthies, away! the scene begins to cloud’.

Today was: waking up to rain smattering in the gutter outside my window and then gushing through the roof onto the floor of our sitting room, my dad running down the stairs to grab the recycling bin in lieu of a bucket to catch the water (the perils of having an old house). It was a leaf stuck to the kitchen window, and the opening lines from Don Paterson’s 'Rain' in my head:

I love all films that start with rain:
rain, braiding a windowpane
or darkening a hung-out dress
or streaming down her upturned face...

It was frying sausages, and looking through Pinterest recipes, and smashing digestive biscuits with a rolling pin to make a cheesecake crust. Taco salad, and talking with my Mum on the sofa, and folding laundry (‘Life is really just a series of washing the dishes and folding pants, isn’t it?’ ‘Mmm. Daily rituals...’). Hearing fireworks outside and thinking of my American friends dotted about the globe. Reading some literary theory and realising that, after avoiding him for years, I may need to take a look at Derrida. Listening to Bon Iver with the slow cooker bubbling in the next room.

♥

Yesterday’s poem: Lamium by Louise Gluck. Today’s: Margaret Atwood’s The Moment.

Pictures by: Me Suk Lee.

impossible.

‘Isn’t it strange how last summer I spent a lot of time wishing this car had proper air conditioning? And how I drove to work most days with the cold air on full-blast – the windows open to let a bit of a breeze in?’

We were driving home, my brother and I, from Glasgow after (an amazing) Olafur Arnalds' concert. It was close to midnight. Sleet was smattering the windscreen.

‘Remember how warm it was?’ I went on, almost talking to myself. ‘How roasting it was in July? It’s hard to remember what that actually felt like...’

I was thinking of bare legs, and painted toenails, and skirts and dresses and sunlight dropping into my lap. There had been days in the café where it was so hot – so stickily, shiningly hot – that, as a special treat from the managers to staff, we were all allowed to unbutton the top button of our shirts. We were allowed to work tie-less for a while. 

If I've not mentioned it already, this winter has been wearing me down a little. The icy rain. The darkness. The whipping wind that makes my mascara run as I bundle down Buchanan Street towards the train station. A couple of weeks ago, the cold air dried out my skin so completely that I felt like I was walking around – counting out change, writing my name – with hands that belonged to a stranger. Cracked skin around my knuckles, scabby scaly roughness to touch. It took half a tube of intensive moisturising cream to rub them back into something I recognised.

‘Summer seems so impossible in the middle of winter,’ I said to Evan. My fingers tightened around the steering wheel. ‘Right now, the summer feels so impossible.’  

He sat quiet, as he often does when he’s thinking. The rain had picked up outside now and streetlamps flashed watery orange light squares across the dashboard. I turned the heating up as high as it would go, trying to angle the air-stream towards my face. And then he said,

‘Summer will come again.’ (Saying the words slowly - as though he suspected I'd been talking about more than just the cold weather.) 

‘It’s not impossible,' he said. 'Summer'll come back round again. It does every year.’

The windscreen wipers squeaked. 

♥

I'm going to try and hold onto those words this week and maybe try and complain a little less. It feels imposssible, but Summer will come again because this coldness isn't lasting. It will come back around. 

It always does.

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).

if not always.

So, quite a lot has happened since May 16th. Good things like: I've been halfway across the world (in Atlanta, Georgia, with the most lovely, kindred-spirit sort of friends - pictures from this adventure later). 

...and, more recently, I graduated from the University of Strathclyde (I'm now the proud owner of a BA in Journalism and Creative Writing and English with first class honours! A bit of a mouthful, but I'm so pleased. Here's lots of pictures of me with assorted Reids to prove it actually happened: it all feels a bit surreal).  

A few not-so-good things have also happened. Are happening. Along with the usual ordinary small life-things that make up most days. Eating dinner, going to bed much too late because of reading, working in the cafe, navigating round-a-bouts in the car, savouring the  sun when it's out, conversations, getting older (I turned twenty-two this week: an age that sounds quite like an adult's).

But here endith the news update (slash explanation for why I didn't post in June). I'll leave you with a small (to my knowledge untitled) poem by Kate DiCamillo, the last few lines of which have been waltzing around in my head recently.  

Take a breath. Listen. Now read.

♥

a poem - by Kate DiCamillo

My favourite six letter word is

always
because it promises
so much.

My favourite five letter word is
never
because it insists on contradicting
the promise.

My favourite four letter word is
once
because it says it
happened then.

My favourite three letter word is
yes
because I’m just now learning
to say it
to my heart.

My favourite two letter word is
if
because it makes
all things possible
like this:

If not always
If not never
Then once.

Yes.

harrogate sightings.

Last week I took a trip to Harrogate with my family. We stayed on Strawberrydale Avenue, in a skinny four-story house(quaintly named 'Stawberry House').

There were many paintings of strawberries all around the house, and strawberry-red rugs on the floor, and, just to keep the theme going, we ate a number of strawberries while we were there. Delicious.

♥

Here are a couple of pictures from the week:

Patches of falling sunlight in the park. We wandered round here on our first day, past flowers and fountains and squirrels with feathery tails. We followed the sound of music until we came to a bandstand where a burgundy-clad brass band were playing.

Three wee boys (not really) listening to the music in the park. They kept nudging each other and whispering ...and then they gave up the pretence and started chasing each other during the band's rendition of the 'Out of Africa' theme tune (a beautiful film which I only just watched this week!)

The sun stayed out for a while, then it started to rain (on and off) in showers. I liked this couple. They were sitting close together before the rain came on, and then, when it started to rain quite heavily, the husband tucked his arm around his wife's shoulder, popped open his umbrella, and then and pulled her close to keep her dry. She kept smiling at him, and they looked genuinely happy in each other's company (a rarity).



Confetti in the grass. Hearts and flowers and horse-shoes. There must have been a wedding before we came.

Emilie (my sister) trying to blend in with the manikins in a shop window. They were a bit paler than her. And a bit without-bodies.

A rather sad-looking statue in a doorway. Amazing how such a simple shape can covey such strong emotion.

Windows in York (I liked their curtains).

I love how bunting is strung almost everywhere in England (or at least, everywhere that we drove through). It's so jolly. I took this particular picture (from an open-top York tour bus) because I noticed on the window that 'jacket potatoes' was a plural, but 'panini' was not. (Or so I thought!) Turns out (according to google) that panini is actually the plural form for the Italian word 'panino' (meaning 'small bread roll' ...apparently). So there you go! 

Another set of windows spied from the bus. I liked the love heart, and the little notes they had pinned up at the window. I might borrow this idea. 

Evan (my 'little' brother, who the next week found out that he got into university!) and me having lunch (with Emilie) in a quirky restaurant/bar called 'The Pitcher and Piano'.

Quite possibly the best sandwich I have ever had the privilege of tasting. (Pan-fried halloumi, grilled flat mushroom and roasted peppers in a toasted ciabatta. I must try and make this at home!)

Flowers in Strawberry House garden (and my new ballet-style shoes).

'Oh look, this is a shiny teapot. I can see myself in it. I wonder if I can take a picture of myself in it  --- oh, it would seem that everyone else wants to get their picture taken in it too -- budge up -- big grins -- ready? -- cheeeeeese!' (from left: my dad, Andrew; my mum, Lorna; me, Melissa; and Evan, Evan.)

I fell in love (although I was lost to them already) with the bunting that kept popping up everywhere, and with the patchwork-style landscape of England. Hills and hills of fields and hedges. Didn't manage to get a picture of them, though. I was too engrossed in my book  to remember (I was reading 'I Capture the Castle' by Dodie Smith - beautiful).