oh hello, word // just a little post

The other night at dinner, I used the word ‘anomaly’ and was rather pleased with myself for it. 

‘I know those two hot summers we had a few years ago were a bit of an anomaly,’ I said, cutting up a sprig* of broccoli while staring out at the rain slushing against the window. ‘But I’ve come to expect heat in the summer because of them, and now feel a bit cheated.’

Anomaly. I know it isn’t a particularly fancy word. But I forgot that I knew it, and was surprised (in a happy sort of way) when it just tripped off my tongue like I’d been planning to use it.

A few of my favourite things include: golden hour light, the fact I now like coriander and lime and ginger and mushrooms and tomatoes when I used to loathe the lot of them (my altered taste buds make me feel saintly as fussiness is a real bugbear of mine), getting so lost inside a good story that I become rather feverish**, white basmati rice cooked just right, days when writing feels like flowing water (as opposed to the days where it feels like trying to do a synchronised swimming routine in a pool full of tar), and cafes with twinkle lights in them. 

I can also add ‘using an interesting word that I forgot I knew until it’s out my mouth’ to that happy list. Hooray.

//

It’s been a while since my last post, and I’ve been doing that thing where I keep putting off writing anything new because it’s been such a while. I start to feel like the next thing I write needs to be goodness-me-that-was-beautiful worthy. And that kind of pressure is always a sure way to give words stage-fright. 

So here's a very tiny little self-referential post to say "hello" and fill the gap and take the pressure off... and then I’ll get back to writing on here more regularly again. (The break in writing on here has actually been because writing of the novel has been going well. Hurrah.) 

//

Notes: 

*sprig is not the right word. It should be ‘floret’, right? (Right?) But I like the bounce in the word sprig – so I’m just going to use it. 

**I feel this way about the ITV drama Victoria right now. I don't really care whether it's historically accurate or not. It's just quite beautiful (so far at least). 

Also, ps. Please tell me this is the correct use of 'anomaly'? Otherwise I'll look a bit silly. I have a habit of being pleased with myself about various things and later finding out that I have no reason to be. 

Picture by: Saar Manche.

where the buttons go.

Buttons are always falling off of me. I’m always losing them. They are always losing me. Sometimes they dangle for weeks – hanging off my coat like a wobbling tooth until I tug. Snap. And all that’s left is the thread. Sometimes they disappear without saying goodbye. Ping. Pop. Rattle. Bounce. Rolling down pavements, down the gutter. Down and down. Never to be seen again.

There’s a place underground where the buttons go. Buttons and socks and kirbies and rings and keys and shoes and tights and teeth. And that red Polly Pocket I lost when I was five. And the words I forgot in the middle of talking. All the things that I’ve lost. Marbles and dice. And watches and pens and letters and names and needles and doodles and Monopoly houses. And all of those photographs that were wiped from the computer. Quite without warning. Just one day: deleted. The three of us shivering in the pool in the summer. Emilie hopping in the garden, bare feet. That one of me, twelve, in Budapest heat, so small, smiling under the willow tree’s sway. Gone. Gone. Not a pixel left over.

All the things that I’ve lost. All my vests. Those addresses. The person I was until something else happened. The person I thought I was likely to be. All my chewing-gum packets, and hair bands, and scotch tape. The minutes I’ve spent on trains that aren’t moving. The minutes I’ve spent squeezing spots by the sink. All the minutes I’ve spent on the bus, in a queue, on my phone, by the mirror. Or just waiting for someone. All that waiting. And waiting. All the thoughts in my head that I didn’t write down.

That’s where the buttons go. Or so I imagine. They're all there, underground, where the lost things live.

♥

This is a piece that came out of a free-writing exercise I gave my students on the last day of class. I like buttons, so I thought, 'Hey, why not? I'll do it too'. The writing prompt (in case you'd like to do also) is pretty much: 'pick a button, look at it, turn it over, think about what it reminds you of, who it might've belonged to, set a timer for 15 minutes, don't plan, just start writing, and writing, and writing until the time runs out. Just see what happens.' Some people wrote stories. Some wrote descriptions. This is (a slightly edited version of) what I came up with. 

My Gran kindly donated the buttons we used in class. We spent the Friday evening before, sifting through her button box, looking for the ones with the most 'story potential'. (Thank you, Grannie-Anne.)

some things I'd rather be doing right now

I’d like to have a wheely-chair race round this building

I’d like to try on five blue dresses and twirl a few times
I’d like to play music very loud and dance in the kitchen
I’d like to jump on a trampoline (without injuring myself in the process).

I’d like to sit in Kibble Palace and eavesdrop other voices 

I’d like to sift through old postcards and imagine who they’re from
I’d like to write long, long letters without stumbling over syntax
I’d like to draw little pictures and colour them in.

I’d like to get on an airplane for that feeling of almost-being somewhere
Holding my breath as it starts to go down.

I’d like to paint on a banner all the words that I’m liking
Punctuate. Whisper. Consortium. Tulip.
I’d like to eat summer strawberries or bonbons or peaches
I’d like to click open coke cans – but just for the sound.

I’d like, if I could, to get a big feather duster and
break up this cloud lurking, dull, by my head:
              it's 
              turning the shade of my skin 

              grey, and the curve       of my lip     

                 grey, 

                  and the tone of my voice 

             grey,           and my greeny-brown eyes 

                       grey.

But –

I’d better get back to work.

♥

(Ps. I'm looking forward to the Spring. Pps. This isn’t really meant to be a poem. It’s more of a structured list written when I should be doing other things. Ppps. Kibble Palace, if you don't know, is the beautiful lacy glasshouse in Glasgow's Botanic Gardens, pictured: here.

And also: Sorry for the silence on here. I’ll return when the workload allows...

Picture by the very talented: Julianna Swaney. Her pictures always fill me with light.) 

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.)

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.)

♥

words (and type) I've been liking.

All found via Pinterest, but I've tried to trace down the image sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 

There are lots of others I like... but I don't quite trust the attribution. E.g. 'In case you ever foolishly forget; I am never not thinking of you' are lovely words with a nice rhythm that apparently belong to Virginia Woolf. I'd like her to have said them... but when I tried to hunt down the exact source of them in her writing the trail went cold (I'm going to keep looking though). 

Ditto to: 'And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music'. I like the sentiment, but this quote is attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche. They might be his words but, from what I've read about him, I'm not sure they're a very Nietzsche-ish thing to say. If anyone knows otherwise though, then do let me know. 

I smiled.

The other morning in the cafe, while I was wiping a table clean, I overheard a customer saying the word shenanigans to his son. 

‘He’s been up to his usual shenanigans...’

Shenanigans is a good enough word in itself (in fact, I’d forgotten all about it till I heard him using it. I want to try and slip it into a sentence soon). What made the word even better was the customer’s accent. 

He’s got a voice that sounds a little like Sean Connery (in that he prnounshesh hish wordsh like thish – by way of an exshplanashion). So the word actually came out like: she-nani-ginsshhh.

I smiled.

♥

[These pictures are from my birthday earlier this month. While I wasn’t completely excited about turning 23 (I don’t feel tall enough to merit the age), I was glad about saying goodbye to being 22 (my least favourite year so far). And it was such a lovely day. 

Going to a Play, a Pie and a Pint at the Oran Mor, wandering round the Botanic Gardens, hearing the rain hissing on the glass roof (for just a few minutes), eating a delicious picnic that my Mum had wrapped in brown paper and string (Salad Niçoise tiger-bread baguettes; goats’ cheese, pecan and roast pepper sandwiches; hummus, tomato and avocado thins; Italian lemonade; Kettle crisps; strawberries...) 

...catching sight of a black butterfly with whispering wings, sitting on a picnic rug in the park watching wedding photographers, enjoying a big fried breakfast-for-dinner back at home (why not?). A day full of eating: my favourite sort.]

(Listening to Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps by Doris Day while writing this today.)

three (or four) recent noticings

Noticed Thing #1: I overheard two girls in Tesco the other week debating what kind of crisps to buy for their movie night in. Girl One was balancing a 2 litre bottle of Coke on her hip like a baby. Girl Two seemed more interested in picking off the last of her pastel green nail varnish than anything else. 

GIRL ONE: [tilting her head back to look at all the crisp packets on the shelf] "So... Pringles Cheese and Chive? Or Sensations Thai Sweet Chilli?"  

GIRL TWO: [shrugging, not looking up] "I dunno. I’m not a big fan of those ‘Sensations’, though."

GIRL ONE: [swivelling round to look her friend in the eye] "Aye, you say that now – but you didn’t say anything when you were fair tuckin’ into mine last week."

Ha!

Noticed Thing #2: We bought a particularly delicious batch of nectarines towards the start of September (a bundle of nectarines? A bunch of nectarines? A bevy? A bouquet? A brood? I’m not sure of the right collective noun). They were juicy and sweet, and I ate quite a lot of them (sometimes in a row). 

One day, after consuming my second nectarine of the morning, I hopped through to my brother’s bedroom to try and encourage him to try one also. Only, once I got there, I couldn’t for the life of me remember the word: ‘nectarine’. It had completely vanished – poof! – from my head. So I ended up standing awkwardly in his doorway, mouthing fruit names – "apricot, peach, pear, plumb" – until – "pineapple, tangerine, nectarine – yes!" – I found the word I was looking for.

I’m finding this happening quite a lot recently. Words hide from me in the middle of sentences, causing me to falter and then fumble about with synonyms or vague descriptions or hand gestures to try and get my point across. The words I need appear a little-too-late in my mind. Strange.

Noticed Thing #3: Yesterday, while I was in the library writing notes on Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (amazing, amazing book), I saw a man walk in through the front door carrying a yellow banana in his hand, and a toddler in his back-pack. They were as bald as each other, with the same wide-eyed expression, and the two of them made me think, smilingly, of monkeys. 

...which then, in turn, reminded me of this poem by Carol Ann Duffy (see below) which has always made me laugh. It comes from her collection of poems, The World’s Wife, where she looks anew at famous male figures throughout history, literature, etc and retells something of their story through the eyes of the women associated with them, women who have typically been forgotten about.

Mrs Darwin 

7^th April 1852

Went to the Zoo.
I said to Him–
Something about that Chimpanzee over there reminds me of you.

(These pictures, I think, could count as a Noticed Thing #4. They were all taken fairly recently on my phone while on various commutes to work and Glasgow and back.)

♥

like, like, like

Too too true. (Picture from Marc John's blog ). I despair at my own overuse of this irritating word (the linguistic equivalent of a bluebottle). I'm not quite sure how to stop saying it so much, though. It just slips out, without permission, making everything I say sound quite tentative and teenager-y. 

(On a similar note, watch: this.)

I get words all day through...

Most days when I’m at work, I have some song or other playing on a loop in the back of my head. Maybe it’s the last song I heard on the radio before I left the car, or maybe it’s a lyric triggered by some phrase I’ve heard during the day. (Example: me asking a customer ‘How would you like your eggs?’ will invariably lead to the song ‘How do ya like your eggs in the morning?’ wedging itself into my brain for the next eight hours or so.)

I’m guessing this is fairly typical of most people, right? This is a ‘thing’. It’s not too uncommon.

Well, recently when I’ve been in work (and I’ve been in work a lot recently) I’ve noticed that, as well as having songs stuck in my head, I’ve also started getting words stuck in there too.

‘Scrupulous. Exodus. Arabesque.’ (For example).

These words, unbidden, will just randomly appear – ‘hello!’ – in the middle of my wiping tables, or serving customers, and I’ll find myself turning them over, almost unconsciously, as I go about the motions of laying cutlery and scraping plates.

‘Vehement, vehemently, vehemence.’ ‘Scrupulous. Dwindle. Umpire.’

It’s like they’ve escaped from the dictionary – like penguins from a zoo – and have waddled into my head just, y’know, for something to do. I quite enjoy to find them – these stray words, with their crispy, satisfying little syllables, milling about in the back of my head. But it’s also quite strange. Because more often than not they’re pretty obscure. And words I wasn’t even aware I knew. Like: ‘incursion, machinations, and rambunctious.’ Odd.

I get the feeling this is slightly less common than the song thing, right? Probably the tired mind of a writerly English graduate trying to amuse itself during very long, very repetitive days of cafe work... I think I probably need a holiday quite soon.

♥

Pictures by: Daniela Strijleva

Title of this post taken from 'Show Me' from My Fair Lady (... which is, of course, now stuck in my head.)

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)

chalky fingers

Here are some rather nice quotes and typographical beauties I found on Molly Jacques website. I'm involved in a design project as part of university this semester (we're creating a 'literary journal'), which means I've been spending a jolly lot of my time looking at fonts, photographs, logos and illustrations (...possibly too much of my time. Something I've Noticed About Procrastination Fact #343: it is wily and mustachioed and disguises itself as work). 

...on that note, I'm away to work on my essay on Lolita (I'm taking a class on Nabokov this semester. What an amazing writer! And also, what a disturbing book. But still... what an amazing writer. And yet... this could go on for a while. See you later).