Dear July, one // a knack for getting found.

Dear July,

Yesterday began with losing my favourite necklace and ended with me walking home in the pouring rain, in the dark, without an umbrella*. I crawled into bed, after blow-drying my hair, feeling shivery and quite worn out. Uncertainty. So much to do. Doubt, doubt, doubt in my ability to do any of it. And – that necklace. It was the smallest of things: a silver elephant pendant on a thin silver chain. But I liked it, and was sad to lose it.

What had happened was this:

Getting ready that morning had been a bit of a hurried affair. Due to staying up too late the night before, I'd kept snoozing my alarm which meant I only left myself twelve minutes to get ready before my bus. So I spent those twelve minutes knocking into things in my tiny room while my heart raced: smearing make-up into my face, rummaging under the bed for my shoes, dragging the straighteners through my tangled hair a few times, stuffing my laptop bag with books and papers and lunch, pulling my coat on and then: go! Out the door and up the street.

What I remember doing was putting the necklace into my coat pocket before I left with the plan of fastening it when I got on the bus.

But then I got on the bus, and it had disappeared. I spent about ten minutes of the journey taking everything out of my pockets – crumpled napkins, my house keys, kirby grips which kept scattering to the floor, odd bits of brown string, euros and nickels and dimes and pennies – and laying each item out on my lap, hoping the necklace would be among them. It wasn’t. I kept repeating the process. Taking everything out, laying it out on my lap, scanning over each object: the necklace was not there. It must have fallen out during the mad dash to the bus stop. My heart sank. I should have been more careful with it.

//

This isn’t the first time I’ve lost that necklace. In fact, it seems to have a particular knack for getting lost. It'll fall to the floor, or under my bed, or hide under books, and – because it’s so slight – it often won’t reappear for months. The last time I lost it was actually just a few weeks ago, when my brother and I were visiting our friends in Atlanta, Georgia. 

‘I know it’s in this room, somewhere,’ I said to Evan about two days into the holiday. I ran my hand over every surface in the room, but couldn’t see it. (It was so warm over there at the time that we were both wearing shorts and no-cardigans. The ceiling fan above us whooshed). ‘Seriously, it must be in this room somewhere. I was just wearing it yesterday.’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’ Then said, ‘It’s strange, isn’t it? Knowing there actually is an elephant in the room...’

Almost two weeks passed – driving through the mountains, eating mustard on sandwiches, chatting till late at night, getting a little sunburnt on our shoulders, seeing a bear – till I found it again. It was the last day of our trip and I was stripping the bed. There it was, hiding under the sheets, the silver chain glinting in the light.

//

When I woke up this morning, the weariness hadn’t shifted. Rain was still hissing outside my bedroom window. I turned over to look at the clock then lay in the dull light for a while, breathing, trying to quiet the minor note of anxiety that has been creeping in, trying to shake myself awake: Time to get up. There is much to do. You can do it. Time to get on.

I went through to the kitchen to get some breakfast: clicking the kettle on, reaching up to the cupboard for Earl Grey teabags, moving around in bare feet. I was scooping half a mug of granola into my bowl when I stopped what I was doing and gasped*. 

There it was. A glint of silver. The elephant necklace was lying in a curl on the table by my bowl. I stood with my mouth open, not quite believing it. 

Just the smallest of things. And I don’t really know what happened – maybe I didn’t put it in my pocket yesterday morning like I’d thought. Maybe I’d left it there on the table while I was getting lunch out the fridge. But finding it there this morning felt like a small miracle. Like a cup of golden honey to my heart. Like a gift: everything that had seemed impossible just a few moments ago suddenly felt less so. Change is possible, writing is possible, feeling light and heat again is possible. I can do it. Time to get on.

//

Notes.)

*Some nicer things did happen in the middle of these unfortunate bookends. Like dinner with some of my closest friends, and talking on the phone to my parents, and writing some decent paragraphs...

*True story: I actually gasped. 

nice to see you.

Hello blog! And hello Spring! It is ‘officially’ Spring now and – although, yes, I am still walking around in my winter coat most days – it does seem safe to say that Winter might be finished with (though I know uttering those words is a recipe for snow-in-April-type disaster. Please no).

I've transitioned from boots to shoes. My gloves and hat have been tucked back away into storage for next year (lol jk, I lost both of them mid-February) and there have been a few days recently where I’ve been outside and, tilting my head upwards, thought: oh! I feel heat on my face. Is that - [squinting up at the sky] - is that you, sun? I’ve been so happy to see: the light hanging around till later in the day (it’s stretching its fingers into seven – even eight o’clock sometimes), flowers pushing up through the ground and blossoms appearing on the trees, people eating lunch outside again (with jackets on, mind you. But at least they’re not shivering indoors), my own shadow stretching long ahead of me on golden-lit evenings. As I write, there are birds singing outside.

Yes, Spring. Hello. You are most welcome.

With April comes all things wedding related. My sister is getting married at the end of the month so we all need to collectively pray for lots of sunshine on the 22^nd of April, okay? (Though please, God: no bees. I might be wearing flowers in my hair). 

Anyway – this is just a post to say ‘hello, little blog. I’m still here.’ (Sorry for the lull.) 

(The pictures are just from here and there over the past few weeks. I've not been taking too many pictures recently. I need to get on that.)

distil // thoughts on writing

I’ve been enjoying the writing of Shoko Wanger recently (of ‘Sho & Tell’ blog). She writes a beautiful narrative essay series* called 'POV' where she reflects on memory and being in the moment and ‘learning to embrace a quarter-life crisis’ (among other things). Her essays remind me (and reinforce my conviction) that writing that draws on real life, on personal experience, isn't something irrelevant or self-indulgent when it's done well: instead, looking honestly (and with curiosity) at your own life and then offering up what you notice to others... it’s actually extremely valuable work.

‘It’s not often,’ I wrote in my journal back in December when I first stumbled upon her blog, ‘that you read another’s words and think: “well, yes – that’s exactly it! Thank-you.” That, as I see it, is the purpose of writing. (Or at least a purpose.) The purpose of writing truthfully. To leave space for (and trust in) the possibility that your words, observations, life might do the same for another.’

♥

I was thinking a bit about that idea again after my brother, Evan**, shared the poem Nothing is Lost by Noël Coward with me. In the poem, Coward writes that nothing is ever forgotten: not really. Everything that’s ever happened to us (‘sorrows and losses time has since consoled,/Family jokes, out-moded anecdotes/Each sentimental souvenir and token...’) is all still floating about in our subconscious somewhere, ‘waiting to be recalled...’

It’s an interesting thought. And I am always kind of bawled over when someone says something, or I overhear something, or I taste something that sparks a memory. When I remember something I forgot I knew.

That’s kind of what he’s talking about. Nothing is lost. But what the poem makes me think of is the idea that nothing is ever wasted either. Blunders, mistakes, blips – embarrassing moments where you muddled your sentences, those hours where you got lost in the dark in the city in the rain – nothing, really, is wasted. Or it doesn’t need to be at least. 

There are many many aspects of ‘being a writer’ that could, potentially, drive one insane: the clock ticking, the solitude, the blank-page-blank-head problem, the question: ‘how’s the writing going?’, the pain – actual physical muscle-tightening pain – that comes every day from trying to pull ideas out of your head and down into words: like you’re trying to lasso the moon out the sky and pull it through a keyhole. But one aspect of writing that probably keeps me sane is that voice that says, in the middle of real life difficulties: 

'Don’t worry. You can make something out of this. If nothing else, you can write about this later.' 

♥

NB. I’m not talking about over-sharing via paper, or thinly disguising real life gripes as fiction. Absolutely not. There’s nothing more uncomfortable than reading writing like that. I’ve read too many stories recently where the main ‘character’ is clearly just the writer with wig on.

What I mean is... I think I’m learning that the trick to writing well – or really: the trick to being an empathic person, because maybe that’s actually what I’m talking about, and that’s what kind of writer I want to be – is being able to look at your own experience and find a way to distil it down till you’re not necessarily talking about particulars anymore (THIS happened THEN over THERE). Good writing, I think, is when you’re able to capture the essence of experiences (the colour and texture and sound of them) and turn them into words that ring true.

NB.2. I’m also not saying I’m very good doing that – at distilling experience. But it’s something I’d like to learn how to do because I see it in the writers I like and in the people I admire most: the people who are open and authentic and honest without being attention-seekers or needy.   

I also like the idea of a writer’s brain being an ‘experience distillery’. (If any illustrators read this blog, please draw that idea for me.)

♥

Notes

*Here are three essays from Sho & Tell you might like: 'Triumphs', 'Busy', and  'Roads'.

**Evan, incidentally, has also just started a blog: 'Coffee with Philosophers' and he's a pretty good writer so you should read it. 

The pictures in this post are by: Fumi Koike. 

(Also, ps. Thank you for your feedback on my last post. And apologies if this one seems a bit waffley ...I also realise it’s another ‘here are some thoughts after reading a poem’ piece. I will try and mix it up a little for next time!)

a poem for you.

Nothing is Lost

by Noël Coward

Deep in our sub-conscious, we are told
Lie all our memories, lie all the notes
Of all the music we have ever heard
And all the phrases those we loved have spoken,
Sorrows and losses time has since consoled,
Family jokes, out-moded anecdotes
Each sentimental souvenir and token
Everything seen, experienced, each word
Addressed to us in infancy, before
Before we could even know or understand
The implications of our wonderland.
There they all are, the legendary lies
The birthday treats, the sights, the sounds, the tears
Forgotten debris of forgotten years 
Waiting to be recalled, waiting to rise
Before our world dissolves before our eyes 
Waiting for some small, intimate reminder,
A word, a tune, a known familiar scent
An echo from the past when, innocent
We looked upon the present with delight 
And doubted not the future would be kinder
And never knew the loneliness of night.

♥

Picture by: Jiwoon Pak.