Icarus also flew // goodbye 2015.

Tuesday, January 19

When I was back home a few weeks ago, my Mum read me out a poem: Failing and Flying by Jack Gilbert ‘Everyone forgets,’ the poem starts, ‘that Icarus also flew.’


We were sitting upstairs drinking tea on her bed, the sky dimming outside. Our back-door-neighbours’ Christmas tree blinked on and the sound of my dad putting cutlery away travelled up to us from the kitchen. We’d been sitting there for a few hours, the two of us, talking about I can’t even remember what. Things as they are now, I think. Life as it is now. 

‘Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew,’ Mum read. ‘It's the same when love comes to an end,/or the marriage fails and people say/they knew it was a mistake, that everybody/said it would never work. That she was/old enough to know better. But anything/worth doing is worth doing badly...’ 

And so it goes on. A meditation on transience and falling and the way we often write whole experiences off as ‘failures’ because they didn’t last forever, or didn’t work out as expected.


That word – failure – is something we talked about quite a lot last year: on our early morning drives up to work before I moved to the city (I’ve been missing those conversations). We talked about the famous ‘man in the arena’ speech by Roosevelt where he writes that: ‘credit belongs to the man in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood...’ and who, ‘if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.’ We talked about Brené Brown, who writes about that idea of ‘daring greatly’, and how she used to take strength from the question: ‘What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?’ but recently she’s been asking herself a new one: ‘What’s worth doing even if you fail?’ 


Driving back and forth from the city to the sea, we (my Mum and I) asked ourselves that. We talked about the importance of ‘owning your own story’, and the difficulty of loving people, and the risks of letting yourself be known, and this predicament of feeling things so very very deeply and not knowing what to do with it all. 

‘What’s worth doing even if you fail?’
‘Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew...’


It’s eighteen days into the New Year, and I’m still caught slightly off-guard at times by the year that just passed. It was a bit of a strange one, 2015, I have to admit. I’m left looking back on it still feeling a bit confused, unsure what to take from it now it’s finished. 


It was a year of many ‘favourite’ things. I got to hear one of my favourite authors, Kazuo Ishiguro, in Edinburgh, for example (he signed my knackered copy of Never Let Me Go and my hands shook). I ate filled baguettes in Paris and saw the Eiffel Tower from my train window. I got to teach classes on some amazing writers. My sister got engaged and asked me to be her maid of honour. Two of my favourite people flew over from Atlanta and stayed in our house for a few days. And after years of soaking up their music, I finally got to see Mumford and Sons live in Glasgow with my siblings. (Our throats catching, we sang out the words to their songs. Their lyrics are fuelled with a kind of longing for something better, something real. A determined sense of hope, in spite of what’s passed before.) 


Alongside all that though (and more), it was a year of feeling quite achingly unsettled. Bereavement. Uncertainty. Heartbreak. Loss. I probably ended up crying more in the past year than I ever have, and right from the get go. (Outside, inside, in toilet cubicles, on stairwells, at home, in the new flat, on trains, ferries, busses, taxis, planes, cars... goodness me! I just need to have a good sob on a tram, a unicycle and a bin lorry now, and I’ll be able to publish an illustrated guide to weeping in transit. ‘Find out, via easy-to-read graphs, how pathetic you will feel tearing up on the following... how ‘Romantic’... how exposed...’). 

It was a year where I lost my appetite more than once, and my voice shrunk down to a whisper as I started to falter: ‘what am I doing wrong here?’ ‘What do I do now?’




I don’t have a tidy way to round off the past year in words. But I would like to try and draw a line under it. A few days before New Year – after too many days lazing about in pyjamas eating Lindt chocolates – I wrote myself a sort of ‘motivational speech’-type thing in my journal, in an attempt to shake myself back in the game. It went something like this: 

"Storm Frank is a’blowing outside your window, Melissa. And may he be blowing winds of change! (Or at least mild behavioural reform/refocus.) Wake up to your life, O Sleepy One! Wake up to it and read the books you want to read. Write the novel. Stop stalling. Remember: you are stronger than you think. Stop waiting on trains that aren’t moving. Get off them! Get off and run, run, run, run, so the wind is in your hair, and your calves and your heels and your lungs all shout: you are here, you are here. Don’t switch off. Don’t disengage. It’s a false kind of thinking that says strength comes from being detached. Remember that. You were brave. Don’t start doubting yourself now. Don’t get frightened. 


Stop looking at your phone. Switch it off! The world’s out there, so pay attention. Speak up. Think. Walk. Eat. Make your bed in the mornings. Leave the house on time. Stop snoozing the alarm. Go to sleep before the birds start singing. Be mindful. Take more baths. Pray. Don’t let failure scare you off trying. It is painful but it's not the end of all things. And it isn’t always your fault. Just don’t get stuck. Don’t get stuck. Don’t get stuck. Pick up the pieces. Shake the dust off your feet, nod your head, and walk on. 

'I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,' writes Gilbert at the end of his poem, 'but just coming to the end of his triumph...' Notice the triumphs. You can do this. Stop looking down. Look up." 



(The beautiful pictures are by: Elicia Edijanto. And goodness, this was a long post. Next one will be shorter, promise.) 

before the rest...

Sunday, January 17


I’ve sort of been procrastinating re. writing a ‘farewell to 2015’ post. Mostly because I’m unsure how to sum up an entire year (...last one in particular is difficult because large chunks of it changed colour slightly, making it more of a challenge to wrap neat words around). I am writing something though, so I'll maybe post it later today. But first: a few words on the weather.  



On Friday, the world was golden and crisp. Then yesterday morning, I woke up to my phone buzzing: “it’s snowing!!!” There was a little slip of window showing between my curtains so I sat up, squinting, trying to see out it: and there was the snow, coming down heavy and quiet and thick. For the first time in a while I was actually quite excited to see it (it's a change from rain at least).  


It’s set to be a cold month, I think. It was quite fantastically frosty at the start of this week. So much so that I actually missed my train on Wednesday because the pavement was so icy and glittering that I couldn’t run. I normally run. I’m pretty sure the neighbours around here haven’t ever seen me when I’m not running (I’m just a blur of red to them, flashing past their window with too many book bags and my hair unravelling). 


Anyway – just as I got to the steps at the top of the train station, the last window of the train was disappearing from view. So I had to get the bus instead. My breath billowed into long dragon clouds while I waited, and the pole at the bus stop was white and spiked. If I’d reached out to touch it, my fingers would have stuck there. Or my tongue, had I licked it (...which, I’m not really in the habit of doing, thankfully). 

New year's resolution: leave the house earlier. Back up plan: always carry salt. 

Dear December, nineteen to twenty-two: lumiere.

Tuesday, December 22


It's the winter solstice today, so: the shortest day and the longest night of the year. I'm sitting by the window just now and I can tell you: it's pretty dark out there. The solstice also signals that autumn is over and winter is here. It has officially arrived. If it’s anything like last year, I know it’s going to be cold. Cold, and dark, and rainy, and biting. I’ll need to stock up on hand-cream. I should really buy an anorak. The underbellies of my fingernails will no doubt soon be filled with frost from the windscreen, my fingers stinging from the spray of the can, the click and shake and the ice dissolving.

But even so, I can’t help letting out a small sigh at the thought of it: Thank God, that’s it. The worst of the darkness has been now (...right?) Light will be coming back. It might take a while, yes. The sun will continue to disappear mid-afternoon. My breath will turn to cloud on my walk into uni and there will be days where not even steam from the bath will be enough to melt the shiver in my bones. At times, the idea of ‘anything other than this’ will seem impossible. I know that. I know it. It's been like that all autumn. I’m bracing myself. 


But even if it comes slowly, inch by inch, it is coming. The darkness has been: the light is coming back. It will come back. (These are words to repeat on heavy days: It will come back. It will come back. It seems dark now, but light will come back.)


Related to light: these (slightly fuzzy iPhone) pictures are from the Lumiere Festival in Durham back in November which I've been meaning to post for a while.  I was there for a weekend, giving my first ever (joint) conference paper (on 'fostering originality in student writing') at the National Association of Writers in Education conference ...and this quite, quite breathtaking festival of light happened to be taking place in the city at the same time. I’ve never seen anything like it before: both beautiful and eerie. Moving light installations all along the river, projections beamed onto the side of the cathedral and castle walls, double decker buses lit from the inside, street benches glowing. It felt like we’d stumbled into a city under enchantment.




Snatches from the weekend: walking round the streets and along the river in the dark - rain hammering down, seeping through my hat into my hair - but not feeling afraid. My heart in my throat. Moving images – stars, numbers, planets, stained glass figures – sliding up and down and along the sides of the cathedral. Standing on the grass, mud underfoot, eyes wide, and music surrounding us: so loud and drumming and achingly beautiful that I could feel it inside my veins. 


Sitting on a pew inside the cathedral for a few moments, arching my neck back, back, back to stare at the light lines moving, twitching, above our heads. Sitting quiet. Discordant choral music playing underneath the squeaking of boots and wet jeans slapping together as the crowd moved closer, forward, forward, towards the alter with gripped iPhone cameras. (‘How does it make you feel?’ Looking up at the light. Holding my breath, the lines shivering. Unsure how to put it into words. ‘Unsettled, I guess. Uneasy? There’s something kind of unsettling about the movement, isn't there?').




‘Do you want to light a candle?’ Thinking of Paris*, but unsure what to pray. Back outside and following signs for ‘fog this way’. Rain catching in the light, putting on a show itself. Twinkle lights strung up along the water's edge and then: the Fogscape. Fog pouring down the hill on the other side of the river, pushing through the trees, spilling onto the water, stretching closer and closer towards my shivering fingers like a spell had just been whispered. 

(*the conference and Lumiere took place over the weekend of the Paris attacks - and also the weekend my grandfather passed away - which made the rain feel more chilling, and the light seem more important.)  


Song a day 

Saturday’s song: The Wisp Sings by Winter Aid. Sunday: Believe by Mumford and Sons (though I've actually been listening more to Only Love but can't find a good version online. Buy it). Monday: In Dreams by Ben Howard. Today: Allegri's Miserere (part of which was played during the festival.

p.s. // Technical question: I'm testing out changing the font on the blog. What do you think of this? I've been trying to figure out an alternative for 'Courier' for years... but all other fonts seem either too big or small for blogspot (and I can't figure out how to adjust size to anything between 'normal' and 'large' on here). Comments appreciated below or you can send me a note on my facebook page.

Dear December, nine to eighteen: if life hadn't got in the way.

Saturday, December 19

Dear December,

Hello! I'm 
still here. Though I'm going to sleep very soon because it's quite late. I will get back to writing more regularly. Promise. In the meantime though, here are three things I might have written about if things hadn't been so busy the past week and a bit: 


[one.]

I might have written about the afternoon I tried on jeans in GAP. My current pair have scuffed knees. After trying a few pairs on (none of them fit), the weight of the week made the idea of heading back out into the rain and starting to think about dinner too heavy. So I just hung out for an extra ten minutes, sitting on the changing room floor, curtains pulled shut to my right, legs stretched out in front of me (the soles of my socks touching the soles of the socks in the mirror), head resting back against the wall: listening to other customers moving about and feeling vaguely disenchanted with the music in the store (‘All I want for Christmas is you...’ ‘It’s lovely weather for a sleigh ride together...' ‘It’ll be lonely this Christmas...’). I'm not a Scrooge, but Christmas music can have this way of making you feel very small if it catches you at a funny moment, don't you think? 





[two.]


Or I might have written a longer post about looking through old photographs in my Grandpa’s house last Wednesday (sitting with my duffle coat on the whole time because the heating had been switched off all day). Feeling very weird being in his living room without him there with us, sitting on the end of the sofa bemoaning something or other and cracking puns (‘Are you all right?’ ‘Just down the one side. Heh heh.’)




There are boxes by his window. The pictures have been taken down off his wall. There are gold hooks sticking out of the wallpaper. His shoes - thick, black, comfort-fit - are still sitting by the sofa. (I couldn’t stop looking at his shoes. Glancing away and then glancing back. The laces were splayed out across the wooden floor. I couldn’t stop looking at them, the thought occurring: did he not have his shoes with him? Did he leave the house in his slippers?) 

It's been a month now. We were there so my Dad could sort through papers, so I could pick out something from his cabinet to keep: a little crystal swan maybe, or a bowling club pin. By accident we came across the handful of old polaroid-type pictures of my dad and uncle when they were little. If that’s to be my last time in his house – sorting through those photographs, laughing at the 70's hairstyles – I guess it was quite a nice evening to end on. (The time before that, rain was bouncing off the roof and we were all dressed in black, huddled in the hallway, waiting for the cars come and take us to the church. The gaping front-door let cold air wrap round our ankles.) 




[three.]


I could maybe have written about standing in my sister’s kitchen on Tuesday there, trying to artistically smear lemon icing onto the gingerbread cookies she’d made while I was sleeping, and thinking that this – the fact that here I was: standing in my pyjamas in her kitchen, being watched by the 217 cats she and her fiancé own*, the sound of her and our (tall) little brother playing Guitar Hero in the next room – 'this' is one of the things I’m most grateful for this year. This. Us. If I’m uncertain of who or what I am in other areas of my life, I’m so glad I get to be ‘sister’ to those two. 



(Note: *slight exaggeration. There are only three cats.) 

A song a day:

I won't link ten songs, because this post is already quite long. But here are three: I came across 'Shut Eye' by Stealing Sheep yesterday and quite liked it; I actually quite like this cover of 'Lonely This Christmas' by K.T. Tunstall, even if it is a bit of a downer; and I've found the words of 'Pieces' by Amanda Cook quite powerful the past few months... if I could live like I believed them, I think things would be rather different.) 

Pictures by: Julie Morstad
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