Dear July, eight // sister at the wedding, pt.1

With the world continuing to collapse in on itself – such horrible news kept flashing onto my screen over the course of this weekend – it seems as good a time as ever to be reminded of the importance of connection. And so: enter the picture-based post of wedding photographs. (Different from the kind of thing I normally post on here, but I figure you'll enjoy to look at them because I always like to look at other people's weddings. Even though these pictures are technically pre-wedding).

♥

If I haven’t mentioned it already, Emilie – my elder (and only) sister – got married back in April. In the weeks after, people kept on asking me: ‘How was the wedding?’ and – hand on heart – I was able to say: ‘Quite genuinely: one of the best days of my life so far.’ Such a happy day (one where everything felt so softened round the edges. One that spilled light into the whole of the week after). All of it was beautiful (most especially her) and I’ll write more about it later, perhaps, and post some pictures the official photographer took because they are gorgeous and I kind of want his job... But for now, I'll just leave you with some pictures I took over the course of the morning before the ceremony.

My Mum and I stayed overnight with Emilie in the Grosvenor Hilton Hotel before the wedding and one of my favourite parts of the wedding day was that morning, right at the start of it all, when it was just the three of us. We woke up early (Emilie was too excited to sleep any later) and just lay in bed chatting and laughing about something or other, feeling relieved that the wedding dress didn’t smell too much like a chip shop (the night before, I’d been a bit hungry, as per usual. So Emilie and I had run along Byres Road at almost-midnight to buy a fish supper which we brought back to the room and shared between the three of us, sitting in pyjamas on the bed. ‘I’m not sure if this is really a recommended pre-wedding meal...’ ‘Tastes good though...’). 

We took our time getting ready as, one by one, all the other girls arrived...  

Emilie’s oldest friend, Stef, came to help her with hair before hurrying home to get ready herself; the florist – a lovely lady with lilac hair from Floral Menagerie – knocked on the door next to drop off the bouquet and give her a hug; and then the other bridesmaids (two of Emilie's close nurse-friends, and our wee cousins, Hannah and Grace) came along soon after to get ready with us. Such a lovely chilled out morning – no make-up artists or hairstylists or anything. Just ourselves, helping each other get ready and maybe crying a bit as Emilie got into her (many buttoned) dress and turned round to smile at us ('I'm so excited,' she kept saying the whole morning. 'I'm so excited').

(Evan - our brother - came for a little moment to say hello and gaze, ruefully, at himself at the mirror before he went to meet Jamie and the Best Man. He wasn't too excited about needing to wear a kilt...)

When you're the person behind the camera, that does mean you don't end up in too many of the pictures. But my Mum kindly took this one while I was doing my make-up, and I quite like it. (A word on make-up: Goodness me. I admire people that understand how to work it. Contouring. Highlighting. What-have-you-ing. I am not one of those people. Nor can I seem to muster enough energy to be. Not that kind of girl woman. 'Does this powder go here?' *wafts cheeks with brush a few times* 'Do these colours even work together?' *dabs brush around eyelids and hopes for the best*.)

I love these pictures of my Mum helping Emilie get into the dress:

And also these ones of the first time my Dad saw her (we're not a particularly weepy family - but everyone was crying).

Ahh, lovely. Quite nice to play at being a photographer for the morning. Anyway - back I get to writing (I'll post a pt.2 with some pictures the photographer took at some point later this month. But here's a nice one my Dad caught of Emilie and Jamie post-ceremony.) 

Nice, huh? Some more actual 'letter' type posts will come soon... once I finish this chapter. 

//

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

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

there's a colour in your eyes that nobody knows but me.

For a while there, the world lost its colour. Everything looked a bit grey and washed out. September was quite a disorientating month. It shook things up and, for one reason or another, at various points throughout its days, it left me crying in random places – on a ferry, wind in my hair, while waving goodbye to three figures I love on the pier; in the car during rush-hour, slumped at the steering wheel after a heart-open conversation, a salt-trail winding down my throat; in my room, packing books and vests and shoes into bags and boxes, the thought properly hitting me: ‘I am leaving tomorrow. I’m leaving, I’m leaving. And what happens now?’; on the edge of my bed that first night after clicking on the stars my Dad had unpicked from my wall back home and helped to string up here, in my new room in the city. 

(‘You need your stars, Lissa,’ my Mum said when I was in a quandary about bringing them. ‘I know that for myself. Sometimes, you just need your stars...’)

♥

I was talking to my new class recently – in our workshop on ‘setting’ – about how there’s not really one ‘true’ way to see the world. Your surroundings look (and feel and taste and smell and sound) different depending on what day, and through whose eyes, you happen to be looking. 

‘What would your character notice about this place if they’d just had a fight?’ I said, getting them to close their eyes for a moment. ‘Or if they’re worried about an exam? Or if their heart has just been broken? What would they notice if they had good news? What would they see if they’re falling in love?’

At heart, studying writing – as in how to go about doing it, as well as just ‘what’s already been written’ – studying writing forces you to look quite closely at yourself. Or at least, it should do I think, if you’re hoping to write anything with resonance. You have to be willing to live and also observe yourself living. How am I reacting to this? Where can I feel it? Oh look: this is new – and what does that stir up in me? And how is it changing me?

Well, I observed myself recently being unobservant. My eyes were dried up. They were downcast and heavy and I’d mentally written the whole season off as grey and difficult. When actually – I looked up a few weeks ago to find myself staring at, swooning over, a sky so deeply red that everyone who stepped off my train pulled out their cameras – actually the world is quite beautiful right now. I mean, look at it:

Things aren't suddenly awesome now I’ve noticed the scenery. I don't mean to imply that (life isn't so simple). It's more - I'm just writing as a reminder to myself that: well, even so – in the midst of it all, the leaves are still crisping up (scarlet, gold, mustard yellow). The light keeps breaking through, turning chimneys and branches and window boxes and TV aeriels into something lovely. Something glowing. The world, your life, it’s bigger than ‘this’. Than ‘now’. Than ‘that’. Than ‘this feeling’. Take heart. 

The world is still turning. Look at it. 

Notes:

All pictures by me, from here and there over the past month: around Glasgow, and also back home when I've stayed for the weekend. 

I listened to this album, The Quiet Darkness by Houses, while I was writing. Recommended by my brother, Evan. The title is a line from one of their songs. You should give it a listen.

♥