before the rest...

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, four and five: hashtag Storm Desmond.

Let’s be rather British and talk about the weather. (NB: I wrote this on Saturday but seemed to fall asleep before clicking: publish. Thus the 'yesterdays' and 'last nights' that don't quite match up...)

While I was waiting for the traffic lights to change yesterday evening, I saw a red umbrella blow straight out of a little boy’s hands. It was broken and twisted inside-out, the fabric rippling and sodden wet and absolutely no use to him as a rain–shield any more – but he was trying to keep a tight grip of it even so when the wind whipped it from his slippery fingers and dragged it away down Renfield Street.

I have always wondered who those people are that abandon their umbrellas on the pavement. ‘Litter louts.’ ‘Lazy folk who can’t be bothered walking an extra five steps to the bin.’ On wild days, Glasgow’s streets are littered with them: broken, twisted umbrellas. Black ones. Pink ones. Hello Kitty ones. Ones with stripes. They always look a bit to me like dead spiders: legs bent but still twitching. Only, now I wonder whether most of those umbrellas aren’t in fact abandoned by people of questionable character. Maybe they’ve just been stolen by the weather. ‘Quit messing around with that brolly, fool, and let me run down your face. Let me tangle your hair. Let me slip into the gaps between your sleeve and your wrist and make you shiver. Feel alive!’ 

I got rather up close and personal with the elements myself last night - on my walk back to Queen’s Street Station a few hours later after dinner. I was (foolishly, yes) wearing a coat without a hood. I had forgotten my hat. The ribs of my umbrella had snapped earlier. By the time I turned onto Buchanan Street I’d given up struggling to keep my hair dry with my scarf and, for the first time all day, I let my shoulders unknot themselves and gave in. The rain slid down my face. My shoes were flooded. ‘Oh stuff it, it’s dark and I’m not going to meet anyone I know at this time of night anyway*. Bring it on. "Be thou me, impetuous one!" It’s only water.)’

(*I did actually run into someone I knew though, ha. What are the odds? A familiar figure walking up the street towards me through the rain. It could have been a rather beautiful filmic moment if I hadn’t looked so much like: this <-- click the link.) 

So yes. I got utterly, utterly drenched (and we - the three of us in this little flat - have stayed bundled up inside all day today). When my flatmate had a cup of tea waiting for me coming in through the door last night, I could have cried with gratefulness. 

♥

Song a day:

Friday's song: Pool House by Dustin O'Halloran because I was listening to it while I was working, and listen often when I'm writing. It's from the film 'Breathe In' which is one of those lingering kind of films that is on the one hand kind of beautiful (in terms of the cinematography, the music, the natural feel of the acting, the subtlety) and on the other hand is kind of devastating and unsettling (it's about things spiralling out of control, about a dangerous idea that should stay just that). 

Saturday's song: Jump for my Love ...because I came across this clip from Love Actually again this morning and it made me laugh (and is exactly the kind of thing that would happen to me). 

♥

Note: Pictures by Japanese illustrator Rie Nakajima (I can't find  central website to link you to, but I found these pictures: here.) 

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.

♥

Dear July, ten & eleven: again.

Dear July,

Last night was a lovely long much overdue soak-it-up kind of catch up with some good friends. We went out for dinner and ate too much Greek food, and the night ended with us standing chatting under a tree in Kelvingrove Park for about an hour because all the places that might sell tea on Friday night in Glasgow were shut (and tea was what we felt like), but we weren’t quite finished talking yet.

Today, I don’t have too many words. The rain is back again after a week or two of sunshine and, although this shouldn’t be surprising (this is Scotland, after all, and I’ve lived here all my life), it’s sometimes hard not to take it personally (‘What did we do, sun? Did we love you too much?’). Outside the café where I’m sitting doing a bit of work, people bundle past, linking arms under umbrellas. Rain sticks like little glass beads to the empty silver chairs and tables on the street. I do talk about the weather too much. And my mood too often matches the colour of the clouds. This year, I would like to learn to let it bounce off me. But, nevertheless. There it is: today it is raining, and I wish it wasn’t.

♥

Noticed thing from last night: Kelvingrove Park – pretty though it may be – is kind of bossy. It’s full of signs telling you not to do things. ‘No hot ashes in this bin!’ ‘Alcohol is strictly prohibited!’ ‘Give up on your dreams!’ ‘Don’t skate on the ice!’ ‘No dog fouling!’ ‘Children should be seen and not heard!’ ‘Don’t get ideas above your station!’ ‘Don't litter!’

Some more positive signage might be a nice idea to balance things out.

‘Thanks for walking your dog here!’ ‘Keep being you!’ ‘Well, somebody’s looking awesome today.’ ‘Isn’t this a great view!’ ‘You should totally propose to her on this bridge, man.’ ‘Have you guys seen how pretty these flowers are?’

I’ll write to the council. TBC.

♥

Notes. 

Yesterday’s poem: Ovid in Tears by Jack Gilbert. Today’s poem: The Faces of Deer by Mary Oliver (‘Unless you/ believe that heaven is very near, how will you/ find it?’)

Pictures by: Saul Steinberg (they just made me smile).

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.

golden.

Spring is here. It tiptoed into our lives a few weeks ago (bringing opportunities for eating lunch outside, light jackets, walks without-gloves, birdsong, general happy feelings). And then it snowed. And hailed. And rained. And sleeted. And the sky was grey for a long time. And I caught the cold. And moped around Glasgow wearing a blanket-scarf and hiding my cracked-skin-hands deep inside my pockets. But it's come back and it is quite beautifully golden. Spring is here. It's here. And it is most welcome. What are some of the signs of Spring you've been enjoying?

Picture of: me, on Easter Sunday, in our back garden, looking unintentionally bridal... and in need of a hairbrush.

♥

I will return to this little blog. There is much to write. My head is full of words. For now though, here's a song I've been enjoying: Make it Holy by the Staves (featuring Bon Iver).

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.) 

ode to a hat.

It’s been a difficult couple of days culminating in the loss of my very most favourite hat*. When I say ‘favourite hat’ – it’s really the only hat I’ve ever enjoyed to wear. I’m not even sure how I lost it. 

I had it on yesterday morning when the rain was driving down so hard that, by the time I bustled inside, my coat was heavily, spongily wet. I had the hat when I was in the car, tucked inside one of the cup holders behind the handbrake. I picked it up – I’m sure I picked it up – when I was getting out the car, waving goodbye to my mum before stepping in a puddle en route to the the train station.

But after that: no idea. 

It was a nice little hat – thick knit wool in a colour that was somewhere between green, turquoise and teal. The expression ‘it fit like a glove’ would describe it perfectly if it hadn’t, in fact, been a hat. And what I mean by that was it kept my ears cozy without being too tight around my head (unlike the new hat I was forced – by the gnawing wind – to buy this morning. I can still feel it pressed against my forehead even though it’s been sitting beside me on the desk for the past seven or eight minutes). I could wear my hat and not end up with funny hair. It didn’t have any pompoms or ruffles or racoon faces with ears or sequins. It was just a simple hat, and when I wore it with my red coat I felt kind of like a strawberry.

Goodbye hat.
I'm sorry for not taking better care of you.
I will miss you.

♥

(Picture: the last photograph of me and the hat, taken on Sunday, on the Glasgow subway, as my brother and I hurtled towards the West End and our first Christmas turkey of the month

*Note: the hat-loss isn't the most difficult thing, so I suppose 'culminating' is the wrong word. But I'm still pretty sad about it...)

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.)

an ordinary mystery.

So I want to write about my pumpkin-spice-infused visit to the States last month (I don't think I've fully adjusted to being back in rainy Glasgow yet. Such a good trip and such lovely friends). Before that though... I wanted to write a small something about the literary magazine I’m involved in setting up at university.

It’s called Quotidian (meaning ‘ordinary’ or ‘everyday’), and will be launching online in Jan/Feb 2015 with poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction and beautiful images from students across Scotland. (Cue part where I look directly into the camera and say in a velvet voice: ‘If you’re a student studying in Scotland and are interested in writing then check out our website at double-you-double-you-double-you-dot…’ Ho ho. Just kidding*). Anyway! Just to say: keep an eye out for the magazine. I hope you'll like it. And here's a fun thing that happened relating to it:

On a drizzly Wednesday afternoon earlier this week, we (the 'Quotidian team') took a group of students (willing volunteers) on a ‘mystery field trip’ to help them gather some writing-inspiration. It was a ‘mystery’ in so far as we didn’t tell them where we were going until we’d stepped off the bus, got our feet wet walking through puddle-filled car-parks, and crossed a busy road or two till we found ourselves staring at...

IKEA!** Land of the Everyday. (The obvious location for a writing workshop, right?)

The idea of the day was to try and encourage everyone to look at ordinary things with fresh eyes. To slow down and notice – really notice – the things that most of us, most of the time, don’t really pay attention to. As one writer's put it: 'it's not so much interesting things but unique ways of seeing ordinary things that makes the most original and satisfying fiction' (words: Lesley Glaister). Hear hear. (Although I think her words apply to all writing, not just fiction).

We sat in fake kitchens, we noticed clocks and lace curtains and identical bookshelves. We watched people testing out mattresses, we got lost when we strayed from the arrows. (We did not eat meatballs.) We looked closely, listened deeply, tried to see the 'familiar things' all around as unfamiliar, as new and unusual. And some pretty good writing ideas were born (we sat round a fake fireplace when we all came back together again and chatted about what we’d noticed.)

A jolly fun day. Here are three things I spotted:

[one.] Mirrors. Lots of them. I kept catching myself just walking ‘out of frame’, like my reflection was made of the same stuff as Pan’s shadow. Like it didn’t quite belong to me. Like it wanted me to chase it.

[two.] A red-jumpered three-year-old sitting in a shopping trolley being fed chocolate by a (seemingly body-less) arm as though he was a little monkey in a cage.

[three.] These Characters from Red Riding Hood toys (above) with tiny eat-able grannys. Slightly disturbing I think. (But if you buy them, one euro goes to UNICEF apparently. Good to know that even if your child is traumatised, at least someone else’s is benefiting).

Stay tuned!

Notes:

*(Seriously though: if you are a student studying in Scotland interested in writing for us then you can find out more: here. Or @quotidianmag on twitter.)  

**Is it IKEA or Ikea? I always want to capitalise it… but I’m not sure if that gives the impression I’m shouting. (“IKEAAAAAA!!”)