notes from the hermitage // forget me not

There are so many things I want to write to you about, friends.

I want to tell you about how it snowed this morning so now the house is glowing with brilliant white light, and about the full moon I saw one evening back in the autumn while I was on my way to buy carrots from Aldi – it took my breath away and I chased it around the village in my car on the drive home. I need to tell you about the life-changing discovery that is: roasted broccoli* (um, hello, Green Deliciousness. Where have you been all my life?). I’ve been blown away by so many wonderful novels the last couple of months, and I’ve been saving up things to write about them because: trust me, you need to read these books**. They’ll change your life for the better. There are pictures and pictures and pictures on my laptop that I want to show you from the places I travelled to last year: from rainy Amsterdam, to the Southern heat of Georgia and North Carolina (where I was complemented by a gargoyle. Yep, you heard me right), to the green-doored Moniack Mhor (which is the most beautiful writing centre up in the North of Scotland. I spent maybe the best week of 2016 up there and fell back in love with writing while discussing the importance of stories with kindred spirits and eating, amongst other things, some great quiche). 

Oh goodness, there's so much to write. But *scratching record sound* – not for another few months. (Dangit.) This blog is on hold for a little bit longer because of the Great Time Consumer and Attention Demander and Monolithic Mega Project that is The PhD. 

I’ve mentioned that I’m doing a Creative Writing PhD before, I’m sure. But in case you didn’t know: that’s what my full-time – albeit unpaid – work is at the moment. I’m in my final year and that word – final – brings with it a very real sense of urgency as the countdown till the submission date ticks a little louder, and a little louder, in my ears. I’m very deep in the heart of finishing off the novel just now (and enjoying getting a clear run at working on it. I feel most 'alive' while I'm writing, even if also I find it very difficult). But I'm a terrible multi-tasker. So, to get to the end of the novel, I’ve had to become a bit of a hermit for a while. The only way to 'hear' the story is to switch off all the other noises, it seems. Noises like: Facebook, and watching TV, and, I’m afraid to say, the news (because, heaven help us all, it just frazzles my brain these days. But being stunned into panic isn’t helpful to anyone. I’ll re-engage with it when the book's finished). All those are things I could do with less of anyway, but other noises that I’ve had to turn down include, yes, this blog and other good things like: leaving the house sometimes, and seeing my friends more than once in a blue moon***. It's just for a season though. I believe in the work. It'll be worth it in the end (...right? *nervous laughing*).  

Anyway – I just wanted to say: please do keep checking back on this blog, because I’ll be returning to it in a few months. Writing on here is one of my favourite things and I was overwhelmed last year by so many of your generous comments on my posts (thank-you). I will be back. 

In the meantime, I have been ‘micro-blogging’ over on Instagram since the new year if you're interested. What does that look like? Well, I’m trying to take at least one picture a day that tells a story. And I also talk a lot on there about how much I love Jane Eyre and how the writing is coming along. You can find me under @teaandascone). See y'soon. 

//

Notes:

*Broccoli: Okay, this can’t wait. Here’s what to do. Chop the broccoli into little trees, toss with a little olive oil (if you have garlic infused oil, all the better), salt and pepper and bung it in the oven for about 15-20 minutes (turning it a few times so it gets crispy all over) and: voila! (You could also add some lemon zest, chilli flakes and a little grated parmesan. Amazing. Even if you don’t think you like broccoli: try it. Let me know if you like it).

**Books: the good books include Olive Kitteridge, All the Light We Cannot See, I Capture the Castle, and Jane Eyre (obviously).

***friends that I haven't seen in a while: I haven't forgot about you. I still love you. (Don't forget me ❤). I'll be back in the world soon.

//

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.

Dear July, nine // gather ye buttercups while ye may

Dear July

So I came home for the weekend and don’t seem to have made it back to Glasgow yet*... On Saturday my Mum made the tastiest of dinners: aubergine parmigiana with salad, home-made Caesar dressing, warm ciabatta bread sticks with balsamic vinegar and olive oil for dipping, red wine, olives. Delicious. While we were eating, my Dad looked out at the greying sky and said, ‘Do you think it’s getting too dark to cut the grass now...?’

He’d been to-ing and fro-ing about when to cut it all day. My Mum looked out the window. ‘Mm, I say get up early and do it tomorrow morning,' she said. 'It’s best to do the jobs you least want to do at the start of the day...’

Very true words. (And ones I’m trying to take to heart this week. I'm trying to just get up and get on with what needs done – hair askew, eyes like a panda-bear – rather than dragging it out over the whole day, or avoiding it till late-late-later so I end up walking around with guilt thundering over me like a one-man rain cloud).

Anyway ... I was quite pleased he didn’t cut the grass because it was full of little wildflowers (or pretty looking weeds at least). Buttercups and clovers and – here my flower-name knowledge ends – purple ones and little white ones and so on. Before all those colours could get churned up by lawn mower blades, I ran outside with a pair of scissors* to pick a few of them for the vase on my desk. I’m going to try and keep this little study full of flowers to cheer me on (cheer me up) as I type away until the work is done. 

I can do this. I can do it.

//

A word on flower picking. 

Here is a nugget of wisdom for you: when gathering flowers, it’s advisable not to wear a maxi dress ...because insects resting on the petals are likely to climb up your legs – looking for some shade from the sun most likely – and it’s not 'til you go to the bathroom a little while later that you discover them – white with feathery wings – sitting casually on the spot of skin just above your knee and you end up getting a fright and shouting ‘OH!’ loudly to yourself – the syllable echoing around the bowl of the sink – much to the bewilderment of people in the next room.

I speak from experience. This happened to me. Not this time but back in June during my recent trip to the States. There was a lovely afternoon where Christi – the sweet friend that I’d gone over to visit – pulled in by the side of the road so we could pick some wild flowers for our table at night. Like everything in America, the flowers were bigger (bigger, at least, than these teeny ones on my desk now). There were daisies, and Queen Ann’s lace and other types – pretty ones with little white faces and purple ones with whiskery petals – of unknown name. Gathering them up, the cars whizzing past us (on the wrong side of the road), the sun on our shoulders, was one of my favourite small moments from our trip. Even in spite of the large white bug.

//

Notes.)

*The lease on my flat is almost up and I think I’m sort of trying to mentally re-transition into life at home. I’ll be moving back here again in a few weeks time (funding running out soon, rent money not growing on trees, needing to just get my head down and finish the PhD, seems like the sensible thing to do for now, etc.). It's been a difficult decision, but - loving this place and these people as much as I do - I think it will be okay. This isn't failing. It's just necessary for now. All will be well. 

*I should point out that I didn't actually 'run' with a pair of scissors. That would be lunacy. I walked carefully. Of course. Safety first. (On that note, watch this: from Fraiser).

Dear July, seven // from the cutting room floor

Because it's been a while, I thought I'd type out some recent 'noticings' from my writing-notebook. (I've written about keeping an observational notebook a few times before on this blog, but specifically: here. Basically, I am a bit nosy but use the excuse of ‘I’m a writer’ to legitimise writing down interesting things strangers are doing in a little notebook. 'For the novel. It's for the novel'):

One // as seen from the library window

Two bald business men in lilac shirts are eating fish and chips in the company car. They’ve opened the doors – wide. And rolled down the windows – all the way. They’ve flicked their ties and lanyards over their shoulders. The larger of the two men smooths a white napkin across the lap of his black suit trousers before tucking in. And so it goes: the rain coming down outside, and the two of them - the air con blowing goose-bumps up their arms - eating chips on a Wednesday afternoon. Life is good.

Update 10 minutes later: It looks as though the larger gentleman also has a packed lunch with him, because he’s just finished eating a banana and a yogurt – the carton of which he’s just crushed in his fist – and there are crusts (from a recently consumed sandwich, one can only assume) sitting in little right-angles in the Tupperware dish he’s just put up on the dashboard. I suspect he’s eating this second lunch to smother suspicion when he returns home because he is, after all, meant to be on that diet ('Did you eat your fruit, Arnold?'). That’s why the windows are open, why the AC is causing an autumnal gust inside. (‘We can get chips if you like, Graham. But Marjorie must never find out...’

♥

Two // trying to describe a man I keep seeing about town

He’s the kind of man who tuts to himself while going about life. Tutting at the laptop screen, rolling his eyes at emails, mentally shaking a fist at the heavens whenever the rain comes on. He’s the kind of man who wears a blazer with his blue plaid shirts (always those plaid shirts. ‘Every day the plaid shirts’). The blazer and the plaid shirt and the jeans, and that hair on top of head like Fezzik from the Princess Bride. 

♥

Three // on the baristas in a coffee shop one morning

I’m writing in a coffee shop today, sitting beside the door to the kitchen marked ‘private’. Staff members keep walking in and out with cups and mugs, so the dishwasher must be in there too. The girl with the messy ponytail who served me peppermint tea has just walked past with a tray full of dirty saucers. 

‘It’s a busy day,’ she’d said earlier, her eyes tired. ‘I'm feeling a bit stressed.’ 

As she got closer to the door – ‘Private’ in gold letters – her colleague – bearded, happy eyes – bounded up the stairs towards her, almost skipping. 

‘Hey!’ he said, coming towards her. 

‘Hi,’ she’d said, her voice quiet, shifting her arms under the tray to balance the weight. 

She leant against the door with her back to push it open and at the same moment he reached out to help her – his hand on the door so near her head that his arm was almost touching her cheek – following her round with the movement of it. She breathed in. As the door swung closed and I heard the clatter of the tray being put down, and I did wonder whether he was going to kiss her in there. She came back out about 10 seconds later, her fingers touching her lips...

♥

(Pictures from an evening walk along the canal last week with a nice friend...) 

Dear July, six // let it be known

*Note: this was actually written yesterday afternoon when there was no Wi-Fi*

Dear July,

As I type this, I’m drinking peppermint tea outside a café in Hyndland, sitting under the awnings, waiting for my sister to come pick me up. It’s raining - fine, heavy rain - but it's also warm enough to be able to sit out here without my coat buttoned up.

The  view from here: a mini sunflower glowing in a pot on the table, a girl under a pink umbrella hurrying further up the street, car tyres splashing against pot-hole-puddles, a woman in a tie-dye purple poncho stopping across the road to shake a stone out her shoe, the sound of rain pattering on the awnings above me and dripping down onto the tables behind me, the flap of wings as a flock of pigeons fly from the roof of one building to the next, the swish of newspaper pages turning as the woman opposite me reads about ‘Chilcot: the Aftermath’ - ‘you don’t mind if I smoke, do you, honey?’ ‘No, no. not at all’ (though, actually: yes, a wee bit because the smell sort of ruins the whole fresh-air-vibes we’ve got out here. But: hey. It’s a free country) - the curl of smoke from her cigarette, the sky a bright light white even though it’s wet.

//

Catching snatches of headlines from the lady’s newspaper, it’s hard not to despair at the world right now. It all feels very grim, like humanity has given up on itself, forgetting that there's merit in things like: kindness, and empathy*, and tolerance, and actually telling the truth rather than just trying to win at the game. All the stories of hate-crimes, and shootings, and explosions, and ‘many feared dead’. All the back-stabbing, and fear-stirring, and fact-manipulating, and speeches laced with homo- or xeno- or some other o- phobia. The general, all round mess that the UK has got itself into (and the wince of living in a country that has just shown itself to be less open-minded, less forward-thinking than I believed it was a few weeks ago). 

I feel so ignorant and small in the face of it all – all this bad news. And it’s hard to know whether this kind of writing – eyes wide open, pay attention to the ‘ordinary’ kind of writing – has any place, or point, or relevance when the roof seems to be falling down. I’m reminded again, though, of Natalie Goldberg’s words about the importance of writing nevertheless:

"We are important," she writes, "and our lives are important, magnificent really, and their details are worthy to be recorded. This is how writers must think, this is how we must sit down with pen in hand. We were here; we are human beings; this is how we lived. Let it be known, the earth passed before us. Our details are important. Otherwise, if they are not, we can drop a bomb and it doesn’t matter [...] Recording the details of our lives is a stance against bombs with their mass ability to kill, against too much speed and efficiency. A writer must say yes to life, to all of life: the water glasses, the Kemp’s half-and-half, the ketchup on the counter [...] We must become writers who accept things as they are, come to love the details, and step forward with a yes on our lips so there can be no more noes in the world, noes that invalidate life and stop these details from continuing.” 

~ from Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones

Yes.

‘Let it be known, the earth passed before us. Our details are important.’ Yes.

//

Notes.)

*On empathy: I came across this video recently (on Oh Joy’s blog) and thought I’d share it here. Brené Brown is generally full of wisdom, and I loved the way this has been animated: 

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!)

Dear December: a whipped cream sky

I've been half-thinking for a while that I might write a 'Dear December' series on here, to nudge myself back into writing more often. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll know that I did something like this in July. I posted something - a thought, an observation, a poem - almost every day. Going into the summer, I was feeling quite restless: a bit unsure of where I stood with a number of things, a bit too caught up in my own head. 'My plan is to root July back in the ordinary details of the here and now,' I wrote in June. And the way I did that was through writing (because writing, as I'm always saying, is less to do with words than it is to do with seeing.)

Anyway... I'd like to do that again. This has been a very difficult autumn. It's worn me down, each week some new lesson in what loss looks like (feels like, sounds like, tastes like, smells like. In real terms: loss looks like 47 cold sausage rolls*). I'd quite like to lift my eyes again. So I'm just squeezing this post in very quick while it's still the first of the month to say: 'Hello December, month of strung lights and cinnamon air. I'm going to write to you. I'm looking forwards to your glow. Please be a good one. Whether you are or not though, I'm making a pact with myself to try and notice you.'

♥

Notes: 

1. *I'll maybe explain that (the 47 sausage rolls) in another post. 

2. This picture is from earlier this afternoon when my brother and I sat cross-legged on the floor by the lounge window and watched the clouds for a bit. He thought they looked like fire. I said: 'They look a bit like whipped cream.' (I came home yesterday afternoon for a visit, and haven't quite seemed to make it back to my Glasgow flat yet. Tomorrow! As good as it is to be "independent" and closer and everything, I love home the best.)

3. To mix(tape) things up, I'm going to post a song every day this month that I've been listening to or liking. Today: Evan and I were listening to 'Hooked on a Feeling' by Blue Swede while in the kitchen making peanut butter cookies (and accidentally setting the microwave on fire. My bad.)

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.

♥