The Big Sleep Tight

[Cue: film noir style - b/w soft focus, NYC accented narrator, c. 1951.]

"It's been a while, kid."

She squinted in the dim lamp light, trying to make out whose voice was coming from the fuzzy figure walking towards her.

"It's you!" She suddenly exclaimed. "I'd know those ears anywhere. I shoulda known I'd find you here."

It certainly had been a while. A long while. Last time they saw each other, she was a different person - young, fresh, clueless. She didn't know what life was. She was a rookie, a novice, a beginner in this crazy world. Here was someone who had known her learn to walk, start school, lose her baby teeth. She was way past having anything to hide from this guy. They used to be partners. But what had happened? One day, life had happened. One day, she woke up and realised it was time to move on. It was a tough choice, but sometimes in life you gotta do what you gotta do.

"Where've ya been, kid?"
"Not so much of a kid anymore, PB," she smiled - that crooked smile that always made him melt.
"I guess not, kid."
"I'm not the kid who needs a friend to listen to my stories, to catch my tears, to 'atta girl' me. I'm all grown up, PB. I'm not the girl you used to know."
"Harsh words, kid. But you're right. Things change, people move on. I moved on too, ya know."
"You did?"
"No, but I figured I had to say that to make myself feel better."
"Oh, PB..." she tailed off, her eyes shining with tears unshed. She knew there was nothing more she could say. They'd hit the end of the road long ago. This was only a short reprise before the final curtain.

This cuddly pink bunny she'd known so well as a small girl was no longer helpful to her, no longer something she needed. She had graduated from that life. She was in a new place with new people, new friends. They both knew it had to end.

"One last hug for old times' sake, huh kid?"
Wordlessly they embraced, and as she walked away, not looking behind her, PB touched his cheek where her salty tears had soaked into his tired, theadbare fur.

The final frontier...

Believe me, it’s not because I don’t want to write.  It’s not because I have somehow lost the ability to string words into a sentence.  And it’s definitely not because I don’t have anything to write.  I’ve been trying to write for months – for half a year, in fact.  I have had countless conversations about that fact that I’m not writing.  It has become a burden to me that I haven’t been writing.  I’ve chastised myself: “Why, why, why?  What in heaven’s name is wrong with you?  Just sit down and get on with it.”  It might even seem as though the writing competition earlier in the year dried out my creative resources completely, leaving me barren and useless.

I haven’t stopped being me.  I haven’t suddenly got bored of words, of tweaked clauses and twisted sentences.  Nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions, adverbs... these things are still absolute beauty to me.  I will pore over paragraphs and frown at pages.  I rediscovered the etymology of ‘grammar’ a few days ago; it is directly linked to the word ‘glamour’, which I loved.  I was recently discussing the point of reading, and my friend explained that he reads in order to gain knowledge.  I asked him why he thought I read, and he said, “Because you enjoy it,” which was so obvious to me I didn’t even think of it.  I haven’t changed, so why does it appear that I have lost my passion?

The problem is, I know exactly why.  The problem lies not in a deficiency of thought, or in a drying up of creative spirit.  The problem is that I am never alone.  For some this may sound nightmarish: I do not find it a problem.  Whilst I do enjoy time on my own, if circumstances dictate that all my time is spent with others, this does not bother me enough to make me initiate change.  I live with five friends, and there are another twenty others nearby, so there are always people to hang out with, eat with, watch a film with, go to a gig with, drink tea with, or just be with.  It is a community aiming to be as community-minded as we can be, which leads to lots of togetherness.  And, quite frankly, it’s fun.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  This isn’t in itself a problem.  These people mean the world to me.  They are my second family, and I love them deeply.  The problem lies in the fact that I do not allow myself space to think, reflect, muse and, as a direct consequence, write.  When given the choice of sitting on my own, or drinking tea and laughing a lot, I know which I’d choose.  Herein lies the problem.  For almost a year, I have lived in a big house which encourages the congregation of a myriad of visitors, and because I am a sociable type, the opportunity for conversation is continually present.  Some people have said they would find this house stressful, due to the number of people who come and go to and from here.  I, however, love the bustle, perhaps because I was brought up in a lively household, and so feel at home amid such comings and goings.  There is always someone to talk to.  Herein lies the problem.

Space is a precious commodity, and I do not wish to belittle its value by shunning it just because I have the liberty to do so.  I do know how valuable it is.  Indeed, I find myself seeking out physical space when I write, as I like having enough space in front of me (even if it’s a view out of a window) in order that my eyes can wander as I ponder – I find it very difficult to write in my bedroom, for example, where the view out of the window is of a brick wall a few feet away.  Social space is more elusive in form.  It requires a kind of movement which cannot be achieved by moving from room to room, for the sound of voices and the smell of toast travel remarkably well through a house.  Social space is gained by achieving a mentality which produces the strength of mind to choose, on occasion, solitude over companionship, thought over talk, silence over sound.  It is perhaps one of the most difficult choices that social beings such as humans could make.  But this kind of space is desperately needed if we can ever hope to benefit fully from time spent together.  Community is only in its fullest form of togetherness when its members have space enough to reflect on how their individual identities fit within the whole body.

Above Fractured Streets

The loneliness was like a disease. Creeping inside her unsuspecting body, it attacked silently from within. It lived in the television, on the radio, in advertisements, in noise and distraction. Such things craved reliance, robbing her of her own sense of self, of her capacity for depth of thought. Loneliness wasn't about being alone; it was the ultimate withdrawal of her innermost identity, dust-coated and forgotten amid the clamour of everyday life.

During those first months in the city, she was seized by this loneliness. Although she would try to hide it, to belittle its hold over her, her drawn face always gave her away in the end, even when with relative strangers. After a chance conversation with a stranger on a train, his departing words shook her from the thick daze into which she had fallen. “Don’t let the city eat you up.” These words, dropped like bright globes of light at her feet, illuminated the very ground beneath her. The city had eaten her up. The loneliness, the isolation, the frenzy, the impatience, the smell, the frustration. It had grabbed at her insides until she surrendered to its ways. When she had first arrived, she promised herself she wouldn't be like the crowds of commuters who rush along with their heads down and not the slightest care for anyone around them. She was going to be a 'thinking commuter', who could stop to listen to a busker, who could look out at a beautiful view, who would say sorry to those she bumped into, and would smile at those she spoke to. But the city had eaten her up. This city, whom she came to with wide-eyed optimism and trust, had embraced her not with its arms but with its jaws.

Her fascination with the city began long before she moved there. Driving down high street upon high street on the way to visit city-dwelling friends, she would watch shops go by, each as unique and peculiar as the next. Often she would make up stories about the people she saw walking past. Their worlds seemed so far away from her own sheltered existence. Where had they been? Where were they going? What did they do on Sunday afternoons? In the evening she would journey home, as the daylight faded and the street lamps lit, and the shop windows spilled their glow on to the pavement. Her eyes would be full of these wonders as she returned to the darkness and quiet of her sleepy village. She loved the velvety night of the country, but something about the way the sodium orange bled into the black sky above city roofs fascinated her to the point of distraction.

Because of these many ventures in from outside, she always wondered what it would be like not to return to the countryside, but to stay there in the city — to drink in the light and the smell and call it home. In the height of a sticky summer, she travelled there for good — this time not to return to the countryside. But amidst the fear, the apprehension, the confusion of a new chapter of life, the city for her was not the wondrous and affecting place she knew it could be. She passed so many evenings staring out at the view from the window of her eighth floor flat, seeing its glory but not taking it to heart. That summer was a heavy time, weighed down by the humidity of her thoughts and of the weather. The heat was so intense and oppressive that it caused electricity black-outs in the centre of town; it intrigued her that the created world could have such potent control over even the might of man’s greatest constructs.

Despite her continual unrest, the passion she felt for this mysterious urban organism lived on. Her guarded eyes still perceived the city’s beauty bursting forth with every step she took. Through autumn streets she would walk in the rain, watching puddles on the dirty road reflect the lighted windows in wrinkled surfaces. She was wet and cold and desperate for something which she couldn’t articulate, but the city maintained its savage splendour regardless of her wavering emotions.

Along those damp city streets, a new culture was cementing itself amongst the masses. The iPod generation had begun. It was impossible to miss those little white wires trailing from the ears of pedestrians and passengers alike. And that fabulously hip promotional campaign with the white-wired, dancing silhouettes continued to persuade malingering Luddites that they were not quite cool enough.

She was disconcerted by this state of affairs, and often wondered how this society had reached a point where individuals were encouraged to cut themselves off from everything around them and be involved only in their own world. These white-wired people didn’t have to worry about being accosted in the street by charity workers, nor need to speak to the person behind the supermarket till, nor wish to chat to family or friends when they returned home. To her, this easy escape from social interaction exemplified in one powerful symbol the very British predicament of not wanting to ‘get involved’.

In vast, grey blocks of flats and glittering, glassy commercial towers, hundreds of thousands of people were sustaining individual lives side by side — an image which perfectly demonstrated to her the city’s scope for isolation. Yet the very idea of so much undiluted life all in one place stimulated and excited her; to contemplate how many people occupied a single block was almost beyond her understanding. It was unimaginable that each life could contain within it bounds such complex combinations of hopes, worries, idiosyncrasies and longings. Somehow, however, they all managed to fit within the few hundred square metres of each floor, managed not to spill over into the street despite the immense profusion of worlds contained within those walls. They managed to keep themselves to themselves, to hold together their own fragile beings, to coat their behaviour in layers of socially accepted norms.

Such was the culture which encircled her and drew her downwards as she entered the city’s grasp. Such was the detached fashion in which the everyday passer-by could no more acknowledge her than acknowledge a woman in a neighbouring country. It troubled her how any two people in this place could ever find a connection when everyone seemed altogether unconcerned about the lives of those around them.

Over time, she became increasingly torn in two by this situation. She believed that it was important to engage with the world around her, to be aware of what and whom she might meet at every step. She was desperate to combat the loneliness which she had known first hand and eager to communicate with this population of lowered heads and averted eyes. Yet, the attraction held by that sense of peace and detachment found so abundantly in white-wired musical reverie — so precious in this frenzied bustle of a place — was, in the end, too strong for her to resist.

As she began to understand further the city’s nature, she began to understand too the desire for such a lifestyle choice. She used to pass white-wired members of the public and wonder what they were afraid of facing. Yet when she lost herself in that same world, it made the outside make sense. In that world, she was able to take a step back, and to allow herself to be an observer of the action rather than a character in the plot. It lifted her from the heaviness of involvement and offered the sense of perspective which she had craved. It gave her the freedom to raise her eyes to broader, brighter things. And contrarily it also gave her the strength to push the ‘off’ switch and join the populated world once again; this populated world, brimming with animation and vivacity, drawing her inwards and forwards, illuminating her thoughts and igniting her ideas.

~~~~~

Entering the church, she takes a seat. A few pews in front of her, a pair of glasses rest on the shelf usually reserved for prayer books, and gentle snoring emanates from the bench. After a few minutes the snorer rises, retrieves his glasses, and slopes out of the church. Perhaps only a couple of hours rest has been snatched, but it is relatively quiet in this small sanctuary in the middle of the city, and cleaner than the dusty, gritty paving slabs of the street outside.

~~~~~

A man wanders between a hotel and an underground station. He wears a suit, common to the indigenous working population of the area, with the top shirt button undone, tie hanging loosely, one hand in pocket, the other clutching a briefcase. He slows to a stop next to a telephone box, as his eye is caught by prostitutes’ calling cards which wallpaper the inside of the booth. He stands looking for some moments, and she has passed him and descended into the station before she sees whether or not he acts on the initial impulse.

~~~~~

Travelling on an ‘up’ escalator in a tube station offers a moment of magic during an otherwise uneventful journey. As she glides to the top and the steps flatten out, there is always a moment when she waits to see if her velocity is enough to enable her to take off clean away from the ground. For a second after stepping off she thinks this might be the day she soars over the ticket barriers, up the subway stairs, over roofs far below and all the way home. Her step has a little extra bounce in it and she thinks this could be the moment she’s been waiting for. Not this time.

~~~~~

She finds the sky remarkably elusive in the city. Emerging from an underground train station subway tunnel, the buildings around her either command all attention for themselves, or else tower high enough above her to make the angle at which she has to crane her neck to glimpse the sky a minor health and safety concern. Providing a view of the sky is a precious gift here and is usually only found at a high cost, as the places which do so offer such an impressive opportunity. The only price she pays to experience such a delight, however, is flight upon flight of steep, concrete steps. From high up on her eighth floor balcony, she can see for miles, and is developing a considerable taste for weather watching, seeing clouds bank and furl and fly across the sky. There is a thick grey sheet of rain to the west, while the sun’s beams are still picking out shiny glass panes in buildings to the east. The city’s many sights and landmarks never fail to thrill her — to know that this world famous individual is where she lives, where she works, where she knows. She loves to watch the toy cars zoom down miniature streets, to spy on black ants in suits as they scuttle between office and station, while expansive roofs and towering glass constructs stand silent, oblivious to the industry below them. It suddenly strikes her as ironic that now, when she is able to take the opportunity to look up and up at the sky, she still wants to look down.

~~~~~

High up, she can see everything which she loves and loathes about this place; all of her frustrations and fulfilments melted down into the deep mould of these streets. Her very life is sunk into the faces of these avenues and alleyways, stuck to the walls with the glue of expectations met and missed. She doesn’t begrudge the city anything; too much is at stake for grievances to be borne. Its once fractured image is restored in her heart tenfold without the tiniest effort; it is redeemed by its simple intransience.

Despite being the source of endless irritation, it is the fleeting spirit of the city’s tourists which draws her further towards the most profound sense of belonging. When she is trying to navigate her way along hectic streets or when attempting to purchase everyday goods in a time-efficient manner, these strangers do not know where they are going or what they want. They are not familiar with the quickest, easiest routes around town, those satisfying shortcuts which carve minutes off a journey. They spend too much money on necessities because they haven’t the knowledge to seek out quality bargains. They scuff their heels past museums and palaces, holding creased maps up to overcast skies and squinting at tiny road names. They spend minutes eyeing up a photo opportunity, obliging other pedestrians to duck under the sightline of the camera lens. They pore over an unfamiliar currency, picking through coins, turning them over in their palms and scrutinising the markings. They do not belong there. They have come in order to collect a few mementos of famous landmarks to show off to friends and family when they return to their own town. They may have managed to taste a sample of what the city can offer, but they can never know it.

For those who know the city, it offers intimate companionship, a quality which goes far beyond simple appearances. The flashy sights which attract the shallow soon fall away when they travel deeper into its heart. Those sights exist for the benefit of those who don’t belong here. They are a simple method for impressing strangers who will not search further. It is knowledge of the hidden things, the obscure things, which mark out those who belong here. Those who have spent time exploring, seeking out, surveying, who have invested time into this place and have reaped the benefits of their efforts. They have searched the heart of the city and found that it beats.

The heart of the city beats through loneliness, it beats through overcrowding, through noise, through smoke, through smell, through want. Where safety and danger, wealth and poverty, great and tiny sit side by side, the city’s heart beats life through its own veins. Its heart beats for those who cast aside the surface horrors — because horrors they undoubtedly are — in favour of the simple fragile beauty which is encased there. For those who dwell amongst this tangle of humanity at its best and worst, there is great reward. While tourists take only pictures of the city, dwellers take pride in this place, they take shelter here, they take care, they take root. Those who are rooted here, who know it, who belong — for them the city is home.

City

My fascination with the city began early in life. A number of family members and friends have SW postcodes, so several Sundays a year we would venture inside the M25 boundary. Driving down high street upon high street — who knew that one city could have so many high streets? — I would watch the shops go by, each as unique and peculiar as the next. Often I would make up stories about the people I saw walking past. Their world seemed so far away from my sleepy Hampshire village. Where had they been? Where were they going? What did they do on a Sunday afternoon while I was having roast dinner at my aunt’s? Then in the evening we would drive back, as the daylight faded and the street lamps lit, and the shop windows spilled their glow on to the pavement. My eyes would be full of these wonders even as we returned to the darkness and quiet of the semi-rural south. I loved the velvety darkness of the country — and still do — but something about the way the sodium orange bled into the black night fascinated me to the point of distraction.

Because of these trips, I always wanted to know what it would be like not to return to the countryside, but to stay in the city — to drink in the light and the smell and call it home. I was never interested in being a university student in the city because it was something I had saved in my heart for ‘real life’, for when I could be a ‘real person’ and do things which ‘real people’ did. When I finally moved there in the sticky summer of 2006, my heart was all over the place. Fresh from my experiences around the globe, and struggling to understand and contain feelings for someone I couldn’t have, the city was not the wondrous and affecting place I knew it could be. Many an evening I would stare across at the view from the 6^th floor window of the first city flat I lived in, seeing its glory but not taking it to heart. My heart was elsewhere and I couldn’t see how to reconcile it with the truth. That summer was a heavy time — weighed down by the humidity of both my thoughts and the weather. (Weather so hot and humid that it caused electricity black-outs in the centre of the city — who knew that the created world could have such potent control over the might of man’s greatest constructs?)

However unhappy I was at times during that period, though, my passion for the city persisted. Despite the confusion of seeking a new job and a new place to live, despite my heart’s continued agony over the subject of the someone I couldn’t have, with guarded eyes I observed its beauty bursting forth with every step I took. I recall walking in the rain through the autumn streets, watching puddles on the dirty road reflect the lighted windows in wrinkled surfaces. I was wet and cold and desperate for something else, but the city maintained its savage splendour regardless of my emotional inconstancy.

As happiness began to descend on me, the city was obviously easier to love. I found that revelling in its glory simply added to my joy. Everything seemed to add to my love of this place. Expressing such feelings are difficult here, however. Not only do we as a people have a tendency to whinge, there are also lots of aspects of this place which are really, really hard to love. Crime, pollution, overcrowding, rudeness, politics, poverty, drugs — to name but a few of the lesser delights. But isn’t love all about that? Seeing past the pain and the flaws into the core of goodness. Being willing to cast aside the surface horror — because horror it undoubtedly is — in favour of the simple fragile beauty which it encases.

I recently heard a song which inspired me to write this post. It speaks of a similarly strong affection for the “wonders of this world”. It’s called ‘Hometown Glory’, it’s by Adele, and you can watch her sing it here.

I’ve been walking in the same way as I did
Missing out the cracks in the pavement
And tutting my heel and strutting my feet
“Is there anything I can do for you dear? Is there anyone I could call?”
“No and thank you, please Madam. I ain’t lost, just wandering”

Round my hometown
Memories are fresh
Round my hometown
The people I’ve met
Are the wonders of my world
Are the wonders of my world
Are the wonders of this world
Are the wonders of my world

I like it in the city when the air is so thick and opaque
I love to see everybody in short skirts, shorts and shades
I like it in the city when two worlds collide
You get the people and the government
Everybody taking different sides

Shows that we ain’t gonna stand shit
Shows that we are united
Shows that we ain’t gonna take it
Shows that we ain’t gonna stand shit
Shows that we are united

Round my hometown
Memories are fresh
Round my hometown
The people I’ve met
Are the wonders of my world

Very poor show.

I am not giving my blog the attention it deserves. There are nineteen unblogged thoughts in my writing ideas notebook, stretching back to last autumn, waiting to be unpacked and unpicked. All I need to do is put some time aside to sit down and actually write. Not so difficult, you'd think...

What do I have to do to make myself write more frequently? This six week long silence is inexcusable. I am not impressed with myself.

Book rejection

My post of 7th May 2007 has been the subject of a number of conversations over the past few months, which has caused me to think of a further tribulation inherent in a book reading lifestyle...

Reading a book is such a personal experience. Unlike, say, watching a film or listening to music, the written word requires significant effort to appreciate it. When you press 'play' on a DVD or CD player, the pictures and sounds do all the work, allowing you to be passive and to let it wash over you. When you open a book, however, you engage with the words in a way unparalleled in most other artistic contexts. The book owns you, and you own the book. In reading the words you bypass any external communication; they become part of your consciousness, delivered straight to the doorstep of your thoughts. You’re not just experiencing, you’re creating.

The real complication comes if you really love a book. As with all relationships, if you're very close you have a much greater capacity for vulnerability and hurt. It's an intimate attachment — sometimes so intimate that even talking about it can be almost unbearable, as though you're talking about your deepest feelings to a complete stranger. If you ever do open yourself up to such discourse, there lies ahead potentially great agony. Hearing a favourite book besmirched, even to a small degree, is worse than a mere slight on one's taste (indeed, if that was the only issue, it would be a small price to pay). The book is more than just a wonderful friend — it has become intertwined with your thoughts, your feelings, your experiences, your very identity.

Having to untangle this mass of complex humanity to decipher what is art and what is person can be challenging. One must accept that literature is in the public domain to be shared and discussed and criticised. If someone finds him- or herself entangled within a work of art then that is not entirely the fault of the book. Literature is not to be wrapped in philosophical cotton wool and kept in a display case to prevent wear and tear. A great poet once said, “Some books are undeservedly forgotten, none are undeservedly remembered” (well said, Mr Auden). Books are remembered because they are talked about, criticised, pondered upon, ripped apart (metaphorically, one would hope) or applauded.

This is all very well, but being sensible and pragmatic about things makes Jack a dull boy (I think that’s how the saying goes). The fact is, when someone tells you they don’t like your favourite book, it hurts like hell. Nevertheless, you have to pretend you’re completely fine about it because you know they don’t mean to offend. Indeed, I have a couple of fellow book-types who tend to avoid telling me if they don’t like one of my recommendations because they know that it will seem like they’re just being harsh. The other book-types, who pull no punches nor bar any holds, have no qualms about expressing their disdain, because they feel cheated out of the promise of a good read. And who has cheated them but the very one who offered them that promise in the first place — i.e. me.

Thus, I am stuck between guilt for having let them down, and the grave disappointment that they could not share my love for the book. What can I do but bear the weight of this experience until a time comes when I can prove that amongst the great literary canon there lies works of art which we can all appreciate and enjoy? The time will come...

This post is dedicated to Lizzy and to Tim, who rejected my books but did not reject me.

2007 AD

For me, this year has been about pursuit, about rejection, and about revelation. It has been a year of extremes, both bad and good, and a gradual changing of mind. I tried writing the following in more detail, but decided against it for legal reasons (NB - not true) so here is an annotated breakdown of the events of my 2007.

January 1^st 2007: T has great plans for the year and reckons she knows what she wants out of life. (NB – she didn’t.)
January: T gets turned down for a job she thought was perfect for her. (NB – it wasn’t.)
January: T’s search for a flat becomes still more desperate and worried.
February: T’s search for a flat reaches weird simultaneous crisis/resolution point.
Feb 23^rd: T moves to Harlesden among great friends and some others who aren’t great friends. (NB – the others also became great friends.)
March: T applies for job which she thinks is ideal for starting her on a ‘good’ career path. (NB – it wasn’t.)
March 27^th: T leaves her church in central London, with which she had become greatly dissatisfied. Doesn’t have a clue where to go next. Doesn’t want to join the house church 5 houses down because that would be the ‘easy option’ and ‘not the plan’. (NB – it was and it was.)
April 3^rd: After two years of vain hope, a friendship from which she wanted greater commitment breaks down entirely. Rather than being broken by the ordeal, however, she is instead freed to live her life in a new way and finally find happiness. (NB – still hurt a lot, though.)
April: T doesn’t get the job she applied for, and decides that job hunting is too demoralising for the time being.
May: T realises that not only does she not want to look for jobs, but that she loves her current job and doesn’t want to leave.
May: T is happy. (NB – surprise!)
June: T is still happy, and begins to develop her gifts in a church context. (NB – cool, but weird... but cool.)
July: T experiences further enjoyment of life in Harlesden and at work.
August 6^th: T learns of and applies for a secondment position in head office at short notice. (NB – she had very little time to think about it properly which was ultimately a good thing, as otherwise she would probably have stayed at her old job and not gained the life experience.)
August 7^th: T has interview for 4-month secondment position in head office (10am). T is offered 4-month secondment position in head office (12 noon). T accepts 4-month secondment position in head office (12:01pm).
August 17^th: T’s last day at her job, during which a Tall, Handsome Stranger expresses interest in her. Then she has a wonderful leaving do. (NB – THS gave her his number in the last 5 minutes of her shift but she didn’t quite know what to do with it.)
August 20^th: T begins 4-month secondment. (NB – v quick turnaround.)
August 23^rd: T is contacted via the magic of Facebook by the Tall, Handsome Stranger. They go on a lovely date but things do not work out. It is an exciting new experience and she enjoys the adventure, and it’s not heart-breaking. (NB – thanks to that man for the new experience. It was fun.)
August: T discovers that office work is not her bag.
September: T discovers that event management may not be her bag either.
October: T discovers that the 4-month secondment is not her bag.
October 14^th: T is baptised by members of her church on a wonderful, creative, blessed, happy, moving day. (NB – praise God.)
November: T upholds the discovery that the 4-month secondment is not her bag.
December: T just wants to leave.
December 14^th: The 4-month secondment ends. T leaves. (NB – phew.)
December 17^th: T returns to her old job amid rejoicing from herself and her colleagues.
December 30^th: T looks back over the year with relief, joy and no small amount of bemusement.

I have written only 9 blog posts this entire year, which genuinely upsets me because I love writing. However, it usually takes me at least two hours to write one post, plus thinking time on top, and as this year has been rather full, it doesn’t take a genius to work out what’s happened here.

Earlier this year, a reader of my blog told me:

I think you should write and when you’ve finished, write some more, and write about what you love, what excites you or makes you angry. There’s nothing worse than thinking about doing something and not fulfilling your dreams or managing to bring your talents to the fore.

So, here’s to this piece of moving rhetoric, and here’s to a year of writing.

i love innocent smoothies

I've just bought an Innocent smoothie. I love Innocent - I think their ethics and marketing are absolutely top notch, and while they're very expensive, I think the quality generally justifies it. This one's the Breakfast Thickie (youghurt, oats, raspberries, and blueberries - yum). But what makes it even more exciting is the fact that it came wearing a little woolly hat!!! This is a genius marketing/fundraising ploy for the benefit of Age Concern, who receive 50p from the purchase of every bottle wearing a hat. Having admired the hat in an amused fashion for a good while, I turned my attention to the bottle itself. Firstly, I read the blurb on the label about this specific smoothie. There is different blurb for each flavour of Innocent smoothie, and they are always highly amusing, cutesy and informative in surprisingly equal measures. Secondly, I discovered that the bottle is not plastic. Not even slightly. It is made entirely of... corn. As I continued to peruse the exquisitely presented packaging, my eyes wandered to the bottom in the hope of finding some more information about this bizarrely chosen material. What words should I find instead? "Stop looking at my bottom."

"Music is the shorthand of emotion" - Tolstoy

The iPod generation is upon us. You cannot fail to miss those little white wires trailing from the ears of passers by. It used to be just trendy teenagers and twenty-somethings who sported this look. Then thirty-somethings cottoned on, and before we knew it, all ages were electronically attached to their music collections (and sometimes even audio books). Furthermore, that fabulously hip ad campaign with the white-wired, dancing silhouettes and brightly coloured backgrounds continues to persuade malingerers that they’re not yet cool enough.

There something disconcerting about this state of affairs. How has society reached a point where we are encouraged to cut ourselves off from everything around us and be involved only in our own little world? By white-wiring ourselves, we do not have to worry about being accosted in the street by charity workers, or having to speak to the person behind the supermarket till, or chat to our families or house mates when we get home. This easy escape from social interaction exemplifies in one powerful symbol the very British predicament of not wanting to ‘get involved’.

And yet...

Music, as we all know, is the food of love. However, it is also the food of drama and tension and excitement and sadness and all manner of other emotions. The presence of music in any situation can turn an ordinary scene into something extraordinary, and its power to influence the way you react to something can be disarmingly effective. For example, I always used to cry when I watched ‘Lassie’ as a child. This was not because of the dog with the voluminous hairdo but because of the music, and my mum discovered that if she turned the sound down, I didn’t get upset.

As mp3 players have become widely available, and music freely downloadable, something has happened in the sensibility of our culture. Suddenly we have the power to bring music into our everyday lives. We all know that music can make an average film more moving, or a TV ad more amusing, so to be able to bring that magic into the biggest screen of all — life — is immensely appealing. Life can, at last, be epically beautiful and beautifully epic at the touch of a button.

I sit on a train with my music wired to my ears and a film has begun...

I’m watching raindrops drip down the window pane. There’s a close up on my face and then it pans round so that I’m in the edge of the shot and you follow my gaze out across the city. A piano plays a lyrical riff over and over which reflects the compelling motion of the carriage. It’s quite a melancholy tune, and you notice that silent tears are making tracks down my cheeks. I’m thinking abut something sad, but then I look up into the brightening sky, and the music lifts and carries the mood into a new chapter... The camera sits high up in the roof, watching as I walk through the station with bustling crowds all around me. I’m not affected by the chaos, though, because of a sense of inner peace which is played out by a serene piano and double bass duet, whose rhythms bob and sway as I start to smile to myself...

There is an ongoing turmoil inside me. I want to engage with the world around me and know what and whom I am meeting at every step. But, when life is monotonous or hard to bear, escaping into musical bliss is by far the most attractive path. I pass white-wired members of the public and wonder what they’re afraid of facing. Yet when I lose myself in that selfsame world, it immediately makes the outside one make sense. It lifts me from the heaviness of involvement and offers the perspective I crave. A musical accompaniment reveals the world around me to be the transient and insubstantial place I truly know it to be. It takes me two steps away from the action, to make me an observer of the story rather than a character in it. It gives me the freedom to raise my eyes to broader and brighter things. And contrarily it also gives me the strength to push the ‘off’ switch and join the populated world once again.

‘Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.’ - Berthold Auerbach, German poet and author.

The trials and tribulations of a book reading lifestyle

It's ok - the city hasn't eaten me up. The last 3 months have been very full, but trying to weed out bloggable material has proved challenging. However, in the meantime I can summarise with the following. I have gained a new home, lost an old friend, further exposed my fanatical love for interior décor, joined a new church, not found a new job, started teaching the cello, had to deal with the impact of a suicide in my work place, uncovered a certain panache for the building of flat pack furniture, and become poorer in pocket but infinitely richer in life.

Rather than write about any of these things, though, I would like to return to a topic very close to my heart — books. I was recently chatting with a friend about books we’d read, and going through a list of 100 best books of the last 25 years included in a promotion at work. It appears I’ve read 15 of those listed, which I thought was quite a good effort, and she said it wasn’t that surprising, considering it’s my profession. I took this as an enormous (if slightly inaccurate) compliment, and it got me thinking more about reading as a lifestyle.

Living a book-reading life, trials and tests are bound to crop up. It may seem like a bed of roses just looking at books all day every day, but I can assure you that, as with any lifestyle, tough times will come which separate the wheat from the chaff. Let me illustrate with three specific problems oft faced by all who profess to follow the book-reading lifestyle.

Book pressure
Every day, new books arrive in our shop. Every day, I witness other people exchange these items for cash or credit, and they walk out of the shop carrying the books which I want to read. And, I would read all of them today... if it weren’t for the constant pressure of all the other books I have yet to read. Thus, ‘book pressure’ has emerged in my consciousness as a perpetual state of anxiety. The question, “Have you read...?” becomes more stress inducing by the day as I realise that the more books I read, the more books I have yet to read. More alarmingly, the more books I will never read. This results in tremendous psychological strain as I realise that I must choose my reading material very carefully. One false move and I will have wasted valuable reading time on pap which would be better off in the bargain bin. Which brings me to the next trial.

Book failure
It seems to me that the old adage, “Don’t judge a book by its cover” may work metaphorically, but try and take it literally and you get into all sorts of strife. Publishers deliberately choose a particular cover to attract the kind of reader who will enjoy the book. Ergo the cover reflects the contents; ergo always judge a book by its cover. Except for sometimes, when you shouldn’t. I recently bought a book which had a very arty cover and some cleverly amusing blurb on the back page. It looked great, which obviously meant that it was great. On Saturday afternoon, I had reached just over the halfway mark of this book before I sighed in desperation, turned to a nearby colleague, and burst into tears (nearly). “I just can’t do it any longer! I’ve tried to keep going. I’ve tried to give it the benefit of the doubt, but it’s just not working. I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I think I’m going to have to give up. I’m so ashamed.” My colleague tried to console me as best she could, but still the failure rests heavy on my heart. Book failure to me, you see, is not the fault of the author but of the reader. Something in my mind has prevented me from seeing the good in this work, and I feel worthless and incompetent. I have not allowed this book to live out its full life span through my reading, thus I have failed it at the most basic level. It matters not that the plot is non-existent or the characters are under-developed. If I’ve started the book, then I have entered into the artistic progression, and have not allowed it room to flourish.

Book mourning
At the opposite end of the spectrum, but no less upsetting, is the notion of book mourning. Some books simply change your life. They may not be revolutionary; they may not even be epics or world famous. But they can touch your very heart and show you the world in new and wondrous ways. If you are blessed enough to encounter such a gem, the chances are that you will want to go on reading it forever. Or at least for a long time. So, being constantly aware that all book-readings have a life span, you will be aware that at some point in the future your time with this book is going to come to an end. While you lovingly consume its delicious poetry, sympathetic characters, and absorbing plotline, you are at the same time bringing your partnership nearer and nearer its inevitable termination. One day this book will be no more in your hands. After all, you can only read a new book once, before it becomes a read book. Upon closing the back page, there is a painful mixture of satisfaction and intense grief in your heart. The book is finished. Your affair with these characters is over, and you must find a new love. You are painfully aware that you will once again have to go out into the field to find a new book, yet all the while firmly believing that you could never find another one like the last one. The world surely cannot contain any more literary greatness.

Of course, you know the end of the story. It is a mixture of book pressure, book failure and further book mourning. Following a great book with another equally great one is one of the most difficult aspects of reading as a lifestyle. Yet, while all these trials are very real and painful parts of being a reader, everyone who understands it understands also the immense joy which is borne out of the journey itself. Books are extraordinarily beautiful and complex things, due to the extraordinarily beautiful and complex world they reflect.