writing

A Life’s Work (fiction!)

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It’s the perception that’s important.  It’s shaping up be to my life’s primary recorded work so I feel it imperative to make it entertaining. And, of course, impressive.

The fact that I hate Spain and simply loathe Gaudi is immaterial. Towering Catalan gothic architecture photographs really well. And how often do most people get to Spain?  Exactly.

It’s important to eat well.  I’m totally over truffles, in fact the smell of them right now makes me dry heave.  But they’re expensive and you can only get them in the right places.  A well-placed photo of fresh truffles grated over a housemade tagliatelle really hits the nail on the head.

Sharon? I know she’s mentioned a lot.  No, I do like her, I do.  It’s not just the free invites to party of the week #LeonardoDiCaprio #TrumpTower.  She can’t carry a conversation? Really? I honestly haven’t noticed that.  Well maybe she’d just had her lips done, it makes it hard for her to talk for a few days.

It’s a nice idea to pepper a few positive affirmations around the place. It’s not like I’m Buddhist or anything but I feel it helps me appear more well-rounded. Very rarely I’ll share a charity piece, I don’t want to people to think I’m moping around worrying about the world.

Yes, my mother is ill. Yes, very. Christ, you think I’m going to post that? I’m off to Paris this weekend. It stinks at this time of year, dog shit everywhere as well, but it’s Paris you know. Nothing beats an Eiffel selfie.

 Sorry? Oh yes, I’ll visit her soon. It’s only been a month or two.

No, I’m not lonely, are you kidding me. Look at my life, it’s fabulous. Just scroll down a little more. Doesn’t it look great.

Smooth Criminal

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So yesterday I’m walking home from the train station and I’m only a few steps behind a fellow commuter.

Prior to my trek I had removed my clippy cloppy heels and donned unattractive but very practical and comfortable winter boots with thick rubber soles.

As I headed swiftly home I realized that even though I was walking at speed, my footfall was almost undetectable, and that the fellow in front of me had no clue I was walking only just behind him.

Which immediately made me think.

“Why! These would be fantastic boots if I wanted to rob somewhere!” I thought.

“I could break into a house completely undetected. They make NO sound at all on the ground! They’d be perfect!”

To which I added “But the laces are long, they would possibly swing into something and make a noise (Perhaps they’d graze a laser beam?! Really, what was I thinking!) SO I would have to tie the laces firmly around the tops of the boots to ensure they don’t flail about”.

Which then led to “But this outfit wouldn’t do, what else would I wear?”.

At this point, the halo-ed creature on my other shoulder pointed out that these musings were completely ridiculous. I don’t rob anything ever.

And so I continued to walk home, sans criminal intentions.

Stitches and Needles

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Do you remember ever thinking, when you were a small creature, that one day you would be grown up and that everything would change?

In my head, it was a fixed line, a line I would walk over one day and Wham! Bam! I would be a grown up.

And what a fantastic day this would be!

First of all, on this first glorious day of my new adult life, I would no longer be afraid of needles. Wouldn’t that be great!

“Yeah Doc, just stick it in my arm, I’m really not bothered” I would say airily with a grand smile.

Oh and if I had some nasty accident with a knife and needed stitches, the thought of which nearly made me faint, then that would be fine too. On this day, this day of all days when I had become a grown up, I would no longer care.

“Stick that needle through my skin and sew me up and I will be on my way” I would say, and I would mean it.

What a fine thing it would be to be a grown up.

Life would be so much easier.

Monday Morning: A True Story

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She sways slightly.

One girl on a train carriage filled to the brim with over-heated, down-jacketed commuters.  Those sitting pretty around her look up in horror.  They register the bloodless face, the sway becoming deeper and know they have to break the commuters’ code of non-communication.  

The two women sitting closest share a pregnant glance.  “What do we do?” and “Do I really have to stand up on this blasted train?” and “Which one of us is it gonna be?”

One takes the lead.  “Would you like a seat” she says, falteringly.  As the girl’s sway becomes deeper and she appears on the precipice of becoming wholly horizontal, the woman jumps up.  “Here, sit down, sit down” she says, guiding the girl downwards to safety.

The girl sits, head cast down, pale and fearful.

Others pipe up.  

“Has this happened to you before?” ventures a classic paperback reading fellow dressed older than his years.

The girl looks up, huge brown eyes confused.  “No” she says.

“Do you feel dizzy or faint?”

“Both” she says.

The man returns to his book.

One woman, the one who did not stand, fumbles in her bag for some water.  “Here have some water.  Do you want a granola bar?”

The girl’s arm reaches out for the water and she takes a few slow sips.  “I have a granola bar in my bag” she replies.

She sits quietly.  The man continues reading.  The other women go back to their phones.

The carriage relaxes back into comfortable silence.

As the train draws into the city, the girl rises with the throng and continues her way to work.

 

On Wardrobes with Coats in Them

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Do you ever, now, as an adult, when staying in the spare bedroom of a friend’s house, open the wardrobe to find it full of coats? Coats used rarely so hung up in an empty room mothballing and waiting… and when you find it full of coats do you ever push through them with your hands just in case it happens that you will push through and on the other side will be (you know, I know you know) a land of snow and ice and Aslan and magic?

I do.  I really do and I really have pushed my hands through just in case.  I haven’t found Narnia yet but am ever hopeful that it does exist.  I am 37.

I speak of this because I am halfway through Neil Gaiman’s new book and it is liberally sprinkled with the magic of his (it has to be his) childhood.  The scale and mysteries and characters of childhood and I am absolutely loving it to the extent that writing a post which usually comes last on my list, has come up the list, because I want to try and eke this book out instead of devouring in one which glumph.  I don’t care if that isn’t a word.  Having said this, I know that I will be entirely unsuccessful as I’ll be straight back at it after this is done and dusted.

A quote from the book, it’s called The Ocean At The End Of The Lane:

“Adults follow paths.  Children explore.  Adults are content to walk the same way, hundreds of times, or thousands; perhaps it never occurs to adults to step off the paths, to creep beneath rhododendrons, to find the spaces between fences”.

I like to think that I have retained a little of the child even though I am now a bona fide grown up with a truly serious job, career even, and three children, one of whom has grown-uppedness starting to bite at her heels (poor love).

Not losing the wonder, getting excited about small things, finding different paths, noticing the dust of the fairies on the everyday.  It’s harder and harder to do once you have your own little people to care for and a mortgage and responsibilities and all that, but I think it may be one of the most important things to keep.

I’m still looking for the tiny door in a tree which leads to………, I might even write about it one day. But for now, I’ve procrastinated enough, it’s back to Lettie and… Neil. 

 

 

Dorothy

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You know how it never rains but it pours?  Well instead of siphoning these out gradually, here’s one more little ditty, for a dear friend who got me onto reading Dorothy Parker properly recently, The Portable Dorothy Parker in fact.

Evening y’all! x

 

Dorothy

It is all your fault

that I picked up this pen.

Your acid tongue

your shrewd remark

has inked my

wanton writer’s heart

and makes me speak my mind.

Big Blonde Doozie

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a.k.a. An Ode to Johnno

A day home sick in bed has helped me to publish a couple of things I’ve had waiting in the wings for ages (there’s MORE!!).  I wasn’t sure whether to pop this on the blog but what the heck!  This is a little poem that maybe no-one will relate to as it is so many years too late – but it is an Ode to Johnno….

An Ode to Johnno who called me a Big Blonde Doozie

when I was 20 and impressionable.

An Ode to Johnno

who died too young.

He whom I fell head over heels for

despite him “batting for the other side”

as he gently told the 80 year old Aileen.

He who was good,  thirty-something and wise

and so so beautiful.

With the biggest hair,  lankiest body

and best throaty head thrown back laugh this side of Texas.

An Ode to Johnno

the thought of you still brings an ache to the back of my throat

you listened to my idle complaints and ills when I had had an oh so smooth path

listened to them over and over with interest, compassion and always humour.

Johnno I miss you.

An Ode to Johnno.