A Drive on the Wild Side

Last Thursday - in good company - I drove over the tops between Weardale and Teesdale, defying the weather which had of late been threatening and snow-laden. Up there, un-fogged by people and a crowd of concerns it is possible to clear oneself of the present feel the deep past

The Lumpy Land

Here are some lines from my notebook

Passing through this lumpy land,

rumpled hard by men who, in ancient times,

quarried marble to build cathedrals

and dug coals to heat the hearths

 of the great and the good

Up here I encounter the wild places

under my own skin: the layers of self

embedded in my genetic structure;

the honeycombs in my head filled with 

un-worded memory, originating

in the prickly wake of my conception

Icing sugar snowflakes sprinkle the tops

and lie like silk ribbons

in the creases of the brown land

celebrating the wedding of ancient and modern:

between ourselves and people who - like us -

led lives imbued with purpose

and thought with equivalent care

of their children and tomorrow’s dinner -

the millennia between us melting

like snow in Spring sunshine  

Like silk ribbons in the creases ...

 WX

Snow Follies

I can't play bridge. I don't play tennis. All those things that people learn, and I admire, there hasn't seemed time for. But what there is time for is looking out the window. Alice Munro

****

Gilly says she’ll close the cafe when we go.

The snow cranks itself up into a blizzard. People pass by - head down against the white onslaught, conscious of their hero-status. Girl sporting flat blonde hair and leopard spotted fur bustles by.

My  friend wraps up and braves the blizzard to plough her way to the park. Her mission is to take photos of trees  that have strutted their brilliant stuff in the snow for two hundred winters.

I – frightened of slipping - opt to stay by the window, drink a glass of chilled white wine and think about  my new novel which, thank the Lord, is set in sunny France. Nice to contemplate.

Gilly’s friend -  carrying a shovel, wearing work cap and fluorescent jacket  – makes his way to the door. ‘I’ll see youse!’ he says to Gilly.

I follow him through the door  and think of Gilly, clearing the tables and closing the cafe behind me.

Lines In The Snow

 One red plastic sledge

One child in green boots

Sunshine. I see the shadow of snow on the wall as it flops down from steep roofs. The wall is pockmarked with black silhouettes as birds skitter off into the blue. A man and woman walk by in matching woollen hats, knitted in the Arran style. Their words are smoke in the air.

One green plastic sledge

Two children in fur hoods

Then, I walked to school waist high in snow. Later, stripped by the teacher whose face I don’t remember, I sat by the school stove watching my clothes steam and drinking orange juice, government issue. My teacher rubbed my cold feet between her warm hands. And still I don’t remember her face.

A woman pushes a wheelchair in the snow -

it has bright yellow wheels

customised for long-term use.

 

 

I dream of a broad river

And sunset at  the end

Of a bright, warm day.

 

 

wx

The Blue Taffeta Dress

I’ve blah’d on here and in other places about the illusory nature of so-called ‘writer’s block’. Now it seems I’m just emerging from one of these things.

I have lectured myself about winter blues; about being physically and mentally tired after finishing the French Novel, not to mention the challenges of the Easington project; about using up my usually overflowing Ideas Basket; about the need for fallow time to give my mind a chance to spring back into place.

I acknowledged all that but it was painful to be in the middle of it. It struck me that writing is my one steady and true life-companion and I’m lonely without her. I am addicted to her deadlines and there is the possibility that the rolling deadlines - the organising feature of my life - are one way in which I feed that need.

I have my reasons for feeling used up. At the centre is the unique nature of the French Novel, where I explored the depths of my odd perceptions of time, space and life after death. These things are there at the core of my story of needy and funny Starr, of wise Modeste, and the miraculous boy Tib.

Perhaps I needed more recovery time after completing this novel than any other.

I tried to leave the write-stop (my new name for w.b…) alone. After all, there was Christmas and New Year with its baubles, presents and presentiments. There were my delightful and absorbing visitors. And there was the beautiful snow – although that was (and continues to be) an unwelcome and disabling visitor.

Then there was the afternoon by the fire with Debora sorting out old family photographs – particularly of her grandmother Barbara - so she could have copies. (You will note that the pictures of Barbara, inspired my previous, heartfelt post here.)

Apart from the photos of Barbara, images the whole of my life started to trickle before me – frowning baby , curly headed, earnest little girl,

and the only one out of uniform in sixth form groups,

and the astonishingly young and slender bride in a hired wedding gown ,

and the young and the older mother …

and the writer.

One very special snap emerged from the higgledy piggeldy pile - of myself at 11 with my older sister and younger brother in front of the door of the house we lived in then. My sister is wearing a flowered dress. I am wearing a dress in violet blue taffeta with a broderie anglaise trim on the collar and a ruched cummerbund. On my feet are inappropriate white, canvas plimsolls. I am thin. My arms and legs are stick-like.

I turned the snap over and there in a schoolgirl’s round hand is written. ‘I am in the flowered dress. The other girl is my sister.’

The Other Girl Is My Sister! Now there is a good title for a short story. Or a novel…

… and Bang! The the writer’s block /write-stop is gone.

I have gone from stop to GO. Debora and Barbara have done the trick.

wx