Sock it to the New Year

Many years ago, when I was an aspirational mother, organising the family's laundry was one of my finest achievements.  Through my labour I could show the world (or the very very small part of it I mentally inhabited) that I was successfully in control.

When my first baby came (she just came, just like that) I held a very Catholic state of mind. She was pure and unstained, and must remain so for a long as possible.  Therefore I dressed her all in white so that I could notice any little mark on her. That child was held from the world's corruption until it was no longer reasonable (or practical) to continue - about six weeks.  Come on, it takes a lot of effort to keep a white-clad baby spotless. Anyway, in the early days, the child's nightgowns and babygros (yes, really - there had to be a difference between day and night - how else would she know it was bedtime?) were hand-washed nightly at the kitchen sink; often by an exhausted weeping mother resisting her husband's appeals for common-sense.

I did not iron socks, underpants, fitted sheets or towels. I did iron duvet covers and pillowcases.  There is something sublimely appealing in wafting a crisply ironed duvet cover over a clean sheet ready to accept its pie-filling of feathers. And something even more appealing about sinking contentedly under it at the end of the day, knowing that one has done one's duty well.

Socks, on the other hand, were more problematic. Tangled socks are generally unruly, mismatched, grumpy things.  To bring a tangle of socks under control takes time and systematic thinking.  Balling up tiny piles of tricot-edged baby socks alongside a larger pile of men's black socks might initially seem a quaint domestic chore of any evening. But when the tangled mass started to grow into boys' socks, girls', babies' and men's, the nightly task became overwhelming.  You see, one needs a very large space to sort, pair and ball; and the arm of the sofa was not up to it.

Systems need strategy, and when a system fails, then the strategy need a review.  I purchased three plastic baskets, and labelled each with its child owner's name.  At least then I could balance them on eh chair arm whilst untangling, pairing, and watching television. (I was tempted to write 'whilst reading' but we all know that would be both unlikely and pretentious, don't we?).

The novelty of the new system worked effectively, with proud husband smiling benignly at his wifelet's ingenuity and organisational skill.  Happy man to be able to leave the house of a morning, confident that the children's feet, at least, were well-managed, that the baby wouldn't be dropped by a gin-soaked mother or the children left unfed.

Gradually, as the children developed and their sock repertoires expanded, the task of sorting, pairing, balling again became tedious.  By then the break for both their freedom and mine had started.  As our separations began, at first, they were pleased to seek and find their own socks, to pair and ball and drop them into their baskets. Even if the basket contents were never quite decanted into drawers. But dissension soon arises in the passionate, besting breasts of pre-pubescent teens. And I'll tell you a secret, it arises in the passionate beating breasts of their parents too.  The three little sock baskets were redundant.

The heroine of this story (me, and she was a heroine too for even caring about the laundry) conducted another strategic review. To say I actually calculated how many hours of my remaining time on earth might be swallowed by sorting, pairing and balling my family's socks would be an exaggeration. What I did instead was an act of outright rebellion. Without consultation or even mention on the agenda of the next family meeting (yes, really - try it, it's hilarious to read the minutes years later), I went right out and bought ONE LARGE SOCK BASKET.  From then on, if anyone wanted a matching pair of clean socks they knew where to find them. The morning scramble through the basket secretly amused me as I watched yet another piece of my children's puzzlement click into place, and I'm pretty sure they never caught me smirking, not even furious eldest.

To this day the sock basket exists.  Over the years as the family has contracted, and expanded and with each arrival and departure, the basket acquires more odd socks; some not even ours. I still pull out the one soft white tennis sock with grey trim and remember the girl who threw my child's clothing out of her  bedroom window at three in the morning.  There was a lesson that badly needed learning.

There in a new year, one ending in a five which makes it feel special and so it is. It marks a change and another strategic review. A bit of life-cleansing the mindfulness police are suggesting. So I may just take some time out of my seasonal fever to throw away the odd socks, detox the basket, down-size the tangled bondage that stands between me and my goal of morning-clean socks and start the new year lighter for it.  All except for the soft white tennis sock with the grey trim.  There are some lessons only another woman can teach a mother's son.

Simply human

'It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say.'
Primo Levi

This picture and quotation sits above my desk; it will never be removed because it reminds me how easily we could fall prey to beguiling words and economic imperatives. Sometimes, maybe, we could forget too that we are all simply human.

Music? Of course it could only be The Killers, but later...

Worlds in which... half believed possibility

I would take you to Corfu and we would leave the soft white pebbles to lower our bodies into the gently tepid water of the Ionian Sea and laugh at our nakedness like children still.

I would take you to Venice to marvel at its pink water and we would walk and talk about Thomas Mann and see how many red-haired boys we could spot before realising how cheaply we'd sold our intellect.

I would take you to snow-laid Krakow to gasp at the Szopka and we would drink bison grass vodka at dawn before St Mary's Basilica to hear the trumpet call more clearly.

I would cook you sensual food, taking care in its presentation.

I would take you to the top of the hill so you could regard your life below.

I would look keenly at you.

Clean away

The thought came to her in the pulsing shower as she waited for the hot water to come back.  A forty year-old memory of Clive, who worked for the Civil Service and was proud of it, displayed his Civil Service Car Club membership disc in his sturdy navy blue Rover.  She’d mused over that badge even when they were together, and she did so again now as she soaped herself.  He’d taken such pride in his life, she was sure he’d displayed that badge to show his greater membership and professional position in the Civil Service.  Because he was – Clive - very civil.  Proper, in his tweed jacket and dark cavalry twill slacks - casual wear for evenings and weekends - soft Viyella shirt. Neat, but odd for a man in his late twenties, when most men she knew were wearing tight velvet trousers, flowery shirts and silk neckerchiefs. 

She laughed aloud as she remembered her drunken ministrations on drunken Nigel one night as he sat vomiting between his legs; she pushing his head down with one hand while the heel of her other firmly trapped his necker against his bony knee, effectively strangling him.  She couldn’t imagine Clive ever vomiting in a pub car park.

The hot water returned in time to calm her shivers. She stepped into it, rinsing and remembering Clive’s Bristol basement; dank and dingy.  She’d always been concerned about his piano as he worked his way through his classical-seduction repertoire.  He’d quickly understood which melodies stirred her to wild emotions and would carefully introduce them, a few bars at a time, until finally he played Chopin’s Polonaise Opus 53 in A flat major throughout; allegro ma non troppo.  Looking back, theirs was more of a Nocturnes arrangement but she was young and in love with love, so. What Clive didn’t know was that her analytic mind was systematically assessing his technique.  But that was alright, she had a choice.  Congress was silent and perfunctory.  Afterwards he would thank her, get up and wash his hands.  Things might have continued this way had it not been for his ski-ing trip to Zakopane.  She’d always admired his allegiance to his father and Poland. 

Having need of his camera, to capture the beauty of the mountains, he arranged to meet parents, sister and brother-in-law halfway, at Thatcham. They’d dine, hand over camera and meet the new girlfriend, more or less in that order.  Father was charming, as was sister.  Clive conversed almost exclusively with mother.  Now, there are social protocols without which relationships can neither commence nor develop.  Formal introductions are made, there follows mild and discrete appraisal in the form of small talk and a decent acknowledgement by way of eye contact, if not in speech.  A cordial parting salutation normally sets a seal on the nature of future encounters.  Clive’s mama gave few of these and hardly had the braised kidneys been cleared than judgement had been decided, swift and brutal.  The crack, once begun, widened. 

Back from ski-ing, hapless Clive resumed his life and quasi-courtship.  He liked her hands, he’d said.  He liked to straighten her fingers, balancing one hand at a time, palm down on his as he reviewed their genetic acceptability. ‘You have good hands; they are slim, soft, long fingers, good nails.’  This, she knew.  He went from appraisal of this singular feature of hers to one of his own body parts.  ‘I have a good forehead.  It is noble, high.’  She was not a fool; slim hands and a noble forehead do not a relationship make.  Neither was she interested in subjecting any more of herself to racial scrutiny when she knew mama would have a say in it.  The end was not well received.

Clive was shocked, naturally.  He’d obviously considered himself a fine catch: noble forehead, Shooters Hill Grammar and the Civil Service Car Club.  Her failing was the gentleness of the let-down; they never believed she was serious.  But at least Clive didn’t accuse her of having someone else.  She’d always felt that, deep down, he knew.  He asked for friendship of course; the usual bargaining.  She agreed, tentatively.  A clean break was always preferable she thought though when, a week later, he called at the flat, just passing by he’d said.  Of course.  Crispy brand new denim, gay shirt (checked not flowery) and horror; red cotton neckerchief tied with well-ordered gay abandon. His forced cheeriness, staccato, over frugal milk-less coffee barely carried them over the time it took for him to run through his prepared questions. Then he was gone.  She’d miss the piano.

The shower pulsed tepid.  Time to get out before the lasting memory of her morning ablution should be a cold one.  

September slipped away

With fat babies, figs and rhubarb
There it was, gone

Image and text

Two years, six weeks and five days, two years, six weeks and five days. This is how she counted the time he'd been gone. She counted between town and countryside, by mountains and by the sea. Between rising at noon and sleeping at the zenith of the moon. As she sewed sparkling tulle, as she painted pretty faces.  Her counting became a part of her. As ropes were coiled and sawdust swept.     No wall or steps escaped; she counted them all.  Counting became the thing that knit her together as her stitches unraveled around her.

And now he was returning to the only life she'd ever known.  The boy who ran away from the circus to become an accountant.  Coming home on a unicycle, that was what hurt the most.

Good luck Thea

Emperors large and small

Two weeks' holiday is supposed to re-calibrate the senses, get perspectives sorted and re-prioritise important features in one’s life. Sure. ’Hope you come back with a short story’, one supportive writer said; there were many short stories on that holiday but few were written down and even fewer made the cut into possibilities, which seems a failure.

However renewed strength came from removal from many of the external social and artistic structures that govern one’s life, many of which are supposed to generate creativity. And this despite some creatively strategic middle-class posts on Facebook depicting the best of the holiday. In fact all of the two weeks was good simply because those awful dominant structures were absent. Good,except for the constant philosophic revision that played over and over in my head; the conclusion being much the same as my thoughts at the holiday’s commencement: that it’s all so bloody pointless.  That competition is divisive and futile.

Watching early relationships flourish, celebrating processional success, admiring the indomitable re-enactment of a misguided heroic culture, I was able to observe my own part in the stupid machine.

The past twelve months have been full and wonderful with trips to international galleries, theatre and concerts, local engagement with creativity and the arts and the realisation that I had acquired a volume of skills that could be converted into useful currency. But only if I chose to convert them. There’s the problem. I don’t wish to join anyone’s travelling circus. Or even sell my own brand of snake oil.  If a recent trip to New York taught me anything, it confirmed that everyone’s hustling all the time. I’m exhausted to the point of boredom with incessant Tweets, Blogs and Facebook posts about ’writing’; how to write, how agents view writers’ blogs, the cost of self-publishing, writers’ festivals, writing cvs.  The seemingly endless babble gives a sense of an industry that perpetuates itself by constant re-invention. The eighteenth-century explosion of print culture was only different, it seems, in its use of technology. For crowd-funding read publication by subscription, vanity publishing - no change there; personal connections, read north London networking.  

While on the subject of simulacrum, I don’t want to lose the enlightening connection that emerged this morning reading Saturday Guardian’s Review. David Hare commenting on Dan Davies’ biography: ’In Plain Sight: The Life and Lies of Jimmy Savile’ describes how this individual (who I believe was the embodiment of deep cultural misogyny) got away with it. He says, 

[Savile’s] ’technique for dealing with his victims was always to keep on the move. “If anyone makes demands, they don’t make them twice, pal, because they get the sack after the first time.”’ 

This was a reference to Savile’s avoidance of the type of simple human relationships I was part of on a family holiday. In the absence of the usual displacement activities that accompany my life, and other party members, there was no keeping on the move; the world was moving around us and we were adapting ourselves to it, establishing and maintaining a pleasurable existence. No more than that. No politicians, writers, celebrities, bishops, priests or professors at our table. Just us and our simple love of a simple family structure, which if it could talk, would shout, ’them emperors are naked, we don’t need them, we got one of our own.’

In juxtaposition to the David Hare review, is Gaby Hinsliff’s on Laurie Penny’s ’Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies and Revolution’. Despite Penny’s primitivism and short cuts, Hinsliff finds much to commend in her ’raw, bright, urgent voice’. Notably, in the concluding paragraph:

“Deep down, I know if I choose not to play the good-girl game, I might not get as many kisses as I want. And that’s so much more terrifying,” she writes. Women don’t edit themselves, starve themselves and worry endlessly about getting it right because they’re stupid but because they “fear loss of love”.

If only boy culture could teach that wanting to be loved is not a weakness and girl culture could teach that equality, companionship and communication leads to the best kisses then the ridiculously contrived importance placed on prescriptive sexual allure and material status might start to fade. Narcissus why, oh why, did you look at yourself when you should have been looking at others?

As usual, this blogpost ends where it should begin but that’s another story for another day.

Naivety

To be overtrusting and unworldly with a natural or unaffected simplicity is something prized and protected in the very young.  Maybe that's why we gravitate towards these unspoiled new people who can look deep into our souls with the wisdom of ages in their eyes and still find it in their tender hearts to forgive us.

Yesterday this child's mother sang him an Irish lullaby with two uninvited female voices joining in the chorus.  His mother's voice, so sweet and gentle as she rocked her babe, unashamedly betrayed the nakedness of her love.  Our chorus could only hope to follow the pure tones she set, and little wonder as her own mother used to sing with the Bach choir and she herself sang for il papa twice in the Vatican. Nevertheless we gave what we had spontaneously and generously, and she was generous in return.

For us, the simple little ditty that called to us to join in drew on the core of our own trust and unworldliness.  Activity halted throughout the house as various people stopped what they were doing to listen, to experience.  Thereafter the pace of movement was altered, each one more gentle with the other, changed by the sublimity of the moment. 

As this little boy wanders through his life I wonder if he'll ever give the world to hear his mother sing that song to him again. 

Waiting

Truly this procrastination is a wondrous thing.

My love will come
will fling open her arms and fold me in them,
will understand my fears, observe my changes.
In from the pouring dark, from the pitch night
without stopping to bang the taxi door
she'll run upstairs through the decaying porch
burning with love and love's happiness,
she'll run dripping upstairs, she won't knock,
will take my head in her hands,
and when she drops her overcoat on a chair,
it will slide to the floor in a blue heap.

It could only be the man, with Jennifer Warnes:

Colours

I'm supposed to be
preparing a portfolio
of work for a deadline
about to whoosh
over my head, leaving
me diminished by
my lack,
feeling stupid.

The magic button works
the first time; this nihilism
requires the severest application
of cognitive behavioral therapy,
self-medication or
total despair.

One thing is certain:
dissonance with everyone else.
No-one exists precisely
on my plane;
there will only be
rescuers and the indifferent.

What better thought is there now than to pick up poetry and convince oneself that the time will be well spent.  'Colours' by Yevtushenko

When your face
appeared over my crumpled life
at first I understood
only the poverty of what I have.
Then its particular light
on woods, on rivers, on the sea,
became my beginning in the coloured world
in which I had not yet had my beginning.
I am so frightened, I am so frightened,
of the unexpected sunrise finishing,
of revelations
and tears and the excitement finishing.
I don't fight it, my love is this fear,
I nourish it who can nourish nothing,
love's slipshod watchman.
Fear hems me in.
I am conscious that these minutes are short
and that the colours in my eyes will vanish
when your face sets.

Homonyms and anagrams

A word having the same sound, or even the same spelling, as another but having different meaning or origin. 

Nyseo, yones, soyne, ensoy, osyen, are words made up from two different words - anagrams of Yes and No. They are words that straddle the binaries of positivity and negativity. They are not real words. They are not homonyms. I made them up to fit the title.

I made them up because the definition of a homonym is a useful way in to discuss character.  There is a character type who, upon being asked to attempt something new, untried, potentially risky, will say yes.  Then there is the type who, being asked the same question, will say no.

The character who says, 'yes' can be described as foolhardy, inconsiderate of risk, excitable by nature. This character is unreliable. This character takes on too much responsibility.  This character might fail.

The character who says, 'no' is sensible, cautious, does not over-extend his/her energies. Is calm. In refusing risk, this character makes fewer mistakes. This character can be depended upon. To say no is a good trait.  After all, where would we be if everyone said 'yes' to new things? Who would be blameless then?

To examine the origins of 'yes' and 'no' characters would be an interesting exercise.  To ask which type is likely to be happier would be another interesting exercise. So there it is, a writing exercise just made: define a challenge for a character-type to encounter and overcome.  Choose either a 'yes' or 'no' type...

A development

Adelaide Morris MA (Soton) BA (Hons) MMRS; a string of hard earned letters that impress some people enough to trust that I know a thing or two.  Maybe I do and maybe I don't.  Like a lot of people I just haven't been found out yet. There's been more flying by the seat of my pants than real flying.

However, all those suffixes have been bookended by a bruising new development - a small person - new in the world who confers a grander title. No role profile has yet arrived but I rather suspect I'll be flying by the seat of my pants again. At least this time I get a chance to fix some errors from the past, and make some new entirely ones.

Home is also Music

This is a beautiful poem (in my opinion) written/translated by
Qasim Haddad Mohammed A. Alkhozai



In the music that wanders in the rooms of our little home,
And climbs the walls, windows and bookshelves,
The music that shares our dinner and love
And reads poetry;

In the music that flows under our blankets,
And swims in the milk of our children,
And when we go to sleep and wake up
It stays at night watching our days,

In this music, wait for me,
In this music, I shall wait for you.

Learning to say no (a work in progress)

This may become a series of 'work in progress' poems because that's what I am, a work in progress.

I'm quite busy at the moment
Yes, yes, I know, so are you
But I am quite busy at the moment
Of course your work is important too
But really, I am quite busy at the moment
It's the cutbacks, I agree
Trust me though, I am quite busy at the moment
Well, we might blame the PhD
But it remains, I am quite busy at the moment
All being asked to do more with less, yes
But I'm still quite busy at the moment
I know your project is important
But I'm just quite busy at the moment
Will it really only just take minute?
Because I am quite quite busy at the moment
Well maybe a short meeting
I warn you though - quite busy at the moment
How busy?
Hang on, I'll check my diary

Balancing the act

Act, suggests performance.  Performance suggests planning, some type of rehearsal. We all do perform our various roles but I don't believe a great deal of planning goes into some decisions.  However smart we might like to think we are, many decisions are based on instinctive feeling.  Like the day I decided that my, then, two young children should learn to change their own beds; a simple skill that would contribute greatly to their future well-being, and that of their partners.  So I set them to this, now noble, task by explaining that they'd need, to remove and replace the existing duvet cover.  Off they trotted to their respective bedrooms, clean covers tucked against their skinny ribs, full of excitement at this new challenge.

Some time later, passing my daughter's room I noticed a half-filled duvet cover wriggling with the internal energy of an enthusiastic eight year old.  'You ok Steph?' I called out.  'Yes,' a little voice answered from the folds of cloth, 'I think I'm getting the hang of it.'

It didn't matter that I'd forgotten to tell them how to do the job because both beds were eventually changed and they felt a sense of achievement for having done it.  They worked it out for themselves and they've been doing that ever since; mostly successfully and, thankfully, without major disaster.

Now I find myself in the company of another wonderful group of young people who, at the start of their independent lives, are working things out for themselves. Who am I to tell them how to do it? Some will climb inside the problem; others will grab corners from the outside and shake vigorously.  And some may decide the cover doesn't need changing. They'll get the hang of it and at least they have a choice.

They inspire strong emotions in me when I'm with them, maybe because they are so new in the world; getting the hang of it.  I think about teenagers whose parents don't/can't support them; those who face peril just fetching water; others who will never even grow to maturity let alone be educated.  Those who have starved, shivering in the cold of a Syrian winter; the list seems endless.  And there's those who, a few weeks ago had little to worry about except themselves and who now face the prospect of being invaded by a larger, stronger neighbour.  I've been asking myself what that must feel like.  My research instinct takes me to the 1930s when Poland faced months of anticipation prior to German and Russian invasion.  What is normal any more in circumstances like that?

The nature of my blogging is that it takes me to unintended places and, what started as a light-hearted introduction towards a poem has devolved to a darker place.  So enough now.  The sun is shining and there's a piece to be written about being in control...

 

The speed of love

My dial-up was slow

Your twelve pages of love

Took ages to flow

From my printer

Days when no one should rely unduly on 'competence'

An entire day spent trying to get my research back on track and all I have to show for it is the idea that, in my opinion, Walter Benjamin would have enjoyed blogging.  And if the man says that 'genius is application' then I have applied for it today and not been well-served. So I am retreating to discuss the artfully posed aesthetics of this photograph of Charles James models.  'J'adore' I wrote on Facebook because the setting evoked a sense of French salon elegance.  The muted colours of the shining silk drapery barely clinging to these female forms are a delight to my eyes; they are even echoed in the faded floor coverings.  

Such an appealing image deserves an appealing accompaniment and Puccini's Madam Butterfly will provide it in all its Italian eloquence because 'its expression is entirely meaningful', and as Benjamin wrote:

Si Parla Italiano
I sat at night in violent pain on a bench.  Opposite me on another two girls sat down.  They seemed to want to discuss something in confidence and began to whisper.  Nobody except me was nearby and I should not have understood their Italian however loud it had been.  But now I could not resist the feeling, in face of this unmotivated whispering in a language inaccessible to me, that a cool dressing was being applied to the painful place.

Ah me but this should only be sung in Italian perché quando si vive per l'arte si può sempre essere salvati.

Ekphrasis

Eternal Spring | Auguste Rodin

There is a leg, perfect in its strength, proportioin and usefulness. 

That leg is unapologetic.  It says, 'see what a man is.'

It walks, it runs, it has muscle, sinew, memory; its structure is transparent. Everything about it proclaims its nature. Darkness defines its shape, protects and connects to its masculinity.  Strength leads eye, mind and body to dangerous places.; pleasure and death.

That leg says, 'look at me, see what I can do, put me to use.  I'll wrap myself around your soft body and forever imprint myself on your life.'

If a leg could talk, that is.

And then I read from Benjamin's essay in praise of Karl Kraus:

'If style is the power to move freely in the length and breadth of linguistic thinking without falling into banality, it is attained chiefly by the cardiac strength of great thoughts, which drives the blood of language through the capillaries of syntax into the remotest limbs.'

Ooh la, la la

Not sure she's in love with anyone beyond the RAC man who's promised to change their clutch and not a great end to a skiing trip but she's used her time wisely.

There's that time thing again...

Go Bonnie
 

How come?

Paris 2007

Finding time now to make time in the future is so time-consuming.

Negative capability

The presence of weather is noticeable
and if any eggs were laid in the halcyon days,
they weren't by me.
Unless, in the vernacular of performance artists,
my time is upon me.