Sorry, no title for this one

For the last couple of days I’ve had my head down and my nose stuck in a book I just couldn’t put down: 350 pages of compelling stuff. Engleby by Sebastian Faulks: £2.99 in W H Smith if you were prepared to stoop low enough to buy The Times. I stooped. Then discovered I needn’t have bothered because the book was half-price in Waterstones anyway. Having been welded to the sofa for several days, I felt at a loss when I finished it: restless. I thought maybe a muddy stomp round the creek would help clear my head.

*

Why is it that when I’m walking my thoughts flow with every stride, but as soon as I sit down they dissipate? When I was moving they were solid (as in ‘real’, tangible), coherent, had meaning. Now they’re just ether and have drifted off with the wood smoke from the grate. I’m sitting here in a congenial pub staring at the redwood grain of the old pine table boards (so much more stable than it’s cheaper, yellow counterpart). They have a richness that has developed with age and I’m wondering when I might acquire my own patina. I don’t mean on the surface, wrinkling skin and liver spots. I mean a kind of depth, a colour that is the sum of experience; something I thought I’d just naturally acquire as I grew older, compounding experience upon experience. It seems to be eluding me so far. I look into myself and I see no richness there. Then again, I think to myself, that table’s probably four times as old as I am.

In the part of the book where the protagonist Michael Engleby realises and accepts that he is actually “bonkers”, I have a similar realisation about myself: I am totally out of kilter with those around me, though, as yet, not criminally insane. There’s always this urge from others to fit in with them, the way ‘they’, society, does things. Well, I don’t want to; in fact I just can’t. For instance, I wonder if it’s ‘normal’ (perhaps I should say ‘usual’) to get indignant, into an internal rage, about recycling instructions from the County Council? A red recycling bag, with instructions in a black Helvetica style typeface writ large on the side, arrived on my doorstep one fine day: you will not put x, y, z in this red bag. You will put cleaned tin cans in here, etc, etc. Oh, I will, will I? CLEANED tin cans? Fuck off, will I. Don’t fucking tell me what to do with my own fucking tin cans that I’ve bought and paid for. It more than irks me every time I look at that recycling bag – some anonymous corporation telling me what to do and how to live my life. It’s like a job I once had at the County Council. (Could there be a theme here, I wonder?) In the contract I dutifully signed I was instructed to wear ‘smart, suitable clothing for office work’. Ha. You can guess what I thought about that: don’t fucking tell me what to wear. I’ll bloody well wear what I like and what I deem suitable for wearing whilst sitting bored witless in front of a computer all day. What I deemed suitable were comfy, ratty old jumpers full of holes and covered in paint. (I knew how to rebel.) Had I been there much longer I may even have turned up still in my pyjamas, which is what I’ve taken to wearing rather a lot lately. Alternatively, I wear the same clothes day in, day out, including sleeping in them. Sometimes it’s about three days before I even notice, today being one of them. As I mentioned earlier, when I finished the book I felt restless and decided to go for a walk. It wasn’t until I was half way round the creek I realised I’d just got up put my boots and coat on and walked out the door without thinking about clean clothes (let alone a clean body). But, the thing is, it doesn’t horrify me like it would most people. In fact I don’t give a stuff. There are far more important things to worry about. Like what am I going to read next? Where am I going to find another Michael whose internal monologue is as inane and out of kilter with the rest of the planet’s as mine? And, talking of inanity, at least I keep mine in my head (well excluding this of course – one of Engleby’s circular arguments perhaps?), unlike the load mouth Essex soundalike family that have just arrived to spoil the peace and quiet and disrupt the flow of thoughts I was beginning to feel I was getting a grip on once again…

“You’ve got kindling under that ‘ave you?” No, retards, it’s a bunch of flowers. (I did consider calling them Tossers, but decided that was too good for them.) With that thought also going up the chimney with the smoke, I put on my not-waterproof waterproof coat and walked out into the pouring Cornish rain.

On my way up the steep hill, I wonder whether the rain that is soaking my thighs could actually be called Cornish? The rain clouds could after all have formed elsewhere and just blown in with the wind, rather than actually forming directly above Cornwall, entitling them to a proper name.

Engleby by Sebastian Faulks - I highly recommend it! (Link to Amazon)

Blackbird

I knew I'd find one,
I see me in them everywhere.
I can't help looking,
wondering, was it worth it.

Half-finished, or should that be half-started and never to be finished...

The painted Mars-red floorboards are scuffed and worn, but there's enough sheen that the light from the drinks fridge casts dappled patterns across the undulating surface. She's staring at it for several minutes before she notices that the music's stopped. A female voice eventually breaks the silence with a grandiose, soulful wailing "Get out of my life, why don't you babe, you keep me hanging on...". The daylight's beginning to fade and the primary red and white neon Illy sign comes to life in the gloaming, while she fades like the light.

On her second cup of coffee now, she sinks lower into the buttoned and threadbare chair, her head resting heavily on the padded wing. Tired and empty she hopes that as she closes her eyes she'll drift off with the rhythms pulsating through the air. But it won't happen. She's been too hurt to forget that easily; it's still all so raw and she feels wrung out and betrayed.

Journey

Mylor, Church Road: view of road.

Mylor to Penryn: plants growing on the verge and view of road.
Already the journey to you is a struggle; I’m so tired and my legs are aching from yesterday.

Road to Penryn: view over to hills.
There are tears running down my cheeks, and the sun, low in the sky, is drying them.

Penryn, Church Road: Travis Perkins.
This journey is about time. The time we take to make connections between us, the fragile threads we so easily break. It’s about the time we have through life, the things we miss, the stuff we see, the destination.

Penryn to Treluswell: workmen.
Some people travel so fast, seeing nothing. I’m plodding along, contemplating. Am I too slow? Against the flow?

Treluswell: Plastic in the verge.
The transparency is lost.

Treluswell: signs to Mylor.
This is a bigger undertaking than I’d expected. It’ll probably be dark by the time I get to you! How will I get home with no lights? I think it’s going to rain, heavily.

Treluswell to Ponsanooth: horses.
I can feel the spots and I’m unprotected against harsh elements. I’m watching the horses, some with blankets, some without.

Ponsanooth: wall and leaves.
Why does my mind feel so blank? I have good thoughts, but forget! I’m driven forward by the timer, stopping only when it rings. Every time it does, I’m 5 minutes closer to my goal, the end. Should my mind be so blank when the journey is actually racing by?

Pengreep: sky and trees.
The rain is falling now and my hands are getting colder. I’m hungry too.

Burncoose Nursery: bottle and hydrangea.
Sometimes I see such unexpected colour. Now I’m wondering whether I should amend this journey in some way to make sure I achieve it. What if I stop less often, will I see so much less?

Comford: trees, road and tree in flood.
Redruth is closer than I thought, so I’ll stick to my original plan. There’s so much detritus in the verges, you never really see it.

Lanner: blackbird.
I knew I’d find one, they’re everywhere. I can’t help looking, wondering was it worth it.

Lanner: tree trunk.
So cold I’ve stopped for soup.

Lanner: children’s playground.
Thinking about Rousseau’s Confessions, his journeys. Life is about the people isn’t it? The journeys you take with them, what they open your eyes to?

Lanner: crossing and road.
This is where you grew up, can you follow the threads?

Lanner: bus shelter.
I wonder what it would be like if I’d taken the other journey; would there be any shelter?

Lanner to Redruth: trees and road.
No matter how arduous this is I feel I have to continue. I must get to you.

Redruth: road signs.
I wish it was clear, by now I’d be able to see my goal.

Redruth: main crossroads/traffic lights.
Too wet. It’s impossible to write.

Redruth Tesco: flowers and sign, carts and ground.
I’m moving on from here now.

Road to Illogan: pylons.
The pencils were a good idea, but I’m so cold and tired now that I’m wondering if I’m seeing anything at all any more?

Illogan: tarmac.
The only thing that’s keeping my spirits up is knowing the warmth and welcome that you will give me. My hands are frozen to the bone after 4 hours of this and I can hardly write at all.

Illogan: puddle and drain.
These intervals seem to be getting shorter and closer. Camus, or was it Satre, Camus I think, was right - time is not constant.

Illogan: Puddle and memorial.
The water is pouring so much redder here.

Road to Hayle: muddy farm entrance.

Road to Hayle: Your cottage.

Midnight ramblings

I'm sending out words and images and have no record of them. It's weird in the day of emails and computers to send out a hand written letter and not be able to reread what you wrote. I could have copied them out verbatim before I posted them, or photographed them or scanned them into the pc, but I wanted to remember what it was like not to be able to do that. Somehow I think it makes it more intense; you need a kind of clarity so that you can follow the thread, so maybe you take more care about how you remember it and in some way that lodges deeper in the mind. Or maybe it's just because of the nature of the person I'm corresponding with; our reactions to each other's letters are just so visceral and that's what you remember, rather than actual words or pictures. Maybe I don't have a clue what I'm on about and should just go to bed, we are, after all, supposed to be setting up this correspondence as an installation tomorrow and I can hardly keep my eyes open. Help!

Can't be arsed

For an art blog there hasn't been much in the way of visual stimulation here for a while has there? How remiss of me. There are various reasons for this: I'm using a new laptop and the software I needed to load for my camera phone isn't working and I can't be arsed to sort it out; I haven't got Photoshop or anything on here yet either. But mostly it's because I'm feeling like a right miserable cow, in case you hadn't noticed, and 'can't be arsed' just about sums up everything about me right now. For example I'm sitting here in my sleeping bag writing this because I can't be arsed to get up. When I do finally get up I know I won't be arsed to do something with my unruly morning hair and will just tie it up, if I can even be arsed with that. I won't be arsed to make breakfast, because it'll be almost lunchtime, then I won't be arsed with lunch because it'll involve effort that I can't be arsed with. Then I'll notice that it's a beautiful day and I'll think to myself that I should go for a walk and make the most of it, but you know I just can't be arsed and that I'll sit at my desk staring out of the window instead. By 3pm I'll be in such an arsy mood with myself for not being arsed that I'll get all irritated. Then I'll be bloody restless and the thing I hate most in the world is feeling restless, well that and feeling needy and insecure - and I can't be arsed with that any more. It's all leaving me wondering what exactly is left that I can actually be arsed with, but I'm finding it's so much effort to come up with anything, that I can't be arsed to think about it any more.

The gift

So beautiful. I could never have imagined that I would receive something today that would touch me so deeply; a love letter, weaving your words of love into the fabric of my soul. The deep umber shadow that is with me through day and darkness, my constant companion, lifted long enough for me to feel the depths of your words. I want to sear the edges so that there are no loose threads to be pulled or unpicked, so that the cloth you made will bind your words behind my eyes and I will never forget. My body, so ravaged by the years, crumpled easily under the weight of tenderness you packaged up and sent to me. But what words of love can I return to you? I am bereft of anything but deep depression and longing. I long so much to be loved in the way that you love and cry rivers of tears that words like yours are never meant for me.

Under the Blossom Trees

It’s a wonderful view from here - from the top of the flats on a clear day I can even see the Post Office tower. But just now I’m leaning over the rails from high above, looking down at you playing and I can’t help smiling. There you are running around the crab apple trees that line the road, scooping up all the pink blossoms and leaving the white ones; every now and then you disappear from view under the canopies. Later on in the year you’ll be collecting the fruits from these same trees, biting into their hard, sour flesh, loving the taste and miniature size of them. I watch you holding out the hem of your summery dress and piling the laden flower heads into your makeshift basket, inspecting them before you let them in, dropping any browning ones back on to the grassy verge. You look so content on your own, self-absorbed and chatting away to yourself; you’ve made this perfect world and you don’t need anyone. I love it when you laugh and smile to yourself and I wonder just what it is that makes you so happy.

All of a sudden you’re off, running across the tarmacked road to the cemetery. You’re cradling the flowers in your dress with such gentleness and I know exactly what you’re going to do next, even though I won’t be able to see you any more. My eyes fill with tears, but I’m still smiling. You’ll be skipping along the grassy paths between the stones, looking for graves with no flowers and over every one you find, unkempt, uncared for, covered in lichen with words fading to nothing, there you’ll be scattering the colour and life that you’ve harvested with your tiny hands. And you’ll keep coming back to the trees, filling your skirts ‘til dusk.

Man with Wings (cos I don't know what else to call it)

I'm crossing the shore in bare feet and my trail disappears behind me, sinking. I have no idea where I've come from, and without that how do I know where I should go? I carry an image in my head of a man crossing the beach wearing wings - did he glide down from the cliffs high above, or does he wear them ready to fly away? I suspect he's already flown: he's a solitary figure and he walks away from all that gaze at him. There's a trail behind him that he can't see, but maybe he just doesn't want to turn and look. Maybe he's scared that if he turns there'll be no footprints and he too would have nowhere to go.

A Handful of Dust

Here I am in the coffee shop again. Today I decided not to write about the people I see around me, the observation of odd mannerisms, the telling voices, the watching of life go by. I decided instead to read the first chapter of a Carol Shields novel I picked up in a charity shop this morning. I only came across her words earlier this year; it was a strange meeting, a feeling that she'd been missing from my life and I'd finally found her by chance in an airport bookshop. The one I found today is called 'Unless'. Such an evocative word, a word that doesn't really stand alone - there has to be a sentence following: unless what?

"I wanted to write about the overheard and the glimpsed...", I read on page 9.

I looked across at the man sitting opposite me. I noticed he was wearing a silver wedding band. It seems to me now that wedding rings are just doors closed in your face: piss off, you're not allowed in. Slam! I expect I'll meet loads of closed doors from now on. He looked like Louis Theroux, maybe my age, maybe a bit younger. He was off beat, quirky; he was wearing a bright yellow sweatshirt and had a dyed red stripe in his hair and his modern watch had an orange face. He was reading. I couldn't see the title, but the cover had an Art Deco feel. It was a Penguin paperback. He leaned forward towards me, as if to show me. It was Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust. I remembered the first Waugh I'd read. I was on holiday in the Norfolk Broads with a group of school friends, including my first boyfriend. I smile momentarily, remembering the bleached stripe he had in his hair. A lifetime ago. Books are like music, they remind me of time and place; sometimes I completely forget the story, but I never forget where I was when I read it. My eyes brim with tears and I suddenly feel acutely alone. I look up from my page to find the man had left as quietly as he'd arrived; this happens a lot, I realised.

Extract Only # 2

That which remains unspoken
That which will kill me
That which unhinges me
That which will kill you
That which is affection
That which is anger
That which is confusion
That which is fear
That which is love
That which remains unspoken
That which is pointless
That which is good
That which is empty
That which is blatant
That which is implicit
That which is envy
That which I do not speak of
That which is central
That which is love
That which is lies
That which is longing
That which is needy
That which remains unspoken.

Pulling the threads

It's gone midnight and I'm still sat here making things. I'm making something small at the moment; it won't be with me long, I'll be sending it on its journey tomorrow. Journeys have been on my mind a lot over the last few days. I'm thinking more about the journeys we make as people, rather than physically crossing the land in some way, short or far. I'm on an amazing journey at the moment, several even, and I have no idea of its destination. There's something extraordinarily thrilling about the unplanned, the not knowing what will happen next. It's like a journey of encounters: the threads of the journey are all tangled and you take hold of the end and pull and pull at it, so that it unravels, but ahead of you is still this tangled unknown. You could stop pulling at any time and stay, but the threads I'm pulling at are leading me into beautiful, exciting territory and I'm not ready to stop anywhere yet.

The unknown and unplanned doesn't come without its anxieties though and I've got plenty of those. What if this part of the journey is the best it will be, what if I carry on travelling and miss it? What if I can't cope with what I find along the way? But this is one of those journeys where there's no going back, and that, in fact, is the scariest part. I am a restless person and feel like I will always be travelling, so I have to accept that with my restlessness, anxiety will never be far behind. Perhaps anxiety is just the fuel that will keep me going.

Plymouth, 29th October 2001

I watched a solitary bee collecting pollen , the little orange sacks on its legs loaded with its industry. The scent of lavender was strong and I could hear the sound of the sea carried on the breeze. I was lying there on the grass imagining a man walking across the sand, he'd walk up the cliff path and come and find me. Without a word he'd lie down next to me, link my fingers with his and we'd close our eyes. I was wearing a loose white dress that moved gently across my skin with the breeze; it felt as soft and light as a butterfly landing on my shoulder.

I knew it was you.

The bee, its work done, flew high and out of sight across fields and moor. I thought I would see it, joining a swarm and finding its way home. Dreaming about bees is sign of good fortune; as hard as I might, I never remember my dreams.

December 1996

I am but a butterfly in a jam jar
feeding from a once lush
velvety green leaf
that now wilts and decays.

Carried along at somebody else's will I sit placidly
seemingly enjoying the ride
But inside I'm tortured and suffocating
and nobody sees.

At the sight of rolling hills punctuated
with mustard yellow umbrellared by a resonating blue sky
excitement wells within me
and Hodgkin comes to mind.

Then my spirit plummets
and I'm in the cavernous depths of despair
where the way forward is cramped, claustrophobic
dark.

All around me is the empty blackness and I am confined
by invisible constraints to this barren cocoon
All I see asleep is sleep
all I want awake is death.

Dark pictures gather in my mind now
clicking into place like the mosaics of a kaleidoscope
I close my eyes
Trusting.

Through the lamp black sleep
I visualise faint colours shifting and
the soft lustre of my golden soul becomes evident
I will not say that I lost it, my burning sun
but it was taken.

The colours behind my eyes
become more saturated
and I move across
to the freedom of the night.

Stevenage 10 June 1992

Am I really going to let someone that shit still have so much influence over my emotions, allow the selfish bastard's actions to make me feel so unlovable? He's been inside wreaking havoc since I was six - I shut him in and I should have fucking shut him out. I've been grieving for that unloved child for too long. You can have her, because I don't want her any more. I'm beginning to see that it wasn't her that was unlovable, it was him that was incapable of loving.

She takes the 15 year old letter and sets it alight, carefully, deliberately, burning holes through his black name, watching the ash fall on to the dry silver of the sink. When the pages have gone she'll scoop up the ash and pour it back into the original smooth, blue envelope. She's looking at the handwriting on the front of it now. The address is capitalised, but he's written the postcode in an odd way; almost three blocks of letters rather than the usual two. She spits at it. It's an affront. He had no right to. "All I can think of to say is that I love you, I allways have, and whatever the future holds, I allways will." She knows this was a delusion. She seals the envelope back up and goes off to find a stamp, ready to send it away.

Extract only

That which remains unspoken.
That which I do not speak of
That which I am afraid to tell you
That which is secret
That which is dark
That which is absent
That which is love
That which remains unspoken
That which is painful
That which is hurtful
That which is lost
That which is aching
That which is smarting
That which is bleak
That which is love
That which is denial
That which is doubt
That which is cold
That which is desperate
That which remains unspoken...

Dust

I have to protect myself from you, from the hurt you might do to me. I know you won’t mean it, but you’ll do it. I know you have no idea that anyone could be so easily hurt, least of all me - because you know me, or so you think. You think you know every little aspect of me, every little thing to avoid, to sidestep so that I don’t crumple in your hands like a dried autumn leaf and turn to dust in front of your eyes. But what you don’t realise is that I’m already dust inside and each time you say the thoughtless things you do, behave in the thoughtless ways you do, that little pile of dust just gets bigger, and the bigger it gets the more it obscures me from you. Soon that dust is going to get so thick that you’ll never penetrate it and I won’t blow it away because it insulates me, it removes me from all that you do to me. It’s like the dust in the old lagging from the boiler, it keeps me warm inside and there you are outside in the cold, and I just can’t let you in any more.

30.10.07

I'm afraid my life is very dull and boring and I have nothing to say to any of you. I have no thoughts of any interest, nothing exciting going on in this little red head of mine. I feel empty. I feel compelled to write, but who for, and how when my mind is as cold as my freezing hands? I don't know what you want from me. I'm writing for the darkness; I can't even write for me any more. I'm in my dark hole where no-one can hear me and I'm not sure anyone else actually exists. I can smell the damp earth, musty and rank as a rotting pile of leaves, and can only hear the sound of my breath; the silence of my thoughts is painful. It's a pain that goes right through me, a constant ache and longing. I'm flat-lining, and I desperately want to feel something. I ask myself what's the point of creating anything if there's no dialogue, no engagement with you and I find I have no answer.

I wrap myself up in a red woollen blanket, with green stitching around the edges, and go and sit on the floor in the corner of the room leaning against the plaster wall. I pull the blanket up over my head and bury my face in its short fibres, draw my knees up to my chest and hope that the warmth will soon return.

2nd Skin

I sleep on the floor curled up in a dark grey and orange sleeping bag, like an insect in its case, or an unripe seed in its pod. Actually, I probably look like a slug. Still, there’s nothing like pulling the hood up round your head and shutting out the intrusions of the world, only letting in the thoughts you want to linger over; shutting out the light and closing in the warmth. I lay on my side, then on my stomach with my right leg drawn up; the fabric feels cool and light against my bare skin, but it won’t be like that for long. I’ll begin to warm up quickly and then I’ll relish the drafts that come under the closed door, brushing over my exposed face. Tonight I’m listening to music, trying to lull myself to sleep more quickly than usual, but the rhythms continue to pulsate long into the silence and darkness and my imagination pulsates along with them. This second skin of mine keeps all my dreams safe and getting into it each night is like getting inside a box of delights…

Wish you were here

Stuff is foaming around in my head like the milk on a cappuccino and it’s so dense I can’t think. There are bubbles popping all over the place, all at the same time, each one a little burst of creativity, but none of them big enough to amount to anything. How do I get a bigger bubble, like the kind you get when you rub soap on your hands, put them together and blow gently through; crystal clear but full of rainbows? I’m sitting here with my hands in my hair rubbing hard at my temples, hoping to make a hole through and let in some light. I wish it was you that was rubbing, gently circling with your fingers, blowing away the foam with your warm breath…I could think again, if you were here.