Sometimes you just have to do it. Sometimes you have to ignore everything; fears, doubts, niggles and the yawning crevasse at your feet.
Sometimes, just having a little bit of self confidence is enough to pretend the rest.
“You’ve got to fly like an eagle,
growl like a lion in Africa,
leap like a salmon,
home from the sea,
to keep up with me,
you’ve got to walk like a panther tonight…”
Walk Like a Panther – The All-seeing I
She runs.
This is what she does.
She runs.
She knows nothing else, from the moment she leaves to the moment she returns. She runs, single-minded, un-minded, focussed, unfocussed. She runs, tinged with hysteria, with euphoria, with freedom.
There was nothing but the next stride, the feeling of the ground falling away from her as she runs, as she flies.
There was nothing but the thump of her heart, the beat and the rhythm and the eternal moving dance.
She runs.
Light and love and life.
She runs.
Despair and dread and dark, dark days.
She runs.
Nothing but the run, nothing but the miles and the world reduced to a moment, moving and timeless.
Nothing, no aches, no pains, worries shed, fears left behind, nothing but the run, not even the wind and the rain and the world, just the never-ending motion.
Nothing but the run. Nothing, not even her.
She runs.
And runs.
And runs.
Further to my earlier post about Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights, I am delighted and privileged to expand upon this with a guest post over at For Book’s Sake.
For Books’ Sake is a wonderful and entertaining new booksite from the enthusiastic, talented and prolific Jane Bradley. It covers everything from book reviews to book events, by way of posts on more general bookish topics. Go and have a look, great stuff indeed.
A couple of years ago I was fortunate to get tickets to listen to Terry Pratchett talk at the recording of Radio 4′s “With Great Pleasure” Christmas special. In it, with a cast of brilliant readers, he would introduce and elaborate on the books that had an impact on him and his writing. It was a very well done, hugely enjoyable and very much got me thinking.
A couple of weeks ago I happened to read this lovely post by Eyoki that talked about the books that were present in his home when he grew up. Sian’s blog also has a number of intelligent and intriguing posts about the books she grew up with, which are well worth a read, or particular note (for me) being this recent one about graphic novels.
Books influence us in many ways, of that there is no doubt, be they fiction or non-fiction. They can inspire and/or enrage us, leave us warm and cosy or thoughtful and melancholic. They can, and will, evoke a range of emotions in us that, often unknowingly, will echo down through the rest of our lives, influencing and colouring our thinking and the decisions made.
I love books and find brilliant ones every day (okay, every week or so, ish). And they do evoke emotion and thought and do stimulate me in different ways, reinforcing or reshaping the way I think and feel with great subtlety. There are, however, a few books that resonate on a deeper level, that make me think and ponder anew every day.
Tanith Lee’s Night’s Master has long been one of those books. Short, it is effectively a collection of linked fantastical fairy-tales, set in an other worldy place not so removed from our own. With intense and yet somehow sparse prose, the stories are beautifully written, and in the tradition of fairytales they deliver a heady mix of the cruelty and bliss both, playful and brutal in equal measures. In here are the roots of much of my writing, and Lee’s prose is full of dark beauty, distinctive and telling. It is a book about morals and lessons and the savage nature of the semi-mythological world of gods and demons that lies alongside our own, matched only by the cruel necessity of the humanity that exists inside it. It taught me, at the most basic level, that we are ever intertwined with our tales and myths, shaped by the powerful ideas that sit at their heart, and that they, in turn, are shaped by us.
CJ Cherryh’s Book of the Faded Sun is science fiction at its best. She has ever been wonderful at realising and emphasising the nature and psychology of the alien, making it accessible and understandable despite its other-worldliness. The mri are a race of castes, and the book is about the last of them, fleeing across the universe, accompanied by a solitary human. This is the crux and heart of the story, the tension between two different species, between psychology and culture and nature, contrasting the malleability of humanity against the rigidity of the archaic, anachronistic mri culture. It is here that we begin to see the elegance and freedom of such unforgiving, unrelenting adherence to caste and structure. In the mri nature, culture, biology and psychology have evolved to a singular complete point, diamond hard and immovable, where each individual has their place, integral and relevant and justifiable by the simple fact of it. It is this evocation, this tension, this gap between two different and opposed mindsets that echoes out, reminding me constantly that everything has a place, no matter what my views; that mine is not the only right and wrong.
Reach for the Sky, the story of the Battle of Britain fighter pilot Douglas Bader, inspired in me the heroic ideal of derring-do and battling against the odds, reflections of which I have long since sought to emulate in the stories I write and the tales I dream. Bader represented the best of what it was meant to be British, stoic, skilled, fighting with flair and leadership, despite having lost both legs and eventual incarceration in a PoW camp. Heady stuff for a young boy.
Ted Hughes’ Crow remains a powerful influence on me, containing a near perfect evocation of such mythological and primal life force as to be contained by the written or spoken word. Deep and dark and inventive Hughes reflects back on us the urges and desires of our race, hints at a multitude of hidden secrets and layers and meanings. It has forever lain over my eyes and imagination a veneer of what may be; the mundane can indeed be interpreted in the most profound and ridiculous and primeval of ways.
Finally, and by no means least, Festival in My Heart (example poem/post here) is the perfect antidote to the heaviness above. Touching, beautifully written and translated, these poems express the world in a more open, honest, innocent voice, all captured with surprising delicacy and simplicity. Sometimes the world needs to be viewed with a child’s eye, with a child’s creativity and a child’s sense of trust. Sometimes the world need be nothing more than what it is, a world of wondrous mystery and possibility.
***
Night’s Master, Tanith Lee
Book of the Faded Sun Trilogy, CJ Cherryh
Reach for the Sky, Douglas Bader
Crow, Ted Hughes
Festival in My Heart, Bruno Navasky
From somewhere near the front of James Kirkup‘s ‘The Descent into the Cave and other poems‘:
Yes, totally.
Three nights ago I started tweeting a little story. Like many stories it came out of nowhere, didn’t start as a story and was born from an overwhelming sense of tiredness and a random moment of whimsy. And then several more tweets rolled out, describing and emoting what life was like for this monkey.
And some people seemed to like it.
The next evening I continued, and again last night. And some people still seemed to like it. Most were silent (not unexpected) and some quite non-plussed.
That aside, the effect on me has been interesting. I have written the tweets and posted them just as I am about to go to bed, usually when I am at my most tired and most fretful (I don’t like having to sleep). And yet, post-posting I feel calmer, quieter, almost peaceful.
I guess this is to do with the place the monkey inhabits. I know it well. It is peaceful, and yet it has it’s mysteries and it’s dangers and is as full of adventure as it is of serenity. It is the very earliest backdrop to a story I have been living with and writing for many, many years now, and this little tale’s unexpected birth has been, I don’t know, welcome.
Like a lot of stories it is a little bit of a metaphor, a little tale to tell, and a little bit of catharsis at the end of the day. It is, though, mostly about a little monkey.
***
Some days you have to be brave. Some days you have take the opportunities that come along and embrace them fully, no matter what your fears may be. You have to accept the outcomes and the consequences, because the only thing truly lost is the paralysis of self. Who knows where such moments of blind, courageous optimism may take you?
***
My ((roughty-toughty)man)bag usually contains: Swiss army knife, netbook, waterproof bag, moleskin note/sketchbook, pens, pencils, highlighters, ipod, headphones, wallet, camera, mobile phone, a novel or travelogue, a book of poetry, emergency fruit bar things, paracetomol, usb stick, travel tissues, a carabiner, a light windproof/waterproof, sunglasses, normal glasses and assorted bits of junk.
What?! I like to travel light.
***
Mini-recommendations:
I love Sian’s blog. It is astute, clever, personal, observational, creative and sharp. Just like Sian. Go and read.
When I asked twitter for music recommendations the other month, the stalwart Eyoki came back with Catbird and the Boban Markovic Orkestar. Both utterly brilliant.
Marmite. Awesome. Why am I even having to recommend this? Best on twice toasted crumpets, heavily buttered, so that the butter and Marmite ooze through. Scrumptious. And use the jar stuff, not that squeezy bottle rubbish.
Way back in September 2008 I posted about Haruo-Suekichi and his handmade watches. The watches are beautifully anachronistic, reminiscent of a steampunk influence and are usually only produced as single items, or in very small runs (no more than six or so, from memory). Haruo-Suekichi is a fascinating chap, sadly the interview I had linked to is no longer available but I did manage to find this one.
And these items are unique, made and designed with the materials and objects to hand, each individually crafted in a way that your Rolex, Omega or Cartier isn’t. Yes they might not be wonderfully discrete and understated, and might be a bit awkward to wear, but they are and always will be one of a kind.
I have long been fascinated by this idea of the bespoke; hand-crafted and idiosyncratic. William Gibson, from whose blog I discovered Haruo-Suekichi, hints at this in his book Idoru, with custom, individual laptops, etc. In fact, in a technologically driven world, Gibson’s books are very much about the individual, about the bespoke, with technology and functionality driven and twisted by the dynamics of personality and need and the constraints of resource.
This is echoed elsewhere, in there wonderfully realised computer pieces (below). The father of a friend of mine would build computers inside cabinets and jewellery boxes, and hated laptops so much he customised a small suitcase with the inners from a desktop, the 17″ flatscreen popping up when it was opened.
In a world of standardisation there is a recognition towards this expression of individuality, with iPods that can be engraved, phones interfaces that can be skinned and laptops with designer ‘hoods’. Customisation is becoming more prevalent, operating systems, cars and computer rigs have long been hacked to please the personality, fashion has ever been in the midst of the tension between the uniform and the individual, and home decorating programmes abound, all aimed at turning your Ikea flatpack home into something more unique. We attach ever more value to art and items that are ‘unique’, signed and numbered, one of a kind, rare and difficult to find.
I like the idea of a more bespoke world, of furniture made from what is available and computers created to suit you, rather than a demographic of you. I love the creativity and self-expression, and that minute but significant resistance to the march of normalisation and standardisation. I love the hard work, dedication and aspiration behind it, although customisation can be a simple, easy thing too.
It is not necessarily about standing out, but about not blending in. In an environment where the majority of us are time pressured by the relentless nature of society, self expression and creativity can be lost to all too rare moments. Thinking, feeling, expressing take a back seat to doing and being and living up to. Building a world to suit you isn’t just about the mundane, it is also about the metaphysical and the spiritual.
Bespoke, customised and self-realised may not be the way forward for everyone, but it may be the way for you, in whatever form you want.
From Saturday’s jaunt to Bristol Zoo Gardens;
monkey of some sort (I forget).
Sorry, another odds and sods post, mainly because I haven’t had time to write a more fully fledged post.
***
Every now and then, scanning through the various bits of information afforded me by WordPress, I have a look at the search terms that lead to my blog. Other than the odd bizarre combination of words, there really hasn’t been anything of note.
Over the last few weeks though I have noticed a particular trend, and have kept an eye on it. Fulfilling anything from 25% to 50% of the search terms leading to my blog are variants on “life full regrets”, leading to this post.
I am not sure what this says really, speculative speculation leads me to wondering if there is a pandemic of regret going on currently (one could say it is and always has been) or a paucity of blog posts on the subject (hard to believe) or it doesn’t say anything at all (probably).
***
On Eyoki’s (@Eyoki) recommendation I purchased “Snow And Summers” by Solveig von Schoultz (read Eyoki’s superb review here). A little while ago I also bought “Ways of Returning” by Linda Saunders. Other than the superb poetry, both books contained unexpected treasures:
I absolutely love this sort of thing. Snow and Summer contains the scribbled notes of a previous owner’s journey to Reyjkavik, with all its attendant horrors. Ways of Returning contains a lovely letter from the author to the recipient.
As you may know I am a huge fan of the scribbled inscriptions and dedications that you often find inside the covers of books. No matter how tenuous, they give me a sense of connection and (occasionally) insight into the owners. I find these little snippets of life as rich and important as the books themselves and have occasionally purchased a book on the basis of this alone.
***
Years ago, before the Bristol Bookbarn became a sad media spectacle upon its closure I came across several hardback classic science fiction and fantasy books, scattered within the disorganised and incomprehensible system that the BB used. After further investigation I found more, each with a carefully inscribed name (one I sadly cannot remember) and the date of ownership, and nothing more. And there were hundreds of them. I was left with an indescribable sense of sadness, as this was obviously the lifetime collection of someone who had recently (?) passed away, with all that love and pride and effort disposed off in one fell swoop. Had I the money I would have bought as many as I could find, in a futile and foolish attempt to preserve this collection. I wish I had done so regardless.
***
Mini-recommendations:
Sainsbury’s Ethiopian Sidamo ground coffee is a current favourite; lovely, rich and not overly bitter.
demuth’s in Bath is a very nice vegetarian restaurant indeed. Great food, full of flavour and very light, using fresh local ingredients. Yummy.
Eyoki’s blog is another firm favourite. I never fail to come away have thinking about something in a different way, having learnt something new and outside of my immediate sphere of interest. Go and read.
Today I am visiting Lacock and Lacock Abbey, an architecturally fantastic place, lovely in the summer, and the ‘birth-place’ of photography, being Fox-Talbot’s residence.
