Category: life and such

December Reflections 18: I said goodbye to…

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A blue fountain pen with the lid on, a closed notebook, and part of a magazine showing Judith Kerr with the original Mog

… my identity as a writer, for the moment at least.

My other best decision of 2023 was turning down my first ever book contract. I meant to write about that – first about getting it, then about turning it down – but I never managed it. Not longhand (can’t get to a flat surface), not touch typing (very rarely have both hands free), not dictating (distracts and confuses the baby). Any solution I find works for a week or so and then fails. All I’m managing is these tiny little blogs, typed with one hand on my phone

More to the point, I just don’t want to. The urge to write (fiction, long form non-fiction, poetry) has been patchy over the last couple of years, and non-existent over the last few months. I could force it, but why? Only recently have I found myself thinking myself back into a character’s head (what would Julian make of war memorials, anyway?), and I’m not in any position to do anything about it. There’s time. It’ll come back when it wants to come back.

In the meantime I’m refusing to beat myself up for not being Superwoman. A friend told me about seeing a documentary about Judith Kerr in which the great author said, very matter-of-factly, ‘Of course I couldn’t do any writing while the children were small.’ So there we go. If stepping back is good enough for her then it’s most definitely good enough for me.

I’m hoping it’s au revoir rather than goodbye. But, the way things stand at the moment, I’m honestly much less bothered than I’d have predicted two years ago.

December Reflections 15: cherished

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A toy pig made from beige corduroy. It has one blue eye.

Pa gave me this venerable pig on semi-permanent loan some time in the late 1990s, probably, and told me, “You must cherish him,” so I did, and then gave him back when I went to university, I should think, and then I reclaimed him last year.

I have a few of Pa’s old toys (for a war baby, he did extremely well). I’m still missing one of the Dutch dolls. I think Pa removed her from the dolls’ house to crew a steam engine, but where has she gone? I hope she’ll turn up as we continue to empty the house.

December Reflections 3: fave photo of 2023

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A blue evening looking out over the sea. A silhouetted figure puts out a hand as if to support a brightly lit ship out at sea.

Not sure if this is the favourite, but it’s certainly a favourite. That’s my youngest brother putting out a hand to hold the ship on which my oldest brother and family are off on honeymoon, and my mother waving. A gorgeous evening in May, a view that’s always restorative, and the honeysuckle running riot. I think there was a cat twirling around my feet, too.

Angel shadow

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A portrait in an oval gilt frame of a young woman in nineteenth century evening dress. Sunlight is falling across the picture, casting a shadow of a winged circle with a long tail

Beauty is fleeting. If I’d been looking five minutes earlier, or later, I’d have missed this strange little golden shadow falling across my great-great-great-aunt’s picture. (There are two stained-glass suncatchers hanging in the window, one representing a bee and the other an oblong rainbow: together they make an angel.) That said, she’s been looking beautiful in this portrait for a hundred and sixty years. Either way, I suppose it’s a case of looking, and appreciating when you see it.

Lighten our darkness

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Lit candles illuminate carved wooden stalls

I have not just been falling asleep reading books. I have been falling asleep trying to say evening prayer, whether doing it by myself on the app or watching some cathedral’s livestream on YouTube. In the Marlows books, Patrick says that his nurse told him that if you fall asleep during a prayer your guardian angel finishes it for you. If that’s the case then I’ve been keeping mine busy. I do not fall asleep, however, if I walk twenty minutes through a dark chilly blowy evening to go to Evensong. So I did that today. The journey there was rendered particularly dramatic by a power cut: half the hill was in darkness.

I’m glad I went. Gloomy readings from Daniel and Revelation matching my mood; light and music reaching through and transforming it. And the thought that this prayer goes on and on, through the centuries, whether I’m there or not.

Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord, and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night, for the love of thy only Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Regaining range

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Tarmac path with hedges on both sides and a tree with yellow leaves rising from the left

It’s been a while since I walked my usual walk. Last month I slipped getting out of the shower and bashed my knee: I couldn’t get downstairs for three days, it took me seven to get out of the house, and for several weeks more it was painful if I moved it the wrong way. You can imagine how frustrating this was. Even now I can’t straighten my leg fully. Then I’ve had various things to buy and places to be, so I’ve been using my walking energy getting into town. But today I went out and I walked for fifty minutes, just for the pleasure of going for a walk. It was great.