One foot in front of the other

Longing and attention

 

Softly raining and the wind loops playfully: Summer has been kept in after school. That's rather how I feel too - relentless work since the first day of August; need a break and not about to get one just yet. And suddenly I'm flooded with longing for other places, new faces, new words and pictures.

Longing is good. Good to reconnect with deep desires after a long, hard time when these were not in evidence, buried under fear.

And longing isn't good. A futile wishing to be anywhere but here, in anytime but now. A hopeless, unproductive tension that denies the present, which is all there ever is.

To hold and shape this, without squeezing out the life, is like throwing a delicate vase on a potter's wheel. It calls for a steadfast, not too effortful, attention to the work 'in hand' that is not synonymous with tension.

That was written earlier. So I sat here holding in my mind the image of throwing a delicate vase on the potter's wheel, and can report that it helped: not as much work done today as I'd hoped, but much more than felt possible a few hours ago. 

Convexed

Squirrel at sunset

Working all hours, all days. So grateful to be working at home, to be near the park - a green place with creatures in it.

So, August

So hot and suddenly, predictably, August brings a rush of work. Going slowly and patiently, aware that I can't give in to the heat, can't let it get to me.

So, yesterday was five months since the last day in the university job.

Today I catch myself thinking... how I'd like the work to go, how I have fewer headaches, but still way too many, and still have weight to lose. Thinking... this self, these aspirations have been absent in these past few tired and frightened months.

Photographing the Photographers' Gallery

Well, how nice that the newly refurbished Photographers' Gallery is so photogenic, with its lovely light and sightlines and its picture windows.

More photos here.

These green and tangled depths

Hot and humid. Overtired.

Oh, for a dreamless sleep this green,

this cool and dark and deep!

Painted by the sun



Lavender luxuriates

Lavender flourishes in many parks and gardens around here. Perhaps the soil is conducive - the outer suburbs of South London used to be an important area for the commercial growing of lavender. But in this exceptionally rainy year, like many species, it's grown and spread with an astonishing lushness. Difficult to walk down any residential road without brushing against the bushes overhanging garden walls and trailing across the pavement and releasing gorgeous waves of scent.

Stepping back

I wonder if I shot myself, and worse the author, in the foot with the review of Say Her Name. If I've convinced some friends that it's more upsetting than they could bear - well, that wasn't what I meant to do. I loved this book. It is upsetting, but also (equally and surprisingly and memorably) absorbing and transporting and unusual.  The thing is, I can't really see the point of blogging reviews that are a vastly inferior version of what excellent and polished writers produce for mainstream printed and online publications. I read a huge amount, and am an enthusiastic cinema-goer and attender of exhibitions. I read book blogs and think: perhaps I could do that. I'm inspired by outstanding blogs like Tales from the Reading Room that combine knowledgeable and original reviews with more personal life writing, and thus cast a fascinating light on the role that reading plays in the life of someone who reads a lot. I've had one or two goes at reviewing books more regularly and found that I couldn't maintain the motivation. But every now and then I'm moved to do it, and to write something more personal, subjective and unstructured than the usual review, to try and convey how a book, or some other work of art, made me feel, what difference it made to me - to get up close to it.

Perhaps I got too close to this one and was carried away by certain aspects at the expense of others. I mean, what do I want to do here: express myself or make my friends want to read the book? Both is fine. The former at the expense of the latter - less fine. I guess it's difficult to share feelings about a book without inflicting those feelings (precisely the challenge so impressively met by Francisco Goldman in this book); and it's difficult to be deliberately subjective and impressionistic without painting an unfairly partial picture. All this requires more thought, and no doubt a lot more groping around and learning by doing.

The  reflected image used to illustrate the review was cropped from the photo above (click on it to enlarge). It has nothing to do with the book, of course, but seemed to strike a connected note. The whole photo made me happy because I think it 'works', while breaking most rules of lighting and composition. Rules have reasons, so breaking them successfully - in words or pictures - is really hard, and perhaps most often achieved by accident.