dreary, dark, and damp city. and wolves.

I love this weather. I really do. Cold and wet has always been my favourite, even over snow.
I'm tired. I'm a little worried, despite still believing everything will work out. I had a job interview on Saturday, but I don't think I got it. I haven't heard anything. I'm a little disappointed, too: I had hoped to be able to take a course here, starting in the fall, but because you sign up for full years of study at British universities and not terms, the one I had my heart set on is not legally viable. There's a host of other options I can look into, of course, but the thing that made this one so perfect, aside from the actual things I'd've been studying, is that it would have actually have been a first year of uni in credits.

Right now, though, I’ve got my cosy sweater and a quilt. I’ve got tea, and spinach & chickpea soup, and walnut cake for later. I’ve got Dylan Thomas, and Alan Garner if I finish him, and Seth Lakeman. I’m in lazy, cozy, easy, soulfood mode.

On the way home today my umbrella got turned inside out and in the few moments it took me to right it I went from vaguely dry to absolutely soaked. I squelched and shivered (it is cold for July - I had been worried it would be too hot!) myself the rest of the way to a hot shower and an hour with my notebook that turned into two-and-then-some. I've been forcing myself to spend at least six hours every day doing nothing but jobhunting. I've also been trying to force myself to get fuller nights of sleep. It's paid off in at least one way: as Eliot once said, having a limited amount of time in which to write leads to discipline in doing so. You don't faff about as much. I'm writing a lot right now. In the evenings, when I come home. A lot of it in notebooks, a lot of it probably never to be shared, never mind published, a lot of it more about experiments in figuring out my writing, my ideas, and my thoughts around it than actually producing something whole, but there is, too, quite a bit that will work its way into other things. Honestly, even if nothing ever comes of it, it's still what keeps me sane, and most days it's enough of a gift just to have this part of my voice back.

Vaguely relatedly, I'd really like to share something. It's this story:

The Wolves of Brooklyn

The wolves have eaten people. Why be coy about it? Not a lot of people. But it’s happened. As near as anyone can figure, the first one they ate was a Russian girl named Yelena. They surrounded her and she stood very still, so as not to startle them. Finally, she said: “I’m lonely”—it’s weird but you tell the wolves things, sometimes. You can’t help it, all these old wounds come open and suddenly you’re confessing to a wolf who never says anything back. She said: “I’m lonely,” and they ate her in the street. They didn’t leave any blood. They’re fastidious like that. Since then, I know of about four or five others, and well, that’s just not enough to really scare people. Obviously, you’ll be special, they’ll look at you with those huge eyes and you’ll understand something about each other, about the tundra and blood and Brooklyn and winter, and they’ll mark you but pass you by. For most of us that’s just what happens. My friend Daniel got eaten, though. It’s surprising how you can get used to that. I don’t know what he said to them. To tell you the truth, I didn’t know Daniel that well.

This excerpt is amazing and beautiful and just the thing on a cold rainy evening all on its own, and I knew from it that unless the author completely let me down I was going to love the story, and then I clicked through, and…

This story? Is written by Catherynne Valente. Only one of my absolute favourite writers not only working right now but ever. And even though some of her works resonate differently for me, she has never ever let me down (in what I’ve read, which is not all, but I have faith).

This story does more than just not let me down. One of the reasons I fell in love with Valente is that she so often seems to write stories tailor-made for me, for my obsessions. (There was Palimpsest, with its trains and its maps and its dream cities and its bees, for instance.) I feel like I was meant to read this tonight, here, curled up in my grey wool and drinking tea and thinking long and hard about this city.

This is a story by Catherynne Valente about Brooklyn and the huge, uncanny wolves that live there, and a girl that is very much not Little Red Hood. It is about cities and the villages and wildernesses within them, about the way some of us are called to them, and how we don’t belong until we do (or at least we don’t belong anywhere else, either), about fashion and self-presentation and the feeling of being looked at, about tribes, about how we move apart and fall together. (I won’t tell you any more, for fear of ruining it, but please, if you read one story on the internet this month, let it be this one.) It is, on some level, exactly what I needed to read right now.

(And I mean, well, is it any surprise that a story like this would mean a lot to me?)

things I have learnt

No matter how far and how fast you run, you're always going to be right behind yourself. That's just how it works. Stop running.

Relatedly, there's not much point in beating yourself up. Not only will you be battered and sore in the morning, you'll be the one who has to patch yourself up.

ca·thar·sis (k-thärss)

n. pl. ca·thar·ses (-sz)

1. A purifying or figurative cleansing of the emotions, especially pity and fear, described by Aristotle as an effect of tragic drama on its audience.

2. A release of emotional tension, as after an overwhelming experience, that restores or refreshes the spirit.

eu·pho·ri·a (y-fôr-, -fr-)

n.

A feeling of great happiness or well-being.

I'm being crushed against the metal barrier in front of me by the several thousand people behind. The girl next to me's hair is in my mouth, and I am sticking uncomfortably to the leather jacket of the man behind me. (In two hours, when we peel apart, my skin will be embedded with zipper and leather wrinkle marks, but he gets a pass on this because he will spend the evening protecting my head.) The arm that's not hanging over the barrier is stuck awkwardly by my side, my feet are going numb, and I would be literally dripping with sweat if I wasn't too crowded for that to be possible. Someone's arm is around my neck, and another is propped on my shoulder; partway through the concert, someone else will snake theirs around my waste, and I will wrap my previously trapped arm around the back of a French girl's head. We are too stuck together to even jump properly to the music, and so instead we all surge as one, back and forth, back and forth. Six feet away, Jarvis Cocker writhes on top of a stack of amps and peers out at us as we all sing along to every song so loudly it's a miracle we can still hear the band.

I know, I really do know, that amazing concert experiences are not just something that happens to me; that music inspires faith like religion, and that lots of people have had similar moments in their life. This isn't about the uniqueness of my experience. But: five years ago, I went to a concert with one my best friends, a small local band playing outdoors. I couldn't even stand at the back of the crowd, it was too much for me, I was going to have a panic attack - I had to go and sit in the bleachers. Now, compare.

What this is about is healing, and how we do it. It's about realizing something about yourself that maybe you should've known a long time ago, but only just figured out. It's about lightning-bolt moments. It's about growth. Don't get me wrong; I'm the last person to take me seriously. But sometimes I'm forced to.

An important part of any concert experience is the crowd, and this one was the best I've ever been a member of. Pulp have been apart a long time, and they've been around for more than twice as long as that. They've meant a lot to a lot of people, and a lot of those people are here tonight. Everyone knows every word of every song intimately. People shout teases and quips at Jarvis like he's an old school friend. This is pure love of pop music.

The experience shook me so much that it's taken me ten days to write about it. Even now, I don't think I'm properly expressing how strongly the concert touched me - and not just the bands, but the realizations I had that night. I'm having trouble writing about it evenheadedly, as you can see. The adverbs and adjectives are piling up all over this post, and I'm at risk of sounding like some trippy new-ager when I talk about healing.

But the week before last something snapped inside of me. Leading up to it I was the unhappiest I've been since I moved here, I think. I wasn't talking to people much because I didn't have much to report - I was looking for work. I hadn't found any yet. That was about it. And then suddenly I woke up one morning, and went to the National Gallery, where I spent a long time glaring at Van Gogh's Sunflowers as Japanese tourists and a group of schoolchildren all tried to shove around me. There was no reason for me not to, after all. I was unhappy. I needed to do something to be less unhappy, or I was going to go mad. I figured that much out. The next evening I took myself to a performance of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and laughed so hard my cheeks hurt, and when I stepped out of the theatre into the warm Piccadilly night I felt lighter than I had since February. The day after that was the Arcade Fire show, and then Friday was Canada Day (though I only paid a brief visit to the celebrations.) Saturday was the Pride Parade, and even more dancing in Trafalgar square, and then Sunday was the night described above. So it was all a slow build of experiences, even though the tipping point was singing along to Disco 2000 with everyone else in Hyde Park that night.

I've somehow grown into the type of girl that dances, and screams, and has emotional breakthroughs rather than breakdowns in a seething crowd of strangers.

paper journal paper journal

some excerpts. a l'expédition francaise.

03/04/11 -- Paris, France

There is a strangeness to learning how to lose someone that you already missed. How do you deal with grief and loss when you've gotten so used to living with the absence of loved ones? Right up until N. cried in front of me for the first time, I didn't really believe that he was gone. It felt untrue, like a badly-told story, like an infinitely cruel joke. But he's gone. And I'm not confronted with the shock of that every day because I've already been practicing missing him for eight and a half months.

05/04/11 -- Paris, France

I didn't notice last time how many cats there are in Pere Lachaise. Feral little things the lot of them, but oddly charming. There's one black one in particular that's been following me around the place. I'm sitting next to Oscar's tomb right now, and he [the cat] keeps peering around graves to watch me, disappearing for a bit, and then checking in again. It's almost like he wants me to follow him.

06/04/11 -- Auvers-sur-Oise, France

The song might be about Paris, but it feels like spring for the first time here. Everything is golden and bright, and flowers are blooming everywhere. I got up early this morning and caught the train here, changing at Pontoise where I basked in the sun for half an hour, soaking the heat into myself like a cat. The train ride here was charming, in a carriage I shared with a raucous group of boys on their way to school. When I walked out of the station onto the main street, the bells of the Eglise were chiming 10 in the morning, and I knew instantly, the way you do, that this was the right place for me to come.

...

On the hill about the Musée Daubigny (where Van Gogh lived and died), there is a concave cliff. It is clay-coloured, but wreathed in the green of the surrounding forest, and dotted with the reds and yellows of wildflowers. In a shelf set into the cliff near the top, there is a small white statue of the Virgin Mary.

...

(written on the train back to Paris) The last place I visited was the grave of Vincent and Théo. It's in a graveyard just outside the town, past the Eglise. It is not a famous Parisian graveyard; there are no markers on how to find certain of its inhabitants, and despite being clear of weeds the graves themselves are mostly badly upkept. I was the only one there. I have visited a lot of dead people here, and I do so again tomorrow in the Catacombs, but none of them have moved me like this. The brothers' grave is on the edge of the graveyard, and the simplest but strangely beautiful thing: two white headstones, and a thick patch of green ivy rather than stone. Even in death, even as one of the most famous and important painters of all time, Vincent is modest and practically uncelebrated. I stood at the foot of it for a long, long time, and cried.

08/04/11 -- on the bus ride back to London, primarily the Chunnel

Last night I drunkenly wandered the streets of Montmartre at 2am, looking for crepes. Paris, Paris, you will always hold a piece of my heart. Maybe one day I will even live inside you. For now, though, it's London that's home.

autobiography through popculture

my face is unappealing, and my thoughts are unoriginal. i did experiment with substances, but all they did was make me ill. i used to do the i ching, but i had to use the meter. now i can’t see into the future but at least i can use the heater. it doesn’t get much better than this ‘cause this is how we live our glory days.

and i could be a genius, if i just put my mind to it. and i? i could do anything, if only i could get round to it. we were brought up on the space race, now they expect you to clean toilets. when you’ve seen how big the world is, then how can you make do with this? if you want me, i’ll be sleeping in. sleeping in throughout these glory days.

&

strange little girl.

There are a hundred things she has tried to chase away the things she won’t remember and that she can’t even let herself think about because that’s when the birds scream and the worms crawl and somewhere in her mind it’s always raining a slow and endless drizzle.

You will hear that she has left the country, that there was a gift she wanted you to have, but it is lost before it reaches you. Late one night the telephone will sing, and a voice that might be hers will say something that you cannot interpret before the connection crackles and is broken.

Several years later, from a taxi, you will see someone in a doorway that looks like her, but she will be gone by the time you persuade the driver to stop. You will never see her again.

Whenever it rains you think of her.

&

The fairy Tink who is bent on mischief this night is looking for a tool, and she thinks you the most easily tricked of the boys.

So, as you can see below, I am slowly but surely getting myself back into the habit of blogging around here. It’s been a bit of a push to do so. I have been so tired. When I am sad, I react like a turtle; I retreat into myself and let the thick shell that has had years of growth keep me safe. I can go for days without engaging or interacting. And that’s okay as a primary defence mechanism - though I know there are people who’d disagree with me - but it’s definitely not okay as a way of life. And so I’ve been focussing most of the energy that I’ve not been using on just getting through the days on doing my best not to succumb to the instinct to be a zombie.

Saying that I haven’t been writing is not completely true, either. I have been writing quite a bit, but it has all been for myself. It’s the sharing that has felt like effort. I’ve a thick black notebook I bought myself in Oxford that’s been slowly but surely filling with diary entries and notes to myself and quotes I like and lists and all sorts of assorted other jottings, even the odd drawing. There’s a daisy from the field next to Christ Church College pressed between the pages, and an odd greeny-grey mark from where I dipped my finger in my absinthe and drew it down the page in Auvers-sur-Oise. It smells of the leather of my satchel and a faint hint of my perfume - though I may be imagining the latter. It’s the first time I’ve kept a proper diary - not a notebook, not an online journal - in a good long while.

I’ve written before about how I lost my voice for a while, and how I got it back, and how important honesty and writing are to me. The practice of keeping a diary varies for everyone, both in approach to and want of doing so. I think it works for me, not just because it means I keep a far more detailed record of my life than I had before. I am, in essence, having an extended conversation with myself in those pages. I was so so scared that I was going to stop writing completely after my father died, because I was pretty sure that if I lost it again I wouldn't have the energy to fight to get it back. Instead, words have become more of a necessity for me than ever before; they are my solace and my distraction (I have read more and faster this year than any since I was still in elementary school), but they are also my filter and the way through which I approach the world. That is, I think, a good part of the reason I have been copying so many quotes down alongside my own writings:

Why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief. — Anne Carson

I don’t want to have the terrible limitation of the person who lives only by what can be made to make sense. — Clarice Lispector

She wanted a story, a narrative; she wanted to be whole, not broken. She believed it would keep her “from flying into black bits.” — Carole Maso

Here is our problem, Sylvia: how to feel enough anger to survive and yet not to soil one’s ability to love, how to love, open oneself up, be free, and not be destroyed. Is love always a body climbing over a forbidden wall with a spotlight & machine gun on it? Is honesty always suicide? Would we all die like you, if we were honest? — Diane Wakoski

Bravery and submission are far closer than one realizes. Each is risk, each receives its own reward. — Anne Quinn

(What I most need is to record experiences, not in the order in which they took place – for that is just history – but in the order in which they first became significant for me.) — Laurence Durrell



I always planned on coming back to this blog. Sometimes you just have to let things happen organically, and it feels like time. I have such things to tell you about, too! The rest of my time in Paris, my Van Gogh pilgrimage, adventures with friends from Canada, stores for monsters, my exploits in jobhunting and what I do in between...

I'll do my best not to disappear for so often or so long any more.

i think that i’ve finally reached the point in my grief where i am ready to crack open the protective shell i’ve built around myself and start working on expansion and expression again. i needed to just hold on tight to my soul for a while, and that’s okay, but i also can’t stay like this forever. i need to start moving forward and working through the pain, no matter how scary a thought that is, because otherwise the healing becomes just paralysis. and that’s not okay. he wouldn’t have wanted that for me; he would have wanted better. i deserve better.

so, i’m not really sure how to go about it, but i know i’m going to start with really focussing on me, instead of letting myself be numb, or keeping myself distracted. and i know that i’m probably going to hit rock bottom in doing so, but once i’ve done that the only way to go is back up, and dammit i’m going to do that too. and i’m going to work on nourishing myself - body, mind, heart, and soul - as much as possible. life is short; i understand that now. i’m going to learn how to say yes to everything instead of a fear-based no, i’m going back to working on making my dreams reality, i’m going to dig deep into myself, i’m going to try hard, i’m going to go back to being that mad and passionate mess that i am at my very best. i’m going to make him so fucking proud of me.

Everything is holy! everybody’s holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman’s an angel!

-allen ginsberg

catch a fire

For some reason, whenever I get homesick, I always get all masochistic and make it even worse by trolling through facebook or watching videos like this, or a hundred other things.

When I tell people here where I’m from, I always just say Vancouver - as opposed to Victoria, or Vancouver Island - because they’re way more likely to know where that is. And even then, so many (especially continental Europeans, it seems, but some Brits too) ask me “why? Why would you leave there to move here?” and I always say “For a change, to try something new; I can always go back.” And I can, and I know this, but on days like this I can’t help but wonder why myself. (Weirdly, whenever I’m homesick for Victoria these days, I find myself homesick for Vancouver, too. The two are far from interchangeable, but for some reason I end up wanting both. Maybe because Vancouver is big and dirty enough to satisfy, on some levels, both my love for London and for Victoria?)

And I know it’ll pass, especially once I’ve found work and meet some more people again, and probably a proper night’s sleep wouldn’t hurt. But all the same, even when it’s not a I-want-to-go-back-right-now desperation, and especially I think now that summer’s in swing, I really miss my home sometimes. I’m from one of the most beautiful, wonderful places in the world as far as I’m concerned. Which is not to say that I don’t love London, too: most of the time, I really, really do. I love my little bedroom in this haunted house, I love Camden and Brick Lane and Portobello, I love dubstep nights and intimate folk gigs, I love the parks and the streets and how huge and all-encompassing the city is, how it feels important, and how you’re only ever bored here when you let yourself be. Which is funny because what I love about Victoria is the exact opposite: the nature, the beaches, the west coast hippy vibe, the friendliness, how intimate a city it - small, but important in that it holds everyone I love. The thing is, I’ve never met Vince Vaccaro (only seen him play), but I recognise everywhere that is in this video. I that, and the beauty of it all, almost as much as I miss my friends and family.

paris in the springtime

(Paris: my métro entrance, a view from the Promenade Plantée, Notre Dame from the South Bank, Monet's Les Nymphéas at Le Musée de l'Orangerie, paintings for sale, lilac blooming on a typical café, and the best bookshop in the world.)

There is a secret garden in Paris. It, like most secrets, hides in plain sight, and offers itself up as a reward for those willing to look a little harder and in different directions. It is called le Promenade Plantée, and it's on top of a disused suburban commuter rail line. It's one of those things only Parisiens tend to know about; a boy I met in Edinburgh told me about it - he had lived here for five years. It was my first stop today, and as I wandered through part of it, it felt like I'd tumbled into a children's novel.

And then it was down onto street level, and back into the real world of Paris in the spring, which is not really the real world at all. One of the first sounds I heard when I arrived in the city was an accordian being played on the métro as I travelled to my hostel. The first thing anyone says to me without me approaching them first is "she has stolen my heart! What can I do, I have a hole in my chest. I will keep my tears there." This is from a young Frenchman working at my hostel (joking about his coworker, who he swoops in to kiss on the cheek as she laughs), while I wait in line to check in. He's small and bearded, with a nosering, and it takes me five minutes to fall in love.

Paris in the springtime. The air smells of lilac (sometimes, when it doesn't smell of bread or coffee or spices or piss). I have already grown a lightness here. I wrote two poems to day, and a whole skein's worth of diary entry. When I was thinking about Cities of the Dead yesterday, I forgot that Paris is also a city of emotions; London is not. I am beginning to carry my scars on my chest, instead of my back.

shine like the sky

Short burst of radio silence, there. I’ve been quite busy this past week, and the time I have been spending on the computer has been mostly devoted to writing. It’s been beautiful out, like Spring has come early (there’s even snowdrops popping up out of the dark empty soil everywhere - I hope that they don’t get killed off in frost), and I find it impossible to stay indoors when the sky’s so bright and blue.

Here are some of the things I’ve been doing (aside from job hunting - & I’ve finally landed an interview, so that’s good.):

Last night I went to an event at a poetry library in celebration of the release of the film Howl later this month. The poem was recited, and then there was discussion about Ginsberg and Howl. It was good fun, the recitation especially, but I must admit that the majority of the people who turned up were not the type I’d expect to be interested in the Beat Generation. Not that that’s a bad thing. I sat beside a lovely middle-aged man in a suit who does some sort of office job, and is passionate about jazz, which is how he got into Ginsberg. “My daughter,” he said, “I think you’d like her, even though she’s not into all this sixties stuff. She’s all about Morrissey and Joy Division, and the Romantic poets.”

On Sunday I headed out determined to enjoy the sunshine. I started on Marylebone High Street, wandering through the densely packed farmer’s market, before crossing over the York Bridge into Regent’s Park. I wandered all through the gardens before sitting to eat my apples and cheese. Watching a group of Aussies play hacky sack, I was delighted to be approached and asked to join in. I said “I’m not very good.” “Everybody says that.” “No, really.” And then I spent an hour proving just how horrible I am at it. “You weren’t exaggerating.” We ate grapes and cashews and one of the boys played The Doors and The Rolling Stones over his iPod. Later, I walked them to Baker Street to find Sherlock Holmes.

Today I went to the British Museum on a whim, since I was already in the area. I wandered into the prints area to find a special exhibit on modern drawing, From Picasso To Julie Mehretu. It was marvellous. There’s something really organic about drawings, that you don’t get from an artist’s paintings or etchings. A plaque next to one of William Kentridge’s pictures had this quote from him: I believe that in the indeterminacy of drawing, the contingent way that images arrive in the work, lies some kind of model of how we live our lives. The activity of drawing is a way of trying to understand who we are or how we operate in the world. It is in the strangeness of the activity itself that can be detected judgement, ethics, and morality.

On Tuesday my roommate and I wandered the Portobello Road, and down through Notting Hill, finding a whole host of little gems - handmade clothes, gelato, antiques, old fashioned bears, and a pizza shop with an orange mini acting as a counter in the window.

Here are some of the things I want to do, soon (aside from the obvious ‘get a job‘):

See Roald Dahl’s Twisted Tales at the Lyric Hammersmith, which is less than five minutes from my house, and which, as a venue, I’ve developed a bit of a fascination with. This show, though, I want to see because a)Roald Dahl, and b)it was adapted by Jeremy Dyson, who is one of the League of Gentlemen, who are fabulous and twisted and funny, and who co-wrote Ghost Stories (which I also want to see).

See Frankenstein, which I will have to wait until the extended run to do, as it’s sold out. Unsurprising, but I can’t afford tickets right now.

Finish the poems and stories I’ve been working on lately and get them sent off before submission deadlines. Relatedly, finish reading Kelly Link’s Magic for Beginners and Nikesh Shukla’s Coconut Unlimited (both of which are absolutely brilliant), and start in on Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go before it has to go back to the library.

See Emma Hunt’s horizon [HORIZONS] at the Hayward Gallery.

And there are so many little things I could and want to tell you about, the feel of city parks on the weekend (lovely), the smell of mint gum and what it reminds me of (my father, and fastball practices), the artist who paints tiny works on old gum stuck to the streets, how I think my house is haunted, and others, but I think I’ll leave them for another entry.

ephemera

Today I saw the first sunset I've noticed since moving to London. It was just a sliver, bright behind the darkness of the clouds, and it lasted only a few minutes. Then the bus I was on turned away from Hyde Park into Kensington, and the sky was lost behind the buildings. It put me in mind of Leonard Cohen - "There's a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."

And I don't even really have much of substance to say. These are days of wandering the city by bus and by foot, looking for work, with Mumford & Sons playing in my headphones. Of breakfast in front of BBC News. Of evenings spent with books and notebooks and films. Of tea and toast.

I spend a lot of time in old bookstores that smell of dust and stale cigarettes. After handing in a CV, I allow myself wander the shelves for a few moments, ghosting in amongst familiar names, pulling loved ones down and reading a few cracked yellow pages at a time. Riding on the Tube or the tops of busses I scribble away in my notebook, turn down my music and listen to the conversations around me. I am surrounded by pages covered in inkstains and half-moons from cups of tea.

I might be unemployed, but I am working and learning every day. I am reading voraciously. I am a little bit addicted to Radio 4 & 7, and BBC dramas (radio and television), and several new fascinations (as well as some recurring old ones). I am making my own syllabus, I suppose. Indulging my obsessions. Recommended trying, if you can, then? Sherlock, Crooked House, Small Island, Terrence Rattigan, Philip Ridley, TS Eliot, the Front Row Highlights podcast, M&S Breakfast Tea, The Man In Black, Laura Marling, Carl Barat, listening to British people do American accents, Saturday, Tipping the Velvet, and I'm sure I've missed something.

Also, Benedict Cumberbatch and Johnny Lee Miller are being directed by Danny Boyle in a new production of Frankenstein at the National Theatre, starting next month, and I cannot wait to see it. Not only do I adore the novel, there are three very good reasons listed above to see it. Most interesting to me, though, is that Cumberbatch and Miller will be trading off the roles of Frankenstein and the Creature nightly. I am very, very intrigued by this.

Oh dear, this wasn't a very interesting post, was it? Mostly I just wanted to check in. I am well, I hope you all are too. I miss everyone, of course.

on the lights of london, and other minutiae

There is a perfect moment every evening in London, as the sun begins to set and the city lights up. Things are just a little bit clearer for those few minutes, sharp and glowing like a gem. It is, I suppose, what most people would call twilight. That little sliver of time is my favourite part of most any day. Even though it's right around when people start their commute home (for now; as the days continue to lengthen this won't stay the case.), it's a calm time for me no matter how the day before it's gone. Without fail, night after night, I'm flooded with the overwhelming presence of London, of the knowledge that I live here, in this greatest of all cities (though, I admit, I've yet to visit Cairo or St Petersburg), and the simple fact of the love I have for it.

Light, is something that has fascinated me for a long time. The quality of it, its tones and colours, the way it plays across surfaces. One of my favourite artistic techniques is chiaroscuro. This has a lot to do with my obsession with this time of day, I think. Because London is a dark city, really - all overcast clouds and fog and thin, winding streets shadowed by buildings and time. (Apparently, before the advent of the gaslamp era, London streets were so dark at night that once, a policeman involved in a street ruckus didn't recognize his rescuer as his own brother until he got him directly under a streetlight.). Nowadays, it is almost brighter at night, as though it leeches up the sun's rays rather than basking in them during the day. The colour of the light is also different than what I've experienced before. Back home on the west coast, the light was mostly tinted green and grey. Edinburgh shone gold, even with its deep, deep shadows; I imagine outside of the summer months it fades to brown. Cornwall was also gold, with the green that I think might come from the sea.

The light in London is mostly blue. Most people would expect grey, or maybe white, due to the buildings and the near-constant cloud cover. But it shines blue, especially in the evenings. It's the shadows that are grey, and black (and the shadows in London are an interesting thing, as they seem to come equally from the absence of light and the presence of history. This might be a personal thing, as before I moved here, my London was one of Victorian literature - Wilde, Doyle, Barrie, Carroll, etc - Jack the Ripper, gaslamps and fog. I had a very old fashioned view in my head. And part of what makes modern, multicoloured, multicultural London so brilliant is that that old version still hovers here, around the edges).

I have always been most comfortable in transitions. I prefer in-between stages, where things are changing, and nothing's for certain yet: fall, spring, the planning stage of a trip, the journey on public transport before you get off at your stop. That might be another part of why I love London's twilight so much, as the city moves away from the light of day and illuminates itself.

And so it's strange that lately I find myself not wanting much change. I recently blogged about how my plan was to leave London in about four months' time, so I can save money to go travelling. And ever since then, I've been thinking 'is it really, though?' My roommate, who is infinitely more organized and prepared than I am, is already looking around to decide where she's going next, and searching out jobs. I am currently unemployed, and looking for work. Every day I get up, do some internet job hunting, and then head out to pound the pavement. Just yesterday I applied for seven different jobs: all of them at heritage sites, all of them in London, and all of them summer positions. Most telling of all, though, is when I was talking to my mother about my difficulty finding a job and she suggested that maybe it was time to move on to somewhere else, I said "but I don't want to."

I didn't expect or want to fall in love with London, but somehow I've managed to do it anyways.

London is dirty, and overcrowded. People here are rude. The Tube often has delays and cancellations. It is incredibly expensive. Fresh air is a myth, and I also have yet to find really good vegetables. The streets, cobbled or concrete, wreak havoc on my footwear and my feet. It can be snooty, and it is often overdressed.

But London also shines blue. Blue like policemen's lights, like sapphires, like my favourite nailpolish, like the Tardis. Blue like a bruise. It is impossible to be bored here. It is a city of intelligence, literature, the arts, but also human frailty, death, resilience. There is so much here that one would need several lifetimes to really know it. And I am enchanted.

I love the way the city pulses and flows around you; I love how easy it is be anonymous, or to break that anonymity if you feel like it. I love the simplest things: the top of the Tate Modern, looking out over St. Paul's; standing on any of the bridges over the Thames, but especially the Millenium and Waterloo; the ravens in the Tower; the courtyards of the V&A and Natural History museums; Marylebone High Street; picnics in Russell Square or or Regent's Park; watching movies or reading books and recognising landmarks and place names; vintage shops in Soho; riding on the upstairs of busses; the delight in realizing I've added more details to my mental map of the city; and this list could go on for so much longer.

So, for the first time in a long time, it's not the transition that I'm focussing on right now. Instead of looking ahead at where I'm going to go, dreaming about where I'll live next, what I want now is to stay here, to sink into this city as much as I possibly can. I spent a very long time being restless, of always wanting something more, something different. I used to walk for hours on end, pacing, planning things, attempting to shake that restlessness. Now I do the same for hours in order to soak up the city. I want to know London, to learn it by walking its streets and reading its stones. I am utterly fascinated with the here and now I have.

All that's not to say that I've given up my grand plans, of course - one doesn't break a habit as easily as that. Just that, for now, my plans are of a different nature. There are so many places I have yet to see here. Walks to go on, landmarks to visit. I've recently become re-obsessed with the theatre, and there are over 200 shows to choose from - over ten currently running that I'd love to see. Live theatre here is wonderful, and if you stay away from musicals, relatively tourist free. Currently I have fourteen different ideas for writing that all need to be worked on. And I've always been something of an autodidact, but I'm working especially hard at it now. Aside from the piles of fiction I always have waiting to be read, this is my current to-read list (recorded here for no other reason than that now I'll have to read them):

Judith Flanders - The Invention of Murder
Sarah Bakewll - How to Live
Peter Ackroyd - London
Ian McGilchrist - The Master and His Emissary
Vyvyen Brendon - Prep School Children
TS Eliot - Collected Letters
Helen Castor - She Wolves
Will Hutton - Them and Us
Rebecca Solnit - Wanderlust


And, to be completely honest, I haven't actually got a clue what my plans are anymore. I don't know how long I'll stay here, I don't know where I'll go next. I don't know where I'll end up getting hired, and I don't know if I really will stay in London for the summer now. Eventually, I imagine even my fondness for this city will be eclipsed by my wanderlust. And if it doesn't before my visa runs out, well, it'll kick in hard when I start travelling. And until then I'm content to let the rest play out as it will, for now.

Why I Write, by Jacqui, age 21 and three-quarters

There is a story I tell often. Not so much a story, really, as an anecdote, a fact. It goes like this: I first decided I was going to be a writer when I realized that there were people behind the stories I gobbled up as a child. People created these magic things, and I was going to be one of them.

And this is true, though nowadays I think that if you look hard enough, and maybe squint a little, there is a deeper truth there. That maybe there wasn’t really any decision. Maybe it was more of a realization, a recognition that there was nothing else in the world that meant as much to me as this. That there was only one thing I was really meant to do, regardless of ability, economics, or the likelihood of success.

There is another story, one I very rarely tell, and never in its entirety. This is that story:

I didn't write anything for nearly three years.

Oh, sure, I still carried around a notebook for all of except about four months of those years. I jotted down little things, mostly quotes from other people, a few small ideas, the like. But nothing real, no proper writing. No stories, no poems. I was completely dried up. More importantly, I was completely passionless. My heart wasn't in it. No big deal, right? I guess writing was just a phase, it wasn't meant to be, all those platitudes.

No.

It was a very big deal. I didn't realize how big until I'd finally started to struggle loose of the fog that I'd been living in, but it was a big deal. Living isn't even the right word. I was closer to a zombie - merely existing, shambling through life dull, indifferent, and apathetic. Nothing I did was with any effort. Certainly not my writing.

I dropped out of college twice. Only the second time was due to wanting to pursue something I wanted more than a degree.

It took a long time, even after I started consciously chasing it, for my passion to come back. I was scared, for a while, that I'd never be able to write again. That fear is what made me do it, more than anything else. More than writing classes, goal-setting, reward schemes. I was terrified that I could have lost something that meant so much to me.

Because here is another truth: I don't know who I'd be if I wasn't a writer.

I don't care if I'm never a commercial success. I don't care if I always have to work another job to support my writing (ideally, of course, this won't be the case, but I don't care if it is). I don't care if I never write a bestseller, never get interviewed, never see any royalty cheques. Just so long as I never lose my writing.

Writing is my way of approaching the world. It is my chosen means of communication. I can't sing, and I'm a shitty dancer, but I'll tell you a story about the colours of your vocal cords, or the bones of a ballerina that are hollow like a bird's, if you like. Writing is my voice.

A few months ago, right around the time I had my first professional publication, I stumbled upon two quotes about writing, or using your voice. The first was from Yoko Ono, and the second is anonymous, as far as I can tell:

"Every time we don't say what we mean we are dying. Make a list of all the times you died this week."

and

"Writer's block isn't having nothing to say. Writer's block is being scared of articulating what it is you have to say."

There are plenty of times, even still, that writing can be incredibly difficult for me. That sitting down to an empty page, I will be filled with sheer terror, certain I'm not going to be able to say anything. But these days, I work through it. I keep trying. Because writing is my voice, and I'm not giving that up again for anything.

The powers-that-be in this world so often wants you to be quiet, to keep your eyes averted, never speak up, always back down. The most political thing you can do, in a climate like this, is refuse to shut up. To claim your voice, and insist on using it in whatever way you choose. To be yourself, boldly, beautifully yourself. That is the strongest thing there is, for you and for others.

I hope to one day be a mentor for youth. I don't know yet if this will take shape as a career in teaching or something extracurricular like a poetry coach. This is my biggest dream: to be a creator, and to facilitate creation. I don't think I'm qualified quite yet - I've still got some work to do on me. But some day soon, this is what I'd like to do.

And in working with those youth, I want to help them find their voices. I want to encourage as many people as I can to live out loud. I want to make sure as few as possible other people who need words lose them. I just want to do my bit.

In the latest Brave New Voices (youth poetry slam competition) video, there is a moment before the competition that all the kids are together, getting ready. They are chanting something:

"You got something to say. Say something."

So, this is why. Why I blog, why I poet, why I storytell. Because I am one person out of 6 billion on this planet. Because I have a heart, because it broke, and I stuck it back together with sellotape and chewing gum. Because I'm looking for something, and I don't even know what it is yet. Because I lost part of myself, and I was lucky enough to find it again. Because I can't not.

promises, promises

I have just over four more months left in London, according to my current plan. It’s true, of course, that four months is a long time, especially when you’re thinking within the limits of a two-year visa. My plans may change. Hell, I know they will - they’ll change multiple times, all over the map, from the probable to the impossible and back again. Because the only thing I’m better at than drinking tea is making plans.

But as it stands, I plan out heading out of London sometime in May, after my Dad visits and we go to the Clapton concert. I don’t know where to yet. Somewhere in coastal Wales is a strong contender at the moment, as are Brighton, Liverpool, Northern Ireland, and several different islands. I will probably get a live-in job, so I can save money for travelling. I might not get a live-in job, because I like the separation of space between home and work. I might go somewhere tiny, so I can hear myself think. I might not, because I love cities. I want to go to a writing seminar in Vilnius, Lithuania, if I can afford it. I want to volunteer in a primate reserve in Devon. I want to drink coffee in Paris and Istanbul, mint tea in Marrakesh, and wine in Rome. I want to go home and start back up on my degree. I want, I dream, I might. (This is what I mean about myself and plans)

I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions, because they don’t work, and I think people approach them the wrong way. I’m not going to stop anything this year. I’m not gonna diet, or cut back on my drinking, or exercise five days a week, or anything like that. Those are all things that if you really wanna do them, you will, new year or not. I do, however, believe in making yourself promises. In working hard to make your life as amazing as possible. So here are some things I’ve promised myself that I will do this year (and if I don’t get them done, then next year!):

-attend the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
-see Stonehenge, and the White Horse in Wiltshire.
-visit Hay-on-Wye, preferably during their book festival.
-go back to Paris.
-work on my French skills.
-take as many daytrips and mini-vacations as possible.
-keep writing and submitting and working hard at this.
-go to the Summer Literary Seminar in Vilnius.
-spend the night on Cader Idris.
-learn some Welsh and/or Gaelic.
-see the final Harry Potter film (of course). Cry like a baby (inevitably).
-visit Dublin and hopefully the rest of Ireland.
-volunteer at the Monkey Sanctuary.
-try to finish a novel manuscript.
-meet my British family.
-intern at the BBC (if I get accepted).
-go to Amsterdam with my friends like we said we would.
-go back to Cornwall and see a play at the Minack Theatre (also, visit the Eden Project.)
-attend a proper Guy Fawkes Night celebration.
-visit the Shetland Islands.
-spend the night in a proper (preferably haunted) castle.

And that's it, so far. Did you make yourself any promises for this year?

Bed in Shakespeare & Co, a little-but-incredible expat bookstore on the South Bank in Paris. They stock new & used books in a plethora of languages, have some lovely kitties, and house travelling writers for free - just as long as you'll work in the store three hours a day. It's my kind of bohemian heaven.

Gods but I love this bookstore. Not only for it’s charms, but for the memories that come with it - that was the best night of our France trip (aside from maaaaybe the night we went bowling in Avignon, all of us together, French and Canadian, and we all sucked except for the fourteen-year-old little brother of my exchange partner, and nobody knew what size shoe we needed, and we all tumbled together onto benches meant for far fewer people and laughed and drank and held hands.), the six of us seperating from the main group and wandering the South Bank late at night, hopelessly lost until we decided to follow a cat and finally, finally ended up outside of this little green-and-yellow shop. We spent hours browsing, because Shakespeare & Co. doesn’t close ‘til midnight, and met a Norwegian photojournalist who’d spent twelve hours there for a piece he was working on, and the lovely people who were living there at the time, and then we made our purchases and started wandering back through the wide, dark (but still so well-lit!) streets, and once we got back to our hotel we climbed through the window one of the boys had dismantled for us, and sat on the roof and read Ginsberg and Kafka and… Milton, I think is what we bought for our literature teacher, late into the morning.

…And maybe, the real highlight of that France trip is the evening that the father of my host family, after my awkward attempt to make conversation over dinner, responded “I do not like Jimi ‘endrix. I love Jimi ‘endrix!” and proceeded to take me into the sitting room and play me a bunch of his rare Hendrix bootlegs on vinyl, and we stayed there for hours talking about music. (He later gave me a CD of a bunch of the Hendrix recordings before I left for Paris - I lost it somewhere, and I regret it every time I think about it.) Or maybe it was the time I didn’t really want to eat the veal my host family served me, and they thought I didn’t know what it was, so they kept saying things like “cow” and “meat” and finally the previously mentioned fourteen-year-old went “mooooooooooo” and we all cracked up. Or maybe it was their simple kindness in general, or the apricot orchard they lived next to, or the day they took me to a traditional spring festival in the next town over. Maybe it was looking down on Paris from the top of the Eiffel tower, or the markets in Aix-en-Provence, or the sheer beauty of Fontaine de Vaucluse, or maybe it was the easy camraderie we built up on our long bus trips, discussing Rage Against the Machine or singing K-OS or whatever else we did.

Maybe it was all of these things.

This isn’t what I originally intended to write with this photo - I just wanted to say that I loved Shakespeare & Co., and I can’t wait to go back to it and Paris (hopefully soon.) That France trip is what fueled my hunger for travel, and I’ll always be so glad I went on it. And, while I hunger to rediscover places that I’ve visited and loved, I’m just as eager to visit new places. London is an incredible city, and I really do love it here, but moving somewhere is not the same thing as travelling; they both shape you, help you grow, but one is so much more fun than the other. More tiring, too, and difficult, and it can be lonely. But the sheer wonder of all these places that are waiting to be seen is so much stronger to me than any melancholy or potential bed bugs.

mixtape monday #2: sleepless season

This is a season of sleeplessness. Fog hangs over the city like a spell. Like we should all be sleeping, waiting for a prince to come. But we're awake, and our dreams tumble about our ankles like so many drafts. Trees scratch at the sky with their bare limbs, and I wrap myself up and go hunting for Sleeping Beauty.

There's a forever boy-child in Hyde Park, and seven dancing princesses just waiting to be found in Kensington Palace. This is a city of fairy tales (this is also a city of broken promises, but the two go hand-in-hand). I would trade you a thimble for a kiss, if you asked. I would gift you my entire empire, built as it is of worlds and wishes. The stories taught me that you never get anything without giving something in return. And we like to think that we tell different stories nowadays, that we're all grown up, but...

The thing is, sometimes the 'grown up' stories, they do turn into fairytales. And that's where it starts to really get dangerous. Someone's hands get chopped off, another ends up in a wolf's belly. Bricked up in walls, or held captive by amorous fathers. This city burns so brightly it eclipses the moon.

Things that dwelt in the darkness and went about seeking to do evil and harm; Bogies and Crawling Horrors, all came out when the Moon didn't shine
-The Buried Moon (an English fairy tale)

hyde park in november

I spent my day off today in Hyde Park. I'd originally planned on going to one of the museums, but once I got to South Kensington, I found myself not very interested in doing that any more. So I spent awhile reading on a bench, letting the city flow around me (one of my favourite things to do here in London), and actually ended up being photographed by a charming French street photographer.

After a while I got too cold to sit still any longer, and so decided to do one of my favourite things anywhere, in one of my favourite places in London - go for a walk in Hyde Park. I love autumn more than any time of year, and I love being outside on an autumn day. The air smelt wonderful, all rotting leaves and woodsmoke, and it was full of people out enjoying their day similarly - families taking their kids out, little old couples out for strolls, people with their dogs. I love this park so much.

That's Kensington Palace you can see between the trees.

Straight on 'till morning.

remembrance.

what passing bells for these who die as cattle?
only the monstrous anger of the guns.
only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
can patter out their hasty orisons.
no mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –
the shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
and bugles calling for them from sad shires.
what candles may be held to speed them all?
not in the hands of boys but in their eyes
shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
the pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
and each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

-Anthem For Doomed Youth, Wilfred Owen

mixtape monday #1 (like a rolling stone)

Mixtape Mondays is an idea thought up by my friend Aaron over at his amazing blog, Grayshades, which I shall now commence to to shamelessly steal. (I did ask first.)




I think my favourite story from Keith Richard's autobiography so far is the introductory bit, about his near-incarceration for drug possession in Alabama that he got out of with the help of a defense attorney who'd worked with JFK, an idealistic prosecutor who didn't want to put him away, 200 Stones fans outside the courthouse, and an absolutely wasted judge with a bottle of whiskey in his sock. It really illustrates the "Rolling Stones Travelling Circus" idea.

Also the part about how John Lennon was a lightweight. That bit's funny.

My favourite thing about the book, though, is the little bits he's added in from his notebooks throughout the narrative. Here's the best one so far, scrawled in his own writing and scanned in:

"I forgot to mention that to play the blues was like a jailbreak out of those meticulous bars with the notes crammed in like prisoners. Like sad faces."

Keith Richards is the coolest dude ever. I already suspected that might be true, but this book proves it. The best part about Keith is how much he loves the music. You watch the Rolling Stones on stage, or listening to one of their recordings like in this video, and he's always completely engrossed in it, completely blissed out.

There's a lot of poetry in those notes. A lot of wit and talent with words. And the amazing thing is all the songs he still wants to write, all the ideas he mentions that he has yet to finish building. He's also kind of a sarcastic jerk when it comes to anything he doesn't like, but I appreciate that, because his sarcasm is funny.

And y'know, I had the chance to go and meet him at a book signing last week, and I did the right thing and went to work instead. And I'm still a little sad about this, but I'm getting over it because sitting behind a desk in a Waterstones in the posh district of the city isn't exactly Keith Richards' natural habitat.

In my writing biography, I mention that one of my biggest influences is my dad's record collection. I mythologize music and musicians; I have a whole pantheon of rock'n'roll gods that I believe in more than anything in real life. This is one of my strangest traits. I romanticize everything and get all caught up in nostalgia for things I've never had, and that's how I define myself most.

It's easy to romanticize rock musicians.*

Keith Richards is more than just an amazing guitar player: he's a folkloric figure. The Rolling Stones play the blues, and the blues is a storytelling tradition, of the oral variety. It's filled with superstitions, crossroads, and devils. The stereotypical blues character is an old black man on his porch in the south, with his guitar and a neverending supply of stories. It doesn't matter if those stories ever happened or not - the truth is in the telling.

In his book, Richards inhabits that character perfectly, stepping seamlessly into the role of storyteller with the conversational tone. But he also straddles the line into one of the blues' favourite characters, the trickster. He's been in love with this music and culture most of his life. He knows what he's doing.





*If you don't believe me, watch the incredible Dylan-inspired film I'm Not There.

the day-to-days

So, I have a job now. I imagine that this is one of those things I should have mentioned in my travel-ish blog when it first happened, but. Y'know.
I work at a bookstore in Islington. Every morning I get to the neighbourhood a little bit early so I can get myself a spearmint-green tea and sit and read or write until it's time to head to work. Then I spend the day shelving or working the till or (best of all) helping people find things they're looking for. Today I spent a long time helping a pre-teen girl find the perfect edition of Oliver Twist to read, and explaining to her why some were in the Children's section and some were in the Classics, and why there were so many different versions (if you're interested: once an author has been dead for 100 years, their works become public domain, and anybody who wants to can publish them.) I also recommended New York novels to a woman who was going to be travelling there (Paul Auster's New York Trilogy and The Brooklyn Follies, Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Joseph O'Neill's Netherland, Colm McCann's Let The Great World Spin, Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's, and Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar.)

Yesterday I helped a woman attempt to hunt down these two books: "I don't remember the title or the author's name, but it's Danish and he was serving in Afghanistan and wrote an expose of what life's like over there and it caused a huge controversy. I don't know if it's been translated into English yet." and "It's Swedish and the original title translates to something like The Hundred Year Old Man Who Stepped Out Of The Window And Disappeared. I can't remember the author's name, but can you tell me if it's been translated into English yet?" Some of my coworkers get annoyed with requests like this, but I have a lot of fun. I love helping people, and helping people find books they're looking for is a bit like a treasure hunt.

I work with a bunch of amazing people. There's boy-Aussie, who was living in a garden shack for free and working as a freelance illustrator and musician before he moved over here; girl-Aussie, who wears rockabilly-style head bandanas and is a qualified architect and designer; the Thespian, who's already becoming quite a good friend of mine, is a full-time uni student as well as taking acting classes and volunteering at her theatre, and is going to show me around London and take me to see Hamlet; the Lifer, who has worked at Waterstones forever, loves books and literature and is as well-read as the most passionate English teacher and is the friendliest man I've ever met, who was heartwarmingly delighted to have the chance to spend the day hosting Howard Jacobson when he came in to sign books the other day; Miss Rose, who dresses in the most beautiful, dainty outfits and looks like a painting of the Petrarchian ideal, and who is incredibly intelligent; and the two Kids section veterans who have been showing me the ropes, who both have the most energy I've ever seen - there's the Lady, with her short bob and collection of jumper-style dresses who rushes around keeping the area clean and organised, and the Lad, who loves to sit and read to the kids, or put on impromptu puppet shows with them.

There are several others that I'm just starting to get to know, too. I can already tell that I'm going to become very attached to all of them.