living in the meantime

Every day in London (with the exception of yesterday, when I marched and attended a rally against government cuts with half-a-million other people (and which I wrote about at my new culture & politics blog.) begins the same way: without any set plans.

Maybe I drink my tea downstairs, watching BBC News, or maybe I bring my cereal upstairs to eat while I read Victoria Coren's memoir/yet another Angela Carter book/David Foster Wallace's essays. Maybe I'm tempted to stay like that all day, curled up in my pyjamas behind my locked bedroom door; I've always been rather lazy.

But I get up. I shower and dress. I head out into London. I look for work. I look for way to amuse myself while I'm not working.

On the days that the sadness doesn't stay away, I've found that the easiest way to cheer myself up is to head to a well-known tourist destination, and let the crowd swallow me up in its chatter and flow. Even after six months, there is still a thrill at seeing people take pictures of themself in front of Big Ben or Tower Bridge and being able to think I live here. As the song goes, London, you're a lady, and some days I don't know what I'd do without you.

I don't spend much time in museums and galleries right now. I think it's because they're too still, too enclosed; they're definitely too cut off from the beautiful weather London's been having. Instead I'm drawn to Hyde Park, to Portobello or Camden or Borough Markets, to the South Bank, to outdoor spaces fairly bursting with people as Spring hits the city and everyone rushes out from their homes and offices.

It feels a bit like living in the meantime right now. There are no special events, I'm not going to many shows. It's more of a slow, calm, settling-in for the long haul. It's something I'm okay wit. In a lot of ways, I'm more comfortable with myself than I have been in many years.

So I keep carrying on the day-to-day. I think about finally getting my next tattoo. I decide how I'm going to cut my hair. I paint my nails blue and my lips pink, and I contemplate the pros and cons of investing in a pair of floral Docs as the weather takes a turn for the better. I read books, in bed, in parks, on the Tube. I drink, as ever, too much tea. I write, I write, I write...

"Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,
even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;
I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard. I want
to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings."
-Mary Oliver, "Starlings In Winter"

Before I came back to London, I made Nikki a promise. I promised that I would do something fun, something just for me on the Saturday after I got back. It turns out I was too exhausted to do much more than wander ‘round Hammersmith and through a bookstore that day, but the next, true to my word, I headed for Paddington station bright and early and bought a return ticket to Oxford.

The journey from London to Oxford is approximately an hour and a half long. I’d purposely not brought any book or magazine. Just a mix on my iPod and the hope of snagging a window seat, which I managed. On one level, just like every trip I’ve ever taken, my favourite part of the day was the train ride itself. I’m an in-between girl, as I’ve said before, and I adore being in the state of travelling. Trains are especially wonderful to me. This doesn’t usually detract from the destination, though, and Oxford was no different. This Sunday was a spectacularly clear spring day; the sky hung blue and high above the city, so different from the low grey clouds you grow accustomed to in London (and, for that matter, in Victoria in the winter.)

Confession time: ever since I was very little, I have wanted to go to university at Oxford or Cambridge. When I was younger it was usually Oxford I dreamt of, though these days when I contemplate pursuing my academic career, Cambridge also pops up (due in no small part, I must admit, to the reputation of the Cambridge Footlights). But it was Oxford that first captured my imagination, with its dreaming spires and green spaces housed in golden brick, be-corduroyed professors and precocious young things with their books and ink-stains. So it’s no surprise that I’d been yearning to visit since I first arrived in the UK.

Oxford the actual place was both quite like and quite different from my expectations. It’s definitely a student city, with lots of young people and bookshops and cheap places to eat. There are bicycles everywhere, it’s incredible. I hadn’t realized, however, just how tied up with the city the university is - the different colleges and library are actually on the city streets. Maybe I just never paid attention, but I hadn’t been expecting that. Unfortunately, for some reason, none of the colleges were open for visiting that day. I did go to the Bodleian library, though, which was quite cool, not least for the exhibit centred on the Shelleys they’re currently showcasing. It’s a very surreal thing to be able to read the actual letters between Percy and Mary Shelley, and Byron and Keats. (Keats, unsurprisingly, had the most beautiful and legible hand of them all - his were the only letters I could truly read.) All in all, it's a very youthful, very friendly city, and I will probably go back at some point.

(I have pictures to share, but for some reason blogger's not letting me upload them, and I'm tired of fiddling with it for tonight, so I'll edit them into the post in the morning.)

yesterday:

9am. wake up to a beautiful morning, make a cup of tea, slice up a nectarine, and head into the sitting room to watch the sun come through the windows. notice i’ve accidently left my mobile in there overnight, check it to realize i’ve missed a call from home, minutes before.

phone back, confused, but not that worried - it’s the middle of the night there, but not too late. they’re probably just tipsy, and phoning to say i love you. my mom answers, and i’m really confused - sean had been babysitting tyler the night before, i thought, not this one? why is she at my father & stepmom’s house? and then i’m scared, because she’s asking where i am, and if there’s anyone at home with me.

she’s telling me my father’s dead. she says: he had a massive heart attack honey, and he didn’t make it.

my stepmom picks up the other extension, and all she can say, over and over, is: i’m so sorry sweetheart. i’m so sorry.

and then she’s gone, sobbing, and my aunt, my mother’s sister the nurse, the one born on the same day as my father two years later is there, and she’s calm, so calm, and that’s when it really starts to sink in. she tells me i can’t feel guilty about being in london, makes me promise. i say the words, that’s all i can do.

8pm. get my best friend on skype and break down in front of him. he calms me down, somewhat. tells me he loves me. it hurts, not being able to touch people right now.

my daddy, who fought for custody of me, who raised me, remembered every boy i’d so much as mentioned, bought me encyclopedias when i was little so we could look up the answers to all my questions together, coached my fastball team gladly for ten years, even the last year when i was too sick and busy with school and work to go to more than one or two games, who was everything and anything and who always saved me is gone.

he’s gone and everyone’s converging in victoria, and i’m in london. i’m on the other side of the world, in a city that fits me like a glove, that i’ve made a home for myself in, that i was so, so excited to show him when he came to visit in may. we were going to see eric clapton at the royal albert hall. we were going to go to liverpool. he was excited to finally see england, and i wanted to show it to him.

i don’t know anything right now. i have to think properly, logistically. make decisions - make the right decision. i don’t know what that is.

i just don’t know.

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.