Last week I went to the Shanghai International literary Festival, again on matters of business, as I was writing an article on the event. The workshop was about getting pen to page and just writing; writing without fear of who will read, or what they will think or indeed whether it will make any sense once outside of your own head. Nancy Conyers opened the workshop with this quote: “The blessing of writing is the same thing that is the curse – the blank page. You can do whatever you want…The moment before creativity is so painful for some that they simply can’t deal with it.” The exciting thing with art is that we can all be the masters of our own universe. We can decide which stroke goes where, what colours are best to accent which ideas; and with writing, a picture with words, we decide how characters behave, how images are created and more often than not, how the story will end...
Things we said to pass the time:
“You have indecisive eyes”, I said. Sometimes green, other times hazelnut brown, they were intriguing, often misleading. I never saw them cry, even when the mountain toppled and the sea ran dry. You said “I hate you” to mask “I love you.” Do you remember the look on the shop assistant’s face that valentine’s day with the giant cookie that proclaimed your hate? I said you were funny, she said you were mad. You said “I love you” when you felt nothing. Hate is too strong, reserved for those who matter when they shouldn’t; rarely for those who don’t when they should.
We said it was us against the world. No one understood like we did and for that time I was every god in Zeus’ army. I said you had to ride the roller coaster and you did it just for me, even when you felt ill. You said it wasn’t my fault when you vomited all over yourself (and the unsuspecting person directly beneath you). You said “right now” every time you thought that I looked particularly beautiful; you shouted it across a petrol station one time when I knew that I didn’t.
You said I stress too much, how glad I am that those times have changed. I said the world is doomed, you said everything is cyclical and I understood too late to tell you so. The world will remain beautiful, even after everything that is known is gone and the sounds of the rivers and the birds and the seas claim back their former glory.
You said without dreams we are nothing but you were scared of yours. I said, “Why do you wander the streets at night?” You said that I didn’t understand. You spoke many truths that I denied because I was too stubborn to admit that I didn’t know and too young to discover why.
You said it was none of my business, if you chose to sleep all day what was it to me? I said that you were business. How silly, to believe anyone else could be your own business and to invest so much energy in the emotional hard sell. You said I was crazy, not to me, but bad news travels like electricity, if the right wires are connected, and hits harder than lightening. I can’t disagree, I have a writer’s mentality, as do you; you paint the world on an acorn, the details are minute.
You said “All the best”. I said "take care" and the path of our mutual life stopped there. Silence followed; the time passed anyway.
Shanghai:
Flanked on both sides by binary code, the city of extremes preys on people like me. Every race, nationality, breed and face lives together; sometimes harmoniously, often looking without seeing, judging without really knowing. Understanding a world where everything is possible and yet for some, nothing.
Writer’s block:
She stands on a craggy mountain ridge of her own creation. She knows the slope well. The feel of the clay, the exact shade of red, the way the foot prints follow a different path than originally intended, all are there because she is there.
She spun this world with no end in sight, as she has done with every world before it. There is no map and darkness begins to draw in.
The people below walk the same road, up and down, up and down. It is not long but it has many slopes and blind turns; it is not a safe road, the ground is not steady, the trees are not kind. The road goes nowhere, blocked on both sides by a giant iron wall that knows no limits, refusing exit or entrance; it stands completely mute, waiting for her order. The longer she waits, the more lost to their purpose those people become. She sees some who were originally unknown to each other speaking on the road, realising things intended for oblivion.
She wonders if she will ever get back to those distant wanderers. She gave them life but cannot remove that which has already been created. She has no power to extract them from that dark, half-lost corner. She turns from the valley, now encompassed by the shadow of the mountain on which she stands. There they will remain; haunting the place where she dreams.
Climbing Soap:
“My thought is me: that is why I cannot stop thinking. I exist I think because I cannot keep from thinking.”
~ Jean Paul Sartre ~
He sat looking out of the window at the rain. The small gold clock that ticked the sound track to his life belonged to his mother. He thought of belongings. He had several in his tiny flat: there was the war memorabilia, ten medals laid out proudly in a perfect line on his dresser, other items stashed carefully in a locked suitcase under his bed. There was also the sofa with the colourful patch work quilt that had been here when he arrived and the shot gun mounted to the wall over the television that didn’t work properly. There was the kettle, the cups: three of them, with blue stripes; eleven stripes on two but thirteen on the third. There was a chip in the third cup, it was his least favourite and he refused to use it. There were spoons, five of them arranged in a neat row on the kitchen counter, their handles tilted left at 30 degree angles. Three of them were the only things remaining from a wedding set, he couldn’t recall which, or where the rest of it had gone to. The other two were likely picked up along the route of his life; he only ever used the second to the left. Used it, washed and dried it and put it back where it belonged. He had a fridge; inside the fridge were some milk and two meals on wheels meals brought in by his carer that morning.
He had a carer; he almost thought of her as his possession, like a pet but with slightly more independence. She came every day at the same time, purred around his foot a while, asked him, ‘are you alright’ or ‘ok’ or ‘how you doing love?’ Her name was Annie, it suited her jovial disposition. She knew his routine now and so she was fine, a minor annoyance sometimes with her questions and smiles on rainy Sundays, but usually she entertained him somewhat and he was glad of the company. It was when she was off sick or on holiday or doing something else that there was a problem. It was a big problem and an impending one, the cause of much anxiety and frustration over a series of consecutive weeks. He had calculated it: it was exactly 30 days since she’d told him that she would be in France for two weeks and that he would have someone else encroaching on his space,
‘She’s really lovely, honest. I’m sure you’ll get on great!’
The hour of her last dinner time visit was fast approaching and then in front of that lay 336 hours, maybe more if she was late back from the airport. He had calculated around 20160 ticks of his mother’s golden clock.
He went back to counting the rain drops that were falling over the streets of Brixton.
