on sanity

‘Madness was someone with attention deficit disorder surfing the internet. Sanity was the ability to stick to your search.’ Glen Duncan

But I think that if madness is a blanket, then sanity is the holes. And some blankets are too well made, and worn in midsummer, sun beating down, airless and dark beneath. Fingers scrabbling for a loop to pull, a ripcord to tug on to draw some air inside. So I say get struggling, keep believing that you will dance your way through to next winter, wearing nothing but ragged lace.

sweet the sting

Inspiration is like a mouthful of Spacedust. Sometimes sweet, sometimes gritty, but always followed by the pop pop pop of ideas, as words jump from your tongue and hit the roof of your mouth. Sometimes it’s a bit unexpected, a bit too much, almost frightening. But sometimes it feels so good its like the top of your head could come off.

As I sit spinning my own fragile strands of this great web we stand upon, I spot other treasures as I go. I pick them up and put them on my back and hope to weave them into my own designs somewhere down the road. Two recent mouthful of Spacedust came from Found - which reminds me to keep my eyes open at all times, in all places, because you never know what might be waiting for you. And from Mothballer - which elicits a sigh as I glance over silent images begging for their stories to be told.

And lastly, just to make sure I don’t get lost in virtual pages at the expense of the paper variety - a few choice pickings from recent reading -

‘Maybe the definition of home is the place where you are never forgiven, so you may always belong there, bound by guilt. And maybe the cost of belonging is worth it.’ Gregory Maguire

‘The truth cannot be told, that is why it is the truth.’ Andre Brink

‘You always pay too much. Particularly for promises.’ Cormac McCarthy

on a maddening loop

Usually books and music inspire me more than films. Perhaps two hours of moving images fill my head to such a degree that there is no space left for independent thought. No soil untended for seeds of questions to take root.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was an exception to that rule. I entered into an engaging conversation with the characters, scenes and stories. I came away with far more questions than answers - but as always, I like it that way.

Some of the seedlings currently struggling to reach for the light include -

Is memory a loop? do new memories eventually overwrite and erase older, less cherished or less used ones? Perhaps memory is like a hard drive? so that when something goes wrong and you lose everything saved on it - only then do you remember that you haven’t backed it up? Only when lost do you cherish the memories that you stored away and never even glanced at. But how do you back up your mind? How do you preserve memories against mechanical failure? By taking their photos, by writing them down? Perhaps by telling their stories so they are shared between many rather than an unreliable few?

walking in my shoes

Books can be a lot like life. In some there can be so much to take in that one threatens to suffocate. In a case like that I hold my breath, squint and try to focus on the little things. The innocence amid experience.

In The End of Alice it was this moment that stayed with me - that made me want to reach my hand through the page and lift her out.

She crosses one leg over the other and I can’t help but notice, not the skinned knee, not the bruised shin, but the writing on the bottom of her shoe, neat print.

‘Tell me about your sneakers,’ I say, children’s feet of course being my area of expertise.

‘On the right is Emily Dickinson, 712, and on the left, the one you’re looking at, is Sylvia Plath, “Lady Lazarus.” “Out of the ash I rise with my red hair and I eat men like air”’

She smiles. ‘It drives Mother crazy, especially when I put Ferlinghetti on my patent leathers. She hates modern poetry.’

A.M. Homes

And while on the subject of innocence and endings and beginnings - my word of the week. A word I never knew existed. A word so aware of itself - so very aptly named it makes me smile.

abecedarian \ay-bee-see-DAIR-ee-uhn\ - one who is learning the alphabet; hence, a beginner

the voice on my shoulder

If I ever become a successful serial killer, and there’s always the slim hope that I might, I will use this quote in my defence -

‘If a killer kills, it is not because he “has no conscience” but because, in his horrendous existence, things are all the same, so that by destroying some of these replicas one has the momentary illusion of making space in the world, space to breathe and to re-create differences.’

Denis Duclos - The Werewolf Complex

lost within blue

Lots of things let me down. And many things catch me unawares. Not least books. Often the ones I am most looking forward to disappoint, and those I have avoided as I graze along the shelf delight me when I finally embrace them.

This was the case for The Poisonwood Bible. I recall I bought it because it was cheap and it sounded like something I should read. But it has lurked unloved on my shelf for years, looking too wordy and too blue to tempt me. But February is a long month despite its days and I gave the blue book a go.

And these are just some of the wonders I found within -

‘Rattling words on the page calling my eyes to dance with them.’

‘my heart felt like a soft, damaged place in my chest, like a bruise on a peach.’

‘The substance of grief is not imaginary. It’s as real as rope or the absence of air, and like both those things it can kill.’

‘My mind is crowded with a forest of facts. Between the trees lie wide-open plains of despair. I skirt around them. I stick to the woods.’

Barbara Kingsolver

shine forth upon our clouded hills

Mr Paxman recently gave me a thorough introduction to my kind through his book The English - A Portrait of a People. I found it fascinating but far from familiar. According to my birth certificate and my expired passport I am English - but I don’t fit the mould that snugly. Rather than cataloguing a list of all my discrepancies I will share those few points where I do connect with his findings.

Without needing to look at my over-stacked shelves or numerous to-be-read lists he observes that ‘books are a national currency’. He goes on to discuss ‘the absurdly overproductive British publishing business, which turns out 100,000 new books a year - more than the entire American publishing industry’ - one very good reason to call this island my home.

The most telling character trait I share with the typical English is my comfort in resigned pessimism - he confirms that we are ‘a people marching backwards into the future, for whom change always means change for the worse’.

And a further list also prompts ticks in a number of boxes - ‘individualism, pragmatism, love of words… fundamental cussedness’.

word of the day

I like to wander. I like to wonder. Aloud, around and often in circles. I like the word meander. So this seems another useful word to add to my vocabulary.

maunder - [MON-duhr]- 1. To talk incoherently; to speak in a rambling manner. 2. To wander aimlessly or confusedly.