beauty

let me count the ways…. I love coming home

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So my last business trip of the year is complete and after the four and a half hour commute, I have just turned my key in the lock and opened my front door to the joys of coming home.

And here they are:

A few moments of reshelving favourite books, boxing up adaptor plugs, sliding pairs of shoes into their familiar hidey holes, and walking in my mother’s homecoming footsteps of ‘getting the washing on  the go”.

The particular hum of household appliances, the faint squeal of lightbulbs turned down on the dimmer, the strike of a match put to the gas fire tiled with fragments of my great grandmothers china and pebbles from my favourite seaside, the familiar rhythms of the boiler.  A symphony.

Settling straight into the routines of my home neighbourhood – tomorrow is recycling collection, so it’s back to me to take it out (my kind neighbour does this when I’m away).

Conscientiously watering plants before they die of neglect.

Warming up cherished cold corners, scented candle on the hearth, hot-water bottles in the bed, scented oils in the bathroom, a spread of chords on the too-silent piano.

Friendly things to eat – favourite tea tonight and tomorrow the prospect of my beloved favourite breakfast.

The smell of laundry.

Everywhere treasure: favourite cards, tea lights, cushions, books, mugs, chair, pillows, cosy clothes.

Catching up with connection, responding, calling, delaying, writing.  Being available to my friends and family again after days of intense focus.

Pink (seemingly outlawed from any business hotel I’ve stayed at in the last several years).

Prettyness – in delicate colours, in intricate textures, in contrast, in details, in scent, in light.

Storing my suitcase and turning back into someone who lives in their house, and who does not drag their possessions with them everywhere like a maladapted snail.

‘Pottering’; a mundane but beloved verb that rarely occurs away from home.

Presence, to myself, to my life, to now.

And thankfulness; what riches.

found poem, London, winter 2014

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I like my town

Art is a dirty job but someone’s got to do it.

Back to basics.
Douceur d’enfance.

Today is a good day.
Live what you love.

She acts like summer
and walks like rain.

Art for all.
Discovery.

Let’s fill this town with artists.
Art is nothing without the gift

‘I love William Morris
as I love most artists who manage
to make their lives and work
completely part of each other.’

When William Morris lay dying in 1896,
one of his doctors diagnosed his fatal illness
as ‘simply being William Morris,
and having done more work than most ten men’.

Love is enough.

Own a masterpiece.

Welcome.

No peeking.

Skate.

He is like a tree planted beside the streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season,
whose leaves do not fade,
in all that he does he prospers.

‘Dying is as natural
as being born’.

The secret is out.

You are here.

Step into the adventure.

Thou God seest me.

A little patience won’t hurt you.

Notes on locations:  sign in Loft store, shirt in Loft, product in Loft, candle in Loft, art in Loft, art in Loft, Duke St Emporium, DSE, Landrover showroom, name of shop, sign in same shop, Anarchy and Beauty, National Portrait Gallery, cushion in NPG shop, sign in NPG, Jigsaw store window, Somerset House sign, engraving of Proverbs 1 in Somerset House monument, quotation attributed to Cecily Saunders, Kings College London, wording on a van, street map, advert on bus, wording above St Clements Danes church, sign on Tube.

Letter to the forty-six

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Perhaps you had no idea
when you tinged your wand
on a ‘like’ button,
to ‘follow’,
when you clicked a link,
that you held my dream in your hand.

I’ve been here twenty-four days precisely
and my life has turned
upside down.
Maybe we none of us
know the meaning
of what we have
unleashed.

Creatures hidden unseen
for a hundred years
have opened their eyes,
blinking,
to the new light of day,

and breathed in
reality, and discovered
welcome,
have coughed up the old
poison apple,
started dancing.

I crept in here
away from the glare,
under the radar of a stasi
I never knew were there.
How did they come to rule
even a corner of my
universe?

Perhaps you had no idea
when you tinged your wand
on a ‘like’ button,
to ‘follow’,
when you clicked a link,
that your hand launched a dream.

things I want to tell my children but might forget – winter walking

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Walking in streets

Wherever we decide to go, we will be likely to be walking down streets to get there.  Hopefully it will be a sunny day, either crisp and cold, if it’s winter, or a fresh feeling in the air if it’s spring, or a hazy sunshine if it’s summer, or a bit blustery if it’s autumn.  If it’s raining, we will all have umbrellas.

As I am writing it is winter, so we will think about winter walking in streets.  There are two main kinds of winter walking.  The first kind is on a bright sunny day with blue sky.  On bright sunny days, it is normally colder, so you get some startling sensations.  One is the sensation of the bright light dazzling your eyes.  It is true that there might be a brighter light in summer, but in winter your eyes may not have seen such brightness for a while, so it feels more intense.  Also, if there is a frost or snow, the bleached colours reflect the sun more, adding to its intensity.  Another sensation is the breathing in cold air through your mouth.  Winter time often means spending lots of time indoors, with only indoors air to breathe.  This makes the sensation of breathing in outside air startlingly distinctive.  It is like breathing in freshness and adventure and mystery and delight.  As well as the feeling of the cold air in your lungs, there is the sharp tingling of the cold air being breathed through your nose.  However warm the rest of you is, your nose is poking out and gets the full freezingness of the atmosphere.  Even if this is a little bit painful, it makes you feel alive.  And this distinction between warm and cold is something you can only feel in winter.  In the summer, your body is warm, the air is warm, your breathing is warm.  But in the winter, while you may be warm as toast, the air around you is cold as ice.  These changes in sensation are one of the most exciting things about winter walking.

The second kind of winter walking is on a day when the sky is filled with a blanket of cloud (this is called being ‘overcast’).  Unlike the crisp clear blue sky winter walking, overcast winter walking feels mysterious.  The cloud dampens all sounds and makes even your steps sound covert.  Overcast winter walking calls for quiet voices and holds a sense of waiting – will it snow?  You are huddled together with everyone under a winter duvet, but everyone is in their individual world wondering what will happen next.  Even if the temperature is the the same as crisp clear blue sky winter walking, the sensations of seeing, sniffing and breathing are all a little bit attenuated (this means being held back a little bit, or reduced).  This makes it just a little bit easier to go quickly going about your business, as if under the radar, always ready to make a run for home.

Ispahan macaroon, Galeries Lafayette, Paris

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Ispahan.

Perfect circles of
infinite air;
meringue.

Raspberries, picked at dawn,
glistening with dew,
by the hand of a young
maiden, remembering her lover
in a far away land.

Cloud of fresh cream
hand-speckled with lychee
released heady and trembling
with delight from
spiky shells.

Tinted with rose
reminiscent of childhood perfumeries

Slowly it slipped
from the fork
and all the way down to my heart,
now crying
with the bliss.

Ispahan.

Note: Written on location in Paris at the Pierre Hermé boutique.