The Sewing Machine

In a cupboard under a flight of non-descript stairs in a flat in the West country, there’s a sewing machine. An old model, no one knows quite how many years it has been in existence, some speculate thirty, others are less complimentary. Housed in a stiff plastic case, it speaks of patience long gone, with a fiddly bobbin case and stiff levers, which need oiling disproportionately to the amount of stitches sewn. Threading it is easy, when you know how. For almost an hour we didn’t know how, and frustration was creeping in until a relative fashioned the cotton to just the right route.

It belonged to a great-aunt, that much I do know. She’s long dead. I remember her name, the smell of coal in her back parlour, the stiff wooden sofa frame that dug into my back as a child. I used to like visiting, her husband would let us push endless twists of newspaper into the coal fireplace, our eyes widening as they returned to dust in the flames. ‘Pyromaniacs!’ he would exclaim, eyes dancing.

I had asked for the machine last year, on hearing that it was sitting unused in a loft. That didn’t seem right. A few months later it arrived on a ship from a different country, escorted under a Lieutenant’s bed. The journey took several days, rolling about on the frigid seas. It seemed fitting that it took such a journey. In my mind it had no place in the sky on a plane.

A few more months pass until I reach the West country, and I only remember the machine several days into my visit. We reach under the stairs and drag it out, a dead weight. Kneeling on the floor we blow dust from the case and flip open the clasps. It stares at us, stoically I decide later. The mechanism is threaded with pink cotton. A flap raised reveals needles, bobbins threaded with different colours, a small pair of gold scissors.

I wonder what she was thinking, that last time, as the pink thread looped its way into fabric long forgotten. I’m glad she didn’t know, wasn’t’ aware that the thread would only be replaced years later, by a distant relative – one younger than herself – in a far country, without tears. I try to find moisture in dry eyes, the occasion deserves it, but I can’t recall her face, or her voice, her smell. I’m starkly aware of the futility of time, the fleeting nature of life—thundering on unto death. The machine will sew again today. It will find new life, a purpose, until such a time as it ceases up with rust, or is forgotten, left at the back of a cupboard when removal men come.

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At 5am the following morning I wake to a buzzing sound, the soundtrack of postmodernity, a text from a friend saying someone in his family has died. A young man, with a hope and future, dead in less than 12 hours. Gone. I boil the kettle and call the friend back. I send love and useless words through space, feeling his grief for a few gradual seconds.

After breakfast I open an email. Friends from a far timezone are expecting their first child. Small grey-white images on a black screen have confirmed it. A warmth spreads over my chest, then a coolness. I’m starkly aware of the futility of time, the fleeting nature of life—thundering on unto death.

This Year's Christmas Tree

I must admit that I do like a nice Christmas tree. Not one of those thin artificial ones mind you, my tree of choice has to be real, preferably Norwegian and very fat around the middle (I’m not too bothered about the height). For several very reasonable, but boring reasons, we didn’t get a tree this year. To begin with I was indifferent, my head full of India and a sore arm, but once mid-December rolled around tree-envy began to manifest itself in not-so-subtle ways. I found myself standing in close proximity to the tree in the reception area at work just so I could get some of that authentic pine smell into my nostrils. Mrs B, the receptionist, was on a call at the time, but she did look strangely after a few minutes and I had to pretend I was admiring the tasteful plastic baubles. On Saturday I went to a friend’s for roast chestnuts, ginger wine and a baked ham (imagine my luck!), and I spent most of the evening staring at her beautiful, almost-perfect tree hung carefully with glass ornaments.

I couldn’t take it any longer. At Portobello market this weekend I went on a tree hunt – just for a little one mind you – but I couldn’t find one that was ‘right’ and small enough to carry home on the tube. Eventually I compromised and walked home with this… a berry-filled twig (not a ‘stick’ as my flatmate called it!) It’s infinitely beautiful and cleverly matches the print on the kitchen wall, but it’s not a tree is it.

*Sigh*

Grateful No. 3

This week, amidst jet lag and hunger, procrastination and late nights, I'm grateful for:

1. Four seats to myself on the flight back from Dubai... just bliss.

2. Cool air: not so much a biting wind as a nibbling breeze, but whatever it is winter is coming and I love it. Something about a warm scarf hiding a cold neck.

3. Time with friends this weekend: stealing time for myself to share with others, mulled wine, lunch, coffee.

4. One week to go 'til Christmas! This year has been choc-full of chaos, and peace lies on a Clifton curve, mince pie in hand.

A Christmas Morsel

This winter-season seems to have been sadly devoid of all Christmasy feeling. Maybe going to a hot country for two weeks at the start of December had something to do with the lack of fuzzy cinnamon-spiced feeling. But fear not, today I had a gentle introduction to Christmas with mulled wine and high-priced festive cheer in South Ken.

Words

I read to remind myself that I'm not alone.

Kolkata Last Week

Kolkata Last Week

O Calcutta!

The title of this post is taken from the name of a restaurant in Calcutta, where I spent nine long, rich, noisy days this December.

Picture the scene -- a grey street buildings leaning in from each side... a mosque... a small boy with walnut skin hugging a monkey... the rasping sound from a wooden clarinet... a ragged old man with pain in his eyes ringing a bell, over and over. A small girl, the height of my waist, asks for money for milk for her baby brother... the smell of hot, dirty oil frying in a wok at the side of the road.

Words can't describe this city, but if I had to try I'd start with one word: chaos. This is a city where life and death converge on the street. People live, eat, wash, sleep, love, marry, bear children, work, play and die on the edge of roads thick with years of grime. Every day a cahophony of activity - rickshaws, onions frying, children dancing, women crying, life unfolding - yet the activity affects little change in the situation of these broken ones. The darkness shrouds the collective sense of shame I feel -- shame that I live in luxury unimaginable to these beautiful souls, whose sole possession may be a blanket or a small piece of cloth. It's easy to become overwhelmed, to be paralysed by emotion, but the question remains: how then should I live?