This Week

= happy jules

A warm bed in the country

I spent this last weekend in the country with friends. When I say 'the country', I mean it in most quintessentially English way possible -- chintz curtains, geese squawking at 6am and many references to Jane Austen. There are few places I'd rather wake up than in a warm bed in the country, sun streaming through flowery curtains, the smell of bacon and toast and coffee wafting up steep stairs... wish you could have been there.

Waiting

How much time do I spend waiting. I don't mean literally waiting for a bus, or a train, or a friend who's late for coffee. I mean mentally waiting for things/events/people to show up in my life... It struck me today that sometimes I'm so focused on where I want to be, what I want to change that I forget about now, this moment. A tired me propped up on cushions under a stripey blanket, typing away for prosperity and practice into a white laptop. I've given up a few things for Lent, vices mostly - coffee, alcohol - but I've also given up waiting. We live here, now, not five years down the line, and I hope I can make the most of it.

Black Against the Sky

There's a song by Beth Orton with the lyrics

See the trees, black against the sky

Maybe you know it. Ms Orton is poetic beyond words and I love her graceful tone. One of my favourite visual images is of the trees in winter, black against the sky in the fading half-light, English tea-time. Something magical happens in that slice of time that's not-quite-day, not-quite -evening. It's not even 'dusk', that comes later, rather the beginning of the fading of the day. It's my favourite time of day. Some get tired then, the afternoon almost over, home beckoning, the thought of small hands grabbing onto a skirt... But as the light fades and the trees draw their black lines gracefully across a fading grey canvas I smile.

Black against the sky.
There they are.

Blogiversary #2

I started this blog two years ago, almost to the day. Was I different then? Probably. Can I remember? Vaguely.

Grateful #4

Great-full for these gorgeous things this week:

1. Bright as Yellow by Innocent Mission: discovered on a gift cd from a friend across the pond. Includes the classic line, 'I don't wanna be rose, I don't wanna be pale pink, I want to be bright as yellow.' Don't we all!

2. Jaffa Cakes: recently rediscovered and highly underated... lush. This list would of course be incomplete without the inclusion of something edible.

3. Cecil: He's a stuffed monkey, around 60cm tall, with ridiculously skinny arms and legs. He's made from brown/blue suiting and has a felt, hand-embroidered face. I made him myself and if that makes me odd then I don't care. Next up: Agnes, a pale grey rabbit with Liberty ears.

4. Friends from far away: who still make me laugh, challenge me and speak into my life from far away. Love you guys.

Tony Takitani

Imagine....

Heavy rainfall - peas in a collander... heavy piano chords, minor key, grey, tungsten light... a beautiful tree, black against the sky... the click of a slender heel, loneliness you can grasp in your hands.

Tony Takitani is a beautifully crafted adaptation of the short story by Haruki Murakami. The emotion is so beautiful it very nearly killed me.

Affection

Affection is an underated emotion. We talk a great deal about love, (often when we mean lust), too much about hate, and not enough about the raw depth of affection. There are a smattering of people who grace this life who I have a deep-seated affection for. I can't explain it. They may be good friend, they may not. Often I don't know much about their everyday lives, I don't see them at work, at home, I don't understand their jokes... but I have an affection for them that is as deep as love but more simple. Like Victoria sponge cake, sponge and jam with no pretence...

Weekend in the country

Tea, and I love you very much

Peace

All the misfortunes of men come from one thing only: their not knowing how to remain at peace in a room at home. -- Pascal, Pensées

LoveSong

I saw this play tonight, Love Song, at the New Ambassador's Theatre. Four tv-actors and an averagely clever script combine to create a poignant romantic comedy. I'd give it four stars, if you have a spare 90 minutes and a few buttons in your pocket, give it a go.

Untitled

What if

What if I
Left you behind,
Like a discarded
Kleenex.
Walked off
Indifferent to your
Cry for attention,
Would you
Call out in pained
Anguish? Or
Begrudgingly
Accept your
New state?

Ache

Why is it that some people make me feel more alone?
Their presence evokes an ache in my chest.
I'm five again and my mom has left me with a neighbour.

Checkov and the cold feeling

Last night sleep came slowly, an illusion. The hours ticked darkly away, unaware of her too-warm body twisting itself to near-suffocation in the striped quilt. It had been a present from her sister, well-meant, but too warm for the temperate climate there. If anything, she was practical beyond compare, and couldn't bring herself to throw out the pinks and purples and beiges gracing the brushed cotton.

Today tiredness has settled like a blanket of snow upon her pasty face. An espresso and croissant eaten hastily on the train serve as breakfast; food her only friend on this grey journey into work. The day passes; that's all there is to say. At 12.45 she eats a brown-bread sandwich with tuna, drinks a polystyrene cup of lukewarm tea, tries to find something of interest in the view outside the window. The same hunched over pavement-walkers drift towards identikit cubicles where they spend the afternoon saving the world (on their terms). She brushes crumbs off the brown wool skirt and puts her glasses back on, the small gesture signifying that lunchtime is over.

On the train back to her tiny flat she reads a short story chronicling Chekhov's last days before his death from TB. On the night of his death, the doctor treating him sent down for Champagne. Three cut-crystal glasses and a bottle of Moet grace his passing from one life to the next. Dignity. Love. Grace. Respect.

Winter is coming

Or so they say... on Friday last week there were people eating lunch outside in Knightsbridge, in January. This time last year I had left London for Asia, and was settling into life in 30C heat and humidity in Singapore. Much of November and December had been spent walking along the Southbank, getting progressively colder each week, so this came as a bit of a shock.


I must admit that I love winter. I don't like the sun all that much, I seldom sunbathe, and there's something comforting about wrapping up against a chilly biting wind on a crisp cool day in London. So here's to some of those... if they ever arrive.

Old Friends

Like me, perhaps you have friends all over the world, disparate, living lives you can't imagine or see. An image builds of their lives - what they may eat or drink, how they travel to work, what they do at weekends... all far from the truth of their reality. I'm insanely grateful for my friends overseas, for the glimpses they have given me of cultures far removed from my own - and yet I'm sad that I can't share more of their everyday... tea or a meal on an imaginary veranda...

Milano

Self-Portrait Challenge

Theme: Resolutions

- to do more ballet -

- to spend more time relaxing rather than rushing around London as if someone's life depended on it -

- to sew more -

- to expand my horizons -

- self portrait challenge -