This, that and 'the Other'. Or why its generally better to suit up and show up.
Yeah I know. How long has it been this time? A year plus? How embarrassing. Please accept my apologies and a free copy of my future bestseller, 'fifty shades of brown - english cookery through the ages' (pending its existence).
So the big news is I am finally starting to commit to this writing lark. A friend of mine, an opera singer, who seems to attract these situations, told me about an encounter he'd on the train. He was sharing a cab with an old lady, and they got talking. Apparently the woman who is now in her 80s and 'not crazy', was told as a child she was a 'dreamer'. To which portentous augury from the fates she responded by ignoring it, doing nothing with her talents of prophecy and falling into a unsatisfactory marriage. Several marriages later she is now alone. She is now 'a poetess' (my friend is french) and writer, who has recently published a book based on a recurring dream she had about the end of the world. 'Her life is now beginning' says my friend. As I don't want to have to become an elderly woman before that happens, I thought I'd jump the gun.
What I've been doing since is committing to an hour a day, just turning on the tap and seeing what comes out. I have a purple A5 ring binder (aka ' my papers'), and I am filling it up. Some of it is okay, some frankly is gobbledeygook, but then that is gobbledeygook that is deeply original and unique to me. The useful thing I am finding is 1) I am getting better already and 2) this feels necessary, not just an indulgence. So even if this is a load of cobblers, be warned, there is going to be a load more of it...
The other big news is of such bigness I am hesitant to relate it here, except to say it involves a person other than myself. In my anthropological training we talked a lot about 'the other' and its centrality to social research, but I never really understood the profound centrality to everything, perhaps because I'm a bit self absorbed. People are like doors, they can open you up to whole new vistas of experience, and allow for traffic in things and words and ideas that result in change. In my research fieldwork I learned that West African communities value relationships as much as material goods, because relationships increase the flows of people and wealth (and, in the body, fluids vital to life) while isolation cuts off these flows of exchange and negates life. The worst thing you can be in West Africa is anti-social. Wealth is people.
And love is being for and being open to the other (Forgive me if I state the obvious, but I'm a slow learner) resulting in a sense of being that is wider and deeper than that of a single individual.
So yeah. I guess the general point of these musings is its better for me to show up and write something less that stellar because you, dear reader, are more important than my lack of faith in my own abilities.
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