Fran Macilvey's Blog, page 54

Fifty Years Not Out

It is our birthday today.�� My twin sister and I are each fifty years old.�� And I am totally, utterly delighted.�� In cosmic terms, my sigh of relief and gratitude is audible from here to seventh heaven and beyond.

I can���t speak for those who may bewail this ageing milestone, but I have to say, I have never been more cheerful about a birthday.�� In past years, filled with��the angst of youth, I have fancied myself very grown up, maturing and learning lessons, while uneasily eyeing the horizon of older age, unsure what it would bring:�� prognostications of doom were never far behind my efforts to find and enjoy a life of my own choosing.

Now, having arrived at this day not only unscathed but facing a bright, buoyant future filled with hope, adventure and love, I feel such deep playfulness and joie de vivre.�� Despite the cold, the rainy sleet and the tendency to confine oneself indoors with a surfeit of turkey leftovers and superannuated mince pies, I feel a child-like glee.

One way or another, I have managed to confound many critics to get to today, while remaining upright, more-or-less in one piece, and without the aid of too many perambulatory mechanisms. If I have managed to arrive��here while feeling variously down in the dumps, grumpy and stranded, then, armed with my new optimism, the future is very bright indeed. ��

Happy New Year

In times gone by, in preparation for the New Year, it was the tradition to scrub and polish the home from top to bottom, before opening the back door to let the old year depart just before midnight on Hogmanay; then, just as the clock chimed twelve, opening the front door to welcome in the New Year, as well as the slightly sizzled neighbours arriving to ���first foot��� at the doorstep. A tall, dark and handsome gent was especially welcome, bringing a lump of coal, a nip of whisky or a bit of black bun, (which is like Christmas cake, but with a plain flour crust).

Nowadays, I tend simply to clear out the house a bit here and there. Twice a year ��� at New Year, and just prior to Seline���s birthday in June – I have a good excuse to get rid of any objects which I have decided are not beautiful, useful or which do not enhance my life. Great! I have been discarding old shoes, quilts, jumpers which I would not wear even to do the gardening, shabby tops, odds and ends of cosmetics, brushes and combs and any item which is simply pass�� darling. Every year I think, ���Surely there cannot be very much��� and yet, I surprise myself.

I do firmly believe that any temporary gap in the wardrobes and on the bookshelves is always filled with something better. So now, I never feel any regret��� Well, not often. Last night ��� this morning ��� I ventured into the living room at some ungodly hour, to locate my daughter���s Christmas cards from years gone by. I found myself becoming unusually emotional about the designs that my daughter has penned in each year of her primary education as part of ���Christmas Cards For Schools��� , from Primary 1’s cute little stick girl and boy with crow-like fingers and toes,��to the stylised robin of Primary 7. Thankfully, I found them, tucked away more or less where I expected. And there they will stay, for a few years yet.

I hope that 2015 brings you joy, peace and prosperity.

 

Learning Curves

Girl Reading – Jean Baptiste Camille Corot

 

The advent of my fiftieth birthday gives me a valuable��opportunity to reflect on all the lessons I have learned . Ever so gradually, I notice that, since it serves me to��work this way, I can��turn every challenge into an opportunity to learn something important.

When something difficult happens, we can, of course, get upset and go back to bed. We can see what happens as an inevitable part of life���s rich tapestry.

I do my best to remember that Life

Constantly hopes for the best for me; and
Has something to teach me.

Therefore, logic suggests that the hardest lessons are the most important, and offer the biggest opportunities for growth, for change and for deciding to play the game of Life differently. That way of seeing things��gives me hope.

I wish��you all a��Merry Christmas and a blessed, happy New Year. 2014 has been amazing, and I wait with deep excitement for the delights of 2015. Thanks for all your comments, encouragement, reviews, support and friendship.

‘The Twelve Tribes of Hattie’ by Alana Mathis

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie��– Alana Mathis

This tale is an atmospheric read, richly detailed and well observed. It recounts the trials and tribulations of a family who escape from Georgia in the 1920���s and find a kind of refuge in Philadelphia. The matriarch has come from a relatively well-to-do family, and despite ambitions to better herself and her family, finds herself trapped in relentless poverty, having to put softness on hold while she cares for her expanding family.

I found the narrative easy to get along with, and engrossing. There is much to learn, too, within the pages of this tale, about attitudes. Clearly, this is a subject close to the author���s heart, and one which will resonate widely.

Cleverly, the tale is weaved around the stories of each of the children. However, as the story progressed, I felt myself disengaging, ever so slightly, perhaps because, as a device, switching points of view works well, but is hard to sustain through a whole novel. Characterisations were��sharp and well observed, but towards the end, the device of ���one chapter, one child��� felt as if it had become hard to sustain.

We get glimpses of real brutality from Hattie, set against a background of business-like disinterest, with no time for expressions of affection or love. Perhaps, then it is unsurprising that the children seem to come out of their experiences totally traumatised. The eldest twins die, the oldest surviving son is promiscuous and tormented about his sexuality, one child is badly burnt in a bath of hot water, one child is given away, one child endures years of sexual abuse, one is a deeply disturbed alcoholic, one child contracts life-threatening TB and two children develop mental illness. It may be na��ve to ask, but, is there no happiness in poverty? Apparently none of dad’s easy-going nature rubbed off on the kids, either. And yet, from the mind of the most disturbed child come such vivid and interesting passages of colour and startling insight.

I did gain a lot from reading this novel, and I am happy to recommend it, but please remove rose tinted glasses. There is much to learn, but little to rejoice in.

Seeing

��

Bildnis Ottilia Giacometti, 1912

Little Amanda, in special white stockings, lived lightly with her grandmother, an old curmudgeon, overbearing and humourless.

Grandma had her own daughter once, a beauty with bright green eyes and hazel, switchback hair running in careless shiny ropes down her back. Beauty went off with a beast, who took her downhill into the town, underground into the dungeon city at the base of the hill, the hideout of the poor, desperate and cold citizens with nothing to do, except gaze with gauzy eyes into the middle distance, the dark walls enclosing them, the weight of a whole city above.

From there, a baby was pleadingly brought to the old woman, wrapped in newspaper to keep it warm. Baby child Amanda was quiet. Occasionally she would sing, self-consciously curling her lips, as if to mute the sound. She wasn���t supposed to be happy. Grandma, with her bent back and stern gaze, was unhappy.

But the sun shone, so Amanda found escape from their flat into the back green, below the gaunt height of the tenement. Lying on the grass at the base of the hill, she would gaze dreamily up at the trees, admire their swishing branches and hope flowers would sail down, land on her face and arms. Fragrances blew around her. Beneath the branches, she breathed deeply and her heart lifted.

Not so far away, Simon held a yellow duster. Motes swam in the air, then settled again a little way off: on the mantelpiece, on the round-headed clock, the dust and grime kept the corners of his living-room warm. It annoyed him, a little, when the sun shone. Then he could see streaks and marks from dearly departed toby jugs.

Habit tugged him over to the window. The sash and case rattled faintly as he adjusted the blind. Without really seeing, since he looked so often at the same shorn hills, he watched���adjusted and looked again.

Her dark brown eyes, almost black, found the flicker. She looked too, smiling quietly and easily, careless that caught, she should behave differently. No-one else noticed that light brown face, saw those window eyes catch the sun. No-one else was there to watch the shape of her cheeks, the way her hair swept back. That blue dress, hidden under the bright, waxy green of trees fully awake.

Amanda grinned. Simon smiled.

The old man turned away, shaking with regret. Where was Ellen, to share this? He had long ago looked at beauty like that, in that way. In the business of passing his days, he had lost the urge to look outside. Outside!

The duster lay on the floorboards where it was dropped.

He saw her again when he left, the front door slamming shut behind him. Deeply busy, dreaming. ��Such a beautiful child. Such wondrous sunlight. See those flowers���red flowers.

Change

A piece of flash fiction, for a change……

Femmes Sechant le Linge, Charpentier

I recall a time when women wore dresses, plus floral aprons, if they knew what was good for them. Frilly, prettily tied at the waist. Not the practical, full-size kitchen chef ones, with depth for drying hands and wide pockets collecting scum. My workaday wrap probably makes me unfanciable. My hands are older than the ideal, too: liver spotted and scarred with livid lines from the metal grilles and shelves of our oven.

In the blinding summer light of June, I am flamed. While my daughter prepares raspberries and cherries and doles them out carefully into three separate bowls, the sun beats through the wide kitchen window, and I desire coolness. I love heat which warms my bones, but this inferno, during which I must work and move and calculate, is ungovernable.

���Had a good day, darling?��� I ask, absently, as my husband���s keys turn in the lock and he approaches cautiously, twisting off his tie. I am not really listening, as I must take the flapjack out of the low oven, turn down the heat under the soup ��� I thought it would be cooling, I was wrong, okay?- and blitz it, while stirring custard to go with the flapjack and raspberries. I thought custard would be comforting, I was wrong, okay? Over half-way finished, there is no point remembering I have ice-cream in the freezer.

I make wrong decisions when I am alone. My daughter comforts me when I weep with frustration and longing. For a bit of a change, for a new place to rest, where the cushions are comfortable and someone else has just done the cleaning. Just for a change, while I get my breath back.

Hubby hovers, unsure whether to stay in the volcanically hot kitchen, and risk getting in the way to plant a warm, affectionate kiss on the face of his favourite woman ��� our daughter is a girl ��� or whether to tactfully retreat so that I can get on with finishing cooking, free of distraction.

Either way, when he leaves, I feel lost. I am alone, I am too hot, my husband is not helping me, and all our longings lie quietly where they have been birthed and left to finger their way upwards, wordless.

At last, my daughter sidles through, arriving in answer to my repeated callings that supper is ready. She is a little hang-back, perhaps frightened how I might be at this tipping point in the day, but she has the courage ��� such courage! ��� to wrap her arms around my waist. I cannot pull her off, because my yearnings mirror hers. I desire to be cool and fragrant, wrapped in a dainty apron that reeks femininity and layered, scented secrets. I desire to smile widely and hold. So I set down the pan, step sideways so I can lean on against the kitchen cupboards, and hug tightly. In her warmth, her red cheeks on mine and her thick, fair hair shadowing us both, I recall my coolness.

 

Jose Malhoa, A Corar A Roupa

Readers Matter

Originally posted on Tricia Drammeh:

We���re all busy, especially this time of the year. It seems we barely have enough time to pick up a book for a few minutes before we go to sleep each night, much less time to write a review once we���ve finished reading. Unless you���re an avid reader who is dedicated to keeping track of every book you���ve ever read, you probably don���t bother with reviews. Books gets hundreds of reviews, so yours doesn���t really matter, right?

Wrong!

Your review is essential. Unless an author is a famous best-seller, chances are their books could use a little love. A little attention. And YOUR review.

There are so many reasons why reviews are important. Reviews help other readers decide whether or not to purchase a book. They let an author know if they are resonating with readers, and what they���re doing right ��� or wrong. Reviews help a book get noticed���

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Hot Water Bottle

‘Winter Scene in Brooklyn’ by Francis Guy, c 1820

Carefully she pours boiling water through the neck of the bottle, until she can feel by its weight that it is over two-thirds full. Steam rises fitfully and floats around her face, clinging to her specs so that for a moment she cannot see anything but mist. She waits for beads of water to form and drip away, before continuing. The smell of heated rubber, the feel of ribs running beneath her fingers, remind her of winters past, of Grandma making her cosy; and snowy pavements, ice hanging off frozen window ledges. Feeling a surge of motherly love, she gurgles the bottle, pressing the boiled water to the rim and clamping down the stopper as tight as it will go. Carefully, she dries around the inside edges with a tea towel.

Her daughter asked for a hot water bottle and tonight she agreed, though she rarely does. When as a child she had a hot water bottle, all the heat seemed to drain from her body until it was kept only in that circle of warmth around the floppy rubber. She felt colder, in the end, than if she just wore socks in bed. Thinking that perhaps her daughter has the same quirks of metabolism, she hopes to spare her the disappointment of discovering that hot water bottles on a cold night, can, occasionally, be a nuisance. As a treat, the memories are spaced out, and the discovery is hopefully delayed.

 

Lunar Corona

 

 

Resistance

Yesterday morning I had a waking dream, there to remind me to take it slow and certain, to step with confidence and keep my head up. Not to think too much about what is going on around my feet,��not to notice��the litter on the stones. Instead, to stay on the path, and walk steadily.

This morning, I thought, ���How lovely, finally, to be free, to be relaxed and happy and to take my time and do what I choose, lots of lovely stuff!��� I decided while showering for my swim that, for the next thirty-five years, or as long as I have left, I would dwell on pleasant preoccupations, rather than the worrying kind that are my usual companions. And straightaway, as if to contradict me -���No, you won���t!��� ��� my mind set up a trip, so that I slipped off the top step of the pool and ended up sitting sideways on the second step, jammed at an angle, my foot caught and twisted awkwardly. It hurt. In lots of different, awkward and unexpected ways, the pain is unpredictable. I tried swimming a couple of lengths and then gave up the struggle and got out, hobbling to the changing room on the arm of the pool attendant.

I was trying to laugh it off, because I know that this was just resistance.

Have you ever made a decision, such as, ���I���m going to just get on with this!��� and then something happens that makes it impossible? The computer printer jams, the intercom interrupts you, the pan boils over, and there you are, back in the old mood, the old pattern���..

Nowadays I call that resistance, and I do my best to overlook it. I want to stay positive and re-focus on my dreams, on my delicious preferences, and on looking after myself enjoyably. But resistance, which wants just to get back to the old mind patterns it recognises, would rather I just got back to what is familiar, and will set up all kinds of ���accidents��� to bring me down again.

I won���t let that happen, so I am smiling. And while three guys were helping me as I inched home, and though my foot does wince, I am determined to ignore it. When I was being attended to, I tried to laugh, even as I cried with the pain. It was funny, actually, and I can see why it happened, but goodness, it was sudden and unexpected, and I felt rather an eejit reassuring everyone it was nothing to worry about, as they stood about with clip-boards and concerned expressions while I cried and laughed simultaneously.

Can anyone reassure me that yes, they understand exactly where I���m coming from? Does anyone else see life this way?

Farvahar carved in stone, Persepolis, Iran, by Roodiparse

It’s the Sweet, Simple Things, After All

A prompt last Friday from Neale Donald Walsch���s ���I Believe God Wants You to Know��� which comes into my IN box daily, reminded me that it���s the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.

Vision, by Anagoria

Giving back tasks that I do not profit from in the ways I choose to. (All experiences bring rewards, but honesty is still essential to decide which of several tasks would be most rewarding and beneficial right now.)

 

Making time to focus on my dreams. Such as, writing more of my next books. Writing in a leisurely, enjoyable way, instead of fitting that enjoyable occupation uncomfortably around a million other things.

Alaska, Aboard the Admiralty Dream

Remembering to go swimming each day of the working week. Instead of obsessing about how tired I am, and how life is such a rush, I just get up and do each thing in order, slowly. A swim fits in easily and enjoyably with everything else I happen to be doing.

 

Knowing ��� really seeing and understanding ��� that there is nothing to worry about.

Smiling Dog Face

Discovering that I prefer to drink my barley coffee black, not always with soya milk

Having time to smile back and mean it.

Enjoying��the leisure to phone my sisters, (because I know that someone is helping me with the cleaning).

 

Having the courage to admit when there is something I would rather not do.

 

Having the courage to do what I enjoy. I was gifted a massage on Monday, and I adore ��� like bliss! ��� massage, but before my appointment, I still found myself stalling, prevaricating, eating lunch late and generally faffing about with wiping kitchen surfaces. I mean, I hate doing this stuff, but I was caught by it. Recognising old fear/resistance to change, and letting it go with a great sweep, throwing the towel into the kitchen sink and marching out the door!

 

Laughing all the time.

 

Being pleased for everyone���s success, and for the success of every positive enterprise, large and small.

Poinsettia