Joyce Barrass's Blog, page 42

OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES

“You may call it ‘brown’ but I call it Burnt Umber.”
The things we come out with when we’re kids! Cute stuff. Cringeworthy stuff. Stuff we can’t remember saying, except from tales told about us by grown-ups years later.
I produced the piece of pedantry quoted above when I was about six. Our neighbour, a man in his forties, fresh home from his shift on the railway, had casually remarked,
“That’s a nice brownyou’ve got there!”
when he saw me enthusiastically using my new watercolour paints to depict the bark of a tree. I loved daubing. I adored words even more, even then. Loved the shape and texture of the sounds. Loved the feel of saying stretchy vowels and delicious diphthongs that made special patterns and flavours in my imagination.
I was such a polite kid, too. I wouldn’t generally say ‘boo’ to the proverbial goose. But I knew when there was a fantastic magical proper name for something, especially when it rolled mysteriously off the tongue like this “Burnt Umber” then I sure as heck was going to say it.  And encourage others, including adults, to join in. Enter our neighbour.
I look back in horror to think how priggish and precocious I must have sounded. My mum assures me the neighbour laughed like a drain and wasn’t at all offended. He knew I wasn’t a cheeky kid as a rule. It was just that, being me, I’d learned by heart all the special exotic-sounding names on the labels in my new paintbox. Raw Sienna. Ultramarine. Cobalt Blue. Yellow Ochre. Vermilion. Burnt Umber.
If something didn’t already have a marvellous moniker, I wasn’t averse to making one up for it, either. I would go on errands to the local Post Office to purchase a “Post Lauder” as it was in my head when I asked for it at the counter, or “Postal Order” as the rest of the unenlightened populace called it. “Terrid” was my infant mangling of “terrible” and “horrid.” My cousin assures me that when I was little, I used to insist the small rectangular block of wood at either end of our piano keyboard was, and I quote, the “tisstop”. Don’t even ask. 
Somewhere not very deep below my placid exterior, even now, the voice of that pintsized pedagogue and would-be word-wrangler is still biting its tongue. Most of the time. Nearly sixty years later, the memory of the “Burnt Umber” controversy incident still has me blushing brighter than a brushful of Cadmium Red!

SEE YOU LATER, PROCRASTINATOR!

Grab the to-do list. Right time. Right date.Now dawns the hour to procrastinate.Line up the knick-knacks, fiddle and fudge,Opportunity knocks but the brain cells won’t budge.Clean out that cupboard. Check on the mail.If you don’t start, how can you fail?Biting the bullet? Not doing that!Don’t show your hand and you’ll not look a prat.Time for a cuppa. Who’s for a brew?Descale the kettle. What can you do?Check on the internet. Yes, it’s still there.Just testing my balance by spinning the chair.Need inspiration. Go for a walk.Putting it off?  Who, me? You can talk!What’s number one on this list? Let me see.I’ll just dust my glasses and nip for a wee.Right, full steam ahead. I’ve got to press on.No time for that, now. Where has today gone?

LIVING THE DREAM

Photo by Porapak Apichodilok from Pexels
Turned on the morning newsAnd overnightChildren Have only gone and Let all the animals out of their traps and cagesInspired gangs to throw their knives into the fireSown woodlands to heal frack crack and landfillNo-one can pick a side now for standing as one.Threatened ones dance in diversity out of dangerCures and care are now funded by giving a damnTrolls set up helplines for those they have bullied and beatenPeace reigns with volume and vilify put on muteFoodbanks just folk tunes hummed by long remembrancePlastic just melting as healthy as foam on the seasThen we Woke up.To ourselves.Didn’t we?

SAMPLING GRANDDAD'S (RAW) CAULIFLOWERS

Exploring cauliflowerIn granddad’s allotmentChubby fingersTug at cream-colour lobesFeel bulge and node loosenRaise cool crumbs to my lipsTo nibble. Nibble. Too shy to spit but gurningIts attachment to its lurking rootsIts petty refusal to taste rightTriggers shudders.How could it betray me?How could it have fooled my granddad?
I’d had cauli for dinner,Back at homeWith garden peas from a tin,Stewing steak from the butcherTaties with a sprig of mintThat grew itself obligingly From every crack in our back yard.Cauli was never this monstrousGrubby soil-flavoured thing!
That moment of raw let-down!Gripe water tasted better!Clambering back in the sidecarDad on the motorbikeOut of the perspex windowKicking the starterTill it farted into throbPurring us home across the valleyThe melting moonDodging behind the pit wheels
The sunlight turning salmonOn the outhouse wallThe flour-white dust of saltIcing the bricks like kali*The longing to lick itTo take the taste away

*  Kali is a local name used in 1960s Yorkshire for fizzy sweet sherbet powder sold as a dip for lollipops or liquorice

NEW YEAR'S RESOLU...OH, TO HECK WITH ALL THAT!

I struggle at this time of the year. Not so much with the shiny, squeaky new beginnings. More with maintaining a regular regime built on those rose-coloured fresh-out-of-the-box intentions. 
At the start of a new year, my heart rebels against the traditions of diary keeping, resolution making, to-do list mania. By just about now, I miss a day, or several days, a week, and suddenly, the perfectionist in me feels it's getting left behind on the starting blocks! Then the problem’s doubled with every passing day. The more I feel I’ve missed or dropped the ball while playing 'keepy-uppy', the more overwhelming it seems to get 'back on track'. Crazy but true! I should resolve to do better this year, but there I go again. It’s those darned resolutions that seem to press the pause button on forward motion!
It can apply to all sorts. Diary entries. Blogging. Arbitrary targets. The more goals I set, the less I feel inspired. I'm one of those who thrives on wiggle room. Not least in writing. What about you? I find the ideas that get me buzzing come unbidden in the dead of the night, or after an hour in the silence, off piste, off the map, off the timetable. 
Socrates, now. He didn't think much of writing. (Sorry, Soxy boy, I know that's an outrageous oversimplification!) He never wrote down his thoughts. It took his pupil Plato, among others, to commit his master’s words to paper and hand them down to future generations. Socrates said (or was it Plato putting words in his mouth?) that writing things down leads to forgetfulness. For me, regimented writing, the diaries and the spreadsheets, just because night's turned to day or there's an r in the month, kills my vibe. Once pressure is off, I can gladly and gratefully scribble away at any hour of day or night. 
Not writing things down? No. Never going to happen. How do inspirations get processed and passed along if you don't record them somehow? Even when you have a Plato to your Socrates, you’re dependent on the one who curates your content and on what they think you said. Socrates had his Plato, so we know him principally that way, by pupil proxy. But at best, it's going to be lost in translation, whispered from lip to ear round the circle in a Victorian parlour game, emerging as something barely resembling the original.
Unlike Socrates, I can’t imagine not writing. It’s my preferred way of relaxing, of challenging myself, of finding out what I actually think or feel or intuit and then sharing it, connecting with others. I have no plans to stop, even if I could! 
I enjoyed every second of writing my first novel, editing it, typesetting it, getting it out there, blogging about its background and genesis. I enjoy sharing it. I enjoy the feedback. I love that people enjoy it, or get frustrated at or enchanted by one of the characters.
I'm enjoying planning my second book, the writing, the letting it all coalesce and mature. Then come the expectations. As soon as you realise other people are hanging on the hope of a sequel, the pressure is on, like the unwritten diary page or the missed appointment. We need to hang on mindfully to the truth that every word we write is first for ourselves, then for others if they happen to choose to read it. We really need to stop concerning ourselves, as writers, as humans, with what others think, or demand or expect. 
Just breathe, one breath, then the next breath and the one after that.  One step, then the next, one foot in front of the other. One word, then another, then the one after that. For the sheer joy of it, always.
Sometimes, we feel the pressure to match or compare one piece of writing with the next. Maybe we need to let go of wanting the present moment's project to rival anything, but just to let what we produce become exactly what it needs to be, precious in its own right. Able to be graciously marinaded in the edit or fed without regrets into the shredder.
As I coax my characters through their story arcs, piecing together their universe, it’s as if I don’t want to let them down. The same with each poem. I want them to be everything I desire for them, like children. Yet, like children, I know I just have to bring them into the world, love them, nurture them and let them go, toddling out into print so they can be friends with people who haven't even met them yet. 
A  daily straitjacket, especially now my energy levels are so variable in chronic illness, sometimes trips me up or freezes me out from the fires of spontaneity . This year is going to be different! (Was that a pesky new year resolution, sneaking in, there?) It’s down to me, calmly staying present, being very gentle and kind to myself. Are you planning to give yourself the same TLC this year? Be your own best encourager. Your own cheerleader. Go on, why not? Don't be so hard on yourself. Failure isn’t an option. Precisely because nothing is failure, unless you label it so. This year, dear one, don't punish yourself. Rip up the calendar if you need to. Just never let your fire go out!

DREAMING OF ULTIMA THULE

FORGETTING

SINGING ONLY STILLNESS

She stands as the crack of light
Between darkness and day
Not editing herself
Letting fears sob and unknot inside her opening heart
Letting her silent survival outpace the tread of doubt

Till suddenly there is peace
Where it has waited, always, quivering,
Muffling the gibber of plans and resolutions
Crowing crowds under the gasp of fireworks
Heckling bells, the shuffling off of yester

Rooted in this rainbow now,
Meets herself face to faceless,
Where the robin's ribbons
Of shocking silver song
Echo eternity
Singing only stillness

THE WELLS OF WHENCE

ENLIGHT