Darling Julia...

I'm just in from the flix with Pete. There wasn't much choice so we ended up going to see The Box. Terrible film. It did, rather cack-handedly, attempt to make us feel something at various junctures. Fear, sadness, empathy, confusion. It only managed the latter... oh and apathy.

Anyway, once home, I remembered that Maggie Philbin had tweeted about wanting some suggestions for a good poetry book. I instantly remembered Julia Darling and tootled off to her site. There, I read a couple of poems and then went to read her wonderfully quirky blog. Of course, the last few entries were written only days before she died and within only a few words I felt so much more than that silly film could make me feel. Even while dying, she managed to make me giggle, wonder, worry, etc. I cried. For the loss of Julia, whom I had the pleasure of meeting several times, but also for the waste of my days, weeks, months and years. She wrote, "I hate cancer. It's taken me away from such life."

And here I am, wasting mine. Fate is cruel. Cancer it's crueller sibling. Bah to both of you.

Here's a gorgeous little poem by Julia...

Small Beauties

Let the milk boil over
The half-filled tins of baked beans sit on the table,
Children scribble on the walls with crayons,
Clothes heap in riotous mountains.

I am reading a book.

Let the bells ring, bills lie unopened,
Doors slam open then bash shut, letters unwritten,
Plants unwatered, bread get hard as a rock.

I am thinking about the moon.

Let the bank get nasty, the grass grow high,
Children decorate themselves with lipstick,
Build houses within houses in every room,
Pee on the floor, pull dolls' heads off.

I am looking for a door.

Oh come here you small beauties,
Together we will run across the town moor,
With waving fingers, running for our lives.

You are too small, and too beautiful to ignore.

That and lots more can be found here: http://www.juliadarling.co.uk/print/smallbeaut.html

Photographer wanted...

I tweeted recently that I'd decided that I would quite like to fall in-love with a photographer. The reason? I'd come across some pretty black and white photos of some celebrity, taken by her besotted, photographer boyfriend or husband. I really can't remember who it was or any big details, other than how lovely the woman looked and how easy it would be to fall for her ethereal, wistful, face as she gazed out of a typical, English, chocolate-boxy, cottage window at a countryside vista. Tiny slithers of sunlight highlighting a small, straight, narrow, nose. A shadow tripping gently into the slight hollow below her cheekbones.

When the photographer loves his subject, then the viewer often feels like they could too. Photographers somehow transpose their feelings for the subject through the lens and onto the image. He makes her seem as beautiful to us all as she is to him. (Yes, I'm using stereotypical, gender-specific, pronouns. I'm just lazy and it's just easier, okay?)

I don't think anyone's ever taken a 'nice' photo of me, exept me. It makes me wonder if I've ever really been loved. *Roger Moore eyebrow lift at reader* Usually, if someone else takes the shot, I'm all double-chins, facial hair and wrinkles. And, whilst I'm all too aware that that's the reality, I want someone to see passed that and 'make' me pretty. I want to have that photo to look back on when I'm sat astride a commode in a nursing home, so that I can point to it on the wall and exclaim to the carer who's wiping my bum, "See! I was loved AND I was PRETTY!"

After thinking about this on the day of my Twitter declaration, it occured to me that my brother does the magic-photographer-in-love thing with his girlfriend. He is, after all, a photographer in all senses of the word, although it isn't his paid 'occupation'. His girlfrind, Sandra, is undoubtedly pretty anyway, but his love for her is layerd over the reality in his photographs of her and we see her as he sees her. Pretty, multiplied by a gazillion. Sometimes, it's like a glow and I'm not talking about Photoshop touch-ups.

Do you know what I mean?

Dear sixteen-year-old me...

I came across this site/book through a Jonathan Ross tweet about it.

http://www.dearmebooks.com
So, thought I'd have a go at writing a letter to my sixteen-year-old self and just see what came out. I was hoping for wit, something a bit light and silly... but got this instead and now have sore eyes, lol.

Sandy,

Your mam loves you. She's also hugely proud of you. She just can't tell you those things, cuz her mam never told her those things either. Her mam wasn't the lovely, cheery, Irish woman you imagine her to be. Your mam's mam was a nasty, grumpy, cold, woman. The fact that your mam is so warm and so loved is a credit to her heart and spirit. So, break the cycle now. Go into the kitchen, where she's probably sieving home-made soup especially for you, cuz you don't like the lumps. (You'll like the lumps in later life AND you'll also love broccoli and cauliflower! Trust me). So, go in there now, grab her, turn her around and tell her you love her. Then, just stand still and hold her and let that strange awkwardness that exists between you melt.

Y'see, you don't know this, but you'll only have her for another ten years (only eight really, cuz for two of those years, you'll live in America!!! Again, you just have to trust me on this). So, if you don't do this small act now, you'll grieve for all those similarly lost moments... FOR... EVER. You'll sit, in what would've been her 80th year, your 40th, and you'll sob about those lost moments as you type a letter to your sixteen-year-old self, and the regret will feel as heavy then as the guilt and grief will when she dies. Go hug your mam... now!

PS: Don't go to Spain on holiday with Kirstie... EVER!

PPS: You're NOT ugly.

Ansaphone

I heard a voice today that made an old ache yawn open again.

Tch!

Bollocks to that!

Make, soup, more, I, shall.

Safe...?

Am wondering if it's safe to re-enter the blogging world now? Is a change of location enough? Or are the eyes still watching? And, more importantly, will the mood take me? Time, as they say, will tell.