After years of giving advice and guidance to teenagers on how to write, when the shoe is on the other foot it’s a different experience.
Recently I heard Trevor Hudson, a South African minister, say that rather than scribing pre-formed thoughts he writes himself into being. This seems to go against all the advice I’ve dispensed over the years. The directive to plan before embarking on a written piece is the mantra of every English teacher and yet, when writing myself, I seldom know more than where I am starting and where I hope to go but rarely end up. Cutting and pasting typed text helps piece together a puzzle of thoughts. Refinement can happen brutally with little trace of axing or excavation on the finished piece. I dread to think what a handwritten tract would look like now that I have become so wedded to typing! Regardless of the process, it is increasingly the case that Hudson’s assertion is one that I share.
Perhaps advice and experience are so at odds here because of the nature and purpose of my scribblings. With no externally set agenda, the pen is free to roam, exploring and excavating as it goes. Whether playfully or with the personally set agenda to exorcise a half-formed thought, writing is part of a process of becoming.
This has become increasingly the case since having children – an attempt to keep producing something or hear something of myself above the clamour of parenthood, work and all that goes with being in community with other people? Whatever the reason, I feel an increasing affinity with Heaney’s pen, ploughing furrowed thoughts in the hopes of cultivation.
And so, on the cusp of a new year, and in keeping with our theme of attention, I am sharing a few poems written during the first phase of covid. Such a marked shift in daily life prompted me to see with different eyes: the struggle of being a working parent was accentuated; the joy of laughter re-experienced; the strangeness of ordinary encounters illuminated. I hope to keep seeing with fresh eyes the wonder of the ordinary in all its beauty and sadness.
Tightrope Work, Larkin’s squatting toad, keeps me from my children. The perpetual cycle of term-time routine leeches laughter from their lips, as daily chores are checked. Today I remember: bulb-like your hand planted in mine A stolen hour when online class is cancelled. We sneak out. Hushed, we creep along the curb, peeking round the sleeping dragons parked outside the neighbour’s house. Each step is set to centre your balance; little feet that tangle together, gradually straighten with time. But my balance does not hold – I fall to work and you funambulate alone There is no need of me to keep your balance any longer. Skirting the edges of the path, you have learnt a solo act. Help me skywalk with you.
Day 88, Unlocking the Gate Squeals of delight pierce the air: Carnivalesque, giddy – almost wild. Sweet spectre of another time rekindled; A miracle of the ordinary. Dizzy noise agitates and jangles, Yet, the air is purified. Washed clean by joyful hoots that Call us into life again. Delight in bodily presence, Our swollen number heralds This next phase of emerging.
The Space Between Fumbling in the upside down We pilgrimage across a strange land, Trudging through fug This first day of summer. Rank and clammy, the day’s breath Coughs in my face, stale and putrid. No fresh air to cleanse the earth. To breathe is to be dirty here. The heavy eyes of shops Lie dark, dormant and silent. Outside people stand [punctuated] Glances flickering furtively, each Reinforcing social-emotional distancing, Alien even to ourselves. I Watch as the pop-punk kid Tamps our filter, compressing the grinds To make the perfect cup. Our first coffee ritual in months. Her disks of tarnished acrylic, Yellowed with smoke and time, Hang pendulously. Lobes almost Skim shoulders as she Jolts the machine to life. The purr and piss of steaming liquid Augments the scent – that caramelised Kenyan blend, almost nutty. Textured. Through tempered glass we stare, A shared confession, unspoken. Her Masai adornments can no longer Hide the child inside as we Pilgrimage through this space between Together yet apart.