image source: papermash
i love lists
we have decided that tuesdays are not for racing home from work, cooking dinner and slumping, slack-jawed on the couch in front of the telly (not that we have one). tuesdays are for venturing out to see what goodies london has to offer.
tonight, our first successful excursion, began with wine at vinoteca; with me looking totally white middle-class, swilling my wine & sniffing at it looking all fancy & shit after going to a wine tasting course last saturday with husband & friends. it gets really busy in there and there was already a 90-minute wait for a table when we got there at 6.30. we’ll go back there for dinner some other day…
then we wandered up the road to pho, for tasty vietnamese.
clerkenwell, you were a favourite haunt of dickens in his time and i’m sure you’ve got many secrets to share with us.
london, i can’t wait to explore your streets and alleyways more in the weeks to come.
dear friends,
i am super excited to share with you some photos from the english countryside and offer you a delightful giveaway.
– i don’t want to see the postcards, take me straight to the giveaway –
today i spent the day with my dear friend caroline , who loves walking in the countryside as much as more than i do and always obliges me with a walk when i escape to visit her in her slice of english paradise.
today, we were dropped off at west meon and spent a lovely i-have-no-idea-how-long wandering back through quiet country lanes, bridleways and ancient woodlands to her home at brockwood park.
the sun smiled at us through the trees in ancient woodlands,
and watched over us as we wandered quiet bridleways.
hello tree.
we picked snowdrops, marvelling at their tiny beauty
and shared a table of nutritious food
i was so very happy to have this time with caroline; slowing down, catching up on each other’s lives, just happy to be together where words are often unncessary. she is a welcome & essential part of my tribe.
and now to the giveaway
caroline has also recently had a book published (YAY caroline!!!) and i would like to give one of these to YOU.
the book, called A Year of Little Things: 100 Simple Ways to be Happy (also available on amazon.com) is an invitation; to dream, bring nature inside, see, wag your tail, dance, be utterly ridiculous and 94 other simple things.
to enter, please just leave a comment telling me what one of your favourite simple ways to be happy is. entry is open to all, so please do share this with your friends.
entry is open until monday 1st march. winner will be drawn at random on tuesday 2nd march and notified by email.
i wrote a blog post a while ago about my alter ego.
since then i have actually incorporated some of those things into my everyday life; things like cowboy boots and a hat, spots with stripes and pretty frocks over jeans. i am still working on the tattoo (but i’ve been looking for something for years & still not found anything that moves me enough to have it permanently etched on my skin).
so, now i dig a little deeper and have come up with the following list (still to be incorporated – i am sure i’ll find a way!)…
1. she’s a little bit dark and angsty artist like eva green in franklyn.
2. she wears funky party frocks like this beauty from etsy
3. she dresses in vivienne westwood and drinks champagne for breakfast every morning
4. and is a little bit scary in a fever ray kinda way
she also has long hair, isn’t afraid to splash on a bit of makeup (something i rarely do) and paints her nails stormy dark blues & purples.
who have you got as a part of yourself that is daring you to let them out?
a day trip to york by train: just because….
york streets… beautiful old buildings everywhere.
york city walls; the main reason for our visit
more of the walls…
…
…
pieces and responses, york minster
york minster. ridiculously opulent, and impossible to photograph, even with a 10-22mm wide-angle lens
york minster
el piano, grape lane. awesome vegetarian/vegan/gluten-free restaurant where we stuffed ourselves silly
the pasty: quintessentially english. a hot meal in pastry.
next stop, NEW york, usa (end of feb). postcards from there too, i promise
xxx
poet’s road. found by accident on the way to somewhere else.
haiku(ish) fun
he’s won all the toys
but got no-one to play with
hollow victory
a pair of lovely shoes. left outside by a wheelie bin, hackney.
tea & cake. an excellent combination
lovely sugar lumps
food & travel (& photography). three of my loves.
tea rooms, stoke newington. quite good actually. polaroid sx-70, 600 film (i think)
my real name is leoniewise
yesterday my name was plague of the bewildered poet
today my name is cherry-blossom laughter falling
tomorrow my name will be smell of freshly polished silverware
my secret name is glittering mermaid lazing in a clawfoot bath
you can call me heavy warm treacle, pollinating the air with my humming
okay, your turn…
what’s your name today?
what can i call you…?
everything is going to be alright. unknown
(if you know who the photographer is, please tell me so i can credit them)
so, now there’s been a great breaking down, days where my toast would have landed on the floor buttered side down if i’d dropped it, what happens next?
natalie goldberg, in her marvellous book writing down the bones says:
you can’t go deep into your writing and then step out of it, clamp down, go home, “be nice”, and not speak the truth. if you give yourself over to honesty in your practise, it will permeate your life. you can’t straighten up during writing and then hunch back down when you let go of the pen. writing can teach us the dignity of speaking the truth, and it spreads out from the page into all of our life, and it should.
i guess then, that gives me a few options:
because what i did was fairly easy…
i didn’t have to look you in the eye as i was writing. i was hiding in bed, sharing some of my dark thoughts and how i really feel, sharing the truth. because a lot of people who read my words here don’t know me, have never met me, and i don’t have to interact with you during the course of my daily life. so you’re never gonna know if i don’t live with this same honesty as i emerge from under the covers and step back out into the world.
the real change will begin when i learn to take this same truth out of my writing and into my daily life – speaking this truth as i interact with the people around me… because if i don’t, or if i continue to only speak this kind of truth when i write (on, or offline), then i will end up living a dichotomy that is likely to be my undoing.
this is my promise to myself for 2010
(thank you to you all for your wonderful responses & lovely email messages. i am braver because of you)
speak the truth. unknown.
(if you know who the photographer is, please tell me so i can credit them)
suddenly everything has piled on top of me at once and i can’t see my way out.
i am fucking angry right now with some parts of my life, yet i’m not doing anything to change them.
i’m feeling lost. worthless. might as well be dancing with ants (it would be just as useful).
i have watched Gabrielle Bouliane, speak to me about things i already know and am still not doing anything about. she challenges me to get up and do something with my life. she’s dead now and i’m still alive. and still not doing anything.
i was offered a writing gig that, while unpaid, is fairly high profile in some creative circles. there was excitement and disbelief… mostly disbelief. with so many amazing writers on this planet, why did they choose me?! and when it came to selecting photos to go with my words, looking back through all the places i have been, i am really struggling to find six that i really love now.
i have lost faith in my writing & photographic abilities
my head knows all the words
i’ve read motivational books, websites, know all the right things to say to offer encouragement to myself, to write my way out, or do the work
i have been struck down with a fever of the mind and spent the last two days in bed. with crazy thoughts going through my brain…
but rather than getting up and doing any of these things; or starting with just one thing, then moving on to the next, i’m just sitting here.
feeling like shit. not doing anything to change it.
i myself am made entirely of flaws
stitched together with good intentions
- unknown
what i don’t need:
what i do need:
i am the wind screaming across the canterbury plains
i am the untranslatable language of dolphins
i am undiscovered life-forms at the bottom of the ocean
i am the last cookie in the jar
i am all those words you wish you’d never spoken aloud
i am the arms of time, pulling us all a little closer to death
i am in two places at the same time
i am the five pound note that went through the wash in a pocket of your jeans
i am one left shoe and it’s accompanying shoe-lace
i am the blanket draped over your legs for warmth
i am the sun kissing your face
i am the unexplored places in the universe
i am understanding
i am all the books yet to be published
i am the memorial to all we have lost
i am the cotton-wool-soft feel of your lips touching mine
i am the pathway, worn by travellers
i am jumbled the sentence
i am ; used incorrectly
i am nonsense rhymes read aloud to a confused audience
i am the feeling you get when you skip instead of walking
i am the poet with writer’s block
i am the pre-dawn fisherman
i am burnt toast
i am the arms of your lover
i am a poem waiting to be read
i am what’s waiting on the other side of the silence
i am a borrowed library book
i am lost