Fragments

Fragments

Sometimes the world is too wide,
Too big and too difficult
Instead we must stitch together a life from
Fragments, scraps, glimpses

Carpets of snowdrops
The first crocus in the garden
Hands in the soil
A communal sieving of compost
Home-made birthday cakes
A freshly shaved jaw
Coffee in bed
Weaving voices in harmony

A small cat fighting my pen
Invading my notebook
Back outside for a close encounter
A robin grabs a wobbling worm

I have set myself a slightly arbitrary target of writing and publishing something here once a week. The world does seem a particularly difficult place at the moment, so fragments will have to do for today. This piece tries to sum up a week of small things.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Adventures in Metaphor

Image
When she was five years old and in her first year of primary school, my daughter approached me one day with something to show me. I looked down into the plastic box held clutched in her small hands, lined with scraps of greenery from the garden, a few pebbles, and nestling in this tiny habitat, three, no four, glistening bodies. Slugs. Oh. I swallowed down my revulsion, like many gardeners I find slugs difficult to love and appreciate. “It’s a slug sanctuary!” she informs me proudly, and adds that she wants to take it to show Miss F, her beloved reception teacher. Fighting every impulse I agree, because of course I believe in supporting my children’s interests, don’t I? Later in the year I attend my daughter’s first parents evening. As I come into the classroom and fold my long legs onto a too small chair Miss F says with a laugh “Well, what do we say about V? She’s…” she glances at her teaching assistant seated beside her, there is a pause and they both reply in unison “Quirky!”. “She...
Read more

Space to Grow

Image
Being outside more connects you with the reality of the seasons. On Friday I was hit by this in a very physical way, cycling back from Grow Wilder in a steady cold rain that froze my face, made me curse that I hadn’t packed my big winter gloves or my waterproof trousers. As I gritted my teeth and pedalled on grimly, I was definitely questioning my life choices, thinking wistfully of a nice warm car. All the precious glimpses of early spring I’d been spotting during the week; bulbs blooming, blossom flushing along leafless branches, tight packed buds everywhere, seemed very far away at that point. But I am also reminded that the seasons are contextual, where my damp experience of February contrasted with my husband’s week in Montreal for work. Images shared to the family WhatsApp showed snow all around, here was the deep cold winter of fairy tales, temperatures well below zero, between -15 and -20℃. Back home in Bristol, thawing out by the heater and sharing a cup of tea with my daughte...
Read more

Out After Dark

Image
There’s a lot of ideas fizzing around my head about walking as a creative practice at the moment. I started the week thinking about ‘walking artists’, the subject of my friend J’s degree dissertation at Bristol School of Art. A talented artist but a mature student feeling a bit wobbly faced with powerpoint slides, she wanted to run through her presentation in front of a friendly audience and so did so at our Monday women’s group. She gave us lots to think about, including walking as pilgrimage, other spiritual practices such as labyrinths. We discussed walking as a political act, and how that links with access to land and nature. J also put in a special plea for the flaneur, one who perfects the art of idly wandering through a city and observing. Although when looking up more about ‘flaneur’ I came across a review of Flâneuse by Lauren Elkin (2016), who asked that age old question, where are the women? Another one to add to my reading list, I already have Wanderlust by Rebecca Solnit...
Read more