New Year's Eve

So. Which way is 2010 going to lead? I want to stay open minded. To say, "Yes." To listen to people carefully and not rush in with a response. I want to be gentle and kind and adventurous and excited. I am going to finish "Leaving Coty" and it will be breathtaking. See and enjoy being with friends more. Much more. Not dream, but do. Clear out my wardrobe. Pare it down to the things I love and wear. Clear out all the tat, not just in the wardrobe. Cook more different things, chopping and throwing them in the pot or the huge, massively huge dish and roasting it all in the oven. Loving life, I suppose. That's where it should all lead.

And thank you for 2009. Thank you for the unexpectedly gloriously good things it has brought when it seemed not so bright.

And so, moving forward, a rewarding, fulfilling, heart blossoming New Year to everyone. X

Yorkshire

It is the weekend before Christmas in the photograph of a church near Blubberhouses in Yorkshire. Very cold, very beautiful. Fewston Reservoir is below, part frozen and the sign says we are banned from swimming. Will have to check if that is winter only. Snow filled air makes your cheeks feel clean and fresh and your eyes as though they've been thought a blow cleaner.
I never forget, living in Manchester, how breathtaking Yorkshire is, but more and more it makes me feel peaceful. Not only the scenery, whether it's the prettiness of the woods in spring and summer or the bleakness of the wintery moors and rivers, but the people. I feel I belong and that is a very warming feeling. I belong in the place as well as with the way people talk to each other. Now, that's me feeling that, others may look at me and say (inwardly) or even outwardly for that matter, 'Why does she think she belongs/has anything in common with me?' That's not what I mean. We all come from different stand points, I mean, having lived away, it is a relief to relax in the environment as well as in the soul. Whatever the connections or non-connections, I like it. And that's 'like' in an acceptance that it is natural and flowing and there's nothing I can do about it sort of way. I'm writing here, not editing, not really thinking, trying to capture a feeling that is in its early stages but gathering strength. It used to make me sad leaving Yorkshire to cross the Pennines, for these two reasons, people and place, now I feel less sad leaving, but always very glad to return.
Now I like living in Manchester for very different reasons. But they don't belong here.

Snow and concerts and newspapers

I went to two Christmas Concerts last night and it was perfect that the world was white. I love, love those heavy flakes, too weighted for them to fall gracefully, so they fall out of control, the only direction they know is that somehow they will hit the ground. No ballerines, these flakes. More the elephants from Fantasia. And all the prettier and lovelier and more lovable for it.
And the singing and playing and talent of the young people in both these concerts, first at Chorlton High School and then at Xaverian Sixth Form College in Rusholme was jaw dropping. Very different concerts with widely varying music, but both stunningly good. Thank you Miranda for "Have yourself a very Merry Christmas" sung slow and meaningfully and looking resplendant in gold and thanks to Genevieve for looking as though from another world when you sing.
What a wonderful night in the true sense.

And now, the sun bright, the sky blue and the ground still white.

I'm reading samples of other would be authors' works and thinking how much talent there is here too. There seems to be gifted people everywhere. Can we have too many? Is there space for all? And I mean to have their talents rewarded by making a living at what they do. Let's not pretend it's enough just to be good at something. We want to live by what we are good at. That's a Christmas wish.
X

College Talks

Thank you to the staff of the English Department, in particular, Sue Harding and the students of Sir John Deane Sixth Form College in Cheshire. I enjoyed meeting them yesterday and talking about script and novel writing and how everything that we do, see, hear, experience can be used in our writing.
I love these occasions as it fires you up sharing ideas and it also reminds you why writing is so important and fun and inspiring. It reinforces why I do it.
For the first time in ages, I felt myself again. All keen and buzzing. Thank you for that.

Lots of roundabouts in that area. I got a bit lost, so went over more than I should, but it felt a strange land. And as soon as you came off the main road, I think it was the A533, it was Cheshire countryside and old farmhouses and low houses, but back on this newer road with its roundabouts I felt I was in Generic Land again. Is that the right term?

Anyway. The college was beautiful with its leaded windows, old wood doors, parquet floored classrooms and hall with its high beamed ceiling and stage and old boarding school feel. Sue Harding's English room had an open fireplace and she said that pupils used to light the fire and tea would be made and muffins or crumpets toasted and books and poetry and literature discussed. Doesn't that sound the way to learn to love literature? Not reading sections of a book so that you can answer a specific question on it. It was a room to love reading. The fire wasn't lit yesterday, but wouldn't it be a good thing if one day it was and pupils, faces glowing from the heat took it in turns to talk about their favourite word or phrase or character and why they loved writing?
Wouldn't pupils go out into the world more interesting people because they have a passion for something rather than having ticked a box to say they had learnt how to answer a question in the accepted way?
I enjoyed being shown these parts of the college. The pupils are very lucky to be learning in such an environment with such interesting and interested teachers. It was a pleasure to meet you.
And it's nearly the holidays.

Coty's First Perfume Shop.

I'm standing in the Place Vendome, opposite the Tuileries Gardens in Paris. A good area. It's Easter time and amazingly warm. Every time I've been to Paris, the weather has been good. Except once. The last day of a long weekend when we went to the Christening of one of our friend's daughter when it rained. They now have five children and we've been to two christenings, one here in Paris, the other in Addingham, near Ilkley in Yorkshire. I think others were in Canada, Italy and Australia. It's definitely not an event to have in the same place twice.
That's going off the point though.
I'm in Paris at this time for a holiday and I wanted to see where Francois Coty opened his first shop. It's an impressive square. There are the big jewellery names here. Napoleon's Column. Napoleon Bonaparte was a distant relation of Coty's, so maybe that is why he chose this location. On the small island of Corsica where both Bonaparte and Coty were born, there weren't many main families, so quite often people were related.

So, here I am standing in the centre of the square in front of Napoleon. He's on the top of the stone pillar. A composer lived here.

Coty also chose to open his shop next door to the glassmaker's, Rene Lalique who he later persuaded to make his perfume bottles. They worked together for twelve years before falling out over production demands.

There's no fuss to the square. Just the buildings and the column. No little park in the centre. It's business. It feels like business.

It's not my favourite area of Paris. I prefer the back streets, the winding routes of Montmartre, looking out over the rooftops from the heights of the Sacre Coeur. By the river, the traffic really seems to kick in and the expensive shops and places selling little Eiffel towers and Arc de Triomphes don't interest me. I'm still a tourist, as you can see. I've sat in Jean Paul Sartre's old haunts and taken a photo of the little Shakespeare Book Company. And found Jim Morrison's grave and Oscar Wilde's and Edith Piaf's. Covered with flowers, tended by a full time gardener. And collected conkers, bright and shiny. Isn't it sad how quickly they go matt and wrinkly? But lovely when they are fresh. I've kicked bright leaves here too. I once wanted to live here, but have only managed visits. Is it too late? Do I still want to live here? I'm not sure. We change. I want the sea now. Thing is, the sea is coming, isn't it? Have to say, I feel at home in Yorkshire. It makes me happy and sad. The people in Yorkshire though make me very happy. Take the man in the car park in Hyde Park in Leeds.

I'm at Sir John Deane's Sixth Form college in Cheshire tomorrow talking to students about writing, from Emmerdale to Bob the Builder to Meeting Coty. Funny seeing them all in one sentence. Very odd.

Looking at things differently

I'm trying to view the world differently. It's so easy to react to someone in the same way that we have been reacting for years, even when we don't really know what they are going to say. I was talking about how we resort to with someone the other night about, for example, 'our position in the family' or are childhood place in the friendship group. A parent can say something in a certain way and we immediately, with a knee jerk reaction respond in the age old way we always have, could be defensive, could be to roll our eyes at the ceiling. What an image. A sibling can ask a question or make a comment and we immediate lose the plot. These are examples. We are different things to different people and they are to us. Can we change this? This is what I'm trying to do after a week or two of low level conflict. And it's me who is in control. Must look in the mirror every morning and tell myself that. I can change the way I react. I can really 'hear' what they are saying and not assume. We're all human, we all have reasons why we behave or say things in a certain way. Listen. Sometimes I think we have all stopped listening. There's too much noise around. Too much clutter to look at. Must talk about G.K. Chesterton. This will remind me. What he said about advertising bill boards. Cluttering up our landscape with the trivial. I'll look up what he said. I keep thinking I want to write about him. Like Coty, most people don't know about him, the man who, Like Mother Shipton said so many truths about the future before they actually happened. And please don't tell me you don't know who Mother Shipton is.

Inspiration - Perfume and Tessa

I've been preparing a talk for a sixth form college for next week and thinking about writing and Meeting Coty and things I've done and people I've met, I felt inspired again. It's easy to forget when you're feeling a bit down what drives us on. Today, preparing the talk and reminding myself why Francois Coty is so interesting, what I love about exploring ideas has given me a kick out of my bit of wallowing. Yes, sorry, I have wallowed a bit. In defence of that though, I have tried to think why I've felt down. In fact, I suppose I'm very lucky to have the time and circumstances to wallow in my down-ness. Yet another thing to remember. Maybe I shouldn't remember, just appreciate.
So, Coty, the man who gave us mass marketing and themed products and packaging. Who was a salesman extraordinaire, who made perfume affordable instead of only for the rich. Who brought it into department stores and not merely chic, exclusive boutiques. He has a lot to answer for and we don't know that he did all this. And he made very, very good perfume into the bargain. And wore a blingy ring and dyed his hair blond.
What a man!
And Tessa, the main character of Meeting Coty. She is complicated.
See? I'm all inspired all over again. The piccie at the top is from a performance of Juba do Leao. Inspiring band!There. Linked it so neatly to the theme of this blog...

Peace

I dropped my daughter off at a dance school in Denton for her class last night, drove round to the nearby Sainsbury's, bought multi-vitamins and a Snow White costume for the same daughter to take into college (from funds raised) for a Children's Christmas Present Appeal. The Snow White costume, not the vitamins.

And then I sat in the car and watched the other cars coming and going in the dark. I sat there for an hour. It was surprisingly soothing watching the red lights and white lights coming and going. Oddly peaceful. No-one seemed to be rushing. No cars peeping, engines revving, shouting and running. Coming and going, following the designated routes through and in and out and away to the motorway or home. And the cars parked were neat inside their white lines as splatters of rain hit their windscreens.
Breathing in and out hoping that my heart would stop beating so fast.

Jerez

I need to go to Jerez de la Frontera to visit some Bodegas and to see the fields of vines, feel the sun on my skin and screw up my eyes at the glare off the dry soil. Taste the sherry. Hear the language. See if the town really is divided between the right and left. Walk the streets. Look up at the buildings. Go to a Sunday service in a catholic church in Spain. Hold the rosary beads. I can hold my father's.

And time. I want, no need, to take the time.

Misunderstandings

I've had two misunderstandings this week through emails and both with people I don't know. One contacted me and I took immediate offence and the other is about work to narrow it down and I took offence at something they said too. I was wrong about the latter, but a further short email from the first confirmed that I was right to be offended!! Though they didn't intend it. Proabably didn't the second time, but I took offence again....is this making sense. I suspect this is a case of "I know what I'm talking about so why aren't you privvy to my every thought and understanding what I'm talking about?" Even that is probably confusing, but I'm going to continue in this stream of consciousness. One thing I did decide though was that I'm going to fall out with many people this week, so I'm not going to talk to anyone. Difficult, but I'm doing damage control.

However, lovely, lovely man in the Woodhouse Car Park in Leeds. He lifted my spirits. Just jolly and kind and sociable without being pushy and a good soul. Thank you Mr. Man in charge of the Car Park. Very warm person.

I love being in Yorkshire. I feel at home there. Well, I should do that is where I am from, but it hits me every time I go back.

I'm rambling. I'm going and will leave you in a dazed state as to what I'm talking about. No offence intended.