Festival of the Trees

Dave Bonta at the marvellous Via Negativa is hosting this month's 'Festival of the Trees'. He had to explain the idea of blog carnivals to me, which is a blog event similar to a magazine which happens regularly and consists of a blog article with permalinks to other blog articles on a particular topic.

The main Festival of the Trees site is here, and last month's issue is here. My modest contribution is a photo my partner took when we were on holiday in Dubrovnik earlier in the year, and a couple of poems about trees. I hope you enjoy the rest of the carnival at Via Negativa.

*
Red Tree

It’s just a tree most of the year
but in October it cracks open like an egg,
becomes the colour of fights, of lips
men would kill to kiss.

The leaves are lit up from within
and bursting with banquets,
chandeliers, all-night dancing.
Unable to bear their own brightness

they let go of their twigs too soon.
The tree can hardly wait to be red again.

*

Autumn

It is cold. I sit in the centre of a circle of nuns. They are lying
under the grass, their heads or feet pointing towards me.

Each sister is marked with a stump of stone. A silver plaque
shows her name, how long she had, when she was taken by God.

Off to the left are trees, and to my right four fat pheasants
are wandering around the convent gardens. Further away

the hills are under mist. I think a fire is gently crackling
somewhere hidden in the trees until I turn and really listen.

It is the orangey leaves – they are glancing off each other
as they fall, snapping, pattering and landing with a whisper.

There are four more stones a little way from the others.
Here, holes were dug for Annie, Irene, Frances and Joan,

all of them children. Sister Elizabeth had ninety-six
chances to hear this burning. Annie had ninety less.

Letting you know about 'Your Messages' - A November writing challenge...

"Your Messages" is a writing challenge that Lynne Rees and Sarah Salway set last year, which culminated in an event at the Poetry Cafe. This year they're doing it again:

Every day during the month of November 2008 we will post a writing prompt of exactly 30 words and you’re invited to respond, via the comments box, with your own original piece of writing which may be either exactly 30 words or 300 words long.

Their site is here - it looks like it's going to be fun. And if by any chance you have any spare short pieces of writing, you know where to send them.....

The monastic life demands a kind of death...

I liked this passage, from Karen Armstrong's introduction to Patrick Leigh Fermor's A Time to Keep Silence, very much.

The monastic life demands a kind of death - the death of the ego that we feed so voraciously in secular life. We are, perhaps, biologically programmed to self-preservation. Even when our physical survival is not in jeopardy, we seek to promote ourselves, to make ourselves liked, loved, and admired; display ourselves to best advantage; and pursue our own interests - often ruthlessly. But this self-preoccupation, all the world religions tell us, paradoxically holds us back from our best selves. Many of our problems spring from thwarted egotism. We resent the success of others; in our gloomiest, most self-pitying moments, we feel uniquely mistreated and undervalued; we are miserably aware of our shortcomings. In the world outside the cloister, it is always possible to escape such self-dissatisfaction: we can phone a friend, pour a drink, or turn on the television. But the religious has to face his or her pettiness twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. If properly and wholeheartedly pursued, the monastic life liberates us from ourselves - incrementally, slowly, and imperceptibly. Once a monk has transcended his ego, he will experience an alternative mode of being. It is an ekstasis, a "stepping outside" the confines of self.

I hope you (and Armstrong) will forgive me the lengthy quotation, but I didn't want to leave anything out. What struck me on reading it was how similar the 'letting go of ego' approach is to the Zen approach I've been exploring over the past couple of years.

Apparently, Armstrong believes that all the major religions tell us pretty much the same things in different ways. This is what my tutor suggested when I was doing my counselling training - that different therapeutic theories and orientations often just use different words to explain the same phenomena.

If 'letting go of ego' is one of the keys, I also wonder if this can be applied to writing. Is the best writing produced when the writer manages to get themselves and their ego 'out of the way'?

Maybe it is easier to tell the truth if we're not worrying about what people will think of us. Maybe we can more easily imbue the writing with gifts freely given. So how do I feel about the way my writing might be perceived? How does this interfere with the process of writing? How can I start to learn to forget myself? What about you?

Snow in October + sinister dark smoke = happiness

This morning I woke to several inches of snow, and a boiler flume belching black smoke up into the eaves of our thatch, having painted all the spider's webs black.

That's fine. The boiler man came yesterday to do some fiddling about, and said we might need to call him again. And it gave me the excuse to trudge through the crisp snow to the log-pile, and build a fire in the woodburner.

I am now installed downstairs with earl grey, the smell of woodsmoke, warmth, a curled cat on my lap (which makes typing this bad for my back as I hunch over to the laptop), and a blank morning waiting to be filled with words. What more could any writer wish for?

PS the photo is of our snowlady - we made her last time it snowed - note her impressive cup size.

Eating crisps and my sneaky old hand

My job often gifts me with an unexpected free hour (I know, I'm very lucky). Yesterday afternoon I thought I'd use my bonus hour to start Wildwood - a book about trees by Roger Deakin.

I'd bought some crisps to accompany my reading. They weren't common-old-garden crisps - they were snazzy ones - and as I munched and read I realised that I couldn't really concentrate properly on the reading or the munching. I put the book down and just ate crisps (giving myself 10 extra Zen-points).

As I munched I noticed an interesting thing. As soon as my hand had let go of its crisps, it snaked down into the bag and grabbed another handful, and then waited impatiently for me to swallow. My hand could hardly wait to shove the next bunch of crisps into my mouth, like an overkeen puppy-dog.

I remembered advice I'd read about how to lose weight by really concentrating on what you're eating. The book suggested you literally put your knife and fork down between each mouthful, so you could savour every bite. I also remembered a Zen story (I'll misquote this) about a student gulping down a tangerine, and his Master gently reminding him to taste it.

I slowed my hand down. It's been doing it this way for 30-odd years and was quite happy to keep rushing ahead, but I kept gently reminding it. And then I read my book, and tried to savour the words. The crisps and the words were supremely delicious.

And then I gobbled some Oreos. Rome wasn't built in a day...

Books for £3 incl p&p (UK only) - full list

I thought I'd copy out the full list of the books I have for sale/recycling in categories including their condition and the cost (if they're bigger I've added a bit extra for postage). If you'd like to bagsy one just send your address through to fiona@fionarobyn.com. Most of them are really rather good, I just don't keep many books. Get 'em while they're hot...

Poetry

Lintel - Gillian Allnutt £3.00 Excellent

Europa -Moniza Alvi £3.00 SOLD

In Person - ed. Neil Astley £3.00 Excellent

Dog Who Thinks He's a Fish - Chris Beckett £3.00 Excellent

Nightworks: Poems 1962-2000 - Marvin Bell £3.50 As new

Effect of Coastal Processes - Adrian Blamires £3.00 SOLD

Toward the Distant Islands: New and Selected Poems -Hayden Carruth £3.00 Excellent

Irish for No - Ciaran Carson £3.00 Excellent

Mollusc - Helen Clare £3.00 Excellent

Kiss - Polly Clark £3.00 Excellent

Collected Poems - Gillian Clarke £3.00 Good

Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Women Poets – ed Jeni Couzyn £3.00 Good

Selected Poems - Emily Dickinson £2.00 Excellent

Honey Gatherers - Maura Dooley £3.00 Good

Snail in My Prime - Paul Durcan £3.00 Excellent

Intimates - Helen Farish £3.00 Excellent

Jab - Mark Halliday £3.00 Good

Feeding The Fire - Jeffrey Harrison £3.00 Excellent

Electric Light - Seamus Heaney £3.00 Excellent

Collected Poems - Adrian Henri £3.00 Good

Bunny - Selima Hill £3.00 Excellent

Portrait of My Lover as a Horse - Selima Hill £3.00 SOLD

Violet - Selima Hill £3.00 Excellent

By Heart – ed Ted Hughes £3.00 Good

New Poetry – ed Michael Hulse £3.00 Good

Jizzen - Kathleen Jamie £3.00 Excellent
ack and Other New Poems - Maxine Kumin £3.00 Excellent

Best American Poetry 1995 - David Lehman £3.00 Excellent

Selected Poems - W.S. Merwin £3.00 Excellent

All Shook Up - Adrian Mitchell £3.00 Good

100 Poems - John Moat £3.00 As New

Faber Book of Beasts – ed Paul Muldoon £3.00 Good

Satan Says - Sharon Olds £3.00 Good

Thirst - Mary Oliver £3.00 Excellent

Rembrandt Would Have Loved You - Ruth Padel £3.00 Acceptable

Collected Poems - Sylvia Plath £3.00 SOLD

Brink - Jacob Polley £3.00 Excellent

Painted Field - Robin Robertson £3.00 Excellent

Birth of the Owl Butterflies - Ruth Sharman £3.00 Excellent

From the Neanderthal - Adam Thorpe £3.00 Excellent

Forward Book of Poetry – ed John Walsh £3.00 Good

Repair - C.K. Williams £3.00 Excellent

Collected Poems of W.B.Yeats - W.B. Yeats £3.00 Excellent

Writing
From Pitch to Publication - Carole Blake £3.00 Good

Making of a Poem - Eavan Boland £3.50 Excellent

Walking in This World - Julia Cameron £4.00 Good

The Savvy Author's Guide to Book Publicity - Lissa Warren £3.00 Excellent

Buddhist
That's Funny, You Don't Look Buddhist - Sylvia Boorstein £3.00 Excellent

Dharma Punx - Noah Levine £3.00 Excellent

Best Buddhist Writing 2007 - Melvin McLeod £3.50 Excellent

The Great Failure - Natalie Goldberg £3.00 As New

Momma Zen – Karen Maezen Miller £3.00 Excellent

Psychology
Beyond Carl Rogers - David Brazier £3.00 Acceptable

Sensitive Self - Michael Eigen £3.00 Excellent

Houdini's Box - Adam Phillips £3.00 Acceptable

Person to Person - Carl R. Rogers £3.00 Acceptable

Breaking Free from the Co-dependency Trap - Barry K. Weinhold £3.00 Excellent

Novels
Fourth Hand - John Irving £3.00 Good

Two Caravans - Marina Lewycka £3.00 SOLD

Maine Massacre - Janwillem Van De Wetering £3.00 Good

Misc

Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll £3.00 Excellent

Yoga for People Who Can't be Bothered - Geoff Dyer £3.00 Good

Under the Weather - Tom Fort £3.00 As New

20th Century Photography - Reuel Golden £3.50 Excellent

Asperger's Syndrome, the Universe and Everything - Kenneth Hall £3.00 Excellent

Photography Book – ed Ian Jeffrey £3.50 SOLD

Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith - Anne Lamott £3.00 Excellent

Naming of Names Anna Pavord £7.00 As New

Tulip - Anna Pavord £3.00 Acceptable

Sky in a Bottle - Peter Pesic £3.00 As New

Philip's Guide to Weather - Ross Reynolds £3.00 As New

Year of Questions - Fiona Robyn £3.00 SOLD (you'll just have to buy a new one ; ) )

Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You are? – Dr. Seuss £3.00 SOLD

What I Can't Bear Losing - Gerald Stern £5.00 As New

Room of One's Own - Virginia Woolf £3.00 Good

Phew. (I'll try and update the list as soon as any sell)

Results of my book weed (lots of books for £3)

No, not that kind of weed....

After a dusty day, I've weeded 80 books from my bookshelves for recycling, and 20 or so that were only fit for the recycling bin. These are all for sale at Green Metropolis, and I think you can see them if you click here - if you live in the UK (and can pay £3 per book via PayPal) let's cut out the middle man - email me with your requests.

146 books surivived, of which 80 were written by men and 56 by women. 65 were written by American authors, 40 British, and 14 other. 84 are poetry books, 16 about zen, 18 about psychology, 10 about writing, 10 non-fiction, a few how-to-learn-russian books and some odds and sods. I always thought I liked male American writers - now it's official.

(And before you start doing sums in your heads... I was anal enough to make a tally, but not to double check it.)

It's been an interesting day, and a dusty one, and I find myself wondering if I might ever want to buy a Kindle. I've always been really anti putting-books-onto-computery things, but as long as the authors carry on getting their money maybe there would be advantages... It's the words I have a relationship with, not the physical book. And even the words are only useful to me as I'm reading them - unless I'm going to refer back to my books, what use are they?

How is it for you?

Praying by Mary Oliver (an alternative 'how to write small stones'

I just found this while sifting through my books as part of my book weed. Synchronicity.

Praying

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

Mary Oliver

'How to write small stones' and spots and stripes

I've given my homepage a bit of a reorganisation and a face-lift - do let me know if you find any glitches. And I've also written a little piece about small stones, for everyone but especially for 'non-writers', in the hope that it might encourage them to have a go. Any feedback welcome.

On a completely unrelated note my friend has just tiptoed out into the world of blogging - do go to Spots and Stripes and welcome her into the fold.

Oops - I bought more books...

Two poetry collections - they landed on my doormat today - Frances Leviston's Public Dream and Li-Young Lee's From Blossoms. Not a good start to my book-weeding. But you'll let me off when you read these...

*

Humbles

If you have hit a deer on the road at dusk;

climbed, shivering, out of your car

with curses to investigate the damage

done, and found it split apart and steaming

far-flung in the nettle bed, utterly beyond repair,

then you have seen what is not meant to be seen,

is packed in cannily, coiled, like parachute silks,

but unputbackable, out for the world to witness:

the looping, slicked-up clockspring

flesh’s pink, mauve, arterial red,

and there a still-pulsing web of royal veins

bearing the bad news back to the heart;

something broken, something hard, black,

the burst bowel fouling the meat

exposed for what it is, found out – as Judas,

ripped from groin to gizzard, was found

at dawn, on the elder tree, still tethered to earth

by all the ropes and anchors of his life.

Frances Leviston

*

From Blossoms

From blossoms comes

this brown paper bag of peaches

we bought from the boy

at the bend in the road where we turned toward

signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,

from sweet fellowship in the bins,

comes nectar at the roadside, succulent

peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,

comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,

to carry within us an orchard, to eat

not only the skin, but the shade,

not only the sugar, but the days, to hold

the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite

into the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live

as if death were nowhere

in the background; from joy

to joy to joy, from wing to wing,

from blossom to blossom to

impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

Li-Young Lee

*

See?

I need less books

I've always loved spending time in the kind of houses that are filled to the brim with stuff. Rooms full of objects, furniture, cushions, cats, coffee cups, paintings, jugs, rugs, and books of course - do you know the kind of house I mean?

I could never live in a house like that. My minimalistic tendencies are far too strong. I love to recycle things, give things away, chuck them in the bin. If I haven't used a chittermin in a year, I reckon it's not likely that I ever will, and if I ever do happen to need a chittermin I'll buy another one when the need occurs.

Things have to work to earn a space in my space. They must be useful, or they must be beautiful. And this works for books too.

I have too many books. They're spilling out of the available space, and rather than buy another bookcase I'm going to give them a good weed. Anything I'm not completely in love with, or that I'm not sure I will want to refer to again, will go to GreenMetropolis. When I'm finished, there will be space on the shelves for new books. I'll be able to run my fingers along the spines of the books that are left, and feel a frisson of gratitude for every one.

Ode to loafing (also known as moodling)

Here's to loafing/moodling - an essential skill for writers and for everyone else. Especially at the weekend.

"So you see, imagination needs moodling - long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering."

Brenda Ueland, from If You Want To Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit (1938)

*

Loafing

I looked into the room a moment ago,
and this is what I saw –
my chair in its place by the window,
the book turned facedown on the table.
And on the sill, the cigarette
left burning in its ashtray.
Malingerer! my uncle yelled at me
so long ago. He was right.
I’ve set aside time today,
same as every day,
for doing nothing at all.

Raymond Carver

Tagged, and being all contrary in the face of rules

So - I've never been tagged before. And now Nik from Nik's Blog has done so. Thank you Nik, very kind. Does this mean I'm a bona fide blogger now?

I understand that there are rules to these things, but I go all contrary in the face of rules, and so have tagged less than seven people (four less). These people are Jewels at Red Otter, Beth at Switched at Birth, and Jo at All Of These Things.

They might want to pass it on and they might not.. hey ho!

"Display the award. Link back to the person who gave you this award. Nominate at least 7 other blogs (or not if you're contrary like Fiona). Put links to those blogs on your blog. Leave a message on the blogs of the people you've nominated. You can only answer in one word."

1. Where is your cell phone? Here
2. Where is your significant other? Driving
3. Your hair color? Titian
4. Your mother? Scotland
5. Your father? Ditto
6. Your favourite thing? Words
7. Your dream last night? Forgotten
8. Your dream/goal? Awareness
9. The room you're in? Little-office (is hyphenating cheating??)
10. Your hobby? Russian
11. Your fear? Chaos
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Present
13. Where were you last night? Nearby
14. What you're not? Finished
15. One of your wish-list items? Cow
16. Where you grew up? Ongoing
17. The last thing you did? Counselling
18. What are you wearing? Fatface
19. Your TV? Off
20. Your pet? Belly-up
21. Your computer? Blue
22. Your mood? Curious
23. Missing someone? No
24. Your car? Dirty
25. Something you're not wearing? Heart-on-sleeve
26. Favourite store? PureNuffStuff
27. Your summer? Gardenchair
28. Love someone? Obviously
29. Your favorite color? Green
30. When is the last time you laughed? Yesterday
31. Last time you cried? Ditto

Cyclone and Virtual Book Tours

I took my book 'small stones' on a virtual book tour in July this year, and I had a ball. I had some interesting conversations, made new friends, and sold a book or two.

Now the rather wonderful Salt Publishing are offering a way for you to "harvest the power of the Web to build word-of-mouth for your book."

It's all explained here, but it sounds like a pretty good idea to me. And a little bio of Planting Words has just gone up. That's quite enough links for now.

If you're dropping by via Cyclone, then hello : )

My school report aged 9, and a letter from Roald Dahl

Yesterday my dad sent down a letter I'd received from Roald Dahl when we were living in Asia. It was posted in 1984, and in it he says that my fan letter was the second he'd received that week from Malaysia.

At the bottom of the short typed letter is his signature in faded blue ink. The great man himself was holding the pen that made those marks. Maybe he was even sitting in that battered old armchair in his shed, where he created Danny Champion of the World and the BFG. Imagine!

My dad also included a school report from when I was '9 years and 3 months'. And I quote:

Fiona is an excellent reader for her age. She reads in a fluent, expressive manner with very good comprehension of the text. Her creative writing is always a pleasure to read and contains some imaginative ideas.

Is a passion for words something we're born with, or something that develops as a result of the specific circumstances of our lives? I like to think of my relationship with books as I would any other relationship. Books were there for me from an early age. They gave me information, they gave me pleasure, they understood me. They helped me to find my voice.

Thanks to mum and dad, for reading out loud to me and for buying me all those books. Thanks to Roald Dahl for replying to a letter from a nine year old little fan in Malaysia.

I hope my writing still contains some imaginative ideas. And it's interesting to see that some other things haven't changed either. Here's the P.E. section:

Fiona's individual work in the gym and on the games field is sometimes rather half-hearted. She is a little timid in her approach to apparatus work and seems rather wary of the ball when practicing ball skills.

Watch out for that ball!

An antidote to disembodiment and dematerialisation

More from the book I'm currently enjoying - Robert Macfarlane's The Wild Places:

In so many ways, there has been a prising away of life from place, an abstraction of experience into different kinds of touchlessness. We experience, as no historical period has before, disembodiment and dematerialisation. The almost infinite connectivity of the technological world, for all the benefits that it has brought, has exacted a toll in the coin of contact. We have in many ways forgotten what the world feels like. And so new maladies of the soul have emerged, unhappinesses which are complicated products of the distance we have set between ourselves and the world.

He goes on. And so how can we save ourselves? Walk outside for ten minutes for every two hours you spend in the office, even if all you can see of nature is the sky and weeds between the cracks in the pavements. Pick up a stone from the beach and keep it on your desk. For every ten emails you write, shake someone's hand, or touch their shoulder, or look into their eyes. Take off your socks and feel the carpet against the soles of your feet. When you've finished reading this, find a window. Look outside. Stay awhile.

20 weeks to go... A conversation with myself

So - 20 weeks to go...

When I first decided to write these 'countdown' posts, I thought it'd be interesting to see how I felt as time ticked on and I got nearer to my debut novel's publication date.

I'm aware that I haven't been writing about that at all. I've been writing about grubby capitalist self-marketing, airbags, whether my bum looks big in this, but not what I said I'd be writing about.

I had a conversation about this with myself last night.

- So - why aren't you writing about what you said you'd be writing about?
- Because I don't want to.
- But you said you would.
- But I want to write about other things instead. I don't like this silly countdown. Some Mondays, I don't want to blog about anything.
- But you said you would.
- I know. I changed my mind. I'm allowed to change my mind, aren't I?

As you can see, I still need some practice at doing things because I want to, rather than because I said I would, or because I think someone else wants me to do them, or because I think I should.

This will be the last regular blog in a countdown-stylee, but I'll continue to update my blog when the spirit strikes me. Well, I might, and I might not.

- There - are you happy now?
- Yes thank you. You?
- Much better. Phew.

We're just back from a weekend in Sheffield, including seeing The Wondrous, Glorious, Mighty Boosh live.

I'm typing this on my trusty blue laptop, sat at our wooden garden table (which still needs varnishing). The trees are telling the wind to shhhhh. A robin is chattering away, and I've just removed a money spider from my neck. Him indoors is indoors with the Grand Prix. In a minute I'll fill up the bird feeders. All is well with the world.

It all sounds a bit idyllic, doesn't it? That's because I'm only writing down the idyllic bits. That's the joy of writing - you get to distill the world into a sweet nectar, or a bitter nectar, depending on your taste. The cars are zooming past, ripping into the quiet of our country cottage 24 hours a day as usual. I'm a bit chilly. I feel like I ought to be composting the veg patch, or at least removing a few of the weeds. See?

But. The sun is lighting up the autumn-golden trees behind me, and the sky is a flawless blue. A few last red petunias reflect the scarlet of my blueberry bushes. A sunflower bends towards the ground, nodding its gold-rimmed head. I'll take it all. I'll take the traffic, my goose-bumped arms, the worm-casts, the weeds, the wondrous, glorious world.

Why I love Emiliana Torrini (and the art of whim)

Years ago I used to drive to work at 5am through dark woods on a road nicknamed 'the seven bends of death'. The radio played strange and wonderful music at that time of the morning, and I started falling in love with Emiliana Torrini's song 'Sunny Road' (watch the rather lovely animated music vid here).

On the strength of this song I bought her album 'Fisherman's Woman' and played it on repeat. On Wednesday I got her latest album 'Me and Armini' for my birthday. I started listening to it at 3.30pm and logged onto her site. I saw that she was doing a UK tour with only two dates - the next day in London, which was sold out, and that very evening in Bristol.

I'm the kind of person who likes to make lists. I plan social meetings months in advance. I have spares of everything in the house. I'm not known for my sponteneity - in fact I don't even think I can spell it. But my better half was away for the night, and it was just me and the cats and a big box of chocolates. I forced myself to practice the art of whim.

Three hours later I was thoroughly lost in Bristol in my car. Four hours later I was thoroughly lost in Bristol on foot. But four and a half hours later, I was two metres away from the woman who'd been singing in my living room earlier that day.

Between songs she was giggly and playful, but when she sang she held the room. There is a purity to her voice which you could mistake for simple prettiness, but this isn't why I love her. I love her because you can see and hear her voice coming from a place of truth inside her. That's the only way I can put it. She knows it too - she spoke in between songs about 'losing her body' while she sang, about sharing something with us all.

Thank you, Emiliana, for reminding me to catch hold of more whims so they can float me through this wierd old life. And thank you for the incredible gift of your voice on my birthday.

Free book results

I've done the picking-names-out-of-hats and the hat has given us three Ks - Khairun for A Year of Questions, Karin for £1 a day and Katie for Anne Lamott. I'll try and hunt your email addresses down now, but if you see this first send me your addresses!

PS anyone who still wants YOQ, I can send out a signed copy (or two if you want to start your Xmas shopping early) for £8 incl p&p - drop me a line.

Happy National Poetry Day

The National Poetry Day site is here, and the theme this year is work - here's a poem by my favourite poet. Send a few friends a poem today and help spread the word (ha ha).

Work

Love of work. The blood singing
in that. The fine high rise
of it into the work. A man says,
I'm working. Or, I worked today.
Or, I'm trying to make it work.
Him working seven days a week.
And being awakened in the morning
by his young wife, his head on the typewriter.
The fullness before work.
The amazed understanding after.
Fastening his helmet.
Climbing onto his motorcycle
and thinking about home.
And work. Yes, work. The going
to what lasts.

Raymond Carver

Free book reminder

Anne Lamott has no takers so far so if you live in the UK and add your name to the list here you're in with a good chance... will do the hat-picking tomorrow.

Happy birthday to me...

How lucky I am - not only a stack of lovely presents and messages, and a piece of lemon polenta cake for lunch, but then the sun comes out. :)

Knowing What To Do

This was my 'Tricycle's Daily Dharma' yesterday -

Knowing What To Do

I like that the point of convergence of liberation theology, Islamic mysticism, and engaged Buddhism is the sense of love that leads to commitment and involvement with the world, and not a turning-away from the world. A form of wisdom that I strive for is the ability to know what is needed at a given moment in time. When do I need to reside in that location of stillness and contemplation, and when do I need to get up off my ass and do whatever is needed to be done in terms of physical work, or engagement with others, or confrontation with others? I'm not interested in ranking one type of action over the other.

(by bell hooks, from Tricycle: The Buddhist Review Fall 1992)

I like this. It can be a difficult question - what is the right thing to do in this situation? Does it involve holding back or, as bell hooks so beautifully puts it, getting off my ass?

21 weeks to go... Hot-chips-from-heaven

I worked late last night, and was ready to go home at 9pm, where I had more tasks awaiting me. I solved the problem of 'dinner' by buying some chips to eat during the fifteen minute drive home.

There is a fish and chip shop around the corner from my workplace, and every so often I take some home for a lazy dinner. I'd never eaten chips in the car before. I asked the chip-shop-lady to add salt and vinegar as we talked about the weather (we are British, after all).

I put the warm package on the passenger seat and unwrapped it like a present, letting steam and delicious-chip-smell into the car. I was starving. I started the car, and I was off.

The chips were hot. Golden. Crispy on the outside, softly yielding in the middle. They tasted of good home-grown potatoes. They were salted and vinegared to perfection. I'd never tasted chips that good. In my greed, I kept taking too many at once with my left hand and losing a few into the gap between the seats. Eating chips was EVERYTHING.

After ten minutes, the spell was broken. I started to feel full, and although the chips were still gorgeous, my body wasn't crying out for them in the same way. 'Don't cling', I reminded myself. 'Let it go'. I stopped eating.

But there was something more. I can write about this! - I thought. I can try and translate these hot-chips-from-heaven into words. The thought was delicious.

Free books - want one? (updated)

I've done the picking-names-out-of-hats and the hat has given us three Ks - Khairun for A Year of Questions, Karin for £1 a day and Katie for Anne Lamott. I'll try and hunt your email addresses down now, but if you see this first send me your addresses!
PS anyone who still wants YOQ, I can send out a signed copy (or two if you want to start your Xmas shopping early) for £8 incl p&p - drop me a line.


I finished 'How I lived on a pound a day' last night, and it seemed appropriate that I should pass it on to someone else. Want it? I'm happy to post it out anywhere in the UK - sorry non-UK peeps. (If you're from the US, you might like to try this book instead.) Read more about it on Amazon here.


While I was at it, I thought I'd give this away to a good home - you can read more about it here, but don't get put off by the God stuff if that's not your kind of thing - Lamott is hilarious and wise and I want to be her friend.

And finally one of my own books - a very-slightly-torn-when-it-arrived copy of A Year of Questions, has been sitting on my shelf and feeling unloved. Read more on my own site here, or here it is on Amazon UK or Amazon US. Phew, enough links already.


So if you're from the UK either leave me a post here, or email me privately if you'd rather, and let me know which of the books you'd prefer. If you don't fancy any of them maybe one of your friends would. I'll pick names out of a hat in a week's time.

Chocolate oops

I've just had a chocolate oops.

I've been reading a book called 'How I Lived a Year on Just a Pound a Day' by Kath Kelly (which does what it says on the tin) and it's been reminding me of ugly materialism. Damage to the environment and all that stuff cluttering the place up, vs. the pure joys of simple living and putting my money to better use, like getting a pension, or giving it away to people who need it more.

I was all set to spend ZERO this month, and had mentally cancelled my planned shopping trip on my birthday next Wednesday. I was thinking about how I could make all my Christmas presents. I was planning on selling all those books I haven't got round to reading.

And then Hotel Chocolat (their US site is here) kindly wrote to offer me a taster box for only £9.95. Eton Mess - light and airy whipped strawberry buttercream with delicate pieces of meringue. Smooth Smudge with its distinctive lickably soft, ultra smooth centre. Madel Croquant - crunchy almond toffee pieces. You get the idea.

Hey, a girl is allowed a chocolate oops every so often. Especially for her birthday ;)