Aaaargh I missed it. Last week came and went without a Substack submission, now we’re here at the start of another week, it’s Monday and almost the end of January. My lapse is, in part, due to reading more than writing. Guilty….I’ve subscribed to many more Substackers and find myself side tracked by their prolific offerings. No shame here, the reading is almost as important, it incentivises me and inspires thought. Then, of course, the decision has to be made on what to focus my own errant attention upon for writing today. They’ve stirred up a hornet’s nest in my brain, so many subjects for discussion, debate, reflection.
I had planned to make last week’s Substack a piece of writing I concocted for a creative writing task set by @curtisbrown a London literary agency when I participated in their excellent online course. I wanted to test the waters with a fictional piece. When I opened the file, read through it a few times, I found I needed to make some changes. I saw glaring plot errors, poor sentence management, suspect grammar and immature punctuation. The raw idea seems good. I’m still editing. I fell foul of the edit. This, the downfall of any artist, writer or painter, when to put the pen/brush down. Too much tweaking, refining and general messing with has altered the tone. Perhaps it needed to change, it had some sharp edges and hazy content. The limit was set at 700 words, so I understand the brusque, staccato sentences. Now there are no limits and in my head I’m opening up a potential publishable fiction so I’ve written 2000 words and counting. The delete button is used with monotonous regularity, it’s too easy to wipe away whole sections. Start again. I search not for perfection, but excellence. Will I ever complete the first chapter? At this rate there are not enough years left…
Last night alone I read @lynslater from How to be Old, @elissaaltman Poor Man’s Feast and @chloedarlington - all before bed. My head was racing with ideas and my body bristled with feeling. Sleep did not come easy. I restacked, commented and more importantly felt the kinship of our shared humanity. Their writing styles are completely different, but each has something so very valid to say. Their words driven onto the page by the desire to connect and be heard. Our stories matter. As I lay awake in the dark and silence of my room, I felt keenly the bond between us. Miles and oceans separating our physical selves, but words drawing us close in resonance. Whether we write about health, age, feminism, food, fishing, relationship, religion or politics, it is our shared experience of being human now that translates across the Substack platform. Even if my writing remains less, my spirit is made more by ‘meeting’ these minds on the page.
I want to write about a shell I picked up on the beach in Wales last week. It speaks its own story, broken in such a way to reveal the intricate curling inside, bone white and magnificent. There were many shells and pebbles on my walk. All crying out to be looked at and admired. The sun shone in a crisp blue sky, the tide out and leaving behind its treasure, exposed and gloriously abundant. There was only one that caught my eye. I lifted it from the sand and placed it in my pocket. Each time this happens it signifies the need to have something of the sea close by on my return home to a landlocked space. The shell sits on the window sill in the bathroom, as I brush my teeth I look at it. I think there is a permanent internal yearning for the sea which I don’t fully understand. I’m afraid of it’s depths, the dark waters. In awe of the waves. I swim always in the shallows and feel immediately healed by it. A healing that’s for something unrecognised, I simply know the need to lie in it, move with it, surrender to the water. Until I’m there again, wherever ‘there’ is, the shell keeps a primal connection for me to the sea and it’s magic. I’ve done this all my life. My mother, too, collected shells from far away places, at a time when we thought it was ok to take them. I have her shells now. They are like a poetry in 3D. Delicate in colour, fragile in nature, diverse in shape and form. A language of the seashore and I speak it. We are implored by the authorities to resist taking things from the beach, in the past I would have collected pocketfuls, now I take one. Even this is probably one too many, but when something calls your name it would be rude to ignore it.
To close this week’s musing, a taste of my story ‘Min’. Not too much, a morsel to wet the appetite. An amuse bouche, different from appetisers in that it is not ordered from a menu by patrons but served free and according to the chef's selection alone. This chef wishes you ‘Bon appetit.’
Min
Nobody knows the real me.
Min Harding slackened the tight fist she had made and allowed the damp soil to slip through her fingers and fall into the grave. It scattered and bounced off the wood, these coffins didn’t want her handful of soil any more than their owners had wanted her. Her parents joint exit was further evidence of their impenetrable union and her place outside of it. Her separateness. She is the sole mourner and there’s nothing more to do, but walk away and leave the man with the spade to fill in the hole. One hand brushes another, as you might when finishing a task, her hands say ‘done’. Min lifts her head, turns to the minister, “thank you for everything” and she walks away. She knows that the minister is grappling to find words of comfort to offer, he barely gets the chance to utter half a sentence… he is speaking to her back. She’s already out of earshot, quick to cross the cemetery and through the gate without a backward glance. And breathe. She rests one hand on her stomach and a small smile shapes her mouth. Walking on she feels light and like she is marching smartly into her future. The sun is blinding today.
So bright, so sunny and seems at odds with a burying, her parents interment. She isn’t depressed, no sobbing, no dark grief holds her. The sun feels good. The absence of feeling is her only acquiescence to mourning. Min walks back home on the same road she’s walked her whole life, but today it’s with a quiet pleasure. No more treading on eggshells. No more pretence. No more me and them… life can begin now and she stops at the florists on the corner of Lime Hill Square to buy some sunflowers, her first freedom and it feels gloriously guilt-free. These five long stems are just the beginning. There will always be fresh flowers.
Till the next time
A
I like the partial story Al, makes me want to know more about Min. x
Ooh I can't wait to read the rest! I'm invested and I want to know what happens to Minxx