Rain, rain

Wouldn't it be nice to stay at home dozing, reading, writing?

A poem

This morning I came across this poem by Philip Larkin, titled Maiden Name. I wonder whether this is where your teacher got the idea from, Sophie? I quite liked it so I thought I'd share it.

Marrying left your maiden name disused.
Its five light sounds no longer mean your face,
Your voice, and all your variants of grace;
For since you were so thankfully confused
By law with someone else, you cannot be
Semantically the same as that young beauty:
It was of her that these two words were used.

Now it's a phrase applicable to no one,
Lying just where you left it, scattered through
Old lists, old programmes, a school prize or two
Packets of letters tied with tartan ribbon -
Then is it scentless, weightless, strengthless, wholly
Untruthful? Try whispering it slowly.
No, it means you. Or, since you're past and gone,

It means what we feel now about you then:
How beautiful you were, and near, and young,
So vivid, you might still be there among
Those first few days, unfingermarked again.
So your old name shelters our faithfulness,
Instead of losing shape and meaning less
With your depreciating luggage laden.

 -- Philip Larkin

these are the thoughts that i think...

So. I've been busy pondering lately. As I have talked about on here before, not a day goes by that I don't dream of being a crazy and free-spirited artist, creating and making whatever it is that my heart so desires that day, without worrying about money or whether anyone would want to buy it. I find that part of the process (the selling part) is such a creative killer. I find it really hard to just play and experiment when my mind is already reeling ahead to the customer and the marketing part. I find it really tough to get out of that mindset of "will this work?", as oppose to just going with it and seeing what happens.

I really wish for a day where I can just wake up and create and do as I please and know that abundance and success will follow. (And I don't mean riches and fame... I could really care less about that, I just mean being able to eat and put and roof over my head).

Do you think that it is possible to achieve this? I don't think I think it's impossible. My question is this: Is the reason that most people seem to tell me that you can't actually live like that is because you can't? Or do most people not live like that because they think they can't?

I don't know if I'm even making any sense hahaha I'll stop rambling now... Please share your thoughts and try to help me make sense of my thoughts...

beautiful image from here

New theme: Marrying left your maiden name disused.

So we're slightly more on it with the new theme this month. This one came from a writing exercise I was given in class (I didn't actually get around to doing it, so I don't have any kind of head start!).

"Marrying left your maiden name disused."

I have absolutely no idea where to even start with this one, but then I guess that's the fun of it.

Happy creating!

PS. I tried really hard to find a picture that somehow related to this post. It was nigh on impossible! So there's a challenge to all you visual people.

"... and there followed a moment's silence": a response

They sat by the phone together, he and she, brother and sister. Waiting. They did not look at the phone with their eyes, but their bodies tried to turn towards it. She pulled at her handkerchief, he bit his lip. The branches of the bare tree outside scratched at the window glass.

When the phone did finally ring its sound filled the room and silenced the tree. The siblings held their breath, locked in a silent argument with one another. ‘You answer it.’ ‘No, you.’ ‘I did it last time.’ ‘You did not.’ ‘Did too.’ ‘Did not.’

He answered it.

“Yes. Thank you. No thank you. No. They didn’t want us to. Yes. The crematorium. Thank you. Goodbye.”

The phone clunked as he put it down. Silence, for a moment.

“So,” she said, and dabbed at her eyes, which were not wet.

“Yes,” he replied. “We should organise the funeral.”

“We’ve already done that. They’ve already done that.”

The tree was scratching again at the window.

“What should we do then?” he said.

She pulled at her handkerchief.

“Stella?”

“Let’s eat out.” She was up, quickly, striding towards the door that led to the next room. “They would want us to celebrate, finally. I’ll wear that red lipstick with that green dress; you can wear that tie Mum always loved.”

He raised his eyebrows at his sister; he’d owned the tie more than ten years ago.

"Oh. Well, not that one then.” She removed her hand from the door knob. “What then, Stuart?”

He stood up. “Sit down Stella. We need to absorb this.”

“You’re not sitting down.”

“No. I’m not.”

The tree scratched louder. The siblings blinked at each other from opposite sides of the room. She felt she should cry, but could not. She had been sure she would be able to. He could not believe his sister was not crying; she always did. She had cried when their parents had first told them what they were going to do. (“Weak eyes,” their father had said kindly. “Just like your mother.” Their mother glowered at him briefly, through eyes filled with tears.)

Stuart had wanted to be strong for Stella, to support her while she cried, but she appeared perfectly able to support herself for now, and he felt himself close to tears instead.

“I could wear a different tie.”

“Oh Stuart.” She took a step towards him.

“Don’t. I’m hungry. Let’s go to dinner.”

---

There's more to this story, but I'm still working on it, and hope to have it published at some point, so I'm sort of keeping it to myself at the moment. I might share a little more of it later on. Any feedback on this part would be greatly appreciated though.

In other news, I've been updating avocadoandlemon a little more frequently lately, since I became an iPhone dork and downloaded an app that lets me do it on the fly. I'll try to co-post here, but I might forget sometimes...

So, by way of a catch up: look here, and here, and here.

Also, check out the sidebar for a few other responses to this month's project -- thanks for playing along everyone!

Yes, I know

I would just like to point out that I realise I'm late (again!) but I do actually have something written, and I have been away from a computer...

I will post my response tomorrow. Far too tired now. I really should have been organised last week when I sent this story off to my class and set it up then to autopost today. Like how I made sure I had homecooked meals in the freezer for this week, knowing I'd be away for the weekend.

There is a limit to my organisation, okay?

..and there followed a moments silence

I just want to begin my making sure that everyone notices that I am NOT late today!! woohoo!! It may be that I am posting in the final hour of Monday but it is still Monday!

This month I was TOTALLY stumped with our theme... I very early on decided jewellery was way too hard to try and find something in this theme so I decided to go with a photo.

"...and there followed a moments silence" at first make me think about when you have an argument with someone and it ends and you don't know what to do with yourself and you kind of just wait... like... "well......"

It also brought to mind that moment at the end of the day when I get home from work and I just need "a moments silence" or calmness to just sit and process and unwind... and I guess that was what I was going for here in this picture...

Not sure how I feel about it, but there it is! With 45 minutes to spare!

I look forward to seeing if everyone else did better!