Fester...rot!

for Knots in the String.

Well, maybe, maybe not.

Or… keep busy. And so I do.

I see things, I react to them, I want to try to make them, stitch them. There are words I love, stories I would like to write.

It’s odd. When I’m under pressure, my brain switches into creative mode. I wonder, is it a way of protecting my sensibilities or is it a serious physical and mental process? That duress can encourage creativity?

Last week I had just opened The Oblate’s file to write for the afternoon and I looked at Brother Bruno, seated in his small chamber, inkpot before him, parchment laid flat on a sloping desk. He was about to write a list of such import, things that might jolt his memory back into being, and which would enable the narrative to move on in quite an electric way. At least, that’s what should have happened. I apologised to him, made a quick exit and returned to the 21^st century.

For some time I’d been thinking back to the writing of Passage, my one and only contemporary novel – so lonely amongst all the hist.fict novels. It was a therapeutic story to write because it was inspired in a not-so-obscure way, by an accident my husband had, details of which are in the Afterword. I found I was thinking of Annie, the protagonist, quite a lot. Wondering about the setting in which she lived and whether there was room for new characters. Wondered indeed if there was another story that might take place in that coastal village.

Two weeks ago, what had been an amorphous idea begged to have a page written. I wrote it, kept writing, and think that I might just have another contemporary novel, set on my coast. Act III is about Katharine – a public woman who hates her famous name and is hiding from life.

See below: a small unedited piece from midway through Chapter One.

So. Tatty. God, she hated her name! She hurried along the corridor, aware she would be late for warm-ups and entered the huge studio where most members of the company worked at the barres. In the corner, the company pianist, David Jones, glanced across and smiled. She folded to the floor, pulled off her sneakers and took her favourite, most darned pointe shoes from her bag. In moments she was shod and ready, taking her place at the back barre where she could lose herself and her thoughts in the so familiar routine.

‘Tatiana.’

She swallowed. That spousal voice – honed steel in velvet. The goosebumps raced across her back, prickling under her armpits. She looked up from a grand plié.

‘Alexei…’ she raised herself with poise.

‘You think you do not need to practice perhaps…’ Alexei Malkov’s Russian accent hardened as he spoke, and her stomach knotted in response. He moved with the deadly grace of a panther to stand in front of his wife and his ice blue eyes stared at her with what? Loathing? It certainly wasn’t affection. She knew without a shadow of doubt that when her dance career was done, so too would she and Alexei be finished. He needed to be tied to stars and galaxies, not to a meteor whose fires had burned out. And to be honest she would be happy with that, if only their current life was calm.

But it was not.

Like an old Russian folk tale, it was filled with anger, with black despair and with revenge because Tatiana Malkov, beloved Australian ballerina whose mother had a fetish about Russian names, was nothing but a punching bag for Alexei’s tempestuous nature.

No, not tempestuous. Unstable, bipolar. She lived in fear of him and the only place she was safe was on stage in a performance, where she danced around his ego and where he was, quite simply, brilliant…

At this time, I was chatting with my ballet teacher about her plans for the end of year concert and we talked tiaras. That night, I typed tiaras into my Pinterest account search bar and was charmed by what turned up. I decided to make a little girl’s felt crown along with two woven vine crowns, studded with whatever I could find that might make them sparkle and glow.

I was reminded of Princess Charlotte’s beautiful leaf tiara at the Coronation last year. It was made with stiffened and beaded organza leaves. In a moment of unbridled enthusiasm, I thought, ‘Why not have a go at making one?’ Not with organza of course, that would take months and months. Instead I would use real leaves, vine, wire and gold and silver spray.

So here we are – a little crown almost fully embroidered and with beading to make a little girl glow. And two adult vine crowns sprayed gold and silver with beads and real leaves that I’ve wired from my stumpwork supplies.

Golly though, the adult wreaths were harder to make than my imagination allowed and thank heaven for glue guns! But it’s all a bit of fun and takes my mind far away.

To me, it’s obvious I’m hiding from reality. Displacement therapy at its best. My dog hunts for shells on the beach and carries them as he walks – it makes him feel good. A pacifier. It could just as easily be a stick. But it is something tangible between he and the anxiety he feels that he might meet a dog who might attack him (which has happened in the past).

I think my creative activities are a similar way in which to deal with things I’m not that keen on (eg. surgery). If good things come out of it, it’s a win-win. Better than ‘fester, rot’.

But ‘arse twitching’? I’ll let you know!

Watching?

The most awful production of an Agatha Christie story I’ve ever seen. The ABC Murders with Jon Malkovitch. Ditched it after a painful 45 minutes.

And perhaps marginally better but still disappointing, Ordeal by Innocence with Bill Nighy. Superb cast but so heavy. The visuals were so repetitive and unnecessary and as my husband said, they could have shortened the duration by editing out the constant repetition.

Much better was the movielet called Churchill’s Secret with Michael Gambon. Too short – could have delved into so much more of the last part of Churchill’s life but it was nevertheless excellent.

And a brilliant film called Operation Mincemeat with Colin Firth, Matthew Macfadyan and a host of other stellar British actors.

It’s obvious we prefer films and TV series from the UK or Europe. I’m not completely sure why, but they certainly have polish and are often remarkably unsung. Perhaps that’s why we enjoy them – there’s a quietly brilliant subtlety about them.

Reading – nothing except for Substacks I can sink into. One in particular this week.

Spring harvest of bamboo shoots

I found myself moving in the mist-beribboned hills, of listening to rain on the tiled roofs. There was everything of Ikigai, about which I’ve talked in the past. Take a look at Kana’s post and in particular, that last image. Imagine living in such a beautiful place…

Cooking? Soups, and I’m about to toddle off to make the Hebridean Baker’s Rocky Road - richly yum. Tomorrow some coffee cookies. My son says I should put on weight before I go into hospital. Sometimes I think he has me confused with Alone contestants…

Music this week?

Prompted by Meg Ryan and because French Kiss is one of my all-time favourite movies, this:

See you next week!