Sonder...

...for Knots in the String

I sat on the beach over the weekend with my daughter-in-law and grandson, and he played in the water for almost 3 hours so that his fingers and toes were wrinkled like prunes. There were other folk in the little cove and one tends to people-watch and I was reminded of something I read on Mike Sowden’s Substack.

He talked about empathic curiosity and mentioned the word ‘sonder’, apparently a word created by John Koenig in his Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.

Why Kindness Works

It’s surely this curiosity that fuels a writer when she sits, perhaps not so idly on the shoreline, and close by, a little girl fossicks through a bank of shifting shells. Perhaps the child goes home, lining the shells up on the windowsill of her bedroom where the sun and sea moisture has cracked the paint so that she flicks it away with a fingernail.

Maybe her parents don’t take enough notice of her and through those shells, she can escape – lining them up by size, colour or shape, dreaming of her next beach visit, of freedom from the tensions of home, of drifting into a whole other world as she searches for spotted alabas, blue periwinkles, cowries, kenniwinks and more.

Then again, maybe she just collects shells and drops them in a pile at the screen door as she races inside to get a lemonade icypole from her mum. At the end of summer, her mother will no doubt pick up the detritus and tip it all in a clattery mess into the rubbish bin.

Then there’s the woman further along the cove, sitting on rocks under the sharp-needled she-oak tree as she opens a bottle of wine and pours a full glass. Why? It’s 3.30 PM. Perhaps she drowns her sorrows. What is she hiding from? Does she need wine to blur the glittering view of a summer afternoon with her child? The offspring plays with other children in the water, happily unconcerned.

So many stories, fact or fiction…

My own little grandson just plays in blissful solitude, jumping off the rusty tramtracks of the decrepit slipways and into the water, pushing his old Tonka truck, loading it with wet sand and weed, throwing his crab-patterned kickboard across the sea and chasing after it.

He’s absorbed with his own entertainment, and I wonder at his innocent joy. It’s so remarkable that I follow his example, wiping my mind clear of anything, even sonder, listening to his humming and the gentle shush of infant waves as they break right at my toes.

I drift on the wings of a dying seabreeze and think that three hours in this little place is a nice reprieve from life for anyone.

My Time:

Coping with cooking disasters. All those lovely ingredients wasted. I made luscious choc-berry brownies a week ago and they were heavenly – moist and soooo more-ish. I decided to make them again and it was disastrous. All ingredients bar the choccie brand were exactly the same. Not happy! They went in the bin!

Same with my Greek Zucchini Pie (River Cottage Veg Book). It’s normally light, filled with flavour. But this time, I exchanged normal olive oil for truffle-infused olive oil. BIG mistake. The flavour was overpowering. Fail!

At least last night’s omelettes were perfection – filled with Italian parsley, spring onions, mushrooms and tissue-thin shredded ham. Topped with nasturtiums and with sourdough on the side. Nice Sunday eaties.

But more important than anything, the terrier and I went back-roading.

An oyster and dove grey sky hung above me and a low mizzle drifted in from the Passage – what some in the UK might colloquially call a fret. I had thought the birds might be quiet but there were patches where the littlies were as crisply melodious as a soprano chorus. At the beginning of the walk, like a percussion undertone, we could hear the waves breaking against the cliffs, but as we rounded a corner and walked up the hill, we drifted into bush silence – just our feet crunching dried leaves and bark, accompanied by the brassier wind section of the orchestra – forest ravens, black cockatoos and wildly energetic parrots.

There was a moment further on when I stopped walking. A eucalypt-scented quiet descended, the mizzle eased and then there was a clarion birdcall – I wish I knew what but I know little to nothing of birds. And then another further off, and they proceeded to call to each other, no doubt relaying intel about the walker and the dog.

So we walked on, leaving them in peace and chasing our own solitude…

Reading:

Finished The Paper Magician. Oh my goodness, what a unique concept! It took me a while to get my head around it, but I found I was reading till almost midnight and had to remind myself to go to bed. Astonishing fantasy.

Now reading The Librarian of Crooked Lane which is Book One of The Glass Library by CJ Archer. Archer is a prolific Australian fantasy writer and easily readable. Reminds me of Enola Holmes and Miss Fisher, TBH and I’m a great fan of both those series.

Also discovered Chicken Scratch

- a newsletter with great thought and wordage. Kindred attitudes…

Watching:

Rick Stein’s Cornwall. I feel about it much as I felt about Great Canal Journeys – as if I’ve come home. (He’s an all-year-round swimmer too!)

I love what Patrick Gale  said to Stein about the Cornish coast and creativity, and it sums up my own feelings about coastal life (maybe even life as an islander).

‘It’s like being in an echo chamber…’ ("an environment where a person only encounters information or opinions that reflect and reinforce their own."- Wiki)

Of course I stay up to date with Survivor but lately, after a longish night walk with the terrier, I rather like the couch in silence with my stitching or writing.

Listening:

Bernard Cornwell’s Agincourt. Top notch. I know I’ll be sad when it comes to an end. The only trouble I have is constantly imagining Kenneth Branagh as Henry V. Not such a bad thing perhaps.

Mandy Jackson Beverley’s Bookshop Podcast where she talks to independent book shop owners across the globe. It’s a great series. Naturally I loved the one on Fuller’s Bookshop, Hobart.

Rock, Paper, Swords Matthew Harffy and Steven A. McKay. Very listenable as they talk to people like Simon Scarrow, Bernard Cornwell, Christian Cameron and many more of our fave hist.fict elites.

It’s been a week of Complex PTSD, broken fibulas, lung diseases, torn calves, glutes and twisted bowels. Of dear folk who are suffering and of the need for compassion and understanding. Life twists and turns, and attacks folk out of the blue. If awareness of their lives is sonder, then it’s been a vivid realisation over the past few days and a reminder that everyone has random experiences for better or worse and it can often mean there’s a complex and varied story to tell…

Thank you for travelling down today’s convoluted road and for putting up with my off-the-beaten-track thought train. I hope to see you next week.

Take care.

(PS: I’ve decided I need to buy The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig -another unique tool to add to the bookshelves of a lexophile.)