Magic Seeing

"I am from an English cup of tea and quiet books

from the closeness of my mother's reading;

a place to look for me."~Tab

Magic Seeing. 

Can you feel it? Who taught you?

On evenings when my father pursued his business, courted the telephone and wooed his clients, my mother drank English breakfast tea and then introduced me to a universe full of magic.

Waking to morning rain on our tin roof.

Magic.

The cupcake tin full of rainbow bites of frosted colour.

Magic.

Butter melting into warm, puffy bread, my little sister's hand in mine, the sound of Saturday's lawns being mowed, sepia afternoons filled with the smell of popcorn...

All magic.

What intelligence does a child need to see such things? Yet at first, I saw none of them.

My teachers on the art of Magic Seeing were my mother and the words. Words in songs as she rocked me. And then words as she spoke from the pages of books. Living words. Words where the magic became the air I breathed.

In the crook of my mother's arm, I was introduced to the feeling of stillness, a rare commodity in our house, and the texture of the world's inside the pages of books. The closeness of my mother's reading helped my dim eyes grow bright and alert. In those moments her voice was gentle water lapping at my toes. Zigzag thinking inside me slowed. The backpack of constant shame and guilt slipped from my shoulders, and I rested.

In that quietness, I met the folk of the Far Away Tree. Silky. Saucepan man. Goblins. And lands that came and went as they pleased. Later I met Anne and George and her dog Timmy. I padded beside Lassie on her quest for home. My quest also. I ran my fingers through the mane of the great Aslan. In the shadows of the whispering trees of Narnia, I was allowed to be a child.

Magic Seeing had everything to do with learning from inside myself; looking within and then outwards. Words became images. And within the images were feelings that built to understanding, empathy and insights. Books were play and a door to childhood. And there were few such doors outside of the world of words.

To this day my mother thinks she failed me. But on those quiet nights, the lilt of her reading rocked me gently through a stony childhood. Characters lived through her voice. She was no longer hidden from me by the abuse of her marriage and I was freed to look for myself for just a little while. The seeds of my adult self, the magic I still see in words, the gift of life inside me, were all sown beside my mother. If she failed me, it was not in the reading. It was not in the gift of words. 

And it was not in the Magic Seeing.

What about you?Who first opened up the world of reading to you?

When Slow is Fast

What do you see in this photo? The light post? The puddle? The gutter? The buildings? Or are you much further ahead? Is your mind already peaking around that corner wondering where the street leads?

I am not so great at the Here and Now.

I try.

Really I do.

But I can only manage the present in small doses. After that my mind is already at the edge of the next building, the next day, the next year or an alternative reality. Maybe that's because my Here and Now sometimes looks a lot like sitting in gutter, contemplating reflections in the glassy puddles hoping it won't rain again just yet because I am still sitting outside my life.

My husband is a Here and Now kind of guy. He misses most of the puddles in life and wonders why my feet are wet.

He's the romantic soul staring up at the light post saying, "Tab, you have to see this street when it's all lit up."

"It lights up?"

"Oh yeah, streets always light up."

"They do?"

"Sure they do. You just have to wait."

Waiting...yeah... I am not so good with the waiting...

That would entail Stillness. Reflections need stillness. Ever thought about how little you see of yourself if you are running past a mirror?

Finding things, really seeing things, often requires stillness. And I like to move. Just breathing and being... wow... I find that very hard.

But when I write and I can still me inside. The racing down roads, banging my head against brick walls or trying to slip around corners I have no hope of reaching can be stopped and I am still.

In that stillness I hear myself.

I see myself.

I find the whispering.

And I am able to listen.

A wise woman told me that stillness might really be fast, and fast is often slow. Because sometimes the quickest way to ourselves, to the Here and Now and all the beauty we seek, is in the going slow.

Fast just races.

It doesn't necessarily find what it is looking for. And fast has a tendancy to get lost a long, long way from home.

Fast often needs to back track.

Stillness feels its way down streets and notices the lamp post. It has time to wait for the lights to turn on. It finds puddles, but can also see its own reflection. Stillness has a better chance of finding what it is looking for because it is hard to miss what you are purposefully slowing down to notice.

No wonder I love to write and find myself in words.

What about you? Where do you find yourself on the street of life? What does your writing say about you and where you pull your words from?

It's Raining Words

"One must be drenched in words

literally soaked in them

to have the right ones

form themselves into the proper pattern

at the right time."

~ Hart Crane

I'm all for a good soaking. Throw me under the shower. Fill up the bath. Hose me down. Or leave me out in the rain. I'll be the one running barefoot under the crying skies.

Give me a book. Give me a blog. Give me a magazine, a quote, a song and poem and I will show you one wet through happy girl. And please oh please bring me a cup of tea with a dash of dictionary and a thesaurus to snuggle up to and I will be yours forever.

What ever you do, don't take the words. That's how the last Ice Age really happened. They didn't tell you that in school did they! But I know. I am Tab after all :)

What about you? What are you doing to soak in words?

No Hard Work Here

In a life before Stay-at-Home Mom I taught prep (4-5yr olds) and Year One (5-6yr olds). And no matter how busy the teaching days were I made sure we grabbed at least one book and enjoyed it, just for the hell of it.

It was very simple.

Take 30 odd children, add a few over sized cushions and find a spot away from other classrooms under a tree. Add a couple of great picture books and read.

There were two criteria for my book choices.

One- they must be fun.

Two- they must not be for the purpose of trying to teach kids anything.

I just wanted to read. I love to read aloud. Give me a book and a kid or two or three, and I will bring the voices the facial expressions. More importantly, I will bring me. And together, with those little eyes watching, we will weave enough dramatic magic to breathe life into that book.

And here's the big secret.

Ready?

It. Is. Not. Hard.

Parents used to ask me how I held the attention of 30 squiggly kids when they couldn't get their soccer playing, mud-slinging son to sit still for anything other than a feed. My answer was this. I am completely carried away by what I am reading.

I am in the moment. I am sold out to the words. I am who I am. Completely.

I am reading as much for me as I am for my little audience. I am not racing to the end of the book. I am not ticking a curriculum requirement box. I am not trying to fill in time. I am not even watching the clock.

I used to read last thing before the end of the day and when that bell went everyone, including me, went, "Ohhhh!"

Why am I sharing this?

Because I'd hate to think that you were missing the fun. And just quietly, I suspect that reading aloud makes you a better writer ;)

Grab a kid. (well, get permission first if they are not your own:) and a book that you like the look of. There is no right book. Only the book that interests you. Because if it interests you enough to read it then chances are you'll be enthused when reading. Then drop your inhibitions. Honestly. Kids really like stupid. If you feel stupid reading aloud then you are probably doing it just right. And it is only the kids watching anyway. What do you care? Have fun. Be a kid for as long as it takes you to get to The End. If that means you want to do all the voices then do them, if that means you'd like to sit quietly and share the word magic in a more settled way, then do that too. Don't try to teach. Just laugh and be laughed with. Whatever you do, Do. Not. Make. It. Hard. Work.

Now I am a Mom one of my favorite activities is still reading aloud. My boys love The Very Hungry Caterpillar's deep voice (you didn't know he had a deep voice hey! You didn't even know he had any lines to say in that book did you!) They love the tiny squeaky voice of the massive bear in 'Where's my teddy?' (I like that one too!) That voice still gets my eldest son giggling, and he has heard me do it for years.

The best lessons about reading and writing come when no one is trying to teach anything. You are just soaking up a great story. Enjoy. Soak it up. Get dripping wet in those words. :) Play. And watch the magic of reading happen. Then watch what happens when you go to write. Even if you do not write for children. Even if your tale is dark and serious. The magic still works.

What about you? Got any great tales of reading fun to share? What is the most fun you and a kid have had with a book?

BTW- children don't need to be young for this to work. I have also read aloud to older children who eventually crack under the pressure of fun and enjoy being read to again.

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Writing Here and There

There is over There.

Miles from where I am. Here is where I am.

Sitting. Wailing. Pulling out tuffs of grass.

Wondering if I will ever get There.

Because There is where the words come together.

Here is about irratiting things like stillness and balance.

Here is where words skid into sentences, sending dust flying and making me cough. Here is re-writing after the re-write. Head in hands. Then fingers hovering over keys.

Unsure.

Here is about reaching for some place I want to belong if only I could just... move.

There is where glorious paper realities live. My writing sticks its touge out at me. But it won't budge. It likes Here because this is where I am.

No one can work this hard and live here forever right? Like wind through trees. Leaves rustle. Moments. Pass.

Waves roll up on beaches. The moon draws the tide.

And I am going to find my legs.

One day I might be There.

Where I thought I'd die if I never arrived.

But then of course when I am There, then I am really again, Here again.

Because life is fluid. And the future is never home.

Here becomes home, every time you get There.

One day I hope we will go There together. My writing and I. We have dreams. Don't you? And when I knock on the door of There I will laugh and say, "Oh, so Here we are."

Magic. Hey presto. The joy of living in the now. The joy of finding joy half way up hills. Where ever your feet tread. Not easy... but I am taking in the surrounding landscape of Here.

After all There will always be There.

What about you? What do you do to enjoy Here while longing to be There?

What Lives on Swings?

What lives on swings? A short plank of wood. Or a plastic seat, graffitied. Two lengths of chain or well-knotted rope, and the familiar ee-ore of protesting joints above. Unremarkable. But there they are. Swings. Most parks have a least one set and they are never short of sitters waiting their turn to swing their legs.

Funny that something so simple should be home to such magic...

Childhood lives on swings.

Imagination. Pure and unbridled. Go on, tell me you were never Superman or Wonder Woman. Tell me you never joined the birds that flew above you or captained a rocket ship to the moon. Sometimes I was just the princess with flying hair. Golden hair. Admired and loved.

In my mind I was lots of things and many people, and all of them saved me from the ground, from the falling of my life.

Freedom lives on swings.

Movement. Lullaby rocking. Back and forth, back and forth. I was never stuck, even if I was going nowhere. In my mind I was lots of places, all them involved motion, and all of them saved me from the ground and from the monotony of gravity.

Music lives on swings.

Emotions. Things that I felt and could give voice too. Even if it was off key and never heard by any ears but my own. I sang on the swing set in my back yard and I loved the feeling. I was brave enough to be heard when the wind was rushing past my cheeks and the motion never stopped. I sang anything and everything. Partial lyrics. Nursery rhymes. And Sunday School songs. But my favourites were the ones I made up. Music that told its own story. Songs my heart beat to, and gave my soul eyes.

In my mind I was singing straight to my God, to my little sister to my hopes and dreams, and all of them saved me from the ground and the silence of not being seen.

Swings are simple things. But sometimes life just needs a bit of simple swinging.

Now I am grown, I still love swings. I beg my children to whoosh to and fro with me, so I don't look like the woman who should have stopped swinging a long time ago. I huddle my toddler on my lap and, once again, I am Superwoman.

My writing desk is just the same. A swing set for my mind. A plank of wood. White with four legs. Nothing auspicious. Simple. I share it with my kids. The computer pushed to one side the glue stick, crayons, remote control for the robot, paper like confetti in every colour and size and the odd toy car or alien character staring back at me while I type. At night, I don't clean away every sign of my children. I let these things sit around me. This is my playground. And I remember the swings.

Childhood. Freedom. Movement. And music. When my writing looks like that I know my work as a writer is done. And today I noticed, my desk is not in the middle of this room... and neither is my writing.

Stephen King said it best.

"It starts like this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down to write remind yourself why it isn't in the middle of the room. Life isn't a support system for art. It is the other way around."

Simple.

When I live outside the writing, the writing lives.

Swings. And swinging for the mind...

What about you? Where do you write? Is your desk a swing set, nice and simple? Yet magic without confines? What does where you write say about your writing or who you are as a writer?

Do you remember how to swing?

PS- sorry I was not on many blogs yesterday. I had a mad day and lost all time... I'll be there today. I missed reading you guys :)

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Enough, I thought.

Sadness was a letter. An envelope with foreign stamps. Postmarked in my past. The return address, once a familiar embrace. I knew the date and relived the time in every word, over and over and over...

Enough, I thought.

I folded it once. Twice. And pushed it back into the empty pocket, filing it in my bottom drawer. I decided not to look. To cut off and shut down and never care again.

Enough, I thought.

Silence was beautiful at first. Until the pendulum of living stopped mid swing. No pain, but no connection either. The letter sat there bruising me. Rotting my insides, turning me bitter.

Enough, I thought.

Today the sky was blue. Clear and opened. So I took the letter out. Unfolded myself and re-read beneath my sky.

At the bottom of an empty pot I stuffed the sadness. The letter. The postmarked past. And all the longing for things we never said.

Enough, I thought.

I held the paper edges to the lighter. The flames crept along the edges. Respectfully almost.

And I sat and held my hand.

As the ashes floated my hair filled with smoke and I wiped the stinging from my eyes. And then, the letter was gone.

I sat with me, for just a while.

Long enough to forgive myself. To think of writing my own letters. Different letters. To kiss the stamps and send them outwards. And hope, perhaps, for new words in return. No more folding and tucking me away.

Enough, I thought.

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What are you doing with your words?

I write better when I am reading.

No joke. It is part of the reason I love blogging. And a good chunk of the reason why I love reading. It's not about my posts, it about reading yours. And sometimes it's not about writing books, it's about opening others.

Stringing words together is like jewelry making. Even if I am lacking the diamonds I want to see what you are doing with your sparkly things. And I might even find a few for myself...

Actually, here's a better analogy for writing (since I know nothing about the world of jewelry making) Writing is like getting dressed. I know what suits me, I know my style and I know what size I am. But, hell yeah, I want to trawl through catalogues and see what's in this season. I want to squish my face up against the glass outside the department store windows and ogle all the pretty things. I dream of maxing out my credit card. I spend hours in store change rooms trying everything on half a dozen times. I want to know if my butt looks big in it or if the dress might be see though when the sun catches it.

I want to know what your wearing. Where you bought it and if they have my size. How much did you say you paid? What shoes are you going to wear with it, what are you going to do with your hair and, damn girl, where did you get those earrings?

That's why I read.

I want to see what you're doing with your words. I want to see what they are doing with their words. What goes with green? How did they describe the clear sky after the snow? What did they say about the old lady whose beauty can still be seen, even in the lines of her face?

I want to know how you see life? What moves you enough to make you post about it? What do you find funny? Do you write giggles and the sadness? What does this thing we spend so much time doing look like when you put it down on paper?

How do you write?

I want to see it.

I want to feel its fur, run my fingers across its sleek edges or just admire the sheer loveliness. And yeah, I even want to see the raw and the ugly; the cliff faces and the rocks on the way down. Because reading adds to who I am as a person, it opens my eyes to worlds I may never see and it invites me to imagine.... what if? Your writing sparks play spaces in my mind, with all their possibilities.

I have time to read. Even when I don't. Because when I stop reading, I find the writing dries up along with it. Reading and writing are two dear old souls who want nothing more than to sit together and chat. And I like to let them.

So, I guess that is all a very long way to say, I love reading and a huge thank you for the privilege of reading your blogs. And to all the authors out there who write and open the porthole for just a little while so I can climb in your heads and watch what you do with these exquisite things called words, I am forever in your debt.

What about you? How do reading and writing go together in your world?

Odd Spaces for Reading and Writing?

Random thought: 

Where do you write? If you don't write, where do you read?

READING: 

I was thinking about the two years I lived in Hong Kong working as a teacher. I had a 30 min train trip to and from school everyday and used the time to consume a number of novels. More than once I missed my stop because I was paying absolutely no attention to the stations flying past. More than once I missed my stop AND had no extra money to buy a return ticket to the stop I should have exited at. I discovered I knew enough Cantonese and sign language to bum money off perfect strangers. I thank you random Chinese strangers. 

 

I also managed to miss getting off the lift in my apartment building because I was reading. I traveled all the way to the 39th floor and right back down to the ground again, barely noticing others getting on and off. I got some strange looks from the door man in the basement. But I was used to that. He was my favourite person to practise my Cantonese on.

We did a heap of flying in and out of HK that year, I wasn't a massive fan of Hong Kong, it had about 7 million people too many. But I now look back on all those flights and wish I had the same amount of uninterrupted reading time. Cathay Pacific probably still have a number of my books. I never could remember to take them with me when we landed. 

When we later moved to Denver I no longer had train trips or so many flights; flying out of the US proved a bit more expensive. But I did have snow storms and tornadoes. Coming back over the Rockies late one evening at the end of a ski weekend, my husband and I were stuck in the kind of traffic that makes you wonder if you are ever, ever going to see the car move again. A snow storm was forecast and every man and his skis were trying to make it back into Denver before they closed the Eisenhower Tunnel. Yep, plenty of time for reading. That little trip took eight hours!

The school I taught at in Denver was once placed in locked down due to a tornado that had touched down some miles from us, but looked to be heading in our direction. Thank God it never did head in our direction. Those things can be heard miles away... anyway, myself, my teaching partner and the 45 kids we taught were huddled under desks (God only knows what good they think desks are going to be if a tornado hits!) and needless to say, we were all quite anxious. I could reach the class book rack from where I was huddled and began reading. It seemed to calm everyone's nerves, not to mention mine. I thought Denver was far removed from tornado valley, but apparently they get there far share. I read through a pile of books in the two hours we were stuck in that room. When we were all allowed to come out and the threat of being blown away had passed, the kids turned to me and said, "Can we do that again, Mrs. Bird?"  

Yeah... Nah!

My life's not quite so exciting anymore... but I have read a number of picture books to my toddler from the floor of the bathroom while trying to encourage him to stay put on the loo and go potty. Mmmm... how things have changed. 

WRITING:

Now that I write I have been known to curl up with my laptop just about anywhere comfy. The couch (although, when the toddler thought he have a play on my computer I quickly abandoned that idea), my bed and the backyard are some of my favourite spaces for writing. Occasionally, I take a note book and pen (remember those?) and actually make marks on a page (shock!)- then I have freedom to move around a bit more without fear of destroying the computer. I have written on trains, by the beach, in the park, in the car waiting for school to get out. But really no place is safe. Like most writers I stuff paper and pens in lots of places, so I can get those begging, pleading nagging thoughts down on paper and move on with life. The trick is to not let those scribblings go through the wash. Not so readable after that happens!

This got me thinking about the spaces writers use to craft their words and the places readers go to read them. The Guardian did a whole profile on writer's rooms.  I know, I know I should be writing not wasting time,  but I found this site and the photos fascinating. But then people's lives fascinate me. 

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

So, I was wondering , where are some of the more unusual places you have read or written?