Personal

dark clouds

Image | | andy townend

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Today, I overheard two statements that made me think.

Pause.

And worry, more than a little.

Of course, that’s what I do.  I worry.

The first was something along the lines “he admitted he was morally guilty…” but “denied he had committed any crime”.

The second, in an interview discussing the looming British election “the idea of voting with your heart and hoping for some change…”

Two overheard snatches of discussion, though seemingly unrelated, seemed suddenly, and terribly, connected.

The power, responsibility and role of the individual in the great sweep of history and world events. When most people are simply worried about making ends meet and what they may, or may not, watch on TV tonight.

The feeling of helplessness that so many experience when considering where to place their cross on the ballot paper.

Will it make any difference? Does anyone care? Why bother?

Well, of course, the answer is yes, it does matter.

It matters an enormous amount.

As indeed does the trial of the former guard at Auschwitz who admitted to “moral guilt” but not to committing a “crime”.

It made me think where moral guilt starts.

And ends.

And, where committing a crime starts and ends. And what is moral guilt?

If we don’t vote, and the government that takes power goes on to commit atrocities, where do our responsibilities begin and end?

And, in collecting the money, yet asking for a transfer to other duties, how guilty is that guard.  Really.

And what would any of us do?

When we stand in judgement, do we stand in the shoes of all those ordinary people who allowed it to happen, looked the other way, felt powerless, or intimidated, or abused, or afraid. I wonder?

And crucially, at what point would we realise that our actions, or inactions, form part of a continuum that enables atrocities to take place.

Something worth thinking about before placing that cross on a slip of paper?

I think so.

(For the last two weeks I have been attempting to learn how to write better. I’ve been taking part in Writing 101, an online course hosted by Michelle W from the WordPress Blogging U.

Today’s prompt was “take a cue from something you’ve overheard and write a post inspired by a real-life conversation. Revisit a time when you wish you’d spoken up, reminisce about an important conversation that will always stick with you, or tune in to a conversation happening around you right now and write your reaction.” Each prompt comes with a twist. Today’s twist was to ‘include an element of foreshadowing in the beginning of your post.”

(for wordpress writing 101 – day twelve)

size matters (in sentences)

Image | | andy townend

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Size matters.

Well, maybe it does, and maybe it doesn’t.

Either way, we seem to spend a disproportionate amount of time wondering about whether it does, or it doesn’t, and why it matters, especially when we are twelve.

What I do remember is that, size or not. Ratios mattered. And I mean gear ratios.

My first “real” bicycle only had three.

Gears.

It was a beautiful blue bicycle, and it had three gears.

But, they were Sturmey Archer, and so not Derailleur.

And, at the age of 12, all I wanted was Derailleur.

Not Sturmey Archer.

So, when, after much pleading and yearning and moaning and whining, my trusty blue Raleigh was upgraded by a slick and shiny Puch.

It was Austrian, not from Birmingham.

Imagine, my excitement, yellow and green frame, white taped curving handlebars, not blue not boring, a racing machine.

My heart beating fast, I ran my fingers over those white taped bars.

My heart stopped.

What was this.

The familiar feel of a three geared machine.

So, to compensate for my lack of size, or in this case, ratios, I learned how to use my flying machine and how to swerve and stop in a flurry of dust and flying stones.

All to show the one with the blue eyes and blonde hair that, really, it’s not the size or the ratios that matter.

It’s what you can do with it.

That matters.

(For the last two weeks I have been attempting to learn how to write better. I’ve been taking part in Writing 101, an online course hosted by Michelle W from the WordPress Blogging U.

Today’s prompt was “where did you live when you were 12 years old?”. Each prompt comes with a twist. Today’s twist was ‘pay attention to your sentence lengths and use short, medium and long sentences as you compose your response about the home you lived in when you were twelve.

I didn’t want to write about where I lived when I was 12, and one day I may write about why, although back then, I think I lived in the saddle.  Of that bicycle.)

(for wordpress writing 101 – day eleven)

happy (?)

Image | | andy townend

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The thing was.

To focus on the plate.

That, was the thing.

The smell, the shapes, the promise of that hot food.

The escape it represented.

Two sausages.

A pile of fresh cooked chips.

The tang of (too much) salt and vinegar.

The splash of (toxic) red tomato sauce.

Slicing into a salt, sauce and vinegar soaked sausage.

Then, it didn’t matter.

The cold wind, the salty sea breeze.

The acrid smell of the Pirelli factory.

The smell of fear.

That didn’t matter.

The scary thoughts and bad dreams.

That didn’t matter.

What mattered was not wanting the plate to be empty.

To place the knife and fork on the plate.

And to walk again back outside.

With them.

That’s what mattered.

(for wordpress writing 101 – day ten)

character building

Image | | andy townend

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The face looked back at him, a stranger’s face.

Eyes once strong and sincere, bold and blue.

Eyes that looked deep into you, not at you.

Eyes that once left you engaged, eager, expectant.

Eyes that made you want to know more, to reach out.

Those eyes, had become washed out and grey. Where was the sparkle, where was that singular smile that shone from inside.

The lines crawling from the corners of his eyes, trailing back away from his face. He wondered, were these the lines of laughter, or furrows of fear. From where had they come.

And how had he not seen until now.

He shuddered a little, as he recalled a time when those eyes were scrunched up, when fingers and fists had been screwed into them, the skin dry and hurting and still he rubbed and rubbed.

And it wouldn’t go away.

And still, deep inside those eyes, he saw a flicker, a not quite faded flame, fighting back.

The pupils dilated, blue growing stronger.

What was this.

He saw, inside, there was still light, flecks of grey swirled and shifted and blue blossomed once more.

The lines, those lines he once feared, those lines were friends.

They spoke of shared smiles, lessons learned, fears faced down.

Lines of life.

So, on reflection, as he looked in the mirror, and turned off the light, he decided, it had all been

a

character building experience.

(for wordpress writing 101 – day six)

afloat

Image | | andy townend

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               perhaps, the only way to float
                          to be, truly afloat
                                               is to let slip the anchor
                                                the shackles and rancour
                                                                        break the chains that bind
                                                                         the locks inside our mind
                                                                 and be
                                       afloat

(for wordpress weekly photo challenge – afloat)

afloat on belgianstreets

afloat on belgradestreets

unlock the mind

Image | | andy townend

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So, I used to be chastised for starting sentences with that word, and in that way. Come to think of it I have always felt that my grammar skills lacked, well, lacked skills. But, no matter. I have always enjoyed writing and so, here I am doing just that.

Actually, right now, what I am doing is free writing. It is Saturday, and I am finally attending to my “homework” set on Day One (Monday) of the WordPress bl;logging u. writing 101 online course, the third such course I have taken recently in an effort to learm, or stop my braincells decaying as they will, or something.

The challenge here is the free writing means just hat, you write and write and write for a timed period with no clear plan and woithout going back to edit and chck, so please forgive the typos and Mac inspired c=sleppchecking if there is any, I m not allowed to check or go back and review – so, unusually for me, “i` will do as i am told

The rules, ssuch as there are any require you to write from the mind or heart or wherever for a fixed period and unlock water lies beneath, quite asacry prospect no?

What I am finding interesting is that I have set the timer of my phone and I will only wrote for 20 minutes and will stop and not eddf ay the end of that..And i am finding that my old exam fears have come to the fore, whenever I sat an exam, especially one that i knew i could handle and knew my stuff, i would shut down and write so fast that my fingers would ache and scream as my hand shot across the page trying to show the examiner that i really d ‘know’ , often of course that meant after the 20 allotted minutes for that question had es;asked, I would stop, look at the page and realise in a cold slimy feeling of horror, that i had answered the spring quarsion. ever been there?

So….pauses for breath, perhaps i will slow down a little, and in case you are interested, the timer now tells me there are 12 minutes and 18 seconds to go although by the time i finish writing that time will have changed

Which also reminds me how fascinated i am with time and what a strange concept it really is. What is now? Now is utterly meaningless, like schodingers cat 9yes i know i misspelled it but j am not editing tthis pieve ok? So, like the cat whose master i failed to spell, now is a hard concept to pin down, by the time we has uttered the word or considered now it is already gone, never to come back and only the future awaits, and that now rapidly becomes a memory and later fades, and yet at the times it was so very real. So, what is now?

I should also add that at school i was always told off for talking in class and generally not sitting still I remember well the time a frustrated teacher, well a dark
black clad irish priest threw a board rubber at me (ha anyone even know what one of those is) and the chalk dust exploded in my face which whitened as the prisest simply uttered my last name in a for of frustrated malevolence

And noww? Now I am writing this, against the clock, I really must get all my ideas out or i will fail and how will i survive/ And now? Now I am listening to BBC Fadio 4 listening to an article on why men once thought mullets were cool an ocasionally staring into space at the rain outside and listening to the laundry rotating in the machine behind me

Quick check on timer tells me that there are 5 minutes and 48 seconds to go, the radio is now talking about lewis caroll and I am beginning to tire, how do writers do this. And like in those examination days the point of what i am doing is lost in the moment, lost in the now as i strufggle to remember the question and try to piece together the facts and ideas whistling in my head with whatever the examiner sitting in a dusty room somehether thought it would be fun to set for students struggling in an airless room in the june sun, oh yes thanks for that memory

and so back to now, what is it, i really do love think about it, those people who say you must live in the now, not the present not the future, do they know what the are saying? like a mayfly to live in a moment that will vanish, never be there again, perhaps not even live at all because there is probably a mathemeticla equation that proves that now is an impossibility, so i must keep going, the clock is ticking my time is rnbbinyg out so this will no longer be now but added to al, the faded memories except this one with all the typos will be there for ever in cyber apace

so, i will keep writing, maybe to stay sane and then what will i do next, as now becomes yesterday

so, now that terror as the mind goes blank and i realise that i can’t remember the answer and that I will not be able to

(for wordpress writing 101 – day one)

(and for lucile’s photo101 rehab)

*precisely twenty minutes of free writing (which means no editing hence all the typos) for the first day of the wordpress writing 101 blogging u. course with a photo shot on a 32 year old olympus om10, shot in aperture priority mode with lens wide open with a roll of my favourite ilford delta 3200 inside, only edit to the images was to straighten the image in lightroom 5, after realising that i was apparently unable to stand up straight when taking the shot, go figure*

be brief

Image | | andy townend

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I stumbled, and in doing so, kicked it into the gutter. Again.

I stopped. Knelt down on the hot paving stone. Reached out and felt for it.

Finding it, I picked it up carefully. Anxiously.

I could feel the cold metal surface. The familiar buttons. I knew what happened next.

I turned away from the light. Raised my hand, lifted a corner of the stained bandage from my eye.

I lifted it so I could see the screen. And there it was.

The message.

That simple, clear message, no ambiguity. My breath caught in my throat. I knew that I had to, I had to give it back. I must give it back.

That noise, again, the screeching.

The blinding white light and then.

Then nothing.

Gradually, I became aware of my surroundings.

I stumbled, and in doing so, kicked it into the gutter.

(for wordpress writing 101 – day five)

three songs

Image | | andy townend

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So (yes, I say that a lot when writing and talking, it’s a kind of way of allowing myself to think before acting, saying or doing anything), this is my second post in response to a prompt posted on the WordPress Writing 101 course. Confusingly, or not, I am actually responding to the prompt to Day Three after posting my response today to the prompt for Day Two and giving some thought, although perhaps not enough, to the prompt to Day One to which I might, or might not return and respond. We shall see what we shall see. Or not.

So (there, see, I’ve gone and done it again), the challenge, prompt or task, for today is to write about “the three most important songs in your life and about what they mean to you”. And, so the prompt goes, this is best done by “free writing” which apparently involves emptying your mind, not censoring yourself, not thinking, and more specifically, letting go and allowing the emotions or memories connected to those three songs to carry you. Presumably, just before the men in white coats begin to knock at the door?

On top of that, those people at WordPress can be hard task masters, the twist is a challenge to commit to writing practice, with a minimum of fifteen uninterrupted minutes per day.

So (again), that introduction has used up pretty much half of my allotted time to free write about songs that mean something. Yes, I write so slowly.

Also, I can’t help sharing how I am writing this, I’m using an app on my Mac called iA Writer Pro, the reason I love it, is that it allows you to type on a blank white screen, in a great old fashioned typewriter font. The idea being to facilitate free writing perhaps? Of course, as you may be able to tell from the photo at the top, I also stopped to take a photo of me writing freely in a non-distracted way. Fail?

Turning now to the three songs, yes, I almost forget that part. A charming trait I seemingly (and yes, I hate adverbs) developed during those long Summer days of my (long ago) youth not answering the question on all those examination papers.

Hell, I’m nearly out of time, maybe I will never get round to those three songs?

And, yes, here are three songs, they may not be the “three most important songs” in my life (and I really do hate such confining questions) but, for better or worse, I do remember them.

So (that word again), I start with “Fanfare For The Common Man” as interpreted in 19XX by Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Why do I remember this? Well, I had fallen hopelessly (adverb alert) in love with a perfect Romanian gymnast at a time when I was convinced I was going to run at the Olympics one day. A perfectly misaligned set of goals and dreams.

She did, I didn’t.

But I never forget the feeling or the power of that dream.

The song was used as a theme tune by the BBC for the Olympics (or something like that). And I went out and bought the 45 vinyl in a paper sleeve, I felt such a rebel. And her biography, in a cheap light blue paperback, with her picture on the front, did I say I was so in love? Oh, and the B side (yes imagine) was the offbeat “Brain Salad Surgery”.

Song number two. Imagine, a Ford Transit van, light blue in colour, wooden slat seating, minimal provisions, everything in a borrowed rucksack. Cash in ten different currencies in a rucksack (Euro, hello, what Euro?). Tents, minimal hygiene, border crossings and girls from foreign parts. And, oh, the friend who actually owned a portable cassette player. And one tape, yes, one tape that we (eighteen of us, all boys) listened to over and over for three weeks as we camped our way around Europe. The song, “Runnin’ Blue” by The Doors. All I can say is “pretty little girl with the red dress on…”, but that’s another post for another day.

And so, the climax.

The third song, just a few years later. “The Knife” by Genesis.

And, no, I really can’t tell you that story.

Not tonight at least.

(for wordpress writing 101 – day three)

a room with a view

Image | | andy townend

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This may well be one of the first posts that I have ever posted anywhere that does not include a photograph. Which is strange because that is what I do, I photograph things incessantly and then post them. Oh, and when I talk, and write, I sometimes ramble a lot before getting to the point.

More recently, I decided that I would like to write more.

And to write better.

My first concerted effort to do so was taking part in Writing 201 Poetry. And now, here I am taking on what feels like a more intimidating challenge, Writing 101.

So this, my first contribution, is a response to Day Two, written and posted on Day Three and featuring “a room with a view”.

The room, the view, in question, was so special to me that I not only photographed it several times, I took out pencil and paper and sketched it.

The use of the room was the gift of a friend at a turning point in my life. So, for that reason alone the room acquired substance beyond the confines of its walls.

And what walls they were, a building of whitewashed stone. Approached by climbing a short flight of stone steps from a cobbled square in the centre of a small village on a rocky promontory overlooking the sea. The sea over which the sun set each night.

A simple room, two chairs by the window. Stone floor. Stone walls.

A window flung open to allow the sea breeze and the sounds of voices in the bar below to drift up and swirl softly around the small space.

A room in which, each day, I ate simply and well. Fresh crusty bread, ham, tomatoes, local grown olives and a glass or two of red wine.

A room with little in the way of furnishings. But what there was, functional, clean and comforting.

A room from which I first glimpsed a precious view.

Not the sea, not the sunset, not the villagers at the bar, not the coffee shop, not the model being photographed on the stone steps, not the tourists passing through.

The view from this room was far more precious.

This room, gave me a glimpse into my heart, my life.

A room with a view.

(for wordpress writing 101 – day two)