photo101

point of view

Image | | andy townend

redknit

Her fingers were gnarled, sore and stiff. Shoulders hunched against the cold wind that embraced her. A wind that cared for nothing, no one.

Glasses balanced on her nose, the red of the small sweater filled her field of view.

She continued to knit.

As she always did.

She wondered who might one day buy this tiny knitted thing. It seemed that no one bought anything anymore. They walked on by, they looked, or looked away, they shot their photos, and, embarrassed, walked away.

She was nothing to them. These people that walked on by.

She remembered that day, so long ago, when the wind was not a wind, but a warming breeze. That day, she had sat on the bench. In that park.

And yes, she had been working away on the tiny red sweater even then.

Intent on her work she had not seen them approach. But she knew.

He, the tall man with those cold blue eyes, felt her slim fingers tighten in his palm, the nails drawing blood in thin lines. Those delicate fingers he knew so well, that even in the heat of that late summer afternoon, felt cold, brittle.

And, he knew why.

He heard, felt, her catch her breath. He looked at her. Light hair blowing in that gentle breeze, and he saw her turn and look at the bench.

He knew who she would see, even before his eyes joined hers.

It was her. Again.

That feeling came back to him, some long buried sense of duty, fear, emptiness. He could not quite place it. It was just there, it always was.

She felt him recoil slightly as with her fingers she tightened her grip on his hand, that big hand, the hand she both wanted and feared. She felt the wind in her hair as she sensed him turn to look at her. Her eyes were fixed on the woman on the bench.

That same sense of longing filled her. If only he could feel what she felt.

For now, she felt the wind in her hair.

He could not look again at the woman on the bench. Not again.

She paused, her fingers gripping his, she turned to the woman on the bench. She bent lower, with her free hand she brushed her hair away from her eyes.

She knew what she wanted to say.

As she remembered this, the look in the woman’s eyes as she brushed away the hair from her face, she paused in her knitting. Shivered against the cold. And against it all.

The words she wanted to speak would not come, despite the warm summer wind, she shivered, as if a cold wind had swept across the park. She looked at the woman, their eyes met. They both knew then, that nothing would ever be the same. But, that it would always be. Nothing more.

He saw this, turned away, gazed across the park to the river. he knew that it was over.

She sighed, and continued to knit.

As she always did.

(for wordpress writing 101 – day nine)

death to adverbs

Image | | andy townend

2015_04_15_01048

It was hot, under a dry and searing sun which burned with unexpected intensity.

She walked with firm purpose across the bridge.

Her feet clad in flat soled shoes, head bowed, brow furrowed, looking down at the floor, perhaps avoiding the bright afternoon sun.

Or, perhaps, avoiding something else.

In her right hand, she held her smartphone, with a strong grip. She held it close to her body. So close, it suggested something.

Her expression implied worry, fear, a mind distracted and expectant.

The wires trailed from her ears. The message she heard from the voices in those small speakers creating a feeling of dissonance.

The world she knew. Not the world she listened to with a sense of longing mixed with fear.

In her left hand, she held those important things, the things she had spent all morning searching for.

The papers that might make all the difference.

Her eyes seemed dark and tired.

As if, she held a secret.

That they must never know.

The papers would tell her story.

Perhaps.

(for wordpress writing 101 – day eight)

give and take

Image | | andy townend

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an unusually hot day, sirens scored the air, people jostled, pushed

“hey, look i told you, leave me be”

looking away, he grasped the bag tighter

“we can’t lose it this time”

looking down, intent, focused, aching, needing to void the pain

“yeah, right, tell me, or bloody don’t, what do you care”

“more than you imagine, this may be the last chance we have”

again, hunched over, looking down

“it’s no better, god, i think it’s got worse”

looking away, walking away

“told you it would end like this, you never bloody cared and now look at you, in a public place…”

not able to focus, too intent on the now, the need, the ache

“look, i can’t cope, i can’t wait, give me a break”

the handles of the plastic bag cut deep into his palm

“i can’t do this any more”

shrugging his shoulders, the metal screen, inviting

“that’s a bloody relief”

(for wordpress writing 101 – day seven)

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

2015_04_03_00579

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

2015_04_10_00608-Edit

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)

serially lost (1:3)

Image | | andy townend

2015_04_09_00569-Edit

 

 I have been thinking a lot recently about absolutes.

You know, right and wrong, good and bad, left and right, up and down, inside and out, yes and no, true and false. Perhaps even, lost and found.

What strikes me about all of these absolutes is how little relevance they end up having in life. Well, ok, maybe when you are driving, the concept of left and right is fairly fundamental.

But, I do recall, as I followed the tangential arc of learning, how many things learned as a child had to be unlearned, as I discovered that things “don’t work quite like that”. The mind boggling transition from Newtonian physics where everything is grounded by an apple tree to the insane world of quantum mechanics and the trials and tribulations of Schrödinger’s poor mistreated cat.

The point I am (not) making is that as child we often see things in this absolute sense and it is only later, as life happens to us, that we begin to see the ambiguity of our world in all its glory, and sometimes, its horror.

And then the places that shaped us, that seemed like rocks, foundations, safe havens, gradually slip away. My sister texted me today to tell me she was standing outside my former Hall of Residence at University in London. Or, more correctly, she was standing next to a hole in the ground where it used to be. A similar fate met my boyhood school some years back. My foundations not just crumbling, but demolished and replaced. And in their place, in years to come, someone else’s foundations will take their place.

What a race.

And, so far, I am digressing. Filling space on the white screen in front of me as I build up to write about what I really want to write about. Or, perhaps, what I don’t want to write about at all. But will. And, in doing so, learn and move on.

I intend to write about my father.

About what happened to him. Or what he “happened”. And about the consequences. The final end to the right and wrong phase. The time that Schrödinger’s cat finally bit deep into Newton’s apple.

A story which involves a tennis court, a phone call, a student sitting on the kerb, an elephant slide, a drive through the country.

And, the end of absolute thinking.

(for wordpress writing 101 – day four)

three songs

Image | | andy townend

2015_04_08_00568-Edit

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)

(the razor’s) edge

Image | | andy townend 
"entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem**"

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searching for an answer, what, where, which, when, how
why
                 look, question, yearn for the truth, the search continues
                                 choices and decisions, facts and figures to be weighed
                                         complexity and detail challenge and defy
logic
                                 when there in front of us
lies the simple truth
                  it’s really not that hard, not that complex
                                    when faced with a choice
                                                         the simplest solution is often the
best

(for justine’s eclectic corner #9 – photography, quotes and poetry – a free verse poem featuring the edge)

** occam’s razor is a problem solving technique, the latin text roughly translates to “no more things should be presumed to exist than are absolutely necessary”