sensory memory..

in cat's eye, which we read for english a-level, she has this whole theory that we remember through smells...

when chez vino a few nights back, i had a cup of chai...i haven't had one since heald place...and before i knew it, as i stood outside their barn door, having a little smoke and enjoying my chai, i was transported, after a split-second of shutting my eyes, to that big, dirty, roomy, draughty, cluttered, newspaper-strewn, love-filled kitchen.....and to iain, and kates, and a thousand crosswords not finished, and to experimental cooking, and library books everywhere, and reluctant jazz and it was so, so vivid....

the smell of tents does the exact same thing to me.......i remember such vivid things of summers spent in tents....strong feelings, wordless ones, at that........fancing a boy, fearing my fat, being told about periods, being bored out of my mind with hanging out with my family, stuff of endless twelve-year-old summers....

in microserfs, when dan and karla are a few months into their fledgling relationship, and they start practising their shiatsu skills on each other, karla tells him about her theory, of how we store memories in different parts of our bodies....she'd go for his lower back, and suddenly he'd be crying...unconsciously re-living some childhood sadness....the left foot, and out of nowhere he'd feel about seven years old....

me, i wear my lovely new boots and walk along, en route to work, and am cast back to three years ago.....when i had similar boots (they turned out to be rubbish..these, however, shall be lovely for a long time...) but they make a similar sound, the inner-lining feels the same as that other pair...and so i'm cast back....a split-second of closed-eyes and i'm in cheltenham, walking from the turkish lunch place back to work, another stamp on my card, another box of falafel and salad ready for eating, another tedious afternoon of working for fat george and the mindless aims of the facilities department...a snapshot of the time i first had those boots........

the other day i had a cherry muffin, and i was memoretically moved instantly back to the same sort of time, those nine months of taking the 94 bus over from gloucester to cheltenham, stopping off at this horrid but hilarious (minging-)-coffee place on the way from the bus to work, even though it invariably made me even more late than the A40 had already done, and the really fat, very camp old guy who worked the counter there, where they sold the exact same muffins made by the same company, same packaging, as i found in one of the shops on oldham street the other morning......and i tasted the cold springtime of 2005 in one bite......

and when i hear even a few seconds of any song from the takk.. album by sigur ros, i am thrown into a momentary seizure of excitement/fear/purpose/waiting/lusting/and eventual resultant sadness, as it takes me to this time last year, the jt/valentine/history of love saga.......


and with none of these examples is it a slight or inconsequential meeting of then and now, it stirs me everytime, i guess its what the word -evocative- is for....but when one sense recalls the memory, the other four, plus heart = a second or a minute of almost being there, then, almost being who i was then, almost wanting what i wanted then, or almost dreading what i then dreaded.....bodies are amazing things, but memory...man, that's something else...

history repeating..

so i was given a book for christmas, which i know for a fact sat on a shelf,  a vivid and terrible temptation to the giver, for about six weeks before the day of its giving...for it is a tantalizing prospect...the history of britain in 'impartial' narrative..the impartiality is brought about by the cunning means of sarcasm and childish humour. it really does nearly work! its awesome. the guy wrote the book for people who weren't paying attention in history class at school. it turns out there really isn't another time in your life that you can readily get a history education, if you didn't happen to be listening in in second-year juniors when they were harping on about tudors, vikings and whatnot.....and so this book takes you through whatever's been going on in this fabled isle whether you've known about it or not...and its ace!! 

so, an impartial history of britain..read it..get an education..laugh...hop on!!

gone away is the bluebird..

what a lovely christmastime i had.

possibly my favourite ever....no-one died, no-one had an ambulance to the house on christmas day, no-one argued with anyone, the grandparent unit only stayed for four days in place of the usual two weeks..there was much merriment, much game-playing...alo-o-t of laughing...steam trains, presents and pubs, word-up..........one thing was missing....i didn't do my usual -slope off on my own for a while most days to feel a bit sad-.........none of that......i just enjoyed...and laughed and felt content....i smile as i type this.....i feel less scrambly. i feel almost never sad.......christmas, for most of my grown-up years, has been tinged with a slight but very conscious sadness...i think due to singleness and christmas being a bit of a nightmare combination, and so for me to experience my first christmas as another's beloved...was pretty wonderful.



i love my family. have i mentioned that as we stroll these hallowed halls together before?! i really do just love them. my dad is such a dote. i catch him looking at me now and there relief and blessing and approval in his smile....he feels that i am happy. he is so aware of it. he comments on it, but only quietly...however, when i'm not around, he continues to tell the whole town about me and steve. i find this very funny.........my mother has never been more relaxed at christmas than she was this year, which makes life automatically funner for the rest of us....she was overjoyed to have 'all those boys' around the place - all those boys being steve, jimmy williams an of course her very own nicholas patrick. she is never happier than when the chickens are all under one roof..........and as for the rest of them, they are lovely.



and now its back to work and diets and giving up smoking (on weekdays) and feeling like a total cliche for trying to overhaul myself in the first two weeks of the year, knowing full-well that it won't last...so in order to avoid the full-on cliche i am maintaining my friendship with chocolate.



i feel strangely relaxed as the year begins. i think maybe because i actually have some idea about what i think may transpire for me this year, which is a sensation i've never once had before. it is also terrifying, as it all affects and is affected by the boy, and all concerns us making wise decisions about geography and jobs and schools and such......terrifying because, i am realising, it is trickier to relinquish one's independence that i had anticipated. not the giving of love and affection, but the remembering to tell the other that you have certain plans this week, or just the beginning of wanting to include them in your decision-making etc.......bizarrely i watched the penultimate episode of the west wing last night which concerns cj and danny and this very subject - the transition from lone wolf to inclusive partner....and i haven't exactly lived a solitary, bloody-minded existence for my grown-up life so far...some would say, looking in at our little corner of the world, that we have become mildly incapable of making decisions on our own! but....giving up what little Independence i do have is not hard, exactly, it just requires thought and attentiveness and mindfulness on a whole new scale.....so back to last night's episode....poor old danny, in the 'wing, he is trying to forge a future with our very own cj, while baffled daily by her seeming abject inability to consult him or even consider him as a major part of her life, all the while making her booty calls and secretly wishing she knew how to love him......they figure it out, obviously, and the guy who plays george mason in 24 makes her an offer that looks like its going to get her out of politics, so everyone's a winner.......so for me, watching that, it was quite heartening really, to see that i have not gone quite so far down the road towards emotional unilateralism as one might have suspected........however i do like my kitchen cupboards to be arranged in a certain way. and i do have very strict radio two and radio four schedules around which dances the rest of my day.....and i cannot understand why you wouldn't just pick the bath mat up off the floor and perch it over the corner of the bath, airing and drying all by itself...

but hey-ho, if you can't share your weird habits then what's it all about hey?
i gotta go
its nice to be back...love you xx