The Sigh of the Beholder by Andrew Shephard

 (Sonnet)

 

I can’t wear that hat, it makes my face fat

Baring the shoulder makes me look older

© Heidi Dp | Dreamstime Stock Photos

Why do you want me to dress up bolder?

Mutton dressed lamb is not where I’m at.

Try it on, lover; don’t think of the price,

Add scarf or coat if weather is colder

You look quite the part (that’s what I told her)

I swear on my life, it makes you look nice.

But fabric’s flimsy, my waist is thicker…

Then take all off, right down to the knicker

I’ll admire your fine body without a snigger

All wrinkles smoothed by candle’s flicker.

Close your eyes gently ‘fore you grow older

And feel my soft sigh on your bare shoulder.

Perfectly Imperfect by Annabel Howarth

“I am perfectly imperfect.”  That is my new mantra.  It has taken me 41 years to reach this point of being.  It is so enlightening and uplifting and is helping me feel happier and more confident in every aspect of my life, including my writing.

I always enjoyed writing stories and poems from an early age, and in those early days without any fear of whether I was “good enough” to call myself a writer.  It is what I did and what I loved.  I always dreamed of being like Jo from Little Women.  Why then did I change my original path and pursue a career in law instead?  

At some point in my childhood I remember my Dad saying “Nothing is worth doing if you don’t do it well.”  To put it in context, he was talking about cleaning the wooden floor in our living room.  He was dissatisfied with what he called my “port hole cleaning”.  As is the way with children, I took that on board as a message for how I should be in everything I did.  In recent years I have learned a little about “mindfulness” and similar practices, and come across the thinking of Eckhart Toller.  It has helped me conclude that in my subconscious I came up with the idea that “I am a perfectionist” and nothing less than perfection was good enough.  

Although I continued to enjoy writing throughout school and beyond, I recall thinking at the time when I had to make decisions about university, that I only wanted to be a writer if I knew I could do it brilliantly well.  I wanted to write the sort of work I was studying in my English Literature classes.  Nothing less would do.  The writer I wanted to be was a future self.  In the meantime I would pursue what I thought would be a more lucrative career to enable me to reach that future self.

In a nutshell, there was my stumbling block to becoming a writer: my past self that had defined me as a perfectionist, and my dream of an unattainable future self that had to be a prize winning literary novelist.  In my subconscious I had convinced myself that I was not good enough to be a writer.

Fortunately, I have had my epiphany.  A few years ago I attended a therapy session called The Journey (originated by Brandon Bays).  It revealed to me for the first time this subconscious idea I had that “I am not good enough”.  It was an astonishing revelation to me, but it all made sense.  In my rational adult head I knew that it was a nonsense idea, but just acknowledging this subconscious blocker meant I felt free to feel “good enough” in many aspects of my life.  In my writing in particular, it gave me the confidence to join a writing course.  I never imagined that over three years later it would remain a regular part of my life.  I never before imagined having the confidence to read my work out to other writers.

Letting go of perfectionism, has taken a little longer.  For someone to want to pay for my work, it would have to be perfect wouldn’t it?  Of course “perfection” is unattainable.  Everything can always be improved upon.  Every artist has to reach a point where they put their name on the canvas.  Every author has to reach a point where they put down their pen and send their work off for consideration.  One of the law partners I worked for once said that the document I was drafting didn’t need to be perfect.  The client didn’t need something which was perfect, they just needed it to work.  Of course, back then, I didn’t agree.  I didn’t see how it could work if it was not perfect.  Nothing is “perfect” in that sense though.  An orange is more or less a sphere, but it is not a perfect sphere.  Every orange is different, but it works as an orange, and its imperfection is what makes it beautiful and interesting.

To anyone who has a longing to write but is somehow afraid to, I recommend you get your head in the right place as soon as possible.  Find out what is causing your blockers and free yourself to follow your dream.  Always remember we are all perfectly imperfect.  Live in the present and, don’t worry about it,  just write and enjoy it.  

Annabel Howarth

Recommended reading:

Becoming a Writer - Dorothea Brande

The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle

Rewriting a Sonnet by Inez Cook

Here is an untitled poem I wrote in 2012.  It was written in sonnet form for a creative writing class.  

My son carefully reaches for his bricks

knocking yesterday’s creation to the floor.

Then stops mid-crawl with wide eyes and inspects

a tiny speck of dirt beside the door.

Outside he sits quite still so he can stare

at tree-shapes and the wobbling washing line

with pegged white sheets that billow in the air.

Then he lifts up his arms because he can.

I learn from him that stillness between action

is what we need to grow.  He’s offering

a gift; each moment is an invitation

to see how ordinary things can sing.

Remembering his eyes I see it now:

Those sheets were ship’s white sails, the lawn its bow.

At the time I was focussed on it as a technical exercise and managed to keep to a strict rhyme scheme and metre.  Rereading it recently I thought it worked as a technical exercise but that the word choices were sometimes imprecise and some lines were clunky.  So I rewrote it and gave it a title.

Shared Attention

My son crawls past his painted wooden bricks,

Knocks yesterday’s creation to the floor,

Then stoops his head with wide eyes and inspects

A tiny speck of dirt beside the door.

Now in the garden, motionless, we stare

At tree-shapes and the bobbing washing line.

His eyes dart up at two crows’ soundless flight

As pegged sheets swell and shudder in the air.

I learn from him that stillness between action

Is what we need to grow; and noticing

The world together is an invitation

To see how ordinary things can sing.

Remembering that day I see it now:

Those sheets were ship’s white sails, the lawn its bow.

Rewriting it, still within the sonnet conventions, felt like a really tricky jigsaw puzzle.  I knew how much space I had to express each idea, but some words had to be more specific and certain sentence structures needed to change.  Stanza 2 took the most work. I took out the last line, inserted a new image about the 'soundless crows' which I had found in my original notes for the poem, and swapped the lines which slightly altered the rhyme scheme.  I also wanted the lines in stanza 3 to run more smoothly and removed the words 'gift' and 'offering' which I felt were a bit too sentimental.  I am happy with the result, but who knows, maybe in three years I'll feel the need to do a third rewrite!

The Luncheon Party (Part One) by Suzanne Hudson

 

A short story inspired by the above photo.

 

“So it’s just a little luncheon party…”  Simone was saying and Claudette’s eyes were glazing over, in the way they always did when her friend regaled her with the long list of social events that she was going to or hosting.  Claudette sipped her red wine and thought about the painting she was working on.  Just hearing about Simone’s hectic social plans made her feel exhausted. 

         That’s another reason I didn’t marry, she thought to herself.  The endless parties and suppers and entertaining would have bored her rigid.  A film producer’s wife, Simone had happily immersed herself into Parisian society and it was all her old school friend seemed to talk about these days.  Claudette was a painter, a free spirit and a solitary animal.  She liked nothing better than dining alone in a restaurant with a good book for a companion.  People drained her energy and small talk paralysed her.  She smiled her best non-committal smile while Simone chattered on about the menu, her new sequinned flapper dress and the guest list.

         “And then there’s someone else that you know, or used to know.”

         “Oh yes, who’s that?”  Claudette asked, barely caring as she had already made up her mind that she was busy that day.

         “Phillippe?”                                     

         Claudette’s heart leapt into her mouth. 

         “Phillippe Dupont?”

         “Yes, that’s right.   He’s home from America for a holiday.  He’s just made his first movie.  He’s tipped for stardom, Henri says.”

         A memory flashed through Claudette’s mind.  The Summer House in Simone’s country home.  Tennis whites, grass stains and sunburn. Champagne going to her head, making the stuffy room spin.  A bee buzzing at the window as Phillippe held her in his arms, his lips caressing her neck, his hand moving up her bare thigh.

         “So you’ll come?’  Simone’s question punctured her daydream.

         “I’d love to,’ she said, trying to hide her delight, to stifle the huge grin that had spread across her face.  She saw Simone frown, just a little, in surprise.

         “I didn’t know if you’d remember him…’

         “Oh yes I do,’ Claudette said, realising to her horror that a blush was spreading over her cheeks.  Seeing her friend’s look of interest, she muttered, “Well, vaguely.  So when’s this luncheon?”

         “Sunday the 18th.  Drinks on the terrace from noon."

         Claudette reached into her handbag for her slim leather diary and began flicking through the empty pages.  She felt Simone’s eyes on her as she found the date and scribbled in the details with a pencil.  She knew she was grinning like a fool, but she couldn’t help it.  Her heart was singing.  Phillippe!  Wonderful, handsome, funny Phillippe, who lit up any room he was in.  It was five years since he’d left. She’d thought she’d never see him again.

         “Of course he’s married now…”  Simone said, and Claudette thought she heard a gentle warning in her friend’s voice.

         “Of course!” she smiled, her heart sinking slightly.

         “But he’s travelling alone as his wife is expecting their first baby.”

         “How lovely!”
        
         “We’d love for you to come, but if your too busy, please don’t worry darling.  I know these things aren’t your scene.”

         Their eyes met for a second.  Claudette held up her blank diary for her friend to see.

         “Busy?  I don’t think so my dear!  It will be fun.  You keep telling me I need to get out more.”

         “Mmm.  I just don’t want you to be bored, that’s all.”

         “Oh there’s no danger of that.”


To be continued...

It's That Time of Year

The tick-tocking of the clock reminds me how long each dragging second takes to release its hold on time and hand over to the next.  The red second hand slips down the clock face.  It is not allowed to pause at the bottom before it must begin its uphill trek once more.  If I watch it, one minute is an eternity.  I take my gaze away and concentrate on the task in hand.  When I look back at the clock a few minutes later, or so it seems, I feel sure that it has cheated me and skipped forward twenty-fold, extinguishing many precious minutes of my time.

I look down once more at the question paper and the words jump about on the page.  I stare at them and they settle down, allowing me to see into them.  I reach into my mind.  Nothing there. And then suddenly, butterfly thoughts are released and they fly around in all directions, bumping into each other within the confines of my brain.  I wait for a moment until, one by one, they come to rest in ones and twos and threes.  Carefully, I pick them up and try to put them into words.

Sometimes, the words tumble out onto the paper and arrange themselves.  Sometimes, they need a little help.  It is then that I look out of the window.  The distant horizon beckons me.  'Leave now and join me,' it calls silently.  I am tempted.  The hills are pale in the morning sunshine, rested from their sleep.  But they will soon awaken and dress themselves in purple and emerald.  I want to fly to them.  Not no.  I force my gaze downwards to the half empty page and resolve to fill it before I allow myself to look up again.

For the most part, the other sounds in the room distance themselves from me, remaining on the borders of my consciousness.  But occasionally they slip into my awareness.  The rustling of paper.  The creaking of chairs.  Sniffing.  Scribbling.  I try not to look around, for if I see people writing furiously, I am alarmed by their rate of output.  Someone asks for extra paper.  Oh my goodness, I must write more.  Someone else puts their pen down and folds their arms.  They have finished.  Gosh.  I must speed up. 

And so, eventually I am done.  One final trawl of my scoured brain to see if anything else is lurking there - maybe a final phrase or piece of wisdom which I need to tip out onto the paper.  And then, just in time, I ceremoniously put my pen down and listen for the long awaited words.

'That's it.  Your time is up.  Please stop writing and put your pens down.'