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Month: September 2014
Our Works and Days
What we lost.
The interior love poem
the deeper levels of the self
landscapes of daily lifefrom Buried 2 (iv) by Michael Ondaatje
There is little that survives of my grandparents on both sides, or indeed my father. I did not meet any of them. What I have pieced together is through the distorted reflection of what my mother remembers as seen in others. My nephew has something of the precision of my father, my cousin shares the earnest, naive idealism of my maternal grandfather, I have something of my maternal grandmother’s gift of making.
I walk and laugh like my father, my brother inherited his enormous sense of responsibility.
It is these touches that endure, fragments of other lives that find their reprise in a syncopated, mutated form generations later, only recognised by those who form the bridge and can remember the stories.
The ankle bracelets in the picture belonged to my maternal grandmother. Little else survives from that era. My wife was given these when we married, and as we are preparing wills she needs to decide where they will go next. Fortunately there is another pair of similar weight from my wife’s family, so we will be able to arrange something equitable for our two daughters. To them my grandmother is just a portrait that hangs in my brother’s house.
More difficult to bequeath will be the family treasure. My brother is custodian of the decoupé art of my ancestor Abu Jaffer (and before you begin planning a heist, it’s not actually worth anything). The family legend is that the girl Abu Jaffer loved married someone else, and he spent the rest of his days a bachelor. There is some suggestion that he may have been a skilled poet, but among my ancestors that at least is not a peculiar distinction (if only a couple of poets could instead have been born with the ability to manage estates and make good decisions, but that story is for another day).
He had no children, he lives on only in these beautiful but fragile bits of paper, and a half remembered romantic tragedy. Or perhaps not, it has been remarked that most of my own stories are romantic tragedies. Perhaps a little of him endures in the family line after all.
END
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Autumn by Ruswa Fatehpuri
Autumn
At the dizzy end of Fall
Disoriented. Winter coat, summer shoes
Leaves wet in heavy piles, the smell
Your shawls retreived from plastic
Memories preserved in aspic
Quiet streets, the afternoon
Christmas lights and cloudless skies
I finger spines of all the books I will not give
Wind whispers in the branches, who and who?
Did you leave her? Did she leave you?
from Sold and Bartered
Thematically related Post:
And as Autumn rolls around again, so does this poem, reblogged at re-linked…
Enduring Friendship
The remembrance of days, despite distance, time and tragedy. Rising above missteps and mistakes, a friendship that endures.
On Beauty – For Emily
“In many mortal forms I rashly sought
The shadow of that idol of my thought.
And some were fair – but beauty dies away”
from Epipsychidion – Percy Bysshe Shelley
Mirror mirror.
Beauty is momentary and lasts only in memory.
The perfection of form – being handsome/ pretty/ attractive – is a more common thing, lasting and yet more transitory. It is gifted by fate or genetics, sometimes with seeming randomness and abandon. Form can be grafted and crafted; pinched, plucked and tucked to create an image. Easy on the eye but appealing only to the cheaper senses.
Age can wither it, and custom will stale its infinite variety.*
Beauty is not a mundane thing of structures and symmetry. It is an energy, a crackle of lightning that can take any face, however pleasing or misshapen, and in the moment lift it to something instantaneously striking. It is the product of a rare and perfecting set of circumstances in conjunction: a febrile mood in which the mind is receptive to influence; a connection that understands: for a breath, a moment, the subject and object are in perfect harmony; a catchlight in the eye; the reflective properties of skin; the sudden breeze that plays with an errant hair.
It is the piece that for a heartbeat fits seamlessly into the puzzle. It is an ache of loss to realise what is missing.
And then it is gone, all that is left is the recollection and a sense of abiding affinity. The moment is lost but the memory remains. From then to the end of life and time the person retains in your head that stain – indelible, neither age, care or privation can change that sudden shift in perception.
It is the fertile ground in which love can grow.
END
* A deliberate misquote from Anthony and Cleopatra 2:2
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Brave Companion of the Road
Brooke and I have been together for fourteen years. She has been at my side as youth and vigour have slowly failed us both, and I have nursed her through the ailments that inevitably plague a classy French dame.
After all the years, the dents and the damage, the four times around the earth we have driven together, the overloaded trips to the tip which broke my back and her suspension, she is still willing and eager. Somehow there is no group of people too large, no burden too great for her to carry.
We know the end is nigh, we only travel a few miles together now at the weekends running errands and ferrying the kids. She starts up first time, every time. In deference to the spiders that live in her wing mirrors we don’t drive too fast anymore, but we remember all the speeding tickets.
She’s quite partial to Celine Dion, so for her sake when we are alone together I’ll belt out It’s All Coming Back To Me Now at the top of my lungs and she’ll accompany me with squeaky springs.
As for the name, well what else would you call a Blue Laguna?
Disney Magic and the Eight Rules of Queuing
Sleeping Beauty’s Castle – Disneyland Paris
We got lucky. There was a window in my work schedule; it coincided with the end of the kids summer break. That was itself a couple of days after everyone else and suffixed by a couple of teacher training days when they would not be required in school. In contrast the great mass of European kids were back at their books. We took a chance and took Bob and ZedBee to Eurodisney.
There is a predictable rhythm to theme parks: arriving later in the morning than the original plan; developing a strategy of what to see and when, based on locations and show times, and then into the rush and stop of queuing a half hour or more, riding for a couple of minutes and then on to the next thing.
A queue that lasts that long has its own internal rhythm. Arrange a large group of people in a snake and they will not only see those who are immediately fore and aft, but also everyone in a sequence ahead in the line and behind, to the distance of one row. So while you’ll see the same backs all the way round, you’ll be side-on to a whole gamut of others for the length of a trudge.
More than anything it means you can observe queuing etiquette, or more often its lack, and as no one does queuing like the British I feel in a position to judge and comment.
Just so that we are clear on this here are the rules:
1. DISTANCE – Maintain a small, clear distance between your group and the group ahead. The group behind is responsible for maintaining this distance. Each group has clear air dedicated to it, which moves with them.
2. CHILDREN – Children should be kept within the group boundary unless they are especially cute toddlers in which case limited roaming is allowed, but not so far that it suggests bad parenting. Toddlers with a mop of curly hair are allowed to go further. Children can hang off the guide rails as long as they don’t impinge on another group’s space, and they don’t cry when they fall.
3. CONSISTENCY – Maintain a set separation, don’t let the gaps grow too big – no greater than one stride. While this makes no difference to the eventual time anyone gets to the end of the queue it is an important emotional step for everyone to feel the queue is making progress.
4. COMMUNICATION – No cross group communication beyond rolling eyes at others’ lack of etiquette or sharing tired smiles as the queue stretches out. Tutting at the behaviour of others is permitted, but should not be done in collusion with another group.
5. QUEUE JUMPING – No pushing in. Ever. A significant sub group can hold places for the rest, this should be no more than 50/50, so 2 people cannot queue on behalf of a total group of 5. Adding more people to the queue than you committed in the first place is taking the piss.
6. FOOD – No eating of anything that smells, spills or makes a mess, or which will incite the children of other groups (e.g. ice cream). However small snacks are a sign of good preparation. If you have prepared well don’t gloat, this is unbecoming.
7. ABSENCE – If your entire group leaves the queue you lose your place. Except at the supermarket where it is acceptable to leave your basket to get one extra item from the shelves, however the person behind is entitled to move past you to reach the till if you take too long.
8. KISSING – No heavy petting. Get a room.
We got lucky because in general the queues were short, but it still meant we observed most of the rules of queuing being broken.
Most annoying was (1), and that in a very short, five minute, queue for Space Mountain. Everyone else was grabbing places for the fireworks and this thrilling ride was remarkably clear. There was an elder man and two teenagers behind us, let’s assume brother and sister. Bob, who is nine, and I were doing roller coasters while TBH and ZedBee (seven) were at Autopia. Brother from the following group was pressing up too close to Bob. Disney had worked its calming magic on me by then so I wasn’t in a mood to hit him, I just pointedly moved Bob away. The elder man noticed this after the second time and interjected himself between the younger man and us. Not a word was spoken. In fairness there was something in the younger man’s air that suggested social etiquette may not be his forte, so beating him into a bloody pulp may have been prejudicial.
I lied, the breach of (8) was the worst. A late teen androgyne and his girlfriend in the queue for RC Racer had me really wound up. He would periodically feel the need to crawl all over the girl, face chewing and dry humping while I stood behind with both Bob and Zedbee trying to distract them from the spectacle. This was before the Disney magic effect, and I am still a little alarmed by how vividly I imagined beating him into a boneless mass and kicking his oversexed skinny arse to one side of the queue. I hope the ride gave him a brain hemorrhage to keep whatever damage was in there already company.
Luckily for him TBH was not there (she was off on the Studio Tour and being Fast Pass ninja), he would have had a lecture at least, and more likely a sharp elbow in the ribs rather than my imaginary bodily harm.
But there were also moments of queue joy – the Australian family ahead of us in the lengthy wait for Crush’s Coaster displayed impeccable behaviour, and the cutest toddler wondered around the seemingly interminable line for Ratatouille (well worth it, we went twice, but the second time on a Fast Pass).
There are some advantages to TBH not being born on this sceptered isle. The queuing rules are not in her blood and breath, nor the intense British reserve. My problem is Lucknow blood born in Britain. For those that don’t know Lucknowites are ridiculed all over the sub continent for their excessive, absurd politeness. Two could stand in front of a door all day saying “you first”. Blend with my Britishness and … well you can guess the rest.
In a competitive positioning exercise like finding a place to watch the parade or the fireworks my combination is a terrible disadvantage. I’d concede space, passive aggressively fuming at the lack of reciprocation. TBH on the other hand is the expert in the art of the shuffle, edging slowly, inexorably into better and better positions. So one evening for the fireworks we were right up against the fence, with no one immediately ahead of us, and we were right at the front for the parade too, a place secured while I and the kids were off enjoying rides (a flagrant breach of the sub clause to rule 5). Zedbee got a high five off the White Rabbit, so I didn’t make an issue of it.
White Rabbit
The ridiculous to the sublime came on the last day. I’d earned some Dadmiles ™ queuing for an hour in the rain to reserve a slot at the Princess Pavilion so the girls could meet an actress in a big dress. The timing slot we got was the last possible one before our train home, it had worked out swimmingly. I rejoined the family in the queue to meet Mickey, which benefited from being housed in a cinema which was playing a loop of old cartoons. It was the quietest, calmest queue of all the ones we encountered, and surely a model for hour plus waits in peak season.
We turned up at the Princess Pavilion, exactly on time at the beginning of our slot, only to learn there was a further hour of waiting. I was fuming. What is the point of make people queue to reserve a time and then making them wait again? (I should note my job title at the time: Director of Planning and Performance – I hate poorly designed processes).
The staff saved the day, they listened to our plight and with a little shuffling whisked us in the side entrance and to the warm smile of Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), who was wide awake and utterly charming. It could have been a disaster, but the moment was saved. Kudos to the staff and a reprimand for the people who do the flow dynamics and capacity management at Disney Head Office.
We made it to the train, which ran all the way to St Pancras without needing to change. It saved us from hauling cranky kids off one train through a station and waiting on another, but it also meant we were with about 1500 people of whom about half were waist high, over-sugared, tired, excited and sad all at the same time. I had my Ipod which drowned out the noisy kids behind us, and our own brood were so exhausted they fell asleep quickly. Alas TBH was kept up by a chattering monster who insisted on announcing his progress on Ipad games throughout the journey.
Sleepy Zedbee
There is of course a coda of chaos. We were sold a digital download of the picture with Aurora, but given no means to actually access it. At present the email I have from Disney says there is no such service, which indicates I have been defrauded of the princely sum of 4euros. Let’s see how they recover this one. Fingers crossed for a free holiday.
END
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Ali Abbas 