The wind has crept in through my half open window,
with a jar of dreams in his leather jacket.
He's waiting patiently for me to fade into the night,
and then he will scoop up my soul
and lay it gently in the side car of his motor cycle.
We will vanish like the last ripple into the deep night,
and land on a star.
There he moves my soul, slowly, to a window seat,
where it soaks up the shimmering breath of the star,
eternal warmth, fragile, far
away the world sleeps on.
When it is time, he will scoop up my saturated soul
and, this ride, keep me warm beside him
as we return,
sinking back into the night,
which coats, a blanket, the slumbering world.
EDIT (the next day) I don't feel like I should write too much more about yesterday, simply because the poem sets the tone for how I felt last night, and it seems odd to juxtapose the fluster of the day with the serenity of the night. However, the day also deserves a slot in posterity, thus I persist.
The morning started off slow, ambling from 8am to 8:30. But she picked up pace and raced me, breathless, through the next hour, which is why I found myself scrambling, NOT ambling, out the door and to the Tube Station. Min and I parted ways with Jheri at the entrance, because she had to check something with her card, and we made our way down the steps and onto the tube, squishing ourselves in. The morning rush is no joke, and if our journey was any longer than it is, I might start to show some of the symptoms of claustrophobia. Side note: I love spelling the word "claustrophobia". Also, isn't it ironic that such a long word is a about a fear of small spaces. Or maybe it is extremely appropriate and not ironic at all. What thinkst thou?
"Thou thinkst aright. I am the merry wanderer of the night."
I love Shakespeare!
Right, back to the track; I apologise for being so twitchy!
So Min and I stood in the tube-train, our auras turned lavender, saturated with the shade of relief. However, we were in for a shocking surprise. The tube-train trundled into the next station on the line, as per usual. But then a cold voice sliced through the sweaty air, announcing something I thought I'd never hear, "There has been a signal malfunction." I don't know if the voice was as icy as it was because it was ashamed that it had to pronounce such a tragic and embarrassing turn of events, or because it was a recording. Either way, if I hadn't been worried about being late for class, I probably would have guffawed then and there. As it was, I was indeed worried, with reason, that we were going to be late, and thus the joyful guffaw was diminished to a surreptitious and slightly uncertain giggle.
In the end, City mapper came to the rescue and about five minutes after we were expected, we slowly opened the door to the classroom, unsure if we would be in trouble, since it wasn't completely our fault. Actually, I don't think Min was worried at all. I have had awful experiences with being-late-when-it-wasn't-my-fault and therefore I enter every like situation with great trepidation. I constantly forget that Americans are not British; they have retained very few of the strict and boundarious (full of boundaries) ways of the British Empire, unlike their newer and more Brit-like African counterparts (aka Arundel School, Mt. Pleasant, Harare, Zimbabwe!) So we weren't in trouble!
We had two classes today - ie. both the Photography class and the History class - because we'd had the three-day field trip to Bristol, and missed out on quite a bit of class time! I had to give my presentation in Photography class, which was exciting. I am constantly astonished by how frequently I have caught myself referring to school in such exceptionally positive terms! Truly, though, I canna' tell a lie. School here is wonderful. We are getting our essay questions tomorrow, and I am... actually looking forward to writing the essay. WHAT? The presentation was about Status and Surveillance in Victorian Photography, and I enjoyed making it, and looking up information for it, and I even realized, as the professor called my name, that I wasn't nervous about giving it! I think there's something to be said for being interested in what you're studying: not the usual, "you need to love what you do" spiel, but, rather, a subtler explanation of the fact: you need to be attuned to every aspect of the subject you're studying, in such a way that it becomes apparent to you in everything you see and hear and do and learn. If you have an appreciation for a subject in that way, then it exceeds the confines in which you would normally place the subject, and it becomes, quite literally, a part of your mind and changes the way you perceive yourself living your life. I think I wasn't nervous because I was just so excited to talk and talk and talk about everything related to the topic of the presentation! I apologise to my class for going over the 20 minute mark!
Then it was lunch time. I had packed a packed lunch which I had packed in a packed lunch package to unpack when I wanted to eat my packed lunch, and so I unpacked my packed pack lunch in the packed lunch package and ate it. I shared a fair amount of my sandwich with a cluster of pigeons.
Oh. Side track time. Indicator on. Hand signal out the window. Apply brakes. Clutch in. Change down to first gear. Clutch out. Turn the wheel. Accelerate round the corner. Clutch in. Change up to second. Right, are you on the sidetrack with me?
Why are children taught collective nouns? I think that it must actually be extremely detrimental to their imagination! I suppose you should learn the accepted basics, and know that it's a "shoal of fish" or whatever, but at the same time, what if I think it should be called a shimmer of fish? We teach children that the English language has accepted norms, and that they should use them. We teach them what the "right" way to describe something is. And then we ask them, later on in life, to use their imagination and to be creative about how they describe a group of animals. We tell them they mustn't use cliches. We tell them that they need to be original. But can we blame them when they can't write a descriptive essay, if we've indoctrinated them all along, praised them for and encouraged them to use what they've been told to use. Hm.
Well, I shared my lunch with a cluster of pigeons! I met two specific ones, who really seemed like little people! First, there was the gluttonous fatso, who fought off the poor other skinny pigeon, all for the want of a crumb of bread ("all for the want of a horseshoe nail", anyone?). And the second was a mighty black pigeon, with piercing eyes and a violent streak which I probably wouldn't have noticed if he didn't look like a caped villain who spends so much time in the dark of the night, or in his cave, that the dim depths of the furthest corner of his bunker have sunk into his soul.
I went back for the next class, which started on time, and which was shorter than usual due to the generous nature of our professor, who could see that we were all rather sleepy. After class I stayed in the room to upload my fancy-camera pictures, because the wifi at the Paul Mellon Centre is beyond compare. Indeed, it is best wifi I have ever been privileged enough to use in my short lifetime. Unfortunately, because it is so excellent, it can upload pictures of a much better quality than most other wifi networks can download with ease, and so you might have to wait a while if you want to see the pictures!
I was going to take the bus home because, as I have mentioned, I was tired. But I got distracted by basically everything, and enjoyed being distracted to such an extent that I decided to indulge my addiction to curiosity and walk home. If you would like to see what I look like when I'm in a distracted, curious, and delightfully happy mood, watch my vlog here!
I eventually made it home and collapsed onto my bed for all of twenty seconds, at which point I realised that I was hungry. So I jumped up, enthused with the thought of food, and made a pre-breaded Chicken Kiev, from Waitrose, in the oven. I did not burn anything, though my hand did narrowly escape a certain roasting when I forgot that ovens are generally hot. I baked the chicken with some chopped up garlic and then paired it with tomato and coriander, again, because I forgot to get any other vegetables. I sprinkled some spring onion rounds on top, and wiped the sides of the plate clean, like they do on tv. It worked: it tasted good! Maybe the plate wiping is the trick: does the action have some sort of magical property?
From dinner, I went to sit on my bed and proceeded to make yesterday and today's vlogs (two in two hours!) An ice-cream, taken quietly from the fridge when no one was there so that I wouldn't have to offer some to anyone (I am not kind when it comes to sharing ice cream), accompanied me for the first few minutes of my creative process.
Then I wrote the poem at the beginning of this post, sent it to a writer-friend who gave me advice about it, and promptly went to bed. Oh, I also fit a shower in there somewhere, but I can't remember when! I do know that I listened to Hey Jude though.
It was a busy day, and now that I have written this post, I am glad I was able to give it (the day) the recognition it deserves!
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