Why Can't I Sleep

   Hello. I wrote this a little while ago and those I shared it with then seemed to enjoy it. I've just reread myself and am inclined to agree with them so I thought I'd share it with you.

Why Can't I Sleep?

Is it: the hastily scrawled essays hanging Damoclean above my pillow, waiting to be marked and, free from light, stringy restraint, to plunge?

Is it: disappointment at unwon kudos cavorting in orcish glee, jabbing with gouging pikes of self-doubt and unreal, fever-dreamed success?

Do mind and soul rush down untrod roads, hoping to catch a glimpse of some unknowable, unseen monument to my greatness?

No. ...

So why can’t I sodding well SLEEP?

Why do thoughts spin and make me nauseous?

Why do visions of beauty and joy frolic, teasing, out of focus, of reach, of sound?

Why do my eyes swim with sights of one met but barely met, known but unfamiliar?

All so similar to angsty dross, so in need of exorcising, of recognising it for what shit it is.

Fiction.

Fantasy.

Guff.

You don’t love her – because you don’t know her! That’s why! You’ve hardly met!

And yet...

And yet it IS an intriguing thought – one which one ought to dismiss as idle fancy.

But if you act she MIGHT accept or at least not laugh full derisive in your face.

Mark this place and seek HER face to ask, to test, to see –

Ah...

What that face does to me – it’s a buzz, you see; a joy for me

One quick smile and this boy is floored by she who hoards my dreams and keeps them.

Let her keep them.

Or perhaps we could share them, be a pair, then, and all content lie back and stare ten hours at stars and lights and at each others’ eyes and talk of all the things we ought to have done but didn’t.

We didn’t because I wouldn’t, not if I had the time with you: I couldn’t - I’d be ensnared and scared to tread on this joyous bubble and be befuddled when this flimsy hope takes my weight and takes on shape and becomes reality. That would be really quite Okay for me.

But for now

I dream.

But still don’t sleep.

   One hopes you're well,
      Yrs,
         ADWoodward

How to Help a Small Hope Grow

Hello. On and off again over the last three or so days I've been writing a thing. The following is it:

How to Help a Small Hope Grow

                Not too far from the nearest, joy-filled group of people, there is a shadowy dell, or perhaps the right word is depression. Looking at it from the outside it doesn’t seem particularly deep nor its sides all that steep, but if one were to find oneself at its bottom there would be a certain difficulty in escaping. Perspective is a strange thing: from a slight distance outside one would think it a pleasant enough spot in which to enjoy a few beers and some intelligent chat with friends, even though it’s a tad removed from the beauty of full sunshine or the excitement of the unrestricted gale. But if one takes the time to peer in tentatively, we find ourselves looking down on a fetid quagmire that traps the feet of the playful hopes that unwittingly built their nest on the side of the depression, so near as to be almost unavoidable.

                Hopes are a strange and wonderful species of creature. They have soft coats of varying hues; some are a clean white which might hurt the eyes, some are deepest red, some blue, some green some black but all are pleasing to the eye if seen if seen in the right light. Their eyes are large and darting, full of unfocussed curiosity as they look for new meadows in which to frolic. Their soft feet are unsure when young but as they mature grow into an agility that lets them mount all but the sheerest of obstacles.

                Look! Timidly emerging from its nest is a newborn with fur like a blushing poppy. Its long-lashed eyes shyly search its surrounds for another being with whom it might forge a connection and then perhaps a friendship. It sees the grasping, sodden bog and sags in resignation. It knows it is not strong enough to leap that loathsome dell. It mews softly. It mews its cry of desperation, unable to make the leap itself, needing another, an outsider, there to help it jump but it’s afraid of being scorned by whomever hears and thrown off balance to into the depression to feed it with its death.

                A short distance away, but close enough to be just visible over the lip of the depression from the low, lowly vantage point of a young, helpless hope, there was the top of a brown-haired head. The hair was just light enough so as not to be black and in this light had two locks crossing at right angles in the wind that verged on red. That red cross was aid and salvation to the poor hope, and it mewed slightly louder and longer than before: a salutation, a call to parlay.

                The newborn immediately regretted its rash action. The owner of that hair would not want to be bothered by a thing as weak and pathetic as itself, there were far better things to do with one’s time than help a pink weasel out of a puddle. The hair probably hadn’t even heard the tiny wretched cry. It was probably better this way. Everyone know proper young hopes should be able to solve their own problems, and if this struggling, scared little one couldn’t then it probably wasn’t trying hard enough; bigger problems than a dell get overcome every minute of the day. The hope sagged again.

                But wait! The head has stopped! And now it is moving closer, revealing eyes, a nose, and a concerned but caring frown. It is the head of a young woman in navy blue. The little hope’s heart soared at the thought of someone else taking time out of their day to engage with it. Light sometimes plays tricks with your eyes, but if you had seen this moment of uplift you would have thought the fuzz-covered hope had grown a little larger. The young woman reached the edge of the depression, saw the tiny hope on the far side of it and her concern changed to determination. She reached into a pocket and pulled out a seed. You might think this seed to be a little thing, not worth anything to anyone, but you’d be wrong. It contained the hope’s salvation.

                She stuck the seed into the ground with a decisive thrust of a finger. The hope, definitely bigger now, looked on in anxiety and anticipation. There was a pause. The simple gesture had no discernible effect at first. But then a lone shoot emerged from the soil. It swayed, its tip barely an inch from the loam that had bore it. It swayed, its tip barely three inches from the loam that had bore it, then six, then a foot, then more. Much thicker than it had been, the shoot’s weight bent it down towards the depression and the hope waiting for an escape within it. The hope, itself larger and more sure-footed, stepped onto the vine the moment it touched the earth near the nest. Though shaky, the plant proved a perfectly adequate path for the hope’s egress. A fond, quick lick of the hand was all the thanks the hope knew how to give, but it was accepted by she who watched it with a warm grin as it scampered off to find food and grow into a full-fledged reality.

                The young woman, or others of a similarly caring disposition, regularly comes to the plant to check it’s still there to serve as a highway for hopes. They tend it with genuine concern and chase away the sharp-toothed doubts – vicious, buzzing creatures that seek to gnaw through the plant and leave the hopes once again stranded in the depression. This is a continual task, and not always properly rewarded, but it is thanks to considerate people like this that the hopes which emerge, unsure and barely-formed, can have a chance at growing up and loving life.

                I for one would like to thank them.

   One hopes you're well,

      Yrs,

         ADWoodward

Grandad

   Writing this really helped me deal with the events described in it. I thought it would be nice if the first proper thing I posted was one that I think is of a very high quality. I read it to Grandad while I sat and had a glass or two of my favourite wine. It was a difficult thing to do but important, I think. Also rather cathartic.

GRANDAD

Plato said that there’s reality, and then there’s one’s perception of reality, and then there’s one’s thoughts based on one’s perception of reality, and then there’s what one writes based on one’s thoughts based on one’s perceptions of reality. So what I write is necessarily distanced from reality. Brecht said that being distanced from something helps one from being overwhelmed by any emotional response to it and lets one remain an intellectually engaged being. These are both important to me because:

On Monday to Grandad’s hospital bed I sent him a text, and the sent message read:

“You’re surrounded by nurses and matrons, are you taking the opportunity to perfect your Kenneth Williams impression?”

It’s not really a text that should carry a lesson.

But on Wednesday, as Mum’s telephoned words reverbed in my head and filled me with dread and filled me with lead and led me to flop on my bed,

I realised that those words could have been the last words that I said.

And if that were the case,

Then the second last words I’d said have said, all unknowing

Would have been:

“I hear you’re researching the NHS for your next letter to Mr Selous, MP. How’s it going?”

And the third last words? The last said in person?

Something nice about my suit said in late December?

I can’t remember ...

How far back would we have to go before we came close to,

Came remotely sodding close to:

 “Grandad, I love you”?

Because it’s true.

Though it’s built on foundations of gin and caramel-vanilla bavoire and Winnie the Pooh,

And on beards, which are cool,

As any fule kno,

And on arguments about the Alternative vote -

“You’re an old bigot!” and “You’re a young scrote!” - ,

And on Haggises, which are a creature that feature only in Scotland -

They have four legs, two of which can run and two which just hop, and

On one side they’re shorter so they must stay on inclines

Where they’re prey for foreign men in sporrans who wield ferocious bagpipes -

But this won’t make sense to you.

It didn’t to anyone else.

Doesn’t;

 I must use the present tense.

Because, as Grandad said,

On Wednesday,

Over the phone,

In faux-cheerful tones:

“It’s alright, son.

 I’ve got cancer

But I’m not dead yet.”

That was true when I wrote it but now it is less so,

Because Grandad and I spoke again a little while ago

And I did say “Grandad I love you.”

 And I also said “Goodbye.”

Reluctantly.

Because although I probably can

I don’t want to manage in my new, Grandadless life

I want to scream at the grey, unfeeling sky

And demand the intervention of a God that I

Know full damn well that Nietzsche killed

And to drain my glass as soon as it’s refilled  -

But I won’t.

That would be terribly infra dig.

One does not drink wine as though it were water.

But I will do something which I think I ought to do:

I’ll fulfil a promise to eulogise in Latin.

So I’ll leave behind these dodgy rhymes

And end by squeezing that in.

‘That’ being this:

 'tu quidem ut es leto sopitus, sic eris aevi
quod super est cunctis privatus doloribus aegris.’

That’s from Lucretius, and the ancient poet’s saying

“You’re at peace in your lethal sleep

And now free from death and aging.”

This, though crudely rendered, means:

Don’t be sad a life has ended;

Enjoy memories of what has been.

   One hopes you're well,

      yrs,

      ADWoodward

Hello.

   Hello. How are you? That's to be expected, I suppose. I'm fine, thank you. Oh not much, just writing my inaugural post for this brand-new blog. Dunno, really, at this stage it's not really 'about' anything I suppose I see it as a repository of things I have written and a reason to try to write more. Well, because if I have something to do with my work I'll be less inclined to leave things half-finished and un-edited; I wouldn't want to share literary detritus with you, now would I? Hmm? I suppose it is a little irritating, yes. Because I've always liked trying to fill in the other half of an overheard phone call. Well I'll stop it, then. You're welcome.
   I dabble in a number of different genres and styles because I've always enjoyed being able to switch to a different thing if the first thing starts becoming uninteresting. So, one hopes you will be able to find something you enjoy somewhere in all this. By 'this' I mean the blog once it's up and running, though if you think this post has several layers that can be enjoyed in different ways, that would be okay, too.
   I do have a number of things already written on my laptop, but I won't simply dump it all on the internet now, I'll put the good bits up as and when, probably when I feel like I've neglected you all and your burning desire to devour my literary efforts. This desire is perfectly okay, it's natural and you should not be frightened by it, just don't let it interfere with your personal life and you'll be fine.
   A thought occurs: the beginning seems a good place to explain myself, but by the time there's actually a blog to be explained this post will probably have sunk down into the ether and so be lost by people who would benefit from it. This is probably a metaphor for something. Oh well. In any case, I think this is all I have to say at the moment, I'll let you get back to your lives.
   One hopes you're well,
      Yrs,
         ADWoodward