A Christmas list

13 things I have learned in the past fortnight:

1. Improvisation is not just something I do in the classroom or on stage. It’s life. 

2. Writing full-time is different to working full-time.

3. The less I achieve, the more breaks and treats I require.

4. When I relax, I am more creative. When I am creative, I am more relaxed.

5. Kindness and compassion can be self-administered.

6. I need air, light and movement every day. The shorter the day, the greater the need.

7. When my daily routine has stopped working, I can change it.

8. I am no longer a morning person.

9. Ten minutes of busy-minded meditation is still good.

10. There are some bits of Christmas I like. 

11. Christmas shopping is best done in 15-minute bursts, followed by 24-hour recovery periods.

12. If you leave an anxious dog alone with something shreddable, it can only end badly.

13. At a busy time of year, a list is good enough.

Seasonal greetings!

(ps from now on I will be posting from my new blog address here
Please join me.)
 

Stopping by woods

There's a little scrap of woods a stone's throw from my house. Scruffy, with pockets of litter - hemmed in by the backs of people's gardens, a clogged up drainage channel and new build houses, it's a place to walk the dog in the morning. Other people walk their dogs there, too, so it's as well to keep one eye on the ground.

It was a morning like any other. We were both in our own worlds. Me - composing a text message as I trailed along behind the dog, eyes flicking to the path ahead. The dog - tail up, following her nose. 

I could have missed it entirely, but something about the shimmering white light at the end of a path rarely taken by me or the dog stopped me in my tracks. Moth-like, I drew closer and at a certain point I saw them in all their glory: sunbeams - like something a child might draw with pencil and ruler – slanting through the trees. 

I stepped into the nearest beam of light and closed my eyes. I don't know why. Superstition, fancy, an imagined warmth. Nothing happened - no pot of gold, no unicorn galloping out of the trees - but for a fraction of time both seemed almost possible.

Of all the words that might capture this experience - so many now drained of meaning - there is one that my agnostic self hesitates to use; but standing in a sunbeam, right there on my suburban doorstep, the ever present thrum of A14 traffic as backdrop, I felt blessed. 

I rejoined the dog and having completed our short circuit, returned for one more look at at my sunbeams. Already the sun had moved on, only a ghostly trace remaining.

Wheely Free

I used to love cycle rides when I was a child. Before I had my own bike, my dad took me out on his. I'd perch on a block of wood strapped to his cross bar and, until I got my foot caught in the spokes of the front wheel, it was a perfect arrangement.

Next came a blue three-wheeler that me and my brother would ride on downhill; him on the saddle and me standing up behind him like a seven-year-old charioteer. I don't recall any accidents, but concussion can do that.

But it's the bike rides with my little sister, when I was a teenager, that I remember most fondly. I'd pack a flask of hot chocolate and a couple of Club biscuits and we'd be off, flying along the country lanes. Sometimes she would stand up on her pedals to moo at the cows and sometimes I'd join in. And it felt bloody marvellous. The whole of the Kentish Weald at our feet and everything we needed in one saddle bag. Propelling ourselves along under our own steam. Free to stop and look. Free to get off and push. Free to moo at cows.

We didn't have to arrive anywhere. It was all in the travelling. And thoughts and ideas were welcome to come along for the ride. Flowing through our minds like the breeze blowing through our helmet-free hair.  

Over the years, the pure joy of cycling for cycling sake has been worn away until it's become simply the best means of getting from A to B in a city of rising bollards and streets clogged with traffic. I still get some great ideas along the way - in between avoiding death under the wheels of a bus or serious injury from anarchist cyclists shooting out of side roads and jumping red lights.

And, then, I started going for bike rides again. Purposeless, aimless, glorious rides. The Cambridge guided busway has replaced the country lanes, and it's more likely to be Earl Grey and a banana in a pannier, nowadays, but it still feels bloody marvellous.

Sadly, my sister lives too far away to join me on my outings, but I know she's with me in spirit. Especially when I pass a field of cows.

November Blues

Now I like a bit of bleakness and decay as much as the next melancholic. Just a glimpse of a bare, ploughed field - all that dark, turned-over soil - and I'm belting out 'plough the fields and scatter' like a five-year old in a school assembly. I love the way the mist hovers and clings, and sign posts and cows loom out at me like I'm Pip in Great Expectations - only without the stolen pork pie. And anyone who doesn't appreciate a big old carpet of leaves underfoot must be soulless, right?

But, despite all that, there's something about November that sucks the creative life out of me. You think I'd be used to the month by now, but it's caught me out again. Moping round the house with its long November face. Sighing and speaking in that gloomy, Eeyore voice it has. 'Only five months til the clocks go forward.' And 'Nothing to look forward to, unless you count Christmas. Which I don't.' Last night it went all Walter Scott on me, and kept chanting 'November's sky is chill and drear, November's leaf is red and sear,' And isn't that typical? Only November would have an ear worm all about itself.

Being born at the darkest end of November doesn't help. Pitched into the world, full of hope and wonder, only to find darkness; cold; tacky Christmas decorations. Not for me the delicious freedom of my spring-born siblings. Lying out in their prams all day in just their nappies. Cooing and watching the clouds scud across a bright blue sky, the whole of summer ahead of them. All I got was the tedium of the same four walls. Every outing requiring a strait jacket of warm layers with only a postbox view of life. No wonder a neighbour told my mum, 'I can hear your Melanie crying two streets away.'

So maybe that's it. My inner, wailing infant is kicking off again at the first hints of winter. Maybe, I just need to get her out of the house a bit more. Move and stretch and soak up some of that shrinking daylight.

And, perhaps, I could find something nice to say about November every day for the rest of the month. Smile at it. Give it some little treats. 

That's not so hard, is it?

A meeting of minds

Writing Head wanders onto an empty stage clutching a pen and notepad.   

Improv Head bounds on clutching an imaginary picnic hamper.

Improv Head: Hi. Fantastic day for a picnic in this beautiful park. I’m Mel.

Writing Head: But that's my name, too. 

IH: Wow. That’s awesome, isn’t it?

WH: No. It’s terrible.

IH: You're blocking me.

WH: Yes, but it’s far too much of a coincidence.

IH: It worked for Shakespeare.

WH: Yes, but he gave his identical characters different names. It’ll be confusing   

having identical Mels.

IH: Hey. Enough of the ‘yes but’ crap. Audiences love this kind of stuff.

WH: Audiences? (Starts trembling and turns to stare out into the darkened theatre).

IH: Nice emotional response, Mel.  Now, what don’t you like about audiences?

WH: They give me a funny feeling in my stomach.

IH: Name it.

WH: A sort of swirly, churny sensation.

IH: Name it.

WH: I’m terrified.

IH: Great. Now let’s raise the emotional stakes.

WH: I mean what if my characters aren’t believable?

IH: Good. Keep escalating.

WH: Or the point of view is all wrong?

IH: Don’t back away.

WH: Or they find my style derivative and clichéd?

IH: You're killing me. I’m looking for a last line.

WH: WHAT IF THEY HATE WHAT I’VE WRITTEN?

IH: And, "scene"! (Exits).

WH starts scribbling on her notepad

IH: (Returns to the stage) What are you doing?

WH: I’m writing that down. 

IH: You can’t do that. I called "scene". It's finished.

WH: Yes, and it’s just what I’ve been looking for.

IH: Yes, but the whole point of making up this stuff is its in the moment-ness.

WH: ‘In the moment-ness’?

IH: Okay, okay. So you’re the writer. 

WH: (Continues to write in notepad.) ‘In the moment-ness.’ (Laughs to herself).

IH: (Tries to grab the notepad). Hey, you can't just steal that line. 

I mean, if I knew you were going to write it down, I'd have thought about it a bit more.

WH: Yes, but I love it.

IH: Yes, AND I love it.

WH: Oh, shut up with all the 'yes, and' stuff. You're doing my head in.

IH: Is that your last line?

WH: I'm going to brain you in a minute.

IH: Or is that it? You know, I think I preferred the last one..

Improv Head and Writing Head exit still bickering.