صورتي مكسورة 8

 صورتي مكسورة

صورة لابني في عيد ميلاده في عام ١٩٩٥

                            
الان صورة مكسورة

صورتي مكسورة لان المطر دخل الى شباك

احبت هذه الصورة جدا

Messy task, sweet opportunity

It was lovely to spend a couple of hours clearing out T's uni room and loading up the car. We had to be inventive, use a pillow case as a bin bag, find ways of opening doors with every arm filled with heavy things. I dropped a lamp base on my toes, but it hit all of them at once and the force was dissipated. T was proud to keep marked assessments showing lots of high marks. We agreed that teachers marking work are heroes.

His flat mates are so kind, holding doors open for us and making it easier.

Lots of sorting out and deciding. Lots of feeling tired, hot and sweaty. I told T to lie down on the bed at one point, just rest. I headed to his little bathroom and stopped thinking for a bit while cleaning the sink.

The car was so heavy I drove at 20 instead of 30. All those speed bumps.

(from several weeks ago)

Sharing our parents - Lost mini films

Parents

I shared my mother with the local cafe recently. I actually gave her to the owner to look after her while I took my car round to the car park. I came back to find her at a table and being greeted with kisses. That's a real Didcot welcome.

When friends of mine have their relatives at village events I try to spend time with them. Someone else's parents are the next best thing to my own.

Mini films

I have lost my latest phone which has my short films on it. Including one of T and my mother in law talking. He had come home on a flying visit so she wasn't expecting him to appear in her kitchen. I stood there and filmed while they chatted.

My unplanned films are precious.

2 sons in the house again - Didcot station

I can't explain how wonderful it is to have them both here again. I see them chatting at the kitchen table. We roll around Sainsbury's choosing food. There is another cook in the house. The table now has a box of tool kit on it. H and I played a game called First Impressions last night. We are not ready to wrap it up for Christmas yet. T and I went off for an enjoyable trip to put petrol in his car because he couldn't be bothered to go by himself. I stood there watching him do all the actions. He drove me and I paid no attention to the traffic, just let him get on with it.

I give T a huge hug in our kitchen doorway because I am so pleased. We arrange to drive past the car park so he can pick up his car tomorrow morning after a pub trip out this evening. I sit by Didcot Station late at night with yet another book, half reading, half gazing into space thinking my own thoughts as I wait yet again for him to arrive.

Best of all, I can go and have mulled wine at the cafe if I want because T said he'll be my driver! Luxury. We can sit there with our books and while away some time together.

After Royal Holloway, fit in a visit to London

H and I worked together to put all the sheets on T's bed for him
After the moving in process we all went off in different directions.

Turned my coffee order into a takeaway when my mother crossed the road to say she was in
Little lunch with her, glass of wine to celebrate this momentous day

Walked to the Tate, decided on some Turner
A lot better with my glasses off, just colours and placing of pictures on the walls

I love the different colours on the walls of the rooms
Each one brings out a different colour in the pictures on the wall

One room has very detailed glitzy gold frames, my favourite
Another has such plain, simple gold frames, my favourite too

I know I dislike pale pictures, but one has snow on mountains I peer very closely at
The bits of white paint are so very simple, I can't work out how it is so effective

a film which looped of French nuns chatting in a provincial accent I couldn't place
such  pleasure to listen to their voices and see their smiles, expression and body language

no arabic guide at all, how annoying, I could do with simple sentences with photos
ask the centre pompidou in paris instead, they are bound to have a guide

book on freud by david sylvester, interviews on working

2 pigeons walked and jumped down a complete series of steps outside the Tate
I was so taken by their plan that I just stood and watched them

parked in ovington square, house has blanked out windows, no glazing yet
basement still sealed off, renovation continues

knightbridge might have an arabic bookshop, with children's board books?
harrods might have a section...no, but bukowski instead, a surprise

all the jewellery sections in harrods, I had forgotten how it is there
so very expensive, shiny, so varied, so much to look at,

qatari cafe with filled and decorated dates, never seen anything like it
20£ for 3 sweets or 30£ for 6, I felt totally out of place

beautiful golden table tops/trays, men sitting there with their phones
tables so close together, I wouldn't want to be there as a stranger

maybe with a friend and at an end table
very luxurious and perfect, a special smell in the air too, the tea?

2 cars driving very fast in the left lane then turning left through a very red light
I guess chasing each other, no one hooted at them though, all very patient with them

I read some Arabic written on a car in the fast lane next to me,
I read it all bit by bit, a business delivering Lebanese food quickly, 'express'.

--

This is from a draft from the 20th September, the day T left home to go to University.

Last night before leaving home for uni

i just ate hughs last tictac showing me the empty packet
just dont shout too loudly hugh was asleep on teh sofa next door


I need more pillows
Take any you like

I need to do a reconciliation
Its 100£ im not going to get my card until the amount seeetles
its 110£
its 150£
I think I will go and get my money card now

I am wondering whether I should go to bed tonight or not. It's a bit like Christmas Eve or being in labour, sleeping is just not relevant. We need to drive off at 8am tomorrow anyway.

---

I like this because it is just typed in quickly, typos and all.
I did have a proper night's sleep after all.
The trip went well, we are now two households, one here and one there.
A first labour brings a presence, this time it brings an absence.
I haven't been skyped yet.

Money, I was going to give this to 52, but I don't think it would count as poetry

52:32:6

True email to my son - is this poetry? 'Hell Yeah' as my son would say!

"Eh, what? £400?

Help, I can't transfer cash from RBS to Barclays account that fast. I think you need to have a heart to heart with Stuart about £££.

Sarah xx"

Huh! It seems to be true that poetry sorts out your soul - 19 years ago this night

Sorting out my soul

I'm embarrassed to be admitting this, after somehow forgetting to just try out what we are being asked to experiment with on the Iowa course. My reward is to be able to read and comment on others' experiments.

It took another horrible chest pain to get me to do this, and a visit to the doctor. He didn't tell me to do anything, just listened when I said I knew it was a warning shot from the deep to sort out some things. He asked whether I'd wait for it to happen again before I acted. Do my notes say "Sarah likes to pretend all is ok"?

19 years ago

T was born on 2nd August 1995, there was a bit of a thunder storm that night over Oxford as I looked out of the windows at the Radcliffe. Many hours later he was born, in the afternoon. It really does split my life in two, before and after the first birth. I think the moment of moving from one life to the next was the moment he was given to me and I felt him in my arms, hot and wet against the skin of my belly. Nothing compares. Even then we didn't know he was a he, all that umbilical cord, I couldn't see and needed to look into his dark blue eyes again. It is so, so physical.

---
From drafts. This was from last week.

Motherboard - Howl

Motherboard

T drove off to pick up speakers and an amp. He showed me the inside of the amp. It was so beautiful, sparkling clean and individual looking. Every mother bord I have ever seen is so artistically designed, I have seen quite a few since T started to be interested in electronics aged 6 or so.

I made happy noises, then told him to take some photos of it, he already had!

Howl

We are getting ever closer towards performance poetry now, which will mean watching videos on YouTube, but for the moment we are each still reading out the entirety of the pieces we study together. This will be the longest yet by far. I am typing here while I do the photocopying. Being a lax leader..normally I do all this straight after each Sunday evening session. I should be in the car already.

Car wash - Andrew Motion - This Room of Waiting - Milestone

Car wash

We piled into the back of T's car to help him with the process of going through the car wash for the first time. We had such a good time. Took photos, video, made a lot of noise, wondered if his aerial survived. All good.

Andrew Motion

A group of us went to sit in the front row and listen to a reading and explanation of his life. I can't put into words how seeing a person stand or sit there and speak alters the silent words on a page. Before I encountered poets reading out their own work and speaking a bit before and afterwards I had no idea about this reality which comes across so strongly.

I had been used to the facade people presented in my school, university and work life, not to mention family life until recently. It seemed to me that reality was a carefully hidden concept, to be teased out via special insights and articles in books I could never find. Now I see that reality is right there, shouting, waving its arms around. Just stop wishing things were different or should be some other way, and open your eyes.

Edinburgh/This Room of Waiting

My parents have been busy with the Queen's Garden Party at Holyrood and Gareeb Iskander, who took part in an Exiled Writers Ink reading recently in Oxford, has been busy with a book launch there too.

It is This Room of Waiting and has several reviews already. It is a bilingual edition so would be suitable for anyone studying on their own or who has a small study group to work on the Arabic together.

You can see that I am trying my best to create a study group. In my village or Didcot would be best. It hasn't come together yet, but I am always optimistic. I already have too many books to read over the summer, so I might delay getting the book until it is time to get a Christmas present for myself.

Another huge milestone

I had bought steak for supper. Since my head is not quite right I asked T if he'd be able to make some for me. He did! So he kindly brought me steak and chips, even with lettuce and a knife and fork. It was so delicious, manna from heaven. I have thanked him a couple of times, but it's not enough to explain how cared for I am.

For everyone's inner engineer - conversation - Oxford

Here are 2 videos which my son T has just shown me:

Dyson - Air Multipliers and the blue balloon

Honda - The Cog sequence

He and I have discussed the summer, internships, travel to Scotland, money (all conversations get to money eventually), petrol, the tiring and unsuccessful trip to Henley to pick up his father this evening and a holiday invitation.

I typed out my cv this afternoon and gave it to the person I have wanted to give it to for months. So all in all a successful trip to Oxford for me this evening. Plus bumping into someone I know, who I bought a hot chocolate for. I hope it helps in some way. At least we can chat about stuff in an almost normal sort of way. He may be homeless, but I met him in better circumstances and we have mutual friends. His dog always recognises me and likes having his nose stroked.

Passenger - 'Morning Song' Sylvia Plath

Passenger

I told T how proud I was to be sitting as a passenger in his car. We were driving off to get his second tank of petrol. I gazed at the clouds. Not quick glances, but real long idle stares as it wasn't dark. I didn't check the junctions. I thought I should be paying more attention to the possible surprises which I always get when I am driving. Hedgehogs, cats, new potholes and oddly parked cars all come out when I'm driving.

Love set you going like a fat gold watch - 'Morning Song'

Earlier I had a second session on Sylvia Plath with my Sunday poetry group. A poem I had thought to end with turned out to be unsettling. I still love it, but between us we found so much more in it than I had seen by myself. We share our own thoughts, but get so much further and so much faster by sharing them in a group. I can't imagine it working with more than 3 people though.

Two hours

Sudden changes just arrive. Now T drives his own car to work each day. So I have two extra free hours each day, but one hour less with him. I still get up to see him off and am here to see him get back.

They did the last radio show from our house this evening. I have just cleared up the kitchen after dropping them off at the station. Steak, chips, strawberries, raspberries, meringues and ice cream. They are celebrating in Reading, so I will be doing a late night pick up in a few hours' time. All those lives sitting in my car, so I drive extra safely.

Now T doesn't need me for the journeys, I could take off with H and just go somewhere for a few weeks... London, Dartmoor, the sea? Too much freedom? St Ives, the Borders, Skye? Camp in the garden and go on strike? Build bonfires each evening? Move into the old stable in the back garden and be a hermit? One with lots of friends!

So many firsts

I bought a car today, saw my son sign the paperwork, drove off separately and met him at a nearby supermarket car park, ate and chatted, bought a bit of car kit, sat with him while he drove to put some petrol into it, watched the process, paid, walked back to my car, drove some distance behind him on his first independent trip back to work, had a goodbye in that car park and now I'm off to London.

We will keep in touch by text until I get back tomorrow sometime.

The previous attempts to find a car were all wrong. With this one every step went well, even when they didn't, if you see what I mean. The overall flavour of the process was good right from the start.

I nearly spoilt my ballot paper - So I am protesting here instead

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the words on the ballot paper. It was a mile long and had names of parties plus the logos. The bit which got me was that it was clearly legal to put phrases like 'zero-immigration' and 'no immigration' onto a public document like that which is for everyone to consider while they go through the important process of voting.

If I had protested on the ballot it would have been disallowed, so I had to just put my X in the box, then put my vast folded thing of paper into the actual box of votes.

It was my older son's first time voting so we went in together and talked about it all afterwards, without revealing who we had voted for.

Later my younger son took the opportunity to be annoying and tell me how wonderful UKIP were late at night. It was part of an important conversation though, so a bit of stirring was ok.

Bonfire after dark - Chatting - The Waste Land

Bonfire

H and T came out with me to light a bonfire. We had to go on a bit of a search to buy the marshmallows first.

H arranged the bricks and other things to make a fireplace. I added the firelighters, kindling and 2 logs.

We snapped off dry twigs from the surviving eucalyptus tree to roast the marshmallows with.

The builders have left their chairs in a circle around the garden table. We borrowed those, but carefully left the cardboard cushions they have made for themselves, one for each chair!

Chatting

T and I wound up laughing about Amazon o'clock, that moment when you decide to buy lovely books online. For me it is 11pm, for him it is on the train journeys back and forth to see his girlfriend. We did chuckle at our predictable weaknesses.

The Waste Land

How can anyone think of studying this in just 2 hours? Our poetry group did. We got half way through, then started talking about personal stuff, so that was the end of T S Eliot until our next meeting.

We had been reading sections out loud in turn, then had plenty of 2 minute sessions to speak without the other person interrupting.

I had the section about the Tarot cards and found it an amazing piece to read out, I was reading in an unearthly way with unexpected pacing. I appreciated that the most from this evening's work.

Lines 43 to 59 from the first section The Burial of the Dead. Text here.

Hilarious old post from 2009

This is just so true and funny. If I hadn't blogged about my dreadful day as a mother it would have been lost for ever. I hope it gives you a good laugh. It shows how lovely T and H were, and are.

http://shinynewcomputer.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/not-good.html

Shifting gears

It is a huge switch to drive back from a weekend of being with a large group. We were working together, chatting and eating together. Pruning, planting potatoes, doing things with wheelbarrows...

I found myself just sitting at home, half there and half elsewhere. I was by the phone, so after a bit I collected myself enough to call my parents and speak to them both.

I pay so much attention to their voices, listening for any changes, the slightest hint of something. Does this come from the years of working at Standard Life, hearing endless tales of woe from brokers and clients?

T is still out of the house. Being up here is no help as I need to be by the phone to get the call to go to the station to collect him.

Dictionary

I have had 2 successes with my Arabic dictionary today.

While waiting for T to come out of work I did some work and came across a word which had foxed me ages ago on Twitter. It was just there on the page close to what I was looking up. The fact I spotted it even though I hadn't been looking for it at all surprised me. It shows that learning happens in its own mysterious ways.

At home H and I were chatting. He flipped through the dictionary so I suggested he have a look at the English words. I said it was mainly in English to be honest. He read out some which were to do with splitting, distinguishing and dividing.

Radio show: songs from artists who will release an album in 2014

T and O are busy upstairs with the show. It is back after the New Year break.

http://www.centovav3.shoutstream.co.uk/start/leighton/

They are gossiping about their friends...I hope they don't offend their small listener base.