letter #10
we're all making our own sense of things
I had something I wanted to tell you, and I've been thinking about it all week, and now I can't for the life of me remember what it was. But I'm not sure whether that's because I've forgotten what it was, or because it got subsumed into my list of things I should write about and then I couldn't distinguish it from everything else that's on my mind.
This pretty much sums up my experience of being fifty. First, I'm not recalling things as quickly or as sharply as I know I used to. (I'm not going to make the flippant dementia joke here, it's more to do with hormones, mind on other things and etcetera). Second, I'm thinking a *lot* of things at the moment and with increasing urgency. It's dawning on me that if I want to get everything written down that I want to get written down, I need to write a lot and I need to write it quickly. So my mind is racing from one thought, one idea to the next, then circling back again trying to make sure nothing is left behind.
I don't have a bucket list. I get why you would, but I've never felt the need for one. Which is kind of weird when I think about how many ideas I've got, and how many plans I make, setting up spreadsheets and writing bullet journals. Or maybe not having one is simply the logical extension of a mind like mine ... I'm completely unrealistic about any to-do list, and a bucket list would be too much of a limit. So I don't have a bucket list, but I do have a lot of ideas I want to get out of my head and onto paper.
I'm trying hard at the moment to not start anything new until I've finished something old. I have a habit of not finishing things. Dresses I've sewn but never got around to putting the buttons on. Emails I've started for someone's birthday and now it's nearly Christmas. Ingredients bought for some special dish that ended up as nothing fancier than another tub of vegetable stock in the freezer. So I'm making myself finish things. Knitting in the ends of this scarf before I start looking through patterns again. Selling this batch of tea towels before I start designing another. This tinyletter, even if it's not on the topic I wanted to talk with you about. But mostly what I'm trying to finish is my ideas and the thousands of half-finished thoughts, poems, essays and stories littered through my journals, my laptop, and my mind.
One thing I have finished recently (like within the last hour) is Veep. But I'm kind of sorry I did finish that. Not in the same way I'm sorry I finished Nashville. Nashville was easy to watch and the music was great and even through the angst it always cheered me up, and I wish it could have gone on for endless seasons. That's certainly not the case with Veep. It has got many laugh out loud moments, and my goodness some of those strings of profanity-driven phrasings were sublime. But by the end of this season I felt that the nastiness was unrelenting and I'm not sure there were enough shades of light to counter the dark. I know that's the point. And what's a satire to do when real life spins so far beyond the comprehensible?
All right, well, I thought maybe I would have remembered what it was I wanted to talk to you about by now, but I think it might be time to admit defeat on that one and end here.
Sending you good wishes for the week ahead and for the month of June, whether you are snuggling in for winter or stretching out for summer.
tc xx
PS After a power blackout, is there a better way to deal with the oven clock either not letting you turn the oven on or sounding the alarm in the middle of the night other than randomly hitting the buttons with increasing intensity?