Words and Civilisation: “Busy”

Posted on November 25, 2012 by Scribe Doll

As I understand it, it is a medical fact that an allergy is often an intolerance to a substance with which your body is already saturated.  A kind of overflow.  In other words, an allergy is your body’s way of screaming it has had enough.

I have developed an allergy to the word “busy”.

It has increasingly become the one-size-fits-all shield for disorganisation, incompetence, lack of professional courtesy, disregard, carelessness and blatant rudeness.

You attend a social celebration, such as a wedding, anniversary, birthday, christening, etc.  You take the socially de rigueur present.  That is your end of the bargain.  The recipient’s end, is to send the equally socially stipulated thank you note, within a reasonable amount of time.  The prompter the thank you, the stronger the signal that your gift – and you – are appreciated.  Three months go by, and you finally receive the thank you note.  On it, is scribbled, “Sorry for the delay.  I/we’ve been so busy.”

You are left assuming that your friend’s implication is that his/her life is too full of interesting things to prioritise thanking you.

 

A while ago, I worked for an establishment for over two weeks before I was able to find out exactly how much I would be paid.  Each time I tried to broach the subject, my boss  would wave me away with ,”Sorry, yes, we simply must sort out your pay.  It’s just we’re very busy at the moment.”

 

I also once had a job interview, at the end of which – since the subject had not been raised by my prospective boss – I asked what the rates of pay were.  “Oh, yes, I knew there was something I had to find out,” he said.  “Sorry, it’s just been so busy  here.”

 

It took three e-mails on my part, finally to be given a daily rate.

 

Of course, in the current economic climate in the UK, you are afraid to make a fuss and insist on what some might actually define as your rights.  The unspoken fact that there are plenty of other people out there, who could step into your post at a second’s notice, dictates the power dynamic between you and employers.  The latter are too busy to deal with the tiny detail of your pay.  Apparently, they are too busy to establish a mutually respectful relationship with their staff.

 

Is the generally recognised definition of work not a financially remunerated activity, or am I being old fashioned?

 

Another breeding ground where the word busy thrives, is within the context of business e-mails and telephone calls.  Use this code word to justify why you have not returned a message and it places you above the need to provide further explanation.

 

Those of us who have worked in showbiz, know that this word is a particular favourite among theatrical agents and casting directors (usual exceptions apply).  You leave a message for an agent, enquiring about the availability of a particular actor for one of your projects; or inviting a casting director to a show.  You wait a couple of days, then leave another message.  Until you hear back, you cannot move forward.  You cannot register interest in another actor, lest the first one turns out to be available and keen.  You cannot go ahead and invite another casting director to the show because you might not be able to afford to buy more than one top price West End ticket.

 

So you ring again, a third time, in a state of anxiety – fearful of being considered a pest – mixed with simmering anger – you resent their blatant implication that they are the ones with the power over you.  They pick up the ‘phone and you mime along as they say, “Oh, sorry I didn’t call you back.  I was really busy.”

 

The tone is invariably cavalier or flippant.  The kind of tone appropriate if the person has mistakenly poured milk into you tea when you prefer it black.  So you refrain from shouting, “And you think I’m not too busy to keep having to call you?!”, breathe a smile into your voice, and reply, “Of course, I understand…” while scribbling profanities on your notepad.

 

Then, there are those individuals who use the word busy as a conversation stopper. Among those are (again, usual exceptions apply):

 

– High-profile theatre directors at parties, when approached by anyone considered short-term inconsequential.

 

– Clergymen after Sunday services, when asked “How are you?” by single females under sixty, just before scooting away.

 

Other variants on busy are:

 

– Hectic:  Interestingly the term originally referred to the recurrent fever that accompanied tuberculosis.  Perhaps someone should tell them that.  Someone securely established in his/her profession, naturally.

 

– Mad: Do they mean “insane”?

 

– Snowed under: Offer them a shovel.

 

Some use an original alternative, such as “I am totally disorganised”.  Is that supposed to be a good quality?

 

Busy.  Perhaps they should patent it as a one-size-fits-all immunity from responsibility  and basic good manners device.

 

Scribe Doll

 

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When the Day is Perfectly Still

Posted on November 18, 2012 by Scribe Doll

I like still days, like yesterday in London.

They creep up on you softly and, suddenly, you walk out of the house and find yourself in the midst of one.  Early winter days, when the sky is a grey so pale, it is almost white.  Not a breath of wind to stir the few fiery leaves left on the tree branches.  Not a bird to be seen on the almost naked trees.  Not a sound to be heard.  No squirrel scurries across the lawn.  The garden is cloaked in a fine veil of grey, like a dust sheet.  Everything is so quiet and still, you wonder if the day is there at all, or if you are drifting through a dream.  Then, an insidious, icy dampness unexpectedly permeates your coat, slides its fingertips over the back of your neck under your scarf, and presses its cold lips on your cheek.  And you know, the day is definitely there, around you.  It has been waiting for you, like an invisible stalker.  It is a day that whispers into your ear, “Go back home.  This is no time to be out.  If you do need to be out, then tread softly in the streets – slowly, and make no noise.  Do not be noticed.  I will put my arm around you, and escort you to make sure you are safe.”

And so, after accompanying me to the shop for a pint of milk, the still day then walks me back home, its protective arm around me.  I know it by its cold breath on my neck, in that bare gap between my scarf and my short hair.  It sends a shudder through me.  A warning of sinister abilities, although I know I am not on its hit list.  Whatever its intentions, they are not against me.

It sees me home safely and counsels me to lock the door behind me.  I have no place outside today.  It is a day for staying in and looking out of the window, as the grey veil thickens.  I put nightlights in glass holders, and watch them glow in the dusk.  I make some tea.  It has slivers of almond mixed in with the leaves, and the sweet aroma wafts out of the warm yellow teapot.  Waiting for the tea to draw, I pour milk into the bottom of a bone china mug and take the tin of porridge oatcakes out of the cupboard.   Outside, the street lights come on shyly, glowing faintly in the mist, as though afraid to intrude on the growing darkness.

Everything is still, in a state of anticipation.  As though preparing for something.  As though something is about to happen.

Scribe  Doll

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‘A Many-Splendoured Thing’ by Han Suyin – An Undervalued Treasure

Posted on November 11, 2012 by Scribe Doll

I was very sad to hear, through fellow-Red Roomer Kim Packard, of the death of writer Han Suyin, last 2 November.  Only last Sunday, I mentioned her novel, A Many-Splendoured Thing, in my piece about the moon.  I was very sad, that she did not know just what a powerful impression her best-known book has made on me.  Best-known, because Hollywood made it into a film – with Oscar-winning song – starring Jennifer Jones and William Holden.  Although the film is pure Technicolor, Stereophonic Sound, Swelling Strings and bucketfuls of Sentiment, as only Hollywood used to be able to serve up, it does not do the novel justice, and I am sorry that it is that – rather than the book itself – which sticks in the memory of my mother’s generation.  As for my own generation, I have met few readers who have heard of either the film or the book.  Since the book seems to be  currently out of print, I managed to locate, through Amazon, a copy for myself, then a couple more for friends, neither of whom has read it, yet.  I suspect it lies somewhere, buried under other books or papers, forgotten.  Not contemporary enough, and not a classic.  I guess the enthusiasm I tried to convey was not persuasive enough.

I am genuinely surprised that more people have not read A Many-Splendoured Thing,  since it is a gem.  It is like a small piece of Ethiopian Opal I have.  From a distance it is just a brick brown stone, but pick it up and turn it in the light, and you see flames of gold, vermillion and emerald flashing inside it.

Every obituary of Han Suyin I have read so far*, states that A Many-Splendoured Thing is a love story based on the author’s own true life affair with  journalist Ian Morrison, who was killed whilst covering the Korean war.  A love story, it is.  So much more than a love story, though.  It is a chronicle of Hong Kong life in 1949-50.  A place as colourful as the people who inhabit it, most of whom are just passing.  Western missionaries and businessmen escaped from the troubles in China, waiting in the hope that they can return to evangelising or making money.  Starving refugees who flood in every day.  Wealthy Chinese on the run from Communists.  There is the sexually abused Chinese servant girl  who risks everything to stand up for herself.  There is the narrator’s own sister who defies the rules and traditions of her family with her dream of escaping China.  The British expats who look down on the locals.  Han Suyin describes Hong Kong as a place

“where people come and go and know themselves more impermanent than anywhere else on earth.  Beautiful island of many worlds in the arms of the sea.  Hongkong.

And China just beyond the hills.”

As narrator and character in her own novel, Han Suyin is a Eurasian (her mother was Belgian and her father, Chinese) in a milieu where this is viewed by the polite society of cocktail parties and gossip, as a result of a kind of promiscuity, of breaking social codes.  Yet it is that very mix of East and West that gives her that invaluable insight into both cultures.  She is able to describe each with first-hand experience.

In the book, the narrator – a widow with a young daughter – makes a conscious choice to be Chinese.  Having completed her medical training in England, she waits in Hong Kong for the right time to go and practise in China, confident that the Communists will not harm a doctor.  Loyal to her Chinese upbringing, she does not intend to marry again, saying that her heart is safely dead.  When she meets journalist Mark Elliott at a dinner party, events are triggered that are beyond her careful emotional control.   She describes the meeting in a precise manner which stirs the reader and yet is strangely unsentimental.  A man comes to sit in the chair next to her.  She looks up at him.  Suddenly, she is acutely aware of the texture of the carpet under his shoes, as though it were against her skin.    “It was as if something had suddenly turned in its sleep within me, and sighed,” she writes.

Mark Elliott, however, is a married man.  Moreover, the couple have to contend with the prejudice and offended sensibilities of both Westerners and Chinese.  Han Suyin goes on to relate the affair not merely as a passionate love which capsizes their lives but as a thing of rare and refined beauty.  She describes feelings with the eye of an aesthete admiring the cornflour blue patterns of a rare porcelain vase, or a poet describing the hues of a peacock’s tail.  Both she and her lover are extremely sensitive to Beauty, whether that manifests itself in the perfect roundness of the moon rising up in the sky during the Moon Festival, or the grace of colourful Chinese goldfish, or poetry.  One gets the feeling it is Beauty that nourishes their relationship.  A relationship that lives and breathes every ounce of the world’s splendour.

Like so many Easterners writing in English, Han Suyin’s prose is poetical without too much lyricism.  It is as careful as a quill drawing an abundance of flowery and ornate  – but nonetheless rigorously precise – patterns on a parchment.  Patterns so intricate, you may often interpret them in more than one way.  Here you see the swirly tail of a dragon – and yet it also looks like a bird of paradise.  The double-meanings of Eastern philosophical poems.  The understatements which make the message all the more powerful.

A poem, by Francis Thompson, is also what gives the novel its title.  It is this extract, from O World Intangible, that Mark Elliot sends Han Suyin in a letter from Korea:

“The angels keep their ancient places:–

Turn but a stone and start a wing!

‘Tis ye, ‘tis your estrangèd faces,

That miss the many-splendoured thing.”

Love story, political history, social portrait and pure, unadulterated beauty, A Many-Splendoured Thing is a book that belongs in the Mount Parnassus of 20th Century Literature.

 Scribe Doll

* Han Suyin Guardian obituary

* Han Suyin The Independent article

* Han Suyin New York Times obituary

* BBC Radio 4 Last Word (18 minutes 44 seconds in)

* Television interview with Han Suyin

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Theatre: ‘The Upstairs Room’ – We are who we are not in spite but because of others.

Posted on November 7, 2012 by Scribe Doll

Playwright David K. O’Hara

It all began in Oxford, last year, with director James Savin planning to direct Sartre’s play Huis Clos.  Playwright David K. O’Hara read it and something did not sit well with him.  In Huis Clos, we are in hell – represented by a Regency-styled room in which the lights never go off – where a womanising coward, a murderous floozy and a manipulative lesbian are stuck with one another for eternity.  An eternity they spend driving one another crazy but are unable to go against their natures.  Sartre said, “L’enfers, c’est les autres.”  In other terms, it is other people who are hell, and you can only be who you are in spite of other people.    David K. O’Hara did not share that viewpoint.  In fact, he felt strongly against it.  So he went to see James Savin, and volunteered to write – in a month flat – another play to be staged instead of Huis Clos.  A kind of retort to it, which supports the theory that you are who you are because of other people.  This play is The Upstairs Room.

Anthony Cozens (Gordon) and Liza Callinicos (Stella)

David K. O’Hara’s play is set in a London struck by an ecological disaster.  Trying to escape the rising waters, and whilst awaiting forged documents he needs in order to return to  the US, Gordon – a writer – finds himself taking refuge in the attic room of a halfway house.  There, he meets sexy, enigmatic Stella and impish teenager Iris.  Trapped together, the women take Gordon on an emotional roller-coaster which forces him to face the painful truth of who he really is, and why he is there.  When he finally looks at himself, Gordon sees a man he did not know.

Bret Jones (the Manager)

Unlike Huis Clos, what we have in The Upstairs Room is not the eternal damnation of hell, but a cathartic journey through purgatory towards redemption.  Unlike Jean-Paul Sartre, David K. O’Hara gives us a glimpse through all the layers of evil and anger, into what is the fundamental purity of humankind.  He also gives us a glimmer of hope.  Self-destructive patterns can, in fact, be broken, and allow love to flow freely.

 

 

The Upstairs Room is a play relevant to our times, when man-made ecological disasters

Lucy Wray (Iris)

are a backdrop to growing poverty, despair and anger.  Confronted by a planet rebelling against human abuse, we are forced to re-examine our values and our long-standing patterns of behaviour both towards nature, and our fellow-humans.

Creating happy, new patterns is also the philosophy of Anthony Cozens, Steven Mills and James Savin, the three men who set up Giddy Notion, the production company staging The Upstairs Room.  “I graduated from drama school ten years ago,” says Anthony Cozens, who also plays the role of Gordon.  “After ten years, you tell yourself that you’ve served a long enough apprenticeship, and it’s time to take your career into your hands, and create an environment where you grow professionally, doing projects you believe in.  So I got together with Steven [Mills] and James [Savin] and we are working on creating a space where not only we three but also other actors and creatives can thrive.  A space where we can all help one another get to where it is we want to get to.”

Director James Savin

In these hard times where Arts funding is cut, and Film, TV, Theatre and Radio sometimes seem to revolve around a small group of box office proven names, Giddy Notion’s mission statement is truly inspiring, and one cannot but applaud it and wish it success.  After all, in these dark times, it is an act of great courage to see light.

Scribe Doll

The Upstairs Room is playing at the King’s Head Theatre                                                    (115 Upper Street, Islington, London N1 1QN) from 13 November to 8 December 2012.   Box Office Tel. +44 (0)20 7478 0160

For further information, please click here.

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And What of the Moon?

Posted on November 4, 2012 by Scribe Doll

Sun-kissed, sunbathe, suntan, a sunny disposition. Good morning, Sunshine.

And what of the Moon?

In his magical book, Portrait of the Gulf Stream, Erik Orsenna tells us that the Moon is getting further away from the Earth.  No wonder.  There is only so much snubbing a lady can take.  It must be discouraging to play second fiddle to the Sun, millennium after millennium.

In England, the national mood lifts beyond recognition on a sunny day.  Scowling Londoners actually smile at perfect strangers, in the street.  Some will even say, “Isn’t it a glorious day?”

Now the Moon can flood the streets of Mayfair with quicksilver, and let the Thames ripple over her image in its waters.  Nobody will stop and say, “What a splendid night!”

Time and again, I will be walking back from dinner or a show, with a man.  I will suddenly stop in my tracks.  The sight of the moon has taken my breath away.  He inevitably asks what has captured my attention.  I point at the sky.  I seldom get an awe-struck response.  Actually, no, not seldom – never.  They react as though it is just up there, a part of the furniture.  Nothing special.  If a man is not sensitive to the charms of the Moon, then how can I possibly trust him to appreciate me – a daughter of the Earth?

In Han Suyin’s A Many-Splendoured Thing – in my opinion, one of the most romantic novels ever written – the Eurasian narrator and her British lover sit in a restaurant in Hong Kong, waiting for the Moon to rise in the evening sky.  It is the Moon Festival, and the people set off firecrackers to frighten the clouds away from the face of the Moon.  The sense of trepidation, of awe, and of love for all that is beautiful,  makes it one of the most powerful moments in the book, for when the moon finally appears in all her glory, you feel that our protagonists are drawn even closer together by their admiration of her.

I have always loved the moon.  If moonlight ever streams into my bedroom, I open the curtains wide, and go back to bed, basking in its silver glow, feeling protected.  I can sit by the window, and watch the moon for hours, breathing in her inspiration.  I love all phases of the Moon.  I have seen a delicate New Moon crescent suspended from a black sky, over a minaret, in the Alhambra.  I have seen a huge, amber Full Moon reflected in the Canal Grande in Venice.  I have seen a platinum Gibbous Moon look down on the Palace of Westminster, part of her face hidden, as though under the wide brim of a hat.

Since I was a child, I have dreamed of living in a house with a top room with a glass ceiling.  I could then lie in bed, and watch the Moon and Stars slowly travel across the sky above me, as I drifted into sleep.

I do not like scientific programmes or articles about the Moon.  I am too much of a romantic for that.  I like to see the Moon from the distance nature intended.  A distance wide enough to allow room for all my fantasies.

As a child, I wrote fairy tales.  In one of them, I imagined an entire realm of castles and music on the Moon.  Humans could not see it, of course.  Over the course of my life, I have confided in the Moon many a secret, uttered many a wish, and shared many a joke.

There is magic, ispiration, romance and mystery in moonglow.

Oh, and contrary to the lyrics of A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square, the Moon is a she.  Most definitely.  Just look at her.

Scribe Doll

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Hallowe’en Edition

Posted on October 28, 2012 by Scribe Doll

No – not the polyester black capes, rubber bats and plastic axes.  Not the fake fangs and stage blood.  Not the tack.  It has little to do with the original spirit of Hallowe’en.

And, please, let us spell it correctly.  Hallowe’en.  With the apostrophe, since it derives from All Hallows’ Eve[ning].  I have read that, before the Christian Church superimposed its holy days on so-called pagan rituals, it was called Samhain (pronounced Sow-in), which means “end of summer”.  It was the festival of the harvest, one of the four significant days which marked the halfway point of the four seasons.  It was the day the Celts honoured the dead, and which marked the start of the new year.  There was nothing ghoulish about honouring the dead.  The Celts believed in the immortality of the soul and – as Julius Caesar recorded – in reincarnation.  The ancient Druids believed that on Samhain, the skin between the two worlds was so thin, mortals could cross it to go to the other side, and so could spirits.  If you had not done harm to folk whilst they were alive, you had no reason to fear their wrath on Samhain.  Unfortunately, there is little written documentation about Celtic beliefs, since knowledge was transmitted orally.  What we have, is writings by non-Celts, such as the afore-mentioned Julius Caesar.  What we do know, is that the Celts had a deep love and respect for the earth, nature and the elements.  I understand they practised what we now call sound therapy.  Moreover, I am told that they knew the exact distance between the Earth and the Moon.

I have always enjoyed Hallowe’en.  There is magic in the air, as autumn takes over the land, turns greens into sienna, scarlet and gold.  Cold winds sweep leaves off the trees, and spin them in a whirl before depositing them on the ground.  The sky turns a severe grey.  After a summer of indulgence and play, Nature seems keen on reminding us who is boss.  As someone who drank fairy tales with my mother’s milk, I see magic in this display of natural forces.  No time of year inspires a feeling of awe in me, as autumn.  Autumn is full of enchantment, when Nature turns alchemist, and transforms the landscape into fiery hues.

As a girl, on Hallowe’en, I would indulge in fortune telling with other girls.  We all went to bed hoping that the faces of our future husbands would be revealed to us in our dreams.  When I grew older, I had a phase of inviting friends over to read ghost stories by candlelight.

For me, autumn has always marked a new beginning, much more so than New Year’s Day.  Perhaps, this is connected to academic years.  There is something inspiring about the sight of Nature cleaning house and going to rest before the travails of Spring.  The latter may well be about birth, and the coming to light of things new but, in a way, Autumn is the getting pregnant and quietly nurturing the unborn child away from prying eyes, until the babe is strong enough to face the visible world.  Around Hallowe’en, I get a feeling of excitement.  It is easy to admire the in-your-face splendour of Spring and Summer but you need to sharpen your senses to see the discreet charm of Autumn and Winter.  The rustling of leaves in the wind, the delicate crunch of dry leaves under your feet, and the swishing sound of wind’s breath.  The comforting sweet scent of moist soil, and the cooling smell of drizzle.  The rich taste of roast chestnuts, the sugary flavour of pumpkin; the sweetness of potatoes baked in coals.  I pick up conkers, put them in my pockets, and run my fingers against their perfect, cool smoothness.

Today, the clocks went back.  A gift of an extra hour.  A gift of a new opportunity.  In that hour, you could make a decision that could change your whole life for the better.  A new beginning.

I shall now go out and buy a pumpkin.  I will scoop out the insides and fry them with sage, garlic, Cayenne pepper and pine nuts.  The shell, I will carve into a pair of laughing eyes, a pert nose, a joyful grin, and two eyebrows.  One of the eyebrows will be raised – with an expression of highly amused scepticism.  My pumpkin will appear to say, “Nothing is quite as it seems.”

Scribe Doll

 

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When Writing Tips Become Platitudes

Posted on October 21, 2012 by Scribe Doll

I am a scribbler.  I love writing but, I confess, I seldom read articles or blogs about writing.  Barring the usual exceptions, of course, I confess I find reading about writing tedious. I would far rather read a story than a piece on how to write a story.  Just like I love food but food programmes on television generally bore me.  For me, writing should come out in ready-made form, like a woman’s make up.  I do not want to see her applying it in public.  I am not particularly interested in the process – just in the finished product.

That is why I will keep this short.

As a writer, I have, over the years, heard large quantities of feedback on my first drafts of plays and fiction, and those of other people’s work in progress.

Here is the kind of feedback I find invaluably useful:

No. 1 Does the reader believe it?

No. 2 Is the reader confused?

No. 3 Is the reader enjoying it?

No. 4 Are there any typos or grammatical errors?

No. 5 Does the reader relate to the characters?

No. 6 Is it too long?

No. 7 Does the reader want more?

(I would argue that one could scrap the first six, and just keep this one.)

Then, there is feedback which makes me want to kick off my shoes and run around barefoot on a Cambridge College lawn, in the snow, shrieking.

No. 1 “Show, don’t tell.”

I agree but to a point.  There are pages and pages of sumptuous telling in Isabel Allende and Dacia Maraini’s novels.

No. 2 “Have you read this other [famous] writer who also writes on the same subject?”

Are we encouraged to imitate other writers, now?

No.3 “I think you should have the courage to make it dark.”

I happen to think it takes courage to make it light.

No. 4 “I don’t know anything about this topic, and I’m afraid it’s not really my favourite genre, so I am really not qualified to comment.  However,…  [there follows an interminable and, generally, inappropriate critique.]

Just stop speaking at the end of “… not qualified to comment.”  Nope.  That’s all.

No. 5 “I think you should change word A for word B, and replace word X with word Y…”

So you want me to write like you, now?

No. 6 “You know, I can see your character as a woman instead of a man, and from the South instead of the North.  Also, instead of a librarian, I think you should make her a secret agent…”

Er… Brilliant.  Use it for your book.

No. 7 “It’s great.  I love it.  Instead of a novel, you could turn it into a screenplay.  Also, why don’t you set the whole thing in a a different country?”

Just so we’re clear.  I have made a tea mug.  I am asking you if you like my mug.  Yes, I am aware that I could add a spout, glue on a handle, top it with a lid, and that it would make a sweet little teapot.  BUT IT’S A MUG.  So please assess it as a MUG.

Grrr…

Scribe Doll

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Languages: Turning Enemies into Allies

Posted on October 14, 2012 by Scribe Doll

“S and I got engaged!” I announced to my family, just before my second year at university, showing off my emerald and diamond ring.

My grandmother did not miss a bit.  “Congratulations, my sunbeam! Does he speak any languages?”

“No.”

“Oh, dear,” she said, her smile waning.  “His family has no means, then?”

Right or wrong, I come from a family where it is taken for granted that any parents with sufficient funds will, as a matter of course as evident as the movement of the planets, make sure their offspring learn, first – languages; second – to play a musical instrument.  To understand this, it is important to know that, for our family, music nourishes the soul, whilst languages enrich the brain.  For us, learning languages is not a luxury or a hobby.  It is a necessary tool of survival.  It has been engrained in us over the past four generations that you could lose all material possessions in a heartbeat, on the whim of a natural disaster or a change of government.  Before you know it, you might have to move to another country and, for that, the more languages you have at your command, the better.  As Dolly Levi says in Hello, Dolly! “If you have to live hand to mouth, you’d better be ambidextrous.”  I imagine that families who have lived in the same country for several generations, or who own property, such as houses, might find it difficult fully to enter into this frame of mind.

My grandfather used to say that, with every new language you learn, you acquire a new personality.  He was right.  Speaking a language is not just about finding your way on holiday.  It is about being able to switch between different ways of thinking and feeling.  I am more or less quadrilingual.  I feel most comfortable debating issues in English, cuddling children and animals in Russian, expressing outrage in French, and being joyful in Italian.  When asked which is my mother tongue, I stumble.  I do not actually know.  What is a mother tongue? Is it the language in which you formed your first words, as a baby? If so, I would say, Russian.  Or is it the language in which you are most proficient? In that case, I would say, English.  However, as a teenager, I would have said, French; and, a couple of years before that, Italian.

I did not enjoy the process of learning any of these languages.  In fact, I positively hated it.  It was an uphill struggle filled with frustration, humiliation and long periods of hopelessness.  I did not choose to take classes in these languages for fun or interest.  I learned them fast, forced by circumstances.  In a way, my survival depended on it.

I was born in Italy, to a non-Italian family.  My Russian-bred, Armenian grandmother, who shared with my mother the daily job of bringing me up, taught me Russian.  It was the language we spoke at home.  As soon as I ventured out, I learnt to play in Italian with the neighbours‘ children.  Because, in those days, in Rome, speaking a foreign language in the street would attract relentless stares and gaping mouths, I would switch to Italian as soon as I was out of the family flat.  When I was six, my mother sent me to the Overseas American school in Rome.    Children learn languages easily.  Every new word is a building block.  They do not slow down their thought process by translating in their heads, or by complicating matters with grammatical logic.  They simply imitate and associate.  Within a few months, I was fluent in English, complete with U.S. accent.  So, I spoke Russian at home, Italian in the street, and English at school.  All was well.  That is, until we moved to Athens.  I was eight.  Thanks to Russian I could just about distinguish the Greek Cyrillic alphabet but the language, itself, was nothing I could relate to my existing tongues.  I made friends with Greek children and their parents.  We played in the clay garden, and went swimming among the rusty jellyfish in the ice-cold, limpid sea.  After a few months, I could hold my own in Greek – at least enough to play with my Greek neighbours.

My first language trauma hit me – in more ways than one – when I was nine, and we moved to Nice, in Southern France.  The headmistress of the local state school decided that it was paedagogically sound to put a nine year-old who spoke no French, into the Cours Préparatoire of five and six year-olds.  Recess was torture time.  Most days, I would be surrounded by the said five and six year-olds, pushed back against the school yard wall, and kicked in the shins by their miniature feet.  The ritual included shouting things at me which, of course, I could not respond to, since I did not know what they meant.  I repeated some of the words to Madame, hoping for an explanation, but she glared and waved her finger at me, saying, “Non!” When I tried to retaliate physically, I was told off in no uncertain terms by the permanently yawning Madame, for picking on les petits.  My wordless gesticulations and pointing at my black and blue shins did not appear to convey the message clearly enough.  The only thing to do, was to spend every evening, before bed, memorising a few words from Le Petit Larousse Illustré.  Luckily, I soon learnt to produce guttural ‘r’s, elongated vowels, and enough words to string into sentences.  I moved to another school, was put into a class of older children, and learnt to topple little plastic soldiers with glass marbles during recess.  I was on my way to becoming an honorary Niçoise.  When, at the age of nineteen, I scored 14/20 in writing and 18/20 in oral, in French, at the French Lycée in Rome, beating my French boyfriend to the slight annoyance his mother, I felt I had arrived.

Arrived – just in time to pack my suitcase for England.  All I knew about Albion, was that half my blood came from there, through my father.  Of course, my English, neglected during the years of contending with French, had turned somewhat rusty.  I landed in Cambridge, on a cold, damp, September night, and went to sleep in an attic room with a sloped ceiling and a luke warm radiator.  The following morning, I awoke to the cawing of jet-black crows hopping on a bright green lawn beneath a lead grey sky.  I was brimming with hope for my new life in a country which, I felt, was my home by right.

The English did not kick.  They stung.

“What did you say? Oh, how quaint, I’ve never heard it phrased quite like that.”

“Where did you acquire that American accent?”

“Gosh, you do have a healthy appetite.”

“Are you cold? Really? I guess we’re brought up to be quite stoical, here.”

“Well… I wouldn’t put it quite so bluntly…”

After many a night crying myself to sleep, I vowed to beat them at their own game.  I began memorising words from the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, keeping a journal in English, referring to – rather than pronouncing – the ‘r’, and mentally repeating after people, as they spoke.  I forsook French entirely, and missed the rigueur of its grammar.  English was like water.  It slid out between your fingers as you tried to grasp it.  So I learnt to swim in it.

A few years later, when I had to explain the language of a Jacobean tragedy, The Duchess of Malfi, to a group of native English actors, I had a lovely feeling of – well, just how could I put it nicely..?

My languages have graduated from enemies to allies.  They are my Virgils, guiding me through various dimensions of thoughts, hopes and emotions.  They are my spies, which I send out on reconnaissance missions.  They are the Arlecchini who capture laughter for me.  They are the faithful servants who bring food to my table.  They are my steadfast allies, no matter what the government of the moment.  They are the architects who build me a bridge, whenever I want to cross a river.

Scribe Doll

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U.S. Marine, Verona, Hoar Frost and Sixteen

Posted on October 7, 2012 by Scribe Doll

A little something I remembered, the other day.

My French school in Rome used to dedicate 10% of the academic year to guided extra-curricular activities.  That year – the year I was sixteen – among our options was a three-day trip to Venice, Florence or Verona.  I chose Verona.  I cannot remember why.

I woke up early on our first morning there.  The two girls with whom I was sharing the room at the Hotel de’ Capuleti were asleep.  After tossing and turning in the dark, bored, I got up, threw on some clothes, and slipped out.  The February chill hit my face as soon as I stepped out of the hotel.  White powder.  Light as dust, it floated in the air and landed on the navy blue shoulders of my anorak.  The cars were all covered in a dusting of white.  The street seemed wrapped in a mist of flour.  Not snow, not hail, not fog.  I had never seen anything like it.  Beautiful.  It was beautiful.

On a whim, I turned right, and walked along the Via del Pontiere.  I saw a sign indicating Tomba di Giulietta and followed it to an old monastery.  There, under the 17th Century arches of a cloister, a stone tomb, with wilted flowers inside it.  The tomb of Juliet Capulet, said the plaque on the wall.  I stood for a few minutes, alone, absorbing the smell of stone, damp air, and history.  It was almost time for breakfast and I retraced my steps.  There was magic in the whiteness of the street.  I imagined spending the rest of the day with my school mates and the teacher, chatting and laughing.  My heart sank.  I didn’t want this delicate spell to break.  I wanted to keep drifting down the quiet streets of this new city undisturbed, my imagination free to explore.

“What’s this white powder?” I asked the hotel receptionist.

He smiled.  “E‘ la brina.  E‘ tipica di Verona, Signorina.”

Brina.  Hoar frost.

His voice had the Veneto sing-song quality.  After the flat tone of the Romans my ears had grown up with, I loved the Veronese modulation.  There was something jocular in its character.  In the lift up to my room, I repeated his sentence to myself, trying to absorb the accent.

After breakfast, I feigned a headache, waited for the school party to be out of sight, then went out again.  In Piazza Bra, near the Roman Arena, I stopped by a frozen fountain.  A sparrow was engaged in winter sports, flying up to the edge of the fountain, landing on the ice.  His thin legs would give, he would land on his behind and slide across the ice.  Thereupon he would chirp enthusiastically, fly up and repeat the procedure.  I watched him for a few minutes.  WHo says animals don’t have a sense of fun?

In Piazza delle Erbe, green parasols sheltered the market stalls.  I strolled around, fascinated by the Mediaeval towers and walls.  In Piazza della Signoria,  a statue of Dante stood in pontificating attitude, in honour of his visit to the city.  Dante, who referred to the long-standing enmity between two powerful Veronese houses – the Montecchi and the Capuleti.  Further along, the Tombe Scaligere, with their gothic arches guarding the family tombs of the Scala princes of Verona.

A sign indicated Juliet Capulet’s house.  On the stone wall, by the entrance, the coat of arms of the Capulets – a helmet.  In the courtyard a statue of Juliet, standing alone, and a plaque with a text in Esperanto.

I was the only visitor.  I walked up the creaky timber stairs, my heartbeat the only other sound in the stillness of this ancient house.  I imagined the ghosts of all the Capulets whispering their stories to me.

Every building, every stone, and every breath I took of the cold foggy air, seemed full of stories about this mysterious, austere city.  I have always been rather indifferent to the brazen luxury of Rome Baroque.  This was the first time I felt deeply touched by architecture.  The pride of Gothic spires was awe inspiring.  Its solemnity spoke to me.

*   *   *

In the evening, the others decided to go to a discotheque.

I had never been to one.  In fact, I had never danced with a boy.  I sat minding bags and drinks, while my schoolmates bopped in a bath of flashing colours, shards of silver from the large party ball, darting on the ceiling.

Four young men were sitting at the table next to ours. Probably in their late teens-early twenties.  Their exceedingly short haircuts suggested they were soldiers but they didn’t look Italian.  It turned out they were U.S. Marines, posted near Verona.  The girls at our table kept glancing at the Marines, especially at the tallest one, who – even I had to admit – was very handsome, in a quiet sort of way.  That clean-cut, wholesome, earnest, North American look, which appealed to us, girls from a French school in Rome, used to more self-assured, politically aware Italian boys, or slightly too cerebral and self-righteous French boys.  His friends came up and asked the girls to dance, but he sat still, apparently unwilling to take his chances on the dance floor.

The fast song that was playing wound to an end, and Richard Sanderson’s voice filled the club, intoning Reality.  That song was the soundtrack of the year.  The song from the French film La Boum, which we all saw, and all bought the 45 rpm.  A film about French teenagers, marking the debut of actress Sophie Marceau; her character, a schoolgirl, far removed from the “bad” Bond girl in The World is Not Enough.  Excitement and giggles started when the handsome, tall Marine finally stood up and walked to our table.  Eyelashes fluttered and smiles beamed.  I watched, mentally placing bets with myself on which of my school mates he would address.  He bent his tall frame towards me.  I stared.  He repeated the question, in broken Italian.  My brain could not quite add this up.  He was asking me to dance? Me?!

I stood up dodging darts fired at me by the eyes of the girls.  They, like I, felt something had gone against the natural order of things.  They were the girls who danced and were invited to parties.  I was the girl who gave other girls advice about boys, and who tried to impress boys by talking about Plato and Confucius (strangely, my tactic had not been successful yet, but I persisted, knowing it was just a matter of time).  I wrote slushy poems during Maths and Physics classes.  I did not dance with the best-looking man in a Verona discotheque.

“Dreams are my reality…” sang Richard Sanderson.

We swayed to the music.  He was delighted to discover that I spoke English.  I was too shy to look into his eyes – were they blue or brown? I couldn’t bear to meet the stares of the girls.  I didn’t know what I was supposed to do.  Surrounded by all those people, I did not  know how to be myself, or what this myself was, or what was expected of me.

So I spoilt my first dance.

“Don’t worry, I don’t bite,” he said.

I tried to smile.  Instead, I was shaking.

When he led me back to my table, I absolutely and wholeheartedly hated myself.  I can’t even begin to describe how ashamed I felt.

He did not dance for the rest of the evening.  Neither did I.

Just a little something I remembered, the other day.  Silly, really.

  Scribe Doll

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Is a Friend in Need Still a Friend in Joy?

Posted on September 30, 2012 by Scribe Doll

“A friend in need is a friend indeed.”  We all know that one.  That a true friend stands by you during adversity, is an accepted, unquestioned assumption in, I dare say, all cultures.  Does the same friendship remain unshaken during your times of triumph?

I hold the strong belief that the overwhelming majority of humans is kind.  In my experience, if you trip and fall over in the street, strangers will rush to pick you up, ask if you are hurt, and offer help (and a cup of tea, if you are in England).  If you are ill, friends and neighbours will rally in a spontaneous support group that restores faith in humanity even in a misanthropic cynic like myself.  Time and again, when friends have found out that I had been through a difficult time, their reaction has been, “Why on earth didn’t you tell me? I would have come ‘round immediately.”  True, not everyone will help you beyond the limits of his/her convenience.  However, many, many people are willing to put themselves out to help you, if you are in any kind of distress.  The sight of another person’s trouble triggers a rescuing response in us, which bypasses cerebral calculation.  We act on impulse.

What about our spontaneous reaction to someone else’s joy or success?

Personally, I consider myself very lucky, in that I can think of a number of people I feel I can turn to if I need help.  Then, something wonderful happens to me – be it a triumph or a stroke of luck – and the number of people with whom I feel comfortable sharing the happy news, suddenly shrinks.

You may find that odd.

My hesitation originates in part from tact, in part from superstition, but mostly from experience.  I do not really want to show off my good news to a friend who is going through a difficult time.  I fear he or she may feel left out, and resent the apparently unfair contrast between our states of mind and positions at that moment.  Superstition is another reason.  Of course, officially, I am not superstitious.  I do not want to be superstitious any more than I want to be afraid.  However, the Mediterranean/Middle Eastern elements in  my upbringing are deeply rooted in my psyche.  If someone compliments you for having a beautiful child, you quickly pinch the child, or make spitting sounds.  You tell the person that your child is a bit naughty.  If a guest admires an ornament in your home, you immediately give it to him or her.  Hospitality, yes – but, also, you want them to take away the thing they may have left their evil eye on.  The green eye of envy.  In Han Suyin’s marvelous novel A Many-Splendoured Thing, the Eurasian narrator explains to her British lover that, in China, when you had abundant crop, you would wring your hands, shake your head and cry, “Bad rice, bad rice”, lest the gods got envious of your good fortune and decided to blight it.

Blight.  A word that has been much on my mind since last Saturday.  It was during the Q & A part of a day for aspiring writers, held by agents Curtis Brown, in Foyles bookshop, in London.  Novelist Salley Vickers was on the panel.  People were discussing the importance of feedback whilst writing a novel.  Feedback from friends, from family, from fellow writers.  Taking criticism on board or not, and when.  Salley Vickers told us that – possibly because she is a trained psychoanalyst – while teaching creative writing courses, she notices frequent “blighting”.  People sometimes give negative feedback because they are envious, she said.  I wanted to cheer her.

We are brought up to accept negative criticism with humility, and the assumption that it is given appropriately and for our own good.  If we reject it, we are told that we are either arrogant or do not want “to hear the truth.”  I think, instinctively, we know when negative criticism comes from a generous heart, or if it is tainted with the bitterness of envy.  We just need to trust our gut feeling.

When I started my blog, in February 2011, relatively few of my friends read it.  Some said they had no time to read blogs, others, that it was “pointless writing for no money”, and one, that “nobody reads blogs, anyway”.  The same people were there for me, when I needed help, so I cannot call them unkind.

How often have you told friends about a plan close to your heart, and had a reaction along the lines of, “be careful, don’t get your hopes up” or “I know someone who tried, and it went horribly wrong”?

A few weeks ago, one of my posts, The Delight of Hand Writing got over 4,000 views in twenty-four hours.  I told a few friends.  Some rushed with congratulations and expressions of joy for my success.  Many remained silent.  When, a couple of weeks later, I was complaining to a friend about a minor mishap in my life, he quickly said, “Well, after all that high over your blog, last week, you were bound to come down, sooner or later.”

His remark slashed me, like a paper cut.  Yet he is a truly wonderful person and I know I can count on him, if I am ever in any distress.

Friends offer genuine sympathy and support when you are weeping over a man/woman.  Tell them – walking on air and your eyes all sparkling – that you have just met someone new and there will be one or two who will say, “s/he’s probably married” or “s/he’s probably nice to you because s/he needs your help”.  Crash.

When I got divorced, a friend eagerly invited me out to dinner to “take me out of myself”.  Within a few minutes, she remarked that I looked well and not half as upset as she thought I would be.  I thought I sensed a shade of disappointment in her voice, but discarded it.  A little later in the evening, she said, “I don’t know why I bothered taking you out to dinner.  You’re not upset at all.”

No.  She was not joking.

And then there is the old favourite.  Tell friends about something brilliant that you are doing, and someone is bound to exclaim, “You lucky thing! I wish I…” A slight scratch.  Almost unnoticeable.

Is it a need to feel needed? Resentment at not being needed? Is there comfort in a session of mutual comforting and listing of problems? Does it feel safer to know someone who has problems worse than yours? Or is it something else, which I cannot yet fathom?

I suspect I might get a wave of comments from people protesting that they are always happy for their friends’ successes, and that they have friends who rejoice in their achievements.  If so, I am truly happy for you.  I can only share my experience on this point.  An experience which makes me more inclined to reach out for help to those precious friends of mine who are unreservedly happy for me when I get a lucky break.  I do not know why.  Just a gut feeling.

Scribe Doll

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