Waving our hands in space and time

So I have been reading a book about a book.  'The History of Love - a novel' about a book called 'The History of Love.'  I picked it up somewhere, somewhen, somewhile back...in a charity shop for 20p. Words are cheap, huh?

Anyhow, there's this chapter in the book (the enwrapping/bracketing book) called 'The Eternal Disappointment Of Life As It Is'.  And the chapter in the enwrapped/bracketed book is called 'Feelings are not as old as time.' And, see, the brackets are actually in the wrong place but what can one do, for meaning's sake?

'Just as there was a first instant when someone rubbed two sticks together to make a spark, there was a first time joy was felt, and a first time for sadness,' it says.  'For a while, new feelings were being invented all the time. Desire was born early, as was regret.' I bet.  
And then it goes on...'Even now, all possible feelings do  not yet exist.  There are still those that lie beyond our capacity and our imagination.  from time to time, when a piece of music no one has ever written, or a painting no one has ever painted, or something else impossible to predict, fathom, or yet describe takes place, a new feeling enters the world.  And then, for the millionth time in the history of feeling, the heart surges, and absorbs the impact.'
Tis a lovely thought but...I wonder...how we like to think we're different, don't we?

And there's a bit about lost words, and string, and shy people...

I'm not really sure why I'm even telling you about this book. But still... (The History of Love) also has a chapter called The Age of Silence, which discusses how the first language people had was one of gestures. 'Naturally there were misunderstandings. There were times when a finger might have been lifted to scratch a nose, and if casual eye contact was made with one's lover just then, the lover might accidentally take it to be the gesture, not at all dissimilar, for Now I realise I was wrong to love you. These mistakes were heartbreaking.'

Yet then again, we manage to screw things up perfectly well, even with words, don't we?  And it goes on. 'Your hands remember a time when the division between mind and body,  brain and heart, what's inside and what's outside, was so much less.'  Yes.  I suspect they do.  Is there really a division?  Only in our minds.

But you have to love a book that has a once upon a time...because weren't we all kings and queens, or knights and princesses (or dragons) once.  And can you remember laughter?

Anyhow.  I liked this book.  Not in a gobble it all up way. Not in a let's be distracted from the realisation that we're minuscule specks of dust magneted to a larger speck of dust careering through the innards of what is probably just another marginally larger speck of dust and so on way.  Just in a ...yeah kind of way.

http://architectureofdoom.tumblr.com/image/56589484772

Anyhow.  There we go.  Waving our hands in space and time.
 

The past in a box...

So I’ve been sitting here, in my study, on the sofa, by the window, with the SP, with tears dribbling down my face.  And not just from the virus thingy.  I dunno why…(well, I do, but it’s not really important) but I opened up the wooden box that my brother had given me way back in the late sixties or very early seventies or thereabouts.  He’d been working in London with this guy who dealt in antiques (and who, incidentally, hung out with all kinds of major rock legends) and he gave it to me (my brother, not the guy, or the rock legends).  The box, that is. And it’s a bit of a memory chest…with stuff in it going way back. 

I haven’t looked in it for years but this morning I did.  And, oh my.  Such strange things; things I’d forgotten all about; letters from people that I haven’t read in…what?...forty years in some cases. Things like...

A photo of me and my sister with Father Christmas.  

A pic of me and my mum and the ridiculous dachshund, Bella, with the bald stomach (the dog). 

Invitations to 18^th birthday parties, including one I designed for me and my (foster) sister’s joint party (the one which started off so well but ended in hilarious – in hindsight - disaster).  

Good luck cards, Congratulations on passing your driving test cards. Medals from the war. A rosette. Clippings from the local newspaper.  

My great-uncle’s indenture papers, his merchant seaman reports and his astronomical notebook.  

A Blow Monkeys’ single, with a large bite taken out of it. Why? Not a clue.

'Chin up' type postcards from friends...including one of Harrison Ford, which did make me smile.

And I read the letters – in this box mainly from my family.  My mother’s – practical, newsy, talking about animals and the weather, worrying about my manners and various coughs and colds and whether she should send me stamps and if I’d get a train back from somewhere or other because the petrol would cost £5 (obviously in the days when it was cheaper to travel by rail than car!).  My sister’s – well, just the one, laughing at how rubbish she was at writing letters and telling me about the Sunday joint (the meat one). And so weird, hearing her talk about her baby (my eldest nephew) and her bump, my second eldest nephew who hadn’t been born then, not to mention their three younger siblings who were…where? 

And the funniest, loveliest letters of all, strangely enough, from my brother.  From when he first went to America to live.  A few years after our father died.  He’s one of those rare people who writes pretty much exactly the way he talks (unlike his emails which are terse and to the point, to put it mildly).  And one bit really struck me…

‘Janie. Bean. I’d like to hear how you’re feeling – not so much how you’re doing at school – I’m sure you’re doing as well there as you want to.  So tell me – it occurred to me that you kept most of those feelings to yourself.  So let me know if you feel you want to – otherwise it’s OK if you don’t want to?! (if you see what I mean).’

I wonder what I replied?  I wonder if I did reply?  Cos he was right.  I did keep feelings to myself.  Always did. Always do pretty much.  Which is probably wise in many ways, but equally probably not very healthy.  Cos when you suppress feelings, they sort of stagnate and have a  nasty tendency to go bad.  And that, I wonder, is why I've been so ill?  Maybe it's time to get out my paints again.  Cos, though I never say or write what I really feel - I can't ever lie in paint. 

And then, at the very bottom, I found this - one of several 'Biff Kards' (anyone remember them?) and it made me laugh and laugh... 

So, tell me...have you got a box like this?  :-)