Dear Diary,
The shortest month of the year is amongst us.
On the cusp of saying how much I have enjoyed the dry and sunny weather, I make the grave mistake of turning to my left – not in my usual spot today; I am sitting at the breakfast bar downstairs instead – as if to reaffirm my feelings.
And boom: the conditions outdoors have changed. A split second seems to have passed since I stopped to look through the three windows above the sink and pay attention to what was in store weather-wise. Now, it is impossible to ignore the large drops of rain, thick in their collective desire to leave the skies behind and meet the ground below. Smashing against the bi-fold doors, sliding down the glass.
Without holding my breath, clutching at no illusions for longevity or a sign of a trend, I have observed a slight change in my writing recently. While I have not published anything on Substack, I have been working on several Flash Fiction pieces in private and, to me at least, they feel ‘looser’ than stuff I have written before. The prose is less rigid and stodgy. The rest of the world may disagree but, personally, the words seem the easiest going. To date.
The Week’s Round-Up
Earlier in the week, I was working out of the local office. Even once in a blue moon sends me flying off the handle; many a reason for my vile mood, but I shall let you speculate. Run with your imagination. How we were able to go in an office five times a week – commute there and back, and focus for hours on end – is beyond me. Casting my mind back, we demonstrated levels of relative productivity, a decent number of positive outcomes were not such a rarety. These days? Impossible. Distractible by design, I struggle to hear my own thoughts, let alone concentrate. This in itself leads to faffing around (a lovely term) and ticking things off my list for the sake of it; the things that are almost inconsequential.
The fourth meeting of the Writing Club for 2024 was held on Friday afternoon. Left to our own devices, we were hysterical and lost the plot. The person, who set up the club and has been leading the meetings, was not in attendance courtesy of a chest infection (every other person I speak to has a chest infection at the minute. Or Covid. Whoopie!). Shall we invent a name for him? How about Lesley? Without Lesley, it was anarchy, but we did some writing. My comfort around the other writers, and the confidence in sharing my work however bad it may be, are continuously growing. I had heaps of fun to the point of reluctance to leave; I hung around for last-minute chats.
On Saturday morning, I made my way to the salon for a one-on-one date with my nail tech (and my skin therapist, top eyebrow pluck-er and an all-around amazeballs person)! Life in the foreseeable future will be more challenging than normal (especially as I have some work-related travel on Monday and Tuesday). Not to mention, I am not sure handwriting and a fake manicure go together (if I managed to cope well before, I had forgotten the required skills), but we shall wait and see.
The Little Things
‘Age is just a number!’, they say. ‘Such a cliché!‘, we say.
But age is just a number (go with me on this one and park the lengthy tirades about how age is not just a number. In fact, the bigger the number, the closer the finale. I know!).
I believe I am the youngest member of the Writing Club (if we exclude Lesley). Age difference has not prevented me from connecting with everyone. Amidst the chaos, and the laughter, and the crazy poems, on Friday, we discussed architecture (Manchester and Rome alike), different colour buses in the UK (including those serving locally vs those travelling longer distances), childhood in the 1970s (and associated sleeping tricks), how to build and preserve a sense of community in 2024 (and ‘is that not what life is about?’), and I learnt a new word (a secret until I find a way of incorporating it into my writing!).
Meaningful conversations can be everything when you are used to meaningless ones.