Everyday Words March Newsletter
Following Bowie's footsteps, dancing like Beckett and beautiful benches
Hello to you all!
“This is the perfume of March: rain, loam, feathers, mint.”
When I found that quote by American author, Lisa Kleypas, it got me thinking about the smells of each month. September is easy - new school shoes and stationery, but how powerful scents are. They can knock us right back into a different part of the year, a different part of life. This poem, Smell is the Last Memory to Go by Fatimah Asghar sums up perfectly how a wayward smell can throw us off course.
Just as I’ve got a little lost already with this newsletter! Here are ten other things that have made me think recently. I hope you enjoy, find something new, and get some inspiration. As always, I love to hear from you. I’m not hard to find. Look… you can even leave me a comment!
Overcoming writer's block. Well, I hear some voices at the back shout… plumbers never get plumber’s block…. Oh god, we’ve all heard them, haven’t we? Just when we’re feeling at our most vulnerable. So this article by Heather Dyer about how she coped and her tips for recovering creativity seemed a gentle and yet practical shoulder to cry on! It’s also on the RLF substack - I work as a consultant with the Royal Literary Fund so I’m a little biased but they are a great organisation for readers as well as writers.
Sit down a minute. One of the things I’m dusting off this year is my bench blog - A Quiet Sit Down. I’ve kept it on blogspot for sentimental reasons but it also seems to fit the quiet wander round towns and parks reading blog inscriptions. This one in the Cambridge Botanical Gardens with a quote from Philip Pullman’s Her Dark Materials just felt perfect for sitting on and remembering someone.
By the way if you ever find a bench you love - either for the inscription or it’s general beauty, I’d love to feature it. I’m always looking for new beauties.
Walking with Bowie. My friend and excellent writer, Peter Carpenter, is launching his book, Bowieland, this month. It chronicles the journey Peter took after open heart surgery to walk himself back to health by travelling to all the places which may have had an influence on David Bowie. As the website says, ‘Through his walks, Peter gained insights into Bowie’s cultural significance and his alignment with the poets, painters, artists, and musicians who preceded him, shaping the very spaces Bowie inhabited and imparting their wisdom to him.’
And who doesn’t love Brian Bilston? I was so pleased to discover the brand new collaboration between Brian Bilston and The Catenary Wires (Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey). They’ve released the first single, Alexa, What is There To Know About Love, and you can join me in pre-ordering the album, Sounds made by Humans, here. Great stuff.
Bad Words. But I must admit this has been making me giggle, because Catenary - a term that describes overhead cables - is one of the words that makes Laetitia Maklouf shiver when her husband uses them. I LOVED this piece on Rotterspeak on Laetitia’s substack, Bad words my husband says, and started to compile lists of my own that I hate hearing people use. Of course words are another obsession of mine, along with benches and punctuation marks… so much so that I did a TEDx talk on them. Really! Folks, why don’t I get invited to more parties?? It’s a mystery…
Back to Bowie. Always. Did you all know about the 100 books of Bowie and forget to tell me? And there’s also the Bowie Book Club with a podcast. You can find out more here. This is definitely a book club I want to be part of.
Don’t Look Away: Lessons from Activist Author Terry Tempest Williams. This article for the Northcoast Environmental Center was written in 2019 but is still so relevant today. Please read this gentle wise funny account of going on a retreat with Terry Tempest Williams and the lessons learnt. This one in particular sticks with me - Lesson Three: Listening to one another is a gift. The author of the piece, Dan Sealey, quotes this from an interview Terry Tempest Williams did with the Los Angeles Review of Books: “When we share our stories, empathy enters the room. A tenderness is felt. We experience another generosity, that of listening to one another as human beings. The weather system shifts as we realize we are being heard and seen for who we are, instead of as people who hold a contrary position or opinion.” I feel this so much, especially nowadays, and perhaps especially when you don’t want to hear what is being said.
Three very different books I’ve enjoyed recently:
Disobedient by Elizabeth Freemantle - it’s the story of Artemisia Gentileschi in Rome, 1611 and I was gripped.
The Future by Naomi Alderman - at the different end of the timescale, this is about three billionaire tech giants facing the end of the world. There’s a great interview with her on the New Scientist channel here.
Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti- not sure how to describe this one but I loved it. Sheila Heti took ten years of her journals and cut and pasted them in alphabetical order. Some of the juxtapositions are just beautiful. And surprising.
Did they really say that? I found this quote I loved, "Dance first. Think later. It’s the natural order." and then read it was from Samuel Beckett. It seemed so unlikely I had to investigate. Well, it’s actually from Waiting for Godot, but isn’t quite the feel good inspirational quote it’s now plastered over the internet as. Here’s the source:
ESTRAGON: Wouldn't it, Didi, be more fun?
VLADIMIR: I'd like well to hear him think.
ESTRAGON: Perhaps he could dance first and think afterwards, if it isn't too much to ask him.
VLADIMIR: (to Pozzo). Would that be possible?
POZZO: By all means, nothing simpler. It's the natural order. He laughs briefly.AND I’m trying so hard not to start another obsession - misattributed inspirational quotes that make me laugh. Briefly.
We’ve done a lot of reading now, let’s do some writing. I do little workshops for my paying subscribers who have been very patient recently as I paused for a long summer break that turned into a winter break. Here’s one from last year. I hope you enjoy! It’s only 10 minutes long so get yourself a coffee and your journal and write along with us.
Thank you so much for reading, and have a great month ahead!
Love
Sarahx
There was a bench in the Bishop’s Palace in Wells which a plaque saying “George Smewin, not famous, just special’ which amused me. I saw it about 8 years ago but I assume it’s still there.
The smells poem reminded me of a day in blazing sunshine exploring a moorish castle in Andalucia. What made the day memorable was the overpowering perfume of a multitude of flowering orange trees.