The problem is: under the Covid cosh, I cannot witter endlessly on about my outsider art.
Before the lock down, I could happily meet anyone and everyone in the street and anywhere to talk about my lovely stitched note books with amusing objects! and curious papers! Every day! Until the hapless listener tuned out, glazed over, got up and left (while striving to look polite) or just fought back (the best).
Truly, any of the above was good by me. But now, only my own head answers me back. I have three ladies in my life (living next door in a complicated arrangement) and they have limited interest in my affairs (quite right) except to tut-tut at me because I slope off to Lidl to buy crisps (probably illegal but essential)*.
I miss the ordinary to-and-fro of every ordinary conversation. Those everyday moments are the breathings of my stitches; my books are work books, fun books, day-to-day books, pointless books, essential books, books of history and today. Somewhere - like the chat in a post office queue - to express a favourite grudge, bear witness to the passing time, have a moan about the weather, be sentimental, celebrate a moment and voice a sorrowful regret.
Well, I'm merging my worlds. I kept them separate and now, damn the consequences!
Knicker Drawer Note Books, meet Grit's Day. Take a handshake.
Phew. At last I can tell at length, daily if necessary. Here are the backgrounds, the wherefores, whos, what-made-me-do-it, what it is and why the hell does that book have a poison warning?
The Plague Experience is fundamentally a dispiriting experience. Who would actively seek to have their freedoms curtailed, huh? Yet. like everyone else, I'm finding bright sides, silver linings, happy spots. Even if those moments come in the form of cleaning up and washing down.
Well, here was my first truly bright, bright spot. Plague Journals. Before the Plague, I was given, by a well-wisher, a big bag of leather, all beautifully tattered and worn.
I have a tender place in my soul grown to respond with love for scars, wrinkles, tearings, breakages, fragmented parts. To me, these are not fearful symbols of grotesques, they are the tender marks of life, experience and humanity. Age does not wither. It makes a beautiful weave of a life to hold, touch and feel.
A material that has already passed through experience, been torn, cut, lifted by hand, rolled up, discarded and shoved in a Lidl bag. What could be more poetic? The best and the worst. Perfect for the wrappings of a seventeeth century Plague Journal.
But I didn't have any handmade paper or pressed paper made from rags; the sort that shows flaws, scatterings of colours, strange blends and irregularities to the touch. So I set about a stack of paper from a copier machine with a teabag. I added a pack of typewriter paper (scavenged) and odd bits of torn paper from my torn-paper-piles. (Thank goodness I'm too much of a paper hoarder to throw any away.)
Finally, a thorough rummage in a set of drawers yielded key rings, keys, clock hands, bottles, bits, pieces, this and that.
Oh happy hours with the Plague!
All note books sold thanks to the hard labours of Vintage Emporium Number 38. And Daniel Defoe.
Really, the only way for my head to surf the Covid Lock Down is to lift my gaze and make my respectful nod to what went before. As I overheard in the post office queue: 'I'm fed up hearing people complain about the lock down. Our parents were asked to go out and fight. All we're being asked to do is sit on the sofa and watch TV.'
*I note the three ladies eat my crisps, however.
No comments:
Post a Comment