Nostalgia : a wistful yearning for the past

Going to wrap my journeys up, all of them, in bus tickets printed in alphabets that I don't understand, in the taste of Spanish cakes and Korean spice, in the smell of otherness as I step off the plane, train and out of the van door, bouncing on a hotel bed and sleeping on a mountain floor, I'll put the thoughts of wandering in my dreamland, until I repack my bag and start moving, all over again.

nostalgia (n.)1770, "severe homesickness" (considered as a disease), Modern Latin (cf. Fr. nostalgie, 1802), coined 1668 by Johannes Hofer, as a rendering of Ger. heimweh, from Gk. algos "pain, grief, distress" (see -algia) + nostos "homecoming," from PIE *nes- "to return safely home" (cf. O.N. nest "food for a journey," Skt. nasate "approaches, joins," Ger. genesen "to recover," Goth. ganisan "to heal," O.E. genesen "to recover"). Transferred sense (the main modern one) of "wistful yearning for the past" first recorded 1920. 

Hungry, but not.

Hungry, but not. It is the evening now. Train travel home on a journey from a course. Via a hotel room, tucked into the eaves, warm baths and bad TV. Outside the window, the cloudless sky is navy blue, dark azure, nearly black. Bartok on the Ipod. Have spent days in movement and drama - fleshy art crafted from muscles and minds. Hands danced against locked yellow light. In the train carriage, a stark bob bissects a passenger's chin. A fat bespectacled lady rustles her evening paper. A biscuit box is opened. To eat or not to eat? Have consumed an apple. Sushi for lunch.  Heat. Heat. Heat. The sun has stolen my hunger.  Would like a cup of tea and something sweet, made with salted butter, just a pinch. Bartok bangs on piano keys, up down, up down, rhythms rolling. "Le train est a destination de..." says a voice, falling from the speakers, reaching our ears. I could stay here forever, bound into this train, watching the bob and the newspaper rustle.  Suited men carry cases as we leave another station. We are off. We. Are. Off.

Packing on a rainy day

It's raining again. Chill air, damp bones. The cold creeps into every corner. We are wishing, wishing on spring.  Meanwhile, I pack my bag. I am very fond of these preparations. Tucking objects into space, nestling miniature containers in tidy rows. Moving has been etched into my bones. I seek to balance the equation of a minimum weight to a maximum sense of home, bringing little pieces of everything with me, perhaps, carrying little pieces of me everywhere: hibiscus teabags, two butter biscuits, green notebooks, a sample of silken bath oil. Following the roots of the verb to pack, I am taken to carrying together in a bundle, and the making of secret arrangements. The latter definition suits me fine. I am arranging the objects for the comfort of my journey; putting stuff into private patterns.

Things found on walks

On my travels again, with the rain in my stride. Early in the morning, I make the time, find the time, just because, to take photos of the metalwork I meet on my path : swirls, hearts, spirals, manhole covers; malleable and shiny beauty, incidental light.

the first days of spring

In the first days of Spring, I make a bouquet of flowers for a friend. Take a broad brush, mix inks and water; strokes of blended color mingle on paper.

                                           

In these first days, I take many trains and, despite suitcase carrying and workshop running, cannot resist pausing to stop for just a while, just a little while, a tiny perfect while, to photograph pink cherry blossom. Endless blooms drip from winter branches. Trees yawn against an aquamarine sky. I dream, fall into the beauty.

                                           

 In the first days of Spring, I wash in hotel bathrooms, admire green tiles and consider how water unpeels travelling days. 

                                               

In these days, I wonder about the necessity of play, a need to spin in serendipity. I weigh possibilities and measure the spring, which seems to be disguised as summer. Breathing through change as seasons unfurl, the earth turns as I walk on.

January morning 3: On the train

I drink my almost cold, microwave heated coffee, eat a sliced bread sandwich filled with a skim of butter covered with pear and apple spread. Opposite me, a tailored, tall, middle-aged man reads the Figaro newspaper. He wears frameless glasses, a well-cut winter coat, a tousle of grey hair and a whiff of aftershave. I imagine his midriff as plump, from too much Christmas foie gras. He has slip on black shoes and a neat beak of an acquiline nose. His mouth purses as he reads, pulling skin forward from a slowly sagging jaw. He would, I imagine tickle a grandchild with glee, sack an employee fearlessly and must of tasted the forbidden delight of une maitresse. At least, this is what I imagine from my seat on the train as we travel through an early January hour.

January morning 2: On the train

On the train, two teenage girls, in beige and black puffas, describe late nights, sleeping and lost loves, whilst a third, quiet girl listens. She scratches freshly washed hair with a bitten nail and fervently texts someone, somewhere. Under the citric glow of the carriage lamps, we speed through the early morning winter darkness. I drink black coffee, eat a spelt bread sandwich and dream of another day.

June, July, August

Three months of summer have almost passed by, our worlds spinning, colliding, transforming. Nothing ever stays the same. Everything is moving. We've organised a funeral, grieved the loss of a close one and spent nights dreaming, quietly of death; long lost relatives and friends haunting sleeping hours, a kindly reminder of our ephemeral journey, our brief blink of time on this turning earth. Cruel nature. I listen to PJ Harvey let england shake on boats, London tube trains and in our van. I smile, shed a tear and sing along. At the side of the road is a chateau, with a For Rent sign à louer.

We escape the grief and drive down South, the little one gets freckles on her pale white nose, whilst the elder turns a sophisticated brown. We admire graffiti walls and flowers in Saintes.

We swim.

The water heals our bodies and minds. Wet, soothing, fingers and toes slice through turquoise matter; in structured swimming pools and free form lakes.

I work on the revisions to my manuscript - a little - I long to write on this blog, imagine posts and telling stories, things described in verbs and nouns, black and white attempts to capture an existence. I want to write about the thesaurus, old friends, death and healing; the utter unpredictability of life. Instead, I wash and fold clothes in the forest heat, wipe ice cream from noses and wander. I love this slowed down summer time, when tasks are unsqueezed from between writing, my hospital work, lecturing, school. Days breathe slowly, unhurried; in and out from the diaphram. Breathing deep from the belly. Folding clean clothes is a pretty life in clover.

We travel through the Spanish mountains in the Valle d'Aran, visit medieval villages with Roman walls built into Christian Churches (the stuff of ley lines and palimpsests), share food with old friends, sing songs about Eskimos and ask "Is that Brian Eno?". We eat menu del dia, with red wine served in pottery jugs, have garlic soup, catalan tomato bread and patatas bravas, café con leche and want churros with hot chocolate, but never quite find the time. Next year. Last night we watched a documentary made by Banksy about street art, ephemeral stuff, made in moonlight, guerilla-style, in your face, ART. The film also explores the trash/cash flip side of the art world, is Thierry really an artist or did Banksy make him up?

This from my collection of station graffiti. Pictures taken from trains in June. Little grubby urban hideouts were viewed through carriage windows at the start of these three moving months. June, July, August 2011; months of boats, vans and swims, the tumbling revolutions of life and death. But, that story is for another day...

the old man with the green bag on the train

The French high speed train stops at the station. The door opens. An old man steps in with a groan, carrying a large, worn rectangular canvas green bag. He's wearing shorts and a fluorescent sleeveless jacket. His skin is burnt a cherry red brown. There's an ugly whiff of old sweat, unwashed skin. He barks his destination at me. I answer and when he replies - in English- "Excellent", we get talking. He has a strange dent in his forehead, the size of a bullet, bloodshot red eyes. We chat about Spain, where he lives part of each year and France, where I live for all of each year.

"It's a cruel world now", he says, "There's no empathy, no kindness".

"I like your bag", I say, "Did you make it?"

He explains that he's had the green canvas bag for over twenty years. It contains his bike, a sleeping bag, a small tent and a change of shoes. "I'm in my late seventies", he says, "Every year I cycle the 800 miles between my house in Spain and a French port, to get the boat back to England. I've been on the road since March, but it got too hot, so I took the train". He wheezes, wipes bloodshot eyes with a crumpled checked handkerchief.

He describes how he cycles through the mountains, uses the pass where the pilgrims walk, "los peligrinos", he says in Spanish. "Saint Jacques de Compostelle", I say in French. He's been riding along the same mountain pass for over twenty-five years,

"I've met so many strange folk on that road. Last time, there were two Dutch women from Holland. They were pulling a cart by hand. I told them it's sixteen miles up that mountain. They just laughed. Sturdy they were".

When we arrive at the station, we get off together. "I'll just wind my way up to a campsite"he says with a smile. In the hazy brilliant orange light, I drive home, thinking of the old man and his rectangular green canvas bag.

the old lady in the waiting room

It is nearly ten o'clock at night. In the station waiting room an old lady sits next to a small red suitcase, eating blueberries from a plastic box. She places them, one by one, inside her mouth, nips off the stalk. Munches. Grabs another. Her jaw quivers. She holds the plastic box of blueberries on her lap on a plastic bag, that she's removed from inside another plastic bag. She folds the bags, with decisive yet trembling gestures, puts them in her suitcase for a later date. The bags look reused, as though they have travelled round the world, visited Peru and the African plains. She looks at me across the empty room. I am eating a salad from inside my own plastic bag, with a spare spoon that I carry for such occasions. I have a paper napkin spread over my lap, to catch the crumbs from a bread roll that I took from the hotel breakfast buffet. We bite, chew and swallow in two separate rhythms. A homeless man walks in, betrayed by worn shoes. When he leaves, she looks up at me, with watery blue eyes, "Has he gone?", "Yes", I reply. " No fear, god will protect us" she says, crocking an ear to catch my words. As she shows me her ticket, I discover she has missed her train, that the last one is leaving in only two minutes. I rush her down to the platform, through lifts and escalators, bundle her onto the high speed train. She suddenly asks me, "What is your name?", when I answer she replies, "I'll pray for you".

Preparing for the forest

I like to prepare for the forest. To prepare is to make ready beforehead for a specific purpose. I like to prepare for the forest. I enjoy the beforehead as much as the journey and the holiday; it is the leading-up to, the equiping and the planning, the composing and constructing of an expedition. I have always enjoyed packing. Transitions; the pieces inbetween. The packing is the warm-up, the laying of the table, the awakening of a dream. I fold small trousers, bend tiny socks and roll tights into balls. I place clothes in suitcase corners as I dream of trees. I put together the ingredients for miso soup and special breakfast porridge. As I drink green tea, I pack Chinese Heaven dollars to surprise my girls, envisage secrets and paints for idle moments. For writing, I select sharp pencils and tie the knots around the folder that contains my manuscript. Words will be stitched into pixeled screens, characters and plots determined. The book is almost finished now. I think of birds cries at dawn, black coffee drunk on frost and wearing wellies kissed by icy grass. I think of a horizon of trees, infinite green and the freedom of a running child. I gear up, arrange the outside and the inside of my world for life lived at the pace of trees.

coming home

We are home. On the journey back from the South to the North, we leave dry Aragon and the deep Spanish lakes; an arid red land patched with blue. We drive up and through the Pyrennes, with black smoke steaming from the back of our van. We slip into the tunnel that goes under the mountains. We stop in France, eat melon, cheese and chips, sat on a wall in the sun. We fall down the slopes into rolling countryside. The Gers makes us think of soft English landscapes. A man drives a silver rolls Royce in the summer sun. We stop in a town and buy blue sandals for two euros and a toy parrot, which my daughter calls Sky. We sleep that night in a municipal campsite near a man travelling with a tent the size of his body. He has walker's calf muscles and a sturdy face. Yesterday, tired in the white stone of the Charentes region, we find ourselves stuck in a leisure park with country-dancing, giant barbecues and far too many people. Too many people.

Today, we are home, sucking up the bits of the voyage. There is the washing, the answerphone, the emails, the post and the smiles of the courtyard neighbours. The emptying of bags. Crumbs of the holidays falling on our floor. Packets of tortes are arranged on a shelf. The flat feels big after the space of the van. There are the seagulls and the iodine smell of the sea. The small, quiet sadness that a trip is over. The happiness of the return.

here in aragon

Here in Aragon, Spain, we are steeped in the shadows of spindly pine trees whose shadows shelter us from the blinding heat. The tiny campsite is almost crushed by cliffs of red rock, which surround us on all sides. I write on paper, we swim in another lake daily and drink beer in the waterside cafe. The temperatures sear, the landscape is arid, frighteningly bare. We all melt at some point in the day, recovering as night falls, after a six o'clock dip in the turquoise blue water. We have just eaten a meal of squid, red juice seeped in bread, drunk local wine, finished with sweet white melon. The light is fading, the insects are singing. We've being visiting hillside towns, watched priests chanting in beautiful byzatine cathedrals, drunk cafe con leche, searched for unfound cheap sandals. Got to go now, dark is coming.

Postcards from my travels : 2. San Sebastian

In San Sebastian we drink soft café con leche, admire sharp mountain landscapes, eat stewed red beans served with slow cooked cabbage and tiny pickled thin green chillis, play in parks with gentle carpeted floors, drink rough red wine, feel the heat, ignore keen drops on the winding roads, peer through the yellow beehived glass in our appartement's sliding door, eat a hundred second breakfasts of tender croissants standing at the bakery's wooden sculpted bar, feel exhausted, try to sit, walk through chic shops, spot Spanish fringes, bluntly beautiful, have a morning off the children, sit in the rustling comfort of a Reading Room in a Spanish public library, surrounded by old men, turning pages, browse articles in art reviews about John Cage and the Anarchy of Silence, relish in small bits of thinking time, fall into the colours of Stephen Dean, buy five litres of olive oil and a big blue sunhat, discover Spanish charity shops with my eldest daughter, search, look at the elegant remains of a Basque Palace, green seed packets and admire the smell of hanging laundry inside the internal courtyard.

Postcards from my travels: 1. Ten things to think about when you are driving to Bordeaux

1. Think about the distance - it's five o'clock and five hours drive, 520 km. I've just finished a day at work; run workshops, seen patients, eaten a plate of pale institutional pasta, imagined.

2. Think about entertaining two little girls; bubbling in the back of the car.

3. Think about black coffee, eating food, having a pit stop. Starting and stopping.

2. Reflect upon death. A close relative just came to stay, talked peacefully about where he would be buried one day; a spot in a rural graveyard. When he left, I felt like weeping. In the car, I feel at peace.

5. Think about trees. As we drive further South, they line the roads to shade us from the heat. The trees change shape with the geography of the land.

6. Ponder upon the taste of creamy leeks and chips, at the restaurant in the giant blue shop. Relish in the fact that I love cafeterias, the anonymity, the meeting of people, carrying my tray, being in this strange, multi-coloured, plastic world.

7. Think about driving, hands on the steering wheel, over-taking, using the indicator, leaving it on when you're in the left-hand lane. He says that only old ladies leave indicators ticking. Tick tack.

8. Think about sleeping, resting your head on the seat belt strap, when he takes over at the wheel. Try to stop the buzz of your brain, drift off with the sandman.

9. Reflect upon the innocence of sleeping children, when I see their heads nodding in the back. Remember the early weeks after their birth, the terrible vulnerability of a new-born child, a fragility that is hard to bear.

10. Think about carrying on forever, never stopping the car, just driving through darkness. Drifting along in the inky blue motorway night, lit by the yellow lights.

Following Paris

I drifted in Paris, met friends, went to the 104, a contemporary arts centre in the North East of Paris. I watched plays, walked in the snow, bought a pair of dungarees that I have not worn. I nibbled on Jewish cheesecake, gulped coffee, dreamed and stamped my feet on urban land. I took photos, rang my family and bought cherry flowers in salt from an exquisite Japanese boutique.

Following Paris, I've been researching and writing, caring for sick people, eating spelt and lentils cooked with caramalized onions and topped with white feta cheese.

Paris

Tomorrow morning I shall awake in the winter darkness and ease myself silently out of the house. I shall cross dark streets and the midnight blue sky and drive my car through empty roads, lit by yellow street lamps. I will slip onto a monolithic train and ride my way to Paris. Alone. In a capital city. A present from time, an extraction from everyday living.