Posts filed under 'Imagination'
I’ve not ventured into Second Life - first life quite occupying, thanks. But there are still some attractions to having an alter ego, maybe particularly online, but perhaps a few variations in the everyday too.
Before this all starts sounding too ‘multiple personality’, we all do it - because we all fit into each others’ lives in different ways. I’ve sat in on those team build-y type exercises where you have to describe who you are - and often it’s in terms of labels, many we give ourselves and some we let others give us.
Back to online: I was expecting a few more pseudonyms in some of the Facebook applications, particularly the ones which allow you to beat up people who have (probably unwisely) agreed to be your friend. Given that a lot of superheroes do have alternative names, I decided to be Superfrau for the purposes of the game. (Superfrau has a real life aspect too: it’s written on a small soft toy key ring I was given by the German interviewer of the students I send abroad.)
Sadly, only one other person I knew picked out an alter ego, although there are plenty of others out there on Facebook who are perfectly happy with their pseudonyms, mostly nicked from the TV show Heroes (which seems fair enough, as the game I play is based on that premise). But it got me thinking about which of our alter egos we keep as we go on in life.
When I was 19, I did the gap year thing, went to Poland for half a year. And yes, it was the life-changing experience that gap years are heralded to be - in loads of different ways. I hadn’t expected to, but I linked myself with Poland. It influenced how I decorated my room at university, how I cooked, the kind of music I listened to. It had a major impact on how I viewed things like hospitality, and other positives I wanted to emulate, when back in the UK.
Part of this was also what I told others about myself. For some time, any connection with Poland - even if it wasn’t the exotic gap year that some had had - seemed unusual for a UK citizen with no family ties there. I enjoyed a perspective that was European, but a different kind of Europe.
Now, over 15 years since I first went there, I find myself identifying myself less with Poland. It’s not that the significance has faded. But Poland is less part of my life than it was. My point is, it is unlikely to regain that position it had - because I have moved on too. Other identities have entered my life, many of which get lived more on a daily basis than the Polish aspects I hung onto.
So what? Life today offers vast amounts of change, choice, alternatives. Perhaps I put more stock in particular identities because I don’t have the consistency of belonging that some do. I don’t come from one particular place - though Edinburgh does offer the best option, having been home for a good number of years.
There are other identities that we gradually realise have been passed on to others. Mid thirties, the desire to change the world quite so much, the capacity for large amounts of caffeine, these seem to have slipped quietly out the room, probably when I was doing something significant like hanging up washing.
Perhaps what I’m struggling towards is a notion of letting go of some aspects of who I’ve been - but not feeling diminished in the process. Quite enjoying a little more space - equally, not rushing to fill it. Meanwhile, can I recommend Captain Fantastico for your day to day superhero requirements?
December 21st, 2008
You know it’s Christmas when the fridge is full of cheese (a slight exaggeration, but happily, only slightly) and Aardman has decided to issue a new Wallace and Gromit. My cup, mulled or otherwise, runneth over.
We’ve got rather used to Wallace and Gromit now, but what the animators achieve, painstakingly, lovingly, is indeed a present of great proportions. Yes, they’ve done a film, but really, it’s in the half-hour special that they truly come into their own.
Flicking through the TV section in the bumper two-week listing (more on that later), I discovered that I had shared a ‘Wal and Grom’ moment with Russell T. Davies, no less (a chap also somewhat linked to Christmas, what with Dr Who specials).
It’s the moment in the second animation - the one with the dastardly penguin - when Gromit is chasing the penguin on a model railway, runs out of track, grabs the box and starts to lay new track. I too remember that delighted ‘no!’ moment, when you don’t know what is coming next but you know that it is going to be amazing…
Part of the enjoyment is an opportunity to rediscover my inner Yorkshirewoman, and soak up all the deadpan jokes. Wallace allows us to remember how British the slightly potty inventor is - British too the elevation of pets to equal, if not greater, characters.
We’ve become used to televisual sweetmeats, TV treats at Christmas time. But amid all the reruns - and reissues of previous comedy programmes - Wallace and Gromit are, like cheeses at Christmastime, something you can always take a little more of.
December 21st, 2008
I suspect it won’t become a hit single. But after fairly relentless wind and rain (both of us ended yesterday with broken umbrellas), a spot of sunshine today needs a mention, if only for how it changes your view on life.
Tomorrow is the shortest day, and after that, even where it’s not quite believable, let alone visible at that point, we’ll start to get more light again. I read a Monty Don book on gardening one time, where he talked about the time between the clocks going back, and the shortest day, as the hardest point in the year. Forget whatever date in January is meant to herald mass depression, being low on daylight makes it harder to add joy to whatever seasonal comfort you may be indulging in in December.
Last year, I felt very aware of looking out for this change, perceiving the creeping extension of daylight during January. This year, I know about it, but that doesn’t always bring the acceptance of it that I’d hope for. Different features of it seem to affect different people: some hate it being pitch black when the alarm goes off in the morning, others find the darkness so early in the afternoon a difficulty.
In my gap year, I spent the first half waitressing, and realised how easy it was in the winter not to really see the sun at all, especially where you are facing in from a shop window rather than looking out. In an office with large windows, or a home with a good amount of light, it’s a bit easier, but not that much. I should probably try to go out at lunchtime, while it is genuinely light, but that requires a bit of energy, which is also harder in the winter.
Somehow, when you’ve closed the curtains and settled in to lower levels of light for longer, it becomes easier. One of my friends referred to the season of ‘candles and snuggly blankets’ returning, and that helps it seem a cosier prospect.
What I’m trying to suggest is that this is a time of year for needing a little encouragement. Whether that’s enjoying a spot of sun, an extra slice of stollen, or a longer letter from a friend you’ve not heard from for a while, it makes it possible to go on living in the dark for a little longer, with some indication that there is light still to come.
December 20th, 2008
Paris in the spring…With a few more days to go of nights drawing in, it’s harder to imagine a time where the light will become clearer again, even beautiful. There is something about spring light, and the promise it holds of cheer now, and cheerful times to come.
For me, spring is also linked to travel to Europe. In spring, we start to move out of our near-hibernation, into broader activities, and for me, travelling to ‘the continent’ seems bound up with that move to wider spaces. Looking back through my notebook for writing ideas, and our travel-related posts, it seems a shame to miss this one out, especially in the dark of the year where we need things to look forward to.
Europe in the spring started with German exchanges. In the days before cheap flights (and from reading others’ Facebook posts, even now), school trips abroad tended to involve lots of long overland travel. So we got the obligatory 5am coach ride from the Midlands to Dover, got on a ferry to Ostende, and from Ostende onto a train that would take us through Belgium and down the Rhine in Germany, for our host families to meet us in Mainz.
I was at an event celebrating Germany yesterday, and one of the activities in the group for young people was talking about things we saw in Germany that surprised us. Even before getting to Germany itself, our group discovered the older kind of European train rolling stock, with seats that push together in the middle of the compartment to make beds. We had no idea that German trains would be so conducive to playing sardines, and set off to see how many teenagers we could fit in one compartment…
One of the advantages of going to Europe in the spring is that it’s a few weeks ahead of the UK for signs of spring - blossom is already out, trees are in leaf, people are already sitting outside cafes (and not just because there’s a smoking ban). Life starts to feel more expansive, more open to possibility. Even when you have to go back to the UK, there is hope that these options are not too far away for us too.
Later, studying German at university, and trying to keep up some Polish, spring became a good time to try to go back to either country to see people. Certainly in the first year or two, before grants were frozen, my travel plans took in quite a few places - with the opportunity to travel by train, heading through wider landscapes, and gaining more of that spring fever. Since then, worktrips have enabled me to continue the trend, as our main set of policy meetings with partner agencies abroad is usually around Easter time.
It’s not just about the travel, good though that is, or the places themselves. Europe in the spring has become something of a state of mind, a boost for the synapses as well as the spirits. As the year draws to a close, we tend to go back into familiar patterns, traditions for Christmas and New Year, reviews of what has passed. It’s good to remind myself that there is also a time for new things to come after this, new perspectives - and new delights the world has to offer.
December 13th, 2008
Travel broadens the mind, it’s said. I’m not sure where that leaves commuting, and its potential to stimulate good ideas. But it does allow the linguist space to contemplate why words do different things, and try out a few alternatives, without too much distraction.
I was thinking about nouns turning into verbs, as they often do in English. Why would nouns that seem related, or at least similar in content, work so differently when they become verbs? Bag and sack are my examples - to bag someone for your team is very different from sacking someone, semantically.
I started to think about other related options. You can dog someone’s footsteps; you can also hound them - those would seem to have a similar impact. Not all of them work: we can cap someone (in sport) but we don’t seem to hat them, for some reason.
Some nouns seem to be missing a trick, not going for verb conversion (to continue the sport metaphors). You would think that someone would see the potential of baconing, as an alternative to chickening, or worse, goosing. But with news of pig infections in recent days, we are perhaps rightly cautious, for now.
Perhaps it’s down to me choosing some very everyday nouns for my examples, which could allow for more imaginative metaphors when they become verbs, because they’re so widely understood. You can understand that ones related to animals or food would more easily be taken into new contexts, for example.
If we look at who’s doing all this verb conversion, a big contribution must be made by business, constantly chasing the next fresh image as well as the bottom line. Some must come out spontaneously, with someone not quite selecting the right word, but realising that the new coining has impact, and using it again.
So, the next time your bus is taking ages to move along its route, or whatever other commuting option you have, test out a few nouns for me, and let me know if you’ve got any more examples where seemingly related nouns behave completely differently as verbs. And create some new ones, if you fancy. Where the economy may be shrinking, language is thankfully almost always expanding.
December 9th, 2008
Next door bought a large trampoline earlier in the year. Perfect child magnet. (It works quite well as an adult magnet too, but only as long as the adults consent to have their performance critiqued by the kids). We haven’t yet been asked if we want a go, but as long as we keep making approving noises at our neighbour’s routines on the trampoline, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before we’re given a shot.
But what happens when the year turns cold, and there’s no time to play out? You need a few other options up your sleeve. Many of our readers are familiar with our yellow friend Eric - and for those who aren’t, type in ‘Eric Frydman’ on Facebook and see what you find. Eric is happy to add child magnet to his list of abilities (as well as conducting, playing charades, and general making us laugh duty).
In fact, such is Eric’s appeal that we had to find additional Erics for our friends in Italy, and Dan’s small cousin on the west coast. Other friends’ children have wised up to Eric’s importance in the household - when I got in the car to get a lift from the family a month or two back, the first question was ‘Is the yellow thing with you?’ Eric consents to dance, hang upside down, spin round and round, be tied in knots, quite apart from laughing obligingly at each ‘look at this!’
For parties, we have another trick up our sleeves - or in the box we bring out for parties involving small children (that is to say, all parties now, pretty much). One of my toys from my childhood is a Viewmaster - essentially a way to view pictures in 3D, by inserting a disc of images in the viewer and looking at the overlapped images. Despite the fact that kids now have lots of access to films and cartoons, this always gets played with and marvelled over by new visitors, particularly when they get the hang of working it themselves.
Tall bloke, child magnet. Dan discovered on our recent trip to Italy just how tempting it is for kids to have a moving climbing frame that will also tickle you and hold you upside down. Unless of course three medium sized kids jump on the climbing frame at the same time…and even then, there’s a happy balance between pretending you’re completely outnumbered and actually being so.
Meanwhile, I’m off for my tea - food being a long favoured magnet of most children, and thankfully, adults too.
December 8th, 2008
We don’t go passing round the wafers, if that’s what you are thinking. But in terms of a Sabbath, as a day of rest, our main shot at resting does seem to coincide with Saturday mornings. Time to sit with Dan and chat, drink a coffee, unpack the week, hold out a little longer, drink another coffee…
For those with kids, where days of the week start at pretty much the same time every day, I don’t mind if you feel you need to turn away. It is a bit indulgent still to have this space. And it’s not so much about not doing as the chance to talk, and say where our thoughts and feelings have been going over the previous few days.
Resting is all about recharging, if you get a shot at it. Similar to a post about learning to relax, that I wrote a month or two back, it’s about things that are consistently good in enabling you to unwind, and feel better afterwards. Or be ready to tackle a bit of life again.
Part of the treat, for me at least, is also having some time where there’s nothing written against it, in a real or mental diary. I need some headspace to explore, to pick things up and put them down again. These things may not form part of a ‘to do’ list, but that’s their very appeal.
Was remembering about The Idler - can’t quite tell whether it’s now a book, or a blog, or multiples of all of that. http://idler.co.uk/ - see what you make of it. But part of what they are talking about is giving yourself time to think, rather than just doing.
For someone like me, who can be fairly said to be a Protestant with a work ethic, it’s invaluable to be reminded to find this space. I enjoy doing, of various kinds, and I’d never claim we can get through life without doing, but I am certainly thinking more and more that just being is a pretty good pursuit.
When we think back to treasured memories, holidays, that kind of thing, often what we’re remembering is the space to be; to idle; not just to let our mind work out what is really going on, but to allow our heart to be part of that too.
Too much gobbledy-gook? Well, I’m good at that too. But along that path, sooner or later, some wisdom comes out, something to help me be happy in my own skin and at peace with God. I’ll raise a mug of coffee to that.
November 29th, 2008
Sometimes, a title comes to me, and I know I have to use it. I’ll bung it down in the notebook, waiting for a point at which I can write about it. And following a holiday to a house whose inhabitants love books just as much as Dan and I, it seems a suitable time.
A reading rat - Leseratte - is the German equivalent to a bookworm. It was featured on a set of postcards from the Goethe Institut - they know how to do their advertising, I have to say. I sent it over to David, who is interested in German at the moment, and rediscovered it in a book, while we were over.
Shame in a way to choose rats and worms for such things - here are these wonderful things, books, and our way to talk about people who like them is to relate them to animals which are often the source of fear or disgust. My guess is that there’s probably some implied reference to devouring anything, which probably is true of serious book dependency after a while.
An alternative might be to talk about book fever - the illness that besets one when discovering just how addictive books are. I’m not just talking ‘can’t put them down’ thrillers. Even Enid Blyton can hit that craving button, when you are six or seven, and there just aren’t enough hours in the night to read. Talk about reading yourself into an early pair of glasses, as I did.
They warn you about sweet shops, and fast food stores, but libraries are pushers too. Want one? Why not take six? In fact, read three in the first day, take them back, and take out another six in addition to the ones you’ve not started yet.
This visit to Italy, both the older girls were getting stuck into books. The younger of the two is into Geronimo Stilton, mouse detective, whom I can only hope will get translated into English at some point. The cartoons that go with it are certainly fun. And I remember my discovery of Asterix at a previous age. The one thing better than a really good read is the discovery that you’ve only just started the series, and that they are still writing more…
These days, it’s getting harder to let animal instinct take over when it comes to reading. Time is shorter, and I find that I read several shorter things, rather than start a longer one and have to stop.
I quite fancy the idea of being some kind of reading polar bear - take on enough books to see you through the winter, in the way that they take on enough food supplies to keep going, and then dig yourself into a nice snowdrift (or equivalent) for a few months. If only they’d let you stay in bed to read during the winter, rather than going to work, I’m sure we could all achieve fuel efficiency too, because we’d still be warm enough.
If there’s any readers who can comment on what imagery is used for voracious book reading in other languages, would be interested to know. Next week, magazine locusts…
November 24th, 2008
I grew up in the school of “if it’s a good joke, it’s worth repeating”. I suspect that, separate from this, I am genetically predisposed to like puns, which are a form of repetition in a way, causing you to think about what you’re already familiar with. But the upshot is, I’m all too good at telling people something again…or yet again…because I think it’s worth a mention.
So here’s today’s moment: managed to leave work early, and include a quick visit to RealFoods. I’m about to go in, and smell the familiar health food shop smell…and think, ah that reminds me of the health food shop I briefly worked in…and then remember that I’ve already written about it…
Now admittedly, I’m not visiting the shop all the time, having that scent-memory, boring you with the recollection etc, on a regular basis. But I do forget what I’ve said to whom, or what I’ve written. And the more I think it’s worth passing on, probably all the more likely I am to keep telling the story.
Catching myself at it again tonight, I felt a bit like the goldfish with the 10 second memory. I don’t want to write a string of blog posts that add up to “Nice bowl! Nice bowl! Nice…” And I also know that I get to see plenty of new things, because my brain takes in the fact that they’re new.
Every year I deal with applications from people who have hobbies I’ve never heard of before (underwater hockey, anyone?), health conditions I’ve never come across. And they go off abroad and email with situations I’ve never had to come up with a solution to before. That’s all before I spot things on buses, or open the paper to find out about the latest whatnot we’re all supposed to be interested in.
Blogs are partly about novelty, I guess. You don’t expect to see the same story cut and pasted in, day after day. Perhaps what I’m aspiring to is columnist status, where you can actively get away with repeating yourself, or mentioning particular people, because your readership has got to know them too, through you, and wants the latest installment.
Probably one of the main reasons I write a blog is because I love ideas, I love the variety in the world, I love seeing whether someone else has come across the same, and what they think about it. And some of you even tell me, too…
Some of the nicest thoughts are like the first strawberry of the year. (Yes, I have a conscious awareness of the first strawberry of the year, and a first mince pie too, bracketing the year.) You’d never claim that it was the first ever. But the ‘first for a while…and good!’ is worth a shout about, don’t you think?
November 21st, 2008
It’s a serious question when you’re eight, going on nine. Things are not just out there. You need to know whether you like them or not.
Rachel and David’s eldest is keen on space. She and Dan had fun setting up her telescope while we were there, and while you or I may be struggling to think what to wear tomorrow, she is looking ahead to 2020 and the next manned mission to the Moon.
At one point, she mentioned that she liked Neptune best as a planet. “Why?” “Just do.” (This is also important when you’re eight. And twenty eight or more. Sometimes we just do.) I think it helped that it was also blue.
What was interesting was that then the adults started saying which planet they like. I liked Jupiter, because it was the biggest. Her dad liked Saturn, because of the rings. Dan liked Pluto, because it was also the name of a dog.
It was a great reminder that we too had our preferences, even though we might have long forgotten some of them. Life gets a lot more complicated when we have to justify why we like something (or more often as an adult, why we are still doing something when in fact we don’t want to).
Perhaps it’s a good incentive to have a more immediate response to things. Meanwhile, I’m off to practise a learned response - a cup of tea.
November 20th, 2008
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