Transforming the Ordinary

Picasso - The Old Guitarist, 1903
Source: www.pablopicasso.org

As is my habit I was reading the saturday paper at a cafe, with coffee and a bun. Sometimes I was drawn to an article and absorbed, other times I watched the crowds and listened to fragments of disconnected conversation. It was a day when everybody had a business face as they sorted out presents and got ready for christmas. Brows were furrowed, lips were pursed, discussion carried an edge. I sat and thought, as I often do, about how little people look around. This room, in this town centre, was full of people not interacting, all were within their own world, physically sharing a common space but looking inward. 

How do we all sense the world? All of use with our own concerns and experiences, doing the same sort of thing but are we seeing them in the same way? How many of each person’s thoughts are commonplace, hardly worth remarking upon, and how many exceptional? In this room what were the unusual insights I was missing?

These are questions I often ask myself, especially as I continue this blog about a common activity where there is little new to say. So many people run in a similar hobbyist way and so many experiences are similar, I sometimes wonder whether they are worth talking about. But (and this is my excuse) they are felt differently, not only from person to person but in the same person from time to time. One day the ordinary is just that - ordinary, but on others it is transformed. Super good days may be rare but when they happen they offer up moments of clarity and contentment that are almost magical.

I thought of this when I read the article by Giles Fraser, which quoted a poem by Wallace Stevens. As is his wont he took a theological message, whereas I take it as an affirmation of the way the ordinary can also be something else. Never mind music and the arts, we can also run to find those moments.

P.S. The poem is said to be a reaction to the Picasso painting, which may be true but for me a key word is “shearsman” which is used to describe a tailor, a craftsman. To me is is not a poem just about art, it is about any craft - the practice of any skill. In this respect running, if done seriously enough, is also a craft.

The Man With the Blue Guitar 

One
The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.
They said, “You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are.”
The man replied, “Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar.”

And they said to him, “But play, you must,
A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,
A tune upon the blue guitar,
Of things exactly as they are.” 

Two
I cannot bring a world quite round,
Although I patch it as I can.
I sing a hero’s head, large eye
And bearded bronze, but not a man,
Although I patch him as I can
And reach through him almost to man.
If a serenade almost to man
Is to miss, by that, things as they are,
Say that it is the serenade
Of a man that plays a blue guitar. 

Three
A tune beyond us as we are,
Yet nothing changed by the blue guitar;
Ourselves in tune as if in space,
Yet nothing changed, except the place
Of things as they are and only the place
As you play them on the blue guitar,
Placed, so, beyond the compass of change,
Perceived in a final atmosphere;
For a moment final, in the way
The thinking of art seems final when
The thinking of god is smoky dew.
The tune is space. The blue guitar
Becomes the place of things as they are,
A composing of senses of the guitar. 

Four
Tom-tom c'est moi. The blue guitar
And I are one. The orchestra
Fills the high hall with shuffling men
High as the hall. The whirling noise
Of a multitude dwindles, all said,
To his breath that lies awake at night.
I know that timid breathing. Where
Do I begin and end? And where,
As I strum the thing, do I pick up
That which momentarily declares
Itself not to be I and yet
Must be. It could be nothing else.

A Lyrical Pause

Yes, I remember Adlestrop --
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop -- only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

This poem by Edward Thomas, written just before the start of the First World War, is extremely well known and may even be one of the nation's favourites (not that I have any finger on the pulse of the nation's taste in poetry). Sometimes it has been used as an exercise in nostalgia: of steam trains, the peace of the countryside and the golden summer before war ripped the european world apart, but that is conflating the time of its composition with its meaning. I like it instead for its timelessness: not being about any era but instead describing those caught moments that I am sure have affected everyone throughout history - those moments when things pause and you are suddenly more aware of your surroundings.

These sort of moments that give me more pleasure than almost all others but they can not be anticipated or planned for. They happen unexpectedly through cracks and cannot be deliberately sought. For me though, running increases the chances of them coming. One of the habits of my pottering long runs along the canal is to stop at the furthest point,  sit on the arm of the lock gate, take a drink and look around. At such times a sense of peace can wash over me. Not always but sometimes. I know I am lucky in the beauty of my surroundings and it is more difficult to imagine such moments on streets of undistinguished housing. But it is not impossible. Anywhere at any time we can see things more clearly.

For one fleeting moment.

2011 Streak Day 205/365 (July 24): The Naming of Parts

2011 Streak Day 205/365 (July 24): Run - 3.21 miles, Time 28min 40sec, Weather - nondescript

Another stock run in the park and another chance to vent my irritation at the way the need to erect signs is becoming a compulsive disorder. It reminds me of the WWII poem by Henry Reed

To-day we have naming of parts. Yesterday,

We had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning,

We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,

To-day we have naming of parts. Japonica

Glistens like coral in all of the neighbouring gardens,

          And to-day we have naming of parts.

As you can see from the photo This is a very dull sign that probably has its roots in the highways department. Perhaps it might look better stuck into tarmac or paving, against a wall: I don’t know. What I do know is that stuck in the grass inside the park, it is a mess. Not only that the information is unnecessary.

Gadebridge Park is very pleasant and although it is a decent size it is not vast - it is a town park. From any point its full extent can be scanned and all the facilities can be seen. It holds no secrets; there are no hidden corners or woodland pathways. You can see it all before you.

So why do we have to be told the obvious? And why now? Has it been that for years and years our enjoyment has been diminished by not knowing where we were? 

Perhaps I just got out of bed on the wrong side and felt grumpy but as I passed the second of these signs I just felt irritated by the lack of sensibility shown by those who planted them

Juneathon 2011 Day 10: Boundaries and distance

2011 Streak 161/365: Run 7.55 miles, Time 1hr 11min 32sec, Weather - hints of rain

The following is a wonderful poem. It is very specific in place and so allows a precise imagining of a person, a pose, a view, yet at the same time its subject is large and more abstract:  vastness and interconnectedness in tension with the need for the manageable, the attainable.

Of course it has nothing to do with running. How could it? it is written by an elderly man taking a moment to contemplate, flipping his cigarette into the water, looking at a boat and the sky. It has nothing to do with running.

And yet … because it deals with universal themes, it does.  

When I run by the canal my situation is the reverse I have the extreme nearness of the task and the straightjacket of my capabilities, my world is constrained. Yet I look up and see a stretch of waterway 200 hundred years old. I see a connection with the industry, which built the country, a link to towns and cities which used to be quite isolated. On my own patch I can see the evidence of old industry turned into housing and retail park. And that is only the human history. Beside all that are the fields the landscape and the animals. The vastness opens out at odd moments and then closed down as the more immediate concerns of feeling breathless, weariness or thirst take over.

On the pier at Kinlochbrevie

The stars go out one by one

as though a bluetit the size of the world

were pecking them like peanuts out of the sky's

string bag

A ludicrous image I know.

Take away the grey light.

I want the bronze shield of summer

or winter's scalding sheet

My mind is struggling with itself.

That fishing boat is a secret

approaching me. It's a secret

coming out of another one.

I want to know the first one of all.

Everything's int he distance,

as I am. I wish I could flip that distance

like a cigarette into the water.

I want the extreme of nearness

I want boundaries on my mind

I want to feel the world like a straightjacket

Norman MacCaig

2011 Streak Day 150/365: Surface tension

2011 Streak Day 150/365: Walk - 3 miles, Time - 1hr, Weather - grey clouds gathering before afternoon rain.

I took this photo after the rain started. There was a simple reason: on the walk, when I was about to photograph a moorhen on its nest I discovered I had left the memory card in the computer. I stood, feeling stupid, for a few moments and then walked on. That's another thing I have to always remember!

It didn't matter because I had half-thought of waiting for the rain to take a picture of the way drops form on leaves or a well waxed car. I love the way the water is held by its surface tension, in different shapes and sizes.

I am reminded of this poem by Philip Gross:

Pour

  Call it connecting  

one moment with another:  

   water- 

in-the-glass with water-in-the-jug, 

two bodies of water 

   and between, 

this slick and fluted glitter, 

    slightly 

arcing, rebraiding itself as it falls, 

as for tangible 

  seconds it’s a thin 

taut string of surface tension 

that my hand feels, on the handle, 

as a pulse, a pull, 

   a thing 

in space, that lives in this world 

like us, with purpose 

   though not one 

least particle is constant, knows 

its place, could account 

   or be held 

to account for what it is or does

An Unexpected Reminder

Last Sunday was really dark. As everything was falling away I wondered why I spent so much time not only running but thinking about running. It was all a waste as I was achieving nothing. How could I say it was good when there was only struggle?

These thoughts were worst around half way, when it would have been easy to abandon as the course is a squashed figure of eight, and the end seemed a long way away. But as one foot followed another the distance gradually reduced and I knew I could finish and by doing so find some consolation: prove to myself that I could at least carry-on. Important because I have always believed that all the benefits of running flow from the simple act of keeping going. Consistency is everything.

So I finished and rested and as the feeling of physical weakness receded my spirits started to lift. On Saturday I read this poem in the Guardian and for some strange reason they lifted even more. I know that the metaphor of the marathon is one of the most common in the language (and applied to almost everything) but as I read it here it became inverted: I was the marathon man and the metaphor was the ageing poet. When I thought of 'the first flower in the world' or the 'original bird' I thought not of verse but of the excitement of those early days of running when everything seemed fresh and clear.

My continuing project is to try to maintain that sense of clarity. And this poem brought me back to my purpose. It also reminded me that the only way to see the flower and hear the bird is to be outside, with your senses opened up.

Oh and I also like the idea of being a rowdy at deaths door for whom the last moment is not too late

Some Older American Poets
Borders Bookstore, White Plains, NY


Tired of the accomplished young men
and the accomplished young women,
their neat cerebral arcs and sphinctral circles,
their impeccable chic, their sudden precocious surge,
their claims to be named front-runner,
I have turned to the ageing poets – the marathon men,
the marathon women – the ones who breasted the tape
and simply ran on, establishing their own distance.
Home after another funeral they walk by the pond
with a sense of trees thinning and cold in the air,
yet thrill to the dog's passionate slapstick,
his candid arse-up in the debris of last year's storms.
You sprightly mortals, you rowdies at death's door,
for whom the last moment is not too late to begin!
I can't get enough of you, bright-eyed and poetry mad
in the fields next to the cemetery, where you drop to your knees
before the first flower in the world, where you lift your heads
to that bare cry among brambles, the original bird.

Frank Ormsby from Fireflies.
Published in the Guardian 17th October

Adventure and Competence

Roni Horn once told me
that one of the Antarctic explorers said
To be having an adventure

is a sign of incompetence.
When I am feeling
at my most incompetent
as i do in Stykkisholmur
many a dark morning
walking into the wind

I try to conjure in mind
something that is the opposite of incompetence.
For example the egg.

This perfect form.
perfect content.
Perfect food.

In your dreams
said a more recent explorer (Anna Freud)
you can have your eggs cooked as perfectly as you want

but you cannot eat them.
Sometimes at night
when I can't sleep

because of the wind
I go and stand
in the library of glaciers.

I stand in another world.
Not the past not the future.
Not paradise not reality not

a dream.
An other competence.
Wild and constant.

From 'Wildly Constant' by Anne Carson.

There are differing meanings for the word adventure. I use it fairly loosely to describe a long run, cycle, or hike, or even just putting myself in a slightly challenging environment. Mostly my adventures are mild and the risk of serious danger is limited. However for an Antarctic explorer an adventure is something life threatening , something where the deepest reserves of energy and courage have to be summoned just to reach safety. I lack the courage or faith in my own resources to do things that are extreme, however I am prone to incompetence and that can expose me a bit more than is absolutely necessary.

When I read this poem I think back to a cycle journey my friend and I took along the Ridgeway. It was planned as a full day's ride, a loop including Wantage and Avebury. Something not too extreme except… Except that we decided to do it in February, when days are short and the weather is not the finest, and we set out late so we had too few hours of daylight. Such simple, basic, bad planning.

Nevertheless the first part of the ride was fun, the scenery was good and we had hopes that the challenge could be character building. But as the day wore on the wind blew harder and it took all our strength just to keep moving forward. At the top of Barbury castle our strength was sapped but no worries it was mostly downhill to Avebury but instead of getting there for lunch, it was mid afternoon and we knew we were going to struggle to get back in time. We tried to hurry as much as possible but our legs were not fresh and anyway off-road cycling is comparatively slow. Gradually the night drew in and we could see less and less in front of our wheels, which slowed us down even more as we tried to pick a safe path amid slippery clay, lumpy chalk and deep ruts caused by 4x4s. Eventually we could see nothing - it was pitch dark, without even the moon, and we of course had no lights. We could cycle no further- there might be people who can bike over rough terrain guided only by extrasensory perception, but that was not us. We had to trudge back, pushing our bikes, walking in cleats, stumbling over the uneven land and not knowing where the hell we were and not being able to see where we were going. It was the longest 10 miles I have ever walked and when we arrived at the car we were both totally exhausted, completely weak and I have no idea how I drove home. Even now, many years later I can feel how tired and beaten I was that night.

(I can now use the memory when things get bad in long runs or a marathon. I just tell myself that if I could got back then I can surely finish now).

But when we planned our ride it was not meant to be like that, it was a good day out. "In your dreams you can have your eggs cooked as perfectly as you want but cannot eat them." That is the problem when I plan runs or rides I mostly dream. I imagine what things could or should be like, I create pictures and see myself striding out, but might just as well be floating on a cloud. I do not think about what happens when you push yourself. I do not feel the tiredness, the way muscles weaken, the body aches, and thinking slows down.

It can be good to ignore these things when planning, after all you want to focus on the life-enhancing and it is always comforting to imagine yourself as stronger and faster than you really are. But when you dream it is too easy to be too hopeful about your abilities and as a result find yourself in situations beyond your competence. Perhaps that is what the Antarctic explorer means by an adventure - something that leaves you exposed. 

When planning trips or races I want to do things that will extend me by degrees, push things but not break them, balance dreams with my abilities. I do not want to be exposed I want to find another world... an other competence, wild and constant. 

Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen

During today's run I thought about swans. Partly this was the result of the coincidence of two unrelated pieces of reading. The first was Warriorwoman describing being attacked by a swan in her blog, whilst this morning I read 'Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen' by W.B.Yeats, whose third part revolves around the imagery of a swan.

Some moralist or mythological poet
Compares the solitary soul to a swan;
I am satisfied with that,
Satisfied if a troubled mirror show it,
Before that brief gleam of its life be gone,
An image of its state;
The wings half spread for flight,
The breast thrust out in pride
Whether to play, or to ride
Those winds that clamour of approaching night.

I wasn't much concerned with the meaning of the poem, instead I pictured myself running, with my arms half spread for flight and my breast thrust out. Not a lot of pride though; I am not a prideful runner.

From this my thoughts moved to the general imagery of swans and how it was formed by their grace on the water and in flight, and the uniform white of their coat and ignores their rather grumpy, ill-tempered nature. But these thoughts did not last very long , as with all thoughts when running, they wandered off in a series of hazy relationships as if I was playing a game of Chinese whispers with myself. The next strand was about how often I see swans when I am running – not that frequently.. I then started to think of all the birds and ducks I see by or on the canal. My favourite is the heron but they are seen at their best in the early morning when the mist is still rising from the water. I make a note to try to get up earlier to see them more often. Then I start to think about sleep patterns.

So that is how it goes: I run by the water and my mind floats and bobs.

Anyway, as if on cue, some swans appeared and needed to be photographed. I reached into to my belt to get my camera and the swans obviously thought I was going to feed them as they swam towards me and waited expectantly. When they realised there was no food they both disdainfully turned their heads away - as the stanza says, they have their pride.

Photothon 26: Ozymandias

I love looking at the canal boat's names. Some are straightforward like 'Lucy Jane' others are jokey like 'Alibi' but in all cases there is a sense of people following their fancy. There is so much more freedom than in the naming a house: can you imagine a house called 'Lucy Jane' or 'alibi'?

You come to the waterways to discover something outside of the nine to five and the boat, the name, and the decoration all express this.

'Ozymandias' is an interesting choice. It comes from a poem by Shelley inspired by the broken statue of an Egyptian king. It has the theme that all power and glory will eventually decay into dust and there is an inevitable cycle for all civilisations. Its most famous lines are:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Now my guess is that the owners do not want to liken the Grand Union Canal to the sandy boundless dessert or their boat to a decaying statue. I doubt they even think their vessel is the 'king of kings'. Instead they want to affirm to poems message that the mighty will fall. They want to quietly get-on with their canal life whilst knowing that the flash, the pretentious, the overbearing, and the masterly can be safely ignored.

That is the spirit of the waterways. It is a mixture of the make-do and mend and the beautifully appointed, the rough and the shiny. Everybody goes their own way, on their own terms. It is also the spirit of running. We all do what we can within the limits of our bodies. Some are faster, some are not, but it doesn't matter. We are all just quietly getting-on . It is why I like running here - there is an affinity.

A Clean Slate With Your Own Face On

Rather shamefacedly, I must admit I have not only never read any Sylvia Plath, I have actively avoided her work. Just like the next man I am full of petty prejudices but I am quite happy to be proved wrong. This time it happened when flicking through the booklet about her given away with today’s Guardian. The first thing I read was the poem ‘You’re’ and I thought it lovely.

On first reading I thought it about a newborn infant and I related to it by remembering my own children at that age, all full of vague potential. “O high-riser, my little loaf” just made me smile. But a number of lines did not make sense (e.g.Gilled like a fish) until I realised it was about the unborn child she was carrying.

Clownlike, happiest on your hands,
Feet to the stars, and moon-skulled,
Gilled like a fish. A common-sense
Thumbs-down on the dodo's mode.
Wrapped up in yourself like a spool,
Trawling your dark, as owls do.
Mute as a turnip from the Fourth
Of July to All Fools' Day,
O high-riser, my little loaf.

Vague as fog and looked for like mail.
Farther off than Australia.
Bent-backed Atlas, our travelled prawn.
Snug as a bud and at home
Like a sprat in a pickle jug.
A creel of eels, all ripples.
Jumpy as a Mexican bean.
Right, like a well-done sum.
A clean slate, with your own face on.

Whatever its actual meaning, the poem started a train of thought about beginnings – the optimism, playfulness, and hope. The first word ‘clownlike’ made me think about how much and how easily children laugh and how we lose that giggliness when we get older and activity turns into work. We are at our best when we recover just a fraction of that delight and it is the purpose of our hobbies, pastimes, and obsessions, to give us some glimpse of it.

But even our recreations, if done often enough, can become an obligation, a pressure like work. So all the time we need to recover the sense of the new, the freshness of the beginning when every run is a discovery and hopes are ‘as vague as the fog and looked for like the mail’.

This can be done in so many ways – new routes, looking at old routes in a different way, forgetting about speed, time, distance, or trying a new training plan. It does not matter what. All that matters is keeping fresh and feeling alive, and with any luck finding some delight.