I Stop Writing the Poem (Tess Gallagher)

to fold the clothes. No matter who lives
or who dies, I'm still a woman.
I'll always have plenty to do.
I bring the arms of his shirt
together. Nothing can stop
our tenderness. I'll get back
to the poem. I'll get back to being
a woman. But for now
there's a shirt, a giant shirt
in my hands, and somewhere a small girl
standing next to her mother
watching to see how it's done.

from Lark Rise, chapter XV, Harvest Home (Flora Thompson)

After the jubilee nothing ever seemed quite the same. The old Rector died and the farmer, who had seemed immovable excepting by death, had to retire to make way for the heir of the landowning nobleman who intended to farm the family estates himself. He brought with him the new self-binding reaping machine and women were no longer required in the harvest field. At the hamlet several new brides took possession of houses previously occupied by elderly people and brought new ideas into the place. The last of the bustles disappeared and leg-o'-mutton sleeves were 'all the go'. The new Rector's wife took her Mothers' Meeting women for a trip to London. Babies were christened new names; Wanda was one, Gwendolin another. The innkeeper's wife got in cases of tinned salmon and Australian rabbit. The Sanitary Inspector appeared for the first time at the hamlet and shook his head over the pigsties and privies. Wages rose, prices soared, and new needs multiplied. People began to speak of 'before the jubilee' much as we in the nineteen-twenties spoke of 'before the war', either as a golden time or as one of exploded ideas, according to the age of the speaker.

And all the time boys were being born or growing up in the parish, expecting to follow the plough all their lives, or, at most, to do a little mild soldiering or go to work in a town. Gallipoli? Kut? Vimy Ridge? Ypres? What did they know of such places? But they were to know them, and when the time came they did not flinch. Eleven out of that tiny community never came back again. A brass plate on the wall of the church immediately over the old end house seat is engraved with their names. A double column, five names long, then, last and alone, the name of Edmund.

Epistles 1.9 to Minicius Fundanus (Pliny the Younger, trans. adapted from Betty Radice)

Mirum est quam singulis diebus in urbe ratio aut constet aut constare videatur, pluribus iunctisque
non constet. Nam si quem interroges “Hodie quid egisti?,” respondeat: “Officio togae virilis interfui, sponsalia aut nuptias frequentavi, ille me ad signandum testamentum, ille in advocationem, ille in consilium rogavit.” Haec quo die feceris, necessaria, eadem, si cotidie fecisse te reputes, inania videntur, multo magis cum secesseris. Tunc enim subit recordatio: “Quot dies quam frigidis rebus absumpsi!” Quod evenit mihi, postquam in Laurentino meo aut lego aliquid aut scribo aut etiam corpori vaco, cuius fulturis animus sustinetur. Nihil audio quod audisse, nihil dico quod dixisse paeniteat; nemo apud me quemquam sinistris sermonibus carpit, neminem ipse reprehendo, nisi tamen me cum parum commode scribo; nulla spe nullo timore sollicitor, nullis rumoribus inquietor: mecum tantum et cum libellis loquor. O rectam sinceramque vitam! O dulce otium honestumque ac paene omni negotio pulchrius! O mare, o litus, verum secretumque μουσεῖον, quam multa invenitis, quam multa dictatis! Proinde tu quoque strepitum istum inanemque discursum et multum ineptos labores, ut primum fuerit occasio, relinque teque studiis vel otio trade. Satius est enim, ut Atilius noster eruditissime simul et facetissime dixit, otiosum esse quam nihil agere. Vale.

It is extraordinary how, if one takes a single day spent in Rome, one can give a more or less accurate account of it, but scarcely any account at all of several days put together. If you ask anyone “What did you do today?”, the answer would be: “I was present at a coming-of-age ceremony, a betrothal, or a wedding. I was called on to witness a will, to support someone in court or to act as assessor.” All this seems important on the actual day, but quite pointless if you consider that you have done the same sort of thing every day, and much more pointless if you think about it when you are out of town. It is then that the realisation comes to you, “How many days I have wasted in trivialities!” I always realise this when I am at Laurentum, reading and writing and finding time to take the exercise which keeps my mind fit for work. There is nothing there for me to say or hear said which I would afterwards regret, no one disturbs me with malicious gossip, and I have no one to blame—but myself—when writing doesn’t come easily. Hopes and fears do not worry me, and I am not bothered by idle talk; I share my thoughts with myself and my books. It is a good life and a genuine one, a seclusion which is happy and honourable, more rewarding than almost any business can be. The sea and shore are truly my private Mouseion, an endless source of inspiration. You should take the first opportunity yourself to leave the din, the futile bustle and useless occupations of the city and devote yourself to literature or to leisure. For it was wise as well as witty of our friend Atilius to say that it is better to have no work to do than to work at nothing. xx

from Boy, Goodbye School (Roald Dahl)

After that we spent months at the Head Office in London learning how the great company functioned from the inside.  I was still living in Bexley, Kent, with my mother and three sisters, and every morning, six days a week, Saturdays included, I would dress neatly in a sombre grey suit, have breakfast at seven forty-five and then, with a brown trilby on my head and a furled umbrella in my hand, I would board the eight-fifteen train to London together with a swarm of equally sombre-suited businessmen.  I found it very easy to fall into their pattern.  We were all very serious and dignified gents taking the train to our offices in the City of London where each of us, so we thought, was engaged in high finance and other enormously important matters.  Most of my companions wore hard bowler hats, and a few like me wore soft trilbys, but not one of us on that train in the year of 1934 went bareheaded.  It wasn't done.  And none of us, even on the sunniest days, went without his furled umbrella.  The umbrella was our badge of office.  We felt naked without it.  Also it was a sign of respectability.  Road-menders and plumbers never went to work with umbrellas.  Businessmen did.

I enjoyed it, I really did.  I began to realize how simple life could be if one had a regular routine to follow with fixed hours and a fixed salary and very little original thinking to do.  The life of a writer is absolute hell compared with the life of a businessman.  The writer has to force himself to work.  He has to make his own hours and if he doesn't go to his desk at all there is nobody to scold him.  If he is a writer of fiction he lives in a world of fear.  Each day demands new ideas and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not.  Two hours of writing fiction leaves this particular writer absolutely drained.  For those two hours he has been miles away, he has been somewhere else, in a different place with totally different people, and the effort of swimming back into normal surroundings is very great.  It is almost a shock.  The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze.  He wants a drink.  He needs it.  It happens to be a fact that nearly every writer of fiction in the world drinks more whisky than is good for him.  He does it to give himself faith, hope and courage.  A person is a fool to become a writer.  His only compensation is absolute freedom.  He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it.

from The Watsons (Jane Austen)

With much concern they took their seats - Lord Osborne near Emma, and the convenient Mr. Musgrave in high spirits at his own importance, on the other side of the fireplace with Elizabeth. He was at no loss for words; - but when Lord Osborne had hoped that Emma had not caught cold at the ball, he had nothing more to say for some time, and could only gratify his eye by occasional glances at his fair neighbour. 

Emma was not inclined to give herself much trouble for his entertainment - and after hard labour of mind, he produced the remark of its being a very fine day, and followed it up with the question of, 'Have you been walking this morning?'

'No, my lord.  We thought it too dirty.'

'You should wear half-boots.' - After another pause, 'Nothing sets off a neat ankle more than a half-boot; nankin galoshed with black looks very well. - Do not you like half-boots?'

'Yes - but unless they are so stout as to injure their beauty, they are not fit for country walking.'

'Ladies should ride in dirty weather. - Do you ride?'

'No my lord.'

'I wonder every lady does not. - A woman never looks better than on horseback. -'

'But every woman may not have the inclination, or the means.'

'If they knew how much it became them, they would all have the inclination, and I fancy Miss Watson - when once they had the inclination, the means would soon follow.'

'Your lordship thinks we always have our own way. - That is a point on which ladies and gentlemen have long disagreed. - But without pretending to decide it, I may say that there are some circumstances which even women cannot control. Female economy will do a great deal my Lord, but it cannot turn a small income into a large one.'

from My Family and Other Animals, The Return (Gerald Durrell)

Our mountain of possessions was arranged in the Customs shed, and Mother stood by it jangling an enormous bunch of keys. Outside in the brilliant white sunlight the rest of the family talked with Theodore and Kralefsky, who had come to see us off. The Customs officer made his appearance and wilted slightly at the sight of our mound of baggage, crowned with a cage from which the Magenpies peered malevolently. Mother smiled nervously and shook her keys, looking as guilty as a diamond smuggler. The Customs man surveyed Mother and the luggage, tightened his belt, and frowned. 

'Theese your?' he inquired, making quite sure.

'Yes, yes, all mine,' twittered Mother, playing a rapid solo on her keys. 'Did you want me to open anything?'

The Customs man considered, pursing his lips thoughtfully.

'Hoff yew any noo clooes?' he asked.

'I’m sorry?' said Mother.

'Hoff yew any noo clooes?'

Mother cast a desperate glance round for Spiro.

'I’m so sorry. I didn’t quite catch ...'

'Hoff yew any noo clooes ... any noo clooes?'

Mother smiled with desperate charm.

'I’m sorry I can’t quite ...'

The Customs man fixed her with an angry eye.

'Madame,' he said ominously, leaning over the counter, 'do yew spik English?'

'Oh, yes,' exclaimed Mother, delighted at having understood him, 'yes, a little.'

She was saved from the wrath of the man by the timely arrival of Spiro. He lumbered in, sweating profusely, soothed Mother, calmed the Customs man, explained that we had not had any new clothes for years, and had the luggage shifted outside on to the quay almost before anyone could draw breath. Then he borrowed the Customs man’s piece of chalk and marked all the baggage himself, so there would be no further confusion.

from 'On Keeping a Notebook' (Joan Didion)

It all comes back. Perhaps it is difficult to see the value in having one’s self back in that kind of mood, but I do see it; I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be; one of them, a seventeen­ year-old, presents little threat, although it would be of some interest to me to know again what it feels like to sit on a river levee drinking vodka-and­-orange-juice and listening to Les Paul and Mary Ford and their echoes sing “How High the Moon” on the car radio. (You see I still have the scenes, but I no longer perceive myself among those present, no longer could even improvise the dialogue.) The other one, a twenty-three-year-old, bothers me more. She was always a good deal of trouble, and I suspect she will reappear when I least want to see her, skirts too long, shy to the point of aggravation, always the injured party, full of recriminations and little hurts and stories I do not want to hear again, at once saddening me and angering me with her vulnerability and ignorance, an apparition all the more insistent for being so long banished.

It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about.