Writing
Soup du Jour
On September 13, 2016 by Speranza
“Here it is. Just on the left there.”
The car slows down and a large sign comes into view – Sunshine Acres. At one corner, a laughing cartoon cow doffs a straw hat in welcome. It occurs to me – and not for the first time either – that elderly people are often lumped into the same category as little children. These dreadful names! The last place we visited was called Happy Haven. Must they use nomenclature that would be better suited to a Victorian lunatic asylum? As we pull into the driveway, my daughter-in-law, Nancy, makes enthusiastic chatter at top speed, rather like a monkey. I’ve heard her prattle like this before when she’s uncomfortable and it only serves to make me feel the same way.
We’re out of the car now, feet crunching on gravel and as The Director opens the door to us, a warm blast of the sweet smell peculiar to the old, hits me like a wave. Familiar feelings of dread begin to creep upwards from my bowels.
“Welcome! Lovely day, not too hot.”
With startling insight, I can now see who the model was for the cartoon cow on the sign. The Director is immaculate in a crisp tailored suit with piping and her platinum blonde hair is styled like a policeman’s. She is smiling alright, but there is a certain oiliness. Even her breasts, restrained within the confines of her jacket, have a formidable, don’t-mess-with-me attitude about them. She pumps my hand firmly and ushers us further down the hall, where the sun is shining brightly in a room called The Lounge and people huddle in groups reading the paper or staring into space.
“Now isn’t this pleasant!” says Nancy chirpily to Bill who has not spoken a word all the way here. The Director begins extolling the virtues of having a life that is still very much your own, where independence is retained right up to the end. The end? Nancy nods intently, hanging on every word. I wonder if she and Bill ever have a proper conversation. I wonder if they still make love.
Five minutes to order a latte
And then you demand a bowl.
Steel wool hair.
Your ringtone is Mr.Roboto.
I leave quickly by the back exit.
© Speranza
Shaken not Stirred
Introspection . Nostalgia . Writers . Writing
The Other Martha
On January 3, 2016 by Speranza
I just finished listening to an archived interview with hard-boiled wartime writer and activist Martha Gellhorn on the radio and hearing her cultured, richly intellectual way of speaking casually expand on the exciting yet pugilistic life she led has made me feel equal parts impressed, intrigued and unsettled.
Impressed and intrigued because she led such a fascinating, unpredictable and often dangerous life and unsettled because this is a heady cocktail of everything I am not.
I have none of her wanderlust, her confidence or that driving need to be combative (most recently I couldn’t even play a competitive board game at Christmas lest I offend the land occupiers who were good friends!) yet I continue to pretend that had my life turned out differently, I might have been a kick-arse journalist.
Really. Really? I need to shut this fantasy down and resolve to confine myself to writing at least half-way regularly at my middle-class desk where I can safely blog to an audience that rarely exceeds 2 digits … what the heck would Martha say about that …?
I cannot bear to think of it.
Strangely, it’s a truism about myself that I’m often extremely attracted to clever outspokenness as a trait in other people – Noel Gallagher, Denis Leary, Richard Dawkins, The General – but I abhor it in myself; of course, I should also clarify that boorish, uncalled for outspokenness can veer very closely to let’s just say something else, and I have never found someone being a complete asshole even remotely attractive.
Childhood . My Fiction . Writing
Hounds-Tooth
On November 1, 2015 by Speranza
A tiny slit of light creaks through the ill-fitting wardrobe door even after it clicks shut behind me. Under different circumstances to these I might feel self conscious, or perhaps unbalanced. But the pain of loss has driven me here, and I care nothing for such thoughts. The coat hangers move quickly under my touch whining the screech of steel on steel, till at last I find what I want. It slips around my shoulders easily, enveloping me in its scent and at once I breathe in a thousand memories. The smell of spearmint gum still lingers in the pocket, and the faint tang of old-fashioned shaving soap comes up to me from the warmth. This coat is a traditional hounds’ tooth tweed, but worn soft and the lining still glows cheerfully, a dull vermilion red like the inside of a magicians’ cloak.