Before and after the Easter holidays, I traditionally take a few days off to complete projects I have been meaning to return to (I’m looking at you, streamlined recipe binders) no longer flinging ragged sheets everywhere as I try to squeeze your gaping three rings closed with an arthritic crocodilian snap. But in-between bursts of energy like this, The General and I have shut the doors against the snow and wind and taken to wandering around with cups of scented tea and wedges of sticky Baklava, talking for hours about topics as diverse as Sidney Bechet, British trade unionists (to be fair, we were considering The Perfect Dog Name for a dog we do not have - yet) and soon to be perused Roberto Bolaño, the poet that Patty Smith mentions so often in M Train.
In short, it’s my idea of bliss.
Last week a friend (actually, two separate friends, who both know me well) invited me to come along and hear Club Django. I do love hearing bands play live and I particularly like this kind of music but sometimes it seems like too much trouble after a long day at work and the concept of coming home and going out again seems unbearable.
Still, as noted here before, I find Klezmer (or so-called ‘Gypsy Jazz’) reliably cheering so my friends collected me at the especially odd time of 2pm and we moved out of the glinty sunshine into a darker venue to catch Club Django in concert.
And from the opening notes, I was so, so happy that I did.
I cannot imagine the following anecdote ever happening now, (especially when I consider the many superior ‘Yummy Mummies’ I often encounter) but back in the day, one of my own mother’s favourite go-to activities to amuse me (in a pinch) was the privilege of reorganizing her handbag for her.
I know, I know; but I really liked doing it and felt important knowing that I had been entrusted with such an intimate and grown-up task.
Once I had corralled together all the rumpled tissues that were still scented with Chanel No.5 and helped myself to a stick of Wrigley’s spearmint gum, I moved on to the trio of lipsticks found in one of the pockets. The trio seldom varied and obviously, I tried each one (this goes without saying) but I assessed the packaging first, deciding which was the most elegant, the slimmest, the most bejeweled.
As the snows swirls sideways across my window, I re-read this poem and fall in love with D.H.Lawrence all over again. I feel as though his poetry is not celebrated as much as his so-called “dirty books” but to me, the poems are heady scraps of wisdom and depth, showing what a sensitive, insightful and thoughtful person he really was.
This poem is especially poignant to me because as a very young child, I remember crouching at the top of the stairs, hours after I had been sent to bed and straining my ears to catch what my parents and their friends (probably slightly tipsy) were singing as my mother played our stylin’, state-of-the-art Sixties organ and everyone sang along.
I know very little about my mother’s family and lately I have fallen prey to searching ancestry.com which is, apparently, rampant among the aging Boomer population who are all trying to stoke their ongoing fascination with the past (and indirectly death), by desperately trying to get something, anything, down on paper that will both document and preserve their own life’s relevancy. And lest anyone is about to point out the irony of a self-indulgent blogger snidely calling out other people, I absolutely agree. But I don’t think this is very unusual; no one wants to feel that when they duff off their mortal coil that’s it, do they?
But, let’s leave that for another post.
