Kintsukuroi - Golden scars

Ready for the weekend? Here's a prompt to keep you alive. It's this week's episode of delight over at The Queen Creative and we are told:

Kintsukuroi is a Japanese noun meaning “to repair with gold”; the art of repairing pottery with gold or silver lacquer and understanding that the piece is more beautiful for having been broken.

Firstly, it's a great word. Just say it out loud a few times. Cheaper than a yoga breathing class. Secondly, it has made me write another poem. Poems come to me in a dash, I can't help them. And once they are down I find it very difficult to change them. These poems of mine, I think they might be broken. But if you, by any chance, have any gold handy to help them out, like words, please stitch them together below. You can make them more beautiful, after all. Much appreciated. 

Golden Scars

Time ravages everything. 

Nothing can be saved. 

Wind whispers, stones crumble

People age, art fades.

Times pieces together meaning

For us to see its place

And beauty lies not just in colour,

Nor stone or stature, nor form or face.

Time cracks and wrung hands plead

Nothing stays as it should

But what is a painted Acropolis

Or Machu Picchu with a roof?

Time’s golden scars tell tall tales

A slashed, re-beautified tribe

Of carefully broken and re-pieced pieces

That are given second lives. 

So time, while ravaging, stitches richly

And the wind will wind its way

Through crumpled hearts and history,

Yet everything can still have its day.

Please visit other writers starring in this week's For The Promptless episode by clicking on the television screen that still works:

Shopping list: no groceries

This week over at The Queen Creative we are told:

A shopping list (noun) is a list of items needed to be purchased by a shopper, a grocery list is a the most popular type of shopping list– including items that need to be procured on the next visit to the grocery store. 

I am a list person, except for when it comes to grocery shopping. I hate supermarkets. I know what I need so I run in (if my husband isn't with me; he loves going down every single aisle) and zoom around spending as little time as possible dithering. I can't waste time choosing: tomatoes on the vine or cherry tomatoes or both? Chilli or cheese nachos? Shall I take advantage of the buy-one-pay-for-three offer on furniture polish? Hmmm. No, I make a decision and get on with my life. 

In other areas of my life, I do write a list. It lives in this fabulous little book:

This book does not travel with me. I do not want to be followed by my list. It simply hangs out around my desk, you know, near the pens. It is there for things like: 

• Fix boot heels
• Mother's Day something
• Transfer for holiday
• Write Prompts for Promptless - shopping list
• Plan Celine's class
• Email uni birds
• Post baby pressie Arg

Life things. There's every day things mixed with work things, and what I call some 'life admin' thrown in. As a teacher, I don't need to make lists at work like I used to have to as an editor, working in an office. Offices seem to run on endless lists. Maybe this was one reason I vowed never to work in one again. So, I add classes that I need to plan, with the names of my students to make it more human. There are people behind my jobs and I like that.

Another area that gets added to this seeming free-for-all is stuff I need to write. Places I need to go and read, blogs I want to comment on, pieces and prompts I want to write. I don't think I would forget to write for my favourite prompts or challenges, but once I've put something up and I cross it off my list, it's like a double happiness. There is the writing happiness and the one-less-thing-on-the-list-happiness. 

*

One shopping list that I will take some time over, but not necessarily write down, is for presents. I love buying birthday/Christmas/any-occasion-that-needs-a-present presents. You'd think I was made of money reading that, but I'm not. I just love it when I've pondered on a present for someone and a genius idea whacks me over the head (then whacks me in the wallet) and they open it and their face lights up with surprise/joy/incredulousness at what I've given them. 

My parents' birthdays are really close together, so their presents will go on the same list in my head. The process will always start with the same conversation:

"So, Mum, what do you want for your birthday?" (I have zero intention of buying her what she wants. I am cleverer than that.)

"I don't need anything. You don't have to get me anything."

"I know you don't need anything, but what do you want?"

"What I want is for your father to get off the toilet so we can have breakfast. That's what I want."

My parents' birthday present shopping list might therefore look like this after a few of these conversations:

• Timer so when my dad has been on the toilet for more than 20 minutes it scares him into getting off (for my mum)
• An automatic thingy so that when my mum is transferring money to her children's accounts it blocks it at a certain number of zeros (for my dad)
• A teaching job where all you have to do is teach and not deal with the bullshit (for my mum)
• A mother who isn't so annoying deaf and insanely proud (for my dad)
• A course in how to get the most of out your smart TV (for them both)

*

Life is full of lists if we think about it: things we want to accomplish, places we want to see, books we want to read, people we want to really connect with, things we want to learn. That's the beauty of lists. They can be never-ending. But life isn't. So it's a good thing if you never get to the end of your wish-list, or to-do list or to-read list. You had enough on there to keep you going, and while you were, that's called life. 

"We like lists because we don't want to die." Umberto Eco.

Click and watch more at Prompts for the Promptless here:

Lapsus Linguae - Marriage

Over at The Queen Creative this week's prompt speaks for itself. We are told:

Lapsus Linguae: A noun that refers to a 'slip of the tongue'. 

Here is a short story. Sometimes slips of the tongue are not unintentional.

Marriage

Bernard and Cath sit on the park bench. Cath knits. It's still warm enough to do so. She thinks maybe in a couple of weeks she'll have to get Bernard to find their gloves and scarves, but for now her hands are warm and happy to be busy and in the fresh air. Bernard watches the ducks. Or, he pretends to be watching the ducks because he's really following an aerobics class on the other side of the pond: eighteen (he's counted) miniature ladies bouncing up and down. They are far enough away for him to not see their (probably disappointing, he thinks) faces while he can still appreciate the way their bodies move as they jump in all directions.

A jogger runs past and nods at Bernard. They see him most weeks. Well, Bernard does. Cath is usually with her head down, knitting and talking. Bernard is glad she has never driven a car. He thinks the amount of people she would have killed would be quite high.

"But if they are going to charge two pounds a raffle ticket, what do they expect? Jean's grandson ended up with a box of soap. You can imagine. Did you see Mohammed painted his gate? Yellow of all colours."

Bernard hears the colour yellow and thinks about their honeymoon in the south of France. He can't remember how the hell they afforded that back then, but he can remember the yellow of the sand, the blue of the sea and the wispy white clouds stretching to Africa above. He is reminded of the pedalo and how Cath nearly ran over a swimmer while she was imagining the back story of their breakfast waiter.

"If you need a tin of peas, you need one tin. Not three. Three tins make a bag heavy. Julie can't carry things like three tins now. And that son of hers isn't going to help out. She won't say of course, but since he ran off with his secretary I think he must come and visit under the cover of darkness. Have you seen him? Well, I wouldn't show my face again."

The aerobics class has finished. A couple of the women have parked their cars on this side of the pond and Bernard sees they are older than he thought. It surprises him than women with wrinkles can jump about for so long. They look good though. He would like to see them in fine dresses, like the one Cath wore to his mother's funeral a month after they met. She looked mighty fine that day. He could hardly think of his mother, cold and grey under that heavy wooden top.

"It's not just the children. They are good children, I know that, and Pete and Sarah do their best. But they don't help out either. We have to do everything. I mean, I don't mind, but it's the extra work they don't think about. They just assume. And we can't say no, can we? Would they come and pick us up and take us to London? It's all so time consuming for everyone."

A dog comes over to sniff around Bernard's feet. It isn't a fan of the crumbs from his two morning digestives. It licks his trousers quickly and then toddles off, its big flat paws clipping the concrete path, its tail hovering just above the puddles. Bernard wonders why there are always puddles on the path, even though it hasn't rained for over a week.

"Now if we get Jessica that cooking game, Nicky isn't going to need something better than a football. Remember the havoc last year with the trampoline? We're not going through that again. Polly had the same trouble with those twins, and they are even younger. I don't know when children got so needy and possessive of things. If we take the bus one Wednesday there's those coupons to use in that big store and it sells some toys."

Bernard's stomach growls. He searches the park for distraction but it has nothing left to give him. He wants to go home and have leftover pork chop for lunch with some green beans from the garden. But this is his part of the day and he also doesn't want it to end.

"And cramming herself into those cream jeans. Well talk about mutton dressed as lamb. She's nearly sixty for crying out loud -"

"Yes, I'd like green beans."

"And ... What? What did you just say? Bernard, she was wearing something so silly for her age, and she's not a small lady as we know."

"Shut up."

"I mean, I'm not one to talk, we could all lose a few pounds. What? What did you say again Bernard?"

"Nothing. Slip of the tongue. Lapsus Linguae."

"Sometimes I think you talk Chinese, I really do. You get it from that crossword I suppose. We'll have to pick up my magazine on the way back. Julie said there's a lovely story in there this week. About a couple who fall in love during the war. Except he speaks French and she speaks German and they don't understand each other. Can you imagine? This jumper is coming along very nicely indeed."

Bernard finally looks back to his paper. Fourteen down. I am in rage after a singular Mars wedding. 

Marriage.


To read more Lapsus Linguae inspired writes, click and watch:

Love Letter - You are my world

It might be too little, too late. But you have been around a lot longer than I have; I think you'll understand. You see, when we first met I wasn't sure about the love I would have for you. You've always been there and I guess I needed to grow up, find out more about myself, and more about you, before I could fall in love.

Now, I'm honoured just to be around you. Truly. To see you every day through my own eyes. To breathe your air, marvel at what you do. You confuse me and fill me with wonder in equal measure. But

I've learnt that it's OK. Perfection isn't something you strive for, you've lived too much for that. Peace, yes, like for us all, is a goal. It's not easy. There are always bumps in the road.

You shine at dawn and shimmer at sunset. You are so beautiful I simply sit and stare, wherever I am. Even in your darkest moments, stars shine. They can't help it. It's a way for us to move on. Life is for living; we always have to carry on.

There is nothing about you I would change. Only to know you more. And every day, I do. Thank you, World: my world, our world. You are amazing and I love you.

Laura    

Photo Credit: futurepath.org 

The prompt this week over at The Queen Creative was that of a love letter.

We are told: Sometimes called a billet-doux, or a love letter, a love note is a personal letter to a loved one expressing affection.  The loved one does not necessarily have to be animate, human, alive, or known.

That was mine. Go HERE and read more. 

Perfectly Me - approach-approach conflict in poetry

This week over at Prompts for the Promptless there's a conflict on the horizon. But don't worry, it's a one of those comforting conflicts where everything will turn our happily ever after. We think.

We are told:
Approach-approach conflict is the psychological conflict that results when a choice must be made between two desirable alternatives.

I've tried some poetry this week. It just spurted out. No conflict there, then. But I hope it captures the prompt.

Perfectly Me

Should I stay or should I go?

I don't know.

Staying is yellow and moonlit and beautifully strange.

Going is rusty adventures in daylight orange.

Staying is knowing, turning well-worn pages.

Going is jumping, leaping across new stages.

Staying is finding more.

Going is finding out.

Staying is being sure.

Going is wondering about.

Is it all or nothing or neither or both?

Is my decision final, or mirrors and smoke?

When I am happy as I am right now,

How can I walk away?

Yet over the fence is another rainbow

And more freedom to play.

Two halves of two wholes

That fit together perfectly.

All I must decide, or not,

Is which half is perfectly me. 

Check out other offerings over at The Queen Creative this week. Go. Or stay. Either way is OK.

Onion: honne and tatemae

This morning I discovered For The Promptless which is dedicated to "sharing perspectives and expanding minds". My mind needs a little expanding today. I am putting all my CDs (and I have a lot of very old school CDs) on my computer in order to prepare my snazzy, new, green iPod with... well, all that old music. I am a CD-ripping monkey. My mind needs expanding.

We are told:
Honne is a Japanese noun referring to the behaviour and opinions someone truly believes in - often displayed with one’s closest confidants. It contrasts with the behaviour a person displays in public - called Tatemae. 

There was a man standing outside the train station. I didn't understand what he was saying because I didn't speak his language, but he was waving a book in his hand. He was shouting, violently, passionately, spit flying out of his mouth, arms flapping. He believed in what he was saying so much, he might have taken off at any moment.

I sat having tea with a friend of a friend of a friend. She spouted on about shopping and people and languages and children and travel. A lot of nonsense. I drank my tea and said nothing: the patient, absorbing ear, desperately wanting to find another wavelength.

The team had terrible ideas, but at least they were usable. More than our managers' ideas, which were stuffy, self-congratulating (for what?) and boring. It's not a dictatorship if you're allowed to answer back and protest. It feels like it when the sublime and ridiculous grace the pages of your work. It is not your work, but nobody knows that and they smile and say Good job!

I have been called argumentative recently, by my husband and my dad. I disagree (you knew that was coming, right?). I'm not argumentative per se; it's more that I simply have a different opinion. And I need to express it. These are two people I can do that with. Or is the cultural space of my parents' house a Honne-Tatemae zone, with carefully drawn invisible lines? Can my husband defer my Honne to the outside world and compare me to other mortals, just because he is the nicer person?

The Queen has to make a speech about the difficult year, pulling together as one nation, the bravery of troops, recovery. She really wants to throw the speech out of the window and tell everyone what a joy it was working with Daniel Craig and making the nation laugh. Her heart likes that.

On a small island nation that needs help, its leader stands before his people. For centuries they have misunderstood what they have to do. They have been lazy, relying on their neighbours, always turning with their hands out in front, palms up. It is time for action, control of their own destiny. He sees only one way of doing this. The army rolls in.

I peel an onion and it makes me cry. There are so many layers, each with their own tears. It is the onion that makes me cry.

Isn't it?

Read more at http://thequeencreative.wordpress.com/2013/09/10/forthepromptless-s-3-e-6-honne/