Spring in my Step

I tend to be a person with a permanent "Spring in my Step "....which is very fortunate and makes itself known in my hobbies of dancing, ice skating and hillwalking.

Play music and I'm off - feet tapping, body moving - and I'm likely to be up dancing in seconds. Any type of dancing, I like to give it a go. I laughingly tell friends that I'd do the " Wah toosie " .....as long as I can participate.

I haven't skated for a few months now as I found I was getting dizzy when spinning. I'd finish the spin and find the rink still revolving! Also I still love to jump and even telling myself that I'm just going to skate round sedately, or do a bit of ice dance....no , I'm still hankering to leap about! Springs in my feet!

As a teenager and into my 20's I took up trampolining. I absolutely LOVED it! I tell a secret here ....I have a trampette in the garage and often have a surreptitious bounce. In fact I hanker after a trampoline in the garden!!

As you all know by now I do a lot of hillwalking and am usually out at least twice a week. I shun the use of a stick ( although I carry one folded up ) preferring to use my own balance and if necessary use hands, knees and occasional backside movements to achieve a scramble! Jumping streams, muddy areas and the like is a great delight to me.

Why, just recently I've twice run for the bus, quite forgetting that I am getting that much older. Without a second thought I've heard the bus coming and taken off hell for leather down the pavement. The first time the passengers gave me a cheer! The second time the bus driver was gobsmacked when I handed over my bus pass, and he told me I was"awesome". I just don't think!!

I firmly believe that every park ought to have 'play' equipment for adults.  We tend to forget the joy involved in play, and I look enviously on when I see children enjoying the apparatus in a playground. Actually I have been known to sneak onto some of the equipment and have a go. I've enjoyed a winter time 'swing' at Stanah Country Park. I've slid down a slide in Melrose. I've had a go in the adventure play area in Slaidburn. Joy of joy I found an adult recreation area in Settle.

I have a push along adult scooter and whizz up and down the prom, or the coastal path at Knott End...even up the Dunsop Valley. Kids shout "show us some tricks granny " ...and one day I might!!

My poem this week is related to walking and I wrote it in 1989......I found it untitled..

Show me a track,

Put a pack on my back

And the open fields before me.

Then off I shall trek

All you'll see is a speck,

For I shall be off and free.

Give me fresh air

The wind in my hair

The mountain tops before me.

And away I shall speed

Dressed all in my tweed

For I shall be off and free.

Give me a good map

Some soup and a bap

And the open glens before me.

Then away I shall stalk

Gone far, for a walk

For I shall be off and free.

Give me stout boots

For I'll never take roots

Within the valleys before me

For away I shall stride,

My dog at my side

For I shall be off and free.

Give me a stout stick

And I'll be off quick

Down the road before me.

For I'll never turn back

From the wide open tract

For I shall be off and free.

Thanks for reading .....Kath

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In search of comfort.

I was a little scared to write a blog post this week. Scared not because today is in fact Halloween (insert ‘s if you like- I long since dropped them), rather that I didn’t actually know the meaning of the theme. Catharsis then, is “ the purging of the emotions or relieving of emotional tensions, especially through certain kinds of art, as tragedy or music”, (Dictionary.com). I suppose for me this means writing.

I find writing to be one of those things everybody hates the idea of. At some point or other most children dismiss the idea of writing their own story as boring. Teenagers tell me they spend all their time on the Xbox and as for adults- being taken seriously enough I find half the battle. Of course, I am generalising slightly - there are always certain circles in which writing is encouraged and for those reading this- circle members themselves I assume, I am grateful.

In truth, I find that writing itself can be incredibly cathartic (look, I used the new word). It gives a certain release. It has not escaped my attention either, that a lot of those initial doubters come to the world of writing through some kind of pain or emotion- the lover boy bursting into song, the poems of the jilted, the poems of remembrance...

I don’t find this a bad thing. I had a conversation earlier in the week about people coming to poetry because they think it is an easy option- well, let them enjoy themselves- the torture of balancing that one awkward sound three stanzas in is something they’ll get to in time. When the frustrations are clear from your head and you find them replaced by that one struggling idea- that is when I think it really plays in- the dual release when you finally get it down on paper. You can make this last hours, weeks sometimes, just waiting for that thought to drop in- and it will at some point. That is the other truth I’ve found- nobody ever really gives up writing, they merely break off for a while.

I like to think- that is why I write. I like to develop ideas, move them around, play the film through in my head and then capture exactly what it is that I want to show people. I try to do that every time with my work and more often than not I get frustrated. When I think something is right though- that is what makes it all worth it. That is the relieving of tensions through art, and it is art.

I spent last Friday walking with Lara. A rare fair-weathered October afternoon meant we were going out somewhere and we ended up over Longridge Fell. Out there, I found myself thinking about the Nietzsche quote “all truly great thoughts are conceived by walking”. I agree with the fella. It was nice to have a bit of real thinking time to cast my mind over things.

I was inspired by the day. I am inspired by Halloween. I am inspired by a lot of bloody things to be quite honest- I feel my mind is like a tumble drier of potential poem ideas (not many of which are related) at the moment. It was only on Friday, with the help of a t-shirt quote and some rolling Lancashire hills, that I found where they could fit together. As a result, some of those fragmented ideas are now slipping into poems and boy, does that feel good. Tension well and truly purged.

I’ll try and have a new poem up for next week. For now though, thanks for reading.

S.

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