louisa

3BT – swimming smell, substitute, even better smell, pretty,

1. I lean on my fists in thought. The skin on my metacarpus is dry and smells faintly of chlorine. It reminds me of a year ago, when I swam three times a week – the shocking cold of the nearly empty pool, pushing myself to go forever faster, floating in my own world as the reward for my hard work, then the light, energised feeling of the walk home. I *must* start going again.

2. When life gives you lemons… I can’t face a journey along the icy slush to buy nice bread for lunch so just get a loaf of cheap sliced white from the nearby convenience shop instead. It’s too bland to eat on its own but perfect for toasties. Cheese, beans and tabasco – sizzling pockets of joy.

3. In the colourless, muffled world of snow, my other senses are enhanced to compensate. Standing at the bus stop opposite Kebabish is hell. I’m nearly drooling by the time the 670 arrives.

4. Returning from dinner with Katherine, I find there are pretty ice patterns on the inside of the porch windows. The first time I’ve ever seen that happen.

5. Boron cuddles close for warmth. With the duvet around him, he’s like the Cheshire Cat – just a head – but just two giant eyes instead of a smile. In the low light, they’re two black orbs surrounded by the thinnest lemon ring, with white flickering into momentary view as he looks around.

Thinking about participation

6/1/2010 / louisa / 1 Comment

When the Pope got pushed at Christmas, the thing that disturbed me most about the incident wasn’t the pontiff prodding, it was the fact that everyone had their cameras/phone-cameras in the air, recording the service then the fall. Last night, John was watching some videos of beatbox competitions on YouTube and it was exactly the same – everyone in the audience was giving the hi-tec salute. And last year, at Unity Day in Hyde Park, I remember everyone noticing how pretty it was when we looked down an avenue of trees as the low, much-welcome sun streamed through onto the silhouetted revellers mingling around — and we all instinctively reached for our cameras to capture the scene. Since none of us are particularly skilled photographers, and at least half of us were using crappy phone cams, the image would never be a fraction as beautiful as the reality of the situation but we couldn’t help ourselves.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about Susan Sontag’s essays ‘On Photography’. I first came across them when I was 16 when I was just starting Media Studies – I’ve not re-read them since so it might be that I’m missing some key points or remembering the whole thing wrong but what stuck with me was the idea that you can’t both participate in and record a moment – you can do one or the other but not both.

I guess this has been on my mind not just because of the Pope and beatbox but because it’s the start of the year and various people in my life and/or feedreader are starting “photo-a-day” projects for 2010. I’m a big, big fan of recording things for posterity for my own future enjoyment but I worry that our current obsession with recording everything – in photos and videos as I’ve mentioned here but also Tweeting and other such instant text-based records – is stopping us enjoying the moment as it happens. We feel like it hasn’t happened unless we can share it instantly with everyone in our social network. It’s not only instant sharing – I find myself composing Tweets-for-later-posting or Three Beautiful Things in my head all the time. An example of this just happened: I looked out of the living room window and a magpie flew across the snow-covered garden. Rather than just enjoying the monochrome vision, I started to think how I would write about it for today’s 3BT update.

I realise that I’m being a bit harsh here. These latter more creative projects certainly have their good points – a lot of people’s “photo-a-day” projects aren’t as much about capturing a moment as they are about an ongoing exercise to improve their photograph skills; similarly, I use Twitter and my 3BT updates as writing exercises. And wanting to share the pretty, the funny, the momentous with other people who can’t be there is admirable – but it does come at a cost. As soon as you reach for your camera, you are no longer in the moment, not fully anyway. This distance can be useful as (iirc) Sontag mentions in relation to war photography but when it’s at a party or enjoying a walk, it just disrupts the mindfulness of the moment. For as long as I can remember, I’ve used humour & cynicism (and teetotalism, heh) to avoid losing myself in the moment and now it seems I’m reacquiring more tools to aid my remove. So what can I do to stop it? Let the excuses begin: I’m finding 3BT a depression-busting exercise – forcing myself to focus on positive things for a change. I could stop Twittering but I use Twitter to provide myself with office banter when I’m working at home, for news, for meeting new people I’d otherwise never meet – particularly not with my real-life super shyness.

One idea I’ve had is to do something, participate in something interesting every day and consciously not Tweet/3BT it, not take a photo of it, not text John or Katherine going “ooh” – but I don’t know if that’s enough because I already do it quite a bit (for example, when we were in Madrid in November, I took exactly one photograph and hardly posted to Twitter at all, and, on a more day to day level, I frequently censor myself from tweeting about having a really, really good wee etc).

So what to do. what to do…

This random brain spew brought to you by strong, sugared tea and a morning of book-keeping.

3BT – snow again, spices, snow again again

5/1/2010 / louisa / 0 Comments

1. We wake up and the world is freshly white again. After more than a fortnight, it feels like we’re living in the perpetual winter of Narnia. Later, colourful coated kids trek along the hidden path to go sledging in the distant meadow.

2. For the first half hour of cooking, looking at the dry spices on the meat makes my throat hurt in anticipation but then the juices conquer them and we’re left with a delicious moist crust.

3. Looking from a dark room into the dark world, the branches of the trees seem ghostly and unreal. Or perhaps I’ve been spending too long in the Undercity…

3BT – I saw it too, turn on/turn off, ice crystals

4/1/2010 / louisa / 1 Comment

1. A squirrel appears on the fence just a foot away from Boron. He stares at it without moving and it stares back for a moment before escaping into the tree. Boron turns around to look at me – his eyes are shining with excitement and we share a blink.

2. I hear music and John’s laughter from the other room. He’s discovered these marvellous things: http://www.instructables.com/id/The-Most-Useless-Machine/.

3. Our neighbour, fresh back from Banff, Canada, tells us about what it was like to breath ice crystals.

3BT – colourful gift, pinenuts, a good start

3/1/2010 / louisa / 0 Comments

1. John returns from the across-the-road neighbours with a bright flowering plant in a lovely white pot – they were going to throw it away because it’s flowering season is coming to the end for the year. We’ll let it flourish again.

2. The inclusion of pinenuts was inspired, even if I do say so myself.

3. Despite some incredibly late nights and intermittent work, I feel very rested and at peace instead of stressed and overwhelmed. I hope this year will continue as it has started.

Last week’s Tweets (up to 2010-01-03)