THE LIFE CHANGING MAGIC OF TIDYING UP

I have just finished reading Marie Kondo's bestselling The Life Changing Magic of Tidying. It is a book with a buzz. The in thing (in the world of tidying). The sort of book you strongly believe arrived just when you needed it. Just as you were knocking objects off table edges, tiny flower pots for example... My eyes have been deviously difficult this year and so I fall into this category of believing the Kon Mari method has arrived in the nick of time.

The essence of the book is this: pick up an object. Ask the question - 'does this spark joy?' If the answer is yes, keep it. If the answer is no, or non-commital, sayonara it. And then tear your hair out when you discover just how complicated your non-committal responses can be. Add into this equation being a writer, loving books, and sometimes not necessarily loving a book, but needing it. At some future date. When your future self will remember you once had that book and you GAVE IT AWAY.

And then there's all the ghastly paperwork that must be dealt with… do you have a paperwork situation? 

I think I have learnt a certain measure of detachment from Marie Kondo, which is another essential teaching of her book. It is a humiliation to be the possessor of more things than you need when garbage dumps and slum heaps are growing. And upon their festering mounds, children, making a scavenger's living. Kondo never says this explicitly, but it is part of the secret of joy. Things can bring us temporary joy, perhaps even save our lives - and therefore things must also be tended to, thanked, seen and given due credit. When objects, even books, pile up (tsundoku) we commit the crime of ignoring them, even destroying them. Japanese homes are built differently to English homes: space and functionality are entwined in a much more visceral way. Storage is of utmost importance. And yet, Marie Kondo's book has become an international bestseller. I hope I am able to implement these tidying skills into my life - but as for my books? That's a tough racquet. Also toys and little this-and-thats for my foursome RafiBellaEvaEllie… I like being the aunty who has things, so many things to play with. But if I didn't have things, so many things, there would still be the roses…

A Lullaby for Theresa

Lullaby, and good night,
My darling delight

Bright angels stand around
My darling shall sleep

They shall keep
thee from harm
Thou shalt wake in
my arms

So lullaby, and good night
My darling delight.


My mother used to sing this lullaby to us when we were little. It is sung to the tune of Brahms' Lullaby, but I think Ma made up her own words ;) I was trying to teach Theresa the words while she was here, but I realise now that there aren't any particular words... just a mother's prerogative to lull her baby to sleep. And a baby's prerogative to hear what she likes... I always thought Mum was singing, "Thou shalt twake in my arms"... but my mother vehemently denies this; 'There's no such thing as Twake!" she says now...
Do you remember a lullaby from your childhood? Go on, hum it... I'm listening, and so is Theresa :)

Birthday Gifts

Last night I was invited to a delightful dinner party hosted at the Hawks' Club in Cambridge. My 'frock' received her due compliments, but I was also teased for not providing the night with la poesia. I soaked in the ambience surreptitiously, and on my return home, wrote this for Juliet, the birthday girl, whom we discovered was pregnant ... suddenly voluptuous figures abounded and sheepish hands were cupped around their own unnamed, special birthday gifts.

We, the twenty-three of us,

sit, among the candles;
our faces lit,
we bring ourselves to be
your birthday gift.

But beyond our smiles
and familiar faces,
still to come
are other graces -
unknown guests, unborn yet,

surely, birthday next,
they shall fill their places.





quote on postcard from Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."