It’s grey, pouring down. The whole house is surrounded by the echo of rain, running down gutters, falling on leaves, roofs; the splash and hiss of cars as they sweep down the streaming road. Everything shines as more and more rain falls onto an already soaked landscape. It’s like November. I wake in the night to the sound of heavy rain, it pulls me then lulls me, drifting, sleep, awake and the night crawls slowly through to the grey, wet dawn.
The cats balk when I open the door; normally chomping at the bit to get out, they freeze when they see the drowned scene waiting and the blur of heavy rain. One turns round immediately, the other hovers on the threshold. She breathes in the air, gazing round at this strange, shining world. She sits, soaking it up for a while, then turns, heads back to her soft, warm dreamy pile of pillows, to curl up and disappear from the day, sink into the somewhere else.
The stray; where is he, will he be waiting, it’s so wet. But he knows, he waits; he hears the lock, the creak of the door, the sounds he recognizes, the signal. I watch; he’s not there. After gathering all three bowls I glance out and there he is, huddled in the downpour, his fur vivid orange in the grey dullness, drips clinging to him but only just; he waited in the hutch, the old hutch, now a refuge on rainy days, tucked up with covers. It’s so wet, he huddles, rain coating every part of him; he moves nearer and I wonder if I can allow him to eat just on the threshold, but out of the wet. One cat eats, the other has disappeared upstairs. As I bring his bowl he moves forward, almost at the step; he sees him, but goes back to his food; amazed I put it down and he moves in, holding himself to the very edge, but he’s inside and Poe doesn’t kick off. I’m stunned but so happy. Poe glances over his shoulder, turns back, just as if even he’s thinking, well, suppose it is bad out there. But I’m waiting for him to make a move as he usually does; he’s grown fairly tolerant but there are limits. As I top up his bowl, I pull it a tiny bit further in, so all of him is out of the rain and he eats, Poe eats and I watch amazed. Both cats eating in silence, tolerating each other’s closeness. He sits for a while, licking his lips, sighing. I’m in the kitchen, stunned; a breakthrough I think. Wow. Maybe he’ll stay for a while, I hope he does. But when I come back in he’s gone. An empty bowl. He disappears like a ghost. It’s still pouring, I bob out for a second, look around, his usual routes; he’s gone. He vanishes so fast. My ghost cat. But he made it in. That’s a big deal. Normally if it’s wet, I take it up to the greenhouse but today was different.
I look out at the sodden scene and know he’s out there somewhere. I wonder where he goes, what his life is like, how he experiences his life, how he came to be here, to interact with my life, what ripples moved in the ocean of life to bring us together and it made me think of stories and how important they are. I try to imagine his story, just as I have with all the others. I can’t help it, trying to see a way their lives might have been, what could have brought them to this moment. Everything is a story, our lives are made up of them, everything is imbued with them and I always turn to what the story is behind something. I love stories, I can’t remember a time I didn’t love them; they inspire, comfort, ignite your own imagination, make you realize you’re not alone, take you to many different times and places, it’s like having other realities, other universes you can dip into any time you want, just as real as this one. It shows the true magic of words, this power of simply using these tools we barley think about, but they can create worlds, whole other lives, they are limitless; no wonder it’s called ‘spelling’, for it truly is magic; we need to be aware of that, aware of the power of words, the way they can be used to manipulate and deceive us, used against us, as well as inspire, comfort and expand and enlighten us.
Stories open your mind, expand and feed imagination and we need that, we need it so much. Stories are so important; the stories we tell ourselves, the stories we weave around our lives, the stories of others, to help us imagine other experiences and question our own, to explore our own consciousness and imagination, to transcend the limits of who we think we are, what we think this reality is, create our own worlds.
I’m surrounded by my own explorations and struggles to tell my own stories; all the thousands and thousands of words around me; some realized, too many struggling still to be born, but they won’t let me be, they have to be told, they haunt me, because they need to be given life. The most important are part of me, but more than me. Some come easier than others; some take their time and some are hard. But the real ones, the ones that mean the most are the ones that won’t let you go. They haunt your mind, your imagination and refuse to die. They exist within me as real as my own actual memories.
I’ve had so many ideas, so many attempts and explorations; some fail, just fizzle away, a dead end, some become something more than I believed they would. Some I resist, even as they mean so much to me, I think I am so deeply connected to them I want them to be so perfect, so right, I just can’t be happy, there’s always more to do, I can’t let them go; but they endure, they hang around, they won’t let me be, nudging me, constantly, wanting attention, needing to be given life, to be told, to be set free. Others fall by the wayside, many never go anywhere. It’s easy to have an idea, a good image, an interesting title, a great line, but making it more than that, following it further, expanding it, growing it into something deeper, more meaningful, trying to express the something intangible you’re trying to reach, is what makes something worth working on. But it’s all food for the imagination. I have notebooks, documents full of random words, lines, dreams, images, but they’re all part of trying to understand what it is I want to tell, where I’m trying to go, what I’m trying to express and knowing the ones that are worth following.
As I struggle and wrangle with my own stories and imagination, I lose myself in those of others; gorging on book after book, tumbling from one to another, like a starved animal finding food, unable to stop; myriad lives, worlds, realities, searching out those that really touch my soul, the ones that give me that tingle, that shiver, that reaches deep down within me and I recognize, respond to with a knowing that is where the real truth lies; this is what I’m trying to express, this is the kind of spell I’m trying to create, the something I’m trying to explore, to reach; even if not successful, to try, to keep trying. It’s not easy, but if that’s your call you have to answer. I’ve been on this journey longer than I care to remember, but it is all simply part of my story and as I wax and wane, struggle and rise, am so lost but then find myself again, keep coming back, keep breathing again, I find I know a bit more each time. I’m a little bit wiser, I manage to surprise myself, as I try to express my stories, my imaginative journeys, I also tell and understand the story of myself more, digging into it more each time. For we must know ourselves, our lives must be that, a journey within, to do the inner work and imagination and creation is so much a part of that and worth giving our all to. As many wise souls have said, we can’t change anyone, we can only change ourselves. We’re all on our own individual journey and where we are on that journey is different for each of us, but we can help and inspire each other communicating through our imagination and creation; being willing to share the deepest parts of ourselves, to be authentic, to explore everything within this life and beyond, to go as far as we can and tell it creatively.
So many writers have helped me along my journey, so, so many and I’m grateful to them all, I love them all, they were the spiritual food that helped me endure, helped me keep on going and keep writing. I could never list them all there’s just too many. But I will share a few excerpts from a book I’ve found intensely inspiring and moving as I work my way through my own writing journey. He uses the term ‘poets’ but is talking about all writers, all writers are poets…..
‘Poets are set against the world because they cannot accept that what there seems to be is all there is………They speak to us. Creation speaks to them. They listen. They remake the world in words, from dreams. Intuitions which could only come from the secret mouths of gods whisper to them through all of life, of nature, of visible and invisible agencies. Storms speak to them. Thunder breathes on them. Human suffering drives them. Flowers move their pens. Words themselves speak to them and bring forth more words. The poet is the widener of consciousness. The poet suffers our agonies as well and combines them with all the forgotten waves of childhood. Out of the mouths of poets speak the yearnings of our lives.’
In this next excerpt he’s talking about the ‘something’ that won’t let you be, won’t let you go, won’t allow you to escape, it wakes you up at night, keeps at you…
‘It may be that what you could be haunts you. It is real. It is a weight you have to carry around. Each failure to become, to be, is a weight. Each state you could inhabit is a burden as heavy as any physical weight, but more so, because it weighs on your soul. It is the ghost of possibilities hanging around your neck, an invisible albatross, potentials unknowingly murdered. The higher being you could be, if you could inhabit a higher state, also sits on you, increasing the tensions of your spirit, your moods, your irritations.’
‘Poets be cunning. Learn some of the miracles. Survive. Weave your transformations in your life as well as your work. Live. Stay alive. Don’t go under, don’t go mad, don’t let them define you, or confine you or buy your silence.’
‘Poets, be like the tortoise: bear the shell of the world and still manage to sing your transforming dithyrambs woven from our blood, our pain, our loves, our history, our joy. The lonely and inescapable truth simply is that this is the only kingdom you will ever have. This is the home of your song.’
‘Creating the smallest thing, creating life, no matter how small, is greater than creating a vast dead planet. A thing that lives is a universe.’
‘It is in the creation of story, the lifting of story into the realms of art, it is in this that the higher realms of creativity reside.’
‘Like water, stories are much taken for granted. They are seemingly ordinary and neutral, but are one of humanity’s most powerful weapons for good or evil.’
These are all excerpts from: ‘A Way of Being Free’ by Ben Okri. A wonderful, wonderful book full of encouragement, passion, inspiration, intuition, creativity, and owning your own life and freedom. I return to it again and again, it has become like an old friend.
We must keep reading and writing.
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