Why bother trying to draw a bus shelter?
Because it’s the only thing I can see that I stand a chance of drawing. This is a new notebook and I forgot it doesn’t have lines, which means it’s intended for drawing.
Sometimes I can draw, mostly it’s just crap. I can always write, but that’s mostly crap too.
Coffee’s too hot. Last time I thought it was because I filled it to the top with hot water, so today I left a gap. But it’s still too hot.
Sitting outside the Beach Café (or I was an hour ago when I wrote in my notebook. Now I’m transcribing at my desk).
In the sea, a boat so small it almost looks like a toy. Maybe it’s further away than it looks. It’s rushing off somewhere, nearly out of sight already.
Silver light on the sea and small patches of sky-blue sky between the clouds. I tried to think of a better way to describe the colour of the sky, but sky-blue is the best I can come up with. Matches the colour of the ink I’m writing with.
Half a dozen litter-pickers in hi-vis jackets carrying white plastic bags just came round the corner.
Coffee still too hot to drink even though I left the top off.
Sun out now and on my face, so I start to unzip my coat – the same coat I was wearing in the winter, but I put it on because it’s got a hood, although the weather app at six o’clock said ‘no precipitation for at least 120 minutes’.
Spent ages (of course) deciding whether to come for a walk, and then getting everything together: coffee; wallet; which bag? Shopping bag or hand bag, or handbag inside shopping bag, or shopping bag inside handbag, which is easiest to carry? How many shopping bags will I need? Notebook and pen, or puzzle book and pencil or both or neither? Life and energy frittered away on logistics and indecision – that’s what it comes down to.
Not so many people today, or perhaps I’m more prepared for them. Not so many wild swimmers, just the regulars. Suddenly the sky is full of gulls, wheeling and intersecting (but silently), then when I look up again it’s empty.
Coffee still hot. Catches in my throat and makes me cough. Hope no one notices. Then I touch my face. Remember all that? Does anyone still follow those guidelines?
Forget ‘A Room of One’s Own’ – I have a whole house. Forget £500 a year – I have more than that a month and then some – but it’s nearly a century since Virgina Woolf wrote about what a woman needs in order to write – necessary but not sufficient conditions.
I watched a TED talk someone sent me – an American woman talking about her abusive childhood, bouts of homelessness and drug dependencies, train-wreck marriages etc and the writing opportunities she pissed away. Guess what? She did it in the end. Guess what? I didn’t.