Tag Archives: handwritten pages

Handwritten Pages #11

Posted on August 12, 2016 | 2 comments

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She imagines through the window a future she holds as fantasy.
Behind glass she views smudged with fingerprints and streaks of leftover rain.
Remembers there isn’t an egg for the cake she wanted to bake because it broke while making breakfast for an imagined lover who wreathed her in a sensuality of stockings that spoke of opportunity and a brashness to wear trousers.

Francois Kollar

The image above is the base for today’s Handwritten Page is a photo by Francois Kollar who was a vogue photographer in the 20’s-40’s.

Earlier this week I was speaking with a friend in another city via Facebook, talking about what we were working on (I wasn’t working on anything; instead I was recovering from a migraine and procrastinating). She was in the middle of working on bibliomancy poems – taking images and old books and cutting up the text to form poems, and gave me a preview of what she was working on. The photo was the foundation image for her poem.

In my usual flippancy I made a silly comment about what the woman in the photograph was looking at. Jodi provided a list of alternatives and I melded them into a single, obtuse sentence. In her usual fashion, Jodi downloaded a quick poem, sparked by the initial thoughts and posted it. I took a single line from Jodi’s poem and remixed it into the narrative.

If you want to buy some of Jodi’s works or place an order for a commission, drop along to her website.

Creativity can be sparked by anything, anywhere, anytime. Another little glimpse behind the curtain to spoil the mystery.

What have you been creating lately?

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Handwritten Pages #10

Posted on August 5, 2016 | Leave a comment

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They sat opposite each other in the sand, knees drawn up and toes touching.
She pressed her finger to her lips, paused, withdrew it.
“You will know me in my silence.”
He nodded in response before resting his head on his knees and tucking his arms under his thighs.
Around their feet she smoothed the sand into a clean palimpsest. She traced patterns in the mandala of silence.
Taking a handful of sand she poured it over their toes until they disappeared in a poetry of communion.

 

I was about to take a picture when I saw the error of a repeated word. I debated what to do: rewrite or edit? First, I scribbled out the word, made the edit. Then I looked over it again and rewrote it. Oh the glamour of artistry (letting you behind the curtain of creativity).

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Handwritten Pages #9

Posted on July 29, 2016 | 2 comments

 

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In the darkness of the bedroom, weighed down by the light sheet, he lay awake facing her sleeping form. He couldn’t bear to wake her with his fears and disrupt the stillness. There was a moment of envy of the softness of her breath, the sighing tide of peace.
In the blinds of his night he sought the warmth of her hand and found the cavern of her upturned palm. 
As if instinctively her hand curled around his. The gentle pressure allowed his fears to subside, washed in the gentle tide of her breathing.

 

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Handwritten Pages #8

Posted on July 15, 2016 | 2 comments

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She watched the rain fall in light sheets, imagining a giant cloth wiping away the crumbs of a broken day.
Yet in the morning when the rain had ceased and the dampness dissipated a thin film of dirt remained. The skerricks of an eraser left after rubbing out the pencil marks on a sheet of paper. To make the new day fresh required more work than she expected.

 

SIDE NOTE: When I was writing this, transcribing it from my notebook where I first scribbled the idea, I asked myself why I ascribed the feminine pronoun to the character of the narrative. It was arbitrary, without conscious assignation.

I then reread the paragraph replacing ‘she’ with ‘he’ and saw a different reading. As a personal reflection, I think I tend to write more from a female perspective than a male one. For purely unscientific research I did a gender breakdown on the Handwritten Pages.

  1. “I” (indeterminate)
  2. Couple (male/female)
  3. Female (2 sisters)
  4. Female 
  5. “I” (indeterminate)
  6. He
  7. Male (2 brothers)
  8. Female

In examining the content of each piece, the seemingly arbitrary allocation of gender pronouns was determined by its focus. The third Handwritten Page was inspired by a friend’s recollection of her childhood with her sisters so it was a natural response to use the feminine. 

In last week’s Handwritten Page I ascribed masculine pronouns, except to the “I” persona. In reality it could easily be the sibling rivalry between a brother and sister yet in my head it was between brothers; we tend to pair brothers with brothers and sisters with sisters in terms of sibling rivalry and not a brother/sister combination.

It also made me think about how the content of a narrative influences the reader’s understanding of gender. Does it affirm or subvert paradigms? Why or why not? Just asking.

But the distinction of female or male POV in a narrative made me think about how I read gender in a story (being male) and how others would read the piece above (male or female). I know men and women will read the paragraph differently based on their own gender, and their reading of gender. 

Try reading today’s piece replacing ‘she’ with ‘he’. Does it make a difference in your reading? What nuances or differences are borne out of a different reading? Does it matter? I’m interested in your ideas.

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Handwritten Pages #7

Posted on July 8, 2016 | 2 comments

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My brother and I sailed paper boats made from sheets of grease proof paper down the gutter after heavy rain. A peaceful camaraderie in a turbulent sibling rivalry. 
We raced them from our driveway, running alongside on the nature strip, swooping down to collect them before they were swallowed by stormwater drain eight houses down.
They were sailed until they were soggy and losing integrity before we let them disappear down the gaping maw of the stormwater.
One day I set my boat adrift, letting it chase my brother’s, but did not follow it. I watched it retreat before turning away, knowing its destination, and went inside.
Later I found two boats on the dining room table sitting on a plastic plate in a puddle of water. Two boats sailing calmly midst every storm.

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Handwritten Pages #6

Posted on June 17, 2016 | 2 comments

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He ran his hand over the crinkled page of the skin on her forearm. Away from the cannula and tubing while day and night wrestled for mastery. 
Around him the ping of the heartrate monitor and the chatter of nurses and patients become birdsong.
He took up the pen and asked her, “Do you remember what I wrote on your hand when I proposed?”
A faint nod.
He wrote, “…and the greatest of these is love.”

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Handwritten Pages #5

Posted on June 10, 2016 | 1 comment

I grew up in a house with a corrugated iron roof and loved hearing the sound the rain made on it. It’s a familiar sound and a familiar memory and I used it as the basis for an idea developed below.

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Like the wind picks at the corrugated iron roof, this memory is a scab I have picked at for years and years.
I have scratched and scratched.
Sometimes out of curiosity, out of a need to understand; to comprehend how we failed to relate to one another. Or out of frustration and anger at failed intimacy. 
I retreat into the solitude of the bedroom, into a book and a pen and bury myself beneath headphones where the music thrashes and yells and pummels.
And like the wind, I return to pick at the scab of memory.

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Handwritten Pages #4

Posted on June 3, 2016 | 3 comments

Sometimes it’s random images that lodge in my head like a splinter. This is one of them. I think there’s more to this story but I’m putting it aside for later to see what grows out of the compost heap.

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The child stood on the crest of the hill overlooking the city. She turned her eyes upwards to the uniform inky expanse of night sky. It was spotted with dots of white; a scattered litter of light like tissue fragments on a black jumper in the wash.
Turning her gaze downwards the city lights exploded in a galaxy of white, orange, red, blue, green.
She bent down and performed a headstand, inverting the world, and for a brief moment she believed the earthly heavens were brighter than she ever hoped for.

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Handwritten Pages #3

Posted on May 27, 2016 | 1 comment

This week’s Handwritten Page is inspired by a colleague of mine who wrote down for me a series of events and remembrances of growing up in Queensland, Australia.

I have only taken a snippet of a memory while I work out a larger story from the raw material. On a side notes, people’s stories are fascinating.

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My sister and I would sit in in the projectionist’s booth at the drive-in, offering gifts of popcorn, hot chips and sips of Coke to the projectionist. Gifts from our mother who ran the tuck shop as we waited for Dad to pick us up after he finished his shift.
We watched visions of life unspool through the reels as the clatter of the projector spoke over the dialogue and music, until frame by frame, it disappeared.
I loved how the end of the film would fthlip fthlip fthlip as the reel ended. A child’s tongue extended, blowing a raspberry. I saw it as a cheeky gesture, a way to express myself no matter how serious or shitty life would become. A chance to blow a raspberry at circumstance while the reel was changed and life moved on.

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Handwritten Pages #2

Posted on May 13, 2016 | 2 comments

The second instalment of Handwritten Pages. This one was inspired while reading Amanda Palmer’s book, “The Art of Asking.”

I cannot recommend her book highly enough if you are a creative person. It is a heartfelt and affirming read; quite challenging to accept her premise sometimes but as a creative person there is such a wealth of ideas to gain from it. If time is of the essence, listen to her TED Talk.

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The couple sit across from each other at the dining room table, each with a pen and a pad of Post It Notes.
In silence they share a communion of scribbled notes, stick figure cartoons and random doodles intermingled wiht a chorus of laughter, sighs and whispers.
There is a solemn but playful sincerity to their ritual as the notes pass back and forth.
He passes a note to her; the body of Christ.
She receives it. Reads and responds.
She passes a note to him; the blood of Christ.
He receives it. Reads and responds.
He offers his hand and they stand to leave with the benediction spoken on paper.
They leave the notes as holy writ.

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