THIS IS Number Four of my seasonal boxes: April. To read March, and the previous entries, use this link. It’s still pretty cold up here in Leeds, but at least the rain has abated somewhat, and there are welcome bursts of sunshine in between the clouds. Here is April’s selection.
BLOSSOM. Despite the cool and predominant gloom, the blossom has been frothing beautifully, all through the month. In my own garden, and nearby, in Rothwell Pastures, the cherry blossom has blushed and bloomed; the cow parsley is spreading its white carpet along the local river banks; and rosemary – for remembrance – is bursting with blue flowers outside my own back door. With a hint of the Mediterranean coast, where I have seen it covering the most barren of landscapes, with its sturdy branches and cheerful pointed needles, rosemary is one of my favourite herbs. I plant it wherever I go, infusing the spirit of many dead and beloved friends into its strong roots and upright, welcoming arms.
2. BLACKBIRD. This is my favourite bird – and the blackbirds are very busy this month, singing their powerful melodies at dawn, and nest – and empire – building with a vengeance. The little jug holding the blossom in my seasonal box carries the image of a blackbird, and I find it such a cheerful, homely presence. It always lifts my spirits, this jug, whether bearing little flowers, or empty of anything: except itself.
3. MOTHER My mother, now 20 years gone, still lives on in powerful memory, vibrant and defiant. She was such a strong character – and yet I particularly like this image of her as a child. It carries the hint of shyness and diffidence that I suspect lay behind her ebullient presence in the world. She was born on 5 April – a quintessential Aries, charging ahead in life, with an irrepressible verve and panache, and still somehow ruling the roost, long after her death. Once met, never forgot. Kathleen Mary Rose.
4. HOLEY STONE I have been spending April reading and reviewing a new book about Derek Jarman’s iconic house and garden in Dungeness. Built amidst the unforgiving shingle – and in the shadow of a huge nuclear power plant – Derek’s house shines like a beacon of defiance and artistry. The garden, full of found objects, such as rusted metal, pieces of old boats, and the ubiquitous holey stones that the tide washes up in multitudes along that bleak coastline, is my favourite of all gardens anywhere. I visited it many years ago, and found my own holey stone along the beach, to keep in memory of the occasion. What does the stone tell us? That nature wreaks havoc (the hole), but that somehow the structure of life, its wholeness (the surrounding stone), is never quite defeated. Most of all, it says that there is beauty, sometimes frothy, like the blossom, sometimes bare and unadorned, like the stone itself, to be found absolutely everywhere. When I run my fingers along the contours of this stone, I feel embraced and strengthened: determined to keep on creating, remembering, and celebrating the power of life itself.
5. DOG COLLAR Just as April is a month of beginnings – such as the birth of my mother, as well as a renaissance in nature – it is also a month of deaths and endings. One of those deaths, over a decade ago now, was of our trusty mongrel dog Muffin. She had been a remarkable companion in life, full of humour, love and playfulness, and was greatly missed when she left us. I wrote a whole book about her, called Old Dog, so there is no need to use many more words now to describe her loveliness. The only thing I kept to remind me of her, apart from albums full of photographs, was her dog collar. Red. Because red was her colour. She was a black and tan spaniel collie cross, and the red set her colouring off beautifully! If she had been human, she would have had long glossy black hair, and a penchant for wearing low cut red evening gowns, with high spiked heels – and a cigarette in a long holder in one defiant hand.
6. STICK It’s possible that I, too, was a dog, in a previous life. Because I am obsessed with sticks, and often bring them back from walks at the seaside, or by the river, through the wood. Here is a fine one, riddled with woodworm, but no matter, it just adds to its character, I think. There is nothing really that links this stick with April, but I couldn’t leave it out, somehow. It has a certain bony bleakness that much of this month – even though we are well on with spring now – seems to have brought in its wake. We have some colour , with daffodils, bluebells, and blossom on the trees. But there is so much more still to come. The stick says – wait – you can’t have it all so soon. When it feels cold and brown, and the ground is mired with branches like this and mud, just remember, the best is yet to come.
This is Chapter 3 in a monthly series of extracts from my new manuscript, ‘Dancing with bruised knees’. To read the previous chapters, follow the link. I have written extensively about Hungary on this website, both fiction and non fiction. Go to my archive page to find some of these pieces.
After two initial chapters about illness, recovery, and the discovery of dance, this chapter is very different. It is a deep dive into my experience in Hungary, working with a theatre company, and experiencing life in the still-communist country in the late eighties. It was an absolutely fascinating period: and it changed the direction of my life completely. All future events – even a future husband! – came about because of Hungary. I am forever in its debt.
The extracts below are taken from the very beginning of the chapter – mid-winter 1988, stepping off the plane into a mysterious new world; and spring 1988, joining the theatre company for a month of dance and drink and excitement!
A courtyard in inner city Budapest
Budapest, January 1988
‘Budapest Airport hides in a blanket of freezing fog. It’s January 1988, and the whole of Hungary is in a deep East European freeze. I catch my breath as I step off the plane, and pull the collar of the ridiculous fake fur that my mother has lent me, tight in to my throat and mouth. This is SO cold. Colder than I have ever experienced – and the snow lies thick on the ground. “Bring a hat!” my host Marike had instructed. “It’s practically illegal not to wear one outside in the winter – and besides, you’ll need it.” She wasn’t kidding. Inside, the airport is deserted. There is a thin straggle of passengers who have come off the same Malév flight as me, and an occasional soldier – neat cap, khaki-green uniform, handgun bulging at his hip – patrolling at a discreet distance, and pretending not to look. Otherwise nothing. The immigration officer takes a long time scrutinising my passport, his eyes flicking suspiciously from my photograph to my face and back again, before waving me through, with a contemptuous flick of the wrist. I am sweating now. In my suitcase are two extra large bottles of Irish whiskey – more than twice the legal limit. Again, Marike’s orders must be obeyed: “Bring whiskey! The actors love it, and they can’t get their hands on it over here. No one will stop you in customs – they never do.” I am not so sure, and look guilty as hell, as I pass through the green channel, and find my way to the exit. But she is right. Before I know it, I am out. And there she is, waiting for me. “Come on,” she scolds, “We’re late.” And off we go, on a battered bus, then a tram, towards the city centre, and to the train that will take us south to our final destination: the Csiky Gergely theatre in Kaposvár, where I will be a guest for the next two weeks.
View from a bedroom window in old town Buda.
‘My first glimpse of Budapest is like a scene from a Cold War film from the 1950s. It is misty and bleak in the city, with soft snow falling. I can just make out a blur of grey buildings through the fogged up windows of the old yellow tram. The harsh klaxon of its bell warns off any pedestrian that tries to cross the tracks, as it rattles through the empty streets. But there’s no one about, anyway. There are tall stone blocks of flats, mixed with tiny shop fronts: Élelmiszer and Virágbolt they proclaim, but the words mean nothing to me. On top of the government offices: faded red stars. And on the mighty Danube, a criss cross of formidable bridges stretch out their arms; ice floes gather beneath, thick on the oil-grey water. We catch the train south at Budapest-Déli station, with minutes to spare. Marike complains that I am too slow – but the case is heavy and I am numb with cold. Once on board, the carriages are divided into separate compartments, cosy and old-fashioned, with little pleated curtains at the inside windows. Two green banquette seats face each other. There is a basic wire rack overhead, and black and white photographs on the walls: scenes of Hungarian provincial life. We have grabbed the first empty compartment we could find, and I heave my case onto the shelf above. Both of us sit by the window, face to face, peering out into the gloom, and relieved to have the space to ourselves. It’s cold. We are tired. There is nothing to say.’
Image of a mythical ancient Magyar noble woman, carrying the country’s national Turul bird
Kaposvár, June 1988
‘When I return to Hungary for a second time, in June 1988, everything is transformed. Released from its suffocating blanket of ice and snow, Budapest seems more cheerful – and the journey down south reveals a string of quaint, one-track villages, their single storey cottages painted a warm and distinctive ochre. Kaposvár itself is pretty in pink and cream. And the theatre, freshly renovated, stands at the top of the municipal park, like a glorious, overblown wedding cake: pale lemon, with intricate white icing piped on its crenellations. It’s huge: an obvious focal point, and badge of pride, for the whole town. As you come up through the trees, the main entrance opens to the left, behind a cascading fountain. But the stage door, hidden around the corner to the right, is the place where the offstage magic happens. There are two simple iron benches perched outside, like sentries, acting as a magnet to the actors during breaks in rehearsals, and after performances. And every night, those same actors disappear indoors, down into the subterranean cave of the Actors’ Club, which is hidden in the foundations of the theatre, and is a place to gossip, flirt, smoke, argue furiously, deep into the small hours. When the morning comes, I walk past those same two benches, and through the door at the porter’s lodge, to lead a movement class for the actors – at least, the ones who choose to turn up. It’s an eclectic mix of T’ai Chi moves and maverick dance routines, which they seem to relish. The techniques I develop here, and the philosophy behind them, will form the basis of my teaching and theatre work for the next thirty years. It is where I learn my craft. And what a bunch of people I’ve found to experiment on. They are strident, physically powerful, and a little chaotic – and we communicate almost entirely by sign and body language, since my Hungarian is still non existent, and their English is not much better (although I suspect they understand far more than they let on). In any case we have a wonderful time, falling over each other in heaps, leaping across the stage, and inventing a new kind of language – physical and expressive – to an eclectic range of music, from ethereal Tibetan flute and sonorous Buddhist chanting, to Nina Simone’s My Baby Just Cares for Me and Carl Orff’s bombastic Carmina Burana.
‘Then comes lunch in the actors’ bar, with frequent shots of thick black coffee – and plenty of booze. I soon gather a little bunch of friends among the actors – Gergely, Zsuzsa, and a wonderful enigmatic giant of a man called József, who proves to be a rock of kindness and reliability throughout my entire stay, and indeed, for the rest of my life. He introduces me to a lethal combination: red wine and cheap Russian champagne, mixed. I never really take to pálinka, everyone else’s tincture of choice, and used almost medicinally throughout their daily life, but the red wine and bubbles combination suits me perfectly. After this long – and mainly liquid – lunch, I go home to sleep it off. The others go back to rehearsal, or wait until they are due on stage that evening. They have the constitutions of oxen. What flattens me, just animates them further. It is quite an initiation.
‘This warm sunny June spent in Hungary is like a dream out of time: the air is thick and sweet, and reality is supended, in favour of a soft focused, endless reverie. If winter here was a cocoon, then summer becomes the prettiest, most elusive butterfly. I have no ties of family, or work, or daily routine, other than my morning class, and I am free to drift. My body is different – I am more relaxed and expansive than I have ever felt; and my brain is disconnected from its usual worries and regrets. The natural sensuality of these bohemian people, and of this hot summer place – smack in the middle of the central European basin, and hidden, like a secret jewel, between big plains, mountain ranges and forests – infects my uptight English bones. As the month progresses, I melt into a different kind of person, and she’s someone I begin to like.
‘There is love too – or at least the illusion of it. In the months since we had our first encounter on the January tour bus, mysterious postcards from Tamás have landed regularly on my London doormat. With sepia scenes of old Hungary on the front, and, on the back, a tight scrawl of tiny writings and weird hieroglyphics – these arcane little artefacts slowly weave their spell around me. But it doesn’t take long to realise that, in person, as in his postcards, Tamás is a man of mystery. In other words, entirely unreliable. This does nothing at all to diminish his allure. A night of intense conversation after midnight in the actors’ bar, with Marike acting as go between and interpreter (being by turns amused, then bored, then mocking), is followed by days of disappearance. Rendezvous are made, but rarely kept. He has his own agenda, and I will never figure out exactly what that is. He spins a silken web around me, with his artful poetic discourse, and his delicate, long fingered gestures, but he has fallen into a web of my own making, too. Though later he will deny it – this is a mutual and mercurial fascination. Never consummated in the flesh – the connection becomes all the more potent and erotic for its very evanescence.
‘The last time we meet, before I leave again for London at the end of June, he sits at my feet in some smoky actor’s room, during a gaudy all-night party, and he talks and talks and talks, in his distinctive drawling baritone: of matters of the heart and spirit, of the fantasies he has, of travelling round the globe – “I want to meet the Dalai Lama” – of being set free from the constraints of his communist homeland, and of growing into the sophisticated world citizen he clearly aspires to be. He says none of this in English. Marike is not there to translate. Everything tumbles out in rapid, complex Hungarian. And I understand him. Every word. I cannot explain how. The conversation is imprinted on my heart, all these years later, in the way of only certain, very rare exchanges between two people. He hands me, as a parting gift, an ancient Hungarian prayer book, its pages stained with age, its cover soft, faded, mottled brown. It must have been held by so many hands – devout, or fearful – through the years since it first came off the press. Religion, of course, is frowned on by the socialist state. And I am sure that Tamás is not a believer. Nonetheless it is a talisman. A precious thing. I have it still. And I am still moved.
‘It is a year before I return again to Hungary, and in that year – before email or internet or even reliable international phone calls – the postcards continue to arrive, plopping through my South London letter box with thrilling unpredictability. Tamás had taught me smatterings of his language during those balmy June days in Kaposvár, and there are two words in particular I remember, as these postcard messages appear on my mat. Words he had me repeat, over and over, a slow smile on his face, as I stumbled to get them right, leaning close to him late at night, in the noisy subterranean theatre bar. Gyere vissza. Come back, come back.’
HERE IS Number Three of my seasonal boxes: March. To read February, click here. So here we are in March. It is still pretty wet and cold, to be honest, but nonetheless – it’s the beginning of spring. These are my selections for the month.
A HANDFUL of EARTH. The garden has long been a source of solace and renewal for me, especially since the death of my husband in 2004, after a ten year struggle with cancer. During his illness, and after it, I turned to the earth to heal me, and it didn’t disappoint. In 2007, I wrote a memoir about this process, which took the form of a month by month calendar of allotment and garden events, all of which took on a symbolic as well as earthly significance for me, healing both body and soul. Here is the optimistic beginning to the March chapter:
“It does not matter what the weather is doing. As soon as March begins, then – for me – spring has arrived. I love the seasons of change, autumn and spring, best of all. You never quite know what will happen next. Spring, as its bouncy name suggests, is particularly full of mischief, and I find my self very stirred by its arrival.”
2. SEED PACKETS. After ordering a greedy array of vegetable and flower seeds back at the beginning of January, now is the time to start ripping them open and sowing. I am trying to obey the cycles of the moon this year – just after full moon is best for the rooting plants, and then, when the moon starts to wax full again, it’s the turn of the plants that fruit and flower above ground. Truth is, I am not so good at this, and, frankly, if I am in the mood to sow, then sow I shall, with or without the permission of Lady Moon!
In the picture above we have nasturtium, sunflower, spring onion and chives. All of them have started to sprout nicely, as the end of March approaches. And there are more besides: peas and Cosmos and Scabious; lettuce and radish, too. I love the way the packets carry such colourful and hopeful pictures on them. They seem like little works of art in themselves. Impossible to resist, in the catalogues and on the supermarket shelves. Like glorious grow your own sweeties! I love them all.
3. PUSSY WILLOW. Every year without fail, my mother would collect harbingers of spring, to grace jam jars and little vases around the house. Her favourites were sticky buds and pussy willow. For a long time I haven’t lived near the specific trees that yield such treasures, but since moving to Rothwell in south Leeds, I notice that the terrain is in some ways similar to my childhood Essex home. There are meadows and hedgerows, and, once the endless rains began to abate, leaving the paths through Rothwell Pastures easier to navigate, familiar bushes and trees from those long off youthful days started to make themselves known. In the autumn there were blackberries. And this spring: pussy willow, with its soft cat’s paw branches nestling quietly in the undergrowth. So this is for you, mum – twigs in a little jar, just the way you liked it.
4. SPIRAL SEA SHELL. It’s hard to leave sea shells out of any of my seasonal boxes, because they are a genuine obsession. But I have chosen this one in particular, because the beautiful spiral that runs along its back reminds me of the snail shells that are beginning to appear in the garden – complete with their destructive little occupants, making their slow and inevitable way towards the fresh green shoots I am tending with such care. I am not a fan of the snail. But I have to admit – the pattern on their shells is one of such a perfect, symmetrical, mathematical beauty, that they need to be celebrated, if for that alone. I never kill slugs and snails these days, but they are carefully lifted from wherever I find them, and transported to a part of the garden less likely to be decimated by their greedy, greedy presence. A friend of mine puts hers in a bucket and walks to somewhere local to deposit them safely far enough from their home. But it probably is never far enough, because snails are notoriously good at finding their way back to where they came from – as if following the spiral of their own shells back to the centre. For nature, as we know, always finds a way.
5. CITRINE CRYSTAL. The sunshine yellow of this little stone makes me think of warm spring days – expansive and hopeful and somehow endless. Its name is taken from the Old French word for lemon and its warm colour is seen, indeed, as a gift from the sun. It is, in short, the stone of happiness. Good for emotional and spiritual wellness, it fosters a sense of optimism and hope. And after this long, dark, war-filled winter, I think we all need a dose of its particular shining light.
6. SUNFLOWER. Of course high season for the sunflower, when it is in full shout, is much later in the year, but in the meantime, I take great comfort in sowing its seeds, and as the picture above shows, it is already sprouting a strong little stem and jaunty leaves, only a couple of weeks or so after being planted. My yard garden is far too small to support the giant varieties – although I absolutely love them, and used them often on my allotment, for the sheer joy of their colour and magnitude. But there are many dwarf varieties that bring just as much pleasure, and the one in the picture is ‘Little Dorrit’, which promises a pleasing sunburnt centre and an abundance of yellow petals, worn, like a crown, round the edges. The blurb on the packet tells me that this is “A rather exciting little plant for the border, which will cause intrigue, excitement and evoke comment from all”! In another life, I would have the job of writing these blurbs – although I don’t think I could make a better job of it, to be fair. Anyway, HAPPY SPRING! GO OUTSIDE! Plant a flower and gaze at the buds on the trees, as they spring back to life, in a way that does heart, body and soul all manner of good. Yes, better days are coming – believe it.
Dancing (far right) with the Performance Ensemble in 2019
Dancing with Bruised Knees/Chapter 2
Here comes Chapter 2 in my series documenting each chapter in my new memoir ‘Dancing with Bruised Knees’. Taking it one month and one chapter at a time. (To read the Introduction, see here. To read Chapter 1, Bowl of Light, see here.)
Now this one is FUN. After a rickety time in my twenties, getting really sick, and then rehabilitating my body, and discovering the wondrous possibilities of movement and dance, I am enrolled here – at the grand old age of 29 – in the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance, an internationally prestigious and highly demanding conservatoire in south London. In the month I turn 30, I start a year of intense training, in which I go on a rollercoaster of physical and emotional discoveries that are life changing. I have never forgotten this year. It changed my life for good. Suffice it to say, I had a wild time – pushing myself well beyond the boundaries of what I thought I could do, physically and psychologically, and coming out of the training into an entirely different world. Everything was transformed in this year, and it set me on a trajectory that I would never have imagined for myself as a bookish teenager and student. Life, truly, begins afresh, when you discover your dancing feet…
Here is an extract from the very beginning of the chapter, when I first arrive at Laban.
More Ensemble work (this time on the left)
‘Autumn 1986 is sunny and warm and enticing, even in the grubby South London streets where I live. At least, that is the way the film reel runs in my memory: full of colour and promise. Things have changed in my life, completely, and for the better. I am sure of that. The lid of Pandora’s Box has been lifted and there is no going back. I step carelessly away from the two newspaper offices that have given me a home – City Limits, where I’ve bashed out theatre reviews, and interviewed edgy young actors and directors, quite a few of whom go on to be household names and even Hollywood stars; and Tribune, where, for two years, I have handed out books for review like sweeties, to up and coming activists and politicians (not all of whom went on to deliver their reviews, it must be said) – and I step instead into arty, light-filled studios, full of dancers, live music and movement. From the life of the mind: endless furious polemics around the drinks machine; into the life of the body. Both of these worlds are intense, heartfelt. But to me, one of them feels as stale and old as the percolated coffee, stewing all day in the office corner – and the other, seems wickedly, subversively new.
‘The Laban Centre is two bus rides away from Brixton. First, we drive down Coldharbour Lane, and past the leafy elegance of Camberwell Grove, where I rented a room in a huge house, during my early years in London, and had half the intelligentsia of South London living on my doorstep. The neighbouring house was home to Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler, or at least, to his extensive collection of expensive guitars. I never caught sight of him – or his guitars – the entire time I lived there. But I did see Monty Python’s Terry Jones ambling about from time to time, in his amiable, unassuming way. And the Greek restaurant at the foot of the Grove was scene of several bacchanalian nights out with my generous landlords, whose house I lived in. Past the Camberwell Art School the bus continues, and into the far less fragrant territory of Peckham and New Cross. Much of this area has been gentrified in the intervening decades. But then – it was rough. Even dangerous, after dark. Laban was based at the time in a converted church, with add-on studios, which skirted the edges of Goldsmith’s College, some of whose facilities the dance students shared. Chiefly, the canteen and the bar.
‘Come the first day of term, I am terrified, and I have flu. Possibly a fear-based infection. What am I thinking? This is not my world. I am nowhere near fit or strong enough to be doing this – as a rather supercilious osteopath implied, when I went for a pre-registration checkup. My whole life has been about words. But my words count for nothing in this place. And yet – here I am. And alongside me are a raggle taggle group of fellow postgraduates, ranging in age from twenty something to fifty plus. They have travelled from Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Brazil and all over the USA, in order to study at the Laban Centre, which seems to carry far more prestige abroad than it does in the UK. Some of these people seem as petrified as me; some of them (the real dancers) have a suitable air of composure and entitlement. We are every shape and size – though mostly on the skinny side – and we bring with us a dizzying array of experience and professional acumen. Laban was known for its adventurous attitude towards recruitment on the one year postgraduate programme. And it was certainly true of our year. We were hilariously diverse, with plenty of stroppy, larger-than-life characters: a bunch of well-qualified misfits, who were completely at odds with the more conventional cohort of dance undergraduates. But we shared the same ambition. Whether we would go on to be dance teachers, movement therapists, choreographers, performers, theorists or writers, we had all come to this place with one aim. To dance – till our beating hearts burst with the thrill of it.
Performing a T’ai Chi sequence in ‘Bus Ride’ at the Queens Hotel, Leeds, in 2018
‘On the very first day it gets serious. We divide into groups and take a technique class. A line of stern-looking tutors sit at the front and make notes. On the basis of what they observe, we are divided into three levels: Beginners, Intermediate, Advanced. I dance the class in a slightly hallucinogenic state, fevered and sweaty with the remains of my flu. I don’t do a very good job, and feel despondent at the end, sure I have failed with every shaky step taken. But then I become delirious for a different reason, when I am placed firmly in the Intermediates. Not a beginner after all! For someone who has arrived after just one year of weekly classes, having never danced in her life before, even though I am about to turn thirty, this is not bad going. And it means more to me than my BA honours degree. I am ready now to give it my all. The days follow, hard on each other’s heels: long, long, long – and demanding. We start at 8.30 a.m. each morning with a contemporary dance technique class; then comes ballet – or choreography; sometimes Laban Movement Studies, or dance notation; then we split into our specialist subjects, which for me is Teaching Dance, with the eminently sensible Marion G. – whose classes have stood me in good stead for the past 30 years, for I learned how to structure a class well, and how to lead it; and Dance History, taught by the inimitable Alastair M, who went on to become dance critic for the New York Times and whose prodigious knowledge – and occasional sly innuendo – I always enjoyed. The pace of this course is demanding and relentless. Laban means business – and welcomes no time wasters. It is astonishing how little regard our culture has for people studying dance. They are expected to learn at their books, write essays, and take gruelling classes every day. As a language student, my days were much more relaxed, with long hours spent, not at the exercise mirror, but in the student bar. How things change. Now I am in a permanent state of fatigue, and every day discover another muscle, and another source of stiffness and aches. But I have never been happier in my entire life, and nothing has quite reached that peak of experience since.
‘The lunchbreaks, and occasional early finishes, are highly prized. We burst, as a mob, out of the centre doors, and head for the nearby sports field or the canteen. It doesn’t take long for me to stop being shocked by the extraordinarily unhealthy dance lifestyle – not among the staff, but the students themselves. (Things are very different now, and I am grateful for that.) The young undergraduates are the worst offenders. Clumps of them stand outside the entrance, in a little covered alleyway, sheltering from the wind or rain, hunched over cigarettes, looking bone thin and distracted. They seem dangerously malnourished to me, yet, should you catch sight of them in class and in full flight, they transform into miraculous creatures, more like birds than humans. We post graduates are not much better. Fewer of us smoke, but plenty of us have eating habits that defy the laws of good nutrition. A ballet dancer and teacher from the USA called Betsy loads her lunch plate with nothing but pastries. When questioned, she says nonchalantly, “I need the carbohydrates, not the green stuff, or I’ll just keel over and faint.” I, meanwhile, am usually so hot after class, that I have little appetite for anything except two cans of ice cold coca cola, pumped out of the machine in quick succession, and drunk with the thirst of someone lost for 30 days in the Gobi Desert. I have never drunk coke since, but back then, it was nectar of the gods.
Doris Humphrey, an inspiration for me from early twentieth centurydance.
‘It is not just my days that are filled with movement and speed. The nights are, too. My dreams become lurid and action-packed. The quickness of my mind – always brain-heavy, from book-guzzling childhood onwards – is being invaded, no longer with thoughts, but with the energy of motion itself. It is a kind of perpetual chaos. Images of fast-moving cars, of crowds of crazily active people, teem into my sleeping hours. And when I am awake, I am super sensitive to the rapidity of the world around me: traffic, pedestrians, even animals and birds, seem turbo charged. It is as if some mischievous deus ex machina has sawn off the top of my head, taken out all lucid reasonings, and poured in a stream of pure energy, physicality, and forward drive. I hardly read a book during this whole year. My friend G. laughs at this. “Well, you’ve read enough books to last you a lifetime already!” And he has a point. This is not the time for crippling analysis and reflection. It is a dionysian leap into the world of sensation, of action, daring and adventure.’
HERE IS the second in my seasonal boxes: February. (To read about January click here.) I am immediately struck by how much more colour there is in this box than in the first one, a welcome sign that spring is on its way…
ORANGES. What a jovial winter fruit this is, to be sure! The orange could go in any of the winter boxes, really, but I have tumbled these three beauties in here, as homage to the marmalade I made at the end of January, and in reference to the constant company the oranges keep, with the rest of the fruit in the fruit bowl. I am such a fan of the colour orange. It is the colour of my socks – the colour of a sofa cover that brought zing to the front room for many years before finally fading from view last year – and the colour of the sunrise, tentatively beginning to show its face through my morning bedroom window on the rare days when the rain stays away. Vitamin C for cheerfulness.
DAFFODILS.The perfect complement to the jazzy oranges. Not the first of the flowers to appear in late winter/early spring – the clumps of snowdrops and the serried ranks of crocuses come before them – but there are already plenty of these beauties apparent in my little back garden, so they have to get a mention here. I love the way they trumpet their wares! None of the bashful nodding shyness you find in a snowdrop, and larger by far, more present than the crocus, a daffodil just sings its own praises, and promises, in capital letters, that spring IS ON ITS WAY, never fear.
3. ROSEWOOD OIL. Truly a scent of tree, this one, as it is extracted from the wood of Aniba rosaeodora, with the wood chipped and then steamed, to create an exquisite and earthy fragrance. I wear it constantly, but am dismayed to find that it has been massively overharvested, and so they are trying now, to extract the oil from the leaves instead. It is the oil of the root, for me. To feel grounded and settled in the self. Yes, we have flowers beginning to burst through, but February is still very much about the soil and the roots. We have a little more hibernation to go through yet, before the chaos of spring. Nothing about the rosewood is chaotic. All is calm.
4. BRANCHES and LICHEN. Just a few little twiglets from my local walk in Rothwell Pastures here: the remains of some berries, the fronds of green broom, which will yield its own yellow flowers – all in good time, and a short stick with some yellow lichen wrapped around it. It’s still a very ‘sticky’ time of year, after all!
5. LITTLE BOOK of WISDOM. I’ve picked Thich Nhat Hanh from my many meditation books, mainly because of the yellow/orange cover, which seems to fit the theme, but also because he is a root teacher for me – and he writes so simply of being grounded in nature, that his words are a particular comfort in the dark months of the year. He writes in this little book about seeds: the seeds of violence, as well as the seeds of peace. War is very present in the world at the moment, and Hanh knew of its ugliness at first hand, having himself survived the vicissitudes of the Vietnam War. But he was always adamant that we must walk in peace, “that the seeds of peace, understanding, and love are there and that they will grow if we cultivate them.” A simple philosophy, and true.
6. MALACHITE and AZURITE. What fabulous names these two minerals have, like a pair of brothers from the Old Testament, smiting their way through their ancient days with not a whiff of remorse! In fact these two stones have a great affinity, and a powerful healing presence. Azurite is a soft, deep blue mineral, produced by the weathering of copper ore deposits. It has been mixed for pigment in paintings and in jewellery, but it doesn’t keep its colour very well, so is limited in its uses. The ancient Egyptians were fond of it, and it feels rather old and grand to me, with a certain spiritual wisdom in its fading tones. Malachite also derives from copper, and it has a natural affinity with azurite. Glossy and green, it is the earth to azurite’s sky. Traditionally used to ward of danger and fight illness, it is certainly a beauty to behold – and to hold in the hand. There is an elemental strength to it, a brightness of aspect and purpose. Altogether wholesome. Why have I picked these two stones? They sit together on my meditation table, and they remind me of the unity between earth and sky. I am aware of those two elements in late winter, when things are still bare enough to show us the soil beneath and the vast canvas of sky above.
7. TREE of LIFE. There are some glorious old trees in the graveyard across the road from our house. I lie in bed and gaze at them for minutes on end. At this time of year they are like skeletons, holding up the environment around them, and offering perching places for passing birds. There isn’t a leaf to be seen, yet, but by the summer, they will be a mass of billowing green. And this is the marvel of trees – shape shifting creatures, yet keepers also of place. How old must these trees be? Older than any living human, that’s for sure. What stories they might tell. But wisely, they keep their own counsel. They are just there, day in, day out, keeping watch and keeping us steady. There is a necklace I wear around my neck, which I fill with essential oils (often rosewood) on a little pad inside. It is the tree of life. Here it is. And here’s to spring… Not long now.
Last month, I introduced my new manuscript, ‘Dancing with bruised knees: a memoir of loss and recovery’, which is currently being edited and submitted and generally fooled around with, before, hopefully, finding a publisher and a new life out in the big old world itself. You can read my January introduction and short extract here.
There are eleven chapters in all, and each month of this year, I’ll introduce the chapters, one by one, with a little taster of their content, too. This month, it’s Chapter 1: Bowl of Light. The book is written around the body – my body – and how it has shaped my experience, through illness, loss, new beginnings and opportunities. The bowl of light in the heading refers to the pelvis. When I was in my twenties – which is where the book begins – I became very ill, with pains in my lower abdomen which perplexed me and the the doctors for quite a long time. It turned out to be an ovarian cyst – a large one – which was healed by surgery, but left me very weak and debilitated.
As I recovered from this, I started to discover my body in a new way. Always a bookish girl, I had neglected myself from the neck down – but in a quest to become strong, I discovered various movement forms, culminating in dance itself. This led to an intensive dance training at the Laban Centre London, and a whole new life, away from my books and into a whirlwind of physical and emotional discoveries. The Laban training itself, which I write about in Chapter 2, was intense and revealing. But in this first chapter, I am still on the other side, struggling with my health, and generally floundering about, trying to work out what I am supposed to do with my curious, chaotic, young and undisciplined self.
When it first happened, I was nearly 30 years old, and the discovery of dance felt entirely new to me. But as I started to write this book, I realised that the seeds of such a calling had in fact been sown long, long before: right back in childhood, when a particular touring production of dance had seized my attention, and taught me, there and then, about the passion of the moving body.
This extract is a journey back to that moment.
‘Something happened when I was eight years old. My mother Kathleen took me down to the local college to see a touring production by the Royal Ballet. A small team of dancers were performing extracts from famous ballets, for people living in the provinces, who had neither the money nor the opportunity to go up to London to the Royal Opera House itself. My mother, although underschooled herself, had a bright and alert mind, and was a fierce educator. She taught me to read very early. She took me to every amateur show on offer, in our sleepy, backwater town, and when I was older, we were regulars of the Colchester Mercury Theatre. It didn’t matter what was in repertory: mother and I were there. Dad used to drive us, and then go for a pint in the pub, before bringing us back home again. Ours was a family of boisterous males. So these theatre jaunts were, I now realise, a blessed escape for Kathleen, from the world of trains, cricket and football, which dominated our lives, as well as being an admirable opportunity for me. But to be honest, the thought of ballet left me cold. A bookish and quiet individual, I could no sooner imagine strapping on a pair of pink ballet slippers, than flying to the moon. But, dutifully, I went along, and reasoned to myself, that at least there was the choc ice to look forward to in the interval.
The first half was, frankly, a bore – Coppelia and Sleeping Beauty and some other such fairy tale nonsense. But part two stopped me in my tracks. Far from the well-worked classical canon, this was a contemporary piece, something pagan and glowing, with an autocratic sun god and dazzling orbiting planets pounding across the stage. The thing that transfixed me most – beyond the consummate artistry and the radiant costumes – was their feet. Just that. The dancers, male and female, were dancing barefoot, and I could not take my eyes off them: those percussive heels, the long toes, the broad, powerful span of arch and sole. The flare of metatarsal and ankle hinge. Scuffed and worn, these pulsing feet seemed like instruments of work and of challenge, badges of strength and of overcoming. There was even – we were sitting close enough to the stage to notice – a trace of blood issuing dangerously from the sun god’s big toe. I had never seen anyone move with such power and grace. It might just as well have been Nijinsky himself scudding about on that little stage. The whole thing took my breath away: I was hooked.
Eager to fire this new-found enthusiasm further, and to get my head out of a book, at least for an hour or so, my mother encouraged me to join a dance class in the local community hall. Tap and ballet. The only thing available. Shoes compulsory, of course, but since I was just trying it out, the teacher let me do it without. It was one of the most miserable experiences of my young life. I was already tall and admittedly scruffy. My co-ordination, as a left hander, was not very good. Messages from the brain, about turning left and right, and doing it elegantly at that, translated only partially – and slowly – into my lanky body: and the fast, percussive rhythms of tap left me in a cold and panicky sweat. The class had already been working on their routines for a few weeks, and the friendship groups between the girls were firmly and indelibly established. I was the rank outsider. And they let me know it, in no uncertain terms. My bare toes were trodden on frequently and ‘accidentally’ by steel toe-capped individuals to either side of me, as I turned, yet again, in the wrong direction, and into the path of inexorable oncoming traffic. I do not think I even finished the class, but stormed outside in a rage of humiliation and defeat. That’s it, I told my mother. Don’t ask me to go near a dance class ever again. And I never did – until I was nearly thirty years old. But the bare feet of that sun god, as he stamped, whirled, insinuated his way across the stage – in a kind of love affair, a passionate connection with the earth, and with his own, earthly body, had left an indelible imprint in my brain. One day, just when I needed it most, it would be my saving grace: a trigger for the way back to health, and the wild, rising road to well being. To the wisdom of the body itself.’
THIS YEAR I have decided to stay in touch with the seasons by creating a box of treasures for each passing month. I start, appropriately enough, with January. Here is a simple list of contents and their resonance for me.
PINE CONES I love the shape and colour of these objects – so fleshy and brown and compact, without frill or favour. They reflect very much the austerity of the season. Here you will find no bright colour or scent, and yet they have a comforting presence, strewn around my house, at the base of plants, on the table where the buddha sits, waiting for me to sit, too, in meditation and repose. I don’t know where I have gathered these cones: they just seem to arrive, year by year, and in December, they have a brief shout of glory around the Christmas tree, before fading into obscurity for another year. They never leave though. So the pine cones are a fixture, not just of January, but of the whole year – sturdy, like the joints of the spinal column, holding everything up somehow, just by their existence.
LEAVES In the graveyard across the road from us, there are some mighty old trees, standing guard over the gravestones, and providing shelter for the birds that fly in from the nearby bird sanctuary, or from the little river at the bottom of the street. What they also provide is an absolute abundance of leave mould, after I have swept up the hundreds of sheddings that arrive in my back yard from their branches, with every winter storm. Not handsome, they have, nonetheless, a skeletal quality that I find pleasing, like the ghosts of summers past and the imprint of summers yet to come.
OYSTER SHELLS I was forty years old or more when I first tasted an oyster. It was a revelation, and I found the taste and sensation intoxicating. I also discovered that my father loved them too, and we embarked on an oyster spree that lasted several birthdays till his death in 2010. (We both were born on 9 October. Luckily for us, there is an R in our birthday month.) As with the pine cones, I cannot tell you where the oyster shells in my house come from. They are the bones of feasts enjoyed through two decades, and I find that the shells themselves have a bony beauty – they are the Vikings of the shell world, bold and uncompromising. Like winter itself.
FRANKINCENSE This is an essential oil that has both subtlety and power. I was recommended to use it by a reflexologist and massage therapist when I had been through a traumatic time and was struggling with both mood and physical strength. She suggested that it would protect my heart and she was right. It has an uplifting power – an almost soporific, smoky sweetness, that makes me understand why churches would swing it around so liberally in their most holy of services. It is a warm oil. Not summery at all. Very much a winter scent.
BUDDHA I have a few buddhas in my house and garden. I love them all. As a serious meditator these days, the presence of a sitting buddha is helpful in settling my mind and body. Mostly, I prefer the ascetic skinny buddhas, but the little chubby laughing buddhas (like the one in the picture below) are very cheering. He doesn’t care that it’s January, because time is just a concept, right?
6. EARRING There used to be two of these, but I am notoriously bad at losing jewellery, so now there is just one. It was made for me by a boyfriend, long ago. It seems I am bad at losing boyfriends too… Anyway, he turned out not to be good news, but at the beginning, he had the charming habit of making me little gifts by hand, as a token of his affection. No one else has ever done that – except for my daughter, when she was at primary school – so I am glad I hung onto this solitary earring. For memory and old times’ sake. Why in the January box? Why not?
7. SEED HEADS I always collect allium seed heads, once they have finished flowering, and I like them just as much as the flowers, to be honest. They are like wonderful star bursts in their perfect spherical shapes. But in my January box I have also collected seed heads from the local pastures, where the hedges grow wild and wanton by the river, and winter is just a trail of mud and sticks and prickles – even the December berries were long ago picked clean by hungry birds. It’s OK, though, this skeletal scene. Like the outlines of trees, rising majestically towards the skies, there is a terrible beauty here, an augury of death, but also, a promise of resurrection, come spring.
8. TIGER’S EYE I like to collect crystals and gemstones, without much clue what to do with them, once I have them. They are, at the least, very pleasing on the eye. None more so than the Tiger’s Eye, which has a glossy, tawny strength to it, which makes me think of the more bracing aspects of the month of January. It is said to ward off the Evil Eye, which is always helpful – and Roman soldiers wore engravings of the stone on their armour to protect them in battle. We need everything we can muster to get through the storms of January, so I am happy to call on the power of the Tiger’s Eye to help me in that endeavour. It embodies the energy of the earth and of the sun – giving us all courage to make it through to the end of the month – and see what February brings!
Withthanks to Lia Leendertz, whose Almanac: A Seasonal Guide, gave me the idea for my monthly boxes.
“For do you not see how everything that happens keeps on being a beginning… and beginning is in itself always so beautiful?” (Rainer Maria Rilke)
FOR THE past four years I have been working on a manuscript. This is another memoir, which is the form that suits me best. I enjoy writing from life – but with a poetic slant, a look at the world with a certain dreamy, distant gaze. It is unusual for me to spend so long on a book – the two before this one were each written in less than a year. But then I had the luxury – or threat – of a publishing deadline. This time I have been working to my own, somewhat maverick inner timetable. There is, as yet, no publisher, no commission. This is, entirely, a venture of the heart. I started writing in the summer of 2019. Not long after this came Covid, and a global hiatus such as we have not known in modern times. My world – as for everyone – was turned upside down. A theatre life was stopped entirely in its tracks, never to be resumed. A travelling routine, between Eastern Europe and the UK, was stopped short. The easy rhythm of teaching classes and socialising disappeared entirely. In the midst of this lacuna, I sometimes wrote, but often did not. I found myself marooned in a life that was no longer one that I recognised, and I had no idea what shape a future life might take – on the other side of quarantine, and of such bewilderment and loss.
Dancing with bruised knees
Finally, I am here. Beyond Covid, and in a completely new phase of my life. Released from the threat of serious disease, a lightness has returned to my days. And the manuscript is finished at last. Throughout this coming year I shall release extracts from each chapter in turn, with a little bit of commentary on the side. Today I start – appropriately enough – with the opening words of the introduction. Having written before about grief and recovery – in ‘A Handful of Earth’ it was the making of a garden that saved me; and in ‘Old Dog’ I paid tribute to a wonderful rescue hound who brought love and restitution to a family stricken by illness and death – I turn now to my own journey through life. The focus is on the body itself here: my experience of illness and loss, and the things this has taught me. The body has a wisdom without words, but I have tried to find a language for it, nonetheless, for the strange, sometimes painful, sometimes blissful meanderings we experience in our lives, not just on a physical level, but down into the depths of psyche and soul. Here it is then: ‘Dancing with bruised knees: a memoir of loss and recovery.’ The introduction.
Introduction
‘ What a beautiful and fascinating thing it is, the human body. Powerful, mysterious, full of rhythms and pulses quite outside our understanding mind. If it could speak, what tales would it tell? If the strange pains and pleasures we feel on a daily basis were converted into words, what kind of poetry – dissonant or lyrical – would they make? These are the questions I have asked myself in this memoir. And the result is a story of the body – my body – and the way it has shaped my life, pushing me in directions I never imagined I would travel, and leading me to places I never expected to explore. It has been, above all, the experiences of falling apart – through illness, loss and bereavement – that have been the most transforming. Illuminating, even. Our first and most fundamental experiences as babies are of needing to be held: body and mind. When we are tiny, physical holding is also an emotional holding. We need to feel strong arms around us, to contain the brimming and overwhelming life within us – so that later on, once we are grown, we can internalise that feeling, and withstand whatever crises we have to face as adults. Falling apart is an inevitable price of being alive, but how we come back together again is the interesting part of the journey.
*****
‘ Although the writing here is born from many endings, this is actually a book of beginnings. I have a deep fascination for birds, both real and mythical. And there is no more powerful avian symbol than that of the phoenix: the legendary firebird that is consumed in its own flames, only to rise from the ashes, in perpetual and magnificent renewal. The phoenix, as an image of strength and regeneration, seems particularly pertinent to women, whose body shape and metabolism changes profoundly through their lifetimes, from pubescence to womanhood, through pregnancy and childbirth, and then into the fires of menopause and beyond. This last stage, when the uses of a woman to the wider world, as wife or mother or worker, fall away, and she becomes more socially invisible, requires a certain courage – whilst releasing a sly, subversive energy in its wake.
But at every age, whatever your sex or gender, it is imperative to live as fully as you can. Expand into the smallest spaces. For even the very last days of a life – as I saw when my husband was dying of cancer, and when my young friends were succumbing to AIDS – can be a revelation. And I have learned that my own body is capable of being regenerated, phoenix-style, from collapse and confusion, over and over again. Just when I think it’s the end – that I must sit by the hearth now, and watch the world go by, with someone else steering it on – something wakes me up and pushes me forward. And I know enough people in their seventies, eighties and nineties, living lives of purpose and creativity, to realise that I am just beginning at this game.
The dance of life is a surprising one, which twists and turns, right to the end, but we need to pay attention. Only with our last blink, our last breath, is that game up. My experiences of illness, of grief and struggle, have not shaken my confidence in the human body and spirit, quite the opposite. I am gathering a deeper and deeper compassion for our fragile physical form. And the collective suffering brought about by Covid and its repercussions, has only heightened this tender sensibility. In the end, it is the lessons of the body that have taught me more about living a rich and soulful life, than the acres of words I have read and studied through the years. And with this gift from the body, comes responsibility. As the buddhist philosopher Thich Nhat Hanh said, “It’s not enough to suffer. You also have to touch joy.” Pleasures come round every corner, but first, you must lift your gaze from the ground.’
1st December 2023 comes in cold and bright and blue. This is one of the mighty old trees in the graveyard across the road from me in Rothwell, south Leeds, keeping watch over the dead, and over the living too! It’s finally dropped its leaves – shedding many of them into my back yard, and providing welcome leaf mould for my own much smaller – and younger – trees in pots. And so the circle turns.
December gets busy and festive, as we fight off the dark with twinkly lights and feverish celebrations. But I like what lies beneath this, best: nature’s stillness. It’s all fallen to earth and sleeping. And in winter, rest and restore is the T’ai Chi and Reiki way…
“Let us look for secret things, somewhere in the world on the blue shores of silence.” (Pablo Neruda)
Through the kitchen window, on a concrete slab in the yard
Sits an old stone, quietly brooding.
He brought it to shore for her, one lost and distant spring,
On some windswept Beara beach, before the storms rolled in.
And in the drawer, a floral summer shirt, roughly folded.
Such terrible taste in clothes he had, but she cannot throw it away.
Faded photos, bleaching in the hot sun,
That comedy hat he wore in the hospice –
Laughing at the impunity of dying.
A ring of white, etched into the stone’s contours, that says “You will come back.”
But everyone knows this cannot be true –
And no one better than he.
Barney Bardsley
This poem is taken from a collection of writings produced by my WordPlay writers group (and me!) during a recent workshop on the theme of Missing. (If you go to my WordPlay page here, you can listen to a live reading from the collection.One ofthe writing challenges I set the group was to write a 12 line poem,based on an object, a memory, a person. No rhymes needed – just a simple collection of thoughts and images to evoke something, someone, somewhere, now missing from our lives. The result was a collection of writings of exquisite beauty– poignant in its absolute simplicity and truth.
Barefoot Barney 