Haps

What to do with all these observations? Of this and that. Those that commonly occur that you pay attention to but which have only just struck you as strange or in a new way, as something to remark upon, silently smile to yourself about or squirrel away for some future unforeseen use, which as a writer can be very useful indeed. And those that occur unexpectedly and so strike you as odd with immediacy. What's going on here then? and can be a source of amusement or pose themselves as riddles, waiting for you and only you to solve.

Some of this stuff you couldn't write, and yet so multitudinous and multifarious are they a story could not be hung on them or stung together, for if it was it would be a very tall tale. Although tall tales are often believed, despite the realities in which they're set seeming far-fetched and entirely the work (and at the mercy) of the imagination.

Sometimes history you weren't a part of, that wasn't made in your lifetime can appear this way: it didn't happen, those leaders and military figures never existed, that battle didn't take place at such and such a location, at such and such an hour.

That's not my view, wholehearted view and wholeheartedly given, because I like history, neither condemning or celebrating it, nor wishing the nation and its peoples rid of it; I believe it in and what it can teach and impart, if we let it; and also, well, because the history I'm part of seems more incredible and far less interesting, which I realise is contradictory but I'm that type of person. History that's made while you are living sometimes seems clearer long after it's been made and established, not when you're in the thick of it, though more likely than not this will mostly mean debating the topic rather than partaking in the decision or action. But then I'm also the cloistered type, of the sort that keeps abreast of such matters but rarely involves oneself directly though I might share my opinion with the TV or radio, as my maternal grandmother did and as do my parents. Then, later when we're together titbits, gathered for this purpose, are disseminated and general points are aired in our attempts to right this crazy world. Naturally to our own reckoning of how it should be.

But where was I? Ah yes, observations (haps); those are somewhat different. Distinctly random, though history is inclined to be that too. But what to do with them? since they mostly occur when you least expect them to, similar to a foul or pleasant scent assaulting your nose which you either hold (with thumb and index finger acting as a peg) your nose against or deeply breathe in as if it were a substance to sustain body and soul.

Foul: decomposing matter; pleasant: freshly baked bread. The obvious. Though, for me, wood smoke and bonfires also fall in the latter camp, causing me to open, not close, windows, which is surely not sensible, and some aftershaves can send me into raptures, so I have to be careful to not behave like a truffle-hunting dog or at the very least a woman who sits too close and sniffs lapels; the scent enslaving me even if there are no other attractions. More subtle perfumes, alas, don't have that effect. I say alas, because if this hap was more frequent then perhaps I wouldn't respond as I do; perhaps I'd grow immune, and only be drawn by smells less hazardous to health and safety. Perhaps unassuming men would be safe from me.

Health and safety. Oh, how I loathe those words! They now consume everything in their path. Act like a flood or a fire, except without those elements (or any that might cause thousands of pounds worth of damage) in evidence.

Our culture loves extremes.

While I enjoy those little events that take one out of oneself; a minor blip in the ordinary that doesn't make your heart thump and doesn't have to be accounted for, as to to why? and how? You take note; they pass. They may cause you to laugh or seem to smile idiotically because nobody else has noticed, or reacted to, them. Sometimes they can seem just for you, celestially arranged. Unless you've convinced yourself that your penchant is for the small; those small but nonetheless observable haps that are there for all to see, if only they would see. Lift their eyes from the palms of their hands, from screens and hand-held devices.

Picture credit: Face by Hand on a Red Background, Fernand Leger (Source: WikiArt).

All posts published this year were penned during the last.