Last day in the office tomorrow. Some of the more senior people with children have taken tomorrow off, to deal with kids, last minute presents, car journeys to the in-laws. Christmas with small kids sounds exhausting. It reminds me of a passage in one of my favourite books, I don't know how she does it, by Allison Pearson. In an email exchange, one high-powered city lawyer writes to her best friend, a hedge fund manager, that there must be a better word for holidays - one that does not convey the meaning of a)peace b)rest c)holiday. Helliday?, she suggests.
I LOVE emails. I even love getting work emails. I love the 'ping' noise as it 'flops' into my inbox, and the little envelope sign in the left hand corner at the bottom of my screen. I love sticking my out of office on, when I have to go to the studio, and coming back to a 'bulging' inbox. But the best emails, of course, are the ones from friends. I have several friends at work, who sit FEET away from me, and we ping and ping back and forth all day. An email exchange today that I particuarly enjoyed. I suggested to my friend, who was - like me - so bored he was contemplating sticking his head through his computer screen, that we run away to sea together. OK, he replied, I'll hotwire a car, you make the sandwiches. I grumbled about the gendered ditribution of labour, but then quickly remembered that I don't even know how to drive a car, let alone hotwire one. It'll be so romantic, he said. All the blue rinses, chipped lino-floors of the fish shops, filthy sea and bruised skies. There's something so beautiful about that last bit - bruised skies... Then we got back to our work, obediently.
Was flicking through Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal in my bath tonight. Didn't get very far, I unterstand little. But I stagnated on the beginning of one poem, it starts so simply Au-dessus des étangs, au-dessus des vallées,
Des montagnes, des bois, des nuages, des mers,
Par delà le soleil, par delà les éthers,
Par delà les confins des sphères étoilées,
Et, comme un bon nageur qui se pâme dans l'onde,
Tu sillonnes gaiement l'immensité profonde
Avec une indicible et mâle volupté.
...
Celui dont les pensers, comme des alouettes,
Vers les cieux le matin prennent un libre essor,
— Qui plane sur la vie, et comprend sans effort
Le langage des fleurs et des choses muettes!
(Elevation)
Translation:
Above the valleys and the lakes: beyond
The woods, seas, clouds and mountain-ranges: far
Above the sun, the aethers silver-swanned
With nebulae, and the remotest star,
My spirit! with agility you move
Like a strong swimmer with the seas to fight,
Through the blue vastness furrowing your groove
With an ineffable and male delight.
Whose thoughts, like larks, rise on the freshening breeze
Who fans the morning with his tameless wings,
Skims over life, and understands with ease
The speech of flowers and other voiceless things.
For the full poem and various translations, click here.
A little list of poets I like at the moment:
- Edna St Vincent Millay
- Carol Ann Duffy
- William Meredith
- Billy Collins
- Dorothy Parker
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