The right time

Last year I started two small projects that didn’t come to anything. The work was done but the fruit was not born.

One of the projects was related to my garden. I turned the earth, removed loads of rubble and old dead roots, filled many flower pots and garden patches with earth and compost, and planted seedlings, seeds and bulbs. A bit too late to the season. They have grown to an extent but unfortunately never revealed its full beauty. Never blossomed.

This little incidence taught me something: Timing in life is important. It seems to me that many of our projects or endeavours in life have their time bracket. Ultimate conditions for growth. The right time. Perhaps it takes a failed attempt at making something happen to recognize that right time and to make use of it.

In the coming months I’d like to be a bit more aware of time (its presence, limitations, seasonality, etc.) and work with it and within it. Not against it.I think that time and I may even become friends this year.

What’s your relationship with time like? How do you stay in beat with it?

GUEST POST: The Fight Against The Decline Of Book Reading

Tara Vickers Photo — A reading flashmob in Nottingham, July 2014. Photo: Tara Vickers, 2014

I have the great pleasure introducing today’s guest writer James Walker. He is a literary journalist and the editor of the literary graphic novel Dawn of the Unread. Here he writes about the fight against the decline of book reading.

The Fight Against The Decline Of Book Reading by James Walker

On the 12 July 2014 I and a few friends decided to organise a reading flashmob in Old Market Square, Nottingham. 400 odd people turned up armed with books and we joined together in a very silent protest. Our aim was to make reading a visible act, and to show our appreciation to the writers, publishers and bookshops who have brought us joy over the years.

Physical books are slowly starting to disappear from the high streets and it’s not just because of the Kindle. In February, independent bookshops dropped to below 1,000 for the first time. This is largely due to high rents as well as a drop in demand. Bookshops pay the same rates as other businesses yet it is simplistic to categorise them as ‘retail’. Firstly, they are never going to be as profitable as say a clothes shop and secondly, they have an educational function. If councils don’t change their attitude our town centres are going to be nothing but Poundstretchers, Tescos and American coffee shops.

Libraries, when they’re not being closed down altogether, are seeing opening times and staffing numbers reduced due to cuts. The old argument that other services (such as hospitals) are more important is simplistic and divisive. The UK was recently positioned 22 out of 24 industrialised nations for illiteracy. This is particularly worrying given that there is proven evidence that those who don’t read are less likely to vote, become home owners and lack general confidence. Cuts also mean that less books are stocked which in turn impacts on the livelihood of writers who are already pretty much at the bottom of the food chain.

These are just some of the issues that motivated the people in the picture to sit down alone together with their favourite books. Reading is also something that is able to unite every type of person, cutting across cultures, gender, ethnicity and age. Yet despite its ability to unite all communities and its role in developing us intellectually and emotionally, it is something which local government seems to treat with contempt. Now we’ve all sat down together quietly, perhaps it’s time we all started to shout for what we believe in…

James Walker is the editor of literary graphic novel Dawn of the Unread. The flashmob was organised as part of their campaign to raise the importance of reading. Their next public event is a game of zombie mastermind as part of the Nottingham Festival of Words (19 October, 3pm, Old Market Square, Nottingham) which will see four dead writers come back to answer questions about their literary lives www.dawnoftheunread.com

I am here

Although I do enjoy spending time online, when I spend far too much time it makes me feel numb. I don’t know what it is, maybe information overload, but there is something desensitizing about the Internet. Of course there are texts, articles and talks that enrich, entertain or provoke us in some manner, where their content stays and grows with us for weeks. However, while reading them it’s really easy to click on those other links that just take up time. I notice that the more I stay online, the more my body and my spirit suffers and I suspect that it’s partially because of this ‘extra’ time of mine that I allow the Internet to rob me of… the time that makes me more detached than it makes me feel connected.

Someone told me once that a good start for regaining balance is to say to yourself ‘I am here’. I am here [breathe]. I am here [look around]. I am here [notice how you feel]. I am here [notice your body]. I am here… Who am I? Where am I going? What have I stopped doing? What am I looking for?

‘I am here’ is for many a start of a prayer or meditation. It allows us to take stock of our physical and metaphysical reality. It brings us back to our homes and personal realities that the Internet so eagerly detaches us from.

I am here, writing these words for you while I contemplate the future of this blog, of its value to you, to me and to my family. Part of me feels that the “I am” in “I am here” wouldn’t be me without writing and photographing… but I also wonder who I would be or become if the time that I spend on writing and documenting life would be spent on other things? I guess that my house would be cleaner… or maybe it wouldn’t.

Why do I blog?

I am still slightly insecure about this blogging world. It scares me at times but I love writing and love connecting with people and I guess this blog is my method for reaching out… reaching beyond borders, beyond social grouping and time constraints.

My professional life restricts my publishing rights so I write about daily matters, values and challenges and I find that it’s enough to build bonds with people.

I had different reactions to this blog, words of encouragement and congratulations, surprise and polite or impolite critiques. Some words gave me wings, others tried to snip them. That’s life…

And it’s this life which is worth writing about… because a lot of learning happens during it that we often don’t take any notice of… because daily life is a lot to deal with and a lot to be grateful for… and to me this is fascinating… to me this is worth capturing and documenting… because we are made of small moments… we are made of everyday conversations and exchanges of smiles, winks and grimaces… we are the reflections of it all… so why not to write about it? Why not give it its due status? The daily life that’s made so infamous… because it sometimes overwhelms us with its chores, choices and charades.

I hope that with time you see more stories of people here… of the quiet celebrities of our daily lives… the people that deserve the space because they just simply are there for us and they are doing their jobs with passion… like the greengrocer that I wrote about and the glass decorator that I encountered while travelling through Wales… There are more people that I admire… a young Sardenian man that I knew as a waiter that decided to open his own little restaurant, a Cypriot mum that has been forever dedicated to bring up her sons and daughter, a picture frame maker that I meet in my local park, a professor who’s turning his knowledge into jazz music, and a young and beautiful woman who’s fighting with the not-so-uncommon mentality among young people that it’s not worth to do things for free… this woman is all about volunteering… about being society-oriented about not forgetting, about others that are less fortunate than we are. These are people that I admire. These are my celebrities and I want to write about them.

All too often the stories in the media tear people up. The Roman Colosseum in print. We are forced to be spectators of those cruel games. I refuse to sit there and watch. I had enough. Because humanity is precious and the human spirit should not be slain. We are too good for that. You are too good for that.

The truth is that on a daily basis we are also charmed and inspired… we are challenged and made curious… by events and occurrences, by our friends, family members and acquaintances, why not to pass these feelings forward… why not to write about them?

What are your reasons to write, photograph and share? How do you feel about blogging?

Walking with ideas

When the weather is as beautiful as it is right now, being outside is the only option. It’s so easy to think outside. To plan, to analyse and to be imaginative. The best thing about thinking when walking is that somehow the weak or silly ideas just leave you in peace… they go to play in the grass or hide in the bushes… it’s just the good ones that hold on to your shoe laces, walk the mile with you and only jump off your shoes when you get home. They run to your desk and dance around your keyboard… until you are ready to sit in your swivel chair and feel the rhythm yourself… and they are nice and kind and patient ideas… they do wait for you to eat your dinner, wash the dishes and put your child to bed, they don’t mind that you read a book and sing a lullaby to him. When you turn up, they just greet you with a smile excited that you have found a minute to pick them up and engage with them… they have a nice character those ideas… they are… good ideas. Are any of them on your shoe laces today?

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