Open Wide

It's all about focus isn't it. I have broken a tooth, or rather what was left of a tooth has given up and just left me with a lump of mercury about the size of the planet.  Before this incident I was a human being, a woman, a romantic novelist, a mother and a vin de pays (not champagne) socialist-Buddhist-cyclist. Now I am a tooth. I am a jagged lump, unfamiliar to myself. I probe myself with my tongue. The breeze, the dishwasher, my sweet neighbour's chatty friendship have become a tooth. The developing characters of my book have become teeth. I feel like the ocean the day after the storm when my reaching self folds around and takes in the new ravaged cliffs. I think I'm kinda fumbling forward here, towards some kinda understanding of how we deal with change, trauma and loss. Because my experience is so small and trivial the actual experience doesn't overwhelm me and so I can objectivise it. Am I making any sense? A few folks will have had terrible news and problems today and I feel so pathetically selfish.

So, I'm gonna hop back to the UK. There is my father's old desk for me to pick up and there is a dentist. Probably I'll miss the 14th of July in France but I do need a desk. I've always tried not to do sentimentality but this item of furniture has many memories for me. I can't say that I had good relations with my parents and they certainly did not have a good relationship with each other. The desk was where my father used to sit in his isolation doing whatever adults do on desks. Moving it to France probably means it will never come back to the UK and he would never have been able to imagine such an event. Something rooted in the gum of my familiar certainty is crumbling. I told you - I have become a tooth.


I'm reading two books. The first is an old fashioned tree book called "Fatherland". It's a cops and Nazi mega stega blockbuster with a gold and Gothic cover. I've read cop stories ever since my helmet and handcuff phase with a Scotland Yard detective. So far I've avoided the Nazis. The other book is on kindle and called "Shadowbrook" by Shannon Bailey. As an ex hippy poet type I know nothing of genre etc. It's a paranormal romance crime thrilla frilla I think. Tell you what though - it's got me hooked and spooked. We live in a fantastic new age of stories. All those old back scratching scribbling elites are cracking. Did someone say tooth?




Emma thinx: Certain of the rock and the sea, I am sand.