My Father's Places - Aeronwy Thomas.

I have just finished reading a memoir written by Dylan Thomas' daughter, Aeronwy.  It is about her tumultuous childhood living in the boathouse, and the adventures she gets up to, at Laugharne in Wales.  The problems caused by her father's drinking and her mother's temper were written about with no malice - just acceptance - in childhood we just seem to go with what is normal for us.  Aeronwy adored her father and this shines through in her writing.  What surprised me though, was at the end of the book, when she was writing about his death, she showed almost no emotion.  It somehow left me feeling cheated.

icon -- nick cave

"Who knows their own story.
Certainly it makes no sense when we are living in the midst of it.
It's all just clamour and confusion.
It only becomes a story when we tell it.
Our small recollections that we speak again and again to ourselves.
First creating the narratives
Of our minds.
Keeping the story from dissolving.
Into darkness.
[...]
All our days are numbered.
We cannot afford to be idle.
To act on a bad idea is better than not to act at all.
Because the worth of the idea
Never becomes apparent until you do it.
Sometimes this idea can be the smallest thing in the world.
A little flame that you hunch over and cup with your hand.
And cannot be extinguished by all the storm about it.
If you can hold on to that flame
Things can be constructed around it.
That are massive and powerful and world-changing.
All held up by the tiniest of ideas.
[...]
In the end I am not interested in how much I fully understand.
The words I have written over the years are just a veneer.
There are truths that lie beneath the surface of the words.
Truths that rise up without warning like the humps of a sea monster.
And then disappear.
[...]
To create a space where the creature can break through what is real and what is known to us.
This shimmering space where imagination and reality intersect.
This is where all love and tears and joy exist.
This is the place.
This is where we live."

~ from 20,000 days by Nick Cave

Icon - Patti Smith

I am sitting at the table watching the wind raging outside.  The pine tree in my neighbours garden is bending alarmingly, as though it will snap at any moment.  The hanging baskets full of bulbs are swinging to and fro like some sort of fairground attraction.  In front of me I have an unfinished crossword, my iPad and my new book - 'M Train' by Patti Smith.  I rarely buy new books, especially hardbacks, except when they are given to me as presents.  I love the woody smell of the paper, and the fresh ink; the untouched pages; and the way the book jacket creaks when I open it.  Full of words, as yet unread; words to inspire and marvel at; to encourage me to write the best prose I can; even if I am the only one who reads it.

Although I was hardly aware of Patti Smith at the time of her fame in the 70's; I am now enamoured with her; she has creativity oozing out of every pore; and I am already desirous of all her books which I will savour one by one until I have soaked all her writing into my bloodstream in the hope of producing something equally captivating.

I am also watching her DVD - 'Dream of Life' - filmed in grainy black and white; she records her life in words and pictures - so original - so creative.  I am smitten.  If you feel the need to read more about her, visit the wonderful website Brain Pickings here.  I am in no way trying to sell this book, or treat it as a review - that is not my job - I merely write as one who loves someone who is creative through and through - the kind of person I admire and strive to become.