I was saying to a friend recently that my whole birthday month seemed to have flown by in a blur. D, for example, had booked us into the Hotel du Vin in Henley, and the Waldorf on consecutive nights, and, whilst I remembered both places, I was bothered by the lack of detail that I remembered.
I’m a would-be writer; I’m supposed to remember people, places and things - exactly how the light looked and moved, the way a woman’s face looked when the bomb went off, and who said what to whom the smell of the fresh bed linen in a luxurious hotel suite. Exactly. Surely, that’s what writers do, and then they slap it all down on paper.
Well, maybe not. Maybe writers absorb lots of different things - a flash of light, an angry woman, her anger directed at a backfiring car that has just caused her to drop her shopping in the street - the smell of fresh grass and how it makes me feel - and places it - in the way a child places exaggeration and outright lies - into fictional stories.
If so, the month was fine. Instead of digital-picture-sharp detail, things were impressionistic - the burst of taste from the superlative bacon in HdV’s exquisite Eggs Benedict on my birthday morning, the nude photo session in the Waldorf’s yacht-sized bed.
But for someone like me, who chronicles so much, both on paper, blog and mentally, it seemed that I’d lost huge chunks of the time whilst I’d been busy enjoying myself.
“Let it go,” said my friend. “Some things are meant to be enjoyed now. You see so many people these days, cameras snapping away, blackberry on so they can blog, notebook open so they can tell their journal how they’re feeling, phone a-twittering away, and all of it recorded.”
Except, in the recording, something is being missed. The now. The enjoying that enables you to say afterwards “I don’t think I’ve been happier,” but without having the ability to list, in detail all the aspects of that moment in time, in your life, in human experience that made you feel that way.
I did an exercise last month - it was called 40 things (and 40 more things), and it was an attempt to put down as many of the key moments in my life as I could remember (which is why the idea of 40 things to cover my life up to 40 y.o. became 80 things - I told you I was a chronicler). And it was an interesting exercise. So much of what I recall from my life is totally impressionistic - the feel of cold pleather under bare feet as you climb atop the pouffe to switch on a wall light; the taste of a Fry’s Chocolate Cream bar you find on the top shelf of the book case; biscuit cake fresh from the fridge on a summers day; the sun in an Irish Summer at 5pm* - but it’s, at the same time, totally immediate. For me. I hope some of those 40 (+40) things worked for you too.
So, in the week that I’ve installed twitter (and used it a few times), I’m thinking, not of winding down my blogging / twittering / flickring - I want to get back on the writing horse, and, frankly, right now, anything that makes me write anything other than snipey emails to idiots in Iberia (work; don’t get me started) is a good thing. Although, as the ‘real’ writing takes over, that might change - but of just how to do it.
And now, I’ve sort of wound down. Nothing more to say.
Maybe this all becomes a bit impressionistic for a while. I’m not sure, but I’ll let you know…
Back to the now. Logging off, heading out to the first gym session in a month with the Beastly Bruno, who’s gonna take me street running to ease me back into it. I may take the phone and twitter it. I’ll definitely bring the camera.
Or not 
*I know, it’s hardly a la recherce, but I like it.
