Language – Nastasya Parker

Never Said That Before

This Week’s Bit of String: Another Year 11 group flies the nest

“Miss, what are you going to do without us, when we’re on study leave?” It’s the last English lesson with bottom-set Year 11s, and a particularly loquacious boy is curious.

I assure him the Year 10s will keep me busy, and he nods sagely, “More grey hairs for you, then.”

I had worked hard with this little fellow, insisting he can absolutely pass, if he focuses. Many times per lesson, redirecting him toward tasks he’s somehow oblivious to, reminding him to face front and stop making silly faces for attention. I joked last week I’ve named a couple of my grey hairs after him, and I guess that made him proud.

*Some unique and sometimes broken pieces*

“Will you sign my shirt on leaving day? And write about the grey hairs?” he asks.

Sure, kiddo. So long, and thanks for all the grey hairs.

We have another seven hot and tiring weeks of school left after the half-term, but the Year 11 low-set English class I’ve supported for the last two years will only be in for exams, and a couple of revision sessions.

It’s been a journey. There’s still a way to go before most of them reach a destination, but progress comes in many forms. And they are who they are, each with very distinct personalities, strengths, and stresses. The exam results won’t be stellar, but hopefully they’ll take some encouragement with them and I’ll certainly take some tales with me.

At the beginning of their Year 10, I had to request of one boy: “Please don’t stick my highlighter up your nose.”

Note the personal pronoun here. He had refused to produce his own equipment, I loaned him some of mine, and he treated it like a preschooler might.

However, during our final English classes in Year 11, several students used borrowed highlighters and pens and classroom glue sticks to build towers and balance them. This was while the teachers were imparting strategies for taking exam papers, but hey. Personal growth!

This is the class with the Trio of Fortitude. One member of the Trio came into school every day but one this term, while up till now he averaged two days off per week. Again: progress.

Breaking Records

One of my dad’s most famous sayings is “I’ve never said that before.” He relishes using it to mark life’s many unexpected encounters.

To me, this is a fun way to notice stories. It can denote unusual occurrences, or different ways of looking at the everyday.

*It was a particularly stressful term in various respects. Here’s some medicinal purple I found.*

Each year group I work with spawns plenty of things I’ve never had to say before. It can be exhausting, but on the bright side it means my job continues to be interesting. It’s 11 years now since I was helping a group revise for GCSEs and had to dispel a 16-year-old’s notion by saying, “Women don’t get pregnant from dildos.”

In one of my revision groups just this past week, I worked with our semi-reformed partial attender from the Trio of Fortitude. He’s a clever but uninspired boy, all scrawny angles and tattered uniform and imperious glances. Also in the group was a mischievous, elfin, blue-haired girl who has been a selective mute for her entire school career.

They kept kicking at a chair between them until she managed to trap his legs against the table with it. He complained of having his bones crushed, so I wrote on the whiteboard: No bone-crushing allowed.

“It’s official now. You’ll have to stop.”

She let the chair go with a disappointed sigh. The boy said, “What if she amputates my leg next?”

So I added to the board: And no nonconsensual amputations. I’d never said that before. Hurrah for some more special memories.

Progress is as Progress Does

For one of the very last lessons on Friday, the teacher brought the group out to the field to play rounders. I sat in the shade with a few others, including a particularly childish fellow who didn’t want to play sport, but was clearly bored.

He complained about the dewy grass. “Miss, my bum’s wet. My bum’s wet, Miss. Miss—”

*I do believe they’ll all find their path eventually.*

“I heard you the first time. Thank you for keeping us informed.”

Maybe there should be a category of “I never wanted to hear about that” to go with “I never said that before.”

Less than ten minutes before the lesson ended, on his last day of secondary school, this same 16-year-old came out with: “I should probably learn to tie my shoes.”

There was something I might help with. I spent 2 years trying to help his class remember themes from Lord of The Flies and identify personification, and remember the Poor Law of 1834 which motivated Dickens to write A Christmas Carol… The whole time we worked on that, this boy and a few others could still barely construct sentences. Standardised exams leave no time to teach basics.

But on the damp grass while others hollered over rounders hits, I helped him with his laces and he did seem to get the hang of the first knot.

They know they’ve annoyed me sometimes, but that I always try to help, and in that way perhaps we’ve both achieved something. They learn to open up a little, and I am reminded to count small signs of progress.

What are some ways you’ve made progress lately? Have you had occasion to say something you never said before?

Strange Journeys

This Week’s Bit of String: A pink overnight bus to Russia

When I was nineteen, I had a couple weeks after summer work and before my term abroad in the UK. Somewhat to my mother’s chagrin, I opted to visit Russia during that time while traveling among friends. From visiting Taru in Helsinki, I would go to Yulia in Moscow, then Zuzana in Bratislava.

After obtaining my “entry clearance” at Finland’s intimidating Russian Embassy, which reduced me to tears and impoverished me by $300 while charging the German guy in front of me only $60, I remained determined to visit Russia. I expected further bumps in the road.

*Some building I passed in my St. Petersburg daze. Almost the same pink as the bus.*

I did not expect the rickety overnight bus carrying me across the Finnish-Russian border to be pink. I boarded with dozens of sombre Russian passengers, and secured a window seat. The old woman next to me rested her head on my shoulder and went to sleep.

Throughout the night I peered into the darkness, passing vast swathes of evergreen trees and seemingly abandoned, massive industrial or nuclear plants. We disembarked to have our passports stamped out of Finland, then disembarked again for the Russian entry stamp.

“First time in Russia?” asked the Finnish border guard. At my assent, he slammed down his stamp. “Good luck.”

In a way, I did have good luck. But not in a conventional sense.

After the sleepless night with a stranger leaning on me, I left the bus as soon as it stopped. The sun was just rising, a distant golden glow that could equally have been a smouldering chemical inferno. Only one other person left the bus with me, a guy in his twenties.

As I watched the bus drive away, glad to be rid of it, I heard him say in accented English, “You know we are still outside St. Petersburg?”

I shrugged. “That’s fine.”

“Didn’t you have more luggage?”

I had my day bag over my shoulder, but he was right. My even-more stuffed rucksack, with three months’ worth of belongings, was still in the hold under the bus.

Getting in Trouble

I suppose it’s a classic tale: I caused my own problems. I was frustrated with myself for making such a stupid mistake, in so significant a matter, so early on.

The man on the street with me rolled his eyes as if equally annoyed at my folly. “Look,” he said, “Come home with me while I get ready for work. I’ll help you find your way into the city and perhaps locate your bag.”

Now, this will sound like more stupid decision-making. I was aware I shouldn’t go to an unknown man’s house in a foreign, semi-hostile nation. But if he had truly bad intent, I reasoned, then he would pretend to be more welcoming instead of exasperated. So I followed him.

I experienced my first Russian apartment. Toilet and shower in separated tiny chambers, a mug of bitter black tea. Dmitri, who’d been visiting his fiancee in Finland over the weekend and had returned just in time for work, gave me a St. Petersburg map with Finnish location names, wrote down the bus company’s phone number and address, and saw me off on the correct metro train.

I spent a few hours wandering the city. I only remember fragments, almost 25 years later. Deciphering a couple more Russian letters by noticing a cinema poster for the recent film, The Patriot. Glimpsing the Hermitage, the Tsar’s Summer Palace, from across a busy street, my view criss-crossed by tramlines. Ascertaining directions from an ice cream seller because we could both speak intermediate French. I was miraculously reunited with my rucksack at the coach company’s office, where no one had been the least bit interested in its contents.

Travel Stories

I’ve been thinking about this somewhat misadventurous episode since I’ve just finished a truly inspiring novel with a lot of travel in it: Sarah Winman’s Still Life.

This book has me longing to visit Florence, Italy, wander and look at art and eat amazing food. It’s also been a luxurious read because while the plot has war and flood mixed in, mostly it’s about people being super nice to each other. I might not be making it sound very exciting. But the characters’ love for each other, their tolerance for, even appreciation of, each other’s quirks is a balm as the real world seems to become more bitter and stressful.

In my travels as a student (who probably comes across as naive here), I gained independence but also learned it’s not the end of the world when that independence goes wrong. I don’t often put my travels into story form, although a couple times I’ve been inspired by places I’ve visited.

However, I notice in recounting this that travel puts us in a unique position to understand and utilise story structure. We embark on a journey with certain expectations, but what we want may differ from what we need. Being outside our familiar borders forces us to reflect on who we really are, as we notice we are stuck with ourselves here, there, and everywhere. And even when we bring problems upon ourselves, it can turn out okay.

Amazingly, once I reached Moscow the next day, I had a good time. My Russian friend was passionate about showing me around, and her stories about local history and how the city ran fascinated me. There’s another little twist in the tale for you.

Have you encountered surprising kindnesses while away? How does travel fuel your self-reflection and creativity?

Carried Along

This Week’s Bit of String: A wide range of accounts

Only one exam left. I’m happy for our students that they won’t have to sit through them anymore, but disappointed that it’s the only accepted measure for how they’ve done in secondary school.

My role in exams this year, in addition to reading and scribing for a 16-year-old with special needs, is also to act as language modifier for him. This is a rarely-granted access arrangement, for those with hearing and/ or processing disabilities, as well as reading difficulties.

It means I can assist with clarifying a question, but of course it’s quite restricted. I can’t define or ‘modify’ any subject-specific terminology, and it’s best to leave the engine of the question, command words, untouched (explain, analyse, evaluate, the whole Bloom’s Taxonomy lot). I can help with “carrier language,” the words that form the framework of the question.

Here’s an example. In the first History paper, one of the questions was: “Give an account of how the Korean conflict ended in military stalemate.”

The student asked me what “account” meant. “Like Instagram or Facebook?”

I rephrased it as “Tell the story of how the Korean conflict ended in military stalemate.”

This gave him a clearer idea. While the concession of having a language modifier is rare, I wonder how many students unshakably associate the word account with social media, just as an example. For students who are neurodiverse, a word they’re unsure about can be very hard to see past.

Staying Flexible

Adults have this issue as well. There’s a new writer to the writing feedback group I’m in, and both times I’ve sent her my writing, she comments negatively because she’s made an assumption early on and then the story doesn’t comply with it. In a short story where the protagonist was looking after her grandmother, the reader decided that Nan was the name of one of the protagonist’s children, criticised me for mentioning a “grandmother” because that was adding too many characters, and continued to complain that the character didn’t interact with Nan in a manner suitable for a young child.

Revising our assumptions as we go along is a vital skill. Certainly, it’s more innate to some than others. I try to reserve judgment as I’m reading, and when something doesn’t make sense I go back and work out what I may have misinterpreted. I don’t often read book blurbs anymore because they sometimes distort the significance of plot aspects and lead you to expect something different.

This comes from when I read Jojo Moyes’s Me Before You. The back of the book talked about how the heroine “knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home,” and said “knowing what’s coming keeps her sane.” For perhaps my own personal reasons, I concluded the protagonist was neurodivergent, maybe on the autism spectrum. I was baffled and a bit annoyed when she wasn’t.

My frustration was my own fault and based on my assumptions, so I decided not to read book blurbs anymore. I want to get swept up when I read, not anchored down by my potentially outmoded notions. When we read fiction or poetry, all language is carrier language. It’s all taking us somewhere.

Letting Characters Carry

During the last couple of weeks, I started writing my new novel. It feels as if, in a way, most of the language in the first draft is carrier language. That’s what I’m reminding myself anyway. It’s clunky because mainly, I’m seeing how the characters develop the plot. When I go back and edit, I can polish the voice and streamline the form. Many revisions from now it will travel, it will fly, rather than get shoved along.

*I love these roots at an old canal mill site, but for now I can’t get too attached.*

I’ve done a lot of planning and character research, and I feel I’ve honed my craft in terms of focusing the story structure and understanding the direction, kicking off with inciting incidents and such. But I won’t get super attached to anything just yet. I scribbled many notes on my characters’ backgrounds, considering their needs versus their wants, so I feel I know about them, but I can’t presume I know them deeply. I must remain open to what they do, because they could alter my planned plot.

A few pages in, I’m trying to stop thinking about how to rewrite with improved style. It doesn’t matter yet. My characters are more important. This absolves me for now from having to write beautifully or cleverly, which is great since I’m tired and not ready for that yet.

Stories carried by characters engage me more than stories dragged through certain plot points, and I think that’s true for many readers. However, we don’t want the plot to trudge as characters wield the burden of their thoughts too heavily. Later, I’ll correct the balance.

How do you stay flexible? What carries you when you start a project?

Cracking the Code

This Week’s Bit of String: Letters on on ancient platform

As someone who reads everything around me practically without thinking, I instinctively attempted deciphering signs on our recent trip to Athens. My knowledge of this lettering comes from Russian more than anything else. In 2000, I visited Russia and wandered around staring at buildings and signs.

I identified the letter pi from a movie poster for The Patriot. While out for a meal, my Moscow friend said to me, “The waitress has a name like yours: Natasha.” And I could then spot the symbol for the “sh” sound.

One of my problems was confusing P, D, L, and G. They’re all sort of mountainous little shapes. In Greece, I spent time noting the differences. Other letters came clear through signs for pharmacies, using the phi and the mu. There were inscriptions, such as the mural behind the ionic pillars of the University building. Above marble steps strewn with empty cans and KFC rubbish, the mural portrays the academic subjects as robed women approaching a throned man. Physics, Mathematics, History, with Rhetoric and Poetics gossiping in the rear. Each figure had her subject name stencilled above, presenting me an opportunity to work on understanding the Greek letters.

What really struck me, though, was a votive from 400 BCE displayed under the Acropolis. It was dedicated to Hermes and Aphrodite, with their names carved into the stone in ancient lettering. EPMOY, said the stone. The day before, we’d walked up and down Ermou Street, and I hadn’t realised it was named for the Messenger God. It’s one thing for pillars to stand over a couple thousand years, and really something else for letters to do the same.

Countdown

Translating Greek letters bit by bit is like building a story from “pieces of string” gathered from daily life. It was nice to have a little extra time to contemplate the pieces, being on holiday. At work, we’re running out of time. My year 11s, regardless of special needs, will sit exams starting in just over a week.

For some, reading and processing the questions will be most difficult. I think of the times I’d look at a sign in Greece, work out what the letters meant–and still not know the word because it was too far removed from the English equivalent. Our students with severe dyslexia expend their energy decoding letters, but still have to understand the question, and write essay answers.

For other students, a main challenge is mining the deeper meaning of a text. It’s particularly difficult with poetry. One student on the autism spectrum was upset with a recent mark for poetry analysis. He had worked hard thinking what to write about the poem, and had interpreted it literally.

I told him poets often speak in code. They use symbols to represent bigger ideas. Blake’s “blood running down palace walls” in “London” represents cruel rulers, and Hughes’s terrified hare in “Bayonet Charge,” which I thought was metaphorical until just a month or so ago, a way of describing the hopping, chaotic sparks–this represents innocence harmed in war.

“We’ve got to crack the code,” I told my hardworking, frustrated student. “We have to tell the examiners what the writer might have really meant.”

Beneath the Surface

*Perhaps a bit less left to interpretation here, or perhaps not. Street art in Athens*

The word code comes from caudex, “tree trunk,” early books made of wooden tablets. These would be used to establish rules in writing. So books are essentially code, and whether wittingly or not, some translation will be involved. From the trunk of any volume we read, the meaning might branch out and strike different people in different ways.

Books are a code to the writer’s intent and context. At least, for the purposes of English exams they are. Heavens forbid anyone read or write anything for fun. Another student on the autism spectrum lamented having to revise Jacobean history for Macbeth, and Victorian for A Christmas Carol. It’s a lot to remember, none of which today’s students find clearly relevant.

“We have to know the circumstances around the writer in order to understand why they wrote and what they wanted to teach readers.” I explained, “It’s a good skill because everything we see people post online, they might have a purpose that isn’t obvious.”

“I never do that,” she said. “I just tell it like it is.”

I’m not sure any of us are so upfront all the time though. I’ve certainly seen her excuse herself from class claiming she needs the toilet, while sweeping away with phone in hand. Deciphering the code of an individual person is never fully possible, because our circumstances change and we constantly evolve.

It’s still worth trying, though. An open mind and willingness to take a little time puzzling out another human being is maybe the best reason to hone our interpretation skills. How do you keep yours sharp?

2024 Reading Round-Up

I had some ups and downs in my reading year. My first Didn’t-Finish in a few years (because there wasn’t enough STORY, dammit!) and a couple stretches of 2-4 weeks with no time whatsoever to read. But I always balance those out with a voracious spell after. It feels so good when reading time opens up again, like diving into a cool lake after overheating. Here are my favourites among all I read. I’d love to hear what you think!

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

Direct and unobfuscating, McCullers introduces us to various misfits about town, starting with the iconic opening line about the “two mutes, [who were] always together.” The story represents the voiceless in many ways, and emphasises the need to be heard.

“The words which are surely the root of all human grief… ‘I have done those things which I ought not to have done, and left undone those things which I ought to have done. So this cannot truly be the end.’”

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

*Wintry Moomins at Octavia’s Bookshop, Cirencester*

Working at a school, I’m somewhat bombarded with young people’s moods and stories, so I don’t go for too many books written in teen voice. I’m so glad I read this one, though. Lauren, the young narrator of this novel, is incredibly driven, and practical even while being compassionate. I wrote about her more in an earlier blog post because she became a favourite character of mine, and Butler’s take on empathy is an exciting one.

“Show me a more pervasive power than change.”

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell

A glimpse into someone forgotten by history, this resonated with me partly because of my Eve novel. It delves deeply into the Duchess of Ferrara’s story, whom Browning alluded to in his poem ‘My Last Duchess.’ We see the plight of women in Renaissance Italy, and also explore a love of art that sets someone apart from the crowd.

“She is absorbed in her work; she is her work; it gives her more satisfaction than anything else she has ever known; it intuits the need, the vacancy within her, and fills it.”

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

I feel as if I’m the last to read this, but in case anyone else has yet to discover this novel: It’s excellent. There was tragedy in it and unfairness that I didn’t expect. I should have though, as the book is about an exceptionally intelligent woman trying to pursue a scientific career in the mid-20th century. Ultimately, the opposition she faces makes her later alliances and triumphs that much more thrilling.

“Their odd, tell-all friendship was the kind that only arises when a wronged person meets someone who’s been similarly wronged and discovers that while it may be the only thing they share, it is more than enough.”

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

It’s got an exciting scifi premise: the world is in danger, so a delegation must be sent to space in search of a fix. Once there, the lone surviving voyager meets someone from another planet, as different as can be. They develop communication with each other, and the results are breathtaking. I’m eager to see the film once it’s out.

“Sometimes, the stuff we all hate ends up being the only way to do things.”

*An artsy trip to the real Oxford, this past summer*

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Another book about art… This became a bit of a theme for me, and I really enjoyed it especially as I attended a couple of art exhibits at the time. Art unlocks emotion, and feeds creativity for our own art of writing. This book is a David Copperfield-style journey through a boy’s misfortunes, uncanny encounters, and striking characters, propelled all the while by a deep, tragedy-induced connection to a single painting.

“Immediately its glow enveloped me, something almost musical, an internal sweetness that was inexplicable beyond a deep, blood-rocking harmony of rightness, the way your heart beat slow and sure when you were with a person you felt safe with and loved.”

Midlife Without a Map by Liz Champion

This book made me laugh the most this year. In addition to being funny, Liz (who also has a brilliant Substack) is incredibly relatable. I love how she doesn’t hold back disclosing her highs and lows. She’ll get swept up in something but be completely honest if it doesn’t work out, and that’s rare and refreshing both online and in literature.

“But now I’m halfway up the mountain, facing hairpin bends and vertical drops with a driver who missed his Formula One calling, I’m wondering if I was ever fit and fearless. Maybe a book by the pool would have been adventurous enough.”

How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran

A hilarious and heartfelt coming of age story, but also a great look at art and how we respond to it. The main character, Johanna, wants to save her family from poverty, so she becomes a music critic as a teen–a scathing one. Could passionate fandom make her as much money as trashing every band she sees?

“‘I feel like I can see the operating system of the world–and it is unrequited love. That is why everyone’s doing everything. Every book, opera house, moon shot and manifesto is here because someone, somewhere, lit up silently when someone else came into the room, and then quietly burned when they weren’t noticed.’”

Babel by R.F. Kuang

Language and revolution entwine in this speculative novel. In an alternative Oxford, colonial powers rule through silver. Once silver bars are engraved with pairs of translated words, magic imbues them, resulting from the disparity in meaning. The plot follows young trainees in this art of translation, and as readers we join them in their enchantment, and their horror as they recognise the injustice at the heart of the system.

“That’s just what translation is, I think. That’s all speaking is. Listening to the other and trying to see past your own biases to glimpse what they’re trying to say. Showing yourself to the world, and hoping someone else understands.”

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

This novel is about books, about books of lots of stories, and the stories are alive but they must be protected…It’s a stunning work to read, as all the little pieces fit together, reminding us that no story really stands alone. I found it incredibly lovely to sink into the universe of this book.

“We are all stardust and stories.”

Use Your Words

This Week’s Bit of String: A particularly memorable Christmas gift

The Christmas when I was ten, my family were hosting a gathering for our local relatives. My dad’s brother was a fire captain so kept a busy schedule, especially since he split his time caring for his fiancee’s family. But he stopped by when he could. Everyone wanted some of Uncle Mike’s attention.

As one of 4 kids, I was somewhat resigned to not being a sole receiver of attention, though I occasionally did cringey things to attract it. (You’ll be shocked to hear that, I’m sure.) That Christmas, I was fetching something in the kitchen just as my uncle departed, so I was on my own when he passed.

He took that moment to tell me, “It was good to see you today. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without you. You make it really special.”

Our Uncle Mike was later diagnosed with a brain tumour, having the biopsy on my kiddo’s first birthday. His illness and death at the age of 54 devastated us. I wish I could remember his face more vividly, without the vague unease of being heavily dependent on photos.

We all have people like that whom we think of particularly this time of year. I know I’m lucky to even have the pictures, and I’m spectacularly lucky that he bestowed kind words on us long before he knew that his chances to give them would be curtailed.

Christmas Treasure

The holidays can heighten sensations and emotion, packing extra power into our words and gestures. I always think of the line from the book of Luke in the Bible: “Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.”

You would, wouldn’t you? Everyone from redneck shepherds to esteemed astronomers turning up to pay tribute to your child…

*Knitivity, Gloucester Cathedral*. *Note there IS an octopus present at the birth of Baby Jesus, bottom left…*

As you can see, I’ve preserved my Uncle Mike’s words in my internal Christmas treasury. I’ve also preserved that verse, Luke 2:19, because it was recited toward the end of the Christmas pageant every year in the little town where I grew up. The verse is tangled with memories of candlelit windows upstairs in a New England church, of the choir singing “O Holy Night” and elementary school students dancing in angel costumes. And then knitted blankets in the car, hot chocolate and my mother’s Christmas cookies at home, and Christmas lights reflected across a lake.

If You Can’t Say It Now, When Can You?

Christmas films have programmed us to expect great emotional fanfare at Christmas. Confessions of love, heartwarming reunions, the sudden cessation of being taken for granted. It doesn’t usually end up this way, as we’re still busy and stressed and full of ourselves at Christmas. But how much better are our holidays, how much more comforting and lasting are our memories, when we do take time to share moments and kind words with each other?

These are, after all, the true things to treasure. Because I’m somewhat cut off from my family most of the year, the interactions I have with my siblings and parents are generally focused on the present, or the near future. We don’t get much time to reminisce over lost loved ones, and I wonder what memories they treasure which could augment my own. Then there are my cousins who I barely manage to keep in touch with, and I’d love to better know even what’s going on for them currently.

So, in addition to my extremely important (and incredibly taxing!) hot chocolate challenge, I’m doing a little version of an advent calendar. I’ll write a relative or friend’s name in my planner for each day remaining in December, and send a message to see how they’re doing, and let them know that although I’m rubbish at showing it sometimes, I really do think of them. And that when I do, they help make my memories special.

I hope you have some treasured memories of kind words at Christmas, and that you’ll join me in creating more.

Learning Abroad

This Week’s Bit of String: On the way to somewhere else

I’d never have got into this whole immigrant fix, splitting myself between two countries, if I hadn’t done a term abroad while in college. My major was English/ Education in New Hampshire, where contributing to class discussion was key.

In the UK, on the other hand, professors seemed flummoxed when people turned up. They didn’t even expect us to read the assigned literature: “If you didn’t do the reading for this week, I hope you do at some point in your life. It’s a great book…”

*Twin American spires: church steeple and rocket*

I had read each book, as it happened, and was unimpressed having it summarised in a murmur for 3 hours. Screw it, I decided. I’ll do the reading while on the train to somewhere more interesting.

And off I went, to friends in Glasgow, Bangor, Wolverhampton, and especially London. I read, and listened to new-to-me British music (Texas, Robbie Williams, Steps), survived on Kingsmill rolls and Edam cheese and Smirnoff Ice, and fell for three different guys in quick succession, the final one being my now-husband.

I also wrote a wacky but fantastic story about a girl whose heart, in the form of a cookie, is eaten for breakfast. I got an A for that class, after only attending 1.3 lessons. I did the reading!

What I Wrote This Summer

*New England idyll: Billings Farm Museum, Vermont*

It’s always interesting to see other writers post about their vacations in the summer. Some catch up on reading, and many are busy with their children during the holidays anyway. For me, I spend 4 weeks out of the 6-week break going to see my family in New England. There are definite vacation aspects to this—the lakes and rivers, the mountains, the ice cream.

It’s also very busy as I condense a year’s worth of interactions into 1/12 of the time. Half my family are too busy to keep in touch when I’m not there, so I run around trying to help people out and make memories. They are all I have, and they are precarious without me recording them. When not Doing Things, I’m scribbling about them.

This leaves little reading time. I have writing commitments—promised critiques, etc, and also students I check in with even in the summer, so I squeeze those in. What I do find, though, is that the travel, the hiking and driving and swimming and reflecting, open me up to learning a lot of random things. Without the more rigid structure of work and long-term writing projects, my brain relaxes just enough to sponge up new information.

What I Learned This Summer

There were my discoveries while hiking, which I researched later:
The rather formidable Argiope aurantia (ok, yellow garden spider) keeping watch from her web in the lake bridge. It’s also known as a zigzag spider because of that uniquely thick central line. The purpose of this unique pattern is still unknown to us.

The Warren Rocket: My family got together in Warren, NH, near the White Mountains. While other towns have Civil War cannons on their greens or in front of their schools, Warren (population peaked in 1860 at 1100-something) has a great big Redstone missile rocket. (Pictured at the top.) It was funded and transported by a local veteran hoping to encourage interest in space travel.

Signs around the rocket tell visitors about SS Officer Wernher von Braun, who supervised concentration camp workers to manufacture missiles that killed 1400 Londoners. After the war, Americans smuggled von Braun out of Germany to design even deadlier rockets over here, but also realise his childhood dream of sending rockets to space. I wonder what the childhood dreams of his captive labourers were, or those civilians killed in airstrikes.

*You can see why the Morse Museum caught my eye…*

The Morse Museum: Another early morning Warren hike discovery, a building with granite plaques advertising Curios of India and China, and African Game Trophies. Now-vacant, it was dedicated in 1928 to house the collections of Ira H Morse, a local shoe store mogul and game hunter. There’s a colourful bio online of IH and others, written by affectionate family members. They include his adventures but also quirks like how he would “ream out” uncooperative salt shakers, at home or in public.

Speaking of museums, there are a couple in the area which I like to visit.
Billings Farm, a late 19th century agricultural reenactment site. It’s great for learning about cows and dairy, edible plants and farm life (see above). When we visited this year, they were making pasta in the farmhouse kitchen. I hadn’t realised how long pasta has been a staple in the US (it’s much more recent in the UK), but in fact Thomas Jefferson sampled and loved it in Europe, and by the time of the Civil War macaroni was very popular.

The Hood Museum at Dartmouth College: I always stand in awe before the incredible, ancient Assyrian tablets before moving on to the current exhibits. This summer, a diverse selection of art including Musasama’s elaborate arrangement of textiles and natural objects across the floor, part of the Maple Tree Series, made me aware of the maple tree abolitionist movement. Did you know that in the 1790s, free people of colour, white settlers, and native Americans advocated substituting maple syrup for cane sugar, to starve the economy propping up enslavers?

My family creates a good learning environment, with our eclectic interests. Dinner discussions might be about what’s the oldest continuously-used language in the world (Hebrew, Tamil, Sanskrit… Lithuanian and Icelandic appear in the top 10, too). My dad found an 1884 encyclopaedia in our AirBnB and read passages out loud to us. There was no entry for childbirth, but lots of details on “Brawling in Church” and the various statutes against it.

Even though I didn’t do much writing work over the summer, the feeling of my mind loosening to hold more is not an unwriterly sensation. New stories could develop from here!

Do travel and family time inspire your writing?

What Moves Us

This Week’s Bit of String: Possible planetary shift

“Miss, is it true that moving the earth even a centimetre out of orbit would basically destroy everything?”

I’m not certain, Year 11 child who’s supposed to be completing a textbook-based cover lesson on greenhouse gases in the last period of the schoolday.

If I’d thought critically about what an orbit is, and the way it represents the equilibrium of attraction between two planetary bodies, I would probably have confirmed the student’s query. A change in orbit could trigger sudden prolonged extreme temperatures or just cause the earth to plummet into the sun which, come to that, would be a particularly prolonged temperature change.

But it’s hard to properly consider an extra theory when you still have remnants of covid brain from less than two weeks ago, and you’re trying to prepare teenagers for exams while fielding queries from cover teacher and students alike, such as: “Did you find Jacob?” and “Miss, what’s your opinion about amputees?” (Kids are just weird, ok?)

Anyway, once I was home and the dust of my thoughts settled, I channeled them into a new wormhole. I researched what would happen if the earth’s orbit skewed, if its tilt altered, and also looked into the calculations being done to check the feasibility of moving the earth further from the sun.

All interesting and fairly unlikely, but what intrigued me was what, I suspect, intrigues a lot of us readers and writers. How a tiny change can make a big difference, how a slight tick of motion can catalyse vast movements.

Being Moved

My most recent (and utterly wonderful) read was Nicole Krauss’s The History of Love, in which a character mentions being “moved” by a book. “It moved me in a way one hopes to be moved each time one begins a book. What I mean is, in some way I’d find impossible to describe, it changed me.”

I thought, couldn’t they have come up with a better verb for such a significant impact? “Move” is stretched wearily over many meanings. But as I reflected on our use of move, I warmed to the term. Sometimes having multiple uses is appropriate. It allows a word extra levels.

We talk about moving up or moving out. We move house and move away, dream of moving mountains and possibly moving the earth’s orbit. There are chess moves and symphonic movements and moves to proceed or to adjourn. Aristotle even came up with a theory referring to God as the Unmoved Mover.

A book (or other work of art) is an Unmoved Mover. It didn’t spring up out of nowhere, but by the time we hold it in our hands, it is standing on its own, detached from its maker. Its power is only what we can take from it, yet it gives so much.

Roots and Tongues

The oldest known version of the word move comes from the proto-Indo-European root meaning “to push away.” There are undoubtedly books that knock us slightly out of orbit. Our temperature heats up, and we proceed with a certain rawness. It’s often, as Krauss writes, impossible to point out a concrete change in our lives. Yet who can say what we notice, how we react, that comes down to our sensitivity being pricked by a book?

While thinking about our use of this word in English, I consulted the gloriously warm and talented poet Elizabeth M Castillo. She is fluent in several languages, and let me know about the word “ému” in French, which is deeper and longer-lasting than “moved.” I suppose it’s a bit like our word emote, but in English that sounds sort of… clinical.

“Affect” or “inspire” are a bit vague, whereas I’ve come to like the physical, visceral implications of “move.” A story can be touching, but to say a book “touches” me feels uneasy.

In Spanish, Castillo says, there’s “conmovido,” which is different from their word for physical movement. It “implies something or someone is doing it to you… bringing you along into a feeling.” A bit like an Unmoved Mover, again.

Stories on the Move

I feel as if the best reads can be Unmoved Mover books that give you a shove, or companion books that move along with you, or paper boat books which do the moving for you. Elizabeth M Castillo’s poetry book Cajoncito is one of the latter. Reading her poems, I feel relieved, as if someone’s unlocked sentiments I hadn’t managed to untangle yet, and set them afloat. It’s on sale through Amazon, and honestly the first poem alone is worth the price.

It’s not just books, of course. Would I have made it through my teen years without accompaniment from Tori Amos and the Les Miserables soundtrack? Have you ever had the lights go up from a live stage production and felt your life as you knew it is over; you’ve been elevated to a different plane and your trajectory has inevitably, if not definably, swerved? In the end, have you come up for a better word to describe the general experience than… “moving?”

A Christmas Glossary

This Week’s Bit of String: Unexpected roots

Shortly before last Christmas, we heard of a place in Gloucester called Gaudy Green. Bit odd, we thought, so my husband looked it up. Apparently it comes from the city’s Roman days. The Latin term gaudium means “joy.” That’s how we learned that gaudy doesn’t have to be bad–nice to know when you’re about to deck your halls.

That revelation inspires me this year to look more deeply at common words of the season. What can we find by studying certain well-used terms?

Gaudy

We often use this term derisively about something that’s a little too much. A bit overdecorated, maybe cheaply, or maybe overused gold. But in addition to sharing an etymological Latin root with “joy,” gaudy may also draw on the old French word for the weld plant, also known as dyers’ weed, for its yellow dyeing properties. So “gaudy” has links to the colour yellow, and to joy and gladness. Why not, then, revel in what glitters?

Festive

Sure, this links to feasts and food. But what atmosphere and mood befits this term of the season? Proto-Italic and Proto-Indo-European root words hint at the sacred, with connections to temples and the divine. At the same time, there’s the old French term feste which means “religious festival, holy day; holiday; market, fair; noise, racket; jest, fun.” As pleasant as quiet time can be, it’s refreshing to think that a properly noisy, clamorous family dinner is also completely appropriate for a religious holiday.

Merry

The Germanic root for this pleasant term is murg, meaning “short-lasting.” It’s thought that the meaning evolved based on the principle that time flies when you’re having fun. Anything that doesn’t last (like Christmas, I guess) must be good. More interestingly, during the late 1700s merry developed into slang for sexual activity, such as: “Merry-bout, an incident of sexual intercourse.” Someone tell the Fox News crew that when they insist on wishing everyone a merry Christmas whether they celebrate or not, they’re also wishing them a sexy Christmas.

Comfort

The word comfort is a bit like the term self-care, and makes me wonder about what’s genuinely comfortable. Is it curling up in a ball or stretching our legs? Helpfully, a look at the Latin root word tells us it comes from the phrase “to strengthen.” Of course–fort is related to “fortify.” When we take comfort, we should be deriving strength. When we give comfort, we should be providing strength. Comfort is not an end, but a means. A rest stop, or a build-up; whatever’s needed.

The angels said Christmas is meant to be about comfort and joy, and those have broader meanings than we realise. In light of that, let us be grateful for what strengthens us, whether noisy or quiet, and for what bring us joy, gaudy or not. Short-lasting though it may be, Christmas contains many moments. We will stow the sad ones to use in future creations, and cherish the happy ones.

Deck your halls as you see fit, friends, and draw strength.

Language Lessons

This Week’s Bit of String: Water, chipper, calm, them.

“Miss, where are you from? America—I knew it! Do you know how to shoot guns? Say something, say ‘water.’”

I’ve changed jobs recently, emerged from a spreadsheet jungle and opted to be pelted by howls of “Miss! Miss!” as a secondary school Teaching Assistant again. Negotiating crowds of teenagers is a big change after 19 months working from home. Seeing colleagues deliver clear, targeted lessons and witnessing new provisions to nurture students’ mental health makes me feel better about the world.

*This view though… Looking out the wide open window from the TA offices*

I worked at the same large local comprehensive school more than five years ago. This is a whole new group of students, slightly less mature than I remember their earlier cohorts being, because obviously they’ve had to deal with Covid disruption. Students still miss school for positive tests, teachers have long absences and our most vulnerable students can’t abide cover teachers. The windows are all open as the temperatures dip into the single digits (Celsius) so throughout the lessons we burrow into coats and scarves; a Year 11 girl shares her fuzzy white gloves so her friend can wear one while she wears the other.

Slang has evolved since I was last working with young adults. They still use “safe” and “wicked.” But there’s also “chipper” for when they want you to think they’ve understood something: “Nah, Miss, I’m chipper, I’ll start working in a minute.” And “calm” to describe someone they like. Maybe it’s just that they know they can get away with things around a “calm” teacher, but I suspect there are other ways they feel safer with him or her, too.

It makes sense that after the last few years “calm” might be one of the highest terms of esteem used by young people. And that “sick” has gone out of fashion.

Reuniting

Supporting in different lessons means I get to learn, too. In a GCSE class about Maths vocabulary, the teacher shared that “Algebra” comes from an Arabic term meaning “reunion of broken parts.” I love hearing that stuff. The kids were busy sharpening rulers under the table or doodling or exchanging gloves or peeling labels off glue sticks, but with gentle prompting they got a few notes down, and the disparate parts came together a little.

The pandemic seems to have given my school cover to broaden its aims from academic achievement to include more nurturing and tolerance. While the government was forced to acknowledge that students couldn’t be expected to pass the same rigorous exams due to lockdown disruptions, there was more leave to consider their mental state. Consequently, more students have Time Out options, to spend a few minutes cooling down in an alternative classroom designed for that purpose. When I last worked at school, students would get an official warning and be one step closer to detention if they didn’t have a pen. Now, all teachers have equipment to loan.

*“More why, less shhh.” I love this slogan from the We the Curious museum in Bristol.*

The fact that I’m American serves a similar purpose. My slight accent piques their curiosity, forces them to acknowledge I’m here, lets them make fun of my pronunciation and feel more comfortable. “Water” is a giveaway for an American accent. I can try to make the T more clipped, less like a D, but it sounds ridiculous and forced. When I first emigrated our street was called Water Lane and my accent embarrassed me every time I told my address to local people. I oblige the kids when they want to hear it, though. They like to feel superior in something, even if I have lived on this Small Island longer than they’ve been alive.

I have a stash of writing utensils too, of course. Lessons start much better when I can quietly check with a student that they have the equipment they need and lend what’s necessary, rather than them instantly getting into trouble.

“I bet you still say ‘water’ funny.”

“I’m afraid I haven’t quite got rid of all my Americanisms.”

“Oh, that’s okay, Miss.”

So they get to play the part of being generous and hospitable, too.

Retraining

One successful result of the school’s efforts to support well-being may be the diversity accepted within the student population. While it’s a rural area and not very multicultural, students support their friends of colour and Black Lives Matter. I also got to have a discussion with a Year 11 prefect about her witchcraft practice, and of course the crux of my job is to support students with various disabilities.

*Sunrise on a new adventure. We’re not expecting fully calm seas, and that’s ok.*

With a designated unisex bathroom now on site, other students are able, more and more, to inhabit more comfortable roles. Previously it was agony for certain teens to deal with bodies that were developing in an unwanted direction while their thoughts and preferences veered a different way, and everything around them reminded them how they ought to be. There’s a student in most of my Year 11 lessons whom I’ve tried to remember not to apply gendered language to, but I slip up sometimes since my ways of referring to subsets within the group are old-fashioned.

“Here you go, ladies.” I hand out the GCSE Language practice paper to the two students in the back.

“Non-binary,” corrects one, without even looking up.

“Of course. I’m so sorry, I’ll try to keep doing better.” They shrug and get on with the work. I hope that they’re always around people they can safely express their identity to. People who are, one might say, “calm.”

After all, I’m feeling more and more free to say “water” in my slightly redneck American way. That’s one word I won’t convincingly be able to fix, but I can work on a few others. Having to mind my language puts me in a much more writing-centred frame of mind than when I was dealing with billing and numbers. Have you been picking up any new lingo lately?