June Stats

I'm really excited about June's stats, even though I am only counting the New Project. It's the only thing I want to work on at the moment, even though I spent most of the early part of the month working on poems. It's a question of where your true north is at any given time, and for me, at the moment, it is with this prosey thing, that I am writing in bits and pieces but consistently, to the tune of 3000 words so far and these are not notes, this is story. Rough rough draft and unformed mass to be sure. But story, slowly taking shape.

Even more coffee collection

Now I know what I should have called this blog....

Dunkerque to Dover

I finally took the ferry across the Channel. Warning: self-indulgent travel photos follow.






The sea was so calm....









Full steam ahead (the Norfolk line) .....









Yours truly with the sun in her eyes....









Wow, the white cliffs of Dover are really white!

Back

I've been away for about a week and came back to the rain and showers that constitutes summer in Brussels. You wear a trench coat and your sandals and hope for the best, one way or another. I have a zillion photos to download and children to collect, and there is no food in the house apart from coffee. I feel in a bit of a time warp, to be perfectly honest. Like I'm not completely here.... but not anywhere else, either. And not sure I want to be here. I'm feeling lost in my own home. I don't want to be away, though. Maybe I just need a coffee.

Something has clicked

Or cracked. Or something. I'm not sure what or how it happened but for the past week, suddenly, I'm just writing. It had something to do with reading a book called Resistance by Owen Sheers, which reminded me of a story I started writing but stopped; it also had something to do with a blog post on Strictly Writing about the dangers of too much planning. I think that's what I'd been doing with the one thing I had been working on: just planning myself into a corner, and telling the story in the plan instead of in the ... well... story. Anyway I'd forgotten about the other story, which is set in the second world war and is about sisters, men & women, a murder, occupation, dogs.... all the good stuff, eh? I finished Resistance and as I went to bed I made a note about this other story, which I guess for clarity's sake I'll call the dog island story. When I woke up the next morning I was full of ideas about it. Even better I had a voice which I somehow didn't have before, and I finally understood that the story could be told with that voice. It was like I found an "in", a break, a crack in the code, an opening. I've written nearly 3000 words in the past six days. This is the feeling I've been waiting for. So please words, please please please, please don't dry up!

The coffee collection II

We have a school !

I can't believe it. Got a phone call yesterday morning, completely unexpected, on my mobile/cell (here they are known as a "gsm", pronounced jay-ess-em, but I don't expect anyone who doesn't live here to know that). The number was withheld which always makes me a little suspicious, so I answered warily.... To my utter surprise it was Athenée Charles Janssens, Eldest's first choice (after Notre Dame des Champs, which she was unfairly robbed of). To tell you the truth my gut feeling has always been ACJ too. I thought we might have a shot, perhaps hear something by end of summer. But hooray, this morning I stopped by the school and completed the inscription.

Relief is palpable.

Eldest is so happy.

This is totally off-topic but I couldn't resist

Brain hope for erection molecule

via BBC News | News Front Page | UK Edition on 6/25/09

Scientists believe a molecule which controls male erections may also have a profound impact on the brain.

Well, let's hope so, eh?

Only connect

"Just because your genetics show you came from a place, should that mean you can lay claim to that group of people or place now?"

This quote concludes a BBC piece, Americans seek their African roots, about how DNA tests can reveal one's genetic origins. Apparently (I didn't realize) a lot of well-known African-Americans (such as Oprah) have done this recently, and thousands of others have followed suit.

This sort of genetic testing has been available for years; it's one of the first wave of targeted ads you see when you start doing online Jewish genealogy research.

According to the BBC piece, some African communities give citizenship and other honours to Americans who come to visit their place of origin. The quote is from the editor of Asante magazine, Ofori Anor, who doesn't appreciate this practice.

But to me the point is not so much laying claim as making the connection. Perhaps Mr Anor does not understand this, being from Ghana. Because a lot of Europeans don't understand this either. Some of the snottier ones even make fun of us Yanks and our family trees. But they don't know what it's like to not know where you come from. To not know, say, whether you're Scottish or Irish. To not know exactly which little German town, or big one, your ancestors came from. Let alone the continent of Africa! Let alone being brought to the New World involuntarily, as a slave!

No, it isn't about laying claim. It's about knowing. It's about putting unanswered questions to rest. And finally, it's about the relief of recognizing something you knew was deep within you, but you didn't know where it came from or why you had it or what it meant.



Image credit: DNA image from the Image Library of Biological Macromolecules based in Jena, Germany, which maintains a large archive of spectacular computer graphics of DNA, RNA, and proteins, via UCMP Berkeley.

More coffee collection