Haven't I Heard That Somewhere Before?

June has left us, and as July is ushered in with its promise of slowly shortening days, resplendent summer heat, and scanty, flesh-revealing costume, despite my biting off a whole feast more than I could chew re: Death, I have no fear of moving on. Mrs Whitfield's passing means that it is almost time for another theme, the choice of which has been exercising me over the past few days.

On the subject of subjects, I.G. helpfully wrote:

Re: your writing, if I may be so bold as to offer a critique. Your image of a drunk in a hospice I love; I feel that you should hold onto that image, which is not simply a self-deprecating one of yourself, but can also apply to us all.  Death is very difficult to write about, and I felt that the "drunk in a hospice" piece were you go back over the difficulty of this writing succeeds.

Important not to "use up" subjects but to cross over and over the same points. This anyway is my approach. Your dissatisfaction with some of your "death" stuff is a positive thing, and means you will go back to it, re-cross it.

Death is very difficult to write about directly, though arguably this is because it is always about, because it is so close, part of our life's economy, part of language, always being written about indirectly.

Sorry if you feel that my concerns derailed your writing on this subject a bit. But I would say that such derailment is also inherent in such a subject.

This process of derailment in the face of death is writing.

Thanks very much for that.

In a graveyard, I once attempted to use a tomb to crack open a bottle of beer. Instead of coming off neatly, the bottle-top scraped down the old grey stone, leaving a white mark. Slightly ashamed to have abused the sanctity of the place, noticing that I was somehow vulnerable now for having cared, I wandered disconsolately elsewhere. I still wanted the beer so I found a nice, sharp-edged metal fence that would do as an opener, and smartly smacked the top of the bottle down with the flat of my hand in time-honoured fashion. The bottle neck abruptly sheared, and I faced the prospect of risking shredded lips if I wanted that cold beer. I drank, cautiously, avoiding the sharp edges, feeling foolish, fearing I was ingesting glass.

It was just like that with the writing about Death. Death, basically, told me where to get off.

On the rebound, unused to rejection, I was tempted to employ for my next theme a subject with which I feel very comfortable, but realised that it would be not challenging enough to satisfy me. My life is in flux, thought I, and my writing would be perhaps better carried with the natural ebb and flow of the tide, and relate in some direct way. The whole point of this after all is to help me navigate, to provide structure around which to examine, investigate, improvise, and extend my deeper concerns, and for that process to provide some insight, and, I hope, entertainment.

When I found myself asking myself, "Does your chewing gum lose its flavour on the bedpost overnight?" and beginning to answer that question in terms of lost desire and/or food hygene, the metaphor began suddenly to resonate out of nowhere, and the smile returned to my frowning features.

So, the answer is that this month, I shall be writing about: QUESTIONS.