Blue HyacinthIt’s a thanks-giving thing...here and now. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
8 November 2001 bulb in socket whisk in egg white pegged leg set down held up panned out |
|
9 November 2001 My toes are pale and cold, but at least they're not dangling in water. |
|
10 November 2001 All day long I don't see the bulb. |
|
12 November 2001 The next morning, in the car park at work, she finds the first strand of white in her hair. She watches the pleasure of discovery flicker on her own face in the rear-view mirror as she combs. It's there now, like the roots of the bulb. It looks as though it really belongs. Nonetheless, she still pinches it between thumb and forefinger and tugs it sharply out. |
|
13 November 2001 reunion mystery devotion boredom routine perseverence 1. If there is any magic Rule of Six with plants then it is definitely one of 2 x 3, rather than 3 x 2. Bulbs should always be grown in odd-numbered groups. 2. Growing things is all about the mystery of such rules of green thumb. You can accept them as 'given' or discover them for yourself. Whatever the ecological imperatives a lawn simply does look rather better when it's mown. 3. There are routine activities which spin off from any type of growth, be it watering a pot plant or raking up leaves. It's possible to bring devotion to mundane tasks, trimming a hedge, potting on seedlings, pinching out shoots or even changing the water beneath a forced bulb. 4. Things die. You learn that. Just because you aim to encourage life and growth, you can't get by without accepting this fact. Sometimes perseverence and changing growing conditions can coax survival. In other cases your pet project will up and leave you permenently despite your best efforts. 5. You can become tired of things; like the saggy old cactus that has probably already expired, the flowering shrub which never actually does. Boredom is something to be welcomed rather than rejected. It can, after all, be as strong a force for change as enthusiasm and longing. 6. Sometimes there will be moments to celebrate, times when hope and realisation meet up again after a long ramble round the garden in different directions. Don't expect the reunion to last long, or recur very frequently, just appreciate it while it does - and then move on. |
|
14 November 2001 He looks in the fridge and sees it there - unfinished, barely even started-out. It's not a clean, hopeful possibility any more. The roots are messy, undisciplined. He wants it gone. He'd like to clean the shelf, throw it away. He's stuck with it though, doesn't feel that he can. The resentment of its presence doesn't endear him any to the prospect of its flower either. It seems typical of Jo that she would begin something and then abandon it. The mass of roots against the glass are albino, tousled, reminders of her hair twisted around his fingers. He looks in the fridge and sees it there - unfinished, barely even started-out. |
|
15 November 2001 Familiarity breeds. I keep forgetting to look. This morning I discover that the tresses of roots now spill two-thirds of the way down inside the glass. |
|
16 November 2001 Blurred pigeon wings among the rafters. Links from station to station run late. Under the clock I wait, knowing you'll never arrive. Everything is hostage to the minutes traded back and forth |
|
17 November 2001 Bulb as boat. Bulb as storeroom. Bulb as palette. Bulb as hyacinth. Bulb as futurology. Bulb as aspect. Bulb as growth. Bulb goes to the party dressed just as it comes. |
|
18 November 2001 She types, "The bulb is on the desk beside the keyboard. A head of damp hair obscures the screen so that I cannot read the words displayed there. Oak leaves outside hang down, green and gold and a few fall by the window while she writes. We three are the only living things in this room which is now taking on an overpowering odour of laundry. I wonder what will happen when the roots touch the base of the vase. Will they slow their progress or curl round, accomodating themselves to the space? Growing things is all about asking questions, planning ahead. I think she understands this too. I open the window for ventilation and the sound of leaf sweeping overlays the noise of the keys and occasional sighs." |
|
19 November 2001 Did you ever lose yourself in hyacinth? Have you ever been purple Until all the keys blocked out Which way is up? Waves are just fluid mountains brought low by gravity. |
|
20 November 2001 Iain placed the forcing glass inside a small wicker basket, leaving off the lid. He played to the bulb all morning, lips pursed across the mouthpiece of the flute. He specifically chose to play to it, as though he could coax a shoot from it, as if it were a snake or a rope to be charmed upwards. He imagined taking the growing thing with him to rehearsals and concerts, placing it in turn around the orchestra; by the harp to enjoy a little Mozart, or perhaps under the staging beneath the double bass section to experience the full thunder of Shostakovich. Meanwhile, for its part, the bulb imagined absolutely nothing at all, because that's just the way it was. |
|
21 November 2001 For the first time we look at the water. We actually see the medium of growth as opposed to looking through it. We contemplate a change. |
|
22 November 2001 I try to sort all my thoughts out to build your shape with them. I want the bulge of all those which frighten or oppress me to be buried in your fulsome satin skirts. I will let the manageable ones, the next steps filter up into your crinkled bull-neck to wait for action. At the growing tip, where the possibilities ruffle and furl around upon themselves I ask for less and less. If the silence is actually in there then why doesn't it ever burst through, whether greened plump or pale-sickly, and just show. |
|
23 November 2001
I say:{There's a bulb in the fridge. I say: {That's stupid. I say: {Sometimes I look at the world and I don't understand it. I say: {that doesn't make any sense to me, I must be stupid or that doesn't make any sense, they must be stupid... or wrong..or deluded...or evil...or...not like me at all.... } } or I say: {There just is. Live with it, okay? That's how it is right now. or It doesn't belong there. I'll take it out if I can.} } |
|
24 November 2001 The tree is stark, arterial against satin bolts of sky. High in the branches hyacinth macaws hide their velvet flash of deep blue in silhouettes against the dusk. The one dead tree punctuates the ranch, become shelter, become roost, still standing. The sun sets. The birds fall quiet against the bled sky as all remaining colour leaches down and out of it. |
|
25 November 2001 I try not to think about the hyacinth bulb. I don't write about the hyacinth bulb. |
|
26 November 2001 It's not keeping up with the others. It's out in the conservatory now, trying out a slightly warmer version of cold. |
|
27 November 2001 See here - an iris and a tulip. It's not all simpering, whimsical bouquets of daisies, asters with white roses and freesias or clichéd wads of peonies and delphiniums, lilies of the valley and sweet peas all frothed up with queen anne's lace. Nor yet is it just a matter of courtly swathes of calla lilies, orchid and ranunculus, or amenable, nodding daffodils and dahlias. Yes, there will always be blue hyacinths, anemones, ivies and hydrangeas. All well and good. Sometimes there will be the surprise of sunflowers with purple lilac, unexpected heather, godetia and gardenias. If you ask me, sometimes love requires a little more than (and amounts to something slightly less than) stephanotis. Not all roses can be pink. |
|
28 November 2001 Do you actually believe in the blue hyacinth? It might not exist. I haven't seen it for a while either. So now even I am beginning to wonder. The fridge door is closed. The bulb is out. |
|
29 November 2001 in spires longed-for flowers |
|
30 November 2001 I start to make a list of some of the people and things that I think I ought to see more often than I actually do: the blue hyacinth bulb, |