Claire King

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Claire King Edited Choices (10 of 10)

Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category

A canicular, French, late summer morning.

Posted on: August 22nd, 2012 by claire - 10 Comments

There is a canicule in France at the moment – a heatwave. Municipal Lidos are full of people trying to cool off. Only the bravest, or the most determined holidaymakers take to the shadeless beaches between 11am and 4pm. Meanwhile the countryside is parched and forest fires are regularly taking hold, even in the higher mountain areas.

There are two weeks left of the summer holidays, and just as with the end of season peaches and nectarines – although we have already had our fill – we are gorging on the remainder, while it is still good, before the time has passed.

Even as dawn broke this morning the air was hot and by mid-morning it was pushing 35°.

I made pancakes (crêpes) for breakfast, to cheers of delight. We ate them with fresh lemons, syrups and jams and cold watermelon from the fridge. It’s amazing how pancakes for breakfast can make an ordinary day seem like a holiday.

Then the neighbour came round, as he does most years at this time and brought us tomatoes. They have stewed and frozen as many as they can, and still his plants keep on giving. He tours the neighbours with baskets and boxes and bags of the ripe-to bursting fruit.

My 6 year old and I took our dogs out for a walk, to let them cool off in the irrigation canal that keeps the fruit trees and fields watered on our side of the valley. We also took a bag in the hope of hunting down some blackberries. My daughter, who is enthralled by insects, spiders, lizards and in fact any kind of local flora and fauna, found this little creature on one of the bramble bushes. We think it might be a crab spider.

 

As we walked home the farmer was turning hay in the fields. The air was heavy with its sweetness and the warm scent of figs from the trees nearby. We dillied and dallied until we were parched with thirst, then ran home fast for cold water.

This is late summer, in the canicule, in southern France. This place is inspirational.

 

 

Death and Life

Posted on: January 2nd, 2012 by claire - 15 Comments

A dear friend of mine died suddenly on New Years Eve and since then I’ve been grieving, in its various guises.

Whilst most have my thoughts have been about the loss of Annie in our lives, and the pain of those left behind, other strange thoughts have crept in.

Here is one that I’m not proud of. Annie was always very encouraging about my writing and so delighted when I told her my first book was going to be published. We talked about the novel and she was really looking forward to reading it. Of course now she never will.

It’s an odd thought, and not relevant at all to what has happened. Why would I even think about that?

I suppose that we all project how things will turn out in the future – times we are looking forward to, who will be there and what will happen. This story evolves, of course, but when we are forced to re-write that story abruptly it knocks us off balance.

In amongst all of the sadness, there is something healthy about this rupture, because it reminds us that the future is not certain. That there are no guarantees which of our loved ones we will get to keep, or for how long.

It should tell us how we ought to be living.

 

 

40

Posted on: November 25th, 2011 by claire - 17 Comments

I’m one of those human beings who needs the symbols and ceremonies that mark our little lives.

The beginnings, endings and milestones along the way. I believe that they are important, psychologically.

I like birthdays, weddings and although I don’t enjoy them, I very much appreciate funerals. I always loved the first day back to school, and last day of school before the summer holidays. I love launch parties and recognitions of success. So what am I trying to tell you? OK, I’ll spit it out. I have a birthday with a zero at the end coming soon.

In forty days and forty nights, I’m going to be… (can you guess?)

Forty gets used a lot in religious texts. They seem to use it to mean ‘a big number’.

I remember my mum turning forty. I was sixteen. And forty did seem like a big number to me then. It was the age of mums and dads. An age to joke about, to celebrate, but in a mocking sort of way. In an ‘Over the hill and off the pill, get your slippers out’ sort of way.

For my mum, forty came in the heart of a storm. She was too busy surviving to worry about celebrating, reflecting or looking forward. It was all she could do to keep the boat afloat with her kids in it. My mum, by the way, is amazing. And her life since forty has just got better and better.

For me, forty comes in fine weather. I loved my twenties, although I was rather volatile for much of the time. I loved my thirties too, although I was in rather a hurry and sometimes a bit overwhelmed. I’m thinking that my forties are going to be brilliant, and for now I’m just thankful.

I’m thankful for my family. I’m thankful for our good health. And I’m thankful that we are bouncing along the regular ups and downs of the day-to-day, living the little trials and joys of our lives, with clean drinking water, untouched by earthquake, famine or flood. I’m thankful for the opportunities I’ve had so far, and the opportunities I have now.

And there’s no big wish list from this blogger. Everything I want from my forties has to come from me. I want to be a good mother to my girls, a good wife to my husband, a good daughter to my mum. I want spend as much time with my family and friends as I can, while I can. I want to seize the opportunity I have to write novels and have them published well. I want to be true to myself, and try and make myself a better person at fifty than I am today.

Hello, 40, you’ll be welcome.

Raw

Posted on: June 23rd, 2011 by claire - 13 Comments

Today, the 23rd June, is the Fête de la Saint-Jean. Every year a fire is lit at the top of Mount Canigou, and tonight the fire is brought down to all the villages around the mountain, ours included, and villagers celebrate, and leap over the flames to celebrate the summer solstice, and the spirit of our community. The Mount Canigou is a mountain sacred to the Catalan people. There is something magical about it.

I had a friend who loved this mountain. This week he died on it.

This friend, this man, he loved the mountain. He knew the mountain and spent a lot of time there. It was his passion. Two days ago a storm fell as he was climbing to the peak. He was struck by lightning and died instantly.

Today I find myself immobilised by this news. Today I should have been writing. But I cannot even find the right words to express my condolences, never mind a scene in a novel. People say that you can write through grief. That you can turn the emotion into something positive. That writing can be therapeutic, or a tribute to someone we loved.

But this is not my grief. The last time I properly chatted with this person was last year at his 50th birthday party, although I see his wife most weeks.

Andrew’s death makes me feel mortal. It makes me terribly sad. It reminds me that I am profoundly grateful for my own family. It makes me want to reach out to his wife and help her in any possible way I can, and I feel helpless, because I know that there is no real way I can comfort her. But I feel, rightly or wrongly, that writing about the tragedy that has left a friend devastated, would be disrespectful in the extreme.

I don’t feel bad creating fictional grief from my darkest fears and imaginings.

I don’t feel bad creating fictional grief by drawing on feelings of grief that I have experienced personally.

But I find someone else’s grief impossible to approach through writing. It’s personal. I don’t want to write about it.

Although maybe I  just did.

Books given and received

Posted on: December 26th, 2010 by claire - 3 Comments

Santa has been kind in 2010. Amongst a truly treasure filled Christmas I was lucky enough to be given lots of lovely literature. Choosing books as gifts takes a lot of thought, so I thought I would share with you what my relatives think of me. Here are the books that I received this year:

The Finkler Question – Howard Jacobson

Whatever You Love – Louise Doughty

At Home – Bill Bryson

Chocolat – Joanne Harris

The Daily Coyote – Shreve Stockton

Nothing To Envy – Barbara Demick

Thoughts on The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco

Real Fast Food – Nigel Slater

Ice Cream & Sadness (Cyanide & Happiness Volume 2)

‘Keep Calm and Carry on’  (Also noting that my husband received ‘Now Freak Out and Panic’)

It’s very interesting to see my friends’ and relatives’ impressions of me reflected back in their choice of books. This lovely little pile of books hits the nail on the head for me. All these novels are perfectly to my taste and It was hard to decide which one to open first. I’ve plumped for Howard Jacobson, a new discovery.

Mustn’t forget the Metazen Christmas e-book, a charity publication from Metazen featuring amazing festive writing from Marcus Speh, xTx, Roxane Gay, Kirsty Logan, Susan Tepper and many, many more, and including a rare poem from myself.

I now wish I’d written a ‘Books Given’ post. Here are some of those I can remember (and I may update the blog post when there are fewer demands to build lego helicopters):

  • The Flavour Thesaurus – Niki Segnit (2 copies given)
  • Across The Blood Red Skies, Under an English Heaven &  Upon Dark Waters – Robert Radcliffe (all three given as one gift)
  • The White Road and Other Stories – Tania Hershman
  • The Angel’s Game – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
  • How To Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog – Chad Orzel
  • Calm Down Boris
  • Rapunzel

What books have you given and received this year? Any you’re particularly delighted with?

PS: I have also been given a Kindle, which I’m very excited about. Although I am very much a paper girl, I read recently that many of those who use e-readers to read books are extremely loyal to this format and, if a particular book is not available for an e-reader, will choose a different book rather than buy the paper version. So I’m going to be asking for e-books for my upcoming birthday and blogging about the Kindle in the near future.

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