For me, only in childhood was this time of year something to be excited about but all I can remember about that excitment was one Christmas in Paraguay when I was about six and it was hot and ornaments were hung on a little palm tree.
My childhood I do remember vividly, if not always happily, but always as a state preferable to adulthood. Whatever I am now was formed then and getting rid of most of the accretions that time has piled on top of the original is a task I consider to be essential. It's not a case of PeterPan-ism, sentimental nostalgia for childhood. Imagine a well-crafted little boat sailing on the ocean. As the years pass, barnacles and other stuff accumulates on the hull and slow it down, weigh it down. What I mean by 'getting back to the original' is therefore a kind of psychological/creative/metaphorical housecleaning - or rather boat-cleaning.
What never ceases to astonish, delight and inspire me is the originality of young children, generally before the age of ten. The things they say and do, the expressions on their faces. I marvel at them, entranced. Not having had children of my own I'm well aware that I've escaped the not-at-all entrancing bits, the sleepless nights, the endless chores, the irritations, anxieties etc. But that's no reason to give up being amazed by children.
So here's something to celebrate the season of childhood. When my niece Sarah was about nine or ten, her father (my brother) invented a bedtime story for her which she then illustrated with line drawings. When I saw the story and the drawings I was charmed and decided to publish The Piper of the Stars (NdA Press 1986) as a small hand-printed edition. I traced and etched Sarah's drawings, added aquatint, and printed the images on my etching press. Sarah and her father preferred using a pseudonym. The text was hand-set and printed on an 'Adana' treadle platen press in London by the legendary Polish printer Stanislaw Gliwa. It was his last project before he died. Below are the cover, title page and a couple of the illustrations.
16 comments:
That's a wonderful story. And Sarah's drawings are exemplary. Merry Christmas to you and yours, Natalie.
I enjoyed your musings on your own childhood and of course, that of your niece. What a lovely idea to crat such a book of her drawings and story! I treasure she must now be sharing with her own children. Thanks for sharing this, Natalie. Wishing you love and all good things this holiday season!
I could never handle my own childhood well and, in hindsight, was glad that when I reached adulthood with a degree of 'getting out from under.' I love your metaphor of growth by boat cleaning. It reminds me that adulthood is not an achieved, once-and-forever state, but a process that hopefully continues throughout life.
May I wish you all that you would wish for yourself at this season. I would also like to express my thanks for your friendship.
This is truly beautiful, Natalie. And I agree about your metaphor of the little boat. It's not so easy to get rid of those accretions. I'm trying to do some of that myself these days. Happy Christmas!
This is truly beautiful, Natalie. And I agree about your metaphor of the little boat. It's not so easy to get rid of those accretions. I'm trying to do some of that myself these days. Happy Christmas!
Ah, thanks Nat, lovely memory! I remember doing those drawings very clearly and trying to capture the stars slightly dubious face! I am trying to inspire Giselle and Lewis to be imaginative and dream too so they also, as you say, will be indeed Pipers of the Stars!
Thank you Bruce, and happy every day of 2016 to you and your family in blazing Arizona sunshine and unusual snow.
Marja-Leena, I'd love to be clinking glasses with you in Vancouver tomorrow and to be going on a guided tour with you of a city I'm sure I wouldn't recognise now, apart from the mountains and the water. Have a beautiful day and New Year.
Tom, "getting out from under" is truly an apt phrase in this context, relevant to childhood as well as adulthood. Here's hoping youthful inspiration and ageless wisdom make your boat-cleaning task enjoyable. My thanks too for your friendship.
Beth, you know I'm with you and Jonathan in spirit and wishing we could share some festive days around a real table - maybe in 2016? And may our barnacle-free boats sail merrily on the turbulent oceans.
Sarah, I hope you've read The Piper of the Stars to Lewis and Giselle and told them how the little book came about. Maybe now they (and you!) could create their own new illustrations for it? Even if your original drawings can't be bettered!
Lots of love to you all and looking forward to seeing you soon
An absolute delight, Natalie! I love these Thurberesque illustrations. As for your recollections, every fragment of memoir should be filed away into a folder & then maybe at some point they should all be laid end to end in a sort of autobiographical archipelago!
Many thanks for your card. I didn't manage one this year: currently immobilised by gout & attendant low level fever. A not so cool Yule this year, I'll email you shortly.
Meanwhile, have a great tomorrow & we'll get together in the New Year.
Oh, the drawings are balm to the eyes. Wonderful! I raise a glass to boat scrubbing, to stars, to the little ones, to creativity, and to you, dear Natalie! Prost and Happy Weihnachten!
Thanks Dick. I hope some real joy will still pervade your home during this relentlessly festive season and that your health will soon improve. Come and have a warming drink at the Junction early in 2016.
Rouchswalwe, thankyou and a resounding Prost to you too, clink clink clink! I wish you a crisp green (anise) and white (Ouzo) Noël and a 2016 as perfect as possible in this impossible world.
Perfect. I came here hoping to find exactly what is here! So Merry Christmas to you, dear childlike (but not childish) Natalie!
A wonderful post, thank you, and a very happy Christmas to you, Natalie, which could never be banal if you were involved!
You do realise I suppose that the act of scraping off metaphorical barnacles forces them to go underground and to pop up as something entirely different; typically as an influence on some other instinct or trait, and not necessarily benign.
Consider the implications of the statement: "I am cleansed." It's
probably a judgment only someone looking in can make, except that few are tempted. We tend to think we are the expert when it comes to ourselves but, as in the case of quantum mechanics, the measurement itself interferes with the nature of what we trying to measure.
Just the old garage mechanic sounding off.
Hattie: thank you, you are huggable and I don't care if this sounds soppy. Who needs to be cool anyway? Have a a warm and happy 2016.
Lucy: big soppy grog-scented bisous plus armfuls of wishes of stunning originality to last throughout the New Year.
Robbie, un Gros Calin to you for 2016 and beyond. My barnacles are special,they humbly accept to be dissolved into nothingness by my expertly nonchalant scraping. Freud, Biblical phrases and quantum mechanics all have their place but my little boat will sail on regardless. Je ne regrette rien.
Post a Comment