Talking to strangers III: pumpkin kaya

Pausing in contemplation
before a stack of most admirable pumpkins –
gently ribbed in
yellow-streaked deep forest green –
a trolley stops beside mine,
and a woman says “pumpkin soup”.
We both nod, and stand
admiring these exemplary pumpkins.
I add “and pumpkin scones”,
she adds “and pumpkin kaya”.
We exchange pumpkin lore.
Then each choose a pumpkin,
and go on our way.

Today, making pumpkin kaya,
I wonder if she is making pumpkin scones.

stacking stones / talking to Samuel

It is not, so much,
the loss of coffee with friends,
or family visits,
that is isolating.
Rather it is the loss of chance encounters,
a conversation with someone stacking stones –
that unexpected realisation of another’s humanity,
that reminds us of our own.

telling stories II: only tell your stories to strangers

Be careful what you turn into words,
and who you give those words to.
You never know what they might do to it –
how they’ll scuff or chip or stain it,
so that it’s never quite bright and clean,
never quite perfect, again.

telling stories I: just words

“I’ll talk it all to pieces if I have to tell about it. Then it’s gone, and when I try to remember what it was really like, I remember only my own story”. Snufkin (‘The Spring Tune’, Tove Jansson)

Let me give you a moment of my time –
a memory,
a story –
all that I saw, heard, felt..
how it was
(well, at least how it was for me)
turned to words, as best I can.

Talking to Samuel

I went to a conference recently, and on my return I had to fill in a form saying what contacts I’d made, what benefits would flow from them, what impact they would have.

What I did not put on the form was this, even though it was the best “contact” that I made: