I have fallen in love again with an old flame; beautiful old Cambridge, our local city. There is something very thrilling in a rediscovered love, for part of me had truly forgotten just how breathtaking it is and how lucky I am to have once walked though colleges and gardens often forbidden to others, to walk through doors and handle painted manuscripts and crumbling letters that many were not even permitted to see...
Such love was rekindled after a recent visit from an american friend and her husband in which we took them to all the prettiest places in the city. Who could help but fall again for the gorgeous old colleges, the beautiful trees in their Autumn finery, and the long lazy river ...? We went punting on that river, {because you just have to when in Cambridge } in a long shallow boat that creaked beneath us, and the hazy twilight closing in, lamps slowly glowing and lights burning through the narrow medieval windows. It was magical. And made even happier by sharing it with someone who has become such a good friend in the past four years, although we had never actually met before that day. My partner and her husband spent a lot of time laughing at how much we talked, but it was no surprise; we have an awful lot in common. And I miss her to talk to in person very much already, and am wasting no time in trying to persuade her to return. And soon.
Elanor writes what is in essence Lord of the Rings fan-fiction, and writes it very well in my humble and yes, perhaps slightly biased but unashamedly so, opinion. Her current story is concerned with the lives of Merry and Pippin and what takes place after Frodo leaves the Shire, leading up to their passing away in the World of Men.
It was her daughter who first contacted me to ask if it was ok to use my little hobbit pictures as illustration aids in the Lord of the Rings class that she taught. Shamefully it was nearly a year before I replied {my excuse being merely the birth of my first child and that I hardly ever got to sit at the computer. I still don't.} but who would possibly mind? Small children enjoying Tolkien's story and admiring my hobbits?!!? {apparently my costumes are really well received by the girls!} Who could ever complain?? And WHY OH WHY hadn't there been such a class when I was at school?? This is England, for goodness sake ... But I digress! For after that came the exciting invitation to illustrate Elanor's story; she emailed me the first chapter concerning the highly romantic meeting of Pippin and Diamond; I read it and was utterly hooked. It has been such fun to receive and read each delightful chapter and let my imagination do as it will. I have always been open to so called spin-offs of beloved novels and films if they are executed faithfully, as often I regard every exit as an entrance to somewhere else, and quite simply sometimes, just sometimes, it is an enjoyable indulgence to spend even more hours in the company of some much loved characters...
...dear America, you made me cry! It takes courage to redraw the map...
Being a special day in a small way I will take my children out tonight to enjoy fireworks and bonfires and burning effigies {for we are all still pagans at heart} and I will be thinking of you ...
I have finally gotten around to watching the Anniversary Edition dvd of Labyrinth that I treated myself to ages ago. I really didn't need another copy of this film; I must have nearly twenty dvds and videos of it due to never being able to pass a copy on sale. But I really wanted this one because of Brian Froud's commentary on it.
I so admire him; not just because of his amazing art but because of who he is and the way he so confidently expresses his belief in faeries, his belief in himself. I've been so lucky to have met him and Wendy a couple of times, and to hear him talk is just as inspiring as looking at his work. Such stories he tells, funny and warm and beautifully sad. And full of gifted vision.
I was ten when I saw Labyrinth at the cinema. Life was changing for me in dramatic ways, and the world felt a little scary and strange and unfamiliar. But what was so wonderfully familiar was that moment when a naughty faery bit Sarah on her finger! I remember suddenly feeling less alone. The world of the Labyrinth just felt so ... true ...
In later years to find someone who loved Labyrinth was to find a kindred soul. During difficult periods Froud and Lee's book Faeries was both a source of comfort and a stirring for the imagination.
And now my own children watch Labyrinth and laugh at naughty faeries and grumpy dwarves, and silly silly Goblins. I don't think Jareth holds quite the same charm for my boys as he did for my pre-adolescent self, but my eldest did say he has a "really fun coat", which is extremely high praise. And I have to cover little eyes as the Fireys pull themselves apart, because they still don't like that bit. I remember my younger brother never liked it either. Except something in them obviously does, for a lot of peeping through my fingers goes on ...
This morning I awoke to the sound of Kate Bush on the radio, singing Wuthering Heights.
It had not been a good night, as both boys at separate stages had climbed into our bed and their father and I were just too tired to forbid it. {I hate forbidding it anyway; there's something I find so endearing about that rush of little feet on the landing, then that clamber onto the bed followed by a forced snuggle under the chin and the instant light snoring that comes from feeling secure in your parent's arms. If they're teenagers and still doing it, then I might worry.} But it meant that while the boys were happy their dad and I were pushed into the far corners of the bed, each with a pair of small feet on our heads and I believe, at one point, even a toe embedded in my ear ...
So, to wake to the tinkling piano and bewailing lyrics of that song was magical... I was four when I first heard it, and the memory isn't even mine, it's my mother's. {The first Kate Bush song I remember is Wow. I recall flinging my arms in frantic circles, trying to copy her video.} We were in London on a day trip, back in the time when you could drive to places like the Natural History Museum and park outside, and while sat in the car, waiting in traffic, Wuthering Heights got its first playing on BBC Radio One. Before us was one of London's big red buses and stuck on its back, right in front of our eyes, was a huge poster of the lady herself. So ... we heard Wuthering Heights for the first time in a stuffy car {miles from the moors!} with Kate's large dark eyes looking down on us. I think it must have felt like a burgeoning love affair for my parents ... a love affair I probably nearly ruined when her music became the soundtrack to my life some ten years later, on constant play and rewind.
I remember that aged fifteen I hung around the moors beyond Haworth with my best friend, both of us hoping our own Heathcliff would pass by and recognise us for his own true-loves, but all we met with were 60-year-old walkers with their trousers tucked into their socks, and a lone sheep or two. Oh, and rocks. Lots of rocks. {Such is the fickleness of youth that less than a year later I could be found in the nearest graveyard, hoping Lestat might drop by that night ...}
The radio talked about the various depictions of both Wuthering Heights and its anti-hero Heathcliff, and wondered which was the best. As with many stories translated onto film, the "best" can surely only be in the reader's imagination ..? There are fantastic attempts, wonderfully done, to illustrate for us what is already there, for the story to me feels as much in the landscape as the grass and the wind and the trees that grow bent and twisted. The 1939 film with Laurence Olivier is often spoken of in revered tones and said to be the ultimate version. He was certainly the handsomest Heathcliff, in my small opinion. If I were Cathy I would have eaten heather and slept on stones just to bear his beautiful offspring. But alas! - then there would be no story. {This is often the case with me; If I had been Bathsheba I would have starved with Gabriel Oak; Mr Darcy is aloof and haughty say you? Not so, sirrah! For there is much virtue in a man who says little. Plus I've always preferred men a little grumpy. Be Rhett Butler's mistress and forget Ashley? - oh, ok, then ... Marry Gilbert Blythe? - well, why not ...?}
I still read the story at least once a year. I still adore it. As a young girl the drama of such an intense love that could defy death was very appealing. But for a long time now Hareton and Catherine have been my heroes, for their ability to adapt, survive and forgive are more compelling to me now than any demonstrations of self-destruction, no matter how romantic may be their roots. I think it's one of the reasons I love Jane Eyre more and more as I grow older, and the Tenant of Wildfell Hall too. Which shows how three very small, very quiet, very gentle women of the stern Victorian Age had an unerring ability to tap into what emotionally drives people to not just survive, but flourish. And how their tales live beyond the society they were familiar with and ring with truth in a world that they would barely recognise now.
The boys aren't too keen on The Kick Inside so it hardly gets played in the house these days. But I think, when they're asleep tonight {In their own beds this time, please!} then I might take a moment to sit with this song and really listen to it, every wonderful word, as I did when I was fifteen and madly in love with Heathcliff and Cathy. I may even do the dance. I'm sure I still remember it ...
