This Wild Feeling
on figuring out what this could all be about
What are you in love with? Chocolate? The origins of the Japanese Bobtail? The lifecycle of periodical cicadas? There is so much to fall in love with and so many ways to focus and research that curiosity can become overwhelming. I frequently feel lost in a mire of information and beset by a creeping sense that there is not enough time. Not enough. Not enough and I am wasting it by wondering what, where and how in a recursive loop.
I read a beautiful piece on Wendy Pratt’s Notes from the Margin a couple of weeks ago, detailing the work of writers who are truly in love with their specialism. I am in awe of those who devote their energy wholeheartedly and with such excellence. My first response was to think that I’d find a subject to get properly in to and write about it. Of all the things I love there must be on that is top of the tree. And there is, for a moment or a day, a week at best. But then growing delphiniums, or Persian cooking, or planning an expedition in Anglesey comes along and my focus is taken.
This Wild Feeling
I stepped a little further back. Is there a thread that links these things? What attracts me and forces my attention, my falling in love? It’s a certain feeling, one that has been with me since my first walks on the hills near my home, one that was a companion through the fissured landscape of childhood and one that I’ve only recently been able to name. It’s a feeling of strength and self-belief, a feeling of connection with nature and the elements and there are times when it’s the only thing that has kept me going. This wild feeling that threads my work, my day, my dreams.
It’s a feeling I remember walking the mist at Maiden Castle just outside Dorchester, aged around 7 and in the grip of a particularly skilful group of bullies who were adept at homing in on fragility and uncertainty wrought by a less than simple home life.
The poem below is a very early piece, from one of my first Poetry School workshops. I remember the sensation of revisiting that specific moment, and of translating it to the page. I wanted to write a poems to capture that feeling of connection with the landscape and the strength this scared little girl drew from it. It feels fitting that this is one of the first poems I had published.
Maiden Castle Mist clings but does not soak Breathe in and feel it spread like spores. You cannot grasp. You float. Turn to face ghost filled fields spy the other path. Mist clings but does not soak. Needle whispers still come through and curl round scuffed up shoes. You cannot grasp. You float. Draw up to all your three foot ten, feel sparks run through your legs Mist clings but does not soak. Imagine that you are not seen stare through the whisperers’ glare. You cannot grasp. You float. Mist is Latvian for home yours is the edge ahead behind Mist clings but does not soak You cannot grasp. You float. Kathryn Anna Marshall first published on Words for the Wild
This sense of connection as it emerges through music, poetry, art, song, and embeds through nature, through realising the swathes of creatures and energies have been part of a landscape before me and will come after I have gone.
whether I like it or not, I am a wild thing. That’s the (trite) Darwinian truth. My DNA wasn’t forged in a factory. The shape of my psyche was determined by wood, wind and water.
Charles Foster speaking about his book Being a Beast on History of Emotions blog
And so, this is what I want to write about. This wild feeling that gets me through. This is what I am in love with, this is what I have to offer.
Who’s gonna look at you?
Well yes – obviously since I had this idea my still small voice of mean has been going overtime (it’s not just confined to writing, yesterday I called myself stupid six times in half an hour of gardening). What do I have to say? Who am I to even think I have anything of value to utter.
Time to step back again. When I read something good, do I consider the credentials of the person? Do I think well, I’ve really enjoying this but I’m not sure if they’re a Forward prize nominee so I’ll stop? Of course not. Conversely, I read many things that I know I’m meant to enjoy because the credentials are excellent yet somehow it just doesn’t land. We each experience life according to our own perspective and value system, our own fears and flight response. All any writer can do is to seek connection and kinship. The notion that works will appeal to everyone (anyone?) is outlandish – yet the fear that it will not, that some people will not like what I write is enough to bind my fingers into inertia.
Daring to be bold and brilliant
I had this card from a dear friend for my birthday last year. It lives on my pinboard. It brings me joy each day. As well as the sheer loveliness of having a friend who thinks this about me I love the look of calm defiance gazing back at me. And the idea of having tortoiseshell, large whites and small blues for friends.
This Wild Feeling is going to be a place to be bold and to celebrate the brilliant. It will be collection of the things that bring the sense of place, of value, excitement, urgency. It’s a place to talk about reading, listening, going away and growing flowers. It’s the home of my poetry films and the spool for all the threads of ideas that emerge when I give myself space and permission to think. It will the home to all the things that are the point of being alive. I am not an expert in any of them. I am not extraordinary or especially quirky or in possession of anything that makes me especially qualified to write.
What I do have is curiosity and a lot of books. And me. I am alive, I have survived many things, and I am determined to write and connect with others because this is the food for this wild feeling, this the reason to be here.
And dare I post this? Dare I?
Reader – it appears I do.
Until next time
Kathryn
xx
So much of this resonates for me. The wanting of a subject--a passion--that is THE subject. The voices of doubt. The love of so much in the world. I'm looking forward to seeing what emerges here for you.