TiaTalk











{Tue 17 August 2021}   Freed Spirit: a tiny big story

Freed Spirit: a tiny big story

Photo of a tall tree stump against a background of green plants. The stump bears carvings of large flowers and the face of an impish sprite looking outwards and upwards from the bole. Below the face are carved the words, "Make a wish". This is one of the stopping points for clues on the Malahide Gardens Fairy Trail.

An abandoned paragraph

Looking for stories, I came across a tiny standalone paragraph in my unpublished drafts. I remember that I wrote this in response to a “fictional stimulus” exercise during my MA, so it wasn’t the result of a visitation by any Muse, just a reply to a prompt (probably an image).

Yet, today, it feels fresh and full of inspiration. It speaks to my longing to escape the intense confinement of Covid restrictions (which have been especially strict in Ireland), and to find the freedom to move and regenerate. Here is my original text:

The garden breathes; absorbs me. The smallness of walls evaporates as I run free and fly upwards through the tree. I clamber, but fly, with each seeking-for-handhold sure and sprung, full of the energy of homecoming. I am a sprite, like Ariel released to his natural element, with no service required for the next few green hours.

Tia Azulay, 2009
Read the rest of this entry »


{Sat 6 December 2008}   Dawn-Noon-Midnight Quilt

Dawn-Noon-Midnight Quilt

Based on the Noon Quilt by trAce

One creative writing exercise we were set for our course (the Online MA in Creative Writing and New Media), a few weeks ago, was to experiment with the Noon Quilt idea.

Prof. Sue Thomas, who sets the exercises, told us that this was originally a trAce writing project which assembled 100-word patches from writers around the world to create “a quilt of noon-time impressions”. Apparently, trAce was later commissioned by the British Council to make two similar quilts—The Dawn Quilt for South Asia and The Road Quilt for Russia and Eastern Europe. Our exercise was: “Look out of a window on three occasions during the week, at Dawn, Noon, and Midnight, and describe exactly what you can see. If you find a story there, feel free to tell it. “

Timing my patches

Living in London, I’m never usually up at either dawn or midnight, (or I don’t notice when I am because there’s usually not much clue from the sky!) but for the sake of this exercise I made a special effort, even going so far as to get the exact rising and setting times for the Sun from http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=136.

I found that doing it all in one day made for stronger links between the patches;a sense of a continuous narrative.

So this was the day:

Date: 4 Dec 2008
Sunrise:
07:48  Sunset: 15:53
Length of day: 8h 04m 53s  Difference from the day before: − 1m 46s
Solar noon: 11:51  Altitude: 16.2°  Distance (10E6 km): 147.428

Patch impressions

07:48

Through rain-spotted glass I see, no, feel, a grey sky. I see the white-rimmed eyes of human habitation staring across grim gardens. Here and there, a few glow with manufactured morning warmth. The sun is a secret. Inexplicably, the cloudy canvas lightens slightly. Stark winter trees stand against the grey, shivering in the meaningless wind. The flesh sags from my cheekbones as I imagine the cold wetness of the bark. I look back to the rows of neighbouring windows, but now all are dark and empty. The people inside have also become secrets.

11:51

The rain-spots have dried into dusty acid traces on the window panes. Beyond them, the dawn-dark trees are now shades of green, an eerie moss climbing high over their bare limbs. The day is undecided. Bemused grey clouds scud eastward in ragged retreat, like an army desperate for refuge. Between their broken ranks, blue sky flashes. Sunlight reaches through to caress our creamy walls, but will not stay to be touched. Cayenne chrysanthemums leap with the wind, but the evergreen jasmine next to them clings to the wall, stubbornly still.

23:59

All is still now. With little light behind it to highlight imperfections, the glass seems clear now. Peering through it, I see a calm sky, its starless blackness softened by the urban glow that horizons our silent mews. Nightlights gently bathe the courtyard’s high cream walls and peaceful plants. Some shadows linger, but they do not dart about or threaten. That invisible city beyond our nestling house seems benevolent tonight. It has vanquished the rain. The secret people have lit some lights again. Their warm windows tell me of throbbing hearts and Christmas hearths. Tonight, I can sleep.



{Thu 15 February 2007}   Twilight Goodbye
Twilight Goodbye

There was such a wonderful sky tonight. Cocooned in your car, I could not conceive the coming parting. It came swift and unthought—a door opening and closing on a highway; the pull of traffic demanding your attention and drowning out our promises. But, as you disappeared, the suddenly unglazed freshness of the rose-hued sky swept into my senses. I reached up instinctively to embrace it, and it took hold of me instead, making my feet mercurial as I danced homeward, balanced on a godly whim. When I let the road turn me from those caressing clouds, it pointed me to a pure, bright moon, perfect, waiting for me under winter branches, anticipating the dusk. A cool thrill of joy tremored in my spirit and recalled your still, deep presence to me.



et cetera