A lazy day today, I didn’t get up until 8.15 am! I decided to give swimming a miss and will
compensate by having an extended bike ride on the way to and from getting lunch
in the local chicken place.
I’ve
completed the quick Guardian crossword, though it was a little more taxing than
usual and I am sometimes stuck by the brevity of the clues that give a slanted
version of the necessary word’s definition, so I often get the word before I
realize its link to the clue! Still,
it’s done and that gives the start of the day a sort of achievement to add to
the impetus of filling time with something useful. Not that I have to search around for things
to do as each day ends with my only having completed a part of my ‘to do’
list. At the moment, for example, Catalan
homework is handing over me and this writing is, yet again, displacement
activity to compensate for my not doing it!
There is a
whip to get me in line with the work that I need to do for Catalan, as the
examination for this section of the course will take place on the 13th
of this month. We have been given fair
warning, have been told what sort of vocabulary is going to be tested and have
been given direct and clear indications of what sort of writing we will need to
complete. With such clear directions it
is perverse and churlish not to get stuck in to the work and start the process
of learning. But I haven’t yet got round
to starting this. In my notebook that is
supposed to be for my ideas for poems, I often find myself writing encouraging
or admonitory notes to myself about work that needs to be done. This writing too is another way of my
communicating with myself to get geared up to start the hard work of learning.
I find
learning new words difficult; I discover a new, often useful word in Catalan,
look at it, try and memorize it, write it down a few times – and then it’s
gone. The amount of effort needed to set
the words in my memory seems disproportionate and I therefore tend to enter my
learning zone with negativity washing around my mind. I try and reason with myself: I live in
Catalonia, I am surrounded by the language, learning it is merely a matter of
common courtesy as well as increasing my understanding and so on and so on –
but whatever psychological boosts I give myself, the simple inability to retain
new vocab. Is a settled fact. This in
turn means that the examination will be another depressing indication of
inability as I stagger my illiterate way towards the end of the scholastic
year!
In my own
language, however, I continue to thrive.
The latest work on the ‘recalcitrant’ poem is producing good
results. Even though I may not have
written a single line of poetry, the ideas and some phrases are steadily
coalescing and the structure is beginning to emerge from all my pencilled
scribbles. I know for past experience
that the present discrete idea elements scattered throughout the pages that I
have already written will, eventually come together into a (hopefully) coherent
poem. Even if it doesn’t, the process is
one that is enjoyable if demanding!
Today is Saint David’s Day and I have hunted around (as I do each year) to find the little artificial daffodil (purchased in aid of the Marie Curie Foundation) to wear for my National Day. And, each time I wear it, it focuses my attention on my nationality. In my next book, The eloquence of broken things, there is a section that brings together poems I have written that consider my nationality and what it mean to me. For a numerically small nation, identity is a constant preoccupation and with the swamping proximity of England and the overwhelming use of English as the language of Wales the relationship between Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom is a critical element in the national sense of identity. Each St David’s Day has become an opportunity for me to indulge (and I think that is the right word) in a particular form of introspection that rarely affects me on other days of the year – which is significant in itself!
Only once
has anyone commented on my wearing of a daffodil on St David’s Day and I assume
that it will go generally unnoticed today as well. Though there is a slightly different
dimension because daffodils are yellow.
Let me
explain. I wear a metal pin of a yellow
ribbon to show my support for the Catalans who are still in prison or
restricted in their public lives because of the Spanish justice system in the
aftermath of the referendum for Catalan independence. Putting the question of independence aside
for a moment, I consider the jailing of so many Catalan politicians to be
reprehensible and perhaps an indication of the politicisation of the Spanish
justice system.
The
reaction of the Spanish to the Catalans has sometimes been little short of
paranoid, with some instances of the banning of the colour yellow e.g. football
supporters wearing yellow t-shirts or scarves having to give up pieces of
yellow clothing before they were allowed into the games! So a yellow daffodil could be seen as a
statement of support for the prisoners and Catalan independence.
In my case
as I am wearing it next to the yellow ribbon, obviously for aesthetic rather
than political reasons, the link is more obvious!
