Let’s hold fast. Spring is on its way.

I turned off the news yesterday, forced my fingers (and my brain) to stop scrolling through my twitter feed, and picked up my book. It's amazing how the gentle act of reading can feel so revolutionary. Because this is happiness in this unquiet real world...

That's when I decided to positively read through this Lockdown period. I think a lot about the act of 'positively reading'. To read with an aim in mind - such as reading books from as many different countries as possible or working through all the unread books on your shelves, non-fiction or through prize lists - is different from just picking up a book. I think it's because it forces you (me) to try new books I might not have chosen before, to find new writers, to take a gamble in the short time I can allow myself to read. If I'm honest, I also like a challenge - and a reading one will always be the best one for me! Remember those library reading challenges they give children during holidays? Those were always my idea of pure pleasure.

So I won't be going as far as giving myself a star chart (although although...) but I will be recording the books I read this month on social media, and maybe here. First up is the one above, Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi. Do feel free to read along with me, sharing your book choices in the comments or via the #lockdownreading hashtag. You'll find other recommendations there, but also don't forget to look up the project Viccy Adams and I collaborated on several years ago, #100women100books, when we asked 100 women, from toddlers to 90 year olds for their favourite book and why.

It was part of an Arts Council England project, with Compton Verney's women's library, and you can still download those 100 book choices from the website, and we're working at looking at how we can rewild and extend the project so watch this space!

In the meantime, here are some other recommendations of what other friends on social media are reading right now... because who doesn't love a good book recommendation. The notes are cut and pasted straight as they came from the comments, and there are some excellent choices here. My list of things to read is getting longer and longer. If you are tempted, I've added links to each book through the wonderful new initiative for independent booksellers, Bookshop.org.)

• I read Summerwater by Sarah Moss recently - the story itself wasn’t at all uplifting, but her writing is wonderful so it was in that way. x

• Writers and Lovers by Lily King x

• Loved Hannah Rothschild’s Trelawny House and think you will too xx

• The Forest of Wool and Steel by Natsu Miyashita

• Going to dip into ‘The Best of Me’ by David Sedaris for some wry humour.

• Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. So beautiful.

• I’ve read Circe which is beautifully written and intriguing xxx1

• The Offing. - Benjamin Myers . A lovely uplifting read

• I'm currently reading Alice Hoffman's The World That We Knew. I've never read any Hoffman before (but I've seen the film of Practical Magic). I got the book sent to me from the Big Green Bookshop as I got a year's subscription from them for my birthday during the last lockdown. I'm loving this book - it reminds me of All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.

• Just read The Lost Lights of St Kilda by Elizabeth Gifford, and thoroughly enjoyed it. A fascinating glimpse into a lost way of life and a cracking story too!

• Currently reading My Own Words, Ruth Bader Ginsburg - what an amazing woman

• I am reading Night Film by Marisha Pessl... it’s interesting so far and I am enjoying it. Got newspaper clippings and e-mails and things as part of the text...a wee bit different! C x

• Did you read Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi? Brilliant ! And I’m now starting Marylynne Robinson’s new novel, Jack. I always love her stuff .

• I have just read The Book Of Dust by Philip Pullman which was perfect escapist reading with wonderful characters. Now deep into Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad, beautifully written as you would expect.

• I’m reading Bowie by Dylan Jones it’s a great great way to collage a person into existence - and make sense of an artist through a kind of negative space! Love it x1

• Hi I’m reading A life on our planet by David Attenborough which is an incredibly moving account of the Earth over his lifetime, which offers a hopeful way forward after the harsh reality...

• Just read 5 books with large book club (24 members!) Actress (Enright) Shadowplay (Joe O'connor) Hamnet (O'Farrell) Strange Flowers (Donal Ryan) and A Ghost In The Throat ( Doireann ni Griofha). All brill.

• I'm reading 'New Dark Age' by James Bridle, but it's pretty depressing. Might go on a Murakami binge afterwards, including Japanese food, to cheer myself up... 1

• Elif Shafak - 10 Minutes and 38 seconds in This Strange World. Am enjoying it.

• It's not a new book but I recently finally read plainsong by Kent Haruf and loved it!

Let's blow away some cobwebs and find some new horizons to explore! Here are two opportunities to join very different reading experiences with me.

First of all I'm DELIGHTED to say that I'll be joining the poet Holly Wren Spaulding as guest host for a very special four week online workshop centred round reading Joy Harjo's Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings.

As Holly says, 'we need this book: to open our hearts, to mend old wounds, to give us courage, and to show us the way through great pain and uncertainty and upheaval.'

This is a chance for readers and writers from around the world to come together and both read and listen to these important poems. Reading aloud together - even online - allows a special engagement with the work, and there will be time for writing exercises too.

The course - with 90 minute workshops (recorded if you can't join), and readings - costs $215, and you can find out more and sign up here - but do be quick, the places are going fast!

Secondly, I'm pleased to be back running my Reading Round sessions again in September. These are for people living in Kent, because although we will be beginning online, I am hoping we will be back meeting in real-life at some point.

The Reading Round group is a very special thing - designed and funded by the Royal Literary Fund, it allows participants to listen to a short story and a poem read aloud (by me) and then we have a discussion about them. It's such a rich and energising experience, as one participant last year wrote: 'What a treat Thursday mornings are, I look forward to them very much and I am learning so much from you and from the group. It is an enormous privilege to be able to attend.'

The group quickly filled up last year, with a waiting list, but we do have a few places open for 2020/2021. Do email me -readingroundtw@gmail.com - if you are interested. This video will tell you a little bit more about the scheme. Other important details are that it's free (thank you RLF), will start on 17th September on Thursdays during school holidays, 1.30-3pm.

We are in the middle of a downsizing frenzy at the moment, as we've just put the house we've lived and played in for the last twenty years and the big question is... how have I still got spices in my cupboard dating back to the last century?????

I do clear out sometimes, I promise, not that it feels much like it at the moment. I've had lots of useful advice from friends who have been through the same thing:

1. Take photos of objects that have meaning but won't be staying with you

2. Go slowly

3. And of course, via Maria Kondo, ask yourself - does this spark joy?

The problem has been with the things that do bring me joy but also bring a sense of responsibility because somewhere along the line I've been entrusted with them. But, surprisingly, another act of joy has come into play - finding the right new home for them. Freecycle has been my friend, but some things require more thought.

Take these cups and saucers. They were ceremonially given to me years ago by my granny Hereford, and with a story. My dad was a very young soldier during WW2 and when it finished, he bought his mum a fine china tea service with his demob money. Like the 'parlour' in the front of their house, it was too special to be used everyday and only came out on noteworthy occasions. (Imagine a whole room officially deemed 'too good to use'!)

That wasn't to say this tea service didn't mean anything though - even now I could almost put my hand over these cups and feel a vibration of both pride and filial affection. And the truth is that they have been treasured as much by me as they were by my granny.

However, the cups and saucers have travelled with me now through several house moves and two countries and have still rarely been used. Did I want to take them to yet another home?

Having checked that no one else in my family wanted them, I had a brainwave. We have a gorgeous cafe in Tunbridge Wells, Juliets, that uses vintage cups and saucers. Did the lovely Juliet want them? Yes, she did.

So now I can go visit my cups and saucers as many times as I want and see them being used at last.

Just as they should have been all along. I like to imagine the secrets spilled over them, the laughter, the news, and all the friendships. Best still, my dad, when he was alive, loved Juliets - he couldn't believe just how beautiful all the yummy mummies he saw there were. My granny would have tut-tutted, of course. But I think she secretly loved tut-tutting, that well-known song of grannies everywhere...

I'm delighted that my poem, Seeds, was chosen by the powerhouse poet Hafsah Aneela Bashir for her wonderful new project, The Poetry Health Service. This website - subtitled Panaceas By The People For The People - takes you through a number of colour based questions which are soothing in themselves before you get your 'panacea' - a poem read just for you!

Do try it, and let me know what poem you get.

Firstly, I’m delighted to be one of the winners of the Coast to Coast to Coast pamphlet competition with my manuscript Let’s Dance. This is the brainchild of poet and artist, Maria Isakova Bennett and her books are a little bit special, as they are all handstitched in silk covers.

And also this feels even more of a celebration because some of the poems in Let’s Dance began last year as part of a writing residency at the Alde Valley Spring Festival, and this year I’m very proud to be part of the Summer Festival there too, working with the artist Perienne Christian. Her work is stunning so I’m already inspired, and hopefully we will be able to meet in person at the Festival in Suffolk later this year. The Alde Valley Spring and Summer Festival is a very special event, and this year it has gone online so do take a look. Here’s a memory of writing at that time…

A third thing to say is something that has been so important to me that I want to mention it now but come back to later as I’ve so much to say! It was a real honour to be asked to write a module for The Literary Consultancy’s Being a Writer programme. My module centred around Dealing with Self Doubt and Imposter Syndrome – something I wonder if writers ever get over. Perhaps not as this quote from John Steinbeck illustrates:

I am not a writer. I’ve been fooling myself and other people.

There are things we can do though to help us keep going, and it was so interesting to explore all these, and to work out which were the best ones to fit into the programme. It was fabulous to work with the team at the Literary Consultancy, and I quickly found out how much they cared about the whole project so I do hope it helps people. If you have done the course, do let me know how you got on with it, and if you haven't, it's here!

And lastly, one of the 'other' things on my mind recently, as I'm sure it has with you, are the issues raised by Black Lives Matter. It really is a time for me to listen and read and learn more. Here are just some of the books I've been turning to, and would recommend:

However, as this great article shows, there is a danger that 'When black people are in pain, white people just join book clubs" so I'm also happy that, through a favourite ex-student at the LSE, I'll be mentoring two black students on their academic writing. I'm lucky that I have transferable skills, but also fully intend that any mentoring is two-way.

It's a privilege to be able to write all of this post, but also it's important for me to recognise that I've been working hard to get to this position. One of the things that being in hospital and yes, recovering, has shown me is that I need to do what's important to me - poetry, words, art, nature, sustainability, learning and being part of helping everyone reach their potential. I'll be learning to say NO more this year if things don't feel right.

Oh, and I forgot cake. Here's another reminder why I'm so happy to be part of Alde Valley again this year...

Well, I've been very proud to have been that 'mad poetry lady' in the 'mad poetry house' and thanks to all my other mad poetry friends for letting me put their poems up for everyone to enjoy. I lost count of the photographs taken, people stopping to enjoy them, and even an impromptu reading as one woman read them out via Facetime to friends in Spain. I was particularly touched by one couple who said they came by every day to read one poem a day.

Funny how these things happen. I knew when I came out of hospital, I wanted to do something positive and as a writer, words are what I can use. And then one day, I wrote this poem (below) which was actually inspired by a yellow postcard I do have stuck rather inelegantly above my computer. It was only when I read the draft back that I realised I was telling myself what to do! It's like the old saying has it, 'I write to find out what I think'. 

The poems are coming down tonight so I wanted to write this post, not just to find out what I think but to remember it too! (Thank you to fellow poet, Jess Whyte, some of whose photographs I have stolen to use above.)

Truth
Sarah Salway

Today I wonder whether to hang
bunting on the railings outside my home,
each triangle a dot or a dash
for passers-by to read in any direction.
I’ll watch them through my window,
see how their faces change as they realise
it’s a code that only some will break.

Above my computer is a yellow postcard
of a letterpress Morse alphabet.
Sometimes I tap words out with my fingers,
and as my hands remember the dance
of when they’d waltz on my old typewriter,
even my sleek silent keyboard shudders along
with every swing and ding of the carriage return.

We don’t catch strangers’ eyes these days
and it’s this I miss, those snatches
of conversations that won’t even take place
until later, in my mind, I fill in the gaps,
I’ve never told anyone this before but—

That you won’t be able to stop thinking about your hospital room, and who might be lying in the bed now, and how their family might be feeling. Even when you’re doing other things, you are still half in that room and half in the world. You are not sure which feels more real.

That your hair will fall out in handfuls. You’ll look it up on Google, and feel better when you see this is probably a result of those high fevers you suffered. You’ll even pull out the clumps in your hairbrush for the birds to use in nests, until later you’ll start wondering if your hair still contains the virus, if you’re contaminating nests, if birds will start dropping down dead from the sky.

That it’ll all be your fault.

That you’ll feel continually ashamed as if you’re contaminated, dirty.

That people will whisper about you as you go by. She’s the one who… Even when strangers come up to you in the park and say how happy it made them to know that it’s possible to recover from the virus, you'll hear the whispers. She’s the one who…

That the night before you have to go back to hospital for your six week x-rays, you can’t sleep at all. You’d thought you were getting over it but you realise that the whole thing happened so quickly first time round - the ambulance, the oxygen, the visors and PPE that the nurses had to put on to even bring you some water, the messages from people who still didn’t realise what was going on, the lack of any control you might have on the situation – that it might just happen again.

And even though you go to where you are told to go in hospital, even though you have all the right forms, the radiologist still casually looks at your notes before spotting that one word 'covid' and shouts, STAND BACK, and then makes you walk at a safe distance behind him. The rest of the waiting room stare at you, shuffle a little away from the chair you’ve been sitting on. There’s no point in saying that you’ve had two negative tests and you may be the safest one there because you still feel ashamed, and you understand their fear. How you understand that.

That your fingernails have ridges on them now and you can’t stop looking at them. It’s as if your body has been tattooed with where the virus got you, and it’s strangely fascinating.

That you will find yourself surreptitiously judging how much your friends and family can take when you talk about what you went through, how you feel now, what still makes you scared.

That you’ll keep saying, I’m so lucky, I’m so lucky, but actually you’re thinking, why me, should I have dieted more, was I too careless, what did I do wrong.

That you will feel you have to relearn so much about how to be alive, and especially how to breathe. Having to rely on oxygen has made you lose confidence in your body’s ability to do it on its own. You buy an Oximeter online, and catch yourself sneaking off far too often to test your oxygen levels. 

That, medically, you’re left on your own. You have to get your information from Google, from survivor forums, from the articles your friends send you and you wish you hadn’t read but that you’ll pass on. You realise no one knows anything, not even the doctors, and that forever in the future, you’ll wonder if every illness, every pain you feel, is due to the virus.

That you feel a strange connection towards everyone who has been hospitalised like you, and you realise it’s the same connection you feel when you hear a Bedfordshire accent. It’s as if all survivors belong to the same landscape now, the maps of your life have been redrawn.

That you remember when one of your best friends was diagnosed with cancer and he told you that he felt he’d entered into a different world, he’d crossed a line. That was then, he said, this is now. I don’t belong in the ‘then’ any more. You’d thought you’d understand properly what he meant. Then.

That to begin with you will think people are mad when they tell you that you might have PTSD. Because surely that’s for soldiers who fought in Vietnam, people who have suffered serious abuse, everyone who has gone to the edge. Even after you agree to talk to a therapist, you’re still apologetic – it was nothing really – until in one of the sessions, you admit to yourself for the first time how close you came to dying. And then you cry with the relief of not having to hold it in anymore.

That you will realise that you don’t have to be anything, do anything to make other people feel better. You will go a bit crazy - order rosé wines, Liberty fabrics, hardback novels, poetry books, dark chocolate - just because YOU feel like it. You'll drink champagne in the park and not care if you've turned into a character from Absolutely Fabulous because you want to celebrate being alive.

That you'll take it for granted that you can breathe without thinking.

That there will eventually come a time when overhearing how really it’s just like a bad case of flu, that it’s been so positive for us all, that wouldn't it be lovely if it could go on forever, does it even exist, will no longer make you shake. Instead, you’ll find something to agree with there. Because it has been good to slow down. You grow seeds, make a dress, send handwritten letters, write poems. You take it gently, and you laugh again. So much laughter. How good it feels.

And that one day you will be able to hear an ambulance go by, to think of that hospital room, the nurses, and you won’t immediately flash back to your experience. You’ll have created enough distance to be able to stand back and wish that person well. With all your heart. And you’ll make sure that you do that – every time and with all your heart - because whoever they are, you and they belong to the same landscape now. It’s not the one you’d choose but it’s yours. You’re making a new map, and you have no idea where it might take you. 

When I was talking with someone recently about feeling 'over-whelmed', I had the sudden urge to look up what 'whelmed' means.

Definition of whelm
transitive verb

1: to turn (something, such as a dish or vessel) upside down usually to cover something : cover or engulf completely with usually disastrous effect
2: to overcome in thought or feeling : OVERWHELM
whelmed with a rush of joy
— G. A. Wagner

intransitive verb
: to pass or go over something so as to bury or submerge it

Hmm... somehow I thought it might be more positive - like we all hope one day to ravel ourselves together, or to become hibited, or to have our spirits pressed. But no matter, it danced its way into one of the many lockdown poems I've been writing recently about what's going on right now. I'm going to share my practice on here more - there, if I say I'm going to, I'll have to do it. Enjoy!

Top hat and tails
Sarah Salway

When we ask each other what we miss most
the answers spin off like arabesques:
crowded pubs, hugs, a train to nowhere
essential, evenings in sold-out theatres
forgetting real life, planning holidays.

Then there are the second drink answers:
enough years to play with grudges, politicians
who aren’t out to kill us, a tomorrow
where we might finally make that difference,
but maybe the more interesting question

is what we will take with us into new normal:
having time to pick up a dictionary and look up
whelm – to be swept beneath by a wave. Over
under, we’re cheek to cheek now, swimming
into the future, backwards and in high heels.

Like most of us, I'm guessing, my diary is pretty empty these days. Even counting the Zoom meetings, drinks and quizzes BUT... I've taken a huge leap of faith and got myself a new diary which begins at the end of June.

Who knows what will be happening then? And to cheer me up, I bypassed my normal black to go for a splash of colour because, let’s be honest, every little bit of excitement helps right now. I can’t be the only one.

So here's a little diary poem for you.

An empty day

It's hard to remember the excitement
of having only those few free hours,
reading with only a neighbour’s cat
padding into the garden to break
my concentration, sleeping in the sun,
news headlines muted as a blackbird
sang somewhere at a safe distance -
not knowing then the fear of losing
myself somewhere in lockdown,
to think I once called that empty.

*Just one word rhymes with orange apparently. And that, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is “sporange,” an uncommon botanical term for a part of a fern.