Dear readers,
If you’re a new subscriber to RedLands, welcome — thank you for being here. You might find this post helpful as an introduction to who I am and what this space is about.
The world is in a constant state of creation. Things made, and made, and made, and much of it feels like a mystery. Where does it all go? Is everything ultimately recycled in one form or another? - Might we recognise the spirit of the old form in the new? The law of conservation of energy says that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only changed from one form to another. The energy of a thing persists, it goes somewhere, bouncing around the universe, among the stars, among us. Here, a list of things I’ve been thinking about that form and then seem to disappear, or transform into something else:
Ideas - I have them and then, if I don’t note them in that moment, they are lost to me. Since having a baby, the ideas come thicker and faster than ever. I feel like I’m trying to catch butterflies. Often, they flit away from me, quickly out of sight; I try to conjure their colours, the slight movement of air from their wings, but it fades. In her book Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert talks about her sense that ideas are waiting for a person to inhabit. She says that when an idea thinks it has found somebody who might be able to bring it into the world, the idea will pay them a visit. If we’re open and relaxed enough, if our defences are down, the idea can start work — it will prompt inspiration, it will make you notice it everywhere in coincidences, it will not leave you alone. If you say yes to the idea, it will work with you until you bring it to life. If you ignore it, if you say no, it will move on and find the next person. She speaks of an idea she had for a book which, for various reasons, she did not write. Later, another author describes the new book they are working on — it is, give or take some particulars of character and context, the same story. Do ideas roam around, waiting for a life to inhabit? I think in this endlessly creative and creating world that perhaps they do.
Words - where do they go when they leave a page and land in a mind? I am someone who, after I read a book, will quickly forget sentences and names and details. I am often surprised, envious perhaps, of people who can - from memory - quote a line from a book years later. A book might lodge with me but it is usually a feeling that lodges, or some shard of clarity about the world or people. Never the details, never the words.
The integrity of International Women’s Day and Mothers Day - I have never felt more demoralised by such days than right now, never more despondent. I’ve had emails from companies detailing offers and products to mark these days, but what I want is for women everywhere to have the simple but huge things I have — a home, food, water, love. What I want is for governments and leaders to be led by integrity, and courage, and care. In the UK, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak marked International Women’s Day with a reception for female leaders in Downing Street. He said “I am committed to delivering the long-term change needed to build a brighter future for women and girls.” It seems that ‘committed to delivering’ has meant abstaining on voting for a ceasefire in Gaza which would have gone some way to reducing the mounting death toll, 70% of which comprises women and children(1); it seems that ‘committed to delivering’ has also meant a spring budget that further reduces the investment in public services that women disproportionately rely on, despite polling that shows the public prioritise spending on community and locally-run services over tax cuts for individuals(2). The courage, care and compassion I see in so many women I know and don’t know is world-changing; days and empty words and our so-called leaders are not.
Dead birds - the other day, I walked down the lane with my daughter strapped to me. We were following the hedgerow which has been brutally cut back before the growing season kicks off. It was quiet and I heard a noise from the hedge - tiny birds, chicks in a nest that I couldn’t see. I peered behind branches but didn’t want to disturb them or put their mum off returning. I wondered would she return? Had she abandoned them? - By choice, or was she forced by the brutality of the hedge cut? They sounded desperate, hungry. In the night I saw footage of people being pulled from the rubble in Gaza. My mind went to the babies, the children, alone under the rubble right then, right now. Desperate, hungry, abandoned not by choice but by brutality. Where do the birds go, and the babies? Where do the souls go, and the tears that follow in their wake, and the hope?
Bibles - it’s one of the most printed documents in history. Are hotel drawers filled with them? Do they sit dusty on shelves? And when they’re not flattened or warped by the worst bits of religion and people — when they’re allowed to breathe and enchant — where does their spirit go?
Taxes - I wrote something that touched on this recently.
Beauty - a view through a telescope, or forgiveness, or a pine tree dancing with the wind, or care, or an evening softened by a low sun, or any of the infinite pieces of beauty that fill this existence — what do they transform into? Hope? Wisdom? Connection to it all? What if no human is there to witness the beauty? Does it just exist and shapeshift and keep on existing because this universe wouldn’t be possible without it? In Dostoevsky's book The Idiot, a character says that “…the world will be saved by beauty”. I think it will be, I think it is, whether we’re there to see it or not.
“I have always felt charged with the safekeeping of all unexpected items of worldly or unworldly enchantment, as though I might be held personally responsible if even a small one were to be lost.”
– E.B. White
What does beauty mean to you — or International Women’s Day? What do you do with ideas? How do words impact you? I’d love to hear your thoughts on these things, or on anything else this post prompts.
Thanks for being here.
Love,
Elizabeth
Thank you for being here and reading my words. If you find anything of joy, hope, insight or value here, please consider subscribing for free, or upgrading to a paid subscription — as well as supporting my work, for which I’m very grateful, there’s some extra benefits for paid subscribers
Your section on ideas reminded me of this beautiful children’s book - in fact the whole series is wonderful. Do check it out https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/What-Do-You-Do-With-an-Idea-10th-Anniversary-Edition-by-Kobi-Yamada-author-Mae-Besom-illustrator/9781957891347
I have wondered where people go when they pass away. I don't mean whether there is an afterlife; rather, that when someone dies they are no longer materially with us, but they don't leave us - we remember them and what they meant to us, perhaps memories of specific events or sayings. Those memories are within the circuits of our brains, a material, non-abstract 'thing' of an abstract noun, a molecular arrangement in another of a molecular arrangement that is no more. When someone passes something of them remains inside someone else.
I have no conclusion to this thought, other than people are much more than their physical selves