Hi, and welcome.
I’m starting today with a topic, or a prompt and I hope it helps you to know me a little better.
“I’m Looking At.”
I’m Looking At my dining room table made of teak, recently sanded and oiled by Mr.M. Knots and rings declare its age to anyone who cares to investigate.
This teak table is our “grown-up” table. The one that heralded multi-generational Christmas dinners (with extra chairs brought in the boots of cars). It invited friends for chatty dinners, a cup of coffee and cake, to talk in a way we wouldn’t in a public café.
The teak table is now too big for just us two and we often contemplate how the room might look without it, the space in the room where maybe we’d have a big, soft sofa, or two designer chairs facing the Victorian fireplace.
Neither of us will commit to what we’d choose to replace it, and we generally only use two of the brown leather chairs.
Our previous table was pine, round, and not so sturdy. Yet, it grew beyond baby years, splashes of milk and baby food, to crayon swipes, stabbings of forks and later pencils and pens of homework left frustrated indentations. It absorbed tears as heads hung over an unwanted meal, or a teen contemplating a future they dreamed of, yet weren’t ready for.
Today, I’m looking at my computer on the teak table with pink candles sitting to the right, next to two lilac and pink paperweights from my deceased mother’s house.
Today, I’m looking at how I’ve curated a space here for myself, with rizo prints on the wall; one declaring Love; another shouting Olivetti Valentine.
Today, I sit at the teak table, in front of a large sash and case window painted white with a windowsill of plants in bloom, a pink orchid in stretches upwards and a white geranium sits in the centre, white lacy flowers and plump, hairy leaves.
I’m looking out at the garden and sigh with delight. A small flock of ten or so chaffinches flitting back and forth from the local park, their chests made shiny gold by the sun. They cry out a note-rattling verse and fly; dip, dipping as they make their way to nests, camouflaged by moss in forks of the branches of ancient, giant trees in the parkland opposite my window.
Today, I’m looking at the world outside the dining-room window, grateful that this is my current writing space whilst the rest of the house (upstairs for now) is being renovated, the white dust from plasterboard settling around the place like ghosts from years past, settling on the wooden handrail, the wooden floors, the dog basket, my blonde hair. I’m aware of how lucky I am, but our house isn’t grand. It’s an old Victorian two up, two down that we never moved from, even when our family was bursting at the seams, and we had to be creative with our space. The views from these windows, the proximity to the sea, kept us here.
Today, I’m looking at what our grown-up lives look like now that the children are living independently elsewhere, building their very own futures with their own pine, or teak, or oak, tables, mismatched chairs and benches, and views of their own.
Today, I’m looking at my little corner of Scotland, and in time I will tell you more of what lies beyond that window, what things nurture me as I write, where I walk with a spaniel to unravel plot, where characters whisper to me in leaves in the forest, and on spray from the waves of the Firth of Forth, in this little corner of the ancient Kingdom Of Fife in Scotland.
This is where past lives are embedded in the castle rock, history whispers from stony paths and ancient walls, where snowdrops currently nod in the cool wind, and where daffodils and bluebells will soon dance in the woods; where I’ll anticipate the arrival of wild garlic to gather, to chop and mix into butter; where later in the year, I’ll gather pine cones to sit by the door to forecast the weather and collect fallen shrubbery to make a wreath for our big, old door.
Today I’m looking at a world I’d like to share with you whilst I write the next thing. There’s always a next thing. I’ve been fortunate enough in the past year to see those things in print and I hope to continue that, and more. I’d love for you to be part of that. To simply watch on quietly if that’s your thing, or like a dandelion in the wind, to send seeds outwards to friends who may also enjoy being here in this little writing corner of Scotland.
Are you a writer too? You are welcome to sit for ten minutes and try using the topic “I’m Looking At” to write your own essay or post – and please send me a Substack Note if you do! I’d love to know what you’re looking at!
Thank you for being here and I do hope you’ll come back for more as I can always do with the encouragement.
I’ll be writing about my little writing corner in Scotland – about publishing and writing creatively - and I’ll also be writing (fiction) in this little place – and sharing it with you as I go.
Subscribe and I’ll see you too – and maybe I’ll get to know what you’re looking at, what you’re writing, or reading, too.
Love from my little writing corner in Scotland.
Jackie x
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