Space

One of the joys of being here is having the space to think. Not just to write. I've been catching up on some reading and watching that, if I'm honest, I do have time for back at home but never seem to get round to. For instance, this documentary about Jacques Derrida has been sitting on my shelf for about two years. I have thought about watching it several times, but somehow always end up in front of something like Dog Borstal or The L Word instead. However, when I finally got round to watching it yesterday I was enthralled. It's one of those pieces that you have to keep stopping so you can scribble notes down all the time. Like little flashes of light coming at you.



It's probably not the best way of learning about Deconstruction or Differance, but I did learn how Derrida's mother told him off for spelling difference with an 'a'. And it's beautifully done. It's moving, lyrical, even beautiful and shows rather than tells a lot of Derrida's theories. I can't tell you how many times I replayed one of the end scenes which films Derrida watching a film of his wife leaving the house again and again. And the look on his face when he was filmed during an interview and was asked which philosopher he would have like to have been his mother was priceless.

From some of my scribbled notes:

* When you write a text about someone you fix them in time. So someone who reads just a paragraph but interprets it in his/her own fashion is more of the biographer.

* The eyes don't age. To find your childhood, look in the eyes. An old man still has child's eyes. The gaze has no age.

* Staying on the verge of a confession.

* Does one love someone or does one love the something about someone?

* Love is the movement of the heart.

* When his mother was ill and confused, she told him - the son she didn't recognise - 'I have a pain in my mother.'

There's lots more, but these were just some of the phrases I could decipher.

I'm going to put up my morning prompts from my magic red notebook because I know from emails that some people are planning to follow them too. If you manage to write something from one of the prompts, then do please let me know. I'd love to link them here, or even just read them! So today's is ... It's what I do in the middle of the night...

That's easy here - it seems I get up. Not quite in the middle of the night, but here's dawn this morning from my window: