No energy for witty subject lines

Twilight on the Thames

I was trying to think of something clever to call this post and then I realized my poor brain is so exhausted from my most recent crying bout, that it’s not possible.

It’s been a troublesome couple of weeks and it culminated yesterday with the US consular officer telling me “Congratulations” on passing the interview, but that they weren’t going to issue me my much-needed visa until I had sent in some more documents. Thus, the crying bout which lasted quite successfully with only a few interruptions from about 11am until half past midnight when sleep decided to take me.

Dreadful still doesn’t quite encapsulate yesterday’s low. That said, I’ve realized it’s usually in those moments I rant and rave and doubt there is any goodness in the world and then that’s when I see the most beauty.

In the form of friends and my older sister who called me, in my younger sister who bought me lunch and my favorite Ginger Beer, in the form of friends who wrote all over my wall said a prayer, sent a positive vibe, simply said hello. It came in the form of my parents who sat with me, but didn’t overwhelm me. It came in the form of my dear Kendall, who was quiet and courageous and immediately asked what he could do, even though I know his heart had broken into hundreds upon hundreds of little tiny pieces.

Every single person was like a little flame, lighting up the impossible descending darkness.

And so I’ll be here for our 2nd wedding anniversary. I’ll be here for Thanksgiving next week. I am puzzled by how things have turned out, but I’m coming to terms with the fact that bad things happen to people, be them of good or bad stock. It’s having others be with you in those times that make the great injustice of it all that bit more bearable.

Today has been better. I haven’t cried. I’ve eaten far too many clementines and read lots of my new book, ‘Remember, remember’ A History of Britain and I’ve researched for my own next book.

We’ve worked on collecting these documents and I’m not biting my thumb at the heavenlies. I’m not all the way there yet, but I’m a lot further along.

I owe a lot of that to you all.

Thank you.

O Children

I am desperately trying to do some work on a new book (fiction) which equates to a plethora of notes, doodles, open internet windows and distractions.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seed’s ‘O Children’ has to be the biggest distraction yet. I can’t seem to stop playing it and it keeps tugging away at me, tearing me open to think of children everywhere both real and imagined and what it means to be a child today.

It’s an old song (1994) and I was introduced to it watching Harry Potter 7 Part 1.

I shan’t go on. Have a listen for yourself.

 

Oh, how Dickens’ London lives

                                

Perhaps it’s just my increasing frustration with certain London newspapers (The Evening Standard) and their persistent wish to stir up a mad frenzy of fear in Londoners about immigrants, crime rates and who’s committing those crimes (dark-skinned boys and girls who wear hoods and live on council estates and carry knives). Or maybe it’s the ongoing old tosh being fed to just band together, pay off our credit cards (shut our eyes and count to three) and everything will be all better that’s left me riled.

Either way, ever since I got back to London at the end of Sept I have been floored as to just how much my dear England is in the throes of something awful. While our government tries to work out which way is up and how to get their friends, a particular Mr Fox, out of the pickle he’s landed himself in, and work out what did indeed cause those riots (although according to David Starkey how could we be surprised, Enoch Powell warned us of this ages ago)- the rest of us are left grappling with ever rising rents, salaries (if you’re lucky enough to have one) that have been hit with the immobulus charm, the lack of jobs and its happy friend, unemployment, oh yes and ever growing cuts.

This isn’t to say the government isn’t trying to sort the ailing state of John Bull, but there just seems to be a great disconnect, a great divide. Which has left me goggle-eyed. There has always been a general hope, excitement, headiness about London and now there’s a hurt. Now there’s an incredible fear and unrelenting worry as to how we get out of this hole. Which has made me think so much of London whilst Dickens lived and walked about.

It was a time of great industrial developments, imperial expansions and technological leaps and yet for most nameless, ordinary people their lives were short, unglamorous and a painful struggle for survival until Cholera spent their final breath.

We are not suffering the ‘Great Stink of 1858′, nor are bodies floating on the Thames or are there any workhouses to employ the poor or hovels for houses, but I wonder if there’s a similar feeling of resignation amongst those of us who do not grace the hallowed halls of Parliament and do not decide how the country’s money is spent or how the debt is reduced. We’re left to trust those in office who keep getting caught in their own greed or who bandy about ridiculous advice like ‘pay off your credit cards’, with no real suggestion as to how exactly to do that.

And I am left wondering if perhaps we’re not in need of a serious overhaul. An overhaul of the banking world and its obscene bonuses, of lavish personal spending (not just the rich or middle-classes, but all), of taxes and how our MPs and PM spends them and the interest on debts that seem to be the only things that are growing steadily.

Dickens’ works are classics because they start in the 19th century and they continue with us here. They contain characters that we can still see and they captured a world on the cusp of splendor and hell, which sadly, we aren’t all that far away from.

A little something for you :)

Here’s a little something I wrote earlier in the summer. If you missed it then- it’s not too late to delve into it now. So find somewhere comfy (a good squishy chair, or by a fireplace, or in your kitchen or your favorite corner of your coffee shop) and dive right in. Happy reading my wee ones…

http://www.thehousestudio.com/wp/2011/08/17/dancing-at-funerals-and-little-people-with-big-hearts/

He came, he saw, he conquered

Windmills. New energy.

Today as I stood freezing my every appendage in Victoria station I took out my iPhone to Tweet as such when I read that Steve Jobs had left us last night.

There on the very thing he had dreamed about, sweated through, talked about, convinced about- I learned he had gone.

I scoured new sites and there was his picture in black, white and grey staring back pensively.

The world is full of many brilliant people, some of whom we’ll never know by name, but I wonder how many have the gall to believe as Steve did that they really could do and achieve anything they want to.

I shan’t rehash his biography (plenty of other journalists have done so already). I would humbly like to simply say thank you.

Thank you to the parents who maybe erred when this half- Arab Egyptian half-American tot came into the world, thank you to the parents who took him as his own. Thank you for where he came from and who he was, which was someone who was determined to live life to the full inspite of death eating him from the inside and maybe even because of it.

And most sincerely thank you to his family that sheltered him, embraced him, laughed and wept with him in the privacy of their home so that in his leaving, he was never for a second left alone.

Every now and again we’re granted to see God’s finest works. It always has and I believe always will be in people.

Especially in zen-buddhist, vegetarian, acid-dropping people who mix the arts and tech.

Sleep well.

Steve Jobs 1955-2011.

Camping, bookselling and house hunting

Well helloooo there,

Hope this message finds you well on this wet afternoon here in Manassas, Virginia. Right now we’re staying with some of Kendall’s old college friends from Olivet Erin and Paul Anderson and their sweet pup, Dobby. I mean with a name like that how can you not but love him? He’s got these ears that just flop around playfully and he loves to kiss and snuggle-adorable.

The tour continues and we’re in-between shows and readings so I have a brief minute after wolfing down a yummy couscous salad (thanks, Erin!) to scribble a bit.

It’s been great being able to continue to meet so many wonderful people. It’s so refreshing in these bleak times we’re in to know that good ol’ fashioned community and hospitality lives on.

It’s been fun and a little hard sharing my book with people. Fun, because, flip, I’m finally a published author and have a book to prove it. Hard because marketing myself is weird. Talking yourself up and the product seems strange and fairly arrogant. I have to remind myself I’m not telling anyone I’m better than they are or any better at navigating this bizarre life thing, but just that I have the determined stubbornness to try and capture some of it on virtual ink. Hard because how can you give 250+ pages justice in a few sentences (because in all reality when someone asks you what your book is about-that’s all you’ve really got to reel them in-hook, line and sinker). Hard because quite frankly I still can’t believe this has happened to me. When you’ve waited as long as I have and lived vicariously through others it’s suddenly most overwhelming to realise it’s your turn and you must live it well.

Despite all that, I will try and live it well. So the offer still stands for me to come and speak at your book group, coffee/tea meetings, crafts group (I’ll bring my never ending scarf too!), local bookshop, cafe or church. Anywhere where there are some willing ears to hear me ramble (relevantly, of course).

Now to the other stuff. Driving through America on tour has made my mind swell with ideas. Every time we plough through another forest or creep past the edge of a state park, across creeks and over mountain passes I’m made more aware of all that is invisible around us. All the many beating breaths of people here and gone. I can’t stop thinking about America’s history. It’s ugly days with cotton fields and prairie marches to its history before Europe, with the ancient ways of the Native Americans (I’ve checked and it’s okay to describe our friends as such). I’m floored with its still incredibly beautiful present despite all the development and production and its tentative future in an age of ‘me, you and everything we’re afraid of’. So naturally a story has been stirring. It’s nestled in quite deep and is sleeping in its gestation, but I already know it’ll be a mammoth task- so much so I’m about to email my favourite American historical fiction writer to seek her advice.

As if all of that wasn’t enough-we’re house-hunting. I feel legitmitely old now. I am house hunting. Not to rent, to buy. Yes, we’re that serious. Eek. Indianapolis still has our hearts, so that’s where we’ll return and when you receive messages like the one we got from dear Benjamin Blevins, it’s easy to see why.

The road has and continues to carry us into the new and old, but I simply can’t wait to finally park our Toyota Camry (still running, please God) in our drive way outside a lemon coloured house.

I’ll be speaking and playing at Crossroads, Church of the Nazarene (in the D.C.) area this Sunday. If you’re nearby, I’d love to see you!

p.s. Massive chorus of love to my Mai on her birthday today!

p.p.s. Can’t wait for the final installment of my advance (MACBOOK here I come!)

Marmalade- our beloved tent

I shall be released

Can’t write for long as I’m attempting the impossible again with my ridiculous phone which keeps crashing.

Grand news…cue trumpets…my book has been released! Hoorah, she’s here at last. Check out my publisher’s site: www.thehousestudio.com for more. (p.s. There’s also a new blog up there on why I wrote the book.

Sorry to be so cheeky but, if you’d like a signed copy- I’ll happily oblige Just let me know by email (erinaludwig@gmail.com)

Also as I’m currently on tour with The Yellow Kites I’m also zipping around the country until the end of Sept. Sooo, if you’d like me to come and talk at your church, book group, coffee shop or local bookshop- I’ll drive right out there. Just let me know. (keep an eye on my Twitter to follow our mad route- or our gig guide on the yellowkites.com

Right have to run. Kendall and I are going cook veggie burgers on the camp fire and have smores to celebrate on the ridges that run through North Carolina to celebrate

Can’t wait.

And seriously, thank you for making this little writer into a real one at last.

Much love,

Erina

P.s. Anyone recognise the lyrics in title?

Le livre!

Just wrote you all a massive blog on my phone as I have no computer and it crashed, without saving it.

Will have to try again when I get a computer.

Love you all,

Erina

USCIS and Americana

I’m sipping on orange juice (fib, I’ve finished the orange juice now) as I write this and listening the good music of our friends in Indianapolis and Upstate New York.

The sky has that bland, lost look. It’s bright enough to be sunny, but the clouds are so low everything just looks like a white grey. Oh British summertime, how you tease us.

I’m teaching English in the afternoons for the next week and a half and feel pretty rusty with it all. I’m a firecracker for those first couple of lessons in the day and then by lessons 3 and 4, I’ve waned. Not that having a phlegmy and yet dry throat helped much. Ahh well, just have to make it a wee bit longer.

We got an email back from USCIS (the U.S. Immigration power that be) telling us our petition (that’s right, Kendall had to petition that I could even be allowed to apply for a visa) has been approved. But I’m a doubting Thomas, always have been. Until I have the piece of paper in my hands with my visa case number this small victory won’t register.

It’s funny the longer this process drags on the more doubting I become and as for faith-pish. In my old age I’ve become a cynic and a questioner of everything and an unremitting realist. So, this is hard and I’m trying. I fail a lot, but I’m still trying.

Now to Americana. Love the stuff. There are a lot of people out there with this particular label attached to their sound, but it’s only after listening to the likes of Patty Griffin, Shawn Mullins, Nate and Kate, and my own hubby’s stuff that I realise just how rich this music is. It’s like a giant cooking pot with bluegrass, country, folklore, rock, ballads and the blues. Love it. Any music that can capture that much story and that much sound is something that warms my heart.

Just try listening to Nate and Kate’s stuff: http://nateandkatemusic.com/ They cover an American traditional folk song, The House of the Rising sun- beautiful. The mixture of harmonica, cello, guitar and sweet vocal harmonies just reverb within you.

Well, the post arrived bearing nothing from the USCIS. Bah.

Must go and plan some lessons now and maybe practise a wee bit of harmonica.

Greys

Friends, family and farmhouse lunches

At the Woodman with Jo and Jeff

Ben and Lauren- hurrah!

A Ploughman's lunch

Cute older couple playing on their second honeymoon

This week I have finished up full-time work teaching English at St Giles College, realised the US immigration process is a royal pain in the bottom (I-864 anyone?) cleaned our house top to bottom for our lovely guests, painted a dodgy wall on the stairwell, sold my piano, been sent into a state of stupor over the 1040 tax forms and procrastinated over what to pack next. (Je deteste l’emballage).

Somehow we’ve split our impossible to-do list in two. Kendall is furiously working on all things band related, I- on the dreaded immigration process.

But within all of it there’s been a lot of good. We’ve been able to spend warm, hazy Friday afternoons with our colleagues drinking cider at the Woodman after work, playing English language puzzles and riddles (we’re complete nerds) and story-telling until it’s dark and there’s no way to ignore just how cold the nights still are. We’ve been able to play live music at the Abbey Tavern in Kentish Town and listen to vagrants and troubadours sing their little hearts out on Ukeleles  and mandolins (where we also met an American couple on their second honeymoon singing a song about their thirty-something year old son).

We’ve met with old friends from Indy and their adorable children. We’ve eaten chilli with cheese and mint ice-cream out on the deck whilst the girls (Lola and Sophia) led the evening with dramatics. (Little big wind, Jack had already gone to bed).

We’ve walked along Regent’s canal and gawped at tortoise shell hyenas in London’s zoo and climbed up Primose Hill’s huge hill and taken in it’s wide, wide panning view of London. We’ve followed it up with vanilla ice-cream and chocolate flake from the Mr Whippy ice-cream van and gone to see beautiful theatre at Sadler’s Wells with Kendall’s cousin Ben and his lovely wife, Lauren.

Until yesterday, the weather has been a summer’s dream. But there’s also something precious about rain, not just for the straw like grass we all have here from the lack of it, but for deep inside us. Maybe it’s because it was a quiet, steady rain, or maybe it’s because I was snug inside with my hilarious read The history of tractors in Ukrainian, but the rain was kind and good and a medicine of sorts in this frantic time.