Welcome
Welcome to the Observatory.
Before I go any further, I have three announcements to make. The first is the publication of my fifth book A Face Like Glass (you can read more about it here). The second is the launch of my brand new website, complete with a “Twisted City” theme and a hidden story. And the third… is my first ever venture into the world of blogging.
To be honest, it’s the last of the three that’s making me a bit nervous.
Oh, I know that blogging is supposed to be easy for me. After all, I’m a writer. I regularly send big, fat parcels of my words out into the world, without knowing whether people will like them or use them as kindling.
That’s rather different, though. When you’re writing a book, you can always hide behind your characters. Mosca, Hathin and the rest may be quite short, but if I duck low enough I can still conceal myself behind them, so that not even the tip of my hat is visible. The problem with blogging is that you have to do it as yourself.
Oh well, here goes.
I’m going to imagine myself in an observatory tower, surrounded by my charts, scribbled notes and brass globes of imaginary worlds. I peer out through a rounded window at a dark and misty vista. Is there anybody out there? I have no idea. I raise a lantern and swing it in front of the window a few times, sending my Morse Code message out to the void.
Then I wait and watch, feeling a bit silly. Will anybody signal back? Have I just accidentally misdirected ships at sea, causing them to crash on distant rocks? Or will my tower now be battered by the wings of giant moths?
Needless to say, any giant moths who are passing are welcome to leave a comment…
Well, I’m not sure I’m a giant or a moth; nor was I passing – I was directed here very cleverly by someone on Twitter. Twitter is littered with streets bearing all sorts of signs to all sorts of places. I suppose, a bit like an observatory. Anyway, welcome to blogging and your new website looks fantastic.
Thank you very much! I’m glad you like the new site.
Ah I have finally worked out how to comment – yeah well done me, and well done you for starting blogging and your lovely new website
Very much enjoying your new website and looking forward to the next blog. And I’ll know when you’ve done one because you shall tweet about it!
I so wish you’d chosen Facebook instead of Twitter as your other “public” place Frances! Love the new website though!
No, I decided not to go down the Facebook route, but there’s still a possibility that I might do so at some point in the future. Thanks for dropping by to comment, and I’m glad to hear you like the website!
You’re welcome – and I loved A Face Like Glass btw. I’ve written glowing reviews on Amazon for all your books!
I’d love you to get a Facebook page one day. All my favourite (but one) now have them 😉
I’m so glad to hear you liked A Face Like Glass! Thanks very much for taking the time to review my books.
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
A giant moth that has been partially retarded in a time flux and is only now responding to the Morse-Code-lantern-swings that came from an Observatory window several years ago.
Several years ago…? Can Morse-Code-lantern-swings really last that long?
Normally, no. But some of them have a radioactive half-life which seems to allow them to be seen (or not seen) in other times and places.
Mmmmm…..that’s interesting. Do you have a name, giant moth?
My friends, such as they are, sometimes call me Mothra.
And….can you really read Morse Code, Mothra?
No….not really. But I can read between the lines. And (caution: confession follows) I’m not really a ‘real’ Giant Moth. But more of a F.T.M. (Floating Thought Moth).
(a moment of mutual silence)
You see, some Giant Moths don’t fly so much as float …. in the way that some thoughts can float.
You wouldn’t be referring to the moths in Mary Oliver’s poem, about Sleeping in a Forest?
Yes. And I didn’t fly here so much as float….on the wings of sleep and thought –
“I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,
nothing between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths
among the branches of the perfect trees.”
Okay. But this is an Observatory, and not a Forest.
I know. But sometimes….it’s hard to tell. The difference.
(longer pause…..then the fluttering of wings)
Are you leaving now, Thought Moth?
Yes. I must. You see…I’m only around half way through with the misadventures of Ryan, Chelle and Josh …. and I won’t be able to sleep before finishing one more chapter. So —
Hasta la próxima. And thank you for … the spaces between the lines … and the way the lantern shines in the darkness.
Thank you for visiting, Floating Giant Thought Moth, and may the winds be kind to your twilight-coloured wings. May fortune send you quiet air, lofty perches, and nectar-filled, night-blooming flowers as big as gramophone horns.
Thank you, O Watcher and Waiter in the Observatory, for your generous wishes. Of lofty perches, there are many to be found if one flies long enough and keeps one’s eyes open, not to mention one’s other mothly senses alert.
There are night-blooming flowers a plenty, though quite as sweet as the nectar of the Mock Orchid. But alas, it blooms but once every forty years, and then only under the light of the full moon, and for a few heart-stoppingly short seconds … then wilting before one’s very eyes. I saw one once, 39 years ago, but I was younger then and my wing muscles had not attained their power or maturity, so by the time I reached it, it had literally drooped and withered away.
But soon, that 40 year cycle is coming to a close once more and if my Moth Luck holds and my wings don’t fail me, perhaps I shall be granted a sip of that long-imagined elixir.
In the Observatory, with your Globes and Telescopes and Tide Charts and Sextants, I imagine you have read of – and glimpsed – many strange things. The passage of the tides, the waning and waxing of the moon …. and the bewildering variety of lifeforms that swim, fly and occasionally clamber around your own lofty perch. Perhaps, high in your Tower, you have have witnessed Life, Death, and Birth, in their myriad forms. No perhaps about it, I’m certain you have. Not to mention the twin R’s of Rebirth, and its cousin, Rejuvenation. There are those, in human circles, who believe the twin R’s can be achieved through a judicious cup or three of tea, especially from certain rare green tea leaves coveted by Yogi masters.
But we Thought Moths don’t normally get invited to tea. Most of the time, we must make do by nourishing ourselves with Thoughts….and Words as well.
One of my more recent refueling stops came in the pages of an essay by Virginia Woolf, in which she talked of my diminutive cousin many times removed, a moth whom she glimpsed one evening on a window-pane. She wrote: “Watching him, it seemed as if a fibre, very thin but pure, of the enormous energy of the world had been thrust into his frail and diminutive body. As often as he crossed the pane, I could fancy that a thread of vital light became visible. He was little or nothing but life.
And she went on to say: “It was as if someone had taken a tiny bead of pure life and decking it as lightly as possible with down and feathers, had set it dancing and zig-zagging to show us the true nature of life.”
The true nature of life…I think it can be found in many places. In a phrase, in a melody, in the flashing eye of a lighthouse on a foggy night. In the slow step of a turtle, or the zig-zag of a bat. And almost always in a good book.
I must be off now, in search of more lanterns, more messages, and always more window panes on which to settle. And the clouds are darkening now as the wind rises: I fear there may be stormy weather ahead, not merely for a wandering Moth, but for the ships I glimpsed earlier, en route to the land mass where your Observatory tower sits. So be forewarned, O Watcher: your Lanterns and Signals and Codes will be needed soon, by untold others.
But mayhap if I come again, there will be a chair large enough for a Giant Moth, and we can have a longer and more civilized exchange. Saki said: “Find yourself a cup; the teapot is behind you. Now tell me about hundreds of things.”
Buenas noches y buena suerte, en tu Observatorio.