Life moves pretty fast

This time last year I was working through a BBC Maestro course on storytelling with the writer and graphic novel supremo, Alan Moore. It was a fascinating course and, as luck would have it, this year has begun in a similar way. Yesterday evening I joined a webcast hosted by The British Library as part of their Fantasy fiction celebration, with Alan Moore and his fellow fantasy writer Susanna Clarke.

Their readings and discussions were intriguing and have had me thinking overnight and while running round my hometown this morning. Specifically, it was part of their conversation that spoke about magic, both it’s important role within the fantasy genre but, more importantly, how the “magic” of the real world is often hidden in day-to-day life, particularly in modern times, but that the power of the written word is to reveal this aspect of life.

Magic was defined by these intriguing characters in this context as representing the intangible. That is the connection between us and the natural environment. The understanding that pretty much everyone explores and experiences at some point in their lives, that there are things that are not understood but everyone knows what they are when they experience them.

This is not a failing of science to describe an aspect of our universe. In fact, it is more about how, as Alan Moore described it, that there is a “semi-permeable membrane between fact and fiction” that we cross as a species on a regular basis.

It manifests itself in our response to animals and the environment – one example I think I have described in my post Companions about the animal visitors I have received at difficult times.

Concurrently, why do I take comfort from having a conversation with my visiting pet cat, running my hands through the Rorschach patterns of his fur, whilst he fusses my ankles in an attempt to obtain the tuna he knows is sitting in the cupboard? That is a type of magic. A bond that is intangible between our species but is undoubtedly there in my “hello Zaz’s” and his meowings in return. There is a shared fiction and fact of our stories together as cat and victim friend!

Alan Moore also postulated about a literal “disenchantment” of our human environment. That is that the magic of our connection to and experience of the world as a species has been eroded. The most obvious example of this is our ongoing damage to the environment but it exists more subtly in concrete and electronics where they move us away from experiencing the world around us.

This resonated with my thoughts this week after conversations on returning to work and with neighbours. The “magic in the air” that Kermit the Frog sings about Christmas Eve can often feel like it has dissipated by this time in January. There are Christmas trees on the roadside bereft of their decorations and myriad lights, waiting to head off to the chipper, which as Pheobe observed in Friends, is not as nice as it sounds! There is very little excuse to have a mince pie for breakfast, the house seems a little barer and the poinsettia is on its last knockings. All in all, there is a palpable difficulty to get up and doing on cold mornings in this part of the world.

This is where Susanna Clarke and Alan Moore, as great writers, however step back in and champion why the written word is so powerful. It is because it allows us to engage our imagination and reconnect with that repressed “magic” that is more difficult to find during that cold January in a modern setting. It can allow a reversal of the aforementioned erosion, by making us aware of our surroundings.

For me, a manifestation of this is my enjoyment at reading history. Two examples of this sprung immediately to mind in my day-to-day life as I listened to their discussion and that I realise I subconsciously adopt on a regular basis.

Firstly, is my connection to the Roman Road Ermine Street. The alignment of that historic road from London to York runs only a short distance from my house and I walk up and down it on my way to work or even to pick up a Chinese takeaway. Many times, I have thought about the historic significance of that route and the countless people who have covered it.

I have imagined Roman Soldiers from across the empire, wrapped up against the weather as they head north to Eboracum or Fort Vindolanda on Hadrian’s Wall. If the theories are true, maybe Knights Templar are making their way to Royston Cave for a mystical ceremony. I can see the cortege of King James the First’s royal household, arriving at his hunting palace that I pass on my way to work. Maybe a century later Dick Turpin is hiding in a local coaching inn or in the more recent past, local young men head together to catch the train from the station along the road on their way to the Western Front.

Secondly, at a more esoteric level, is how heraldry can be seen dotted around Britain in so many places. And within that expression of traits can be seen all sorts of mythical beasts and characters which we think nothing of and yet experience on a daily basis. The Unicorns that proliferate royal insignia or the dragons as you see as you enter the City of London. I have hats and scarves with the Enfield beast on them for when I go to support Enfield Town, and in the homes of each of my family can be found a Lincoln Imp to remind us of our origins and ancestors.

These writers therefore encouraged all of us watching them to consider this “magic” more regularly. To let our imagination play with the places around us. (I wrote my post “contemplating the unremarkable” after Alan Moore had also mentioned this in his Maestro course). I understood this as a type of mindfulness, to use a modern term. To be aware of what our senses are telling us at any given moment but also to see just a little further and move into the historical, mythical and fictional that is present in the moment too.

Thus, I think this might be a way to bring a little magic back into cold January days and a way, when times might be difficult for us mentally and spiritually, to move from disenchantment to re-enchantment. A good story, well told, even in our own mind, can be a powerful thing.