Recycling

Recycling

Recycling a story is not unusual, it can be very satisfying revisiting a story written years ago, picking it apart, revamping it, even polishing it up to submit to a current writing competition. You might marvel as you go through your files and acknowledge how much you’ve actually written over the years or see how your writing has developed and changed with time.

            One story I found myself returning to was inspired by a journey I took in 2011 with three good friends. The four of us had recently retired from demanding jobs and decided to team up for an adventure. Leaving our partners at home, we flew to Los Angeles, hired an SUV, and drove up the West Coast of California, exploring as we went. We called our trip ‘On the Road’ and when we reached San Francisco, we visited the fabulous Beat Museum to learn more about Jack Kerouac and his friends.  

From San Francisco we took an Amtrak train across America to Chicago before moving on to meet a friend in New York. We were due to take the California Zephyr but as I recall this was rerouted because of floods and we ended up on the Southwest Chief to Chicago. This part of our adventure we called ‘Girl Guides on a Train’ because it felt like a camping trip at the time. On the Chicago to New York train we travelled alongside survivors and relatives affected by the awful Twin Tower attacks of Sept 2001. They were on their way to memorial events, honouring the 10 year anniversary and we stayed up all night listening to their tales, almost too harrowing to write about.

 It's the ‘On the Road’ section of our trip that's been at the heart of various pieces of writing ever since. The journey crops up in my novel ‘How They Met Themselves’ when two young men travel to California after their graduation. They take the Pacific Coast Highway and meet some extraordinary young women along the way. Both men later make appearances in ‘Lawn House Blues’ and one of them even plays a small part in ‘To Be Frank’. I became so fond of my characters I couldn’t leave them behind.

            It wasn't easy to let go of the Californian journey, so as well as a travel journal of my memories, I wrote a short story based on it for one of my writing groups. The story has been adapted and edited a number of times since and submitted to various competitions. At the fourth submission attempt, and now called ‘Crossings’, it was finally accepted for Robert Fear’s 2023 Anthology ‘15 Fascination Fictional Tales’, which is now available to purchase from Amazon. www.fd81.net. Perseverance got there in the end.  

            I suspect my memories of travelling through California have had their day now and it’s time I pull apart another old story or maybe take some new journeys.  

Touching the sky, written in three forms by Philippa Hawley

Tocca il cielo

 Just beyond Courmayeur and close to the entrance of the Mont Blanc tunnel, Italy meets France. An open, steel arch spreads like the giant’s hand, drawing us to in to explore the Skyway. There are older, longer, higher cable cars in the world but the beauty of this is inspiring. We climb up space-age, steel stairs, clang cross a mesh platform, then step into a globe of strengthened glass, a goldfish bowl for twenty or so people. The conductor arrives, a buzzer sounds and the doors slide shut. Excited, exhilarated, elevated, we start to rise, pulled by silent, heroic cables.

            In our enclosure we quietly smile in anticipation of this so-called ‘eighth wonder of the world’. Stomachs lurch and we gasp as the pod tips over the first of the majestic pylons and sing a communal sigh. This is repeated, accompanied by nervous laughter at each tower, until we reach level 1. We transfer cabins and creep ever upwards towards level 2. The goldfish bowl gently rotates, so slowly it seems it’s our imagination, now showing each and every sky traveller a panoramic view of the mountains.

            Level 2, Punta Helbronner (surely the name of a Bond villain) is the highest point of the cable car at 3.466 metres. Here is the crystal room, where we view the jewels of the mountains, found by ‘cristalliers’, within the Mont Blanc massif.  We step outside – the sun shines and the wind blows hard. The air is thin and cold in early March and we sway a little. Is it the wind or the altitude that stirs us? Feeling mildly nauseous we stand to collect our senses and breathe deep, transfixed by the view. Holding the handrails for stability we mount the final steel spiral to an observation platform on a cantilevered terrace. It’s like a scene from a sci-fi film and we’re a bunch of unpaid extras. Hats and hoods and gloves and sunglasses challenge us all, especially those taking photographs. Smart phone cameras can hardly cope with the silvery glare. Hand held SLRs with filters and long lenses struggle without a tripod. The results can’t help but be dramatic.

            ‘Les Dames Anglaises’, three spikey peaks named in French, watch over us from the left, while ‘Dente del Gigante’, the Italian Giant’s Tooth, stands guard to the right. Centre stage is Monte Bianco, or is it Mont Blanc, wearing a papal cap of cloud and smooth white robes of snow? Over the railings of the platform we peer at the roof of Europe and see the Western Alps spread before us, with eternal blue-white glaciers and dark granite peaks peering 

through the snow as far as the Monte Rosa, the Matterhorn and Gran Paradiso. Below Monte Bianco is the cable down to France, the Vallée Blanche and ‘Mer de Glace’.

            We watch a handful of expert skiers set off from the top towards Chamonix. They sweep through the untouched snow leaving ribbon-like tracks, their skilful, turning elegance belying the effort and courage involved. They must have different and fearless brains to be able to ski this vast and unique off-piste area, where mere mortals have trouble standing still. A group of rugged walkers, equipped with ice axes and ropes, is led off by a mountain guide on their own great adventure – a trail of ants working together as they descend.We look on in awe and smile with tears in our windswept eyes. We get the cable car down, for we have mere mortal brains, but we have touched the sky.

'Tocca il cielo' is a something I recently wrote about Skyway, an amazing cable car in the Alps, for a travel writing competition on the Fred's Diary1981 blog. It can be seen in full, at http://www.fd81.net/freds-blog/tocca-il-cielo-by-philippa-hawley, accompanied by a beautiful picture taken by Clinton Hale. 

After I had completed the 589 word story I decided to see if the same subject worked as a piece of flash fiction in fewer than 100 words:- 

Tocca il cielo (Flash fiction in 98 words)

The glass pod turns within a metal frame.  Excitement mounts as heroic cables haul – elevating us. Stomachs lurch with communal sighs, the cabin tipping over majestic pylons. We reach the peak,meet bright light and harsh wind with a vertiginous sway. We scrabble for hoods and gloves to brave the final, spiral stair to the roof of Europe. Amid distant glaciers and peaks we view Monta Rosa, Matterhorn, and more. Monte Bianco now stands centre stage, wearing a white cap of cloud and snowy papal robes. Tears spring in our windswept eyes, for we have touched the sky.

This led me to turn it into a poem:-

Tocca il cielo  (poem)

Steel arch, mesh stairs

Glass bowl, steel cage

Heroic metal, cables haul

Enclosed, excited –  

Elevate.

Level 1, change cabins

Turn slow, rotate bowl

Panorama

The roof of –

Europe.

Level 2, reach the top

Bright sun, harsh wind,

Thin air, vertiginous sway.

Spiral climb, touch the –

Sky

Spiked ladies, ‘Dames Anglaises’,

‘Dente del Gigante’

‘Monte Bianco’, white cloud cap

‘Monta Rosa’, ‘Matterhorn’, and –

More

Blink tears, windswept eyes

See the sign,

Tocca il cielo

Yes, we touched –

The sky.

So here you have the same story written in three different ways - I wonder which do you prefer?

Philippa.

A Sense of Place 4 - 'Nets' by Philippa Hawley

Travel writing can be a short diversion or part of a long journey. The resulting pieces can be short or extended, resembling either flash fiction or a longer short story. Travelling may give rise to an article or even result in a book.

    For example, Bill Bryson, well known for his ‘Notes from a Small Island’, started off as a newspaper column writer, before writing ‘A Walk in the Woods’. This was about walking the Appalachian Trail with his friend and was, in 2015, made into a film. Another who used travel for inspiration was Chris Stewart, with ‘Driving over Lemons’, descibed as an optimist in Andalucia.

    As a student, one of the first travel writing books I became aware of was Eric Newby’s ‘A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush’. Written in 1958 this adventure, told with British humour, captured many a young person’s imagination over the following decades.

    Sometimes however our aims are less ambitious. It’s great to record our travels, and maybe use a diary to detail the sequence of events. Alongside that, it can be interesting to focus in on one small thing – a meal, a sight, or a character you met. This might ‘show’ the feelings you experienced while away from home, rather than ‘telling’ the reader every step you took. It might also keep your memories alive.

    This is the approach I took in entering a recent travel competition, which asked for a 50-100 word travel highlight. My 94 word piece called ‘Nets’ can be seen here. Re-reading it, I am immediately taken back to the beautiful Monte Isola, on Lake Iseo in Northern Italy. Have a look at the published story:

http://www.fd81.net/freds-blog/nets-by-philippa-hawley

Another 'Sense of Place' story

God! Help me stay alive, among this deadly love, 
by Philippa Hawley

Written following a trip to Berlin, this piece has been submitted for Fred's Blog travel competition, which closes on 31 July 2016. The story includes the idea of flanerie, from the French noun flaneur (usually with a circonflexe accent over the a), meaning 'stroller', 'lounger', 'saunterer', or 'loafer'. Flanerie refers to the act of strolling, with all its accompanying associations.
       The submission has been published on Fred's Blog, and Robert Fear has kindly allowed me to post it on our wivenhoewriters blog. It is another piece of my 'Sense of Place' writing, some of which you may have seen already. I hope you enjoy reading it.
Here is the link to Fred's Blog and Fred's Diary 1981.
fd81.net

A Sense of Place 2 - Iceland for Aliens by Philippa Hawley

At this time of year thoughts often turn to planning holidays. How about giving Iceland a visit? 

Here's a little something I wrote after my trip there in 2013. 

ICELAND FOR ALIENS

We drove through lava fields, vast as Siberian steppes and I waited to be inspired by the sweeping skirts of mountains covered by moss. Lichenous greenery heaped itself over lumps of lava down at ground level whilst higher up it draped shantung-like over an edge, carved like velvet; fabrics folded, pleated and creased by time.

I envisaged tales of trolls hiding behind waterfalls. Rainbows came into view then faded as the sun crept through mists of rain. Pots of gold must be hidden here as ravens flew overhead and whooper swans perched on the volcanic bed. This surely was a place of folk tales and legends – a raven marrying a swan might give birth to a leprechaun, or a troll could cast a spell on a puffin. As it turned out mystical inspiration passed me by.

The stories that captured me were those of my travel companions in this weird and rugged landscape, battling the elements one cold wet September in the remotest of places.

An elderly South African woman, now living in Toronto was travelling alone, still keen to climb rocks, defying her osteoporotic frame. She told naughty stories of

a life well-lived and was not yet ready for bedroom slippers and a quiet life.

An elderly Englishman, a film-maker forced to retire due to hearing loss, travelled with his caring wife who looked after him too well, made him use a stick lest arthritic knees gave way. He’d been places, knew people, loved life.

A stout, middle-aged geography teacher was travelling with a childhood girlfriend. She’d recently met her third husband at a supermarket deli counter doing Saturday morning shopping. The friend was an expert bird watcher, with high-quality binoculars, able to show us puffins, whooper swans, fulmer, skua and wheatear. An excellent companion, she distracted the troubled teacher who was seeking respite from the worries of an aged mother back home but missing her new man.

A group of ten Hong Kong Chinese tourists who lived in Toronto posed at every photo opportunity with dubious camera etiquette, but charmed us still.

A Professor of History from Cape Town, was having some days to herself before sorting out her late aunt’s estate in London. She’d travelled from far in the Southern Hemisphere to the extremes of the north.

We were all mesmerised by the towering icebergs on glacial lagoons – blue, white, black; liquorice allsorts on a cold white sea. We marvelled at the power of volcanoes and the extent of lava fields. We sighed at the beauty of waterfalls and fleeting rainbows that appeared in the haze of spraying water. We were all aliens in an alien land, two degrees south of the Arctic Circle, far out in the North Atlantic at the junction of the North American and Euro-Asian tectonic plates. We walked across the ancient rift valley together and east met west and north met south – now that was inspiring.