Poetry, Knitting, Filmmaking, Dog Shit

I love the change of seasons. Goodbye summer with your unflattering skimpy clothes, your hateful barbecues and cheerful parties. Autumn brings with it lots of lovely excuses for not leaving the house - too dark, too rainy, too cold. I'm very much looking forward to spending my evenings at home watching further episodes of The Wire with the fire on and a nice bowl of soup or a plate of stew.

September is traditionally a time for setting goals and revising plans, partly because it's the start of the school year, even though none of us are at school any more (and if you are, what are you doing reading this? Go outside and play), partly because there are still a few months of the year left to run, and a decent chance of ensuring that something is achieved, so the year doesn't get written off as a failure or disappointment. It's a time when I ask myself - what have I achieved so far? What have I learned?

Readers who have been with me from the start will know that dog shit provided a particularly rich source of inspiration and learning in the early days of this blog. There isn't much use for dog shit - you can't put it on the compost or spread it around the garden, you just have to pick it up and throw it away. But you can always get a poem out of it, and while that may not seem like an important lesson, it's very comforting, and does say something about life. Remember, it doesn't matter whether the poem is any good or not, it's the act of creation that counts.

Filmmaking, for me, is the new dog shit. I thought it was the new knitting - suitable for all skill levels, the results of your effort growing in front of your eyes, sometimes frustrating, ultimately rewarding, can be done at home by yourself, etc - but there are so many lessons to be learnt from it that, really, I'm going to have to say it's the new dog shit.

One thing I have learned from filmmaking is that small achievements bring happiness and big ambitions bring unhappiness. Of course, you can go and live in an Eco Tipi and learn much the same thing but this way, I don't have to leave the house. And while small achievements (e.g. my short films) have led to big ambitions (e.g. the creation of a futuristic city in my garden) which did indeed bring unhappiness, I do feel that there must be further lessons to be learned, that the unhappiness* is only temporary and there's another step I have yet to find that will lead to happiness. I'll get there in the end.

Meanwhile, I just wish there was a way to incorporate dog shit into filmmaking. If only you could use dog shit to create a futuristic city, for example. But then, by rendering it useful - by taking away its essential and unassailable uselessness - perhaps I would also take away its potential for poetry?

Poetry, knitting, filmmaking, dog shit. One day I will find a way to combine all these elements. The question is, would it make me more happy or less happy to realise such a dream?


*Actually, I'm not unhappy at all. I've got over it and I'm going to make a city out of sweets next time round. But to say so rather spoils the argument.