Prompt Four: The Reduced Domain Afresh
Everyone’s world has become rather smaller these past weeks. Things are strange here in Edinburgh. The city is so quiet — as if there’s a World Cup final afoot or we’re experiencing a week of Christmas mornings… but the buses still run for the essential workers — and there are often lone joggers, watchful mothers with children delighted at the changed world about them, and good dogs to wave to from my window.
Here are four quick exercises designed to freshen your sensory perception and experience the reduced domain afresh.
Close your eyes for ten seconds, roll your head about, up/down, left/right — if you’re in a twirly chair, spin around a bit; if you’re standing, gently circle around — then open your eyes and look hard at the first thing you see. Then, in just a few sentences, describe that thing/collections of things in detail. For example: I have just opened my eyes and seen the black cast-iron fireplace, eccentrically sanded floorboards and shelves of higgledy piggledy books over to my right, so I'm going to write a rapid sketch of them now thinking about the light, the colours, the textures and juxtapositions — the hot pink of that paperback Orlando colliding with the charcoal of the grate … 150 words maybe.
As a second exercise, hold your nose for ten seconds, then let go and inhale deeply – what you can smell and taste? I’m getting coffee, burn matches and wax from last night’s candles and the slightly musty damp from the street — the light drizzle and mist in the quiet street making it’s presence felt my room here. That’s more of a feeling than a tangible smell but it’s there, in my head. Tell me about your olfactory goings-on.
Lastly, cover/block your ears for ten seconds, then unblock them and listen hard – then describe everything you can hear. Juice your immediate auditory going on and get them down on the page. I can hear Steely Dan playing from the other room, the faintest buzz from the light switches over there (worrying), somebody walking upstairs, water in the pipes, my stomach, a bus hissing and huffing on the wet road, the tick of the rain.
Unpack your worlds and build on your sensory vignettes.
Dan Richards, acclaimed author of several books on travel and the arts, contributed today’s prompt. His latest book, Outpost: A Journey to the Wild Ends of the Earth, has just come out in paperback: it’s all about the appeal of far flung outposts in mountains, deserts and tundras. Given it’s going to be a while before we can get to these places in person, visiting them through Dan’s brilliantly funny, erudite prose is a pretty good alternative. Now would also be a wonderful time to revisit The Beechwood Airship Chronicles, all about the virtues of making art for its own sake. Thank you Dan.
Responses can be shared here next Friday, if you’d like to, or you can email them to me to upload on your behalf (ambermblomfield@gmail.com). And remember to let me know if you fancy joining a cluster.
Happy bank holiday.
Amber x