And when it became apparent that a new acquaintance must have Googled me for publicity purposes, I checked out my on-line life, saw that my website spoke in future terms of things past, updated it for the coming year https://lizlefroy.wixsite.com/liz-lefroy including information about when and where I'll be performing my poetry (the next time is Monday 17th Feb, Gladstone's Library).
In my internet rummaging, I also found a website which had harvested this information, some of which is true:
Chatting with a friend yesterday about trying to change the world for the better in relation to social justice and the rights of marginalised individuals, I was reminded that I've been alive for quite a long time now. We spoke of the latest change in language - from 'Black and Asian' to 'People of Colour' in some contexts. We talked about how the word 'colour' had been a pejorative not long ago.
Sometimes, I find it hard to keep up, and I see the generation below (my children, park runners, poets, activists) streaming ahead of me. My energy flags, and I see that change is mostly circular. I long for days of solitude with books in a quiet room nearer to the sea.
One of the reasons I can have this dream is that my primary source of income is not Poet. The above website also fails to mention my bike. Tut.
Yesterday's friendly conversation also turned to Raymond Carver, and his poem, Gravy. If you look Raymond Carver up on the internet you will find that lived ten 'gravy' years before he died aged 50. He had a second second chance at life when he gave up drinking aged 40. It's one of my favourite poems - Carver does what poetry needs to do: achieves a clear truthfulness which eases life, which eases thoughts of death:
"he said to his friends, I'm a lucky man.
I've had ten years longer than I or anyone
expected. Pure gravy. And don't forget it."
