As I look out my window

As I look out my window ©

By Michael Casey

As I look out my window I try and decide what to write about today, I can write about what I’ve seen on the news, or what I see out the window, or just from the window in my mind. I may write parody, like I did the past 2 days, or I may write from life, from our Shanghai/ Birmingham family, not forgetting Totoro our cat. I don’t know what I’ll write each day, it may be minutes or even moments before I know what I’ll put on the page. I just hope it’s interesting and amuses. I have been writing a long time now so I hope the quality stays high.

Now a few minutes ago 2 Polish men walked up the road carrying a bed, or the top of the pine bed frame at least. Are they moving house at this time of night? It’s nearly 9pm now. Or is one man giving away the bed to another man? Now because I’ve just seen that I could write 2 pages about beds, there is so much in the soup that I can just about write about anything at the drop of the hat. 

The soup by the way is my life experience, so I just ladle out a story just like a school dinner lady, though obviously I am much more attractive if I were in drag, David Walliams is a dear dear friend. So as I write the story I add the meat and two potatoes, and a dollop of gravy splashing over the plate and onto the tray and even onto your school uniform. I may or may not add pudding, it’s not up to me, it’s up to the story, if the story is very funny it’s because the story is funny, or does that sound too pretentious.

I’m listening to Celine Dion right now as I talk to you, she’s good. But she’s also sad, because the night my mother died her song was on the radio, You Lifted Me Up etc, so that song has a family connection to us, forever. So you can see how words and events have such power, they can control us and we not them. I enjoy not knowing what will happen with my story, will it turn right or left, will it go around in circles. I just hope it’s always interesting.

Now Totoro our cat jumps up the back of my chair, she’s a literary critic, she wants a cuddle before I’m allowed to carry on. The trouble with giving your cat or wife a cuddle is that you forget your place with the story. You can run out of steam in mid-sentence, so you have to end the story abruptly. Having music on can have the same effect, Celine Dion is singing I remember L.A. I haven’t heard it in ages, so I want to stop and listen so the story suffers. However as I’m explaining the mechanics of story writing its ok, now I’m  being nagged to go out to collect a Chinese takeaway, and the kids have come back from choir practice. They are telling me about a cute cat they spotted on their slow Summer evening walk back from choir.

Ok, I’ve just been up the road to New Peking, takeaways haven’t changed to Beijing yet, I’m still the take away fetcher. I get none either, my pigs say it’s for the good of my health, 18 months since my quadruple heart bypass and they’ll use any excuse not to share any nice food with me.

My big daughter is happy tonight, her braces are off after over a year, so now she has a plastic retainer over her now perfect teeth. I told her she looked like a rugby player with a gum shield, or a boxer. So she smiled back at me, and now she can smile. I did tell her we still have 1000s of photos of her with her gap teeth and I’d have posters blown up on the walls on her wedding day. Though some days due to all the pain I get  I wonder will I live that long.

Noises off, Totoro’s two bells ring as she tries to get some noodle left overs, she is of course bilingual, so you cannot fool her. As for me I’m back at the computer trying to explain things to you all. Perhaps I should have called this piece Explaining, that rings a bell and not just Totoro’s bells, is it a Clapton song? And yes I did meet him once but I told you that before.

So on the story goes and it should have a structure, it should not ramble, but so long as the rambling is interesting does it matter? Then the end by tradition does complete the circle. And they all lived happily ever after. In our case, my pigs have finished the noodles and Totoro got to lick the container clean, as for me I got nothing, for the sake of my health.

Now as its nearly 10pm and I may watch the news or we may all watch a film together I have to finish for the night. At this point I read back the story and listen to it in totality for the 1^st time, then I’ll give myself marks out of ten, and sometimes I’m really pleased where the story has led me, I don’t lead the story. On other occasions the meal I’ve prepared is not as tasty for me or for you, I can only use the ingredients in the back of the fridge, in my mind, in my soup. 

But then again there’s always tomorrow.

****** Thank you Mauritius and China for reading my stories, if you are an angel investor in China please email me, or then again you may think I’m a farmer.