Starting a war on lol

I am declaring war on the ubiquitous acronym lol. Not only does it confuse those who didn't grow to maturity in a 90's chat room or in the current glut of social media platforms (how many non-digital natives think it means Lots of Love?), but it no longer holds any real meaning. It's used mostly to imply 'I find your statement mildly amusing' and then when you really are laughing out loud it needs to be stated with more fervence.

I found myself recently saying llol instead: Literally Laughing Out Loud. I've seen people write "lolling" as if lol is now a word instead of an acronym. And them there's lmao and pmsl and rotflmao and many other variations that are attempts to express the varying levels of amusement that may be generated in online interactions.

There are so many brilliant words for the many forms of laughter that are never used outside of an erudite novel. When was the last time you heard someone guffaw? Do you ever chortle or chuckle?  How about that person on the train who had the best cackle you'd ever heard? Everyone should snigger at least once, and sometimes a joke deserves a titter.

And that's just in English, in which there are apparently 42 ways to express laughter in typing. Even plain old hahaha is expressed differently in other languages online.

One of my favourite movie moments is a character in Amelie describing to her how Nino used to collect laughs. I've found myself mentally doing the same. Noting the kind of infectious laughter that makes you laugh too. Or the one that makes you snap out of your own thoughts just because it's so unusual.

How many ways can you laugh?

Letters to the future

When I was thirteen I started a ritual. I got the idea from a novel - the name of which has long fallen out of my memory.

Each birthday I sit down and write a letter to my future self. A real handwritten letter on paper and sealed in an envelope for a year. Then at 3pm each birthday (my birth time) or as close to it as I can manage, I open it, read it and write the next one.

I did it for ten years, then stopped for ten years, and started again last year. Ironically I think the years I wasn't writing it were probably some of the hardest years I've had: the ones where that annual reflection and reminder from my past self might have been more useful than usual.

I've only ever showed those letters to a few select people in my most inner circle, but maybe there's something in there for other people too. So here's a snippet from last year's letter:

"When you are lost, you only need to remember. Look at who you have been to remember who you are. Look to the dailiness of love that you have lived, even when the softness of it was not there. Trust your reserve and your patience and kindness. Follow your sensitivity."

For me those letters have become a touchstone for the person I am. A way to reconnect with who I have been all along, a reminder of my ambitions and daydreams and yearnings. Sometimes reading them makes me sad at the contrast between one year and the next; sometimes it leaves me with a wry smile at the surprising wisdom of my younger selves; and then sometimes it's incredibly grounding.

People write letters to their younger selves all the time, but that seems pretty useless to me. We can't go back in time. Our youth cannot be shaped by the adult we will become, but the reverse is usually true.

So, what do you want to say to your future self?

Chronicles 2012 (1)

We wait, steady on the tarmac
watching others come in
They look so fragile on the wing
dipping and swaying lower
last minute adjustments
as the ground rushes up
to touch in a cough of smoke

Now we inch forward
turning from the land
and then the rush, the gravity
My belly is feathery, fluttering
the power catches my breath
Up, up, impossibly airborne
on wings of metal and wire
weighted with scraps of our lives

My attendants are both men
one beautiful and shiny, lovely
but his soft edges, a lilt to
the voice and hips, a slick
of lipgloss betray his allegiance
The other is sculpted in face
his hair rising to a peak
an accent, pale eyes, a smile
for the ladies. A set to his
mouth reminiscent of a smirk.
He's not my cup of tea
---- though he serves me a coffee
(it's airplane coffee, watery
with a dribble of milk
but it induces a sense of
working towards wakefulness)

Two women a row behind me
laugh the same laugh, in sync
once, twice, peals like waves
a man is the cause I'm sure
I smile to myself and the window

Dream for my brother

They were coming for you
a They we only knew to run from
I never questioned that I would aid you
I never asked what you had done

I gave you a car to go from us faster
a car that wasn't mine to give
it was the colour of courage
I gave you the colour of strength

when you veered off the highway
the car you drove was white
the colour of beginning, or of death
now wedged in a crack in the earth

I crawled through the wreckage
crumpled at both ends like paper
gathering up your abandoned keys
fat bunches of keys to everything

brother, where are you running to?
do you know what you left behind?
your gods cannot love you as I do
follow them, but take your keys

(2011)

How to kiss me for the first time

Slowly. Gently. Sweetly. Subtly. With anticipation and a touch of reverence. As if there's nowhere else to be, no goal or destination, just this moment. Just the faint stirrings of desires to come.

Kiss me like Amelie and Nino. Start somewhere else. Not the back of my hand, which tells me you fancy yourself a ladies man. Not my neck, which speaks of the intention to arouse. Not a peck on the cheek, which feels brotherly, chaste, sheepish.

Start at the top of my cheek, the line of my jaw, my temple, the corner of my mouth. Linger, press your cheek against mine, skim your lips over my eyelids. Appreciatively, savouring.

Sensitively, reading my responses, noticing your own. Curb the impulse to rush in. Wait. Linger. As if you've wanted to for a long time, and can't quite believe it is happening.

With hands light on my waist, or in the small of my back, or holding mine. Holding but not trapping me.

Hold my face gently. Perhaps to turn me so that you can reach the other side, a nudge to turn my face up towards you, to cradle me when you finally reach my mouth.

Then gradually, as if you are holding back a dam of desire. As if, bit by bit, yielding to irresistible temptation. Our desires feeding off the desire of the other. Bodies leaning inexorably closer. With pauses and hesitation, easing into each other, seeking in increments.

So that, when it ends, my outward breath says 'yes'.