Jackee Holder

Horace

November 11th 2005

Dear Moon wRiter

The Full Moon is soon upon us. How have you been? It is 4am in the morning and I am up writing. Yesterday I found out that Horace who had worked in Clearaprint stationers for over 20 years in Brixton was murdered by being kicked to death by a gang. I stood waiting for my patty in the bakery around the corner from where he worked when I turned and saw a poster on the wall with his photo starring back at me. When I read a bit more to my horror it was displaying a tribute to him. I burst into tears.

On the way home in a daze I thought about him and pictured his smiling face. I had known Horace from my first full time job working on an Adventure playground in Vauxhall over twenty and more years ago. Over fifteen years he would make my trips to the stationary shop on Coldharbour Lane, Brixton so pleasurable with his fast wit and charm.

I remember one year when we had these conversations about him wanting to try something different, a new career but he really didn’t know where to start. I really wanted to offer more support but busyness meant that we never got to take those brief conversations any further.

Years later the stationary shop where he worked owned by the printers next door got sold and he got moved next door to the printers. In the stationers he had been his own boss. He ruled the roost. Now his energy seemed less vibrant, something had left him but still once in a while we would be greeted with the lovely smile and half a zinging comment.

So why am I telling you all this? Because I use life to influence my writing and talk to me as a writer and what I got from Horace’s death today is how much as writers we are letting life and our writing slip through our hands. We let ideas and articles drift away in the winds of our thoughts. We start and don’t finish the things we want to write or we simply don’t start or write at all and before we know it we die.

Moon wRites is a space for you each month under the watchful eye of the Full Moon to make a place in your life for the ancient ritual of writing. Just two hours of your time, once a month.

Following the messages and signals of our lives tracking myself I can see how my to do list is full of things I do for others. This is so connected to what I felt yesterday. Nowhere on these long lists each day are the things that really matters to Jackee.

One of the things that really matters to me is my writing. So news of Horace’s death prompted me this morning to get up and write. The birds are singing outside the window as I tap away at the keyboards. At 4.20 am, I feel peace and wholeness, feelings I experience almost every time I surrender and give way to my writing. I like you don’t know when my time to exit this world will come. But I know I want to leave knowing that I did a lot more of the things I said I wanted to do and that includes the things I want to write about.

Whether your writing is for publishing or pleasure don’t let it drift away from you and never be realised. Who knows who Horace may have been had he taken that one step, that one risk outside the world of Clearaprint. Just like the blank page who knows what you will write, where it will take you and how your writing will leave you feeling? For today why not just do it.

© Copyright of Jackee Holder

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