This one is VERY tongue-in-cheek, based on the last few years of dating. Don't worry, I haven't really given up hope!
I'm the one before the One -
The spark before the flame.
The woman men go out with,
And then forget her name.
They often rebound onto me,
Sometimes several times a night -
Then ricochet out of the bedroom
Into the arms of Mrs Right.
And here's one I wrote earlier... if you saw Paul Whitehouse doing his, "Aren't holes BRILLIANT!" sketches, you'll know how to read it...
WORDS
They're great, words are!
Babies roll them round their mouths
savouring them for months
before spitting them, fully-formed
into the air around them.
From then on, that's it -
Words, words, words...
On the telly
On the radio,
On a teacher's lips...
They never stop coming at us,
Bombarding us with knowledge.
I've got some favourites:
Scudding, Micklethwaite, deelyboppers, iconoclastic...
They're great, words are!
You can tell people who you really are inside,
explain your dreams, hopes, desires...
ask for what you want,
tell it like it is,
comfort, caress your lover's ears with quiet whispers...
They're a great responsibility, words are!
You can irritate the HELL out of people,
invade their headspace,
say things you didn't mean, and can't un-say,
use them as playing-pieces in the game of love.
They can hurt people, break people, bring bad news...
Words are EVERYWHERE; they mean
Nothing and Everything,
all at once.
Sharp rocks, tumbling from our mouths,
cutting others as they fall.
They're dangerous things, words are...
But on the whole, I think they're great.
You can hide behind them,
Talk about things so you don't have to face them,
Express emotions so you don't have to feel them -
Project your preferred version of yourself into the public eye.
Everybody does it, don't they?
Except me.
I don't.
I just say what's on my mind, but
I like to do it right.
So of course, I choose my words. Carefully.
I sometimes wonder...
...whether they choose me.
Sunday 11 October 2009
Sunday 4 October 2009
Don't forget
to check out my new blog, which is where the action's at these days...
Fabulous Forty-Nine! (You can google it)
Fabulous Forty-Nine! (You can google it)
Friday 28 August 2009
Radio Silence...
Hi, I'm sorry for the long silence... I've tried to post on here, but the cut and paste function wasn't - well, functioning, and every time I've been on to put some poetry on here, I've ended up too frustrated to be creative!
Anyway, sorry for the radio silence. Today I'm here to signpost you to another blog I've started, which I hope to keep up to date for at least the next twelve months. You can find it here: (ah, you just can't cut and paste, it seems!)
http://fab49-speranza.blogspot.com/
I hope you enjoy it, and I'll be back here soon, I promise!
Anyway, sorry for the radio silence. Today I'm here to signpost you to another blog I've started, which I hope to keep up to date for at least the next twelve months. You can find it here: (ah, you just can't cut and paste, it seems!)
http://fab49-speranza.blogspot.com/
I hope you enjoy it, and I'll be back here soon, I promise!
Wednesday 3 June 2009
Election Day
Tomorrow is Polling Day in the European Elections. It's the first time in my adult life that I have seriously considered not voting.
Not because I'm shocked by all the mud and muck emanating from Parliament - I haven't been terribly surprised by it, to be honest. That in itself wouldn't stop me voting.
It's just, as someone put it on the radio tonight, "Always the same, whoever you vote for."
I've long been fascinated by the way in which the British can pledge allegiance to one party for years on end, and then suddenly, seemingly, the whole population changes its mind and the other party gets in. It's always particularly riled me, as a LibDem, that this pretence of democracy is simply a well-disguised two-horse race.
We have a LibDem MP, which makes voting seem slightly less futile than it did when I lived in a staunchly Conservative area. But still, recent events have fuelled my disillusionment to such an extent that I have seriously been considering not voting. I think I would have, because it goes against my grain not to. I have never considered myself a feminist, yet it seems churlish not to use a vote that women's blood was spilled to obtain. So I vote.
This evening as I arrived home, a woman was leafletting our street. She pleaded with me to go and vote: "Don't let the BNP in!!"
I had already identified this as the reason I must vote - and she removed any last traces of apathy from my mind. We cannot, in the name of "Showing them what we think" allow Nazis in through the back door. Make no mistake, we have learnt appallingly few lessons from history. I have lived in Continental Europe, and anti-Semitism, intolerance and racism are alive and well, just as they are here.
I can't risk letting the BNP or UKIP think they are doing any better than they deserve.
I'm voting tomorrow. Please join me...
Not because I'm shocked by all the mud and muck emanating from Parliament - I haven't been terribly surprised by it, to be honest. That in itself wouldn't stop me voting.
It's just, as someone put it on the radio tonight, "Always the same, whoever you vote for."
I've long been fascinated by the way in which the British can pledge allegiance to one party for years on end, and then suddenly, seemingly, the whole population changes its mind and the other party gets in. It's always particularly riled me, as a LibDem, that this pretence of democracy is simply a well-disguised two-horse race.
We have a LibDem MP, which makes voting seem slightly less futile than it did when I lived in a staunchly Conservative area. But still, recent events have fuelled my disillusionment to such an extent that I have seriously been considering not voting. I think I would have, because it goes against my grain not to. I have never considered myself a feminist, yet it seems churlish not to use a vote that women's blood was spilled to obtain. So I vote.
This evening as I arrived home, a woman was leafletting our street. She pleaded with me to go and vote: "Don't let the BNP in!!"
I had already identified this as the reason I must vote - and she removed any last traces of apathy from my mind. We cannot, in the name of "Showing them what we think" allow Nazis in through the back door. Make no mistake, we have learnt appallingly few lessons from history. I have lived in Continental Europe, and anti-Semitism, intolerance and racism are alive and well, just as they are here.
I can't risk letting the BNP or UKIP think they are doing any better than they deserve.
I'm voting tomorrow. Please join me...
Monday 25 May 2009
Radio Silence...
Sorry... I've logged on here a few times intending to write something, but the truth is, I've just had too many thoughts in my head to choose from! What with bereavement, the Scandal of MPs' expenses, the ongoing insanity which is the Education System, etc etc... it's been hard to know where to start!
As for the bereavement, that's going well I think. I have a clearer picture of a Real Woman in my mind now, not just the Mum who didn't get on with me. I wrote a poem about her. Here it is:
My Mother.
My mother
Sits oblivious to her humanity
Gazes through my face with her pale blue eyes,
No longer annoyed by my presence:
Years of ill-concealed dislike replaced
By an unseeing, smiling old-lady mask.
My mother
Had the brain of an Oxford Don,
And a drunken dad who saw no need for school.
For the lack of a uniform, she lost her chance
To attend the grammar school of her dreams.
Her father wouldn't pay -
But my sister and I did.
My mother
Shifts slightly in her chair,
Glances at the table;
Wonders what the cup is doing there,
Dips her finger, chimp-like, in her tea
And sucks it for a while, with childlike glee.
Years ago,I would watch in silent fascination,
Afraid to interrupt her concentration
As the bastions of the Azed crossword
Fell to the armies of her intellect.
Her self-taught knowledge casually outstripped
The offerings of my brothers' Oxbridge friends.
She quoted Shakespeare, Auden, Dickens and the rest;
Read D.H. Lawrence, but was not impressed.
Proud as the fiercest lioness of her sons,
But as daughters, we were the Resented Ones.
My mother
Babbles nonsense fluently,
No longer knows her name,
Breaks briefly into English
To tell me that she had a daughter once,
Then farts, and laughs uproariously.
My brothers think we had the better deal.
Indifference looked easier to bear
Than loving, probing questions,
Expectations, disapproval and despair.
At least, they say, you got to choose your school.
How did my mother cope with irony so cruel?
My mother
Sits in her room all day
Smearing the walls with excrement.
Is it Art? Or some Bobby Sands-like protest
At her incarceration in this twilight world?
She seems quite happy.
But she doesn't eat.
No visitor to our house
Ever escaped her legendary hospitality.
Fresh-baked bread, cheese-on-a-plate,
Scrambled egg, scones as soft as clouds.
She fattened up her friends,
Mercilessly feeding them
Irresistible delicacies, washed down with
Gallons of tea.
My mother
Lies in her bed all day
LIke some curled figure from the ruins of Pompeii.
One son waits by the phone in America
And three of us sit here and watch
The frail old body which gave us all life -
My sister, my brother, myself.
She was never still...
She was a giant hummingbird,
Endlessly searching for the nectar of friendship.
Even in these last years
Her singing filled the home with sunshine,
So they told me.
I had forgotten her singing...
My mother
Lies in a coffin in church,
Two hundred people singing their hearts out,
Laughing quietly at the memory of
This woman they knew.
This irrepressible, generous, humorous, over-the-top woman
They remembered
And I hardly knew.
She's carried out to a song by Doris Day.
Then somebody tells me,
"She lives on in you!"
As for the bereavement, that's going well I think. I have a clearer picture of a Real Woman in my mind now, not just the Mum who didn't get on with me. I wrote a poem about her. Here it is:
My Mother.
My mother
Sits oblivious to her humanity
Gazes through my face with her pale blue eyes,
No longer annoyed by my presence:
Years of ill-concealed dislike replaced
By an unseeing, smiling old-lady mask.
My mother
Had the brain of an Oxford Don,
And a drunken dad who saw no need for school.
For the lack of a uniform, she lost her chance
To attend the grammar school of her dreams.
Her father wouldn't pay -
But my sister and I did.
My mother
Shifts slightly in her chair,
Glances at the table;
Wonders what the cup is doing there,
Dips her finger, chimp-like, in her tea
And sucks it for a while, with childlike glee.
Years ago,I would watch in silent fascination,
Afraid to interrupt her concentration
As the bastions of the Azed crossword
Fell to the armies of her intellect.
Her self-taught knowledge casually outstripped
The offerings of my brothers' Oxbridge friends.
She quoted Shakespeare, Auden, Dickens and the rest;
Read D.H. Lawrence, but was not impressed.
Proud as the fiercest lioness of her sons,
But as daughters, we were the Resented Ones.
My mother
Babbles nonsense fluently,
No longer knows her name,
Breaks briefly into English
To tell me that she had a daughter once,
Then farts, and laughs uproariously.
My brothers think we had the better deal.
Indifference looked easier to bear
Than loving, probing questions,
Expectations, disapproval and despair.
At least, they say, you got to choose your school.
How did my mother cope with irony so cruel?
My mother
Sits in her room all day
Smearing the walls with excrement.
Is it Art? Or some Bobby Sands-like protest
At her incarceration in this twilight world?
She seems quite happy.
But she doesn't eat.
No visitor to our house
Ever escaped her legendary hospitality.
Fresh-baked bread, cheese-on-a-plate,
Scrambled egg, scones as soft as clouds.
She fattened up her friends,
Mercilessly feeding them
Irresistible delicacies, washed down with
Gallons of tea.
My mother
Lies in her bed all day
LIke some curled figure from the ruins of Pompeii.
One son waits by the phone in America
And three of us sit here and watch
The frail old body which gave us all life -
My sister, my brother, myself.
She was never still...
She was a giant hummingbird,
Endlessly searching for the nectar of friendship.
Even in these last years
Her singing filled the home with sunshine,
So they told me.
I had forgotten her singing...
My mother
Lies in a coffin in church,
Two hundred people singing their hearts out,
Laughing quietly at the memory of
This woman they knew.
This irrepressible, generous, humorous, over-the-top woman
They remembered
And I hardly knew.
She's carried out to a song by Doris Day.
Then somebody tells me,
"She lives on in you!"
Friday 17 April 2009
After the show...
This is a poem for a friend and a pal who might just be reading this if they can still focus...
You're back from the concert,
I hope you enjoyed it -
Flowers in your pockets and beer on your breath.
Just wait for the morning - you cannot avoid it!
Hungover as hell, and feeling like death...
:) Hope you had a good time, don't forget Imelda May! xx
You're back from the concert,
I hope you enjoyed it -
Flowers in your pockets and beer on your breath.
Just wait for the morning - you cannot avoid it!
Hungover as hell, and feeling like death...
:) Hope you had a good time, don't forget Imelda May! xx
Death, where is thy sting?
It's been a few weeks since I last wrote on here. We had to wait for family to arrive from abroad before we could have Mum's funeral, which took place on Tuesday 14th April. My family has a tradition of 'good' funerals which I suppose must sound very strange to some, but in Yorkshire we have a long tradition of celebrating after a death - with tears, laughter and lots of booze-fuelled anecdotes about the deceased. I remember my Gran was actually laid out in her coffin at home, and as a teenager I approached somewhat fearfully, not quite knowing what to expect.
In fact what I saw reassured me greatly. Gran wasn't 'there' - she'd gone. Somehow, my Gran had left her body, which was literally just a shell (with some rather awful lace trim round her face, I seem to remember, which made me laugh irreverently as she'd - well, never have been seen dead in it...).
Mum was a shell long before she died. The woman who had to leave school at 14 due solely to her father being too mean to pay for the Grammar School uniform (or so the story goes), who loved Dickens and Shakespeare with a passion and knew them better than most English graduates, the woman who usually scored over 300 at Scrabble, who welcomed waifs and strays to her home, who wouldn't let visitors leave until they'd had cheese-on-a-plate or scrambled egg, and who pronounced DH Lawrence 'trite' and the Brontes 'not that good'... this intellectual woman with very little formal schooling had reached the point where her only communication was to say, 'BLAH-BLAH-BLAH!' and blow raspberries. From the outside, at least, there was little of Irene left. Inside, who knows? I cannot say with any certainty what was taking place inside her head, but she seemed happy and content. Before she lost the power of speech, she talked of seeing her mother every day - and after a while I began to think she probably did.
When my father died, I had a long and complicated experience of angels surrounding him and telling me day by day how near to death he was. As Mum travelled that same road, I was puzzled at first that I could see no angels, until it dawned on me that their presence was worked out through the loving care she received from the staff in the home.
On the day Mum died, my daughter and I were driving down to Derby. We were laughing and chatting and suddenly, unbidden, I 'saw' Mum's room and said to my daughter, "Oh! I've just seen the angels arriving in Gran's room!"
She was dead three hours later.
I have no explanation for this. Oh, I can find ways to explain it, all of them rational; but after my Dad's death, and going by the scientific premise that the simplest explanation is the best, I have to say that I still believe in angels...
I couldn't be sad that Mum had died. For me she died years ago, when her eyes glazed and she began to soil herself, forgot how to read, couldn't open cards, or find her food on the plate. And yet until very recently, she would suddenly sing to anyone who was listening, "Once I had a secret love..." in a sweet, almost unearthly voice. It was fitting that my nephew had that song played as her coffin was carried from church - it brought a smile to all our faces. We never knew if she was trying to confess to some affair or if it was simply a favourite, but it was Irene personified.
At the funeral I felt very responsible for how the day was going (it went very well, in fact), because I'd booked the venue for the 'do' afterwards, and decided how much food to order. And there were other things to think about, too... There was a family member in great distress, and many, many others who had known my mother at church and who gravitated towards me because I had also attended all those years ago, and they'd known me as a teenager and been present when I married the curate. I was checking the food was okay, that people had drinks... I was too busy to mourn, or that's how it felt. Very Martha rather than Mary, I suppose.
Anyway tonight I found myself alone for the first time since then, and it hit - I felt bereft (which of course I am). I got in the car, drove to Matlock, sat in the park and wrote this:
In fact what I saw reassured me greatly. Gran wasn't 'there' - she'd gone. Somehow, my Gran had left her body, which was literally just a shell (with some rather awful lace trim round her face, I seem to remember, which made me laugh irreverently as she'd - well, never have been seen dead in it...).
Mum was a shell long before she died. The woman who had to leave school at 14 due solely to her father being too mean to pay for the Grammar School uniform (or so the story goes), who loved Dickens and Shakespeare with a passion and knew them better than most English graduates, the woman who usually scored over 300 at Scrabble, who welcomed waifs and strays to her home, who wouldn't let visitors leave until they'd had cheese-on-a-plate or scrambled egg, and who pronounced DH Lawrence 'trite' and the Brontes 'not that good'... this intellectual woman with very little formal schooling had reached the point where her only communication was to say, 'BLAH-BLAH-BLAH!' and blow raspberries. From the outside, at least, there was little of Irene left. Inside, who knows? I cannot say with any certainty what was taking place inside her head, but she seemed happy and content. Before she lost the power of speech, she talked of seeing her mother every day - and after a while I began to think she probably did.
When my father died, I had a long and complicated experience of angels surrounding him and telling me day by day how near to death he was. As Mum travelled that same road, I was puzzled at first that I could see no angels, until it dawned on me that their presence was worked out through the loving care she received from the staff in the home.
On the day Mum died, my daughter and I were driving down to Derby. We were laughing and chatting and suddenly, unbidden, I 'saw' Mum's room and said to my daughter, "Oh! I've just seen the angels arriving in Gran's room!"
She was dead three hours later.
I have no explanation for this. Oh, I can find ways to explain it, all of them rational; but after my Dad's death, and going by the scientific premise that the simplest explanation is the best, I have to say that I still believe in angels...
I couldn't be sad that Mum had died. For me she died years ago, when her eyes glazed and she began to soil herself, forgot how to read, couldn't open cards, or find her food on the plate. And yet until very recently, she would suddenly sing to anyone who was listening, "Once I had a secret love..." in a sweet, almost unearthly voice. It was fitting that my nephew had that song played as her coffin was carried from church - it brought a smile to all our faces. We never knew if she was trying to confess to some affair or if it was simply a favourite, but it was Irene personified.
At the funeral I felt very responsible for how the day was going (it went very well, in fact), because I'd booked the venue for the 'do' afterwards, and decided how much food to order. And there were other things to think about, too... There was a family member in great distress, and many, many others who had known my mother at church and who gravitated towards me because I had also attended all those years ago, and they'd known me as a teenager and been present when I married the curate. I was checking the food was okay, that people had drinks... I was too busy to mourn, or that's how it felt. Very Martha rather than Mary, I suppose.
Anyway tonight I found myself alone for the first time since then, and it hit - I felt bereft (which of course I am). I got in the car, drove to Matlock, sat in the park and wrote this:
Matlock Park
The chilled, perfumed air of a Spring evening
Gently caresses my face,
Speaks peace to my troubled heart,
Promises Summer will come.
Trees are modestly robed in vibrant green,
Their tender shoots a tangle against
A pure blue, pale-as-eggshell sky.
The jubilant cries of skateboarders
Cannot overwhelm the song of birds, who have
Rehearsed for centuries in this very place.
They sing triumphantly of life and love...
I close my eyes;
I'm overwhelmed with Grace.
Tuesday 31 March 2009
Now where did I leave that corpse..?
A few hours after my last post, I heard that my Mother had died. We've been waiting a long time for this, so long that we had drifted into that state where you idly wonder if your relative really is the person who has cracked eternal life.
I've realised that I don't think I ever really grieved losing her to the dementia - what point do you pick to do that? Which day is the right day to begin to mourn the loss of a person's interior workings? - so now I think I'm grieving that first, and the funeral will perhaps trigger more feelings around death itself.
You know how when someone dies you say, "Oh, she would loved that! /She'd have been thrilled!" etc... well, with Mum I keep thinking, "No she wouldn't, she couldn't even talk!" and then I have to go back a stage and think, "But the person she used to be would have..."
I had a bad relationship with my Mother for many years, and have had counselling to deal with lots of issues as I wanted to clear things up before she died and left me with even more of them! And I made my peace with it all - with her - finally. Quite a while ago, in fact. There are still pockets of damage in me which spring from those injured parts of my psyche, but everyone has those. I no longer blamed her for any of it, I'd forgiven her for it, I'd acknowledged my part in it all (okay, some of it appears to have been merely Being Born, but as I grew up I took my part in the drama) AND I'd acknowledged that perhaps she shouldn't have treated me as she did at times.
She was a damaged person herself, and it has been lovely to hear so many loving memories of her from people who knew her when she was about the age I am now. Others remember her as loving, nurturing, supportive, exhuberant, intellectual, fun, joyful and bringing colour and love to her world.
I'm glad that I've got far enough in my own brain-clearing exercise to be able to be thankful for those lovely memories that other people have, to let go of my own not-so-good ones, and to think of her as someone who brought a lot of love, joy and fun to the world.
And the fact that her body went AWOL for a few hours only adds to the fun. (In fact, it was there all the time, we just didn't know where!) She was always looking for things, losing keys, exclaiming, "Dash! Where've I put..[X, Y, Z] ?"
She'd have loved it. The woman people remember. She'd have loved it.
RIP Mum, I love you. x
I've realised that I don't think I ever really grieved losing her to the dementia - what point do you pick to do that? Which day is the right day to begin to mourn the loss of a person's interior workings? - so now I think I'm grieving that first, and the funeral will perhaps trigger more feelings around death itself.
You know how when someone dies you say, "Oh, she would loved that! /She'd have been thrilled!" etc... well, with Mum I keep thinking, "No she wouldn't, she couldn't even talk!" and then I have to go back a stage and think, "But the person she used to be would have..."
I had a bad relationship with my Mother for many years, and have had counselling to deal with lots of issues as I wanted to clear things up before she died and left me with even more of them! And I made my peace with it all - with her - finally. Quite a while ago, in fact. There are still pockets of damage in me which spring from those injured parts of my psyche, but everyone has those. I no longer blamed her for any of it, I'd forgiven her for it, I'd acknowledged my part in it all (okay, some of it appears to have been merely Being Born, but as I grew up I took my part in the drama) AND I'd acknowledged that perhaps she shouldn't have treated me as she did at times.
She was a damaged person herself, and it has been lovely to hear so many loving memories of her from people who knew her when she was about the age I am now. Others remember her as loving, nurturing, supportive, exhuberant, intellectual, fun, joyful and bringing colour and love to her world.
I'm glad that I've got far enough in my own brain-clearing exercise to be able to be thankful for those lovely memories that other people have, to let go of my own not-so-good ones, and to think of her as someone who brought a lot of love, joy and fun to the world.
And the fact that her body went AWOL for a few hours only adds to the fun. (In fact, it was there all the time, we just didn't know where!) She was always looking for things, losing keys, exclaiming, "Dash! Where've I put..[X, Y, Z] ?"
She'd have loved it. The woman people remember. She'd have loved it.
RIP Mum, I love you. x
Saturday 28 March 2009
Man Flu...
Sorry about the radio silence - I've had Man Flu. It's much more serious in women, of course, as it's crossed the species. Nevertheless, I've struggled into work and got through the week.
It did set me thinking, though, about how flippant the sexes are about each others' different Ways of Being. I should warn you that I'm quite Politically Incorrect at times. I actually don't see anything wrong in one gender tending to be more nurturing and - well, motherly - whilst the other is more hunter-gathery. I don't see anything wrong in someone of either gender enjoying expressing the traits ascribed to the other gender - I know some great male 'mothers', and some ass-kicking hunter-gatheresses.
And to be perfectly honest, I don't see anything wrong in men saying they feel really, really crap and asking for a bit of TLC from time to time. If that's what it takes for them to be able to be vulnerable, why not?
I think it's true that women tend to get on with life despite how they're feeling - historically, babies needed feeding and men couldn't do it - simple, huh? But goodness, how many men unflinchingly shoulder responsibilities without making a big deal of it? The irony being that we'll never know, cos they don't make a big deal of it.
I'm tired of people pretending that the two sexes are able to function identically without it having any impact on society. I'm sad about all the damaged children I see because of our 'I come first' culture. I even sometimes suspect that the Feminist movement has destroyed any chance of a cohesive society, God forgive me - and I don't say that lightly. I am happy and proud to vote, to earn my living, to pay my way... but deep down I wonder what price we're paying for women's relatively new-found ability to be pseudo-men.
This is dangerous ground, I know. I know about the oppression of women down the centuries. I understand the concept of 'the problem that has no name' (see Betty Friedan: The Feminine Mystique). I am aware of the abuse of millions of women who until very recently suffered in silence, and in fact many still do.
And yet - as a woman - I still can't shake this hunch that when I look at society, see how women are abused in new and different ways, deal with children whose lives were shattered from the start, and above all marvel at the utter lack of self-respect which allows young women to collapse, drunk and knickerless in the street in front of cameras... I can't shake this hunch that we've lost out.
So - sue me..?
It did set me thinking, though, about how flippant the sexes are about each others' different Ways of Being. I should warn you that I'm quite Politically Incorrect at times. I actually don't see anything wrong in one gender tending to be more nurturing and - well, motherly - whilst the other is more hunter-gathery. I don't see anything wrong in someone of either gender enjoying expressing the traits ascribed to the other gender - I know some great male 'mothers', and some ass-kicking hunter-gatheresses.
And to be perfectly honest, I don't see anything wrong in men saying they feel really, really crap and asking for a bit of TLC from time to time. If that's what it takes for them to be able to be vulnerable, why not?
I think it's true that women tend to get on with life despite how they're feeling - historically, babies needed feeding and men couldn't do it - simple, huh? But goodness, how many men unflinchingly shoulder responsibilities without making a big deal of it? The irony being that we'll never know, cos they don't make a big deal of it.
I'm tired of people pretending that the two sexes are able to function identically without it having any impact on society. I'm sad about all the damaged children I see because of our 'I come first' culture. I even sometimes suspect that the Feminist movement has destroyed any chance of a cohesive society, God forgive me - and I don't say that lightly. I am happy and proud to vote, to earn my living, to pay my way... but deep down I wonder what price we're paying for women's relatively new-found ability to be pseudo-men.
This is dangerous ground, I know. I know about the oppression of women down the centuries. I understand the concept of 'the problem that has no name' (see Betty Friedan: The Feminine Mystique). I am aware of the abuse of millions of women who until very recently suffered in silence, and in fact many still do.
And yet - as a woman - I still can't shake this hunch that when I look at society, see how women are abused in new and different ways, deal with children whose lives were shattered from the start, and above all marvel at the utter lack of self-respect which allows young women to collapse, drunk and knickerless in the street in front of cameras... I can't shake this hunch that we've lost out.
So - sue me..?
Saturday 14 March 2009
Proud to be British!
Wow, I never thought I'd have that as a blog title. Don't get me wrong; I love the UK in lots of ways, but it so happens that my job exposes me to a lot of the sad and violent stories which never make the headlines.
However - if you remember, I am harbouring hopes that the Credit Crunch will make us rethink our values - probably not without a lot of heartache, increased crime and a total change in the retail landscape. It's going to be really, really tough on people.
BUT! Already there is a small light gleaming in the darkness.
Yesterday was Red Nose Day - a day when we switch the focus off ourselves and onto those who really are in need. The mix of very funny television (hundreds of famous people give their time free and drop any pretence of dignity) and absolutely harrowing footage (eg the African parents watching their babies die of malaria) always ensures massive donations to charity throught the night and for the next few weeks.
For me, the people who endured perhaps the most humiliation for charity this year were the stars of Dragons' Den, who sent themselves up mercilessly and did it brilliantly. Apart from the guts it took to stand opposite skilled impersonators showing off all your worst traits, they also showed a huge sense of fun as they played Victorian parodies of themselves. How any of them kept their faces straight, I have no idea. I bet there'll be an outtakes DVD!
Apparently bookies were giving very low odds on this year's total being anywhere near last year's (I suppose even bookies have to make a living). BUT!!! They were wrong. I think lots of people could have told them that because, despite all the dreadful statistics about literacy, teenage pregnancy, drug and alcohol abuse and obesity, etc etc etc, one thing remains gloriously, wonderfully, magnificently, against-all-the-odds true about the British.
We are generous-spirited. A South African colleague of mine was recently moved to tears by the response from people in the office when her car broke down. We just did what people do, rang garages, ferried her round, got a motor-mechanic son in to look, made her tea and reassured her... and she was overwhelmed with 'the KINDNESS of you Brits!"
Let's not lose sight of that. No need to be big-headed; lots of people in lots of countries are generous. But we do have a flair for combining sheer bloody idiocy and a sense of fun with the compassion needed to put others first and try to make their lives better. When we let that flair loose, there is no limit to what we can achieve.
I read this morning that: '...the show was a huge success and by the time it ended at 2.10am on Saturday, the fundraising total stood at a massive £57.8 million - easily supassing the previous record of £40.5 million raised on the night.'
The eventual total will be much higher. Probably much higher than the previous record of £67 million.
Fellow Brits, I salute you!!
However - if you remember, I am harbouring hopes that the Credit Crunch will make us rethink our values - probably not without a lot of heartache, increased crime and a total change in the retail landscape. It's going to be really, really tough on people.
BUT! Already there is a small light gleaming in the darkness.
Yesterday was Red Nose Day - a day when we switch the focus off ourselves and onto those who really are in need. The mix of very funny television (hundreds of famous people give their time free and drop any pretence of dignity) and absolutely harrowing footage (eg the African parents watching their babies die of malaria) always ensures massive donations to charity throught the night and for the next few weeks.
For me, the people who endured perhaps the most humiliation for charity this year were the stars of Dragons' Den, who sent themselves up mercilessly and did it brilliantly. Apart from the guts it took to stand opposite skilled impersonators showing off all your worst traits, they also showed a huge sense of fun as they played Victorian parodies of themselves. How any of them kept their faces straight, I have no idea. I bet there'll be an outtakes DVD!
Apparently bookies were giving very low odds on this year's total being anywhere near last year's (I suppose even bookies have to make a living). BUT!!! They were wrong. I think lots of people could have told them that because, despite all the dreadful statistics about literacy, teenage pregnancy, drug and alcohol abuse and obesity, etc etc etc, one thing remains gloriously, wonderfully, magnificently, against-all-the-odds true about the British.
We are generous-spirited. A South African colleague of mine was recently moved to tears by the response from people in the office when her car broke down. We just did what people do, rang garages, ferried her round, got a motor-mechanic son in to look, made her tea and reassured her... and she was overwhelmed with 'the KINDNESS of you Brits!"
Let's not lose sight of that. No need to be big-headed; lots of people in lots of countries are generous. But we do have a flair for combining sheer bloody idiocy and a sense of fun with the compassion needed to put others first and try to make their lives better. When we let that flair loose, there is no limit to what we can achieve.
I read this morning that: '...the show was a huge success and by the time it ended at 2.10am on Saturday, the fundraising total stood at a massive £57.8 million - easily supassing the previous record of £40.5 million raised on the night.'
The eventual total will be much higher. Probably much higher than the previous record of £67 million.
Fellow Brits, I salute you!!
Monday 2 March 2009
A Very Short Poem...
My daughter and I were helping her Dad to clear out some cupboards yesterday, and I found this poem, which I wrote many years ago. I still remember glimpsing those angels.
Am I mad? Possibly. But it's a lovely image anyway...
Am I mad? Possibly. But it's a lovely image anyway...
Were they really there?
Certainly I saw them,
arms linked in jocular society -
staggering down our road in the snow,
intoxicated with the love of God.
Faces alight with boozy cheerfulness;
taller than our house, they towered
over cars and trees and street-lamps,
holding one another lest they fall
in drunken delight
at the feet of him who made them.
Angels on holiday!
Thursday 26 February 2009
Strait-jacket for the soul
I have had a break from blogging - quite deliberately. I was off work last week, and took some time to sit and think, write poetry, sip coffee in cafes... all those things we do when we have Spare Time.
When I was younger, I was aware of the vast amount of thoughts going through my head (at such speed, too!) and it used to drive me to the brink of insanity. Why couldn't I stop thinking? Would I ever be able to stop the ideas from coursing through my brain for long enough to relax?
I managed it, in the end. I learnt to Be Still and Know, to enjoy silence, to watch the flame of a candle and lose myself in the ever-changing shapes, to sit by the sea and become one with its rhythms... I even stopped and smelt every rose I passed as I walked along.
More problems began when I started work. Motherhood, whilst frantic, I found provided endless opportunities for Being - not always just when I wanted, but every day there was a sense of treasuring what I had, of this being a never-repeatable phase of my life. The silences were rare, candles a little dangerous with toddlers around, but there was the joy of teaching people new to the planet the art of Doing Little and Enjoying Much. I was blessed with daughters who very early on appreciated the hush of a church, or the sun on the sea. Together we experienced the everyday wonders which enrich our lives.
But then I started work. It felt - feels at times - like a strait-jacket around my soul. I'm not complaining about having to earn a living - not at all. I feel privileged to be able to do so, especially in these turbulent times. I have to confess, though, that I have a particularly bad case of the 'Rather-be-elsewhere-blues' at times.
Most of the time I knuckle down and get on with earning my crust. But occasionally I allow myself the luxury of wondering how and why I ever got drawn into the rat race. It was never what I wanted. And yet I was inexorably sucked in, just like everybody else. I admire those who make a break for it, dash for the wall and scale it in one leap... in my heart I'd love to follow them, but then I lose my nerve...
How have we reached this place? A place where everyone buys into the same lie - that money is worth more than the right to take a day to lie in the grass watching clouds, or paddle in the sea and listen to the eternal rhythm of the tides? Why is it such a disaster that money has finally been shown up as the false god it has always been? Why are we so surprised that a system built on greed and keeping up appearances, where time with our children is valued less than time at our desk, is finally collapsing before our eyes?
Why do so many think it is perfectly okay to 'earn' bonuses of over half a million pounds, whilst others see their homes repossessed? To focus in, as someone who has struggled with the fact that my monthly deductions total more than my friend's gross income, how can we die of food whilst others die without it? For every morbidly fat person fitted with a gastric band, there is probably a whole village starving to death.
When did all this become acceptable? How did our values change?
And please God, will this recession turn us around at last and let us see once more the things which truly matter in life?
When I was younger, I was aware of the vast amount of thoughts going through my head (at such speed, too!) and it used to drive me to the brink of insanity. Why couldn't I stop thinking? Would I ever be able to stop the ideas from coursing through my brain for long enough to relax?
I managed it, in the end. I learnt to Be Still and Know, to enjoy silence, to watch the flame of a candle and lose myself in the ever-changing shapes, to sit by the sea and become one with its rhythms... I even stopped and smelt every rose I passed as I walked along.
More problems began when I started work. Motherhood, whilst frantic, I found provided endless opportunities for Being - not always just when I wanted, but every day there was a sense of treasuring what I had, of this being a never-repeatable phase of my life. The silences were rare, candles a little dangerous with toddlers around, but there was the joy of teaching people new to the planet the art of Doing Little and Enjoying Much. I was blessed with daughters who very early on appreciated the hush of a church, or the sun on the sea. Together we experienced the everyday wonders which enrich our lives.
But then I started work. It felt - feels at times - like a strait-jacket around my soul. I'm not complaining about having to earn a living - not at all. I feel privileged to be able to do so, especially in these turbulent times. I have to confess, though, that I have a particularly bad case of the 'Rather-be-elsewhere-blues' at times.
Most of the time I knuckle down and get on with earning my crust. But occasionally I allow myself the luxury of wondering how and why I ever got drawn into the rat race. It was never what I wanted. And yet I was inexorably sucked in, just like everybody else. I admire those who make a break for it, dash for the wall and scale it in one leap... in my heart I'd love to follow them, but then I lose my nerve...
How have we reached this place? A place where everyone buys into the same lie - that money is worth more than the right to take a day to lie in the grass watching clouds, or paddle in the sea and listen to the eternal rhythm of the tides? Why is it such a disaster that money has finally been shown up as the false god it has always been? Why are we so surprised that a system built on greed and keeping up appearances, where time with our children is valued less than time at our desk, is finally collapsing before our eyes?
Why do so many think it is perfectly okay to 'earn' bonuses of over half a million pounds, whilst others see their homes repossessed? To focus in, as someone who has struggled with the fact that my monthly deductions total more than my friend's gross income, how can we die of food whilst others die without it? For every morbidly fat person fitted with a gastric band, there is probably a whole village starving to death.
When did all this become acceptable? How did our values change?
And please God, will this recession turn us around at last and let us see once more the things which truly matter in life?
Sunday 15 February 2009
Are we there yet??
"We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey."
(Stephen Covey/Teilhard de Chardin).
I just found this quote. I like it, though the nit-picking part of me wants to say, "I think we're both, actually." But enough with the nit-picking! I like the way he has flagged up our spirituality.
Some readers will already be wondering if they need the sick-bucket. That word 'spirituality' pushes so many buttons, doesn't it? To be clear, I'm not talking about anything imposed on us. Systems, beliefs or practices - they are all ways to manage humanity's awareness of The Numinous. What I'm interested in is where that feeling comes from.
Just as most of my gay friends were aware of their orientation well before puberty, I knew early on that I was (for want of a better word) spiritual. My family never went to church yet when I was about 9 I became aware that I wanted to learn to pray. I decided that I needed candles and a crucifix to do this - I have no idea where that came from. So I bought a tiny standing crucifix, some very small candles, shut myself away in the attic and sat absorbing the peace (I was a very troubled little girl).
My first prayer was a shining example of Science meeting Faith. I wasn't quite sure whether you were meant to leave a gap for God to answer, and it would have seemed rude to talk through Him; so I left pauses just in case - until I realised He probably wasn't going to say anything just then, when my prayer took on a fluency and urgency as I needed to get out and spare myself more embarrassment. This was it:
"God..? God... Um... I feel a bit silly... ... ... I don't know how to pray... But then, you know that already... if you're there. (Brightening) And if you aren't there, then nobody's heard this! Help me believe in you. Amen."
I blew the candles out and scurried downstairs.
I'm not sure how long I continued going to my little Chapel, as I called it - I think I'd probably got the idea from one of the 'Katy' books although the rather Roman Catholic slant was all my own. It was a place of peace for me, until one day presumably it wasn't, and I became a Lapsed Attican. I thought no more about it for a few years, until my friend asked me to join the Church Choir. This in turn exposed me to Sunday School and, having grandly told the Professor of Astrophysics who ran our class that at 12 I considered myself too intellectual to be a Christian, I eventually came to believe in the God of the Anglican Church, and had a very dramatic conversion at 14. I firmly believed that this was an answer to my prayer in the attic years before.
Now I'm going to cut a VERY long story short. It includes my realisation that there were other ways to be Christian (it was years before I realised I had become not just a Christian, but an Evangelical - and that possibly it didn't fit my spiritual personality), my involvement in the Charismatic movement, and twenty years as a Vicar's wife during which I broadcast, wrote articles for the Parish magazine and helped many people come to a faith in Jesus.
Fast forward past the divorce (amicable) and the realisation that there were other ways to be spiritual, and the excitement at escaping the confines of The Church and being able to choose what worked for me. Others who have trodden this path will know that it takes a long time to shake the conditioning, to stop feeling guilty for daring to question, and to look at what exactly was going on at conversion.
I can't shake the belief that there's Something More to life, however I no longer have any conviction that it's the God Christians have made in their own image. My very brief toe-dip into Neuro-Linguistic Programming led me to the conclusion that my dramatic conversion was indeed profoundly healing, but that it was explicable in various ways, only one of which 'proved' there was a God. I had always said, right from my arrogant Sunday School days, that God was my Working Hypothesis - that I would change my beliefs if I ever found the evidence pointed in another direction. At the time I said it, I never thought that it would, but the spirit of enquiry was genuine.
And over the years I became less and less convinced that the Church had The Truth. It wasn't just a case of seeing many good, altruistic people who worked tirelessly for the good of others with not a shred of religious faith. It was many things. I think in the end I could no longer go along with telling people that prayer 'worked' when I had to go through so many mental gymnastics to believe that.
"God ALWAYS answers, but sometimes it's 'No'."
"There is some deeper purpose to this that we don't know about."
"You need more faith." (To be fair, I always spoke out against that one).
"Prayer is a mystery."
That last one is true. But nobody ever addressed the uncomfortable truths, such as people in other religions also praying in tongues, or the fact that other faiths also prayed and ascribed answered prayer to a different god.
I set time aside to wrestle with the concept of prayer. My problem was that it was held up as something we ought to do, handing all the results over to Someone who Knew Better than us. At best it seemed feeble to spend time on something which might not get results whilst teaching people that it did. At worst, I began to see people all around me happily refusing to take responsibility for their lives:
"Well I've prayed about losing weight, but nothing's happened."
"I'm very unhappy with X but I know God wants me to stay."
"I'm waiting for God to give me the go-ahead to apply for another job."
etc, etc, etc...
Suddenly, just as I had had a blindingly dramatic conversion, I had another experience of seeing with an outsider's eyes how ridiculously naive it all seemed. A Deconversion, if you will.
Which as you can imagine, presented me with a problem. What had happened to me at 14? Well, at the time of my conversion, I was deep into self-hate. And in NLP terms, I connected to the strongest anchor imaginable. The Creator told me He loved me. If that was good enough for Him, it was good enough for me. The waves of relief and joy as I accepted myself were real enough - and they were profoundly linked with Church (I 'prayed the Prayer' in a Choir stall).
Now, I began to wonder if I hadn't given a lot of the credit to God when at least some of it ought to go to me. I had perhaps tapped into my own inner resources, but believed myself to be so powerless that I had to ascribe those resources to some external person.
Hmmm. This currently works for me - it's still a hypothesis, though. And it is hugely important to me that I don't diss others' beliefs. I quite accept that other people can believe in Christianity with full integrity - it's just that I can't any more.
As for all my Christian experiences, they weren't a bad thing in many ways - except that I had given away a lot of my own power. Not only to God, but also to the Church itself, which influenced my actions, thoughts, feelings and even (as clergy) where and how I lived. I became aware, too, that there had been a lot of 'choosing what's difficult because it's what God wants' in my life. Development or self-punishment? The jury is now out...
I still don't see religious faith as a bad thing - I doubt I'd even be here without it, I was so screwed-up as a child. But I do feel that I've been robbed of faith in myself and that's unforgivable. Wow - even typing that word was a challenge. I've been so forgiving down the years. Who would have thought it might be damaging?
Well it is. I'm currently working hard to get in touch with my anger. I know it's in there somewhere but there is a veneer of saccharine lovey-doveyness stopping me accessing it. I have a horrid suspicion, you see, that anger needs to be visible. It needs to be heard. And then it can be released. I don't know where mine is, or what it's eating away at, but I know I need to get to it and allow it to have its place in my emotional world. Lots of people lose touch with their anger, but in my case the Church buried it for me. I don't NOW see a contradiction between love and anger coexisting, but I was taught for years that they couldn't.
To get back to my original theme, I see life as a journey. Nothing original there - religions down the millennia have all used that metaphor. Spirituality is how we make that journey. I'm eclectic now - I take what works for me. I doubt I'll ever go back to Christianity in its pure form, although never say never. I do believe in the Numinous, in some kind of order to the Universe, and I'm fascinated by all the Quantum Physics stuff which seems to me to say that we're made of nothing but energy. That opens up all kinds of metaphysical possibilities...
UPDATE! November 2010 - Made it through... can feel anger now but don't feel it (hope that makes sense). And realised that the chapel idea came from Louisa Mae Alcott, when Amy is sent away to avoid catching scarlet fever,and makes a chapel in which to pray for Beth,
(Stephen Covey/Teilhard de Chardin).
I just found this quote. I like it, though the nit-picking part of me wants to say, "I think we're both, actually." But enough with the nit-picking! I like the way he has flagged up our spirituality.
Some readers will already be wondering if they need the sick-bucket. That word 'spirituality' pushes so many buttons, doesn't it? To be clear, I'm not talking about anything imposed on us. Systems, beliefs or practices - they are all ways to manage humanity's awareness of The Numinous. What I'm interested in is where that feeling comes from.
Just as most of my gay friends were aware of their orientation well before puberty, I knew early on that I was (for want of a better word) spiritual. My family never went to church yet when I was about 9 I became aware that I wanted to learn to pray. I decided that I needed candles and a crucifix to do this - I have no idea where that came from. So I bought a tiny standing crucifix, some very small candles, shut myself away in the attic and sat absorbing the peace (I was a very troubled little girl).
My first prayer was a shining example of Science meeting Faith. I wasn't quite sure whether you were meant to leave a gap for God to answer, and it would have seemed rude to talk through Him; so I left pauses just in case - until I realised He probably wasn't going to say anything just then, when my prayer took on a fluency and urgency as I needed to get out and spare myself more embarrassment. This was it:
"God..? God... Um... I feel a bit silly... ... ... I don't know how to pray... But then, you know that already... if you're there. (Brightening) And if you aren't there, then nobody's heard this! Help me believe in you. Amen."
I blew the candles out and scurried downstairs.
I'm not sure how long I continued going to my little Chapel, as I called it - I think I'd probably got the idea from one of the 'Katy' books although the rather Roman Catholic slant was all my own. It was a place of peace for me, until one day presumably it wasn't, and I became a Lapsed Attican. I thought no more about it for a few years, until my friend asked me to join the Church Choir. This in turn exposed me to Sunday School and, having grandly told the Professor of Astrophysics who ran our class that at 12 I considered myself too intellectual to be a Christian, I eventually came to believe in the God of the Anglican Church, and had a very dramatic conversion at 14. I firmly believed that this was an answer to my prayer in the attic years before.
Now I'm going to cut a VERY long story short. It includes my realisation that there were other ways to be Christian (it was years before I realised I had become not just a Christian, but an Evangelical - and that possibly it didn't fit my spiritual personality), my involvement in the Charismatic movement, and twenty years as a Vicar's wife during which I broadcast, wrote articles for the Parish magazine and helped many people come to a faith in Jesus.
Fast forward past the divorce (amicable) and the realisation that there were other ways to be spiritual, and the excitement at escaping the confines of The Church and being able to choose what worked for me. Others who have trodden this path will know that it takes a long time to shake the conditioning, to stop feeling guilty for daring to question, and to look at what exactly was going on at conversion.
I can't shake the belief that there's Something More to life, however I no longer have any conviction that it's the God Christians have made in their own image. My very brief toe-dip into Neuro-Linguistic Programming led me to the conclusion that my dramatic conversion was indeed profoundly healing, but that it was explicable in various ways, only one of which 'proved' there was a God. I had always said, right from my arrogant Sunday School days, that God was my Working Hypothesis - that I would change my beliefs if I ever found the evidence pointed in another direction. At the time I said it, I never thought that it would, but the spirit of enquiry was genuine.
And over the years I became less and less convinced that the Church had The Truth. It wasn't just a case of seeing many good, altruistic people who worked tirelessly for the good of others with not a shred of religious faith. It was many things. I think in the end I could no longer go along with telling people that prayer 'worked' when I had to go through so many mental gymnastics to believe that.
"God ALWAYS answers, but sometimes it's 'No'."
"There is some deeper purpose to this that we don't know about."
"You need more faith." (To be fair, I always spoke out against that one).
"Prayer is a mystery."
That last one is true. But nobody ever addressed the uncomfortable truths, such as people in other religions also praying in tongues, or the fact that other faiths also prayed and ascribed answered prayer to a different god.
I set time aside to wrestle with the concept of prayer. My problem was that it was held up as something we ought to do, handing all the results over to Someone who Knew Better than us. At best it seemed feeble to spend time on something which might not get results whilst teaching people that it did. At worst, I began to see people all around me happily refusing to take responsibility for their lives:
"Well I've prayed about losing weight, but nothing's happened."
"I'm very unhappy with X but I know God wants me to stay."
"I'm waiting for God to give me the go-ahead to apply for another job."
etc, etc, etc...
Suddenly, just as I had had a blindingly dramatic conversion, I had another experience of seeing with an outsider's eyes how ridiculously naive it all seemed. A Deconversion, if you will.
Which as you can imagine, presented me with a problem. What had happened to me at 14? Well, at the time of my conversion, I was deep into self-hate. And in NLP terms, I connected to the strongest anchor imaginable. The Creator told me He loved me. If that was good enough for Him, it was good enough for me. The waves of relief and joy as I accepted myself were real enough - and they were profoundly linked with Church (I 'prayed the Prayer' in a Choir stall).
Now, I began to wonder if I hadn't given a lot of the credit to God when at least some of it ought to go to me. I had perhaps tapped into my own inner resources, but believed myself to be so powerless that I had to ascribe those resources to some external person.
Hmmm. This currently works for me - it's still a hypothesis, though. And it is hugely important to me that I don't diss others' beliefs. I quite accept that other people can believe in Christianity with full integrity - it's just that I can't any more.
As for all my Christian experiences, they weren't a bad thing in many ways - except that I had given away a lot of my own power. Not only to God, but also to the Church itself, which influenced my actions, thoughts, feelings and even (as clergy) where and how I lived. I became aware, too, that there had been a lot of 'choosing what's difficult because it's what God wants' in my life. Development or self-punishment? The jury is now out...
I still don't see religious faith as a bad thing - I doubt I'd even be here without it, I was so screwed-up as a child. But I do feel that I've been robbed of faith in myself and that's unforgivable. Wow - even typing that word was a challenge. I've been so forgiving down the years. Who would have thought it might be damaging?
Well it is. I'm currently working hard to get in touch with my anger. I know it's in there somewhere but there is a veneer of saccharine lovey-doveyness stopping me accessing it. I have a horrid suspicion, you see, that anger needs to be visible. It needs to be heard. And then it can be released. I don't know where mine is, or what it's eating away at, but I know I need to get to it and allow it to have its place in my emotional world. Lots of people lose touch with their anger, but in my case the Church buried it for me. I don't NOW see a contradiction between love and anger coexisting, but I was taught for years that they couldn't.
To get back to my original theme, I see life as a journey. Nothing original there - religions down the millennia have all used that metaphor. Spirituality is how we make that journey. I'm eclectic now - I take what works for me. I doubt I'll ever go back to Christianity in its pure form, although never say never. I do believe in the Numinous, in some kind of order to the Universe, and I'm fascinated by all the Quantum Physics stuff which seems to me to say that we're made of nothing but energy. That opens up all kinds of metaphysical possibilities...
UPDATE! November 2010 - Made it through... can feel anger now but don't feel it (hope that makes sense). And realised that the chapel idea came from Louisa Mae Alcott, when Amy is sent away to avoid catching scarlet fever,and makes a chapel in which to pray for Beth,
Saturday 7 February 2009
A few grey hairs...
Jennifer Aniston, in my opinion one of the most beautiful women on the planet, turns forty this month. She said in an interview that she recently 'shed a few tears' when she found a long grey hair. (She does have long hair, so it makes sense).
In the context of the rest of the interview, it seems that she's actually quite 'together' about getting older, and was half poking fun at herself for her reaction. But I have friends who are paranoid about the whole ageing process. I find it really sad. My Dad's wise saying about growing old was that it was 'better than the alternative' - although when I passed this gem onto my boss as he dreaded turning 50, his response was, "Thanks a bloody lot!"
My family have never really believed in growing old. Sure, we age - but I remember very early on in life, my mother telling me that "you'll never be any older than 18 in your head." She was right.
So far, so good. I'm 48 (often taken for younger) and regularly burst out laughing in front of the mirror at the absurdity of being nearly 50. Perhaps, as my age-phobic friend predicts, I shall suddenly panic as I hit the big Five-Oh, but I don't think so. Forty was great! So far, each year has been better than the last, and though there is presumably some tipping point, where the aches and pains outweight the advantages of no longer giving a shit, I'm enjoying the ride. I'm planning to be a beautiful old lady with lots of happy wrinkles - it would be wonderful to find a guy to help me make them, but if that doesn't happen, I'm quite prepared to take responsibility for my own happiness and optimise my love of life.
I have more grey hairs now - in fact, they are a beautiful, shiny silver, which makes me put off all thoughts of colouring. Last time I went to the hairdresser's she asked me what shade I used, which made me feel a little odd. I don't know whether I shall want to dye my hair. I love the colour it is, but I know some damn sexy silver-haired women... I shall have to see how I feel when the greys outnumber the rest.
Age. The great divider. Youth allegedly equals sexy, competent, desirable, independent, fulfilled... and the rest.
What a load of rubbish!! I am more confident as I approach fifty than I have been for the whole of my life. I still have lots of anxieties, but I have learnt not to let them rule my life. I have enough experience to know that I can get through - well, almost anything. I've survived divorce, illness, the death of a parent, the near-death of a sibling, the chronic illness of one of my children, seeing another dearly-loved child move abroad, losing almost all my friends after my marriage broke down, finding God and losing him again, enforced celibacy and paying the mortgage! If you'd asked me at twenty-five how I thought I would cope with any of those things, I would have confidently replied that I wouldn't cope at all.
So don't tell ME that ageing is a bad thing! The longer I live, the more there is to love about life. I intend to drink it to the last drop.
I'm already wearing purple...
In the context of the rest of the interview, it seems that she's actually quite 'together' about getting older, and was half poking fun at herself for her reaction. But I have friends who are paranoid about the whole ageing process. I find it really sad. My Dad's wise saying about growing old was that it was 'better than the alternative' - although when I passed this gem onto my boss as he dreaded turning 50, his response was, "Thanks a bloody lot!"
My family have never really believed in growing old. Sure, we age - but I remember very early on in life, my mother telling me that "you'll never be any older than 18 in your head." She was right.
So far, so good. I'm 48 (often taken for younger) and regularly burst out laughing in front of the mirror at the absurdity of being nearly 50. Perhaps, as my age-phobic friend predicts, I shall suddenly panic as I hit the big Five-Oh, but I don't think so. Forty was great! So far, each year has been better than the last, and though there is presumably some tipping point, where the aches and pains outweight the advantages of no longer giving a shit, I'm enjoying the ride. I'm planning to be a beautiful old lady with lots of happy wrinkles - it would be wonderful to find a guy to help me make them, but if that doesn't happen, I'm quite prepared to take responsibility for my own happiness and optimise my love of life.
I have more grey hairs now - in fact, they are a beautiful, shiny silver, which makes me put off all thoughts of colouring. Last time I went to the hairdresser's she asked me what shade I used, which made me feel a little odd. I don't know whether I shall want to dye my hair. I love the colour it is, but I know some damn sexy silver-haired women... I shall have to see how I feel when the greys outnumber the rest.
Age. The great divider. Youth allegedly equals sexy, competent, desirable, independent, fulfilled... and the rest.
What a load of rubbish!! I am more confident as I approach fifty than I have been for the whole of my life. I still have lots of anxieties, but I have learnt not to let them rule my life. I have enough experience to know that I can get through - well, almost anything. I've survived divorce, illness, the death of a parent, the near-death of a sibling, the chronic illness of one of my children, seeing another dearly-loved child move abroad, losing almost all my friends after my marriage broke down, finding God and losing him again, enforced celibacy and paying the mortgage! If you'd asked me at twenty-five how I thought I would cope with any of those things, I would have confidently replied that I wouldn't cope at all.
So don't tell ME that ageing is a bad thing! The longer I live, the more there is to love about life. I intend to drink it to the last drop.
I'm already wearing purple...
Wednesday 4 February 2009
Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain.
I just came across that phrase and I like it.
My life has been quite stormy for a long time now. There are indications that the sky is clearing, although looking ahead a few months there will be some major adjustments to make as my younger daughter leaves home, and instead of driving her to A&E for the umpteenth time, I'll be taking her to the airport and waving her off to pastures new and far away.
I'm someone who cries when I need - so there will be a few rainy days, I'm sure! But I shall dance as she builds her new life, dance with joy that it's been possible for her to spread those beautiful wings which have languished far too long in the sleeves of a hospital gown. How could I possibly do anything other than rejoice at her new-found freedom to get out there and live her life?
When the plane is a speck in the sky, and her presence is confined to the phone or computer screen, I shall go out and learn some new dance steps to show her when we next get together. Perhaps I'll learn another language, or Reiki, or go on some gourmet cookery course...
I'm with the person who wrote, "When life gives you lemons, make limoncello." (Although missing someone might leave a nasty taste in your mouth, it could never lead to bitterness). My other daughter already lives abroad, and though I miss her every day, there are also a thousand reminders that we are (as she put it) connected by 'bonds that oceans cannot break'.
I am so proud of my daughters - watching Shirley Valentine the other night, I was struck by how they are both daring to get out there and taste life before they get old and jaded. It makes me so happy that I have raised young women with guts and confidence. I know they sometimes worry about leaving me on my own, but...
...my turn next?! :^)
My life has been quite stormy for a long time now. There are indications that the sky is clearing, although looking ahead a few months there will be some major adjustments to make as my younger daughter leaves home, and instead of driving her to A&E for the umpteenth time, I'll be taking her to the airport and waving her off to pastures new and far away.
I'm someone who cries when I need - so there will be a few rainy days, I'm sure! But I shall dance as she builds her new life, dance with joy that it's been possible for her to spread those beautiful wings which have languished far too long in the sleeves of a hospital gown. How could I possibly do anything other than rejoice at her new-found freedom to get out there and live her life?
When the plane is a speck in the sky, and her presence is confined to the phone or computer screen, I shall go out and learn some new dance steps to show her when we next get together. Perhaps I'll learn another language, or Reiki, or go on some gourmet cookery course...
I'm with the person who wrote, "When life gives you lemons, make limoncello." (Although missing someone might leave a nasty taste in your mouth, it could never lead to bitterness). My other daughter already lives abroad, and though I miss her every day, there are also a thousand reminders that we are (as she put it) connected by 'bonds that oceans cannot break'.
I am so proud of my daughters - watching Shirley Valentine the other night, I was struck by how they are both daring to get out there and taste life before they get old and jaded. It makes me so happy that I have raised young women with guts and confidence. I know they sometimes worry about leaving me on my own, but...
...my turn next?! :^)
A high-heeled life...
I had a very Northern moment this morning as I watched the news. They showed images of a snowy London street with a few brave souls on their way to work, one of whom was a woman in spindly, three-inch heels.
"The daft cow!" I spluttered into my Oatibix. "No wonder people haven't been able to get into work if that's how they're dressed!"
And feeling very superior, I pulled on my walking boots and set off for work. In the car. (The boots were for later).
As I drove along I was still marvelling at the stupidity of setting off into several inches of snow in high heels. Okay, SJP does it on New Year's Eve in the Sex and the City film - but she's also in her pyjamas and a fur coat, never gets mugged, and can eat out every night without getting fat or going bankrupt, so she doesn't count. "Who in their right mind..?" I was thinking.
Then it came to me. This is a woman who lives in London and works in the city. They haven't had snow like this for almost twenty years. She probably doesn't have any flat shoes.
Immediately I felt dreadful for judging her, when she was actually doing her best. What alternative did she have? Perhaps they were her most sensible shoes.
I began thinking about shoes-as-metaphor. My walking boots have only been used about three times (I have nobody to walk with). Most of the time I wear flat shoes, which are practical and comfortable. When I went out last weekend, I had very little choice - either the heels I can walk in, or the higher heels I'm saving for when I have a nice arm to hang onto...
My flat, practical shoes reflect how I've lived my life over the last few years. I've been quite limited in my life choices, having someone fairly dependent on me. I haven't been able to fly off on exotic holidays, or even have exotic relationships. My life has been solid, samey and slightly Sad. It took a lot of persuasion for me even to buy heels. My daughter runs a shoe department, so was bound to win in the end, ignoring my pathetic pleas that I didn't need to waste money on shoes I would never wear because nobody ever asked me out. She rightly told me that was ridiculous, and I ended up with two lovely pairs - one almost unworn - of lovely, shiny shoes. One black, because I usually insist on everything I buy going with everything else, to save money, and one in a lurid, Hooker's Red (wouldn't that be a great name for a Dulux paint?) which I bought because - well, they're gorgeous. I've never let myself fall for a pair of shoes before, but maybe Carrie Bradshaw's getting to me just a little.
I've still never worn them, though, Just as I've never booked that holiday in South America, or the Norwegian cruise, or the cottage in the Cotswolds. I haven't been able to do Impulse Living for a long time, and I've lost the habit. I have to say, my life feels less... colourful this way. I've decided it's time to reconnect with my old dreams - and dream some new ones. I need to live a high-heeled life now and again.
I wonder about the woman I saw picking her way through a snowy London this morning. Does she ever yearn for a bit more boredom in her life? Fewer high-powered meetings, a day food-shopping, a night at the pub? Does she feel she has to keep up appearances or lose her job in the current climate?
Will she learn from this week? Will she perhaps buy a cheap pair of flat shoes and use them to walk safely to work tomorrow, keeping them in her wardrobe as a reminder of the Great Snow; the week people stopped scurrying around and built snowmen in the parks?
And will she ever wonder why she didn't join them, just for a day?
"The daft cow!" I spluttered into my Oatibix. "No wonder people haven't been able to get into work if that's how they're dressed!"
And feeling very superior, I pulled on my walking boots and set off for work. In the car. (The boots were for later).
As I drove along I was still marvelling at the stupidity of setting off into several inches of snow in high heels. Okay, SJP does it on New Year's Eve in the Sex and the City film - but she's also in her pyjamas and a fur coat, never gets mugged, and can eat out every night without getting fat or going bankrupt, so she doesn't count. "Who in their right mind..?" I was thinking.
Then it came to me. This is a woman who lives in London and works in the city. They haven't had snow like this for almost twenty years. She probably doesn't have any flat shoes.
Immediately I felt dreadful for judging her, when she was actually doing her best. What alternative did she have? Perhaps they were her most sensible shoes.
I began thinking about shoes-as-metaphor. My walking boots have only been used about three times (I have nobody to walk with). Most of the time I wear flat shoes, which are practical and comfortable. When I went out last weekend, I had very little choice - either the heels I can walk in, or the higher heels I'm saving for when I have a nice arm to hang onto...
My flat, practical shoes reflect how I've lived my life over the last few years. I've been quite limited in my life choices, having someone fairly dependent on me. I haven't been able to fly off on exotic holidays, or even have exotic relationships. My life has been solid, samey and slightly Sad. It took a lot of persuasion for me even to buy heels. My daughter runs a shoe department, so was bound to win in the end, ignoring my pathetic pleas that I didn't need to waste money on shoes I would never wear because nobody ever asked me out. She rightly told me that was ridiculous, and I ended up with two lovely pairs - one almost unworn - of lovely, shiny shoes. One black, because I usually insist on everything I buy going with everything else, to save money, and one in a lurid, Hooker's Red (wouldn't that be a great name for a Dulux paint?) which I bought because - well, they're gorgeous. I've never let myself fall for a pair of shoes before, but maybe Carrie Bradshaw's getting to me just a little.
I've still never worn them, though, Just as I've never booked that holiday in South America, or the Norwegian cruise, or the cottage in the Cotswolds. I haven't been able to do Impulse Living for a long time, and I've lost the habit. I have to say, my life feels less... colourful this way. I've decided it's time to reconnect with my old dreams - and dream some new ones. I need to live a high-heeled life now and again.
I wonder about the woman I saw picking her way through a snowy London this morning. Does she ever yearn for a bit more boredom in her life? Fewer high-powered meetings, a day food-shopping, a night at the pub? Does she feel she has to keep up appearances or lose her job in the current climate?
Will she learn from this week? Will she perhaps buy a cheap pair of flat shoes and use them to walk safely to work tomorrow, keeping them in her wardrobe as a reminder of the Great Snow; the week people stopped scurrying around and built snowmen in the parks?
And will she ever wonder why she didn't join them, just for a day?
Tuesday 3 February 2009
Sonnet (written at a poetry evening)
Shall I compare thee to a winter’s night?
Thou art more frigid, and more obdurate.
After that weekend on the Isle of Wight,
Ten minutes with you would be too long a date.
You looked so hot - I thought you such a find!
But sadly learned my every hope was dashed
When every time I kissed you, you declined,
And told me that you feared for your moustache.
My memories of summer will not fade;
I’ve put the pictures on my Facebook page.
Too late, my love, your reputation’s made -
A war on your good name I now shall wage.
So long as people surf the Internet,
Thus long will last your shame, and your regret.
Thou art more frigid, and more obdurate.
After that weekend on the Isle of Wight,
Ten minutes with you would be too long a date.
You looked so hot - I thought you such a find!
But sadly learned my every hope was dashed
When every time I kissed you, you declined,
And told me that you feared for your moustache.
My memories of summer will not fade;
I’ve put the pictures on my Facebook page.
Too late, my love, your reputation’s made -
A war on your good name I now shall wage.
So long as people surf the Internet,
Thus long will last your shame, and your regret.
Sunday 25 January 2009
Futility in numbers..?
I wonder how many people my great-great-grandmother knew? In the early 1800s, I wonder how large the average social circle was? When you read Jane Austen, the hunger for contact with new people is palpable. Extroverts must have found it so difficult to be content with reading and walks in the country, when they secretly craved the company of other people whom they hadn't known since birth. Perhaps they felt a yearning for something which they couldn't put into words, an uneasy feeling that their horizons were too small? Of course there were always big cities, parties, theatres, the Opera... but for the majority they were once-in-a-lifetime treats, or marvels only heard of from others fortunate enough to experience them.
I know so many people - through work and years of involvement in various communities - that I quite often am lost for a name when someone smiles and speaks to me in the street. It happened yesterday. I have learnt to make non-commital conversation and ask vague questions cleverly crafted to give me clues to the person's identity.
I have never tried to count, but I must have known literally thousands of people by name over 48 years. And then there are the people I see regularly, whose names I may never know but who nevertheless form a part of my interior landscape. The people in my dreams may well have real lives - they must come from somewhere, and my dreams are densely-populated.
So - my great-great-grandmother? I bet she was in daily contact with 50 people at the most. There would be family of course, and close relatives, and people in her village who were regular faces... perhaps a travelling salesman or two, and an awareness of Queen Victoria's existence, which probably didn't impact much in a tiny Northern village.
I can't help thinking how much less stressful it must have been. So much of my brain is given over to classifying people by whether or not I already know them, whether I can remember their name, whether they remind me of someone I already know (I read that women are especially prone to this). How restful to go to bed knowing that all the people you knew and loved were in your thoughts, rather than waiting their turn...
I suspect, though I'll never know, that there was far less angst and feeling futile back then. How could you not feel you mattered when you were one of only 50 or so significant people in your life? Whereas I'm aware of being one of 6.75 billion.
Back then, news travelled slowly. If you heard of a disaster it was dreadful - but by the time you heard of it, there was nothing you could do. Whereas now we hear the news and see it as it happens (see my poem 'Overload' below) and there is immense pressure on us - each one of us - to make some response and try to help.
Well - we can't always help. I am desperately sorry for the people involved in the shooting in Belgium, but I can't change the outcome by my feelings. And yet - there they are. I am suddenly projecting back in time, imagining how I would have felt had it happened to my children, remembering the kindness of the people I met in Belgium over 25 years ago, grieving a little with them...
Is it awful to say that I think we put too much pressure on ourselves by this incessant involvement in something which is none of our business? Of course there are many occasions when it is helpful to send money, and we're quite good at that, I think - but even that can be a way of distancing ourselves. And perhaps we're right to.
If there is some disaster, I tend not to listen to the news for a few days. I have decided to protect myself from the immediacy of it, because it makes me feel helpless. Perhaps it is not unfeeling to decide that I cannot emote for the whole of humankind, whatever the media decree. Maybe I am right to protect that small part of my brain which is NOT coping with the stress of an exploding social network? And yet here I am on the Internet, compounding the problem. Could I have become a People Junkie?
Ultimately we all seek to 'matter' to somebody, as we seem to matter less and less to ourselves. I think this is what is behind the celebrity cult, the efforts of unknowns to become known. If they are known to 3 million viewers, then possibly there is some meaning to their life after all.
I'm not sure that we are any better off in terms of emotional well-being than my great-great-grandmother was.
What do you think?
I know so many people - through work and years of involvement in various communities - that I quite often am lost for a name when someone smiles and speaks to me in the street. It happened yesterday. I have learnt to make non-commital conversation and ask vague questions cleverly crafted to give me clues to the person's identity.
I have never tried to count, but I must have known literally thousands of people by name over 48 years. And then there are the people I see regularly, whose names I may never know but who nevertheless form a part of my interior landscape. The people in my dreams may well have real lives - they must come from somewhere, and my dreams are densely-populated.
So - my great-great-grandmother? I bet she was in daily contact with 50 people at the most. There would be family of course, and close relatives, and people in her village who were regular faces... perhaps a travelling salesman or two, and an awareness of Queen Victoria's existence, which probably didn't impact much in a tiny Northern village.
I can't help thinking how much less stressful it must have been. So much of my brain is given over to classifying people by whether or not I already know them, whether I can remember their name, whether they remind me of someone I already know (I read that women are especially prone to this). How restful to go to bed knowing that all the people you knew and loved were in your thoughts, rather than waiting their turn...
I suspect, though I'll never know, that there was far less angst and feeling futile back then. How could you not feel you mattered when you were one of only 50 or so significant people in your life? Whereas I'm aware of being one of 6.75 billion.
Back then, news travelled slowly. If you heard of a disaster it was dreadful - but by the time you heard of it, there was nothing you could do. Whereas now we hear the news and see it as it happens (see my poem 'Overload' below) and there is immense pressure on us - each one of us - to make some response and try to help.
Well - we can't always help. I am desperately sorry for the people involved in the shooting in Belgium, but I can't change the outcome by my feelings. And yet - there they are. I am suddenly projecting back in time, imagining how I would have felt had it happened to my children, remembering the kindness of the people I met in Belgium over 25 years ago, grieving a little with them...
Is it awful to say that I think we put too much pressure on ourselves by this incessant involvement in something which is none of our business? Of course there are many occasions when it is helpful to send money, and we're quite good at that, I think - but even that can be a way of distancing ourselves. And perhaps we're right to.
If there is some disaster, I tend not to listen to the news for a few days. I have decided to protect myself from the immediacy of it, because it makes me feel helpless. Perhaps it is not unfeeling to decide that I cannot emote for the whole of humankind, whatever the media decree. Maybe I am right to protect that small part of my brain which is NOT coping with the stress of an exploding social network? And yet here I am on the Internet, compounding the problem. Could I have become a People Junkie?
Ultimately we all seek to 'matter' to somebody, as we seem to matter less and less to ourselves. I think this is what is behind the celebrity cult, the efforts of unknowns to become known. If they are known to 3 million viewers, then possibly there is some meaning to their life after all.
I'm not sure that we are any better off in terms of emotional well-being than my great-great-grandmother was.
What do you think?
Saturday 24 January 2009
The root of all evil?
It has always annoyed me when people misquote that. It is, of course, the LOVE of money which is denounced in the Bible; money can be useful, but the love of it can definitely eat into our hearts and lives and gradually destroy us as spiritual beings.
I'm not in any way belittling the tremendous amount of suffering the Credit Crunch is bringing in its wake, and I am certainly not suggesting that all those affected 'deserve' their misery, or that they had an unhealthy attitude to money. All sorts of people are caught up in this - all of us, in fact.
However, ever since finances began to dominate the media, I have found myself unable to shake a sneaking feeling that this is ultimately going to be Good For Us as a society. I've never seen money as 'real' and I don't think it will be a bad thing if we are forced to rethink what we truly value in life.
When did we start measuring our success in terms of money? Who decided that you were a better person if you could buy more things? At what point did the buzz of buying a new pair of shoes become more enjoyable than having a cup of tea with a friend? Why do so many people prefer to go out and spend money, rather than spend time dealing with possibly uncomfortable emotions?
If you are an 'emotional eater' you get visibly fat eventually. However, there has been no visible consequence of emotional spending until now. Sure, individuals have got into huge debt - but that's been okay, hasn't it? Because there has always been someone around to literally cash in on their misery and make a quick buck off the back of it. And anyway - when everyone's in debt, it's no big deal. is it?
Well - it's Crunch time. Credit Crunch time, to be precise. Those who have gorged on other's debts are now succumbing to all the side effects of moral obesity. Some long-established financial institutions are dying of heartlessness. Others find themselves too weighed down by their own debts to stand on the High Street, and are gasping for the breath of renewed funds which are never going to arrive.
As billions of pounds disappear electronically from our crashing financial systems, I'm left with a question to which I've never had a satisfactory answer.
What IS money? It's not really there, is it? Each month my employer sends a list of figures out to various banks, who then inform their clients that they now have X amount of 'money' in their account.
When I go shoppping, I give a plastic card to the cashier, which enables a few of those numbers to appear on someone else's screen and disappear from my account. I rarely see actual money, though I do make a point of seeing a few pounds of it every week, just to make myself feel slightly less insane for being part of this bizarre system.
When I was a teenager and attending an Evangelical Church, there was much muttering about the AntiChrist and the Last Days. (Incidentally watch out for those Fundies, Obama, cos I seem to remember that bringing about World Peace is a No-no. Make sure you leave a few trouble spots!)
We were warned that the Mark of the Beast would probably be a tattooed barcode on our arms, which we would have to show in order to buy food. Persecution would come in the form of Christians (who would refuse to have the Mark of Satan, obviously) being unable to buy food, clothing or anything else they needed, because money would no longer exist.
Oh, how we laughed. We knew technology like that wouldn't be possible for at least another 150 years - and anyway, WHY would anybody want to deal with money that way?
I believe this is the very system being investigated now. I imagine there would be lots of security issues, and I'm sure I'm not the only person who wouldn't fancy a tattoo for any reasons, but still - those Evos had a point.
Except they missed the fact that, as they sat in their beautifully-carpetted churches, and went home to host their gourmet meals (Prawn Cocktail! Wow!) whilst millions carried on their daily business of starving to death, the West had already sold its soul and was blissfully unaware that, as in every good fable, Payback time was on its way. We survived a few 'recessions' - and grew even more confident that we could survive anything.
This time, I'm not so sure.
I think we may just have to face up to the global damage we have done with years of selfishness and greed. We will definitely have to redefine our values. It may even be that we spend less money on things, and more time with people.
My dream is that as all this sorry story unfolds, we will learn to gauge wealth by contentment, not material riches. Compare the looks on the faces of our spoilt, overfed, bored-with-life children with those of hungry children in an African village welcoming visitors.
Who is richer?
I'm not in any way belittling the tremendous amount of suffering the Credit Crunch is bringing in its wake, and I am certainly not suggesting that all those affected 'deserve' their misery, or that they had an unhealthy attitude to money. All sorts of people are caught up in this - all of us, in fact.
However, ever since finances began to dominate the media, I have found myself unable to shake a sneaking feeling that this is ultimately going to be Good For Us as a society. I've never seen money as 'real' and I don't think it will be a bad thing if we are forced to rethink what we truly value in life.
When did we start measuring our success in terms of money? Who decided that you were a better person if you could buy more things? At what point did the buzz of buying a new pair of shoes become more enjoyable than having a cup of tea with a friend? Why do so many people prefer to go out and spend money, rather than spend time dealing with possibly uncomfortable emotions?
If you are an 'emotional eater' you get visibly fat eventually. However, there has been no visible consequence of emotional spending until now. Sure, individuals have got into huge debt - but that's been okay, hasn't it? Because there has always been someone around to literally cash in on their misery and make a quick buck off the back of it. And anyway - when everyone's in debt, it's no big deal. is it?
Well - it's Crunch time. Credit Crunch time, to be precise. Those who have gorged on other's debts are now succumbing to all the side effects of moral obesity. Some long-established financial institutions are dying of heartlessness. Others find themselves too weighed down by their own debts to stand on the High Street, and are gasping for the breath of renewed funds which are never going to arrive.
As billions of pounds disappear electronically from our crashing financial systems, I'm left with a question to which I've never had a satisfactory answer.
What IS money? It's not really there, is it? Each month my employer sends a list of figures out to various banks, who then inform their clients that they now have X amount of 'money' in their account.
When I go shoppping, I give a plastic card to the cashier, which enables a few of those numbers to appear on someone else's screen and disappear from my account. I rarely see actual money, though I do make a point of seeing a few pounds of it every week, just to make myself feel slightly less insane for being part of this bizarre system.
When I was a teenager and attending an Evangelical Church, there was much muttering about the AntiChrist and the Last Days. (Incidentally watch out for those Fundies, Obama, cos I seem to remember that bringing about World Peace is a No-no. Make sure you leave a few trouble spots!)
We were warned that the Mark of the Beast would probably be a tattooed barcode on our arms, which we would have to show in order to buy food. Persecution would come in the form of Christians (who would refuse to have the Mark of Satan, obviously) being unable to buy food, clothing or anything else they needed, because money would no longer exist.
Oh, how we laughed. We knew technology like that wouldn't be possible for at least another 150 years - and anyway, WHY would anybody want to deal with money that way?
I believe this is the very system being investigated now. I imagine there would be lots of security issues, and I'm sure I'm not the only person who wouldn't fancy a tattoo for any reasons, but still - those Evos had a point.
Except they missed the fact that, as they sat in their beautifully-carpetted churches, and went home to host their gourmet meals (Prawn Cocktail! Wow!) whilst millions carried on their daily business of starving to death, the West had already sold its soul and was blissfully unaware that, as in every good fable, Payback time was on its way. We survived a few 'recessions' - and grew even more confident that we could survive anything.
This time, I'm not so sure.
I think we may just have to face up to the global damage we have done with years of selfishness and greed. We will definitely have to redefine our values. It may even be that we spend less money on things, and more time with people.
My dream is that as all this sorry story unfolds, we will learn to gauge wealth by contentment, not material riches. Compare the looks on the faces of our spoilt, overfed, bored-with-life children with those of hungry children in an African village welcoming visitors.
Who is richer?
Friday 23 January 2009
Grievance...
My breasts have made an official complaint against me.
They say I 'cramp their style' -
Obstruct their view with 'inappropriate clothing'
And draw attention from them with my smile.
My breasts inform me that I'm 'over-zealous'
About eye-contact, and making conversation.
It isn't true, but they're convinced I'm jealous;
They're demanding that I pay them compensation.
My breasts are into Equal Opps and Cosmo.
Apparently, while I sleep, they go online
Where they're part of some community in Oslo,
Who insist I don't refer to them as 'mine'.
They don't need me around to pull, they tell me.
They've personality enough, they say.
I don't attract a great deal of attention -
Whilst men ask for their number every day.
I'm going to let them go to town one evening
(Although I find them rather immature)
There are so many tits out drinking on a Friday.
Two more will make no difference, I'm sure.
They say I 'cramp their style' -
Obstruct their view with 'inappropriate clothing'
And draw attention from them with my smile.
My breasts inform me that I'm 'over-zealous'
About eye-contact, and making conversation.
It isn't true, but they're convinced I'm jealous;
They're demanding that I pay them compensation.
My breasts are into Equal Opps and Cosmo.
Apparently, while I sleep, they go online
Where they're part of some community in Oslo,
Who insist I don't refer to them as 'mine'.
They don't need me around to pull, they tell me.
They've personality enough, they say.
I don't attract a great deal of attention -
Whilst men ask for their number every day.
I'm going to let them go to town one evening
(Although I find them rather immature)
There are so many tits out drinking on a Friday.
Two more will make no difference, I'm sure.
Overload
We're all connected like some
Human Internet,
Media hyperlinks grafting us instantly into
Other people's lives.
I can't watch the TV news right now.
The pictures on radio aren't just better -
They're so vivid they give me nightmares,
And when I hit DELETE, the screen reloads with
Fresh images of horror.
From thousands of miles away
A nation watches As It Happens!
With one click, transported to the spot
Where wailing villagers mourn a lost generation
buried with their teachers.
A different village every bulletin!
Ten thousand Aberfans at the touch of a button!
Or I could savour the sight of mothers
Stumbling wide-eyed through the flooded wreckage of their lives,
Their parched throats denying them the last comfort
Of screaming for their families -
Whose bloated, stinking corpses rot five miles downstream,
As their rulers continue
To export rice to Singapore
And bask in the glory of their re-election.
Unable to be there in person,
We donate a few pounds to the
Pay-as-you-Watch-wall-to-wall-Reality-Horror-Channel;
Consciences salved, we pour the tea
And settle on our sofas.
Vicarious vultures.
Unable to devour their grief in person,
We watch the re-runs on the hour,
Between our favourite Reality TV, adverts for pizza, hair-dye and personal injury claims.
Familiar faces entertain us.
Meanwhile millions die.
But we don't know their names.
Human Internet,
Media hyperlinks grafting us instantly into
Other people's lives.
I can't watch the TV news right now.
The pictures on radio aren't just better -
They're so vivid they give me nightmares,
And when I hit DELETE, the screen reloads with
Fresh images of horror.
From thousands of miles away
A nation watches As It Happens!
With one click, transported to the spot
Where wailing villagers mourn a lost generation
buried with their teachers.
A different village every bulletin!
Ten thousand Aberfans at the touch of a button!
Or I could savour the sight of mothers
Stumbling wide-eyed through the flooded wreckage of their lives,
Their parched throats denying them the last comfort
Of screaming for their families -
Whose bloated, stinking corpses rot five miles downstream,
As their rulers continue
To export rice to Singapore
And bask in the glory of their re-election.
Unable to be there in person,
We donate a few pounds to the
Pay-as-you-Watch-wall-to-wall-Reality-Horror-Channel;
Consciences salved, we pour the tea
And settle on our sofas.
Vicarious vultures.
Unable to devour their grief in person,
We watch the re-runs on the hour,
Between our favourite Reality TV, adverts for pizza, hair-dye and personal injury claims.
Familiar faces entertain us.
Meanwhile millions die.
But we don't know their names.
Virgin snow...
When I was little, I loved to be the first person to tread in new snow. I was last in a family of four, and always felt as though I was playing catch-up with the rest of them. I couldn't break new ground, be the first to go to University, or learn French, or marry... but I could make my mark on virgin snow, look at those tiny footprints with the glow of satisfaction which comes from having Been the First to Do Something.
This, I'm sure, is why I have always loved notebooks... I go into stationery departments and inwardly gasp at the sheer potential of all that blank, white space. And, like many of you I'm sure, I sometimes buy them and then freeze, unable to sully that beautiful first page with mere writing. It has to be GOOD writing. And I find that my best writing comes halfway through most of my many notebooks, the previous, scrappy pages a testament to the editing process. I know that, but something in me doesn't want to subject a new notebook to that process - which is silly of me, because in the end I always cave in and write something - ANYthing, just to break it in.
Two years ago I was given a beautiful book, with a soft, bejewelled cover. And I have still written nothing at all in it. It sits reproachfully in my room, a metaphor for unfulfilled promise and procrastination, a thing of beauty with no inner life of its own.
Too much beauty can be daunting. I take comfort from that as I look in the mirror, or wait for responses from dating sites (more on that story later!!)
Inertia can set in as you wait for perfection.
That's what brings me here. For too long now, I have written for too small an audience. Those who hear my poetry seem to like it very much. Recipients of my emails treasure them. And so I hope that what I write on this blog will become a source of entertainment and - why not? - hope for the people who read it. I believe in love and life and laughter, and I've learnt how to use humour to get through some pretty dreadful times in my life.
The title for this blog came from a thought in a coffee shop a few weeks ago. I'm not too bothered by mortality. I've faced the death of people I love and I think - at almost 50, but still feeling 18, cliched though that is - that I shall come to terms with the end of my own life pretty well. I hope it's not for a very long time, of course, simply because I love life and want to enjoy it for as long as possible.
What bothers me more is the feeling of futility. Many years ago I read 'The Feminine Mystique' in which Friedan refers to 'The Problem That Has No Name'. This phrase has come back to haunt me as I struggle to find the meaning of my life. I've found meaning in various places down the years, and I know I shall again, but for now I have willingly thrown myself into the river of Not Knowing. I think it's important to have those times in your life when you abandon yourself to NOT having the answers, to allowing emotions to bubble up, through and out of your psyche...
This is the promise I made to myself for this year. I hope you will share my journey with me as I tread my prints into the Internet, and maybe we can help each other through what, I am perversely convinced despite the doom-and-gloom merchants, is going to be a wonderful year.
First-born post
I've already posted on here but, because my Virgoan* nature impelled me to 'correct' the time, I now realise my first post will be appearing in a few hours. So I've added some of the poetry to which it refers in a gung-ho wot-the-hell-archie spirit.
You'll be reading a lot about metaphors on this blog. I see them everywhere - always have. And it seems to me that the still-birth (or rather, delayed birth) of my first post has a significance. For at the moment I am exploring where I want to be in life, what it all means... and my very first attempt to write about this was sabotaged by my own need to control.
Interesting, that.
Enjoy the poetry! :)
*Not at all sure I really believe in astrology, but not at all sure I don't. I'm certainly a nit-picker at times! (With a VERY messy house. Why did I miss THAT trait?)
You'll be reading a lot about metaphors on this blog. I see them everywhere - always have. And it seems to me that the still-birth (or rather, delayed birth) of my first post has a significance. For at the moment I am exploring where I want to be in life, what it all means... and my very first attempt to write about this was sabotaged by my own need to control.
Interesting, that.
Enjoy the poetry! :)
*Not at all sure I really believe in astrology, but not at all sure I don't. I'm certainly a nit-picker at times! (With a VERY messy house. Why did I miss THAT trait?)
Intimacy
It's not the entwining of bodies,
But the meeting of minds;
Not the mingling of sweat,
But the exchanging of thoughts.
Not the greedy look of lust,
Or sigh of pleasure as we thrust ourselves together...
But the simple 'How are you?'
And the knowledge that
It really matters.
Anyone can share a bed - that's the easy part.
Intimacy?
Oh! - that isn't for the faint of heart...
Much Ado about Nothingness
We are composed of a million trillion bundles of energy,
Which flash on and off
In the heavenly binary code which defines our existence.
Our solidity is an illusion;
An image flickering too fast for us to register
The infinitesimal gaps –
Those places where we cease to be
ten thousand times a second.
And in those secret spaces,
Between the dreamt-of and unthinkable,
Dwell archetypes and angels,
Monsters and demons.
Energy is constant, so the scientists say;
But I am not.
Opposing forces in my life
Vie for supremacy,
Forcing me to choose a thousand times a day…
Saint or sinner? Give or take?
Loser or winner? Love or hate?
I’m led by a will which believes itself to be free,
Daily trying to discover the point of being me.
The miracle – that we were born at all;
That my fleeting existence coincides with yours,
And that we acknowledge our common humanity –
Is enough to justify my heroic struggle
As I do intellectual battle with eternity,
Giving life – my life – to ancient myths
Which repeat with endless variation
Through centuries of ordinary lives.
Nothing, they say, is new under the sun.
And yet each millisecond, each of us
Bears witness to a new life just begun
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