Looking for the Obvious

My friend is writing this in the third person because my friend does not want to cry in public and she is sitting in a woodland cafe.. Though, you’d think she’d be used to it by now. Tears are always burrowing up and under and out before making their way down her face at a march, at a plod, at a sprint. Some cross the finish-line in ones or twos whilst others get caught up in a bottleneck then are all spewed out together. Sometimes she shakes at their escape, sometimes she wants to vomit with the strength of them but often she doesn’t even notice them until she licks one off her lips. She doesn’t mind the crying per se.  It usually heralds a revelation, some greater understanding of herself, a hitting of the nail on the head;  an end to pain. It dissolves the dull, aching of her head which has obscured work and thought and sleep.It allows the solution to flow through the bars of the keep and make its way out of nose, eyes and ears, leaving nothing behind but blessed emptiness, exhaustion,and hunger.

There is a key to the headaches, to the inability to motivate herself, to this unending cycle of weeping and pain, release and fatigue, but she can never remember where she put it. The motto on its fob says “If it’s nothing else, then it must be the obvious’, With a small adaptation, this also works for things you’ve lost
“If it’s nowhere else, it must be in the obvious place’, never fails. It allows you to return to where you know the item should be several times before discovering it was there all along. Let me demonstrate: If you have lost your favourite mug and it isn’t beside your bed where you drank your last fennel tea of the day, and it isn’t in the bathroom, where you put it down to brush your teeth, and it isn’t in the dishwasher, then it’s in the mug cupboard without a shadow of a doubt.. No matter that you’ve looked in there six times before, no matter that you only just had it in your hand. Move something aside, squint from a new angle to the dark bit in the corner –the mug’ll be there…I guarantee it.Or rather,my friend will guarantee it. It’s the same with her headaches. The remedy for the headaches is not a migraine tablet, nor a hot water bottle, not even (as her osteopath had assured her)  Cold! Cold! Hot! - a cold flannel on the forehead, a cold flannel on the neck and a hot water bottle on the tummy, all directing blood flow away from the head. It wasn’t avoiding chocolate, embracing a hot bath or indulging in meditation. No, it was hitting the nail on the head and having a bloody good cry.

So, she searched her head while The Obvious played a game of Hide-and-Seek.. It obscured itself behind petty squabbles, faint niggles and Big Questions She examined the events of the past few days and weeks, which put her poor, aching head under more strain. Sometimes, she thought she was getting warmer, when in fact she was very cold indeed.  The absence of tears was telling her she'd been looking in the wrong place.

Let’s go back a few days to when my friend stood in a perishing autumn field, watching her son play football for the first time in 2 years. Why she doesn’t do that more often is for another day. Now, it is enough to know that on Sunday, she was a football Mom. She was cold, but she was proud. She watched his long legs looking goose-bumped and wiry and noticed that the new boots he’d bought with the £40 she’d given him were exactly the same £20 boots that he said he wouldn’t be seen dead in when she’d described them over the phone from TK Maxx. Her boy; her lovely, handsome, blond, clever, mother-loving, grumpy, slightly whiffy in a (nearly) 17 year-old sort of a way, son.  !7! Sheesh!
She realised that she very rarely got to participate in his life and the things that meant something to him. She was having  a rare and privileged glimpse into his world and she realised as she clapped gloved hands together on that patch of green, that once another two years had passed, she’d have lost him to university. Everything would be irrevocably changed. She shed a tear. No mystery there. A mother grieving for a son not yet lost. She had already grieved  the loss of her first born baby; a daughter who had turned 18 a few months beforehand.

On the Monday after the Sunday, my friend fulfilled her role as a child. She is a Youth Advocate. She harnesses the wishes and feelings of children and then attends meetings that last all day with the child’s family. She stands in for the child, ensuring always that its voice is heard. Usually that family is at war. It’s a fraught job and an emotive one but ultimately satisfying. Often, she notices a headache on the day she is to attend a meeting, or the day afterwards. She knows she gets over involved; over identifies. Sometimes, such as this time, it leads her to be thoughtless towards adults, so anxious is she to make them hear the child for the first time. She knows that’s the child in her, asking to be recognised. Afterwards, she feels the need to be punished for insulting her elders. She calls herself stupid. She feels the familiar sway of vertigo; an ungrounding, an anxiety…an obscuring of her vision in the middle of her right eye; a misshapen fly in the ointment.

Luckily, a GCSE presentation that same evening, kept her occupied. Afterwards, she thought about the family-at war and the children with the long eye-lashes and the wicked stepmother. She didn’t want to see them in her sleep and so stayed up too late watching TV. No surprise then, that the migraine was between stations when she woke up. Regardless, she managed to speak to several children in crisis and  tried to look after herself. She bought herself a pure new wool-and-cashmere coat in a second-hand shop between visits. She ate Paracetamol and Ibuprofen as though they were Smarties.  She drank coffee because it was worth a try.
That evening, she tried to explain the headache into dissolution by chatting to a friend. This almost always works –giving the headache a voice of its own. But still, the pain lingered as they chatted on about work, damp proof paint, gigs and football matches. By this morning things were much worse because they were stuck. Sinuses were blocked, her head was filled with barbed cotton wool and she was dragging her body around the house as though every limb were filled with coal. Her bones ached. She reluctantly cancelled work for the day to give herself time to sift through the obvious places of her mind. She was in crisis.

The woods have always been like a warm bath to my friend. They release her mental blocks she tells me, and provide her with clean air and support. Once, she said, she held onto a leaf that sprung from a hazel, as though she were a child holding its mother’s hand, and cried until there was nothing left for pain to stuff itself with. Today, she was relieved to be among her woody friends. She walked in silence and breathed deeply… still nothing; not guilt, not the anxious children of her working day. She wondered if she could afford to give up this type of work. She couldn’t go on with migraines, no-one would expect it of her. As it was,my friend wondered how she was going to pay the bills when her maintenance dropped and tax credits halved? Would her three babies have their childhood home to come home to?  Her nose tingled and she felt the wax melt in her ears. The sinuses gave up their grip on her breath and now she knew she’d been looking in the wrong place. She thought of her son leaving home and the tears tunnelled furiously upwards through blocked canals. She thought of losing the home her children grew up in and the tears exploded like a geyser; cheeks and gloves  covered in snot and despair. She thought of how change had come for her children and their mother. She waded through mud, sobbing. She clung to her life yet grieved for its loss.

 She hadn’t let herself notice that the first year without her daughter would be the last year with her son. A journey filled with loss was about to begin and she didn't want to go. She knew not how to save her house which was fed on alimony. She didn’t think she could earn enough. To lose her home and her children would be unbearable.  She couldn't navigate this new world all by herself. She had been looking in the wrong place.

..Lead us not into... (part 1)

I recently travelled from here to there on a bus, two trains and a tube. The last leg was a replacement coach service. There weren’t many seats available - a single here and a single there perhaps. As I boarded, a man signalled to me before pointing eagerly to the chair next to him. ‘Sit here, sit here’ he said as though we were old friends on a magical mystery tour. I imagined jam sandwiches in tin foil squashed into a doughy mess in his pocket. He looked a little older than me but not unattractive. A tad scruffy perhaps…fingerless gloves always have a touch of the Steptoe about them I think. He was wiry and bearded, and wearing a beanie. It’s my opinion that if  a hat of any description is worn by a man when it isn’t absolutely necessary (…on a bus for example) it’s probably hiding a degree of baldness. Well, that’s what I imagine anyway.  If only they knew they were worrying about nothing. If only they knew that we women don’t care. We don’t give a freaking or proverbial monkey’s about hair once we are past a certain age, because we are too busy worrying about whether the sexy bald guy has noticed the size of our arse.  Men who actually suit hats, are young enough to have a full head of hair and are wearing the hat to celebrate. Tufts of it are usually escaping coquettishly here or there. By the bye, if it’s actually snowing, feel free to wear the hat. It makes sense.

Anyway, my newest companion was wearing fingerless gloves and a beanie on the bus. He smelt vaguely of several days’ travel without a flannel and I have watched enough detective dramas to clock a 3 day-old 5 o’clock shadow. There was something about the droop of his eyelids and childlike excitement at a Sunday night coach trip, that led me to believe he was  pissed. I channelled my inner Benedict Cumberbatch (always an entertaining night) and deduced that the man-child had, in all likelihood, been keeping himself topped up without over-spilling, for the duration of his journey. He was incredibly annoying but quite famous in quite an impressive yet terribly naff sort of a way.

I’ll tell you more tomorrow…or the next day…maybe.

The Man on The Bus Part 1

I recently travelled from here to there on a bus, two trains and a tube. The last leg of the journey involved a replacement coach service. By the time that I There weren’t many seats  a single here and there. As I boarded, a man signalled to me before pointing eagerly to the chair next to him. ‘Sit here, sit here’ he said as though we were old friends on a magical mystery tour. I imagined jam sandwiches in tin foil heating through in his pocket. He looked a little older than me but not unattractive. A tad scruffy perhaps…fingerless gloves always have a touch of the Steptoe about them I think. He was wiry and bearded, with a beanie hat. If a hat of any description is worn by a man when it isn’t absolutely necessary (on a bus for example) it’s probably hiding baldness to a greater or lesser extent. Let me just tell you now gents, that you are worrying about nothing because we don’t really care. We don’t give a freaking or proverbial monkey’s about hair once we are past a certain age, because we are too busy worrying about whether the sexy bald guy has noticed the size of our arse. Give yourself and everyone else a break. The only chaps I know who actually suit hats, are young enough to have a full head of hair and only wear the hat to draw attention to it.

Back for Good (ness Knows How long)

Well Pamsters

 I have missed you. I have had writers block for some time now, and I think it’s because I have been denying myself the indulgence of my blog. I may not be back for good, but I am back for now.

It’s been a while. What have I been doing? Well, I can tell you what I absolutely haven’t been doing and that is writing a book.

 I’ve thought about it.

 I’ve known I can do it.

 I have the bones of it, but then I’ve had them for a year. 

Now I’ve taken to singing ‘Dem Bones, Dem Bones, Dem Dry Bones! whilst playing the spoons and eating industrial quantities of chocolate because as I’ve said, what I absolutely haven’t been doing with Dem Dry Bones is....

 writing De Damn Book.

 But, on the positive side, I have been learning an awful lot about myself and working out what else I want from life. Life is coming into focus which makes me feel that at 48, l am finally ready to have one. Hurrah for me. ..cream teas and scones all round.

Men have been a recurring theme this summer and I won’t bore you with the details, but mostly I have been absolutely clear about what I don’t want, what I refuse to put up with and what I do need from a relationship...progress indeed. This of course means that meaningless sex is mostly off the agenda but absolutely award-winning when conditions are favourable.

So this summer, I have found myself saying things like

 “I don’t think you can give me what I need in a relationship, but for now, this is what I want from you…Can you comply?” and, 

  “Before I agree to that, I need a guarantee of this” and 

 “I think that you are trying to make this problem of yours, into a problem of mine; whereas I am very clear that you have created said problem and have to live with the consequences. Please do not call again until you have sorted yourself out” 

and occasionally, I say this “                       “, because I cannot relieve the knots that people tie themselves into nor do I need to.

 All of these things happened with people who wanted to ‘tell me how they felt about me’. Who’d have thought that realising that none of them felt very much about me but obsessed with themselves, could make me feel more attractive rather than less? Certainly knowing yourself and having confidence is a powerful aphrodisiac. Now I just have to find someone worthy of me.

 So, what is it that men saw in me over a summer that they never saw before? A few words came up over and again, some of them I will keep to myself and savour in the late nights, but overwhelmingly it was this word ‘RELAXED’ .  It is true then. Confidence is the best makeover you can give yourself. My bum is as big as it has ever been. I can’t get into last year’s clothes, but I know myself.

I have never walked through life hand in hand with another person who has offered me support. I have never been able to offer unconditional love nor to recognise and accept it. I have not known how to love.I have not had that skill. I really hope that will change now .
This entry will disappear tomorrow for it is self indulgent but I needed to write it and send it off for me. Like a letter to Santa.

Come on In, and Close the Door.

Welcome Home.

I have had a tremendous urge to return home to my blog. Life has been happening to me whilst I have been busy making other plans, but at last it hasn't all gone by unnoticed.I live in the moment much more than I used to. It feels to me as though I've used a riddle on all of those ideas that used to fire out of me like I was vomiting confetti and so I have managed to sift through them.Most of them dropped straight out the bottom and landed on the gravel driveway  before being carried off on the bottom of someone's wellies,or borne away by the wind to dissolve in a stream, or were hoovered off the footwell of an Fiat Uno. But a handful of sturdy bits remained clinging to the grid like surface and these are they.

learning to cook
running/cycling
meditation/buddhism
WRITING
moving house/home
finding a partner/like minded people.

The Sadness of Trudy's Dad: Part 4

Once her husband, who had escaped a hero’s death, died from fury, Trudy’s grandmother married the quiet widower next door. It seemed to the neighbours of that close community, that they had crept home from the Register Office with utilitarian smiles and sprays of heather, only minutes after her husband clutched his chest with one hand and the table cloth with the other. In those last minutes, he had been sure it was the only thing standing in the way of his death, and so he had let it go.

There was speculation of course that the affair was going on long before the heart attack occurred, even that the bereaved couple had engineered it somehow, but no-one could prove anything . Though it was equally true that one or two wondered where she’d have had the opportunity since the brute had had eyes in the back of his head.

The truth was that as Arthur grieved for his lack of a wife, he had heard the thumps and the bumps and the sobs refracting through walls; a shard of violet disappointment piercing the mantle-piece, a shot of yellow iodine streaking across his radio, the red curve of denial filling his living room with blood and overarching hopelessness .  How could anyone have something so precious and treat it so cruelly?

With little else to do except work, he had kept an eye out for his unfortunate neighbour. He’d watch the sadistic bastard come home from the pub, fag ash balanced on his lip like a diver lost his nerve. Arthur could hear the singing turn into the street followed by cursing. He felt the house next door hold its breath. 

He and Aggie had lived a childless life. He often found himself shaking off the ridiculous notion that his children had been placed in the wrong house. It was an easy mistake to make - only a digit out.

The first time she noticed him was when she stood in the front garden with tears and a cloth soaked in antiseptic.

Her husband had passed out face down on the bed, stinking of his own piss and unhappiness, which had given her time to attend to the desolation of her children. Her sons had thumped muffled fists into pillows and finally exhausted themselves with the effort of silencing tears.  Later, she would sleep upright in the chair.

Arthur had appeared in the dark with silent support and tea laced with rum. Saying, nothing at all, he took the cloth from her hands and hung it over the fence between them before gently closing her fingers round the mug.  Then he left, leaving his door slightly ajar to allow a comforting glow in his stead.

The Sadness of Trudy's Dad: Part 4

Once her husband, who had escaped a hero’s death, died from fury, Trudy’s grandmother married the quiet widower next door. It seemed to the neighbours of that close community, that the two of them had crept home from the Register Office with utilitarian smiles and sprays of heather, only minutes after her husband clutched his chest with one hand and the table cloth with the other. In those last minutes it was the only thing standing in the way of his death, and so he let it go.

There was speculation of course that the affair was going on long before the heart attack occurred, even that they engineered it somehow, but no-one could prove anything . They wondered where she’d have had the opportunity since the brute had eyes in the back of his head.

The truth was simple. As Arthur grieved for his lack of a wife, he had heard the thumps and the bumps and the sobs refracting through his wall; a shard of violet disappointment, a shot of yellow iodine, the green curve of denial with a hint of blood and overarching hopelessness.  How could anyone have something so precious and treat it so cruelly?

With little else to do except work, he kept an eye out for his unfortunate neighbour. He’d watch the bastard come back from the pub, fag ash balanced on his lip like a diver lost his nerve. Arthur could hear the singing from the bottom of the street and then the cursing.

The first time she noticed him was when she stood in the front garden with tears and a bruise and a cloth smelling of antiseptic that she had used to bathe the stinging scars of her son.

The Sadness of Trudy's Dad: Part 3

Trudy’s father, like all 7 year olds, saw monsters under the bed. They had stethoscopes and needles and white coats, and masks full of gas that brought never-ending darkness.

 But there were angels too. Their starched aprons were filled with brisk cuddles for a little boy so utterly alone and desperately ill though no-one knew why. In her father’s child-like world, there was only himself and the stuff of nightmares. He spent his young years un-mothered and un-brothered in sterile corridors where pockets of comfort were laced with terror, exhaustion and pain; trapped in a nether world. 

 His mother never quite got the hang of him being away but she stopped fretting so much because at least he was being cared for. Instead, she presided over illness and unrelenting viciousness in her own home with soup and cigarettes. 

When Trudy’s father returned home to his wife and children, he often felt overwhelmed with love and luck and determination. But at others he could see only what he could lose in his never-ending fight with death and his anger grew.

 It grew and he fed it and he knew what it should look like because he’d seen it in the shine of the buckle and heard it in the screams of his brother. He’d seen it in the chipped cup that held the tea-time whisky and in the cowering of his mother as she tried to squeeze past the dining table unnoticed. He fanned it and he flamed it; but because he felt nothing but gentleness towards his wife (who mothered him at last) and his healthy children, he railed instead at the TV; at politicians; at unfairness and injustice and at his faceless illness. 

But all the while, the clock was ticking and he lived on, forgetting that the life he had was precious and he was missing it by staying alive, and furious.

The Sadness of Trudy's Dad: Part 2

 She could put on a really good show though, could Trudy's mum. Her handsome, gentle husband would never have approved of such petulance and she couldn't face his disappointment. So, she would let her big, bad wolf out whilst he was at work and stuff it quickly under a cushion the minute that she heard his key in the lock.
Trudy looked forward to the end of the day because it not only meant that she could see her dad, but that they’d all start a game of pretend; pretend to be safe. She discovered that she could actually be happy, just by pretending – as long as she never let her guard down.

 Before her dad even knew who he was, he was ill for the very first time though no one knew why - even when the doctors looked and shook and took his temperature. His mother ignored it at first, thinking that he was attention in a house that couldn't spare it. Then when he got none and still nothing had changed, she would stay up all night at his bedside fretting. She was to become an expert at fretting since his younger brothers would be ill in a year or two, each with their own illnesses to baffle the doctors with.

Her husband was not much help. He came back from the war an angry man made angrier. In those dark days when fathers and husbands were strength without weakness, he buried those terrible foreign memories alongside his cold and harsh childhood and they festered there unnoticed till they seized a belt by the soft end and lashed his sons with the buckle for no particular reason.
Trudy’s father was the second of 4 brothers The eldest, who was not ill and not always in a hospital bed being poked and prodded and examined, was lashed enough for both of them. In time, he was lashed for 4 as spines grew longer and limbs grew twisted and doctors would have seen the welts.

The Sadness of Trudy's Dad - Part 1

Trudy never knew if her father was coming home. Sometimes he did and sometimes he didn’t. Sometimes he’d turn up unexpectedly, swaddled in blankets and wheeled through the squeaky gate into air that was thick with concern, only for him to disappear again without notice when she was at school. Sometimes there were months in between, sometimes days and too often, hours.

He’d sometimes cry a lot and look a funny colour. It had been this way since she was small. Well, not really small. When she was really small, they were a proper family and very often, happy.  She had the photos to prove it. A perfect 25 year old with drainpipe jeans, shoes that were built to pick winkles, a skinny white T-shirt and a quiff the girls must have gone wild over.

 He married at 22 and by 23 he was devoted to two little girls. One was brand new and squeaky clean with a shock of black hair, and the other was 22.  Her mother knew she had a rival. That’s why she couldn’t quite love her. Later, she was to look at the freckle faced 4 year old, bouncing on the sofa in anticipation of his return from work and she knew. She knew that despite the washing and the ironing and the having moved so far away from her family; that he would come home dirty and tired with eyes for someone else and nothing left for her and she hated both of them for that. 
When was her life to start?

She had only had him to herself for 18 months. Proud and happy, she left that family where her cold mother had survived the war with the taste for work, leaving her eldest daughter to bring up the rest.  Trudy’s mother  was a woman whose childhood had barely started. As a result she could still throw a spectacular tantrum.  Now that she had some power at last, she would pinch the other kids in the house and did not shy away from giving them a swift and sneaky kick. 

Since she had had to share every private moment, even night’s sleep, every ribbon and pair of shoes with 4 siblings, now she refused to share anything at all, not even with her own child. Moreover nothing, nothing was ever her fault. Sometimes, she would lie awake all night, forcing the facts into something that didn’t resemble the truth of the matter; like a magician twisting balloon animals, or making a balloon hat. Trudy’s mother was an expert at making her appalling behaviour into a hat. And even then, the hat wasn’t hers.  In this way she remained the heroine of a storybook filled with the inexplicable behaviour of others. In this way, she hid from herself.

The Sadness of Trudy's Dad

After a break of a year
I am returning to Blogger with a new project. I am