Two birds stand on the ridge of the roof opposite, like weather vanes silhouetted against the pale sky. The light is dim but not quite gloomy. Rain and more rain forecast for the coming week. And last night we put the clocks back, so that this afternoon it will be dark around 4.30. And this morning it was light at 7.00. It's Hallowe'en, and the eve of my birthday, and a time of the year that is in my bones more than any other.
This time last year, half term was drawing to a close, my dread of returning to work mounting. There was much that I feared, a great many things were already going badly wrong in my team and in the project, but what met me when I got to our team meeting that November morning, and what unfolded in the course of that terrible day, was worse even than I had imagined. Worse because suddenly the shit came straight at me and scored a direct hit. 'I've made a complaint against you', said one of my team, right in the middle of the meeting, and later my manager's manager told me that the complaint was in fact about my blog. The bottom dropped out of my stomach, and the word 'fuck' fell from my lips. And there began a chapter of horrors the like of which I hope never to repeat. The next day I was suspended on full pay, and never returned to my office or to my duties. Ever. As that year turns, I hope I can leave some of the horror behind, and with this new chapter of self-employment, have a sense of something wholesome and good beginning.
I've just printed out my new leaflet in five different colours. Favourites are two different shades of blue - a turquoise, and more of a sky blue. I need to see what colour paper I can get a large quantity of, but I rather favour the sky. Blue seems to be the theme of my practice - the walls of the therapy room, my business card, the card I've put on noticeboards, and now the leaflet too. And this coming week I'll deliver leaflets to F, a very helpful local therapist who will pass them on to interested parties, and display them where she works.
Tomorrow is not only my birthday, but also the start of NaBloPoMo. I plan to post every day in November, as a decisive antidote to last November, every day of which was a nightmare. The exception will have to be next Saturday, as we're going to Arnside for the weekend, over on the West coast, on the Kent Estuary that opens into Morecambe Bay. I'll post before we go on the Friday, and when we return on the Sunday, but the lovely looking apartment we've taken, though well-appointed, does not boast wi-fi, so that is that!
Sunday, 31 October 2010
Friday, 29 October 2010
Waiting
I drove over to Todmorden this morning, past achingly beautiful trees, glowing out of the dimness from the valley sides. I don't remember when the colours have been so beautiful, the deep yellows and oranges making my heart lurch into song. Perhaps I'm coming back to life, as the year turns, as the first year since the complaint draws to a close. I drove to Tod to sign up for self-employment credits (£50 a week for the next 4 months), having registered yesterday as self-employed. I feel freed at last to go full steam ahead with publicising my work. I feel a weight lifting. The best birthday present. And time to say goodbye to a year that began the day after I turned 47 - a year full of woe, whichever way I look at it. And so I'm full of a sense of new beginnings as the year so gloriously dies.
Yesterday I finished 'Housekeeping' by Marilynne Robinson, whose cover proclaims it is 'one of the Observer's 100 Greatest Novels of all time'. The Observer may be right. It is a beautiful and difficult book about loss and growing up. Dream-like in its closeness to the unconscious, it is full of watery imagery, of strangeness and loneliness, and the ineffable sadness of children who have lost parents. I don't know what more to say except - read it. I offer an extract that moved me especially. The narrator Ruthie, is one of two sisters, whose mother left them as small girls at their grandmother's, and then went and drowned herself :
I hated waiting. If I had one particular complaint, it was that my life seemed composed entirely of expectation. I expected - an arrival, an explanation, an apology. There had never been one, a fact I could have accepted, were it not true that, just when I had got used to the limits and dimensions of one moment, I was expelled into the next and made to wonder again if any shapes hid in its shadows. That most moments were substantially the same did not detract at all from the possibility that the next moment might be utterly different. And so the ordinary demanded unblinking attention. Any tedious hour might be the last of its kind.
Yesterday I finished 'Housekeeping' by Marilynne Robinson, whose cover proclaims it is 'one of the Observer's 100 Greatest Novels of all time'. The Observer may be right. It is a beautiful and difficult book about loss and growing up. Dream-like in its closeness to the unconscious, it is full of watery imagery, of strangeness and loneliness, and the ineffable sadness of children who have lost parents. I don't know what more to say except - read it. I offer an extract that moved me especially. The narrator Ruthie, is one of two sisters, whose mother left them as small girls at their grandmother's, and then went and drowned herself :
I hated waiting. If I had one particular complaint, it was that my life seemed composed entirely of expectation. I expected - an arrival, an explanation, an apology. There had never been one, a fact I could have accepted, were it not true that, just when I had got used to the limits and dimensions of one moment, I was expelled into the next and made to wonder again if any shapes hid in its shadows. That most moments were substantially the same did not detract at all from the possibility that the next moment might be utterly different. And so the ordinary demanded unblinking attention. Any tedious hour might be the last of its kind.
Wednesday, 27 October 2010
Recycling
L and I have been at my Mum's for a couple of days. She's ok - if cantankerous. Her back seemed not to be paining her much, though she said it was stiff in the mornings, and the problem with the shower is a structural one - currently a large step up to get in the cubicle (not sure why) - that she finds difficult to negotiate, as she does any and all changes of level.
Like old times, writing on the train on the way there. Some fragments...
The train flies along the line.
A banner of blue tops the window
and everything has its shadow.
The day cuts things out
and sticks them back on the world,
gives them outlines,
an air of importance.
Now in England on a red train
there is the small scratchy sound
of music leaking from headphones,
there are trainers and sneakers
brogues and biker boots
and the electric whirr of air con.
A man sings under his breath
another sleeps with his mouth open,
a little string of saliva attaching
upper lip to lower, sunlight
catching the smoothness
of his bald brown head.
Now at Stoke on Trent a grey train
waits at a platform,
a blonde woman on board laughs
still wearing her gloves.
Collecting rubbish on the train
Is that rubbish? asks the buzz-cut young man
with the black bin-bag, pointing
at our apple core where it rests
on the crushed empty juice carton,
his job to cruise up and down the aisles,
identify and remove the empty
the used, the discarded, being careful
to distinguish these from the half-full
the still in use, the still needed.
Like old times, writing on the train on the way there. Some fragments...
The train flies along the line.
A banner of blue tops the window
and everything has its shadow.
The day cuts things out
and sticks them back on the world,
gives them outlines,
an air of importance.
Now in England on a red train
there is the small scratchy sound
of music leaking from headphones,
there are trainers and sneakers
brogues and biker boots
and the electric whirr of air con.
A man sings under his breath
another sleeps with his mouth open,
a little string of saliva attaching
upper lip to lower, sunlight
catching the smoothness
of his bald brown head.
Now at Stoke on Trent a grey train
waits at a platform,
a blonde woman on board laughs
still wearing her gloves.
Collecting rubbish on the train
Is that rubbish? asks the buzz-cut young man
with the black bin-bag, pointing
at our apple core where it rests
on the crushed empty juice carton,
his job to cruise up and down the aisles,
identify and remove the empty
the used, the discarded, being careful
to distinguish these from the half-full
the still in use, the still needed.
Friday, 22 October 2010
Into The Clough
Glorious sunshine on Wednesday, so I took the camera out again, to my favourite little valley or clough as they call them round here.
Because it is so deep and steep, the sun doesn't reach some places, and the first overnight frost hadn't melted at 3 in the afternoon. Near here I met friend S coming down with her crazy dog C, and stood and talked for ten minutes, growing very chilly, though in the sun I'd been toasty warm.
Because it is so deep and steep, the sun doesn't reach some places, and the first overnight frost hadn't melted at 3 in the afternoon. Near here I met friend S coming down with her crazy dog C, and stood and talked for ten minutes, growing very chilly, though in the sun I'd been toasty warm.
The hawthorn berries glowed.
Thursday, 21 October 2010
Draining
Here's yesterday's washing up, inspired by herhimnbryn as I so often am.I remember we had a little spate of washing up photos a few years back when I had the old blog. There is something so intimate and domestic about them. I was tempted to take a photo of my washing hanging on the line yesterday too. Or would that just be strange?
Wednesday, 20 October 2010
October Moorland
The colours are superb around here at the moment. The grasses dry and pale, the bilberry leaves redden, the heather flowers fade, bracken yellows.
My camera struggles to do justice to this sort of thing... Click to enlarge anyway...
My camera struggles to do justice to this sort of thing... Click to enlarge anyway...
Monday, 18 October 2010
Making Do
Well, so I had this idea I'd do NaBloWriMo this year, as November is almost upon us and I need a bit of a spur. Then I googled it and discovered that this year it's October* and therefore half over already! However, I reason, there is nothing to stop me posting every day in November (except November 6th when I shall be away without internet access) if I want to. Watch this space.
I am feeling lost and unhappy today as the wind whistles down the chimney, and we eat L's birthday chocolates, and I wait for someone to reply to my email enquiry about the first remotely possible-looking job in months. Even though it's 40 miles away. But it is a children's counselling job, and these are thin on the ground, and it is only 13 hours, which is about what I want and presumably means only making the journey twice a week. Shame the money's rubbish, but what can you do? Some money rather than no money is the opposite of rubbish, whatever that is. Fresh, useful, desirable. I decided I'd go into town this morning and write in the library. I walked down, carrying in my head the names of two authors whose books I'd like to read, so I could check the shelves for their works while I was there. I got to the library, browsed the relevant sections. No books by either James Kelman or Alice Thomas Ellis. Then I browsed the seating accommodation. Three round tables with people sitting at them reading papers, typing on laptops etc, two big sofas in a rather dark area, a string of desks, which in my mind's eye I had pictured as at least half just little desks you could sit quietly and privately at to write. No. All equipped with computers, all in use as far as I could tell. I left. I went and sat by the canal as it wasn't too cold. I wrote a small sad autumnal fragment. I met my friend C who seemed small and sad and autumnal. It was nice to see her. Then I walked home again.
Drowned leaves float in the dark canal
yellow, gold, brown and green.
Dry ones blow crisply along the towpath.
In a puddle at my feet are mud and rotting leaves.
The train works its way along the valley.
Over the canal bridge I glimpse dark red
and the curve of the still green hillside
as the wind picks up something light and dry
and slaps it into the back of my neck.
*Footnote - ok, there's NaBloWriMo which is October, and there's NaBloPoMo which is indeed November or any month you like!!
I am feeling lost and unhappy today as the wind whistles down the chimney, and we eat L's birthday chocolates, and I wait for someone to reply to my email enquiry about the first remotely possible-looking job in months. Even though it's 40 miles away. But it is a children's counselling job, and these are thin on the ground, and it is only 13 hours, which is about what I want and presumably means only making the journey twice a week. Shame the money's rubbish, but what can you do? Some money rather than no money is the opposite of rubbish, whatever that is. Fresh, useful, desirable. I decided I'd go into town this morning and write in the library. I walked down, carrying in my head the names of two authors whose books I'd like to read, so I could check the shelves for their works while I was there. I got to the library, browsed the relevant sections. No books by either James Kelman or Alice Thomas Ellis. Then I browsed the seating accommodation. Three round tables with people sitting at them reading papers, typing on laptops etc, two big sofas in a rather dark area, a string of desks, which in my mind's eye I had pictured as at least half just little desks you could sit quietly and privately at to write. No. All equipped with computers, all in use as far as I could tell. I left. I went and sat by the canal as it wasn't too cold. I wrote a small sad autumnal fragment. I met my friend C who seemed small and sad and autumnal. It was nice to see her. Then I walked home again.
Drowned leaves float in the dark canal
yellow, gold, brown and green.
Dry ones blow crisply along the towpath.
In a puddle at my feet are mud and rotting leaves.
The train works its way along the valley.
Over the canal bridge I glimpse dark red
and the curve of the still green hillside
as the wind picks up something light and dry
and slaps it into the back of my neck.
*Footnote - ok, there's NaBloWriMo which is October, and there's NaBloPoMo which is indeed November or any month you like!!
Sunday, 17 October 2010
Mum
I've just been chatting to my brother on the phone. We're both a bit concerned about my mother who is 80 and increasingly incapacitated by myositis (specifically inclusion body myositis), vertigo and depression. When I spoke to her on Friday she was complaining of a sore back, which has not been a feature of the myositis to date, and a doctor she is not keen on - her own being on holiday - had prescribed steroids, a hugely bad idea as she was put on these soon after she was first diagnosed with myositis, and they caused her face to puff up and made her depressed! She was also talking about her anxieties about how long she'll be able to stay in her flat. Actually, this won't be a problem, as the flat is wheelchair accessible and helpers and carers of all kinds can be engaged to come and help with personal care. She already has L who comes once or twice a week and shops and does little jobs and errands. My mother complains that she is bossy and irritating, but nonetheless depends on her, and when I was last there and L was away on holiday, she must have mentioned this fact fifteen times, as well as expressing anxiety that L might not return the following Monday as planned. Anyway it is hard to decipher what is an actual physical problem and what is the depression speaking, but the back pain is different from her usual general complaint that she is 'deteriorating', and she says she's finding it difficult to take a shower. I think she needs to get the GP to refer her for another OT assessment and maybe they will provide a shower chair, as previously they provided special 'elephant's' feet for the sofa to make it higher, and a raised toilet seat, though if they don't I'm sure we can get her one... Mostly the myositis has made walking hard work for her, though she manages with a stick and a wheeled walker, and her hands have become weak and awkward, her fingers not at all good at small movements like doing up buttons, putting on earrings or wielding a bread knife. L (that's my L) and I are going to visit her soon, and will be able to see how she is then. My brother is going a week or so later and then we'll be able to compare notes and think about whether any practical action is needed.
Wednesday, 13 October 2010
48
Listen well but not hard
Open windows
Close doors
Always make the bed
Don't give up
When you give up forgive yourself and start again
Drink water alongside the wine
Talk
Ask for what you want
Write anything
Witness
Floss
No-one else has any idea how to be you
Never ever put yourself down
The future is unwritten
Walk
Get up high for a long view
Baths are essential
Don't cheat
Remember birthdays and anniversaries
Do Feldenkrais to stay sane and pain free
See the sea regularly
Never underestimate people
Don't assume tomorrow will be like today
A little of what you fancy does you good
There are no rules
Don't believe the depressive thoughts
If enough is not enough more can never be better
Eat well
Sleep well and when you don't trust that it will be ok
Happiness is a bonus but hope to stay interested
Lots of effort - no straining
You've survived this before
Definitely don't drink too much
The thing you dread has already happened
Revenge only works in fantasy
Get out of the house
Get out the pen and notebook and write
Trust yourself
Be prepared to learn the same thing over and over again
Remember the past
Forget the past
Try to find out what it means to open your heart
Open your heart
That weird idea you had is important
That weird dream you had is important
This weird life you're having is important
You will always think of one more thing...
Open windows
Close doors
Always make the bed
Don't give up
When you give up forgive yourself and start again
Drink water alongside the wine
Talk
Ask for what you want
Write anything
Witness
Floss
No-one else has any idea how to be you
Never ever put yourself down
The future is unwritten
Walk
Get up high for a long view
Baths are essential
Don't cheat
Remember birthdays and anniversaries
Do Feldenkrais to stay sane and pain free
See the sea regularly
Never underestimate people
Don't assume tomorrow will be like today
A little of what you fancy does you good
There are no rules
Don't believe the depressive thoughts
If enough is not enough more can never be better
Eat well
Sleep well and when you don't trust that it will be ok
Happiness is a bonus but hope to stay interested
Lots of effort - no straining
You've survived this before
Definitely don't drink too much
The thing you dread has already happened
Revenge only works in fantasy
Get out of the house
Get out the pen and notebook and write
Trust yourself
Be prepared to learn the same thing over and over again
Remember the past
Forget the past
Try to find out what it means to open your heart
Open your heart
That weird idea you had is important
That weird dream you had is important
This weird life you're having is important
You will always think of one more thing...
Monday, 11 October 2010
60
The sun is shining from a clear blue sky, the flowers have been delivered, the big fat chocolate birthday cake is just out of the oven, and we are about to go for a little walk, suitable to the current stage of the toe's recovery. Later about 12 people are coming for tea and cakes (yesterday I made lemon polenta, and banana walnut...), and even later a bottle of bubbly, and meatballs and spaghetti to follow. L has had some lovely cards and presents and on Saturday night we went out for a meal with 5 of her brothers and sisters plus partners. Celebrations are go!
Thursday, 7 October 2010
Sunday, 3 October 2010
The Rain It Raineth Every Other Day
October has begun with alternating wet and dry days. Today it's
rain like everything is coming to an end...
a line of mine I really like but haven't ever finished the poem - in fact can't quite remember where the original draft is. I think it may have been a writing class exercise. It rains hard, relentlessly, the sky determinedly sombre, the other side of the valley veiled in cloud. Rain comes down the chimney, but only on the right. We hope the man from the stove shop will come one day soon to advise about wood burners and chimney linings, and why the rain is descending into the fireplace. It's always quiet up here on a Sunday, but when it's wet there's no-one about. Just one dark hooded figure a while back who came and knocked at one of the neighbours' doors, then went away again.
I have designed and printed little postcard-sized cards on a lovely shade of turquoisy mid-blue to advertise my services on the noticeboards around town, of which there are several. It's the next step in the venture. I open my drawer to look at them again, imagine them being in the public domain, read by a concerned parent, the number jotted down on a scrap of paper... I think it will also be worth putting myself on various counselling/ therapy type websites too. And then there are business cards to get, and a leaflet to design, and maybe later, when I'm more sure of what I want to say about myself and my work, a website. There's a scheme which will pay me £50 a week for 16 weeks for going self-employed from Jobseekers, so I shall soon be registering, and all will be official. I nearly got an adult referral this week, but she turned out to be a friend of a friend, and that's the trouble with doing this sort of work in this little community. My inclination is not to take adults unless they live outside the immediate area.
Our friend S cooked us a glorious meal last night - celery and potato soup made with miso, pork chops with apricot and sage stuffing roasted on a bed of potatoes with bacon and garlic, and courgettes with chilli and mint, followed (much later) by organic plum crumble with soya custard. A glass of S's own hawthorn wine made for a heady aperitif, followed by two good bottles of red wine. Between courses two and three, a few glasses to the good, we played darts, S's new obsession. To my amazement I discovered I'm rather good at it, though of course it might have been beginner's luck (I used to play a bit when I was perhaps 18, but I feel like a beginner). Quite a thrill to be able to send the dart successsfully to the place on the board for which I was aiming! However, S won!! She's keen to get a team going, and make this into a permanent feature of life. She's invested £19.99 in a rather posh darts board with little cupboard and blackboard with nice soft chalk, and two sets of 'arrers'...
My beloved Labtec mini glow mouse has died. I am reduced to working on the laptop's own mouse pad, which I loath and detest. I shall be forced to fork out £5 for another mini glow mouse. Some things are important.
L's walking is better every day. An acre of old skin has peeled from her foot! Important to be in good shape as her 60th birthday approaches.
rain like everything is coming to an end...
a line of mine I really like but haven't ever finished the poem - in fact can't quite remember where the original draft is. I think it may have been a writing class exercise. It rains hard, relentlessly, the sky determinedly sombre, the other side of the valley veiled in cloud. Rain comes down the chimney, but only on the right. We hope the man from the stove shop will come one day soon to advise about wood burners and chimney linings, and why the rain is descending into the fireplace. It's always quiet up here on a Sunday, but when it's wet there's no-one about. Just one dark hooded figure a while back who came and knocked at one of the neighbours' doors, then went away again.
I have designed and printed little postcard-sized cards on a lovely shade of turquoisy mid-blue to advertise my services on the noticeboards around town, of which there are several. It's the next step in the venture. I open my drawer to look at them again, imagine them being in the public domain, read by a concerned parent, the number jotted down on a scrap of paper... I think it will also be worth putting myself on various counselling/ therapy type websites too. And then there are business cards to get, and a leaflet to design, and maybe later, when I'm more sure of what I want to say about myself and my work, a website. There's a scheme which will pay me £50 a week for 16 weeks for going self-employed from Jobseekers, so I shall soon be registering, and all will be official. I nearly got an adult referral this week, but she turned out to be a friend of a friend, and that's the trouble with doing this sort of work in this little community. My inclination is not to take adults unless they live outside the immediate area.
Our friend S cooked us a glorious meal last night - celery and potato soup made with miso, pork chops with apricot and sage stuffing roasted on a bed of potatoes with bacon and garlic, and courgettes with chilli and mint, followed (much later) by organic plum crumble with soya custard. A glass of S's own hawthorn wine made for a heady aperitif, followed by two good bottles of red wine. Between courses two and three, a few glasses to the good, we played darts, S's new obsession. To my amazement I discovered I'm rather good at it, though of course it might have been beginner's luck (I used to play a bit when I was perhaps 18, but I feel like a beginner). Quite a thrill to be able to send the dart successsfully to the place on the board for which I was aiming! However, S won!! She's keen to get a team going, and make this into a permanent feature of life. She's invested £19.99 in a rather posh darts board with little cupboard and blackboard with nice soft chalk, and two sets of 'arrers'...
My beloved Labtec mini glow mouse has died. I am reduced to working on the laptop's own mouse pad, which I loath and detest. I shall be forced to fork out £5 for another mini glow mouse. Some things are important.
L's walking is better every day. An acre of old skin has peeled from her foot! Important to be in good shape as her 60th birthday approaches.
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