An Update

So, life. What’s been happening; good lord it’s been nearly (probably over) two weeks since I last wrote here. How shockingly remiss of me; I hope you’re well and aren’t feeling neglected, imaginary corner of the internet. Excuse me while I dust down your corners a little bit and open the windows. Let some fresh November (November?! How did it get to November already?!) air into you a little. [I've had this blog over a year now; how exciting. How things've changed. Grand.]

So, first things first – would you like a cup of tea? Good. Have a cushion, and a biscuit. And then I’ll fill you in on everything.

[Kettle boils; tea is made. Imaginary person takes a cup and settles down.]

So, since I last put anything on here, I’ve added a further two-and-a-bit weeks to my first term at Cambridge. I’ve only got two and a half Michaelmas terms left! Which is quite shocking. Though I should probably not think like that and tell myself instead that three years is a long time. Which, actually, it really bloody is. Everything happens so intensely  here that the amount I’ve done makes it feel like I’ve been here for three months rather than just one. It’s quite a timeless place.

Everything happens at very short notice, so first things first – I don’t know if I mentioned this – but I’m now a ‘boaty’. In NW3, how terrific. I’m not that great, although I’ve sort of got the hang of it now, and I pick it up very quickly. The annoying thing is that I missed yesterday’s outing, but I’ll get to that. Firstly, I wanted to tell you about the rowing itself. About how it feels when you’re in time and together, how the water moves with you, and the boat breathes with you, and everything is controlled and together and organised and everything you do just… fits. I love it so much, the actual act of rowing, because it calms me down, it concentrates me, it cools the heated buzzing in my head and for an hour or so all I have to think about, all I can think about is the physical motion of what I’m doing.

The fact that the extraneous aspects of rowing (like the journey to and from, and the time it cuts away from my time to work, or the amount it eats into other things) cause me untold stress (the thought of cycling to and from the boathouse gives me nightmares) is neither here nor there. The actual rowing part is usually worth it.

In other news, Prac Crit is terribly exciting; I love it. I feel like I improve with every essay I do. The same can not be said of my paper 4 essays, which is a shame. I never have enough time to do them justice, and even if I did have more time, I still wouldn’t do them well. But I’m sure I can work at that; I just need to get more organised. And I will. I damn well will. I’m going to make sure of that. Anyway; academic determination from me aside, onto the rest of life.

Quartets are, as ever, great fun. And a great way to relax and just enjoy playing music. Which is something I’m doing a whole lot more of than I thought I would, although I ought to have expected that, playing the viola and everything. But y’know… I’m still not used to the great demand my instrument’s in. It’s currently loaned out to my dear friend L for the evening so that he can play quartets. They’ve only just started, so I could have made it and played quintets with them, but I’m so tired. I think all I’ll be able to cope with tonight is possibly laundry and then bed. And hopefully a bit of reading of NON-COURSE stuff as well. (oh ‘eck, need to get hold of ‘Lord Jim’ from somewhere… urk)

As for the rest of the viola-related demands – I don’t think I mentioned the Freshers’ Recital, in which I played a piece for solo viola and apparently (although I thought the sound I made was anorexic, to say the least) sounded pretty good, to the extent that because of that – and the fact that a friend from home (now in her third year here) has been telling everyone that I’m pretty good – I’ve just been asked to play in a concert, I’m already playing in another concert that weekend, and I’m depping on the viola part in the pit band for The Wizard of Oz this week! Come and see it, it’s going to be good.

Besides all that sort of stuff, I’ve made some really good friends here. C is probably now one of the closest friends I’ve ever had, and I’ve only known her four weeks. That’s quite something.

Yesterday, thought I’d quickly mention, was hell. I had a rehearsal in the morning which meant that I was going to be late for rowing in the afternoon, and although I’d warned them this and they knew I was on my way, they still left without me, which was horribly upsetting, because the journey there had caused me so much stress and I’d had to leave the rehearsal slightly early to get there on time. But there we go. When the boaties aren’t being too horrifically ‘boaty’ about life, I do love rowing. They just do sometimes try to turn it into a huge and apocalyptic scenario if one person happens to have differently slanted priorities to theirs. But never mind.

 

That aside, here is wonderful and lovely and beautiful, and I don’t think I’ve found a place more wonderful and immediate and mine in a long time. Apart from home-home, but that’s different. Actual home has cats and turkish rugs and parents and a cooker and my own bed and my own carpet and a tv and the everyday shambolic happiness of the ordinary. It’s slower and calmer and quieter and mine in a totally different way to here. I can’t wait to get back; I shall sleep for six weeks. But I don’t want to leave, it’s good to not have time to sleep.

I hope you liked your tea! Come again soon.

(oh, I forgot to mention – I also wrote a review for ‘The Cambridge Student’, and I’m working on another one, and I have a lot of really talented artistic friends, and I’m reading Dante’s ‘Inferno’ in Italian. It’s fantastic. I’ll lock up, it’s fine. Do come back another time.)

 

Half a Year

It’s been quite a long time. And I’m still very happy. It doesn’t matter to me that our communication is reduced to screens and letters because you’re still there. You’re Elsewhere, but that’s real enough.

Happy Demi-anniversary.

[for everyone else out there, n'awwww... in't it cute... or nauseating, depending on your opinion.]

 

The Hill

So yesterday was my first walk with the Cambridge Hillwalking Club. And even though it meant that I had to get up at 6am, it was one of the best days I’ve had in ages. Certainly one of the best walks I’ve had in a while (although Snowdon is still top of the list, just for pure natural… rage).

We set off on a 7.20 coach, and arrived in the Peaks at just after 11. So by 11.30 we were out on a walk, and since in Cambridge pretty much the biggest thing around is King’s Chapel, and there’s nothing bigger, it was great to be out.

I won’t give you a description of the walk itself. Suffice it to say, it was 10 miles, taken at a speed far faster than I’m used to going, and yet I kept up. And didn’t complain of the speed, or being tired. And didn’t get blisters. (which is unusual, although since the advent of The Boots, far less common than it used to be.) And it was really great; the company was excellent. On one of the weekend trips coming up, they’re planning “Formal Hill” – like Formal Hall, a formal, three-course meal, only up a mountain. Cocktail dresses and walking boots suddenly seem an ideal combination!

All I was going to say is this: the people I was walking with, especially the walk leaders, all had something I’d only recognised in ‘adult’ hillwalkers before. I’d never seen it in anyone my age – and that was a reverence for “The Hill”, as if there is some primeval force which is the essential Hill, the first Hill, the greatest Hill. They didn’t talk about being “up in the hills” or “out for a walk”. When they were talking about holidays they’d done, or walks they’d done, they all said “When I was on The Hill”… it was weird. It’s like it’s something tangible; there was this strange, muted spiritualism about it. And not in a ‘poet-y’ way. They weren’t “communing with the sublime” or anything. They just bloody love ‘The Hill’.

And now: some pictures. Be warned – this is not Cambridge. It is not flat.

The view at the start

At the top of the ridge

At ‘the top’…

A view from the way down

 

Fascinated.

Other people surely have the same reaction I do to hearing that friends of yours have spent …what? a whole night?… tripping out on acid or some other such thing. Or that someone I once vaguely knew from home, has changed so much that he offers out drugs like someone else would offer biscuits. I hope I’m not the only one who’s scared.

To me, it’s not a funny thing to do; it’s not exciting, or daring, or even particularly interesting. It isn’t a mature thing to do. Perhaps it’s motivated by fear, or boredom. But I don’t think that I am merely being “dull” or “sensible” if I think it’s just … well, stupid.

Of course, the general attitude is that if other people want to do it, let them get on with it. And so that’s what I do. But I don’t like it. I’ve known people whose lives have been ripped apart because no-one stepped up and tried to hold them back. I’ve seen the expression on a friend’s face, hearing people joking about what they’ve done, when she’s experienced the other side of it all.

So no, I’m not going to laugh, if my amusement will sanction it. I’m not going to say “well done, that must have been exciting”. I won’t criticise you directly, so perhaps I’m guilty of letting go and giving up. But I don’t find it interesting. I don’t find it funny.

In fact, I’m sort of scared.

 

Only A Voice

It was so good to speak to you earlier. You sounded pretty tired, and I probably sounded shattered as well (if I didn’t, I am) but I think it is so easily underestimated just how important someone’s voice is. Hearing a voice you thought you weren’t going to hear for ages, that sort of thing.

For instance, the other day at my Gran’s, we found a tape recording of my Grandad (now dead) reading out “Rumpelstiltskin”. Of course, no-one in the family had heard his voice since he died 25 (?) years ago; I think  it was quite a surprise to my Mum especially because although she thought she remembered his voice accurately, she was amazed by how cockney he sounded. And to me, it was like listening to, well, a voice beyond the grave. I’d never heard him speak before. And it was wonderful, oddly.

Which is why I love getting phone calls, making phone calls. Not of the “where are you, I’m at the bus-stop” variety, because those are fairly dull, and also fairly bleak, in a way. But I love picking up the phone and knowing I’m going to be talking for hours. Which is what I thought I’d miss when you went to America. And it seems, you’re getting your own phone. Although I’m not sure how much we’ll be able to use it. But that makes me so happy.

And in other news, I may well soon become a “Boaty”! I went out on the river today, just to try it out, and once I began to get the hang of “setting” the boat, I loved it. I think I’ve got the hang of it; people stopped shouting at me after a while. It will be so relaxing at… 7 o’clock in the morning…

 

Life in Four Walls

Everything feels very stark. Very composed, controlled, contained.

I’ve been in my room most of the day, apart from an audition. A part of my brain is Elsewhere, looking round, moving in, getting used to the feeling of being stretched.

A part of my brain is tired, fuzzy, headachy.

A part of my brain is concentrating on this essay, which (as you can see) I’m not yet writing. It’s all ready to go, but – as is usually the case with essays – it is very easy to hold back and not start. In a few minutes I will.

I don’t deserve a lot of what I have. Equally, I’m not completely undeserving.

Everything seems very clear inside one room. The world seems very far away.

Emotions are crystallised, clarified. There is anger, there is regret, there is a loneliness. There is also excitement, passion, and an underlying feeling of happiness, of content.

 

Come Round For Tea

So, having spent the last 24 hours feeling weird and lonely, I got a grip today. Facebook is a wonderful thing, because I invited E (from another staircase) over, not thinking she’d reply, and then I got a knock on my door.

And I’ve made a friend, I think.

And we are both struggling with our essays, though she does History and has to write a 2,000 word essay, not a 1,500 word one.

So it’s nice. I have days where this place feels like home, and days where… well, to be honest – the place always feels like home. But sometimes I feel more like a fish out of water than others. Sometimes I feel very submerged. These few days I haven’t, so much.

I just wish my room was tidier.

Formal Hall tonight! I get to wear a gown and a pretty dress.

 

The New Beginning

I’m here. I have to keep telling myself – I made it, I’m here.

I’m sat in my room, which is a set no less, listening to my Shower Buddy’s music playing loud through the walls, and I can see the rugby pitch from my window and there’s either a match going on or tryouts or something but it’s all floodlit and exciting and people keep limping off the pitch looking wounded, and I can see the lights of A’s Court across the road, and just down there is Old Court and the Chapel and a place that feels daily more and more like home.

And the walk through King’s to get to town, and suddenly feeling very small, but in a good way because we’re not stupid here – my College is one of the best now here – behind Trinity and Emma, so we’re doing well – especially for a College that everyone thinks is a sixth-form…

And the English Faculty is apparently now the best in the country, and I’m that course, and I Can’t Believe My Luck. I don’t think I will get over this.

And I should be at the Rower’s Squash, and I should be working for an essay, or preparing for the auditions at the weekend or even reading the rest of my booklist.

But the Rugby is going on, and I feel strangely mournful, and I can’t decide if going into a crowd will cheer me up, or if staying here watching a load of tall men in shorts beat themselves up is a more preferable way to spend the evening…

 

How Do You Say Goodbye…

To the last guests after the dinner party, old family friends still talking as you walk them to the door and yawn behind your hand, referring pointedly to the washing up, the lateness of the hour, anything to persuade them to leave. Half an hour later they’re still there, still talking, leaning on the door post and nattering away. Sometimes it’s interesting and easy, sometimes it’s a drag, and still they remain long after the words have run out. And yet, the fondness for the person remains, even at midnight, so you cannot just tell them to leave. Or can you? Is it rude to push someone out of the door and force them away? Or is that unforgiveable, even when they’ve utterly outstayed their constantly extended welcome? It is a dilemma.

But another thing – how do you say goodbye to old friends, as you feel the drift beginning but you and they just Can’t let go? What about if you don’t want to? But what if, actually, you can’t help it? People change, people grow up and outwards and inwards and change shape and suddenly the tight little jigsaw that seemed so safe no longer works, and will no longer stay in its place.

Or what about the people you want to stay in touch with but have to say goodbye to anyway? What happens if they find a new shape and come back, and suddenly all no longer works as it used to? I made some of the best friends of my life at my sixth form college, I don’t want for us to come back and have nothing to say to each other.

And finally, and I’ve done half of this already, how do you say goodbye to the most important person in your life? Family not included because they are always there, and I am ready to move out and become my own me. But W. Love, darling, sweetheart, you, you you… the writer runs out of words.

I don’t need to advertise it. Already I miss you, I wish I could be at the airport on Saturday, I’m going to be there when you come back. I love you. Goodbye – but also, hello. It’s only 7 months after all, with two 2week interludes. We’re going to be fine.

(but every time I walk these streets, pass the college you’ll be in next year, it stings. Just a little. It stings.)

 

What does the world care?

The fact is, it doesn’t. But I do. I don’t want to be noticed, but I crave attention; I want to be remembered for something, anything, and yet I have nothing to offer. I do not wish to be thought arrogant, and yet, even in this shrinking from self I am apparently falling into my worst trap.

‘Blogging’ is inherently an arrogant action. Everyone who writes here believes they have written something worth reading; or that they have written something that  needs to be read.

I have nothing to say, at the moment. And yet, to keep my hand in, perhaps, or because I want to spit something out, maybe, I keep writing. I’ll keep going until I get the hang of this, or until I DO have something to say, or until I get bored and give up. Until then, read my nothing, if you have nothing else to do, if you think my time-wasting a good way to waste your time. Don’t read it if you don’t enjoy it, and if you don’t, darling, you can always excercise the right Not To Read, and go and do something considerably more rewarding. Banging your head against a desk is, I hear, a very good way to pass some hours.

 

Grand.

Right. Grand. I have a big, scary, grown-up blog to play with, as opposed to the LiveSpace one I was using intermittently… I’m not sure I understand this thing yet, but give me time.

Okay, life. First things first:
I could call myself a ‘writer’ or a ‘poet’, except I’m not really sure I deserve those epithets yet. Suffice to say I write a lot and enjoy writing, and it is something I dream of being able to pursue my whole life long without such tedious distractions as money or life. Wishful thinking and daydreaming is something I also do a lot of. I think too much about things, events and people, and sometimes cannot quite distinguish between what is reality and what is the dream in my head. It gets confusing. Or at least I get confused. I highly doubt anyone else notices.

Other things; I miss my sister (it’s her fault I have a blog here, it was her idea/pestering which made me switch from LiveSpaces… still debating whether to make the change permanent….) she’s now at University and my god the house is quiet. I may well give her her own post at some point soon (if not several over the months) but even though her brand of sisterly comfort and advice normally consists of “have a cup of tea and shut up” or “no, it’s obvious he’s not interested, give up” or “you’re so funny when you’re upset sometimes” it’s surprising how comforting she can be. (hehe, sorry jen.)

That’s another thing. I’m probably too open or immature so this blog will mainly probably be me whinging. Is that the point of them or am I supposed to say intelligent things? I’m not really sure… so it’ll be what I make it, even though I don’t think I’m really the world’s best blogger.

Anyway, enough gibberish, I have French Homework! (excited cheesy grins and groans of horror all round. Give me some moral support here!)

Cx

 

Disconnection

I nearly walked under a bus the other day. Not deliberately, obviously, that would be mad. It was odd though; at the time I felt completely disconnected from myself. Normally when I walk around I’m in a bit of a day-dream anyway, but there’s still a part of me measuring distances and thinking “five minutes to get to college” or “don’t cross the road yet, wait on the curb” or whatever, only yesterday was different.

It was by the junction near the Baptist Church in Winchester. Not the big crossroads further up, although this junction is also pretty hellish to try and cross, especially in busy traffic. I’m normally careful, don’t cross when there are lots of cars of the traffic lights aren’t favourable, that kind of thing. Unless I’m with someone who is braver about crossing roads than me, I don’t even step into the road if the lights aren’t red. There’s a bus-stop back up the road a little way from the crossing; when I walked past it, a bus pulled in. There was a second bus behind that one, trying to pull back out into the traffic again, but it was having difficulty because it didn’t have enough space. So there was nothing coming in my direction. Nothing.

And the lights were red.

But just to check, I looked up, and I swear to god that the bus wasn’t moving. Nothing was moving. And suddenly I stopped being connected to myself. It wasn’t like I was watching me from above. It was like I wasn’t even inside myself, I was somewhere else entirely with my eyes shut and my ears turned inwards to hear the dialogue inside my head. I heard no sound from outside, nothing. The world became a featurelessness, and I stepped into the road…

And there was a huge squeal of brakes, and a horn screamed in my ear. Two or three other cars also beeped, someone slammed on the brakes even though I wasn’t in front of them. I became aware that there was a foot of clean air between me and the front of a very heavy bus. And I didn’t really care.

I got to the other side of the road, with the bus driver (I think; I was only dimly aware of this) shouting something. I could hear it through the window, I just wasn’t paying attention. And some woman came running up to me, screaming “There’s a bus right behind you, you know?” Like I’d done it deliberately, and was some local trouble maker. I still didn’t really quite feel connected so I just replied in a slightly dopey voice “yeah, I know, I saw it” and walked off, fuming. I felt patronised, and at that point all I cared about was the woman’s attitude, not the fact that I could have probably been quite nastily injured, not quite killed (I don’t think the bus was going that fast) but probably severely damaged, probably.

 

My only thought really now, is that it wasn’t me in control for those few seconds. A sort of alternative self stepped in and took control of my feet. I wish she wouldn’t because she keeps taking control of me quite a lot at the moment, so that I get the whole disconnected thing. It’s more annoying than frightening because I keep snapping out of myself and then back in again, and I feel half vacant a lot of the time.

Or I’m imagining all this and I’m just stressed out or something. Or just very tired. Which would also make sense.

Take your pick.

Anyway, thought I’d share that story with you.

 

The Woman Perfected

This is Sylvia Plath’s last poem; terribly haunting to read considering that she died six days later. I’m currently studying Plath in quite a lot of detail but hadn’t really stopped to think until reading this that she was human.

That sounds odd; and isn’t quite what I mean. Obviously, I knew she was human. But until reading this I’d managed to detach myself from the realisation of well, what it is to kill oneself, I suppose. Because surely I’m not the only one who thinks that reading this is bleak. Whatever people say (and there are theories that she didn’t intend to kill herself) this poem seems to show that she did, she didn’t want to be found and dragged back as she was before. And it hadn’t sunk home to me until now what it must be like to be on the brink like that. To know that that’s what you want, to plan it, to prepare it, and then to go ahead and do it. Bleak.

And the first line of the poem is… shivery. Cold, and quite detached really, and it sums up a commonly held view of Plath’s last collection ‘Ariel’, which is that this was her best work, and her final work, and that her life had been building to this point. And that once it was complete, she had nothing left to live for…

I’m not sure I like that view. All I do know is, this poem has made Sylvia Plath seem human to me in a way she hadn’t before. And that this poem is among my favourite of her work.

Edge

The woman is perfected Her dead Body wears the smile of accomplishment, The illusion of a Greek necessity Flows in the scrolls of her toga, Her bare Feet seem to be saying: We have come so far, it is over. Each dead child coiled, a white serpent, One at each little Pitcher of milk, now empty She has folded Them back into her body as petals Of a rose close when the garden Stiffens and odors bleed From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower. The moon has nothing to be sad about, Staring from her hood of bone. She is used to this sort of thing. Her blacks crackle and drag. Sylvia Plath 5th February 1963     Died 11th February 1963

 

Click, click, click.

Everything is falling into place.

It has just been one of those weeks where seemingly nothing can go wrong. (The week in question starts last Friday and, apparently, ended this morning/early afternoonish.)

Last Friday, a good friend of mine and I travelled up to London to go and see the Strindberg play, “Creditors”, directed by Alan Rickman. It’s a stunning piece of theatre; very tense, very moving, very powerful. Also very simple, because there are only three characters. It deals very simply with the balance of power within relationships, and how damaging it can be when things go wrong. Also showed very neatly how a damaging relationship in youth replays itself in the future. The woman, Tekla, had absorbed all she knew of relationships from her first husband, and used the lessons she’d learned about how it is apparently appropriate to behave in her relationship with her second husband, and this damaged him in many ways; he became weaker and subservient to her. And because this is Strindberg, naturally the woman was in the wrong, although contrary to the way things usually are in Strindberg, “Creditors” is less misogynistic than normal… eek. It was quite simply, a stunning play. And I was so happy to have got the chance to go and see it. G (who saw it with me, and who provided the tickets) and I just sat there at the end and were speechless.

Then on Saturday/Sunday, I made Christmas puddings. Yes, it does take all weekend. And it is immensely satisfying to know that, maturing on a shelf in one of our cupboards are two (hopefully) delicious puddings that I will bring out at our big family Christmas and feel terribly smug and virtuous and clever, and also rather full. This will be good.

And then… Monday. A day which was, quite probably, the best of my life, for so many reasons. (And yet also hideously stressful to start with, but y’know, you can’t have everything.)

It all started well when, having tanked my way through loads of mud and feeling particularly anxious that I was going to miss the bus, I arrived at the bus stop to find that the businessman who normally gets the same time bus as me (and who I use as a yardstick to work out whether or not I’ve missed the bus) was not there… I naturally swore quite passionately because this probably meant (considering the time I’d left the house etc) that I’d missed the bus and would consequently be late for my History lesson, and since our current teacher is apparently a bit of a dragon about latecomers… I was naturally anxious to be on time. Footsteps were heard behind me, and said businessman appeared – followed shortly by the bus! All good there then. And although the bus kept stopping oddly because there was a problem with the ticket machine that the driver kept having to try and sort out, we still got to Winchester, and therefore me to college, with about five minutes to spare before the start of the lesson. Which is always lovely. But enough about buses! (I hear you cry) – buses are commonplace. What about the rest of the day?

Next crisis: French coursework. I had been labouring under the misapprehension that Monday was just a deadline for the first draft; nothing serious, nothing drastic, just hand in what you’ve done and the teacher will look through and smile happily and give it back. But oh no… Monday was The Deadline (they’re actually not allowed to see drafts, damn it, or they’d have noticed the huge mistake I’ve only just realised I made…) The big final deadline, after which you CANNOT under ANY circumstances, get your work back. So I had a lot of work to do to finalise my piece and make it presentable and markable and all that. So the massive free I have (10.20 – 12.30) was spent in the library and various other computery places, editing, drafting and re-drafting my work. Still wasn’t done by tutor, so without stopping to go up to the cafe and see my friends, I returned to the computer rooms to finish it all off. I work quietly, a bit hacked off that I’m not seeing anyone, having not been in college for two weeks (blah blah blah) … when suddenly, just as I’m printing it all off, there’s a tap on my shoulder and R, T and Robin have arrived, all looking flustered and out of breath, and very glad to see me. Robin gabbles something about ‘Hamlet! Tom!’ so I turn to T for an explanation. He explains, in a slightly panic-stricken but more comprehensible manner that he was just talking to Richard (his teacher) when someone turned up to say they couldn’t make it on the English trip running that night to see Hamlet. The Hamlet. The RSC Hamlet with David Tennant, widely acknowledged to be one of the best Hamlets of our time, etc etc etc. The production that I would give my heart and soul to see (I do not exaggerate, I do not jest) and owing to a series of unfortunate occurences, the production that I believed I never would get the chance to see live.
And there’s a ticket spare. And Tom and Robin have spent all of lunchbreak trying to find me, dragging in Rosie, who also wanted to go and see it, but decided that I would probably want it more, so joined in the search to find me. And it’s the fact that I have friends who would do this for me, who would remember that’s what I want and would go out of their way to get that for me, that means so much to me. That’s part of what makes Monday so wonderful. It’s the people. (Big smiles all round say I…)

Oh and also it was seeing Hamlet. Which is, frankly, amazing. I fully intend to get the DVD; David Tennant is a genius. Because he was human, rather than an actor playing a part. To be honest, Hamlet deserves his own blog. And will get one, in the fullness of time.

Moving on: Tuesday/Wednesday. Obama. America. The elections. I’m not American, but even I felt patriotic (if one can feel patriotic towards a country not one’s own) and proud, and incredibly uplifted. If you listen to the man’s speech, he already sounds like a leader, like a President. Issues of race aside, you listen to the guy talk, and you feel that the world (because let’s face it, America is so powerful it might as well rule the world, unfortunate though that is) is in safe hands. Well, safer than they might have been. Whether he will make good on his promises remains to be seen. Let’s hope so. And meanwhile, well done America. Good choice. And look how far you’ve come since the Civil Rights movement. This is a moment to be proud of.

And then my luck ran out. Missed the bus, got muddy shoes, was wearing socks (there’s an issue of socks to be dealt with… p’rhaps another blog) and odd clothes and no make up, was very, very tired, was late for history, couldn’t find my teacher to get her to sign some forms for me…… all this, and TODAY is the day that a certain young man chooses to suddenly reappear from the woodwork and say hi. Admittedly, it was only a thirty second conversation in which we covered “hi how are you? long time no see” and “someone just kicked me in the balls” and “I have critical thinking now, bye.” With me stumbling along beside him thinking “damn, I thought I’d got OVER this guy…” Oh well. Y’can’t have it all. It was nice to talk to him. And if he crawls back into the woodwork, I probably won’t be too fussed, and if he’s out of the woodwork for good… it might be nice to go out with a woodworm…

Hm. Another note – my Tuesday session with the counsellor was the one blight on a brilliant week. Everything in my life I’d taken to be a normal occurence is apparently an “Issue”, and not only that, “something you need to work through”… so I’ve been booked in for a further six sessions, taking me up to the end of term. Which is a shame; they cut right through my early finish. Oh well. That aside, I’ve had the most amazing week, and I talked to a wood worm.

 

And I saw Hamlet. Frankly, nothing could mean more to me right now than that.

 

Hamlet

Because I went to see it last Monday, and because it was such an amazing experience, it deserves a blog of its own. I don’t want to give anything away if there’s anyone out there who’s got tickets (not in terms of plot, but in terms of how it was staged) so I’m going to be careful…

But quite frankly, it was the most incredibly well-performed, well-staged and well-directed piece of theatre I think I’ve ever seen. A friend of mine who also saw the play recently said that it was the “best Shakespeare” he’d ever seen, and he’s always off to see the latest RSC performances, so I’m going to trust his judgement, and agree with him.

It wasn’t just David Tennant who made the play so amazing, although as the main character (and Hamlet is a bit of a tour de force for the actor who plays him) he did have a lot to do with it; but the other actors (especially Patrick Stewart, who played both Claudius and the Ghost, Oliver Ford Davies as Polonius, and Mariah Gale, who made a stunning and terrifying Ophelia) helped to carry the play.

Although I’ve read it, and seen a few other versions of it performed, there was something about this one which was breathtaking. Somehow, other layers to the plot which I previously hadn’t considered were revealed, like Polonius’ manipulative interpretation of Hamlet’s “madness” as an attempt to promote his own family.

Also, the humour! No-one would think of Hamlet as a comic play, but there were some moments which were so darkly comic one couldn’t help but laugh.This was partly to do with the direction, but also the interpretation brought these moments out. There are comic moments in even the darkest times for everyone, and these are written into the script. It would be a bleak play indeed if one couldn’t laugh at it at all, and by bringing out the comedy, Gregory Doran (the director) managed to make the characters very human. Which, naturally, made the ending (which can always seem a bit farcical) into far more of a tragedy, because by the time we’d reached that stage of events, we really loved the characters. Especially Hamlet.

I could go on and on about David Tennant’s interpretation of his character; I could eulogise for hours about how wonderfully he acted, because it did not seem like acting. Watching him on stage you didn’t even forget you were watching an actor play a role, you simply didn’t need to forget because you never even thought you were watching someone play a part. He was so incredibly human, so emotionally real… and I can’t find the words to do it justice.

 

The Immortal “I’m Fine”

Everyone says this. You ask someone how they are, the reply is usually (almost inevitably) “I’m fine”, or some variant thereof. And I know this is really a means of greasing the wheels of society, because let’s be honest, nobody but your friends and family really cares that much about how you’re feeling, and will probably be quite discomfited to hear that all is not shiny for you in the world… so it’s surely a natural response. Just to keep people satisfied until the people who know you well enough to know it’s a lie can find you and sort you out.

My worry, however, is what happens when you cease to let your friends and family know that you’re not okay. For instance a very, very close friend of mine, T, never ever seems to be anything other than just dandy. And yet, knowing him (as I think I do) quite well, he’s so incredibly intense that I can’t imagine how it would be possible for him to breeze through life as he seems to without at least coming up against some sort of stumbling block at some point. And feeling it. So if he’s not fine, why doesn’t he say? Or does he not bother saying and just expect us lower mortals to realise something’s up, without him having to say?

I mean, I’m better than I used to be. I can pick up on signals when he’s not in the best of moods – but I’m normally pretty intuitive about people and how they’re feeling, so being around him I feel vaguely deaf. It’s a bizarre and slightly irritating experience. Because I worry about him. Oddly enough, I worry because he seems to be so terminally “okay” all the time. Surely that should mean I don’t worry about him, yes? You’d think. Apparently not, because all that happens then is that I just worry that he’s hiding the fact he’s not okay. Argh. Maybe I worry too much?

Hm.

Interesting blog that, methinks. Mainly gibberish, but y’know. I was discussing it with L on the bus, and it’s weird how little you can tell about people from the outside. Some people have damn good masks, whereas I have no masks at all. I prefer a maskless world. You can see what’s going on better, and I’m better at being able to know things straight out than having to dig my way through a mass of half-said things to sift the truth. Unmask yourselves, people!

 

On Watching The Marat/Sade

The slamming of my heart
was the crash of some lunatic drum.
Faces jeered in the middle distance
and I was surrounded
by signs not missed, but ignored.

A sneer set my hands a-shudder
fingers knoted in a barb-wire grip
(no, I will not let this go)
and as fairies dance with demons
in the heads of dreaming fools

the stars spin out of control.

I count the things which made you mine
and find that, with the exception of
the sunlight on one April afternoon,
and whispered lines from poets
when you thought I woudn’t hear
and the kisses on the top of my head
when you stroke my hair and hold me,
I have nothing.

So I have collected my own souvenirs,
not realising when I gathered them
it was for this I kept them:
ticket stubs and programmes,
th poster of the play that
without you I could never have seen

and above all, the words of poets
as a madman laughs into the blackout.

 

 

A little bit of poetry for you.

 

Not Long Now.

Interview next Wednesday, so I leave on Tuesday. On the 12.38 train. This I must not forget. Or there will be hell of many kinds to pay.

And meanwhile I am killing time trapped inside a stressed out shell. With whom I am battling. I don’t need to be stressed; stress is not helpful right now. All I need to do is sit back, take a deep breath and remember I Can Do This. Which I can. I know I can. All the way along, English has been my subject; mine. I know my stuff, and I know I know it. So really, what am I worried about?

Well, that there will be other people who will also know. That I will have made a mistake on one of the various forms I had to fill in, and they’ll ask me about something I’ve said I know and I in fact won’t. That I will come across as either a bland and boring “mascara and jeans” girl, or as an arrogant little cow, or as something else equally unattractive and therefore will exclude myself from a place.

There are other worries, mostly along the same lines. One of them I can do nothing about. The other people applying are just that, strangers. I can’t do anything about their abilities, their knowledge. There will probably be about 40 of them. The only thing I can do about them is to be the best I can be, and if someone else is better then that’s not my fault.

The second worry is easily sorted. I just need to read a lot of stuff between now and Wednesday; I’m going to have plenty of time, and I have plenty to read. Hopefully by then I will know enough to talk about it well, and if not, well that’s just life.

The third worry… is probably stupid. And even if it isn’t, I can’t do much about it. Except to remember my P’s and Q’s and not to be too stressed out about how I’m presenting myself. I’ll just be ‘me’, and if they don’t like ‘me’, sod them. Sort of thing.

So all in all, it will probably go okay. As long as I’m Not Ill. Eek.

 

And Here We Go…

Off tomorrow.

And I know that one way or the other, I am going to remember the next two days for as long as I live. It’s not an exaggeration, and even if the outcome is not what I hope for, good will come of it, and it won’t kill me.

On the other hand, if everything goes as well as I want it to… Just watch them try and stop me, is all I can say.

So either way, my life has reached a turning point, and at some moment over the next few days, the future will most definitely be decided. It seems odd to be able to pinpoint a definite moment in time that things will change. Normally the turning points are less defined.

But right now, I’m at the top of a slope, and the minute the train doors close behind me tomorrow, I’ll be moving into a new future, set on a new path. In’t it exciting?

See you on Thursday.
x

 

How Things Have Changed

This time last year, for instance, I was looking forward to a brilliant holiday in which I would see no-one from College. I tried, several times and unsuccessfully, to arrange to meet up with people I counted as my friends. All of them were permanently busy, and although often it was with things that it would be perfectly acceptable to invite a lonely acquaintance along, I got no response to my pleas for attention.

And now: I have a group of the most amazing friends I’ve ever had, and so far this holiday my plans include seeing several variations of them on pretty much every day of the holiday. Totally different people of course – in the course of the last year I have managed to grow up pretty sharply, and find a group with whom I have a lot in common, whether that’s a shared love of something like poetry, or a sense of humour – either way, I have a group and a niche, and I’m missed when I’m not there. And for someone who has, until this point, never really had a group of friends like that, it is a novel experience.

Maybe it contributes to the fact that I want nothing for Christmas – except bubble bath and Keira Knightley in a bottle (sorry, Chanel Coco Mademoiselle)

And when I look back at how I was even a few months ago, I feel somewhat amazed by the amount I’ve grown. I put this down to my Cambridge interview, personally (yes, it went fantastically, thanks for asking and who cares if I get in or not – the interview itself was awesome enough!) but I think it must have happened before this. Anyway, there’s a noticeable change, apparently, as my friend G pointed out on Friday. We were discussing some things I’d written, and I pointed out they’d been written several months ago and were therefore not really representative of equivalent things I’d write now; I said I feel a lot more confident, and she looked up at me and said “Yeah, I had noticed that. You seem totally different now”.

So basically, looking back over the last year-and-a-term at college, I was just thinking… It has been a bit of a rollercoaster; I started off on quite a weak foot, not very confident anyway, and plunged into a huge 3,000 strong sixth form on my own, because of having moved away from my old school town. And on this footing, knowing no-one and feeling shy (and crippling myself early on with a mildly pointless but quite amusing boyfriend) I struggled gamely on for several weeks, unable quite to really make friends with the people around me. Come Christmas time, and yeah… pretty damn lonely.

But without that, I wouldn’t be here now, I don’t think. Because if I hadn’t moved, or if I had perhaps already known someone on the bus, I’d never have talked to R, who’d never have introduced me to L, and although it took me a term and a half to realise it, L is now probably my closest friend. And through her I heard about Poetry Society, and also met T, and through them and the society I met the rest of the poets, and the rest of L and T’s group and well… look at me now.

I am so damn happy.

So yeah, Happy Christmas, and things. Have a good Yuletide…

 

Happy New Year

Yes, admittedly this is a bit late, since we’re already 8 days into the New Year, but better late than never sez I.

And this is the year everything’s going to change, I think. End of A-Levels so end of what is, effectively, school. And therefore end of childhood – I’ll be 18 in a few months time, and a few months after that (October, hopefully, if I get the right grades) I’ll be leaving home. Not officially, obviously, University is only a temporary home. But I’ll still be Elsewhere. How very scary. Sort of standing on a brink, I suppose, at the moment. But it’s a good brink. Now I just have to be ready to set going.

As I think I said earlier, it’s great fun looking back at how much I’ve changed over the last year. I’m so much happier now than I’ve ever been, and thanks to the friends I now have, so much more confident too. Which is all part of the parcel, I think. Anyway, New Year’s Resolutions?

1. High grades, as high as possible, hopefully.
2. Magically “become” more organised.
3. Be honest with myself.
4. Stop wasting my time playing Solitaire when I could do something more useful (i.e. read)
5. Be happy.

Currently, 5 and 3 are the only two I’m achieving… but then again, ’tis only January…

I hope the new year brings in luck and everything to everyone else.

Happy New Year.

x

 

A Sad State of Affairs

Sat amid the clutter of my desk with a soft-voiced woman singing folk music from my CD-player, and ideas swim through my mind, idea after idea, words and thoughts and snatches of dialogue. I could write all this down, and if I could fix it exactly as I see it, I just know it would be among the best things I’ve written – and I know that at my best, I am very good at what I do.

But it’s so long since I’ve even tried my hand at a story not based inherently on myself that I lack the self-belief to even try. I know I could do it well, but I’m scared to open the door and let these characters walk out onto the page. It’s like Pandora’s Box but I’m not sure there’s any redeeming butterfly at the end. So instead of that, instead of bringing to life all the shadows inside, I sit at my laptop with a blank page (I’m too much of a coward to even get a pen out – I write better in ink) and instead of trying to begin the words, I play endless abortive games of solitaire, starting again just before I finish because I’m too scared to even finish a game of cards…

I don’t even write the essays I have to do for coursework, because I’m not even sure I can do that. Or more to the point, I know I can do that, I know I still have this talent, but I’m too scared to spend it on my imagination, and don’t want to waste it on facts and analysis. I’d rather write what I have it in me to write, but lack the self-belief to start.

 

Hunched over a Computer…

and I feel oddly… sick. I’ve been working relatively hard. Although admittedly, I could be working an awful lot better, and would be if I just turned on my magic yellow beeper thing and promised myself not to look up until it beeps. This I might yet do, if my lack of concentration starts to annoy me even more.

I am also simultaneously composing a letter to a friend, day-dreaming about many things, although mainly blue skies and freedom, and trying to ignore the fact I feel sick. Which thought, oddly, reminds me that I must remember to order that thing off Amazon. Not because the person its for makes me feel sick, far from it, or because Amazon itself makes me feel sick… I don’t really know why feeling sick reminded me of Amazon. Oh well, at least it was useful.

Over the past 2 hours, I have deleted a little over 700 words. Bearing in mind that when I started I was 1,000 words over my (depressingly small) word limit of 3,000 words, and you’ll see that this is quite a lot. If I’d been working at what felt like full capacity (yes, yes I am a machine, a lean mean grade machine… ahem) I’d probably have got down to 250 below the limit, which is where I’m aiming for. As it is, at this rate, I’ll still be working until probably about 9.00 tonight. Which Is When I Stop. Come what may. I cease to function after 9.00.

Amusingly, as well as my work ethic at home being a tad rubbish at the moment, I seem to have developed the rather unadmirable habit of avoiding arbitrarily any and every French lesson. When I do turn up I do the work fine, I zip through, mostly getting around about full marks in every excercise. So perhaps my random skiving is down to boredom. And yet, it is relaxing, being in that classroom, doing something which requires so little effort, and ye gods, I like French! I just seem to have a pathological need to NEVER GO…

Possibly because I know that there’s a lot of work I need to do, involving the revision of Grammar etc, and this I cannot be bothered to do.

I am dreading the exams, and I know they’re a while away, but this time of year always goes by so quickly…

In other news, I am planning to go and see ‘Oliver!’ with a good friend of mine. The one in London, with Rowan Atkinson in (and that girl off the Telly, but I don’t really care about that, sorry.) Methinks it shall be good; I shall just organise tickets. I do owe G a trip to the theatre, since he’s already taken me to see ‘The Reduced Shakespeare Company’ AND Strindberg’s ‘Creditors’ at the Donmar Warehouse… And it’s fun, gadding about with him. Which leads me to another thought; how you can be close to someone, and yet never really see that much of them. It’s lovely though – we’re good friends, and I always feel I’d like to see more of him, but it somehow doesn’t matter too much if I don’t.

And that reminds me of another thing; must get tickets for ‘Fiddler on the Roof’… And persuade someone to accompany me. Good egg.

Ta-ra, back to the inevitable deletion of words. But first, TEA. The drinkable stuff.

 

Another year passes…

… this happens every day, but no-one ever notices. But it’s so weird to suddenly realise that a year has passed since something that (in your small life) counts as an Event. And, on realising this, looking back through the year just gone and seeing everything that’s happened, everything that has changed or hasn’t.

It’s interesting.

For instance, I realised that before this date last year, there were certain of my friends that – although we were obviously quite close, or I wouldn’t have invited them that night – didn’t affect my life to any great degree. Since that day, these have become the most important people in my life, past and present. Whether they will continue to be so vital remains to be seen. I damn well hope so.

Without them I would not have this confidence in myself, or the ambition which now drives me. I wouldn’t have the confidence to believe that I have the strength to do whatever I want. People affect you so strongly, and you never realise it until afterwards.

This seems to have descended into one of those “my my, look how marvellous my life is now, look how crap it was then” blogs. Which it isn’t supposed to be. So it won’t be.

Instead, I will say this. Sod ‘Valentine’s Day’, sod expressing love on one day of the year in a myriad of commercialised and cliched ways. Sod only telling someone that you love them romantically. The world is a huge, beautiful, fantastic place. The people here are incredible, partly just for being alive, which is chance enough on its own. But added to that the fact that the people in your life are good enough to love you and spend time with you and care for you, and that you care enough about them to do the same, and no matter who you are, that has to be important.

Love, yes? It’s wonderful.

 

[My god, that was crap. As from next post, I'll be doing this in stream-of-consciousness. More interesting, I think.]

 

Icarus

things change things change the day today is grey but not without life there are trees and sunlight which is muted the world today seems half dead drained of colour but this in itself is not a negative thing becuase at least we are alive yes alive.

now is the time of year when all the possibles wake up everything can happen from now everything is possible. winter is a time of impossibles, of panics and fears and dark tight bands of constriction over your chest so your heart clenches and you cant breathe but spring is the time when everything wakes up and even the stresses stop and let go. now is a time to open your eyes and spread wings and fly because it is always all possible at this time of year. self wakes up from sleep and you can let go really let go into yourself.

anything is possible.

[Stream of Consciousness.]

And now for the point, if there was one.

Looking out of my window I can see the same view I always see. It is the same muted colours as it has been every day since November, since the leaves fell and winter set in properly, but for some reason today feels more awake and alive than it has before. It feels like (as it always does at this time of year) the world is waking up again. And with the world waking up, I wake up. Everything becomes possible again because somehow, the first few days of Spring do that to people.

For instance, I know that as soon as it starts to be sunny, people in the canteen at college will up sticks and move out onto the field. Even if they only get a very few days of sun before it gets colder and rainy again (bloody March weather) they will have made the first steps into Sun. And that mood fills everyone. The first steps on the grass become a symbol of re-starting things, and the general feeling of wellbeing as the sun rises (and I’m not waiting by the bus-stop in the dark in the mornings) mean that you somehow know you can always do more.

I’m looking forward to the possibledays.

 

A Curious Mix of Fragility and Strength

People like to delude themselves, to believe they are the only ones capable of coping with any given situation. By making yourself the ’strong one’ in your mind, it gives you a feeling of power. And then you end up blind to the truth that the strongest people are the ones who don’t feel the need to remind you of their strength. The strongest people I know are the ones who don’t mention their struggles, who don’t talk about it, but are there always with a smile and a kind word and a hug for those who need it.

You don’t need to ask for their help, they just know there is a necessity for it. Often they assume that you’d rather be looked after by someone else, and maybe instead of sitting with you, they go looking for that someone. By being aware of other people’s difficulties, and by knowing what is needed, they make themselves indispensable. But also, to a certain extent, un-noticeable. They don’t make a big song and dance about being ‘there for you’, they don’t tell you that you’re loved, or that the world is beautiful, they just take you by the hand and hold onto you until you remember it for yourself. Friends like that are rare, the ones who immediately know you well enough to know when they’re needed.

It’s hard to judge how someone else is feeling. Why are they sat in that corner? Is it because they’re tired, or do they need someone to talk to? It’s very easy to misjudge a quietness as a weakness. It’s terrifyingly easy to dismiss someone as fragile, because of one or two things they’ve said whilst unthinking. And to dismiss from your mind the memory of what you might have done to cause that.

People aren’t black and white; you can’t assume that someone will shatter if you walk away from them, if you let go of their hand. Equally, you can’t assume someone’s going to be okay just because they are grinning and laughing, the soul and centre of the gathering. You need to be able to look closer than that, to see what’s haunting them, what’s got under their skin. And ultimately, you need to keep your judgements to yourself. If you think someone’s strong, don’t tell them, most importantly, if you think someone’s fragile, you don’t tell them.

We are all too easily defined by the opinions of others. We need to learn to break out of our shells.

 

On Womanhood

It’s been a good week for reminding me of the existence my womb, and for making me feel damn proud to be female.

This has been summed up by two particular events, which I will talk about now.

The first was during our history visit to London. My friend A thought she might be pregnant, and spent much of the journey down worrying about it. This was because she’d been feeling nauseous in the mornings quite a few days running, and could remember several occasions when, well, she and her boyfriend had been less than careful. What this meant was that L and I spent the majority of our Lunchbreak running round the area near the British Library/Camden Town Hall looking for a chemist’s. It turned out the nearest one was in St. Pancras international station which, I have to say, is the most beautiful station I’ve seen. It was like stepping into a huge Avalon of glass and light, with smooth supermarket floors and the sort of hushed hubbub that one normally gets only in airports. Even the noise of the trains was absent; I had no idea where they were, and could see none of the usual railway paraphernalia.

We were running out of time, so hurtled through the station looking for the Starbucks which was apparently right next to the Boots. A by this time was in quite a state, saying she’d never felt more anxious and she didn’t know what she was going to do if she was pregnant. I asked her if she’d keep it and she looked at me hollowly and shook her head. She’s Christian, quite strongly so, and I could see the struggle in her face. And in my head was the worry about what her boyfriend would think. They’ve been together a year, but I don’t know that much about him. From what I do know, I don’t think he’d necessarily approve of an abortion. Of course, that might be my paranoid mind making a snap judgement. But I did find myself thinking, “If he doesn’t want her to have an abortion, which would she choose? Would she pick her own freedom to choose, when she’s already said so many times how much she needs him? Would she choose herself over their relationship? If he offered her an ultimatum, which way would she go?”

In general, I found myself thinking about what I’d do were I in her potential situation. And to be quite honest, I don’t know. I know what I’d want to do, which is to have an abortion, finish it, run away quickly, but I don’t know if I’d be brave enough to go through with it. Equally, I couldn’t face having a child. At the moment I couldn’t face the sort of stable relationship where raising a child could be conceivably a possibility. I don’t want something that would last longer than maximum 6 months, maybe a year, unless it was with someone truly amazing, and I don’t think I’ve actually met them yet.

I was also thinking about motherhood in general, the amazing potential that we, as women, have for procreation. It is truly miraculous, in my eyes. It’s something wonderful and beautiful, and yet so mysterious, so terrifying. I know, having helped A through Wednesday (many slightly hysterically hilarious adventures involving trying to do the test in the loos of the conference venue we were at and dropping it noisily into the next – occupied – cubicle, losing it on the train, finding it, getting home and losing it a third time, before finding it again, drinking too much water, and then eventually carrying out the test which – thankfully – was negative) that I most definitely am not ready for that, and am intensely grateful it’s not currently high on my list of Things Which Might Happen.

I also know that I’m too bloody forgetful to take a pill every day. And really should be more proactive about preparing for these things, so I do rather need to speak to a doctor about it all…

The other event which got me thinking about my womb, in a different and more protective light, was when I was heading down to the hospital for my HPV vaccine. The HPV Vaccine is an inoculation against the Human Papilloma Virus, which causes - among other things – Cervical Cancer. When my course of three injections is over, I will be immunised against 75% of the different types of the virus, leaving amongst those against which I am not protected, only two, very rare, carcinogenic types. (If I mean carcinogenic in this sense)

This was quite nervewracking, partly because I had only a very small (and wrong) idea where the hospital was, and because I am rubbish at reading signs, I ended up trying to walk into the adult Psychiatry ward instead. Eventually found the Fanshawe wing, and was an hour early… The other people there on that day were interesting to watch. There was a girl, about my age, pushing a pram and looking nervous. Her own mother was with her although they looked about the same age, and I couldn’t work out whose the baby was. The girl seemed tense but quite teeth-gritty, one of the man-the-f***-up and stop-complaining school of thought, it seemed. There was a nervous, motherly looking girl with her nose buried in a book until we were called to go in, who sat beside me on the waiting chairs, staring at the floor and blushing, as if being protected against a potentially fatal disease sexually transmitted disease was something to be ashamed of, and two other girls who sat together worrying about the pain of it and debating how they were ever going to get tattoos.

We were all supposedly in the same boat there. All of us the same age, all of us women (naturally), all of us wanting to be protected against something terrifying. And it was (and here I apologise for the Disney-like mawkishness of what I’m about to say) really quite lovely the way we all grouped together to reassure each other. Sitting on those five cold seats outside we comforted each other with horror stories of other injections, and reassuring things other friends who’d already had this injection had said. I’m sure it won’t hurt that much, we said, or I think I might faint… how embarrassing. And yet, when one girl did turn ashen beneath her fake tan and was led from the room by a nurse to sit quietly for a bit, none of us laughed. None of us thought it the slightest bit shaming. We just smiled at her encouragingly, said how brave, grimaced in sympathy and then left by the automatic doors with a -see you next time, and a quick turning away.

That’s what’s really struck me about this week, although I’m sure it’s the same for boys as well. It’s not so much the fact that I myself am a woman that has made me stop and think, but it’s the way we – as women – relate to each other about such essential aspects of ourselves and our gender. Femininity is not just about skirts and make-up, babies and gossip, being a woman and being surrounded by women, you are part of a group of people who understand your pain, understand the need for hot water bottles and unobtrusive sympathy at certain times of the month, who empathise with your anxiety if you weren’t quite careful enough that one night, and who – above all – know exactly what you’re going through when you worry, perhaps unnecessarily, that something might be wrong, there.

It isn’t true to say that women are defined by their wombs, that motherhood is essentially our only purpose, but fertility and that aspect of Being a Woman is a uniting factor in all our lives. Mutual defence, mutual sympathy, mutual love. That’s something that’s part of being a woman and being with women is about, looking after one another because essentially, we all know what it’s like. It’s beautiful, as are we all.

 

The words stick in my throat

if I could say what I wanted to say, well, we wouldn’t be here now, would we.

 

Things I Will Miss

Just thinking earlier about the things I will most definitely miss when (if…) I get to university.

These include:

• evenings spent in the living room watching TV with my parents. Usually involving the News, and my Dad hissing that we should stop discussing the weird plastic appearances of the newsreaders because he’s trying to listen. Or some bizarre and often totally rubbish detective drama, or wonderful fantastic adaptation/period drama (you can see the bias here, no?) which will then become an extended family joke. I don’t have enough of these evenings, but I know I could never have enough. I’m disgustingly antisocial.
• Those aforementioned family jokes. Like my Mum yelling out “Toffee on Friday…” as I leave the house amid a hurtling of endearments. Which is a quotation from a Michael Rosen poem (“The Register” from ‘You Wait ‘Til I’m Older Than You’, if you’re interested.) It basically means “shut up Clare, you’re talking too much. Go – you have a bus to catch!” but never fails to see me leave the house in a good mood. Or the various other quotations we’ve got from Michael Rosen (“You’re right there Connie”) and other such in-jokes. “I surely will” being a current favourite of mine, which has yet to ascend to the dizzy heights of the RosenJokes. How am I to survive next year if none of my fellow students will appreciate my random quoting of kids’ poetry to them?
• My Dad stumbling in the morning with a cup of tea. We both get up at about the same time, me for college, him because – well currently I think it’s because he just does wake up that early. And doesn’t like it. Which is something I probably should worry about…
• My Dad in general. Shambolic academic with all the conscience of the North. (My sister – who also has a blog somewhere about – described him much better…) I will just say this: last week some time he was telling us a story about his aunt Eilis and how when she was about 15 her mother made her a knitted swimming costume, which stretched in the water. As Eilis came back out of the water to reveal this disaster, her mother pursed her lips and said (and my Dad did a mean impression of a sarcastically amused Irish woman) “Well you won’t be wearing that again!” This was hilarious. My Dad does Northern/Irish accents wonderfully. I will miss those. And the constant puns. And ruffling his hair when he’s just had it cut.
• My Mum. She’s so easy to talk to. And all the time we seem to have something to laugh about. Or bitch about, but in an amusing and non-malicious way (our neighbour’s new lawn is the current contentious issue round here.) Also, she gives mean advice. And I don’t get to spend enough time with her at the moment. College finishes too late for us to do what we used to in Y11 and go off for walks at all hours of the evening. (Oh, Boggit’s Thumb, or whatever you were called, you are sadly missed…)
• Family Walks. We don’t get enough of these anyway. I miss them. I want to go back to Petersfield country, OR explore the area round Salisbury more.
• Family music. Trios, and such. I don’t play my violin enough. I don’t play my viola enough. I don’t play the piano enough. (I might take up W’s offer of piano lessons. He’ll hate me by the time an hour is through. I massacre Debussy.) I don’t play enough music for fun. I’m a silly cow in that regard.
• Storming off onto the Common at all hours of the day and night. It REALLY clears your head. Although if your head is too clouded to be cleared and you then need rescuing (T, I’m eternally grateful, if you ever read this. I could not have got myself out of there for the life of me.)
• My Garden Angels. I shall miss them sitting at the bottom of my garden, by the porno pond, chain-smoking and swearing about how stupid I am. For the uninitiated: T and L, who seem to spend half their time talking me down from whatever stupid madness I’ve got myself into. I’m sure I’m not actually that bad, in fact I know I’m not, otherwise they wouldn’t put up with me. Which makes me feel even more lucky. They actually give a damn. And will soon be VERY far away.
• Other friends, naturally.
• W, who (congratulations to him) just got a 7 month work placement at a school near Washington. I have no idea whether or not I want this to last until university, but on the off-chance that it does, I do not want a boyfriend t’other side of the atlantic. I am permanently in awe of F and M who’ve survived the distance between Durham and Warwick, but there are no oceans involved!  And I barely cope with someone living a bus journey away. (apart from A in Somerset, but that was different. And, truth to tell, not always the most healthy of relationships…) So yeah. Also I will miss his school, potentially more than he will. Leather sofas and ancient desks, and 700 year old buildings abound. I want it. Which is why I like to be called ‘Mohan’ by him. It makes me feel like a public schoolboy. Which is probably something I shouldn’t admit…
• My own bed, my own room. The way everything is. The ability (schizophrenic oven permitting) to cook when and what I want. The cats. This house. Even the sodding Bluestar Buses!

Yeah… University scares me, the thought of it. At the same time, it will be amazing. Unless I miss out on one of the three As, in which case… I will give myself another year at home, re-take and try again. How’s that for determination? Or lunacy…

Oh, and in other news… hi. It’s been a while since I was last on here!

 

I wish I could play the Piano…

… for the simple reason that I stopped just when I was getting good. I was about to start learning a Beethoven Sonata (I forget which one) and I really loved it. Those among you who play a musical instrument, most especially the piano, will know how very rewarding and relaxing it is. There’s no faffing about with rosin, or chin rests (spikes and chairs, if you’re a cellist) or tightening a bow, finding a music stand, setting it up, sticking it together if you’ve accidentally picked the broken one which lies about to torture us, and then digging around for some music, most of which sounds RUBBISH without an accompanist anyway.

The piano is just there. And I was good at it. I don’t want to sound conceited (even though I know that’s what I’m doing) and I know I could have been much better, which is the frustrating thing. I was better at the piano than I am at the Violin. And probably also the Viola. Because I don’t practice the Viola enough. And if I practiced that as well I’d be marvellous. Good enough to not just ‘cope’ in orchestra, but actually reall really play. Properly, heart-wrenchingly. The only heart in question being wrenched would be mine, but to me that’s the point. Playing so you feel like you can do anything, like you’re the only person who can play like that in the world, and then opening your ears and hearing the rest of the orchestra and knowing you’re not alone, and playing with them. As principal I really need to be able to play without worrying about notes or technique or thinking “b*gger me but my arm aches” and being able to forget all that and concentrate on how well the section is coping and who’s playing in time and who isn’t. I need to be able to do that, and at the moment I can’t.

It’s the most frustrating thing, that I can do this. I have it in me to do it, but I just … haven’t. And now I’m nearly at the end of my last year in Orchestra (come to our last two concerts by the way: The Anvil, Basingstoke – 20th or 21st June [I forget which] and Thornden Hall, Chandler’s Ford - 4th July) and I know I will never be this good again, or be in a group this good again. I just wish I’d realised, aged about 14, that by the time I was 18 I’d be in love with music in a way I’ve never been properly before, and thus maybe at that age I’d have kept practicing, so that I was at the stage now that instead of needing to practice, I could just play. I yearn for that.

 

Sulk over. I’m going to go and play the piano now. Badly. (Bach, Prelude No.1, if you’re interested. It’s beautiful.)

 

Stagnance

Every day is the same. Everything I write is the same. Nothing new has happened, nothing really really new since… perhaps last Summer? Every experience I’ve had has been pretty much the same as something I’ve done before.

As a consequence, I am enduring the worst writer’s block I’ve ever experienced. Because unlike normal when I can’t write anything, or what I do write is rubbish, I am instead turning on my own writing, looking back at everything I’ve written for the last… well, since I started writing properly (so that’s 4 years then) and discovering that all I’ve written are a series of perhaps five or six poems which repeat themselves over and over again, using different words, but nothing really new. I record the same sorts of experiences, the same emotions, in the same ways. Sometimes I use a turn of phrase which IS new, which is vibrant, which DOES say what I want it to say. And then I re-use that until it seems as dull as everything else. I can write nothing new; nothing I do write is interesting for long enough. I have no original words of my own.

For instance, the other day my friend read out a short poem she’d written. I can’t remember the exact words, but all I remember were two lines which went something like: “When you kiss me / Electric angels… ” (I can’t remember what it is the electric angels actually do; all I remember are the angels themselves.) Now, leaving aside issues of jealousy [part of me wants to be the 'you' in the poem, or at least know who the 'you' is] the other thing I remember about the poem is the sense of it. The joy, the vibrancy, the life, the passion.

I can’t do that. Not any more.

If you feel like it, when you’ve done reading, go through this post and count how many times I’ve re-used words like “vibrancy”, “passion”, “original”, “dull” and variants thereon. I have a very narrow vocabulary and it disgusts me.

 

Exams: So It Begins…

My first exam of any importance is tomorrow and I am not at all ready for it. Nor shall I ever be.

I have never felt so underprepared for any exams, ever.

Currently, I am going through all my history notes, working out which topics I can bluff acceptably, and if there are any I know well enough to write passable essays on. The best I am hoping for this year (in History) is a C. If I get a C, that’s okay. A mid-range C means my overall grade for the whole A level will be an A. A just-scraped, skin-of-my-teeth A. This from the girl who was 6th in the year last year. Quite a plummet, hey?

So yes, anxiety levels higher than my head at the moment. Never have I more doubted my own abilities. Never have my dreams looked more fragile, more out-of-reach, more impossible. Never have I felt more terrified. I don’t believe I have it in me to do this, and no matter how many cups of tea I drink between now and then, no matter how many people tell me it’ll be okay, and no matter how much I read in the next ooh… 10.5 hours, I will never, ever have enough knowledge I need to sit this exam confidently.

I will be in tears by 10.00 tomorrow (when the exam is over) I am sure. Because it is demoralising to feel so helpless.

And THIS is the history paper I feel most confident about. Wait until Thursday to see me in a total meltdown. THIS is child’s play compared to how I will feel then.

 

Identity Crisis

right at the end of my french exam yesterday, with half an hour to spare, because no matter how hard the exam I always finish language ones early, I suddenly had a complete crisis of confidence.

I won’t bother to go into details, but I did spend about 20 minutes working out how I was going to go about telling various people various important things I’d suddenly realised, and just thinking about that made me feel awful. So I decided, instead of telling people, I was just going to get all my money out of my account (forgetting it’s only about £20 now anyway) and get on a bus, and keep going until I was as far away as my money would get me, and then I’d just walk, and keep going, carry on until I dropped, rather than have to explain everything.

An hour after the exam, I’d calmed down until it felt like there wasn’t much that needed to be explained, only some thoughts still nag at me. So if I vanish after tomorrow’s exam, it’s because the same thing happened again. There.

 

Things to do before I die…

Because I often wonder what my own list would include, here it is:

1. Spend a year living in Russia. (a short but intense fling with a lover named Ivan is optional)

2. Win a major poetry competition. (oh come on, Bridport prize… fingers crossed)

3. Achieve 3 As, and thus actually go to Cambridge. (so yes, HOPEFULLY I’ll be able to tick this one off in a few… weeks… time… eek)

4. Play the Brahms Sonata in Eminor (Viola) with someone, and possibly perform it somewhere. Any bloody good but not-too-fussy pianists out there who fancy playing it with me?

5. Play Ariel in ‘The Tempest’….

6. …. direct ‘The Tempest’

7. Live in Paris. (actually, just GOING to Paris would be a start)

8. Walk the Inca trail to Machu Picchu.

9. And the Great Wall of China.

10. Go to India, and possibly also Africa. AND Japan.

11. Have two children, possibly three, and an idyllic and stylish house either somewhere right out the way in the country, or one of those gorgeous Georgian town houses. (or both, perhaps at the same time if my conscience could bear it). The house(s) would be decorated elegantly and fantastically, with souvenirs from my travels. Including a framed portrait of my dear and abandoned Ivan, waiting in Saint Petersburg.

12. Watch the whole of the Ring Cycle. Possibly all in one go?

13. Go to a performance at the Royal Opera House. Or Glyndebourne, or one of those really famous and gorgeous opera houses. Possibly linked to #12, or not.

14. Travel on the Orient Express.

15. … and also on a Canal boat.

16. Sleep under the stars, stay awake all night stargazing, watch the sunrise.

17. Be published. By Faber, ideally.

18. Learn to sail, and circumnavigate… something.

 

The Universe just vanished out of sight…

Haven’t listened to this song in ages… Go and find it. (Snow Patrol - Warmer Climate)

A lovesong of the most intense and bizarre proportions: “you’re the hope that ends disaster” anyone?

BUT when you’re feeling in that mood anyway, someone caught in your head and nothing you do will alleviate the agony that is not agony of thinking about them, and the memory of the last time you saw them clings to you, that’s what this song is about. The chorus is divine:

“The universe just vanished out of sight
And all the stars collapsed behind a pitch-black night”…

So yes. I’m feeling utterly lovesick at the moment, made the more poignant by the fact that I have only the shortest amount of time left until W vanishes to America. God damn the endlessness of the Atlantic. I can’t get there easily. I can’t even imagine what it’ll be like; sometimes even just imagining other people’s home lives seems beyond me. And my damn computer won’t work; the magic of skype is defeating me. I was lured in with promises of being able to keep easily in touch, and able (more importantly) to see W in ‘real time’, which is the nearest I will be able to get to actually seeing him, and unfortunately, skype just HATES me. If anyone could help that would be marvellous. I am acutely aware of how little time there is left, and how very far away he’ll be. So, at the moment, I’m living for the feeling of closeness I get when he’s there.

My favourite lines from the song are simply these. They sum up the way things suddenly seem so small and trivial compared with… whatever this is… love?

And suddenly the world seems so small
We’d fit it all inside our front hall.

[Beware: Joni Mitchell-inspired entry coming up one of these days...]

 

The Small Things

The smallest things are the most important. An afternoon spent chatting with a friend, sharing a chicken stirfry in the John Lewis cafe. The broken leg of an umbrella sticking out incongruously from the circle of brown waterproof. The rain, drifting like mist, not plummeting. The cold and damp, kept away by a borrowed umbrella and someone else’s jumper that still retains the sense of him. (it’s like wearing a hug, which, in these days of murderers in the attic and nocturnal heart murmurs, is very useful.) Holding my Dad’s hand as protection against the wind on Snowdon. Chatting to my Dad about Lonely Deaths in the car on the way to the station. Coming home early from holiday and being met halfway up the road by an old friend, not seen for a month. A long hug on the side of the road. A new beard. A balaclava marked evil, and attempting to take over the world with killer bees. A piece, for the viola, scrawled on the back of the letter.  A woman with a voice clear and cold, so beautiful she makes me cry. The heart-stop of cold water, 2,000 feet up on a welsh mountain. Storms, rain, the mist at the top of Snowdon. New Walking Boots that don’t give me (many) blisters. Right by an abyss and clinging on only with fingers and feet. Tea in a flask. A cafe, seemingly abandoned mid-afternoon, cups of tea still on the tables, and very ‘Marie Celeste’. A letter, arriving at 10pm at night, right when it was needed. Another letter, a photo of my Grandma, young and beautiful, and my Granda’s wistful comment that she never liked having photos taken of her. A new photo frame, the portrait now in pride of place on my shelf. An untidy room, but one that only needs a surface tidy before it will be sparkling and pristeen again. A passion for wool, and knitting patterns and needles. Sitting on the floor of a bookshop, poring over book after book after book. Searching for presents, finding the ideas you wanted right there! Just as you pass the necessary shop. A passage in a book which says something so beautiful and true that you stop, you tear off a piece of paper, you mark it down, and you remember it. A poem that catches in your throat. Your name in a dedication, a piece so wild and beautiful. Pride in someone external. An abandoned mining village way up in the mist, worn down stones and piles of discarded slate, and only the shapes of doors and the walls still standing to tell you where the houses were. Sheep, peering through the shadows of doors to stare, yellow-eyed, and whisk out of sight. Jellyfish on a beach, oddly hard underfoot, like see-through stones. A nest of swallows above  the door. Stairs in a cupboard. Nutella in the fridge. Losing every game of ‘Monopoly’. A five-minute phonecall that leaves you smiling for hours. A love letter, a surprise.

The last few weeks have been wonderful.

 

The Poets’ Holiday

So. I was dreading it, and I arrived dreading it.

But it was beautiful, a white cottage nestled in the midst of nowhere. A river runs through the back garden, bubbling and bickering with itself. I arrived on a butter yellow evening to join the whole crowd gathered by a water hole in a hay field by the house. We spent a joyful evening in and out of the river, returning to the house for a late supper, arguments over silly things (“no-one spells ‘the’ with a ‘g’, don’t be ridiculous!” “they do in Italian actually… don’t they?” “oh… you were talking about Italian…. oh.”), shouting and chaos and good food.

Feeling quiet and shy I kept myself to myself a lot, intending to quietly sneak off to bed at about midnight. But A, who was rather under the influence, spent a long time with me sat on his bed listening to him talk. Oh, I worry about him. Greatly…

And the next day dawned after a night of truths, and more than ever I wanted to be silent. A glorious walk up over a ridge to Dunster but as I got tired and hungry and preoccupied with thoughts of homesickness, I found myself angry and increasingly antisocial and set off home long before the rest. I took my time walking, partly because I was in floods of tears a lot of the way with no clear idea why. And then, to add a cherry to the top of an already noxious cake, I took a wrong turning so turned a leisurely stroll into a desperately tiring twelve mile walk…

Getting home I was in a far worse state and ended up sobbing at many people. (Good holiday, you ask? It did get better.) By the time the evening drew on I was calm again and approaching happy. After an early night, Thursday dawned clear and sunny.

Hence, the beach. Complete with swimming in a steel blue sea and shrieking with cold, and building sandcastles without buckets, and the most glorious picnic. And then an evening spent preparing the stage for our ‘Voodoo’ ritual.

Although we intended to terrify our companions, Baron Samedi and I merely freaked them out a little before lightening the mood at the end with candles and wine.

Then dancing to Gay Bar in the living room and a sleepy quietness while the others danced. And then a walk up to the gate with M, and sharing thoughts neither of us had dared to voice. And then returning to the cottage when called by anxious friends, and sleeping, waking vaguely to hear someone screaming out “I just cleaned my teeth with Savlon!” before drifting back to sleep and believing it a dream. It wasn’t.

And then the morning, and walking, and talking to myself to try and understand the buzzing in my head, and then misc. fruit crumble and the drive home. Ignoring the SAT Nav and listening to any music we could find, shrieking at the loon on the radio (yes, this shit IS bananas), and everyone gradually returning home.

And still the lingering regret for the way things were, a nostalgia for a bitter past. An anxiety of the future, only a week left before we find all. Everything is on the brink now.

 

Breaking Apart

Just over a month left until I’m off to Hopefully-Cambridge (which is what I’ve been calling it since I got my offer, and I still don’t believe I’m actually going there, so ‘Hopefully-Cambridge’ it has been rechristened until I actually GET there. Then it will be real.)

Other people leave in less than just-over-a-month. Some people leave halfway through September. We’re all going to be a long way away. Friendships will strain, some won’t survive. I know this, because two years ago I did pretty much the same thing as I’m doing now. I’ve done a lot of moving away in the last few years; I’m fairly good at cutting ties and moving on. So it seems to be a self-defence mechanism of mine now that I decide very coldly who it is I want to keep in touch with and who not, and that basically affects how I treat people before I leave and how I keep in touch afterwards.

Put like that it sounds very clinical. In many ways it is. I don’t deliberately decide ‘Right, I’m going to shut myself away’, but when I notice it happening I don’t do much to stop it. But it does bother me.

At a friend’s birthday meal, for example, I found myself being an utter cow. One of the things I noticed, which was probably just me being hypersensitive, was that T – who is normally a very good friend of mine, someone with whom I can say almost anything and vice versa and rarely is any offence caused. (And normally when I feel offended, I tend to shut up anyway, around most people. S’polite.) However, at this meal, T and I were almost constantly at loggerheads. Accused of being patronising, I responded by pointing out that normally he’s worse. There were snide comments flying back and forth. I felt on edge and under attack and became very defensive – I felt out of my depth and lonely, and left as early as I could.

Over the last few months I’ve found myself becoming more and more … choosy… about friends. Smaller things irritate me; I find myself replaying old grievances that at the time, to keep the peace, I chose to bury. Why should I drag these things up now? Why turn on people who used to be such good friends? Why is it that all I do now is remind myself over and over again the reasons that actually half of them aren’t as perfect as I used to believe?

I could give you a highly developed and well thought out critique of the flaws of a lot of them. Except that it distresses me that I should have allowed myself to reach the stage where I can just pick a name out and tell you their faults and problems. If I could reverse the process that has dragged me to this point, I would. As it is, however, I can’t – I’ve been angry for too long.

This is a really bitchy post; I’m sorry. I think it’s just fear of leaving and of being left behind that is making me so harsh. Probably when I come back after the end of term, I’ll have got over this, I’ll be more accepting than I am now, probably not so nervous or frightened, because the first separation will be over.

 

Well that was scary (Part I)

I went to the bank yesterday. I was very grown up, spoke to a bank[clerk?steward?person?] and everything, organised my student account and all.

It would have gone fine, except that she was, to be frank, a total cow. She had just that sort of rudeness which is pitched perfectly to fall just under the radar, so you feel put upon, pathetic and under attack – and then believe that it’s all in your head.

So I felt terribly anxious and vulnerable, especially when – whilst struggling to find certain documents and thus getting quite flustered – she turned to me and said in the most scathing voice possible “How OLD are you?” which really withered all my carefully built-up confidence. At that point I began to regret doing the whole thing without a useful adult to hold my hand and stop the nasty-wasty bank lady fwom being so meeen….

Anyway, I didn’t have a friendly parent, I was on my own. Which is why I panicked and signed up for a credit card that I do Not want. Some people I spoke to said it’s a really good thing, but most people’s reaction was akin to my sister’s, i.e. “Shit! No!” …helpful, J, helpful.

Oh well, panic over. I’ll cancel it.

 

Well that was scary (Part II)

I just wrote my first essay for Cambridge. It’s more than a little bit rubbish; it’s disorganised, waffly, and – as usual – about 500 words too long. Lucky then that I’ve got plenty of time to edit it, ay?

To be honest, it wasn’t that scary, it just fitted neatly in with the previous post’s title. I rather enjoyed it, the discipline of a day spent working is something I’ve missed, if I ever got used to it, and I do enjoy writing essays. I just think I need to get quicker at it, more organised, better at dissecting what I want to say and paring it down, so that I can say more, write in more detail, be more precise, just generally be better.

I talk too much, I ramble too much. It’s a flaw, but I’m working on it. And now, something I really want to do is to settle down and write a good story. I think I know what I might write, as well. It will be strange, telling that story from the wrong angle, perhaps. But fun.

 

Re-evaluation

of self, of life, of others. General consensus – this is all in your head. So grow up, stop it, let go and relax. Except then others still say no, it is real, you are right. And there is no clear path.

And then still other times, things go wrong and suddenly there are no second chances, or not really, only a half-chance but you grab it and take it, because it’s a plank to a drowning man and you gulp for air on the side of the rotten wood. And then the ghost ship gravitates towards you, forms itself from nothing, and where you thought there was only a sinking chance, a half-life, there is something new – a different direction from before, but something equally concrete. Equally wonderful. And just as vulnerable, just as liable to sink.

Nice having always one person on same side; but equally, a critical ear. Always there are other things that could be better – asking more questions, perhaps talk more quietly, but be more confident. Dance more, smile, smile, smile. An artist’s eye, watching my face and then a request that no longer needs words, and the response? Always a smile, and always the happiest I’ve ever been just smiling.

No half smile for him, never. Never a silence and a misleading of my face, a twist of one-side. ‘the most miserable sight’, yes, true. Most miserable sight, miserable thought. Face is a reflection of the inside of your head, that’s how it works. So half-smile signals that things are not as good as -

Also, reading Ulysses. No writing, not for ages, not proper, not prose, not poems, there is only a silence in my head because words don’t gather like they used to, other things to do. Complete chaos in head, complete chaos in life. But reading, and Joyce is organic. These are natural thoughts, this is how thoughts work, if this is modernism it is also true.

But yes. Drifting out of the way things have always been; cutting loose. I’ve said all this before. It’s a drift, not a pull. I’m not running away, but everything is moving in different directions and I have so much to concentrate on that peripheral things, things not in the centre of my thought, they drift outwards and I lose sight of them.

Is this callous? Yes. But it’s also the way things are. And being impatient with me will not bring me back.

 

Eat less, Breathe more.

That’s what the doctor said. And so now my Gran thinks I have a weight problem and a heart condition; this is encouraging!