Shut Down, Afraid, And Helpless On A City Centre Bench

I've ignored my prompt list again.  Today's post is a diary of my experiences on Monday, 20th February.  If only the PIP tribunal experts had been there to witness my day.

Sunderland, October 2016

The onslaught to my senses was nearly too much.  I'd known it was going to be a hard day but I was determined.  I would face it anyway and surely it wouldn't be too bad.  If I had known in advance I would have stayed at home.  I wouldn't have had the courage to face it.  Or perhaps would have lacked the masochism necessary to willingly walk into such a turn of events.  That morning I felt rough.  The walls seemed to be closing in and everything felt just that bit too loud, too fast, too bright, too prickly.  Sensory processing disorder is something I wouldn't wish on anyone.  Not even a Nazi.  I'm fortunate though.  For me it waxes and wanes.  For others it only waxes.  I have days with hardly a sensory care in the world, days on which the wild mean city streets are no threat to my troubled brain.  On some days I can cross the expanses even of central London, walk where I have never walked before, and I can smile all the way and enjoy everything I see.

Yesterday was not such a day.  Had I been sensible, played the part of the wise woman, I would have adjusted my plans accordingly.  Stayed in the quiet until I absolutely needed to enter the world.  But  couldn't do that could I?  Because a plan is a plan and once it's set in the stone of my mind it's hard to change it.  Everyone knows that change can cause anxiety.  For me that problem is multiplied and, unfortunately, it's squared and cubed most on the days when sensory trauma is at its worst.  I couldn't change.  Couldn't stay home.  Because ... well, I just couldn't.  Perhaps there's no point trying to explain how to consider changing felt like my brain was being eaten by rats.  Perhaps there's no point pointing out just how heavy was the rock and how diamond sharp was the hard place I was stuck between.  At least by choosing to follow the plan there was a chance everything turn out okay.

So I left my home.  As planned.  Precisely as planned.  Of course I did.  At some point in the time frame between nine thirty-two and nine thirty-three in the morning.  Of course I did.  It was the plan.  Stick to the plan.  It's the only way.  Even when it hurts.  The metro journey was awful.  I couldn't focus on a book, on my phone, on the view, on anything.  Even with noise cancelling headphones the train carriage noise broke through all defences I tried to erect.  A quiet conversation became a killing avalanche.  The shuffling of feet became a herd of dinosaurs, fierce blood-covered teeth, hungry for my demise.  The announcements though.  They were a solace.  I know many of them so well.  "The next station is Regent Centre.  Change here for local bus services."   "The next station is Haymarket.  Change here for city centre shopping and local bus services."  "Ping!  This is Heworth."  Their regularity is an anchor.

At Gateshead things got much harder.  A man got on and sat opposite me.  A normal occurrence.  But this guy stank.  I'm sure others have smelled far worse but my olfactory responses were set beyond maximum and I'm sure the chief engineer of the USS Enterprise had switched off all safety protocols and had somehow been able to break the laws of physics yet again.  It was dreadful.  He smelled of mould.  Strongly of mould as if he was a house full of dry rot, wet rot and half eaten by fungi.  He smelled too of ammonia and it felt as though my nasal passageways were being eaten away by the acrid chemical influence.  He also smelled of urine, of death, of food left out too long.  And he smelled of things I couldn't even name.  Every now and again he would eat a peppermint.  Somehow  that only made things worse.

I wonder what other passengers thought of him.  Were they as affected as me?  Were they having to fight back vomit and travel with their hands over their face to conceal at least part of the scent?  No.  I was the only one using the hand technique.  An inefficient mask but it was all I felt I could get away with.  I considered getting off the Metro.  Catch a later one.  But I couldn't.  Because the plan.  Got to stick to the plan.  Can't deviate.  Deviation is immoral!  In the end I was able to compromise with myself.  Get off one stop early.  And walk.  I nearly got off three stops early.

Sunderland felt very hard.  Sometimes I've been there and it's felt easy.  That day I discovered all the street art.  That felt easy even though my plan for the day went completely wrong.  That day I happened to meet a bunch of strangers on the Wearmouth bridge and walked to North Shields with them.  That was a happy, easy day.  The day I photographed all the Snowdogs and argued with a group of fundamentalist Christian preachers.  That was an easy day too.

But yesterday?  That grew more and more difficult as time progressed.  Pretty much everything seemed to smell.  Everything was too loud.  I couldn't face the difficulties of navigating charity shops.  Then there was a food and drink issue.  I was meeting someone at one and was meant to have lunch by then.  From eleven o'clock I was on a food and drink hunt.  Trying to form some coherent plan and failing.  A meal in a cafe?  Or just a drink, and a pasty or some chips from somewhere?  I couldn't decide at all and spent and hour wandering the streets not coping with the fact of having to think about food.  I managed to focus enough and decide on three cafes.  The first was too loud.  The second was closed that day.  The third had completely shut down.  I went into a bit of a tailspin.  Food anxiety took over and it took all my remaining mental resources to solve my problem.

I settled with buying an "ultimate" chip butty from somewhere within the vicinity of Park Lane Metro station.  It was bloody awful!  The worst I have ever experienced.  The chips were just crunch.  All the way through.  Orange crunch.  Hollow except for where they were filled with fat.  The cheese was almost tasteless and the vendor's definition of "melted" did not seem to be the same as mine.  The garlic sauce overpowered the entire universe.  And the butty itself was dire too.  The only possible sense in which the whole thing could be called an "ultimate" chip butty would have been the sense of finality.  Eat this and you will never be able to face another for the rest of your life.  I am now able to report back on three totally crap portions of chips I've bought within the vicinity of Park Lane Metro station.  Sunderland has, so far, won in the crap chip awards.

I tried to eat it though.  Sat myself down on one of the metal benches near the station and tried to eat.  I was an automaton by this point, doing everything out of some distant habit.  I felt like giving in and wished I had been able to allow myself to not got to Sunderland at all until I was meeting a friend.  I was a wreck.  But I knew I had to continue.  For my friend.  So we could have a good time together.

And then it happened and for a while my life fell apart.

Sunderland, November 2016

She messaged me.  Saying she couldn't meet me after all.  It wasn't her fault.  Things happen.  But what remained of my mental capabilities collapsed.  The only thing that had been holding me together was the plan and the knowledge that something good was coming.  With the plan destroyed with a megaton of TNT I had no way of clawing myself back into a new plan.

I knew I had to get home.  I also knew that under the circumstances, I couldn't.  I wouldn't be able to face the Metro.  I tried to contemplate a bus but the images of a bus ride just increased my panic.  Couldn't do it.  I even considered walking home.  From Sunderland.  God knows if I would have made it.  And then I couldn't get up at all.  It took everything in my power not to just curl up under the bench for a bit of security.

I was not safe.  I could not begin to look after myself.  I was in danger.  Real danger.  From myself.

I was scared.  Bloody frightened.  I didn't know what to do.  I didn't want to cry.  Didn't want the people of Sunderland to be staring at me more than they had been all morning.  Yeah, they stared.  Over and over again I would notice people staring at me.  I get some looks in Newcastle still.  In Sunderland I get stares.  Many, many stares.  Many stares come from men of middle eastern extraction.  Don't think that's racist.  I know that saying what I said will have people making such accusations.  I'm just reporting the truth.  A horribly high proportion of men of middle eastern extraction stare at me.  At least, they do in Sunderland.  But it's not just them.  Old white men, white women, young white men.  People of every variety stare at me.  And, I hate to say this, they do it so much that I don't feel safe.

Get that into your heads Sunderland people, Wearside Mackems:  There are times I don't feel safe in your city.

So there I was.  Stuck.  Totally stuck.  I couldn't do a bloody thing about it.  Not a thing.  I just felt worse and worse and spiraled.

Fortunately the friend who couldn't meet me didn't desert me.  Fortunately technology is what it is and two people can message each other without bringing down the telecommunications industry.  She stayed with me.  Talked in sentences while I fell to using broken words.  I was terrified to realise I couldn't get myself home.  And too paralysed even to accept an offer of getting someone else to come and collect me and drive me all the way back to Newcastle.  That bench was cold.  And without those messages I would have felt more alone than I have felt in my life.

Eventually we formed a plan.  She told me of a cafe nearby that played no music.  I agreed to try to get there.  It took time.  Time to get up.  Time to start the walk.  Time to face the streets again.  But I made it to the cafe.

And I couldn't sit in it.  The smell was too bad.  Even on a day of not having to cope with my senses being crazy I wouldn't have wanted to sit and drink tea surrounded by such a scent.  A little like if you boil cabbage and sprouts for six hours and then leave them in the kitchen in an open pan for a week.  I left the cafe again.

We tried a second plan.  Why not go and sit in the library?  It's quiet.  It has space.  At a push I would be able to hire a study room.  So why not?  I'll tell you why not.  Because the old city centre library has been closed.  It's gone.  At least, it's moved.

We tried a third plan.  Since the new library is close by, why not sit in that one.  It'll be quiet.  Twenty minutes later I had reached the library.  Two hundred yards away from the old one.  I found the quietest chair there.  It was noisy!  The new library is in one room.  Not a massive room.  And the door opens onto a busy and noisy corridor.  Everything is very cramped.  It's awful.  The people of Sunderland know it is.  Sorry Sunderland Council but your cutbacks have given your city a library to be ashamed of.  It's very nice I suppose that you found the money for a new big bridge over the river.  Just think.  You could have spent some of that on encouraging literacy.  Or on maintaining support and refuges for women who have been raped.  That would be good too.

In the end it was me who came up with a fourth plan.  I would go to a cafe.  I'd seen it before.  Several times.  I'd even gone in.  Twice.  And not stayed.  I decided that it would be okay.  Even though they play music, they choice would probably be better than the music I was hearing in the library.  A child stood and played with a library supplied tablet on the wall.  In the middle of the adult reference books.  And she made it play the same song.  Over and over again.

I reached the cafe.  It was almost deserted.  I ordered coke, needing both sugar and caffeine.  And I sat down in a reasonably secluded spot.  I spent ninety minutes there.  Calming myself.  Finding that place of safety in myself.  On the way to the toilet I broke my bracelet.  That didn't help me.

By four o'clock I was ready.  I would face the Metro.  I knew I could do it and - barring anything unforeseen such as the entire Metro system being suspended - I would be able to get home.

So.  What can I say about the day?  Was it a bad day?  Yes.  I can say that.  Any day that I shut down on a bench and can't get myself to safety is a bad day.  They happen sometimes.  Today I saw the nurse for a blood test and we talked of yesterday and about other days too.  I am now officially at a moderate risk of suicide.  But don't worry.  That's not going to happen, not when I have so much to live for and when there are so many bloody good things in my life.  I want to write, perform, meet friends, sing, dance and generally have a wild time.  I want more than that too.  I want as much as my sometimes very limited capabilities will allow.  But yesterday.  That was a bad day.

Sunderland, November 2016

Strangely I can also say it's a good day.

How can it be a bad day when I wrote a blog post before going out?  A slightly wacky short story.  It'll get published tomorrow (or yesterday because this one will be posted the day after that).  If you haven't read it, read it!  I think it's pretty good.  I also wrote in the cafe.  Two poems.  One, about being stared at, is basically good enough to perform as it is.  The other is about the death of my bracelet.

How can it be a bad day when it included writing a short story and two decent poems and when this post came directly from my experiences?

How can it be a bad day when I write something that only increases my desire to be a performer?  Watch this space:  Clare Matthews solo show!  How about a first half of short pieces?  Followed by a second half mostly consisting of a single monologue I wrote a while ago?  The idea is in my head.  It turns out that I want it to happen one day.  Why shouldn't it?

How can it be a bad day when a friend stayed with me through my hours of hell and got me to a safe space?  How can it be a bad day when she later showed me hundreds of pages of writing tips she's gathered over the years?  How can it be a bad day when we've agreed that we will, another day, go somewhere nicer than Sunderland?

How can it be a bad day when I have a home to return to, and family, and when there is food to eat?

And the bonuses of the morning:

How can it be a bad day when I bought liquorice and when I found a game I like in one of the few charity shops I managed?

How can it be a bad day when an email arrives telling me dates for more drama workshops - and I know I can get to them and when I realise too that I will be able to get to the next performance poetry workshop?

How can it be a bad day when I can relax for much of the evening with an old computer game that I don't have to think about?

How can it be a bad day when someone is buying a replacement bracelet for me much like the one I inadvertently killed?  And not just one.  A whole packet.  In different colours.

Yeah, I shut down in Sunderland city centre.  I did.  And it was a horrible, horrible thing.  Yeah, I'm still feeling the effects of it today.

But I will tell you this.  It was a good day.



[2865 words]

It Was Beaks At Dawn When The Avocet and Curlew Went To War

Last night I said some random words to my wife.  This morning I've free written from them.  What follows is the result.  I had some ideas as I began to write.  Most of them weren't used.  One idea was to write a bird poem and include lots of bad bird puns.  Instead there's this piece of silliness!

Yesterday (Sunday) I didn't write a post.  Oh dear.  So I'm playing catch up today and need to write a second post this evening.  I didn't write but I did attend a performance poetry workshop for the first time.  And for the first time ever I performed a poem I wrote.  To an audience of poets, to be critiqued.  In many ways that's the safest place to begin.  A bunch of poets isn't likely to say, "Ooh that was total crap.  Get out and don't you dare come here again you fake poet!"  Every one of them knows how hard it is and everyone is there to encourage others to write and perform as best as they can.  Which means that all critique is constructive and even if something is total crap it's a learning experience rather than a damning one.  But I wasn't total crap, either in the words or the performance.  Far from it.  Happily, I should be able to get to the next workshop.  By that time I will have performed at least one short piece before a room full of people.  Another step in the plan without a plan.

Here then is the first piece of writing for today.  You will notice that I've totally ignored the writing prompt list.  That doesn't matter.  This blog is about writing not lists.

______________________________

In the duel between the avocet and the curlew it was beaks at dawn.

Ornithological history does not record which of the birds began the argument. All we know for sure is that one small barb led to another and another until they could hardly bear to inhabit the same piece of waterway. While it is true that each would criticise the other for their plumage, and many suspect that both were jealous, the main sticking point was their beaks.

The avocet would say “Look at you, you're upside down and stupid. That beak of yours is ridiculous. Why would anyone want something as useless as that down-curving monstrosity on the end of your face?”

And the curlew would reply, “My beak is a wonder. It's the stuff of legend. Anyway, it's much better than yours. Yours is up-turned. I suppose that's apt for such a stuck up bird. You've got ideas above your station.”

A curlew. Image from the RSPB

The avocet said, “It's not my fault the bird people made me their emblem. They took one look at me and knew I was best and my beak was perfect.”

“They only did it for the sympathy vote knowing they would get extra donations when people saw just how pitiful you were. So turn your beak round now before I rip it off your face.”

That did it. The avocet didn't want to listen to any more of such talk. The marsh was only big enough for the one of them. So he said, “I challenge you to a duel. We shall fight to the death. Or until one of us gives up.”

“That's easy. I'll win. Tomorrow morning at dawn we shall meet on the waterfront and fight.”

The following morning a crowd gathered. The official duel adjudicator was there too with his case of weapons. The finest of juggling clubs, hula hoops and frisbees were combined with ribbons, bubbles, and a selection of stick on red noses. He was so embarrassed when he opened up the case and everyone saw he had made an error of judgement, bringing everything from his other job as circus clown. The duel was postponed for the day. Nobody minded too much. The birds spent the day playing as best they could. But it's hard to blow bubbles when you're a bird.

An avocet.  Image from the RSPB

The following morning a bigger crowd gathered. The official duel adjudicator was there again with his case of weapons. This time he hadn't made a mistake. He opened up the trunk and everyone oohed and aahed over the cache. The finest of wooded clubs was supplemented by a selection of swords, bottles, knives, guns, and even a pair of intricately decorated tickling sticks although the adjudicator later admitted they should have been in his other case.

The avocet and curlew stared at the case and shouted at each other.

“I'm gonna cut you up into tiny pieces. See if I don't.”

“You little ass-wipe. Go get eaten by a cat! One bullet into your bird brain and everyone will tweet and squawk in celebration of my victory.”

They continued insulting each other and the language grew more and more fruity until an entire orchard of trees collapsed under the weight of words. It took until seven in the evening before they could agree on how to try to kill each other and the whole duel had to be postponed.

The following morning a crowd gathered that was so big they could hardly fit in the wetlands at all. A family of capercaillie had travelled down especially on the night train and a video link had been set up because a blood thirsty emu wanted to watch. The duel adjudicator was there again with his case of weapons and a smile on his face because he got double pay for overtime.

The avocet and the curlew approached the chest.

“Take up your weapons,” the adjudicator intoned imperiously.

The two birds bent down over the chest and took up the weapons in their beaks. Each would have a jewel encrusted sword. A gentleman's weapon although neither thought the other a gentleman. It was then that everyone realised there had been a miscalculation.

For whether your beak is upturned or downturned it's not a swordsman's anatomy of choice. Neither bird could pick up their sword. They tried hard. For most of the day. The crowds got bored and would have demanded their money back had it not been for a troupe of eagles laying on an aerobatic display that everyone appreciated. Everyone that is apart from the pigeons who were shanghaied into being part of the display and were dined on that evening. The ice cream seller was happiest of all because she nearly sold her entire stock to hot birds, without once stopping to wonder how the birds happened to be carrying money or how they might have all managed to carry the cones.

The avocet and the curlew were encouraged to try other weapons. But it was no good. The avocet could hang a gun from his beak but such a weapon just fell off when the curlew tried to pick it up. It wasn't really any use for the avocet either because he found there was no way to aim a gun hung from a beak. Let alone reach up with is wing and fire. Even the wooden clubs were impossible.

It was an owl who proposed the solution. “I propose the solution of unarmed combat,” he said.

The curlew laughed. “Unarmed combat? You unwise owl you. Of course it'll be unarmed. Because we haven't got arms to combat with. We've got wings. And that's where the problem lies. Wings are excellent for flight but useless for weapon carrying.”

A penguin and an ostrich from the local zoo were heard to grumble at the mention of flight but that only made some of the other birds turn and laugh at them.

The owl said. “No, no, I meant you should fight without weapons. Bird to bird combat. Just use your beaks as swords and you'll soon see which is better. Or at least which is better for duelling.”

The avocet and the curlew looked at each other and nodded. They would do as the owl said. But it was getting late so the duel was postponed once more.

The following morning a crowd gathered. It was smaller. Some of the birds had needed to get home. The duel adjudicator was there. He had left his case at home, locked up in a big safe. He announced the rules. The two birds would stand back to back and take twenty paces, turn and then charge at each other and fight on his command.

They lined up on the beach happy to face away from each other. They paced. Turned. There was beak hatred in their eyes. The adjudicator shouted, loudly, “Ready … steady … GO!” and the birds ran and flapped, meaning to impale each other.

They didn't get a chance. When they were still ten paces apart a puffin suddenly flapped down between them and cried “STOP! Stop this madness.”

The avocet stopped.

The curlew stopped. Fell over. Ungracefully stood again.

They stared at the puffin. Stared some more.

The puffin said, “There's no need to fight about which of your beaks is the best. You, avocet, look fine in your plumage and with your upturned beak. And you, curlew, look just as good in your plumage and with your downturned beak. There's no denying that. Your beaks are both good so give each other a hug.”

The avocet and curlew approached each other. They had to admit it. The puffin was quite right. So they lifted up their wings and hugged each other warmly before deciding to head off to a seafood restaurant for a make-up meal.

The puffin smiled. As best as a beaked creature can smile.

“My work here is done. I must return to my island now.”

He flew off and as he did so he called back to the crowds.

“Anyone with half a brain can see the truth. My beak is the best in the world.”

[1362 words]

I Looked In The Mirror And Discovered That Hamsters Were Taking Over The World

45. Mirror, Mirror: What if you mirror started talking to you?


On Saturday I spent a few hours in a studio often used for dance classes.  One wall was a mirror.  It did not speak to me.

I have a mirrored wardrobe in my bedroom.  It took a while to get used to it.  It has not spoken to me.  I have spoken to my own reflection in that mirror, most profoundly when I arrived at the point at which I could accept myself as female.  I've also tried something that various new age proponents call hoʻoponopono.  They call it that but it doesn't bear much resemblance at all to hoʻoponopono as it exists within the cultures where it developed.  Simply put, these proponents will tell you to stand in front of the mirror and speak to your reflection and say "I love you.  I'm sorry.  Forgive me.  Thank you."  That's all.  Perhaps there is a psychological power in that.  But it has little to do with any traditional form of hoʻoponopono.  And they don't mention the teachings that led to that mantra - such as that you are responsible for everyone else's actions; if there is a problem it arises with you; everything is a projection from you; and you're trying to get to a point where you have no memories and no identity.  Which, in my very humble opinion, is all complete bo**ocks and on psychological and practical levels is very dangerous indeed.

Try telling the woman who has been raped that she is responsible for the actions of the rapist.

Try telling the abused child that they are responsibility for the actions of the abuser.

Try telling yourself that you are responsible for my actions, and those of both Donald Trump and the Dalai Lama.

It's nonsense.

Try telling yourself that you are responsible for the civil war in South Sudan.

It may not be a coincidence that when people gushingly tell you of the mantra they don't tell you about the source of the mantra.  More usually they'll say it's an ancient practice from Hawaii.  It isn't.  Don't believe them.  Both practices aim at forms of reconciliation and forgiveness and there is a historical link.  But to pretend that the mirror work is the ancient practice is like pretending that the religion of the Baha'i is the same as that practiced by Muslims two hundred years ago.

Nevertheless, look the mantra up and try it if you want.  People find it useful and you may too if you divorce it from the several modern hoʻoponopono teachings and theories that developed within the last fifty years.  To be reconciled with yourself and to love yourself are two wonderful achievements.

When we moved into our home I did not know whether I would be able to cope with having two large full length mirrors in my room.  I thought I might have to hang something from the ceiling in front of the mirrors so I couldn't see them.  Even now, six years on, I generally leave the wardrobe open.  One of the mirrored doors slides behind the other.  And the other is mainly covered with eight posters, each containing a pretty image and one phrase from the Lord's Prayer.  I don't pray that prayer but when I bought the posters it was still very important to me and the posters remain.  For now.

There was a time.  For much of my life.  I would not have slept in this room at all.  I would have refused.  Being in a room with mirrors was hard.  Sleeping with them was impossible.  I'd been building up.  In our previous house the bedroom had a dressing table with a mirror.  That took some getting used to.  The only other room I'd had to sleep in that contained a mirror facing the room was at college.  I used to cover the mirror at night.  Hang a blanket over it.

So I couldn't see in.

And they couldn't see out.

That was my great fear.  The world beyond the mirror.  The evil world beyond the mirror.  It was never a good place in my imagination and the people within were never savoury characters.  If I were to pass through the mirror I wouldn't find a curiouser and curiouser adventure like Alice.  I would find myself in a hell in which my own reflection would destroy me.

As I looked at my reflection, when I wasn't being sorrowful I was often being afraid.  My reflection never did anything out of the ordinary when I looked at it.  There were rules to my fear.  Reflections only had a life of their own when they were unobserved.  They were the Weeping Angels of the mirror universe.  At night they were independent.  Scheming.  Loathing the greater reality of our world and hating.  Hating.  Ugh!  I just looked at my mirror and shuddered.  Perhaps I should not be thinking of any of this.  Perhaps I will realise what I always thought I knew.  That there is life behind the looking glass.

I suspect I was always wary of mirrors and I know I spent a lot of time staring into the mirror in my parents' bedroom.  I didn't stare at myself much.  Just at the reflected world and I would try to analyse the angles and check for ways in which the reflection wasn't quite right.  But there is one man I can blame more than anyone else for turning my suspicion to terror and an unease that still persists more than thirty years after he screwed up my life.  He did it!  I'm not going to be a good hoʻoponopono practitioner and take responsibility for his actions or for the fact he wrote something so horrible and stuck it where it would take me completely by surprise.

That man was Gerald Durrell.

He of the nice animal stories.  He of the good zoo on Jersey.  He who told funny stories about his family.

It was Gerald Durrell who ruined me.

At the age of ten - and that's a rough figure - I borrowed another of his books from our local library.  That volume of hilarious stories is called The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium.  At the age of ten I found it very funny although I confess that I didn't quite understand why some of Marjorie's malapropisms were amusing - "She had an ablution."

I enjoyed myself immensely with that book.  Funny, funny, funny.  Get it.  Read it.   I was very glad I had chosen such a volume from the library.  But then everything changed.  I reached the final story.  It was called The Entrance and it wasn't about Gerald Durrell and the eccentricities of his life and the people around him.  It was fiction.  And it contained mirrors.

I do not want to tell you anything at all about the story.  I read it before (attempting to) going to sleep one night.  "I'm having so much fun, I'll just read the last story."  And I was completely terrified by it.  My little innocent mind wasn't used to reading such things and something clicked in my head by which I could never shake the feeling that at the very least the story was based on the truth of something sinister lurking behind the mirror.

Seriously.  Read it.  It's a brilliant story.   Hunt around enough and you'll find a free download online.

I was ruined.  In case the mirror spoke to me.  Or, not the mirror, but what the mirror contained.  My wife is a huge fan of the books of Gerald Durrell.  For many years I refused to let her own that book because of the memories it held for me.

Mirrors have stayed with me and they continue to stay with me.  During what may have been my first visit to the Writers' Cafe I wrote the beginnings of something about mirrors.  I'd planned to work with it today and see what could be created from a mirror that slowly shows not the protagonist's reflection but that of someone else.  I'd planned to work with it too after that cafe session.  One day it may happen.  What that day showed me more than anything was that while I haven't published things or found an audience of a size known only to the likes of J. K. Rowling I have a right to refer myself as a writer.  I found that I didn't feel out of place among the cafe people.  I'd assumed for years that I shouldn't go because "that's where the proper writers hang out."  I found instead that I should be there.  Maybe there are others who feel similarly about themselves and about creative pastimes.  Believe me, give it a go with whatever it is.  What I've found is that the kind of people who meet in such groups aren't the sort who turn round and say, "You're crap!  You're no artist.  Get out and don't darken our door again!"  They're encouraging and want to help each other in the creative process and in supporting each other in the highs and lows of creating a story or a picture or whatever it is.  While I'm sure they exist I haven't met anyone who doesn't simply enjoy it when other people want to create.

A case in point for my life.  During the weekend I attended an introductory session for acting and theatre.  It was very introductory.  Lots of icebreakers, games, and some basic acting and improvisational games.  I was scared of that.  It crossed my Facebook wall as many things do for reasons I sometimes don't understand.  And there was the magic word.  "Free!"  I realised it looked like it might be fun and since it was free I could happily walk out if I couldn't cope.

I went anyway.  Believing I probably would have to walk out.  Believing that it wouldn't really be a good time.  And yet it was.  I fitted in.  Of the people there I'd spoken to one before, in a very different place.  Everyone else was a stranger.  It was one of those times when I find I can just throw myself into something and leave my head a little bit.  The games were fun.  The silly activities to break down barriers.  And the basic improvisation took me by surprise.  I was called upon to speak to the rest of the group as someone who was the world's leading expert on "Where the moon goes during the day."  An incredible amount of total garbage proceeded from my mouth taking in The Bible, Nazis, holographic emitters, the moon flying off at speed to hide behind the sun, and a plot to populate the world with 18 foot tall hamsters.  Total garbage!  But it was also funny garbage.  People laughed.  A lot.  Not at an idiot but at someone presenting material that amused them.

I hadn't thought I'd be able to cope.  Hadn't thought I would fit in.  There was even a totally safe space arranged that I would be able to run to on the same floor of the same building and I was quite prepared to run there.  Instead, there I was performing some utter nonsense and making people laugh.

Massive confidence boost.

My message is this.  If there are things you want to try, try them.  You may be very pleasantly surprised.

My second message is this.  If they go wrong, it doesn't matter.  Learn from it and either have another go or find something else to try.  If it goes wrong that doesn't mean you're not valid or somehow less than you were before.  I've tried things and they've gone very wrong.  I've tried things in the last couple of years and been totally crap at them.  It doesn't matter.  Not at all.

So chase your dream.  Enjoy yourself while you chase.  And if that dream doesn't work out, chase another until you find what brings you joy.

There will be further acting/drama/theatre sessions in the future.  The person running them hasn't got  a specific plan.  In a way he's just like I was at the session.   He doesn't know whether what he's trying to set up will flourish or fail.  But he is chasing.  And in the chasing there is life in abundance.  If I am able I will go along again and throw myself into whatever is presented to me there.  I look forward to it.  Who knows?  Perhaps this will be my second wonderful creative surprise of the year.  And it's only the middle of February.

I have departed from mirrors and yet somehow ended up in the room I mentioned in my first sentence.  I haven't followed the writing prompt or written the stories that my head would like to tell.  That's okay.  They're still there and they will wait with the fullness of patience.

On Capitulation And Saying Yes In The Difficulty Of Social Interaction

25. Dread: Write about doing something you don’t want to do.

For this prompt you're getting something about my life.  No stories about skating on the sea with a goddess or sugar addiction today.  No poems about losing your home.  I see more fiction in the near future.  Today there's this:

A social picture from South Shields

In a social situation I do my best to remain calm on the surface.  This is Clare.  Cool as a cucumber.  That's what is portrayed.  Underneath?  Well that's different isn't it?  At least in some of those situations.  For most of us it's different.  In my case the cucumber isn't just chilled.  It's been deep frozen.  So the surface is unblemished.  The contents are mush, each cell broken, incoherent.   So my face remains impassive or it fakes emotion.  And my brain doesn't have much of a clue what to do.  Everything seizes up, clogged in anxiety.  Old scripts are repeated.  Intellectually learned rules of engagement are followed, one part of the carefully constructed flow chart leading on to the next so I don't have to think.  In those situations conversing and reacting is a logic problem.  Volition is irrelevant.  Desire is irrelevant.  The facade becomes a lie.  And it's only later I might work out what was going on, and perhaps live to regret words, actions, agreements, all those times I nodded my head because it fitted into the rules I thought were there.

These buried-panic situations are like maths problems at school, they're the logic tests from college.  School calculus was easy.  Solving those quadratic equations was simplistic.  Stick in the numbers.  Follow the rules.  Be exact.  Do not deviate.  And the answer inevitably falls out at the bottom.  I didn't need to think about why it worked.  Didn't need to worry that halfway through the calculations a rogue number would creep in and muck up the problem, forcing me at gunpoint to include it in line seven.  Everything was uniform.  Exact.  Numbers knew their place.  Numbers didn't lie.  Numbers didn't surprise and they didn't try to get me to do anything more than arrive at the correct answer at the bottom of the page.

It was the same with logic.  In my one year on a course at the University of Bradford before hearing an imagined voice and rushing off to study theology (don't ask about that today) logic was included in the syllabus.  Two of my term papers, chosen from a range of subjects including philosophy, psychology, and sociology, were logic papers.  They were easy.  Very easy.  I achieved a mark of 100% on both papers and was smilingly congratulated for being so brilliant.  I couldn't understand this brilliance.  I hadn't done anything hard, or so I thought.  All I'd done was to learn a set of rules and applied them to some puzzles.  Stick the rules in at the top and it was inevitable that the perfect solution would follow.  Because those rules didn't lie.  Didn't scheme.  Didn't change.  Didn't expect anything of me beyond parroting them back.

I was at home with those rules.  Some zebras are Capricorn.  All Capricorns are named Brian.  Therefore some zebras are named Brian.  All mobile phones have a screen.  All screens enjoy cricket.  Therefore all mobile phones enjoy cricket.  The logic at college was more complicated than that but year one logic didn't even get fuzzy.  You get the idea.  It couldn't be changed.  Couldn't be altered.  I knew where I was with it and it was immensely relaxing even though my grandad told me that the system I was being taught was overly burdensome and could be greatly simplified.  "Look at this," he said one day.  "Wittgenstein taught me this."  My grandad was right.  He taught it to me and it really was a much better system.  It's a shame I wasn't allowed to use it at college.  It's a deeper shame that twenty-five years later I can't remember the slightest thing about it.  What a loss to humanity:  From the genius of Wittgenstein.  Direct to my grandad.  Direct to me.  And then forgotten before I could ever use it.  Forgotten, almost directly because of that imagined voice.  Again, don't ask.

A social situation is not logic.  There are rules.  Rules that you are expected to follow even when they're as objectively meaningless as all those term paper logic questions.  You know the rule about the weather.  It's been written down and not by me.  Persons A and B meet.  After saying hello and how are you - they're both fine of course - person A says something about the weather.  Person B responds in agreement and adds a little more information.  You don't deviate from that.  Ever.  It's a major social faux pas to disagree or to share a different opinion about the weather.  Even if you strongly disagree you don't say.  That would be classed as a destructive act rather than an attempt at constructive discussion.  I have to restrain myself regularly and force myself to follow the rules.  It was especially hard one day when in one conversation person A had said to me, "It's cold today, isn't it?" and in the very next conversation person A had said to me, "It's warm today, isn't it?"  What's an autistic woman supposed to do?!

Beyond such trivialities and scripted conversations the social gets more complex.  The rules are harder.  The signals more difficult to read.  The number of people increases.  The amount of sheer bloody information you have to process rises exponentially and a calmly ticking over brain has to put more and more of its energy into frantically processing everything and to keep up with things.  It doesn't matter whether it's a social group or a business meeting.  And then there's a lag and you get lost and right through the whole thing you're expected to be able to respond appropriately, participate, answer questions, be a rational human being.

Sometimes, I can't.

I just can't.  Knowing what's being said.  Processing the words.  Understanding the meaning.  Understanding subtexts.  Body language.  Facial expressions.  Motivations.  I just can't.  Turning it around so I know what to say.  Saying what I mean.  Being able to stand up for myself when I've not even got the strength left to understand what standing is.  I just can't.

And so it is that I find myself agreeing with things I disagree with and then I find myself agreeing to do things I don't want to do and don't need to do.  Combine that with being a normal, nice human being who wants others to be happy and wants to be accepted.  Combine that with every bloody thing that comes from being autistic and not even knowing about it for most of my life.  Combine that with anxiety issues.  Combine it with sensory issues that may be making concentrating on the situation at all and act of fierce, strength sapping willpower.

It's a fatal combination.  100% on tough University logic papers.  Bloody easy.  Well done Clare.  Not screwing up my life in a social environment.  Bloody hard.  I'm never going to achieve 100% on that one.  It's not a question of "if."  It's a question of when I'll screw it up and how badly I'll manage it this time round.  It's a question of what I'll say that sounded perfectly pleasant when the words were formed but which was majorly offensive.  (Did I tell you about the time I said something to my Priest that came out totally wrong resulting in him never speaking to me again?)  It's a question of what I'll agree to do that I shouldn't be agreeing to do.

So it was a couple of weeks ago.  I was in a business situation.  A meeting with a dozen people round a table, under the strip lighting.  I wasn't coping very well.  I'd spent the whole morning in a state of useless near motionlessness.  Great anxiety about attending and putting all my focus into not allowing it to escalate into a major panic attack.  Perhaps I shouldn't have attended the thing at all.  Should have stayed away and written poetry or got stuck into a writing exercise.  Or just gone for a walk.  Anything but attend a business meeting that I didn't need to attend in the first place.

There was a need expressed at the meeting.  An important need.  I perceived that there was nobody else to fill that need, at least not round the table on that day.  I perceived everyone was in a hurry to have that need met and it would be burdensome to them all if it wasn't met.  All eyes were on me.  Will you do it?  Will you do it?  Well someone's got to do it.  Will you do it?  And there I was.  Not coping but trying to present that facade of smoothness.  Heck, the last time I'd been in that meeting I walked out half way through because I wasn't coping at all.  Everyone just assumed it was because a particular person had entered and was talking but that wasn't it at all.  I just wasn't coping and in any case I knew that I needed to tell people that I was withdrawing from other things I said I'd be doing when I wasn't meant to be doing them.  Sorry.  That sentence was cryptic by necessity.  The perceived badgering continued.  Will you do it?  Will you do it?  It's enjoyable I promise.  Sign up.  You won't be liable for much, we'll try to make it so you won't be liable for everything if things go bottom up.  Please.  Will you do it?  Dammit I felt a hell of a lot pressured than they felt they were pressuring.

I said yes.  Found myself on the committee of an organisation.  An organisation that I knew I should be serving in that capacity.  I knew that saying no would have been wise.  I knew that I didn't want that role and that it wasn't for me.  It's like if I was asked to be front of house staff in a busy café.  I should say no because saying yes would be a disaster for me and for the café.

I said yes.  What can I say?  I agreed that there was a need and stepped in to fill it because on that day there wasn't another.  I caved to perceived pressure.  I wanted to be useful.  And I've felt shit about saying yes every day since.  I know it's wrong.  I have told another committee member that I'd only do it for six months - and less if someone else stepped up.  I'd fill the need.  Solve the immediate problems.  But I wouldn't be a long term solution.  I wouldn't get stuck in it.

Two weeks of anxiety about doing this thing I'm not meant to be doing.  Two weeks of bad sleep, of worrying about how the hell I would cope with it, how the hell this name on a piece of paper in an organisational structure could ever translate to a useful reality.  Who knows?  Maybe it could.  Maybe I'd turn out to be wonderful.  So I tell myself to give it a go.  And then I panic.  Like a fly in a web, a butterfly pinned.

No.  It's enough.  In response to messages telling me about how I wanted to be on this committee I've been able to say - in writing and out of the stress of a physical gathering - that I didn't want to be on it at all and only said yes because I felt pressured and caved, and because there didn't seem to be anyone else.  I felt like a piece of excrement writing that.  It was the truth though and I needed to tell it for my own well being and safety.

It has worked out.  Today, thanks to a kindly individual, I have been given opportunity to withdraw.  Before attending a single meeting.

I am told that everyone will understand.  Of course I'll still feel like I'm letting them all down.  I am assured that people won't see it that way.

Today I am greatly relieved.  I know it wasn't my place.  It's a Wednesday so this morning I will attend a group in somewhere that I have discovered is my place.  I will meet with people - a social gathering yes - who I am learning are my people.  It's a place where I can be me.  A place where I don't feel an overpowering need to follow rules because nobody there particularly cares about them.  Creativity trumps rigidity.

Today I am greatly relieved.  I'm back on the path I know I should be following.  I'm facing the right way again.

One hundred smile emoticons!

Prompt 4 - The Dance Of The Forgotten Mind

The fourth prompt taken from http://thinkwritten.com/365-creative-writing-prompts/   I plan to free write from each of the 365 prompts given on that page.  If you feel like it, join in and write from a prompt and post your writing as a comment here.  Share in the freedom!

Dancing: Who’s dancing and why are they tapping those toes?


I am.  It's me.   I'm dancing.  Except I'm not dancing am I?  I have not been allowed to dance.  Not because of any proscription passed down to me by an authority.  I was never one of the religious extremists who proclaim that dancing in the church is a sin or one of the extremists who proclaim that dancing outside the church is a sin.  Look it up!  Both of those strange views have been taught and laid down as laws.  But my law came from within.  Don't dance.  Don't let go.  I think too it came in part from my parents.  I remember at one point I wanted to dance.  I wanted to join a dance group and take lessons and I asked whether I could.  I was told by my mother in no uncertain terms "You can't do that.  It's silly.  And it's for girls."  I remember the conversation very clearly although my mother swore years later that she would never have said such things.  Sorry mother.  You said them.  And I, foolish child, believed you.  Just like when that song by 10CC was playing and you looked at me and said very bluntly, "See, big boys DON'T cry."  And so I didn't cry.  And I didn't dance.  Except in times of rebellion and friendship in Bradford nightclubs or infrequent ceilidhs.  Even now I display reticence at a ceilidh.  It takes a great deal of encouragement before I am one of the dancers rather than one of the watchers.

Nevertheless.  I am.  It's me.  I'm dancing.

That's the plan anyway.  From experience and desire it's the plan.

I went dancing last year.  Once.  Just once.  It was one of the best experiences of the whole year and yet it was not repeated.

I knew such dancing happened.  I'd heard of it a year before and though I wanted to experience it for myself I wasn't able to do it.  I thought I wouldn't fit there.  I thought I couldn't fit.  I had such rules, such crazy beliefs.  I kept myself apart from living because I thought I didn't belong.  I find I still keep myself apart.  This year I want to break with apartness.  This year I want to embrace the atonement.  Not atonement with a holy God.  But atonement with life, with living, with the fire of Spirit, and with myself.  This year I will dance again.  I promise myself that.

Last year I left the church.  And my Sunday evening was empty.  I'd been the kind of Christian who would feel guilt about missing Sunday worship.  After giving up church - initially just for Lent - Sunday felt empty.  The first Sunday I filled the evening with an evening of healing and music and meditation led by a crazy woman walking a shamanic path.  I can't claim that any healing occurred but it was an amazing experience to sit in the half-light as she sang and drummed.

The second Sunday I decided to go for it:  I would dance.  I would join another bunch of crazies and see what happened.  And if it was awful I wouldn't mind.  All I would have lost would be an evening and a few pounds.  All I would have gained would be an experience and a little more self knowledge.

I can't express what it took for me to attend.  I can't express the inner battles I had to overcome.  I can't express the inner discourse that had kept me away for a year and the strength it took to go to a place in which I would undertake to join a previously self-forbidden world and meet with a group of strangers.  The inner battles continue.  I've found so many excuses not to return.  An initial reason.  Sometimes other good reasons.  And, if I am honest, a whole load of flimsy excuses too.

I walked from the station to the place of the dance.  Determined.  I could do this.  I would do this.  Just go and see.  Have fun.  I would dance and feel no shame.  God.  How can someone feel so much shame about dancing?  How can they feel so much shame about creative urges?  How can someone reject parts of themselves that are so wonderful, crushing them and despising them?  I could answer those questions.  Because I lived the answers.

As I walked, even the graffiti seemed to laugh at me.

I laughed back.  Hah!  I'll show you.  I'm going.  I'm going to have fun.  And no order on a wall or in the recesses of a mind will stop me.  No more banning.  I'm going to be free.

I arrived at the dance venue.  It turned out I was a little early and ended up helping to provide the lighting - candles placed all the way round the room, although there was daylight too.  The people smiled and welcomed me and I was surprised to find the space felt safe.  Somehow I knew.  These weren't going to be people who looked at me as some kind of strange interloper.  They weren't going to reject me or critique me for never having danced, or for whatever I did or didn't do that night.  This was a place of acceptance.  A place of life.  A place of wonder in each person.

That evening what we would all take part in was called "Live Rhythms."  It's like "5 Rhythms" but whereas that is usually danced from a mix of recorded music this would be from a live band.  I'm not going to explain 5 Rhythms - you can look it up if you wish.  All I knew was that the dance would be a "wave".  Whatever that was.  And that from start to finish there would be a focus on five rhythms.

We began with warmup exercises of movement, alone and then in pairs.  Pairs.  I usually find that part stressful.  I very nearly always arrive at things alone and finding a pair is tough for me.  I can retreat into a shell of the recluse at such moments and it feels like I am become invisible as friends pair off with each other, each person not alone while I stand alone.  To pair with a stranger is the start of social and I freak inside.  And yet.  And yet.  On this occasion it was simple.  The person closest to me just smiled and we joined in the movement, much of which was mirroring.

Afterwards, as the 5Rhythms were introduced I sat on the floor.  Not at the edge.  Not by a wall where I could have cut myself off.  But close to the centre.  I felt safety.  I felt protection.  I felt that it was all going to be okay.  I felt a strong sense that it was right for me to have walked in the door.

We began.  And I moved.  To begin with I did not stand.  I found myself moving in ways I had never moved before.  It was glorious.  Glorious and became more glorious and I let go.  Truly I did.  I let go.  For the first time.  Perhaps the first time ever, but certainly the first time for many years.

I moved and felt the rhythms, the beat, the melodies and moved and flowed and - to the best of the abilities of a body which is unfit and inflexible - expressed beauty, joy, the flame of life.

I moved and felt and allowed myself to feel more and then the strangest thing happened.  The most fantastic thing.

I lost my mind.

I'm a head person.  I stay in my head.  It doesn't switch off.  I think.  I stay in my head and refuse to leave it and see what else there might be in my heart, in my soul, in the stars, in the fragrance of Spirit as she washes over us all continually.  I don't leave my head.  Ever.

And yet.

I lost my mind.

I forgot my mind.

And in those moments of forgetfulness there was total freedom.

In those moments of forgetfulness there was revelation.

In those moments of forgetfulness I experienced life in abundance in a way I'd never known in decades of churches and mental discipline.

I lost my mind and found light and healing.

After the wave we sat, in circle.  We shared of the experience and I couldn't stop smiling and I vowed to myself to return.

I haven't returned.

Initially there was a reason.  Days later I hurt my knee and the pain was pretty bad.  The following Sunday I tried to dance.  It hurt so much but I walked up the hill to the dance venue and arrived at the entrance.  But the pain.  I knew I couldn't do it.  And I walked away in a flood of tears.

But the knee recovered.  And I did not return.  I kept seeing news of events online and kept wanting to go, dance again.  I did not return.

So who is dancing?  Whose feet are tapping?  (I'm not sure my feet tapped at all that night)

Who?  Not me.  No, not me.

I will dance again.  I will.  I will meet those people and join the wave of the free again.  I will.

And soon.  I vow that to myself.  The dance will be a fragment of the plan without a plan.  When the Sunday dances begin again I will attend and I will dance.  I promise myself that.  Because I deserve it.

I deserve to lose my mind again and to smile and laugh and cry with the crazies.

Days of Gratitude - Creativity, Charity, Cafes, Carousels, Coaches. And Darkness.

Five more days.  They were good days.  I spent them in Manchester staying with an awesome person, the creator of my soft toy Blob Thing.  She's a very busy person these days, excelling in her passion and slowly working her way towards her dream.  I believe that she will achieve that dream.  She has found her niche and it's a place where that great passion is combined with a talent and definite flair and I believe that she is going to affect the lives of lots of people in a very positive way as she continues to walk this path.  Autistic children will benefit massively and so will their parents/guardians and those around them.  They already do benefit massively but this is only the beginning.  One of my joys over the past sixteen months since meeting her has been to watch the way she has run down this path with such total enthusiasm and to watch the way that she has begun to create something pretty damn marvellous.  When I met her this thing did not exist anywhere but her head.  And now it does.  And there is much more in her head to become a physical reality at time progresses.  I am looking forward to watching it happen.

Five more days.  Since Amanda is so busy I now have to occupy myself quite a bit when I'm there.  I am finding ways to occupy myself and know that there is never a cause for me to be bored either when reading and writing at her house or when I go out - walking, visiting a town, writing in the library, or finding new places and people.

This visit was no exception and below you will find a few things I am excited about.  And a cafe that I'll be returning to.  It even has convenient plug sockets for a laptop.  Southport has also given me a writing prompt for a story that is churning in my head right now.  At some point it will come to rest and I'll know the broad outline of the tale.  But that's not something for now.  I'll just tell you it involves palmistry and an impossible fortune becoming possible.

Something else.  I am typing this at the Literary and Philosophical Society Library.  I joined today.  Yes, I am now officially a member.  I plan to spend lots of time here writing and reading.  Perhaps there will be people to meet too and it will become the source of more surprises in my life.  I hope so.

16^th December


Grateful to have found amazing places and things while having to spend hours in Manchester city centre without a plan.

Here:

A brilliant free creative space in Afflecks. With a possibility something similar might happen one day in Newcastle.

The awesome art cafe.

Some great street art.

So many pictures to choose from.

17^th December

Grateful for a great day with Amanda in Southport.

Chips, ice cream, charity shops, a carousel, and tea. Our kind of day.

And it was the first time I have ever seen the sea it Southport. On every other visit it was miles away.

18^th December

Grateful for darkness and light.  The not-church church I attended in Manchester was based on the theme of darkness.  I liked the people there.  I don't think it would be "my" place but I did like them and I liked the honesty and openness that was greater than that seen in most church churches.

And grateful for the women's toilets here in Nexus Art Cafe.

Yep, a gratitude post about a toilet.

19^th December

Grateful to spend most of the day with Amanda.

We caught the bus to Leigh for charity shops and to visit a very good cafe there.

A screen in the cafe displays slideshows of someone's photos. As I was paying I noticed the photos at that moment were of Newcastle.

20^th December

Grateful to have achieved the front seat on the coach back from Manchester.

Grateful for an easy journey.

And grateful for roast chicken. Because I am still a corpse eating monster.

A Writing Challenge - To Make A Change From A Photographic Challenge

So I asked her, in addition to all the photo challenges, to help me with my writing.

She has given me writing prompts before.  Half sentences to write from.  Some of them I still haven't used.  Some I haven't finished.  And some I've tried to work with.  Some have come out badly.  And some I'm actually quite pleased with.  Some I want to return to one day.  And the tale of Gerald eating the washing is complete.

This time she said, "A week on, I suddenly realised how traumatised I was by"

This morning I decided that a postcard was the source of the trauma.  This afternoon, with only that tiny sliver of knowledge about the situation, I sat down and wrote and by the time I had positioned the cursor I knew the name of the person who sent the card.  As I typed I learned more.

Mostly this is pretty free written.  But it took a while to work out what should be on the front of the postcard.  In my thoughts, at one point it was a tourist card from London, then it became a card of a hill in the Lake District, then an old card of a motorway service station.  And then it finally was set as a 1970s postcard of the shopping square in Crawley town centre.  I know that the giver of the prompt will appreciate that.  I found a card online and used that.  But then I wanted to post the card myself and didn't want to borrow someone else's photo of a postcard.  Fortunately I happen to own exactly the same card.  So the photo below is my own.

I have also shared this story on another site that I friend pointed me to a couple of hours ago, probably at about the same time as I sat down to write.  It seemed fitting to share it there too.  If you want to see the post there it's at  https://niume.com/pages/post/?postID=151744

So here's the story.  Only very, very slightly edited afterwards.

________________________

A week on, I suddenly realised how traumatised I was by Niamh's postcard.

I had nearly thrown it away without noticing it was there because the postman had inadvertently tucked it into the middle of some colourful touts for pizza parlours, ice cream parlours, and maybe massage parlours too. It was only when chucking it all into the recycling bin outside that the postcard slipped away from its surrounding sales leaflets and had fallen onto the ground, wet from the rain. I'd reached down quickly to pick it up, as if a little rain would somehow damage the rubbish, and it was only when picking it up that I spotted that it was what it was.

The picture on the front of the card was not one I would have been in a rush to see. It was a photograph, probably from the 1970s, of Queen's Square in Crawley. I hurried back inside and dried off the card with a tea towel, hoping that any ink wouldn't be too smudged. I looked again at the photo and smiled, my smile a mix of pleasure and half remembered pain. In the background was the old Co-operative building and on the right were names from a shopping environment that is no more. Woolworths. Littlewoods. Freeman Hardy Willis. I knew those names of course, but they had vanished from Crawley by the time I visited the town.

There was really only one person who would have sent me a card like this. Niamh. She whom I had loved in spite of everything. She whom I had lost. She whose words had nearly broken me. Niamh. After five years. Years of regret, of recovery, of release, and of a new happiness and a new beginning. Niamh.

And then I read what it said. “Hi Grace. I saw this and thought of you. Do you remember how we used to add colour to that square? It was the best. If I'm ever up your way I'll look you up and we can laugh about it. I hope you're life is still shining. I love you still my Grace. Stay strong. Niamh. XX”

It was true.  We did add lots of colour to the place and I confess I let out a big laugh. Because Niamh still couldn't get her apostrophes right. And because we did add colour to the square. We would go there on sunny days with a picnic hamper and we would wear the most outrageously bright clothes we could find and it didn't matter how strange we looked. And we would lie in the middle of the square with parasols and poetry books and would sing the poems to each other, inventing the tunes as we went along or singing the sonnets of Shakespeare to the tunes of nursery rhymes. We would laugh and drink lemonade and the people of the town would stare as they passed. And for a time we would be happy together.

I laughed again and then stopped and thought. The card led to too many questions. Too many. Did Niamh really still think of me as her Grace after so long? Were her words really a veiled statement? Would she be visiting the North East? And would she be looking me up and wanting to see me again? And what for?

And come to think of it, how did Niamh know my address at all? I thought I'd made sure to cut all my ties to the life I'd had in the south. I had left behind the few friends I had there. I'd not told a soul where I was going. I'd changed my bank accounts. I'd even changed my surname by deed poll. A new start deserved a new name.

Too many questions. And no answers. But there didn't seem a lot of point worrying about it. Worry wouldn't provide the answers. So I resolved to forget about the card if I could. Under my bed I kept a single box of items I'd kept from that old life. Some photos, a few souvenirs. Nothing special. I wasn't even sure why I'd kept them. But I had kept them and decided to put the postcard into the box. I looked through the contents for a few minutes. There were a few pictures of Niamh of course and I could see a part of what had attracted me to her in the first place.

I remembered our first meeting, during a terrorist scare in London. The railway terminus had been closed and we had both taken refuge in a cafe nearby. We had been sitting at the same slightly dirty metal table. A bit of grubbiness was preferable to standing in the street. She had been drinking a black coffee and I a mug of tea and somehow we had got to talking. About the miserable weather. About how the threat of terrorism was getting out of hand and how we hadn't seen it like this since the IRA put down their weapons. Time dragged on and we weren't being allowed back into the station. The journey home that night was going to be awful. Niamh had offered to buy me another drink and I'd been happy to accept and then we got talking about each other. I noticed her smile and when she laughed I felt warmed inside. Or was that just the tea?

And that was that. We found we had things in common. Something clicked. And we exchanged telephone numbers with the promise that one of us would call the other during the week. I can't say for sure whether I actually planned to call her. Or whether I thought she would ever call me. In truth I thought I'd probably never see Niamh again. We had shared a couple of unpleasant hours in a bomb scare, made pleasant by also sharing in each other's stories and smiles.

I didn't call Niamh. Of course I didn't. I was scared to. And she didn't call me. Not during the week. And not during the week after either. It was twenty-three days before she called. I know. I checked them on a calendar afterwards. She called, apologetic for not calling earlier. She said that life had been very busy and there had been a family emergency but that she had enjoyed our drinks together and wondered whether I'd like to meet again somewhere for more drinks. Preferably not during a bomb scare. Preferably in some place less crowded than a London cafe during a bomb scare. And preferably somewhere with clean tables and more comfortable chairs.

So we had agreed to meet. Not in Crawley. That came later. We met there several times. The first time we were there we both noticed its sense of unremitting greyness. Everything we saw was so normal. Nobody was flamboyant. Nobody looked crazy. Everyone seemed average. Average and grey. So we had arranged to go back. And be abnormal. Flamboyant. Crazy. To shine like stars in the middle of Queen's Square. And each time we had become more crazy and attracted more stares.

I remembered our first meeting. I remembered Crawley. I remembered that last time when our harmless play led to the local police threatening to arrest us if we didn't move on. They seemed to think that only alcohol or drugs would lead to flamboyant and crazy behaviour in a place like Queen's Square. As we walked back to the station – she to return to Croydon and I to Arundel – we decided never again to return to Crawley. If it couldn't cope with our brightness then it shouldn't have to.

I smiled as I remembered the happy times. What followed was a disaster for me. Niamh could light up my mind and my heart and do so with the song of a rainbow. But she could also light them up like a furnace and burn away every comfort I possessed within. I chose not to consider all that and I placed her postcard on top of the photos, closed the lid of the box, and pushed it back under the bed.

A week later, while drinking tea, I consciously noticed that I was thinking about Niamh and that the words of the postcard were in my head. And then I consciously noticed that I'd been thinking about that card a lot. I hadn't forgotten about it at all and those questions had been going round in the back of my head without me even noticing.

How had she known my address? Why had she sent the card? Did she think of me as hers? God forbid that. Would she ever turn up in my life again with more than a postcard? Please. God. No.

Maybe it was just innocent. Maybe she had seen the card and smiled at the memories. Maybe there was some reason she knew where I was and I hadn't cut myself off from my past as thoroughly as I'd wanted to.

Maybe.

I wanted to believe it. Maybe.

I wanted to forget about it.

But this was Niamh and there was no forgetting what she put me through, not even after five years.
I realised I'd been subconsciously worrying for a week. That the card was out of sight under the bed. But not out of mind.

I realised that the card had brought my past into my present, five year old wounds reopening. I realised that, even if the card was an innocent gift, the words had sliced into me and drawn blood.

I knew that Niamh was not over.

And I knew fear again.

I sat and shook. And cried.

Niamh was not over.



[1615 words plus all the blurb before the writing]

Challenged To Take A Photograph 1: A Real Life Unicorn With Wings

I asked her "What should I photograph tomorrow?"

I had expected a request for something easy.  Something that I might possibly see when out and snap a picture of.  Something to look out for.

She said, "A real life unicorn.  With wings."

Not just a real life unicorn.  Oh no.  That would have been hard enough.  But one with wings.  And that kind are even rarer than the unicorns without wings.

Nevertheless I accepted the challenge and went out the next morning determined to achieve success.

I wandered the streets of Newcastle city centre.  And wandered more.  I knew that somewhere, once, I had seen a picture of a unicorn on a lamp post.  Maybe it would have wings.  Whether it would qualify as real life or not was another matter.  It certainly wasn't ideal.  But it might have to do.  I hunted.  But couldn't find that unicorn again no matter how I tried.  Maybe it had retreated back into legend.

I decided that I might find a unicorn dwelling in a particular building.  I should hunt there.  But there was no unicorn.  There was a piece of collaborative art I contributed to, still on a wall.  There was a mental health organisation that runs courses and has all kinds of groups.  And I signed up for an induction into that - something which I've wondered about doing for the past year.  And there was this gadget.

Okay.  So it's not a unicorn.  There's no way that anyone would ever mistake it for a unicorn.  And it hasn't got wings.  But it's a gadget and it's of interest.

I left the building knowing that I would return.  Knowing, in fact, that I would be returning there several times in the following week and could easily find reasons to return there more.

I was dejected.  I hadn't found a unicorn.  I wandered the streets again.  Sad because I wasn't able to meet the photographic challenge.

And then, joy of joys, I spotted a unicorn.  A real unicorn.  Or at least a real toy unicorn.

But he didn't have wings.  This unicorn didn't meet the challenge.

There was only one things for it and I formed a cunning plan in my mind.  [Honesty time: I formed the plan the previous night as a fallback solution.]

I would just have to take one of my real life (toy) unicorn friends at home and photograph that.

And since none of my unicorn friends have wings I would just have to work some magic, call out some enchantments, and use sorcery [and some card and some pens] to create out of thin air a pair of wings.

Pretty soon I had sweated over some dangerous ritual magic [involving marker pens and a pair of scissors] and before me sat the most wonderful winged unicorn.

Then Blob Thing and Winefride appeared and Winefride got very excited.  Blob said he thought that his sister wanted to ride on top of the winged unicorn.

So she climbed on.  The unicorn seemed happy about that too.  I fixed her securely with her safety reins [and some unfolded paperclips] and she was ready to go.

They took off and the unicorn flew round and round the room.  It was lucky that the window was closed because otherwise it might have flown away entirely and I might never have seen Winefride again.  The unicorn was joyous at its new freedom.

I took lots of photos and Winefride was having such a lot of fun.

She was making such happy noises that I had to make videos too.  Here's one of them - I hope it works okay, otherwise I'll have to add it in some other way.  I might have to add a flying unicorn to YouTube and add to the range of videos nobody will ever see.  My first ever YouTube video.

Pretty soon it was time to stop and the unicorn was getting tired.  He landed safely and smiled the biggest smile he's ever seen.

I think Winefride wants to ride on the unicorn again sometime.

So I succeeded in my photographic challenge.

And the challenger was suitably impressed and laughed a lot.

Her laughter made my efforts worth everything.