I Returned To My Home. But My Home Had Disappeared.

Today I'm using a prompt because I'm away from home and in a rush.  It's a push to have enough time to keep up a daily post.  But I'm determined.  I'm not going to miss a day.  Not yet!

72. Where That Place Used to Be: Think of a place you went to when you were younger but it now no longer there or is something else.

Bradford.

The first place I lived that wasn't Crawley.  I spent one year there at university.  Just a year.  But it was an important time for me.  I packed a lot into those three short terms of study.  This photograph was taken on my first day there.  Eighteen years old and hunched back.  It's going to take a lot of work to overcome that.

I discovered I hated my first course and had the ability to work out how to change to one where I was far happier.  That period was hard.  I'd wander the streets of the city in the middle of the night listening to depressing music

I joined a university animal rights group and was active with it for at least three weeks!  There were three of us.  I was one.  The second was a woman.  I had a big crush on her although would never have said.  The third was her boyfriend.  I met them a term later, accidentally.  A friend dragged me to see his friend - in order to borrow weed - and it turned out his friend was the woman.  She was naked in bed.

I became a campaigner.  Against the Poll Tax.  That worked out well enough.  Against the lessening of student grants and the introduction of loans.  That didn't work at all and we could never have dreamed how expensive university education would become under successive governments.  I protested against Thatcher when she was in the area.  Protested against the Tory controlled council led by Eric Pickles when they were cutting funding to women's refuges and other charities.  For a while I hung around with the Socialist Worker crowd until I became disillusioned by them attempting to hijack every protest and make it seem like it was their party.  I'm glad to see that the Socialist Worker people in Newcastle don't do that.  They just seem to muck in.  Had I stayed in Bradford I'd have been part of a group forming a new student political party.  If that ever happened.  And in those animal rights week we had a well attended candlelit vigil against vivisection at the university and ran a public meeting attended by several hundred people.

I was a hiker.  Those were excellent days.  The hiking club was brilliant, organising several walks each week in the same area.  We walked throughout Yorkshire, made it to the lakes and had a long weekend in Snowdonia.  I will always remember that last cheese and wine party at which all of the surplus funds were spent.  I will always remember a few details of the people and the evenings we spent in a Bradford pub singing folk songs.  I'll remember the time we invaded a Bradford Irish Society ceilidh and I won the raffle.  And then there was the time we walked back from Ilkley in the night and reached a stone circle on the moor just before midnight on Halloween.

I had friends.  And many people knew me.  Once someone was shocked because we walked the length of the campus and everyone, without exception, said hello and called me by name.  That's not an experience I've had since leaving Bradford.

I learned of curry houses and knew them well.  My first Bradford curry was eaten on my second night of college.  I was with a bunch of second and third year Catholic students and we'd gone out feasting after the chaplaincy bar closed.  I loved that bar.  At the time it was a safe space.  Perhaps, had I stayed in Bradford, I would have lived out the rest of my course living in the Catholic chaplaincy.  Although I wasn't a Catholic.

I learned of drunkenness and hangovers.  I had my first drunken night on my third night of college.  I didn't know better.  I'd hardly drunk anything before that day and I think that night I more than doubled my lifetime consumption of alcohol.  So many bars.  So much cider.  So much surprise to be woken up at half past two in the morning, collapsed in a public toilet.  I walked back to the university hall.  Felt fine.  Chatted with a couple of people who invited me to share their bush for the night.  They cheered me when I got back.  There was much sarcasm.  That led to my first hangover.  My second was a month later.  My third was ... well, there hasn't been a third.

And the biggest way Bradford changed my life?  Halfway through my year there I converted to Christianity.  I got born again.  Full works.  If that hadn't happened I wouldn't have left Bradford after a year.  I'd have finished the degree I was enjoying so much.  I'd have got a first.  Almost certainly.  I wouldn't have gone to a theology college.  Wouldn't have met my wife.  Wouldn't have done everything that led from Bradford to Newcastle.

My room at Bradford was number four, block P, in Shearbridge Green.  I have many memories of that place.  I loved it there.  I "said the sinner's prayer" in room number three, occupied by an Irish guy named Ian.  I spent much time with the guy in room seven, who was the brother of one of my brother's best friends.  In that block of twenty-five rooms we got to know each other well, shared our two self-catering kitchens.  We went through highs and lows.  Had triumphs and mistakes.  And yes, I made quite a few and did things that I am still ashamed of if I think of them.  Each of us had tales to tell.  We drove to Brighton overnight.  I got stuck in a water fight that lasted for hours.  I knew the city very well for a first year university student.  Loved it.  Loved the people I met.  I went to dawn prayer meetings in cemeteries.

And Shearbridge Green is still big in my mind.  At least, it was.

Last year I returned to Bradford for the first time since 1995.  I'd returned for one day then and ended up playing a guitar and worshiping God in my old church so they could test the new sound and recording system.  Towards the end of that time they stuck in a cassette tape.  Recorded my voice and playing.  I still have that tape.  Last year I returned again and decided to seek out my old haunts.  I wanted to see Shearbridge Green again.  I'd have been a weirdo.  Rung the doorbell.  Said, "I used to live here twenty-five years ago. Can I come and see inside?"  I walked up the hill to the University with eagerness.  Walked through the campus.  And arrived at my old home.

Except.  It wasn't there.  Shearbridge Green had been demolished.  Shearbridge Green was a car park.  My home was gone.  Later I walked in the city centre.  I thought I might visit that pub, the one where I had sung so many folk songs.  Except.  It wasn't there.  My old haunt had become a betting shop.  Here it is.  My old home.  Dead centre of the picture.

And here, as much as I can make out, is the spot above which I slept for three terms.

My home was gone.  I walked away.  Very sad.  It was as if my past had been ripped away from me.  Perhaps that was a good thing.  The events of living there led to my twenty five year Christian walk and overall it might have been better had I never started walking that way.  Perhaps it's symbolic too and perhaps it's apt that I write about it today (Friday).  One week ago today my parents' house sold.  Someone will be letting it out.  They moved into that home before I was born.  That house, just like Shearbridge Green, is lost to me.

And that's a good thing.

Because that was my past.  And what I want is my future.

My future isn't my old home.  It's not Sussex.  It's not childhood.  And it definitely isn't Shearbridge Green.  Seeing that car park hurt.  More than I would have imagined.  But it healed too.  Seeing it was a break with a past that is no more.

Requiem For A Broken Friend On A Night When I Think I Can't Write

I am not up to writing this evening.  I feel like I'm flat-lining.  Tomorrow will be better.

This was free written in a cafe a week ago.  I found some relative safety there after shutting down and failing to function in the wild streets of Sunderland city centre.  It was a very unpleasant experience.  While in that cafe I suffered another unpleasant experience.  As I started to climb the stairs to where the toilets were to be found somehow my chain bracelet got caught on something and it broke.  In such a way that it would be hard to repair.

I wore that chain on nearly every day for eighteen months.  It wasn't meant to be jewellery.  On August 21st 2015 I arrived at Autscape, a conference/gathering for autistic adults.  My first Autscape.  It was there I saw the chains.  In a pile.  Designed to attach to name badges and "interaction badges" worn round our necks.  I wouldn't have dared to use them otherwise.  I wasn't free.  Then I saw someone playing with the pile.  It must have felt so good, not only physically but in pretty much every way.  Later I saw her playing with one of the chains and I felt very jealous because it was what I would have wanted to be doing had I been able to allow myself.  At that point she was told off for stimming with the chain.  Far too much of an autistic thing to be doing at a gathering for autistic adults.  Ooh, I'm a cynic!

Later I played with the chains too.  She led by example.  I followed.  Still later she became a completely awesome friend.  And I wore that chain nearly every day.  The feel of it on my wrist helped.  Playing with it helped.  A lot.  Chewing it helped too although chewing bits of metal isn't advisable.  Fortunately she has since given me plastic bracelets that I wear most of the time.  I chew them everywhere.  At home.  When shopping.  In cafes.  On the bus.  In social situations.  Such stimming is a massive aid to me getting through the days.  I wish I'd discovered it sooner.  In addition to the chewy plastic I also wear a bracelet she made.  It bears the inscription "Autistic Pride" but all in capitals.  I didn't use them here.  Didn't want to be seen as shouting.  My metal chain was a security and a source of relaxation.

And last Monday it broke.  I was in a bad state that day.  I wrote about it that night and a few days later posted what I  had written.  What a day to lose that chain.  I'd improved somewhat by sitting in that cafe.  I had a quiet spot and had already written a piece that I actually think could stand up in performance.  To an understanding audience who don't mind me swearing at them.  And not as a single piece either.  Part of a set so something lighter can be performed afterwards.  Something about happy bunnies and sparkly unicorns.

What follows is not good writing.  I was a right mess when I wrote it.  The writing helped me but that doesn't mean it's good.  However, I am not up to writing tonight so I'm posting it.  It's better than the alternatives.  Something free written in another cafe about philosophy groups.  An atrocious thing written in that same cafe filled with more atrocious dog puns.  Or the five prompts free written from in a cafe today, none of which are in presentable form.  Yet.  Five prompts.  With instructions to write about each for five minutes.  I didn't quite stick to five minutes!

The prompt "garden furniture" turned into some words about garden furniture.
The prompt "Marilyn Monroe" saw her had she not died, playing Sheldon Cooper's mum (although the age might not be quite right) or making cosmology documentaries.
The prompt "Marilyn Monroe" then saw me think about needless possessions, hoarding, and how crazy we are.  Perhaps I'll return to that and transform it into something worth reading.  I don't know what form it will take.
The prompt "The Earth's Core" turned a little strange. So crazy it all went a bit mantle.  But it did explain the earth's rotation.  Incorrectly.  Perhaps I'll return to that too.  A short story seems possible.
The prompt "eagles" turned into a blissful child and adult memory that I recreated when I got home.  Perhaps I'll return to that writing too.  I think something to perform could come from it.  With a prop!  And no swearing at any audience.  Perform it at Edinburgh.  Do the fringe.  Have an audience of one.
The final prompt was "fireworks" and I wrote down seven memories but didn't expand on them at all.  Did not speak of the teacher who had never had a car accident but had witnessed many.  Did not speak of being able to see thirty illuminated red crosses.  Did not speak of Jean Michel Jarre's London concert, or the New Years of childhood, or the time I saw someone hit by a firework at a public display.  I wasn't able to write about such things today.  I think I was worn out from the efforts of prompts two to four.  In any case, I'd run out of drink and my body was informing me of the nearness of lunchtime.

If you do read what follows please don't be worried by the ending.  I was having a bad day and you shouldn't be troubled one bit by the fact that the next day my GP surgery decided to raise up a flag and say that I am at moderate risk of suicide.  Really.  I'm not.  I want a long life.  In any case, more chains are on order now.  And they're different colours.  Deep joy!  Honestly, I'm okay.  Nothing to see here.  Move along.  Move along.

Read on at your own risk.

Requiem For A Broken Friend

Farewell dear friend,
I will try not to weep.  For me.
You died in my hands today.
My fault, my clumsy fumbling,
And you shattered.  Fell to your death
As I walked to a toilet
In an unknown cafe bar.

Farewell dear friend,
Killed so young, by dark tragedy.
Just a day before we two
Might have celebrated together.
Drank a toast to your birth and
The many meetings and meaningful relationships
Begun the moment you breathed
For the first time.

Farewell dear friend.
Eighteen months is too short a life.
But you lived it well
And comforted me through hell
Had wild tales to tell
Then you shattered, fell.
And we, more unfortunate, left behind
Will never hear your metallic voice again.

Farewell dear friend.
Just a cheap chain, or so they said
But my daily companion, continual solace.
My playmate of playmates
Safety of safety
And he who gave me strength.

I wore you.
Four times wrapped on right wrist.
Regaled in your off-colour love.
I wore you.
And in your touch was peace,
The certainty that you would
be the same each day as the last.
I wore you.
And centred around you
The world shrank to coherency.
I wore you.
What now? What the hell
Am I meant to do?

So farewell dear friend?
I killed you. I am to blame.
Not manslaughter.  Chain slaughter.
Have I inadvertently
    killed myself too?
One death leads to another
I can't live alone.

Farewell dear friend.
Farewell

Waking Up - A Ramble About Alarm Clocks, Stories, And Rejoicing.

57. Alarm Clock: Write about waking up.

Today I Love You - Salford Quays, not waking up

I hate waking up.  Another day to barely survive.  Another sixteen hours of anxiously hoping the day won't be my last.  Another sixteen days of hoping it will be.

I love waking up.  Another day to explore.  Another sixteen hours of curiosity, surprises, possibilities.  Another sixteen hours to spend loving, smiling, and living in gratitude for all I am, all I have, and for the people I share this world with.

I hate waking up.  Body aching from the night, the discomfort of lying in the wrong position and knowing that this particular body doesn't have a right position.  Legs swearing under their breath.  Back swearing out loud.  And sometimes arm screaming about having had to lie at the bottom.  This morning is one of those mornings.

I love waking up.  A chance to stretch.  Body and mind.  A time to remember that there is freedom in the pain.

This week I haven't had to set my alarm clocks.  Two of them.  Because I can sleep through the first and it is a sentient beast with a will of its own.  Sometimes its will is to not call out its chimes at all.  Sometimes its will is to make an attempt at rousing the entire city.  It's been like that for several years and, regularly, I think of replacing it.  It needs replacing.  Urgently.  It's housed in an old Roberts CD player stroke radio stroke alarm clock.  And that would be a lovely thing to own.  Except it buzzes.  When electricity passes through it, as it needs to, it buzzes.  Sometimes the noise of it is too much for me and I unplug it.  Other times it is too much for me but I lack the executive function to unplug it and I lie in bed listening to the hum underneath the sound of the radio.  Every time I am disturbed by the noise, or by the lack of a needed noise in the morning, I decide that I'm going to buy a replacement.  Every time I make my decision I lack the ability to bring it through to the point at which I have a bright and shiny new machine to unwrap, plug in, and be pleased about.

My second alarm, which I brought into my life after failing to get up at the right time too often, is on my phone.  It's a lovely alarm.  Well, not quite lovely.  The sound of it is one I would much prefer not to hear.  I wouldn't put it on repeat and play it for an hour of sweet relaxation.  But it's reliable.  I set it.  It obeys my instructions.  I can trust my telephone to chime for me exactly when I want.  And it will be exactly too.  It keeps perfect time.  I know.  I've watched it.  More often than I care to admit.  I've listened to the pips on Radio Four, chiming the hour.  And observed with a rush of happiness that my phone changes to the new hour exactly in time with the final pip.  Not so my first alarm clock.  That runs fast.  I don't have the executive function to set it right as often as I would like.  It would only take a minute to adjust it.  To at least get it right to within a minute.  As it stands it's more than two minutes fast.

I tell myself, "Why not just unplug the thing?"  Yes.  Unplug it.  Don't use it.  Unless I want to play a CD in my bedroom.  The illuminated time has become more of a curse than a blessing.  I used to love it.  Being able to open my eyes if I woke in the night and see the time.  I still find it excruciatingly difficult not to know what the time is if I wake.  Is it worth me getting up?  Is it worth trying to go back to sleep?  And how long have I lain there anyway and is a middle of the night cup of tea going to be needed?  Important questions.  But the bright light of the time is burdensome too and I tell myself I only need to press one button on my phone to see what unearthly, ungodly hour I am witnessing.  Unplug the infernal machine with it's brightness, buzzing, unreliability.  Use the radio on my telephone.  Use its faithful alarm.  Or set two alarms.

That's sensible.  At least I think it is.  The cube shaped machine remains.  Lit up.  Buzzing.  Annoying me every time it fails in its one tiny alarm clock function.  Does everyone have the same issue, that three years after observing problems they won't have done anything about them?  It's not as if it's a complicated problem or something blatantly difficult or life changing.  We're not talking about noticing climate change, the plight of refugees or even having to tread carefully due to the increasing holes in ones bedroom floor.  That's something else.  I'm not admitting to those holes or to the fact that I haven't done anything about them.  Is everyone like that?

As I said, I haven't set the alarms this week.  I have been in the envious position of being able to sleep beyond six thirty.  In theory.  It hasn't worked.  In the absence of knowing there are alarms to look forward too my brain and body have come up with a wide range of plans.  Monday's plan was to wake up at four and stay awake.  That was the start of a day on which I shut down on a bench in a city centre.

Today the plan was to wake up at five and stay awake.  It's not the plan I would have consciously chosen.  It's currently six fifty four and through the window I've been watching daylight spread.  The sky above is filled with dark clouds but away to the east, through the gap between houses I can see a strip of blue that is, at this very moment, exactly the colour of my cot blanket.  Above it the clouds are bright, slowly fading into dull greys.  Through the bright cloud I have watched as a plethora of pinks and reds were created by the rising sun.  At six fifty six they are all but gone and the day has truly begun, leaving the tree silhouetted before the dark sky.

There are advantages to being awake before I want to be awake.  At four, five in the morning there is a deep peace still over the city.  It is a time to be still, to meditate, to write in calm before responsibility and worry creeps over a life.  I am not wise.  Mostly I use the time to fret, to complain about the injustice of being awake when I don't want to be.  Mostly I lie there hoping to sleep some more, trying to will sleep, and I end up further away from sleep than I was at the beginning.  Mostly I take this gift of extra time, this blessing of quietness, and I turn it round into something to winge about.  This morning I can be pleased about the five hours I slept.  Pleased that I wake with most of my faculties intact.  Pleased that it's just gone seven and I've seen a beautiful sky, heard the news, engaged with social media, and written this post.

I may write it again later.  While writing an idea formed.  A story.  Perhaps later today I will allow it to tell itself.  Stories need to tell themselves.  They are alive, vibrant, and though this blog has included more stories than I would have imagined at the beginning of the year, it's almost the case that I haven't written any of them.  They appeared in my mind.  I just allowed them to grow and be released.  Two dozen stories in two months.  I have been surprised by all of them.  I did not know about Oxford Brookes, Miranda, or anyone else I've written about.  They knew themselves.  All I did was to let them speak.  And that, I find, is much more satisfying than what I've done this morning in writing about my own life.

It's ten past seven on a Friday morning.  I think that's a good time to stop.  Eat breakfast.  And then to return and write a fiction which will ramble less than this post has.  The day is young.  It makes no promises to me beyond coming to an end.  How I choose to fill the intervening hours is largely up to me.  I am very fortunate in that.  There is nowhere I have to be.  Nothing I have to to.  I realise that a week today I will be performing a poem or a short story to a crowded room of people at a public event.  For the first time ever.  For this, I have faith in myself.   I believe it will be the first time of many.

And now?  Breakfast and an unknown day.  The clouds are clearing.  Birds are singing.  And the day is beautiful.  Whether I shine all day or whether I shut down on another city centre bench it will remain beautiful.  And so I say with the old hymn, "Let us rejoice and be glad in it."


[1538 words]

Do You Remember The Days In The Old School Yard?

A set of middle school memories.  Age eight to twelve.  In order of recollection.  I have included the only two photos I have on my computer taken on school grounds.  Probably I have more photos in albums.  It's tempting to look through those years tonight.

My memories have been highly edited before posting.  Because I was a weird child.  I did weird things.  You don't need to know.  And I am not ever going to tell you.

Do I remember the days?  Do I remember the times? ...

I AM the genie of the lamp. Aged 10.

That time J asked me for a kiss.  We kissed.  It was the least proficient kissing technique of all time.  I was so excited that someone like J might possibly like someone like me.  I ran all the way home and told my mum.  By the next day J had forgotten about the kiss and all it had meant.  She wouldn't talk to me.

That time I was so bored with the easiness of a lesson that I pushed myself once too often and made a tiny mistake and Mrs. B roundly told me off and humiliated me deliberately.  She told me not to be clever.

That time Mrs J said that I had to have a boy sit next to me because nobody else would talk to him.  I had to look after him.  He had Tourettes's.  But this was the early 1980s.  He didn't have a label.  Didn't have a diagnosis.  He was just the odd kid who made noises and shouted things out sometimes.  He was a nice child.  Perhaps more shy than me and who could blame him?

That time I was bored in a lesson and asked Mr. D whether he could explain the Theory of Relativity.  He could.  He did.  In detail to a ten year old.  I was left with no more understanding of Einstein than I had begun with.

That time I didn't ace a maths test and couldn't sit on one of the two seats on the back row.  It only happened once and the teacher laughed at me.  I didn't mind.  It felt good to be just another of the top set for once rather than half of the elite pair.  I got to sit next to a boy and there was no girl left unhappy, stuck at the back with me for a fortnight.

That time L went out with me once.  I used to dance with J at school discos.  She felt sorry for me.  I heard J say about L, "I thought I was crazy just to dance with him."  I later heard L say, loudly so everyone in the class could hear, "I only did it for a free meal."

That time T.H. almost broke my windpipe.  That was his idea of playing a game and I wasn't going to submit to a bully even though it hurt and was frightening.

That time I was chosen to pick lots of books for the school library when the local authority van visited and all the books I picked turned out to be the wrong ones because, I was told, I would be the only person who might want to read any of them.

That time I had to work through ever graded reading book in the school.  In order.  From the beginning.  Just in case I couldn't read.  I wanted to get back to my novels.  All I remember from those books was that John Wesley used to chew each mouthful of food the same number of times.  He did it methodically.  He did lots of things methodically.  And that's why Methodists are called Methodists.  All I remember turned out to be a blatant lie.

That time Mr. D when ballistic when we were learning to sing The Daniel Jazz.  A friend and I played with the words so that lettuce and cabbage could appear in the same line.  We were amused.  Mr. D was not.  We were nine.

That time Mr. D almost had a massive meltdown in front of the class when his carefully prepared science experiment didn't work.

That time we all first played in the middle school and realised that we were too old to play stuck in the mud and couldn't play kiss chase anymore without it being too embarrassing to survive.

That time the teacher made me go into the girls' changing room to collect the shower key for the boys' changing room.  While the girls were showering.

That time I was frogmarched into the headmaster's office so he could be shown just how awkwardly I held a pen and what a bizarre writing technique I have.

That time I lent my rock collection to the school for a display and never got it back and everyone pleaded ignorance.  I didn't see my collection again.  Until the day I was frogmarched into the headmaster's office so he could be shown my penmanship.

That time it was rumoured that Mad Mary was lurking down the bank near the school and everyone was far more frightened than they needed to be.

That time two of us got to choose which computer the school should buy for educational purposes.  We said to buy a Spectrum.  It was never used for educational purposes.  But we did enjoy getting to play Manic Miner at lunchtime.

That time I went home for lunch and came back just as my class were finishing off a game of strip poker and I missed out on the sight of the same J I mentioned above, who I was told had stripped to just her knickers.  We were ten.

That time S phoned me on a Saturday and asked me if I wanted to visit her that day.  I said I couldn't because my uncle and aunt were visiting and later my mother told me off and said I should have gone.  I thought staying for family was the rule.  I forgot to tell S I was sorry and we could meet on another weekend.  She didn't phone again.  Of all the events of my middle school years, perhaps I regret that social error the most.

That time I danced with the headmaster's pretty daughter at a ceilidh.

That time I danced with the headmaster at a ceilidh.

That time ... that whole rotten year in which I spent nearly every break time and lunch time solving everyone's bloody Rubik's Cubes for them.  My best time was less than thirty seconds.  They usually took me a minute.  That's nothing compared to the times of champions but my solving techniques were primitive.

That time I laughed in a sex education class because PB was playing silly buggers with a Rubik's Cube and I nearly got myself thrown out of sex education because Mrs B. thought I was laughing at whatever was on the screen.  It can't have been that exciting.  We were more entertained by a puzzle toy.

That time I snapped and very nearly broke someone's finger when I bent it back forcefully.  He was a perfectly nice boy.  But I snapped that day.

That time we were all taken to a big agricultural show and had to write a project about "some aspect of what we saw there."  They wanted a project about farming.  Mine was about nuclear power.

That time Mrs. J took us all to a battery farm with the hope that we might all turn out to be vegetarians.  When I saw the slurry pit I flashbacked to a public information film we had been shown some years before.  Apaches.  I still shudder at the memory of how that boy fell into the slurry pit and drowned.

That time I refused to do a piece of work on the very sensible - I thought - grounds that I had done exactly the same piece of work two weeks previously and not made an error and that my time would be better spent doing something new.  The teacher was unable to be reasonable.

That time I tied in a dead heat in the 200 metres with A.  He and his whole family would later change their names in an attempt to lessen the racial abuse they regularly received.

That time I was in a school play and had to sneeze the main character out of my nose.  I was a workman in that play.  And a clown who told awful jokes.  And a violinist.  And, my piece de resistance, a bus stop.  It was the height of my acting career.  I have never performed publicly in a play since.  I was eleven.

I AM that workman. Before the fateful, overacted sneeze.

That time we performed in a class assembly and I played a French hotel manager.  CC played one of the teachers at the school and we had a passionate holiday romance.  The teacher was not pleased.

That time I realised I was much better at netball than rugby and that it was a far more enjoyable game with far less chance of being hurt.  I didn't get to play very often.  I was a boy.

That time I finally convinced them to let me go in the big swimming pool because the little one was too shallow for me to swim in.  There were only two swimming sessions left at the school.

That time some evil swine stole one of my marbles in the playground.

That time some evil swine stole one of my Lego people at Sunday School, promised to give it back the next week, and was never seen again.  Not a school memory.  I do apologise.  I was ten.

That time we used to play Star Wars for a term and people thought I was a bizarre individual because I never wanted to be Luke or Han.  I wanted to be R2D2.  Or Leia.  What boy wouldn't want to be Leia?

That time a boy lost a shoe on a cross country and one of the teachers thumped him, not for the only time, and we made an unsuccessful petition to get the teacher sacked.

That time I went to a Christmas party at the headmaster's house and all the teachers were there.

That time my brother and I were at Mrs B's house and she showed us all the magic props they had used in a local theatre production and explained how they all worked.

That time I experienced my first real period of what was later diagnosed as depression.

That time, those many times, I tried to be myself and to use my head as best as I can.  Teachers taught me not to.  They taught me that being clever is a curse and that it inconveniences everyone.  They taught me that being mediocre is the way to go.

That time they slapped me down for being me.

Those times they kept slapping me down for being me.

That time I first chose to hide myself.

That time I was broken inside.

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]

Chasing The Sun To The Dwelling Of God On Eryri's Highest Peak

48. The Stars: Take inspiration from a night sky.

The 48th prompt is convenient.  It ties in with something said to me during a writers' workshop this morning.  I mentioned the experience I've written about here and it was suggested I could write about it.  It's not the only thing to come out of the workshop today.  There's a story to write - possibly even as a play if I can attempt a play eventually.  I've not written a play since I wrote something incredibly awful when I was about eight.  Perhaps it wasn't awful for an eight year old!  More than that, I free wrote another story which people there want me to submit to places and see if it can be published.  I have never submitted anything for possible publication before.  Someone was quite surprised I'd just written it - very, very quickly - during the workshop.  She said is was "bloody brilliant."  Direct quote.

Last night I had the worst panic attack I've had in a long while.  It was awful.  Lots of noises, tears, hyperventilation, and inside it was bad, bad, bad.  Briefly I wanted to stop.  To give up.  This morning it was only brute force of determination that got me out of the house.  Only force of will that got me to the workshop.  And even when I got into the cafe where it takes place I nearly turned round on seeing there were people there and I would have to cope with them.  But I am very glad indeed to have walked in and taken my place among them.  It's a safe space.  Supportive.  And in the writing we all just lift one another.  All criticism is constructive and all writing is encouraged.

It goes to show:  The worst of moments is just a moment.  The sun sets.  It rises again.  Every day.

Note.  This experience took place long before anyone was carrying mobile phones up Snowdon, and long before they would have got a signal from the summit.  You can get a signal now.  I once phoned my wife at work and asked her to phone our child's school to say I might be slightly late picking her up because I had gone for a short walk and accidentally climbed Snowdon.  As you do.

The photos below were taken when I was seven years old, the first time I walked up Snowdon, recovering from mumps at the time.  Looking at the photos of that day I find one thing to be true:  My parents' recollection of the cloud that day was highly exaggerated.  Looking at the photos I am amazed to discover that there was a good view through the clouds.

_________________________

Looking to Snowdon's summit from the Pyg Track

We arrived on that summit, we three, weary.  We had chased the sun as it fell.  Hoped to catch it on the mountain top, then release it to fall away beyond distant peaks.  From the small hostel in the pass we walked full stride, almost running to stand still against the heat of the shining disc as it sank away.  My legs protested but more so my lungs, unused to such a feat of endurance.  Led by that strange figure in his broken boots I looked at my own and wished they might become winged or enchanted with hundred league strides.  Heart pumped beyond the danger zone.  Lungs strained further than I believed they could.

And I followed.  Along a path I'd followed only once before, a small child trusting his parents to know the way as the clouds gathered, stealing the light in unseasonal cold intensity.  That day we had time to stop, see, surrender ourselves to beauty.  Above the lake we dined, a feast carried from our vehicle on the track below.  We smiled at the simplicity of our walk that day.  Smiled as we looked ahead to the summit, believed it close.   We made it and saw one small corner of the world spread before us, excitedly pointed to the lakes, towards where we knew the settlements of Gelert and Peris hid under the horizon hills.  Then the clouds closed upon us, casting their curtain on all we surveyed.

Yes, I followed the broken booted man, the frightening friend, fighting to keep up as his pace increased and the sun announced that we would not see her again.  I wanted to stop, breathe, cough up the bloody taste and lie on the earth, letting rock and grass swallow me into their elemental embrace.  I wanted more to continue, to witness the double, triple sunset, to reach the summit and sound my triumphant yawp so loud it would resonate across Wales and wake the fallen Bards to collaborate on a greater song.  Most of all I was proud.  I did not want to exhibit weakness, display the truth that I was less able than my companions.

Me.  Seven years old.

We had walked together all day, making the most of a December sun, a clear sky, and unexpected warmth.  From an unknown point Ogwen's lake we had meandered, crossing frozen pools, laughing and singing.  We three alone in the wilds, unheard by men, only by the goddesses and spirits of the mountains, the deities of streams and cataracts, the djinn who dwelt under the scree face.  We headed into a guided gully, clambered, scrambled over fallen rocks, up the cliffs and reached Tryfan's ridge.

Later we encountered our first parents, Adam and Eve and bowed before them as they watched the seasons of Ogwen, oblivious to their first fault and the sin they brought to our world.  I climbed on Adam's head.  There was no cry of complaint.  Jumped to the head of Eve and she too remained silent.  No word was heard but I know, had I slipped, they would not have made a move to catch me before I fell to death.  I knew the death fall was their path.  It was not mine.  Not then.  Maybe they had touched me after all for seventy and seven days later I encountered the Second Adam and bowed before him too, willingly placing my head under his feet and pledging never to stand again.  Under his magnificence I forgot how to walk, unlearned my childlike running.

We three turned from our parents, pressed forward until we climbed the ridge of bristles, leaving the safety of its gully and hauling ourselves up the cliff face to reach another summit, still a third, large and small, the sisters Glydderau, wild witches both, not to be laughed at.  We ran from the witches, fast, fast, bare chested in the heat, cheering our own escape.  And so we three, the strange booted man, his beloved disciple, and I, arrived at that hostel.  They looked as though they had not begun to walk.  I looked the child of exhaustion.

Me and my brother. On the ascent.

The booted prophet spoke simple words.  Even I could understand the terms of the prophet.  "The sun will set on the summit ahead in one hour.  No more, no less.  Let us set forth, quicken our pace and witness the last embers of the Eryri day.  Come my loves and we shall be blessed."

As the route grew steeper we left path behind and set our faces to the face of the mountain.  I was left behind.  Could not keep the pace and the two walked away from the one.  I reached the summit but the sun had gone, the sky reddening, darkening to night.

We stood.  Three people.  Silent on Yr Wyddfa's peak.  Alone with each other.  Alone with the alone.  Watching as the colours flattened into grey and far to black.  As the influence of the great ruler of day waned, so we felt the imposition of the rule of the great light of night, Luna herself, full flown, grown bright above; daring to share space with a thousand lesser lights and the lives of the myth men.

Silent night, holy night.
All is calm, all is bright.

Ten years previous, mother and child stood on the same spot.  Now, only the child remained, wonderstruck by all he witnessed.  If ever there was a night called holy, this was it.  And the silence, O the silence.  Lit up the world more perfectly than the lightning revelation.  Silence ruled and in that silence the child was reborn and grew, until murdered again by the discordant noise of civilisation.

We wished to stay we three.  Wished further that we could.  If we had known at daybreak what we knew at day's end we would have spent that December night nestled in concord close to heaven.  We couldn't stay.  We had no food.  No makeshift shelter, no bag to keep us warm.  And friends below awaited our coming.  To stay on Yr Wyddfa's pinnacle would be to inconvenience a hundred men, called upon to find us.  To stay would have brought a night of tears and the breaking both of friendships and promises.

So in darkness, in sadness, we turned from our solitude, our unity with creation, and set our path down the mountain trusting our steps to the moonlight.  As we descended we laughed together, fully aware we had experienced Godhead on the mountain top.  We had found Mount Zion where, it is said by some, God dwells in perpetual peace.

We believed such an experience would bind us together for all time.  How could it not?  I don't know.  Maybe you can say how three enlightened beings lost each other.  Maybe you can say too how they spurned enlightenment as soon as they reached the settlement of Peris.  Maybe you can say how they immediately set their hearts and minds back upon the earth.

I know the answer.  It's because, in the rapidly cooling night of December in Snowdonia, they could not resist something that has proved the downfall of many a potential Saint:

They bought ice creams!

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.

Sticks And Stones May Break My Bones But Words Are Bloody Painful

44. Insult: Write about being insulted.


In my last post I wrote that I was in a privileged position in that I have never been the victim of racial abuse.  Nobody has ever shouted at me in the street that I'm a white scumbag or told me to go back to my own country.  I'm fortunate to be white in the UK.

That doesn't mean I possess every privilege I could ever own.  Not at all.  I used to be able to claim almost the entire set and for much of my life I was pretty oblivious to the issues and failed to notice how fortunate I was - and still am.  But in the past four years I've lost some of my automatic privileges.  Things changed.  

Four years ago I would never have ticked the "do you have a disability" box.  Now I do and I will continue to count myself as disabled.  I've always had problems with mental health and with various social and practical skills.  It turned out that many of these were related to being autistic or to co-morbidities accompanying autism.  I'll have problems for life.  Blessings too.  Being disabled in this way is not a problem when I'm walking in the street.  Nobody stares at me or points or calls out for being autistic.  I'm lucky.  If I had Down Syndrome or had to use a wheelchair or had some other obvious physical characteristic to mark me out as different I would, from time to time, be openly insulted for it.  There are issues that have arisen now I tick that disability box but insults from random strangers are not among them.

I'm no stranger to being insulted though.  At this point someone will respond by saying, "Well we've all been insulted."  Of course we have!  It's true.  But some people always say things like that.  They probably say "All lives matter" too.  That's also true.  Obviously.  But usually in saying it we turn our backs on a very real problem.  Try to explain the depths of how difficult it is for me to get through with the problems autism gives me and inevitably there will be people who respond in such a way as to take a dump on disability by trying to make out everyone is the same.  Nobody would tell a person in a wheelchair, "Well we've all got tired and had to sit down sometimes."  Nobody would tell a blind woman, "Well many of us have to wear glasses."  But if you try to explain autism and you're not what people would label as "low functioning" then they tell you.  "Well we all get anxious sometimes."  "Well we all misunderstand people sometimes."  "Yes, it does get a bit noisy sometimes."  Save me from people who tell me that sometimes it's a bit noisy.  They tell you many other things too.  They remove your autism.  Try to make out you're just like them and that autism is just normal life.  It isn't.  It's difficult every single day.  Lots of people with mental health issues may get treated the same way.  The person with severe depression is told, "We all feel a bit blue sometimes, so just pull your socks up and get on with it."

When I was assessed for PIP the assessor nonchalantly dismissed all my problems with anxiety and all the struggles I have - even when I look serene to the world - in getting through each day and each encounter.  She said she had a few panic attacks once so there was no difference between me and her.  And I was in no position to get her to understand.  She might have had to carry a heavier weight than usual for a while.  But I carry a ten ton load pretty much all the time and because autism is a lifelong disability I'll be carrying a load for the rest of my life.  I make it look so easy.  Sometimes.  In effect when I was assessed for PIP the assessor removed autism from me and then assessed on the basis of me not being autistic.  That's not only an insult.  It's dangerous.  It's heartbreaking.  And quite probably it's illegal too.

That kind of thing, where the person with little or no problem tries to make out that they suffer and struggle as much as I do, is an insult.  It's a result of not listening to me, not understanding, and of whitewashing my truth and making it invisible.  But it's not what I want to write about this morning.

I want to write about being insulted in the street.  As you may know, in June 2013 I began the process of coming out as a transgender woman.  At the start of August of that year I legally changed my name.  Coming out changed a lot for me.  I lost some of my privileges.  I admit to a large extent I'd taken them for granted.  Perhaps for many of us it's only when we lose something that we realise how precious it was.  Joni Mitchell sang it didn't she?  "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone?"

I'd spend my life living as a heterosexual.  A man.  Cisgender.

I possessed three big privileges.  And at a stroke I lost them.

And when I plucked up the confidence to dress outside as I wanted to dress the insults happened.  From strangers in the street.  Even in this city of welcome in which I live.

For a while it was constant.  Every single time I left the house alone wearing a skirt I would be verbally abused.  Every single time.  But I kept doing it.  To the abusers I looked like a bloke in a frock.  Fair enough.  I hadn't had any hair removal treatments.  [Oh God, the number of people who said to me "Why do you need it?  All women get some facial hair."]  I hadn't got any make up.  My hair hadn't grown out.  Man in a frock.  It wasn't true of course.  I was a woman in what is often defined as a man's body.  To the abusers a man in a frock is fair play to be abused either with laughter or much worse than that.  Outright hatred.

I hated the abuse.  Who wouldn't?  I was experiencing what others had talked about.  Race hate, disability hate.  But transgender hate instead.  And in the experiencing I am better able to understand at least some of what others suffer and how they feel when abused for being who they are.  I am glad of the insight brought by my own experience.

It was awful though.  To know that leaving the house carried the punishment of abuse.  It didn't matter that I could try to rationalise it and say, "I know I'm doing and being nothing wrong.  They're just ignorant/fearful/foolish and I shouldn't worry about them."  I told myself that all the time.  I was right.  But it was still awful.  It hurt.  There were times I didn't know how I was going to manage to continue to walk through the path of gender transition.

I did continue though, just like so many others.  I don't know a single transgender person who hasn't had to fight hard to become who they already were.  We should all be very proud of ourselves.

Three and a half years after legally changing my name things are different.  I haven't worn make up in over eighteen months but hair removal has made a big difference.  My hair grew.  Perhaps hormone treatments are making a difference to my face.  Perhaps not.  The biggest change to my outward manner has been confidence.  I walk proud in my womanhood now and can hardly imagine how I ever used to pretend otherwise.

I still get insulted in the street.  But it's rare now.  Mostly I "pass as a woman" or get stared at as people try to figure me out.  Passing through the fire has been worth everything.

I still get surprised by the good reactions sometimes.  In the autumn of last year I gathered my courage and joined a new women's choir.  The first time I'd ever intentionally entered a women only space.  I admit my initial surprise and continuing thankfulness.  Everyone there accepted me without a single question or second thought.  It's a wonderful place.  It's not always like that.  The second time I tried to join a women only group I was told by the organiser it wouldn't really be the right place for me as a transgender person and that I could well not be safe there.  I was banned from turning up at all.  Later she relented and said to come but it was too late.  There was no way I was going to bother with such a space.

People say things that still take me by surprise.  After forty years of living male - and thinking being trans made me a monster - it will probably take many years before I cease to be amazed at times.

A couple of weeks ago I was joking around with someone who knows I'm trans and who I know accepts me as woman.  It still caught me when she said words to the effect of "I could never fancy you anyway because I'm not a lesbian!"  Ignore that the sentence makes bisexuals invisible - she wouldn't do that except in joking around sentences.  I was so happy.  Her words just showed her total and complete acceptance of this woman with no doubt, no question, no hint of a worry.

When I am accepted like that it makes social transition worth more than gold and diamonds.

When I accept myself like that it makes inward transition a place of great peace.

Because A Jigsaw Puzzle Is More Than Just A Good Companion

37. Puzzle: Write about putting together the pieces of puzzles.

My childhood was a place of jigsaw puzzles.

Over the course of several years my family became happy little wheeler-dealers.  To begin with there was no selling.  My dad had built up a collection of model Porsche cars for reasons known only to himself.  Towards the end of her life my mum said she thought my dad might be autistic.  I can't know for certain whether she was right of not but she was right about me and perhaps that collection of cars was the product of an autistic special interest rather than just being a perfectly ordinary collection.  As the collection grew my dad decided that he would become an exhibitor, displaying his cars to the public at various fairs.  We would become one of those strange families at rallies.

If you've ever been to a steam rally you'll have seen similar families lined up along the length of fields.  They sit behind their cars and on the ground before them is a steam engine.  Sometimes it's arranged in some manner that it actually does something - heats a cup of tea, rotates a toy, or moves a little saw back and forth.  Sometimes these little engines do nothing beyond sitting there making a noise with a six inch long piston moving backwards and forwards.  We had a name for these gadgets.  A name I've long since forgotten.  Something like futter-futters because they all make a futter noise but don't do much else.  The people sitting between their futter-futters and their cars don't ever look very bored though.  They love their machines, are passionate about keeping them running and showing them off to the world.  They love each other too.  Many friendships are formed around these unpurposed machines.  Perhaps marriages have been formed too.

For a while we became one of these families.   But NOT one of those?  Oh no.  We weren't like those people.  Dread to think it!  We were of a different sort.  The model car sort.  We had our place at tables in large marquees.  We were more special than the engine people.  At least that's the way it felt to me.  We would sit for the day.  Displaying.  Selling was against the rules.  Unpack a bunch of toy cars (sorry, model cars, get it right) in the morning, sit for the day (I was bored), and then pack up the toys (models) at the end of the day.

Yes.  I did admit it.  I was bored.  I got so bored at one of these rallies that I drew some very bad pictures of people and attempted - without success - to sell them to members of the public who consistently smiled sympathetically but never agreed to part with fifteen pence.  Fortunately, not being an official exhibitor meant nobody told me off for breaking the conditions of my contract agreement.  My dad didn't get told off either.  Through exhibiting regularly he met people.  Fellow enthusiasts for three inch long versions of Porsche cars.  They were envious of my dad's massive collection.  Eventually he began to complete under the table deals, buying model cars and selling them at a profit.  If he had been discovered he might have been cast out of car rally club.

As time went on we gave up exhibiting at those rallies and became bona fide dealers.  I like to think I had something to do with this because I was the first active dealer of the family.  A second hand bookshop opened in the town centre and in its advertising was the statement, "WE BUY BOOKS!"  I considered this.  Considered the books I owned and which I didn't need any more.  And one afternoon took a bag of my books to the shop, selling most of them.  Thoughts churned in my head over the following week.  Especially this thought:  "That shop paid me on average forty to fifty pence for those books.  I can buy books at a jumble sale or car boot sale and often only for ten pence.  I wonder ..."  I wondered a lot.  Would it be possible to buy books and sell them at profit?

I had to try so one weekend I spent a few extra pounds on books I didn't want.  And that week I took them to the shop.  My mum was so embarrassed and she said so.  Said, "You can't do that, it's embarrassing."  The shop didn't buy all the books.  But they bought enough.  I had made money.  I enquired as to which books were most in demand at the shop because I realised my money making could be refined.  Later I learned that the bookshop in the market had a different customer base.  The woman who ran it was very nice indeed and for a while much of her stock came from me.  I was a thirteen year old boy buying armfuls of "women's" romances.  Eventually I was selling more than one hundred books a week. It wasn't really work but I was making far more money than I ever would have done from a Saturday job.

Perhaps my entry into the world of book dealing affected my parents' attitudes.  Perhaps not.  But pretty soon they had booked up to have a stall at a toy fair.  A proper fair at which dealers sold toys.  I believe our first fair was at Henfield.  We had half a stall.  Just half.  The other half was run by one of my dad's work colleagues and his family.  Graham wasn't a Porsche man.  But he was a model car man and when I think about him I wonder whether he was autistic too.  Perhaps his children - it wouldn't surprise me if either of them have sought a diagnosis in adult life.  Autistic head canon is a marvellous thing!

We didn't know what we were doing at that fair.  Didn't quite know what they were about.  So it was an eye opener as we walked round and saw the range of things people were selling - both new and second hand.  My dad managed to sell things though and it hadn't been a bad day.  It was decided that we could do it again.  And if we found more things to sell perhaps we could graduate to the point at which we could have an entire stall.

And that's what happened.  We became toy dealers, raising a little extra money for ourselves.  It was a fortunate turn of events because we weren't rich.  My very posh voice is not reflected by an affluent childhood.  Without our dealing we would have struggled, just as we would have struggled without jumble sales.  As things developed we would have two stalls at toy fairs with specially constructed shelves so we could display the maximum amount.  My dad had one stall devoted to model cars.  My mum had the other, devoted to all the collectable things we had picked up at boot sales.  For a while we also sold at book fairs.  Then there was the period my mum had a big stall at the indoor market in Horsham.  People loved us.  We sold cheaply.  My mum got ill while we had that stall so I ended up having to both find the stock and run the stall.

At the toy fairs we sold whatever we could sell.  The paraphernalia related to TV shows and movies that passed through our hands would today be worth a fortune.  In the 1980s it was easy to find all kinds of amazing material that you just don't see today.  We all collected too.  For reasons I didn't quite understand I was a Man From Uncle collector for a while.  My mum's Magic Roundabout collection was very impressive until she suddenly decided the didn't want to have it all, at which point it was sold.  At a profit of course.

Then there were the jigsaws.  We bought and sold them too.  I think our jigsaw life began as a result of that first toy fair in Henfield.  It may even have been billed as a "Toy and Jigsaw Collectors' Fair."  The man who ran it was at that time the local vicar and he was a jigsaw lover.  The fair was an overflow for his passion and many jigsaw freaks attended and exhibited or sold.  Tom was a force of jigsaw nature and began the national society for jigsaw lovers, The Benevolent Confraternity of Dissectologists.  Honest.  It really was called that.  My mum joined up straight away.

From that time on we had a house and garage filled with jigsaws.  I thought about them just the other day.  For several months our dining room table (a misnomer because it's in the kitchen) has been covered with lots and lots of junk that needed sorting and either putting away or throwing away.  In the week just gone I got the table clear and the thought crossed my head, "It's clear enough for a jigsaw, just like when I was a child."  As a child there was very often a jigsaw in progress covering the dining room table.  It would be placed on a large wooden board so it could be moved if we wanted to eat a meal.  And then it would be returned.

Those jigsaws.  Hundreds of them.  Possibly thousands over the years.  When my mum died there were at least a hundred of them still in the garage waiting to be completed and/or sold.  Still there, even though she hadn't completed a jigsaw for some years.  Jigsaws were a part of our lives.  I remember them well and getting lost in puzzles was one of the better parts of childhood.

The situation was often the same.  My mum would sit on one side of the table.  The jigsaw would face her and she would be at the bottom.  This meant that I had to be on the other side and had to stand or I wouldn't be able to reach.  I was at the top and the main consequence was this:

I became a grand master expert at sky.

If a puzzle contained lots of sky it was me who had to put it together.  A billion pieces, all nearly the same colour!  If there was a railway scene I'd be putting together a big section of smoke.  My mum got the colourful and varied bottom section.  I got the always-less-exciting top.  But I didn't particularly mind.  I liked the challenge.  I liked the feel of the pieces, each bobble and dent a sensory joy.  I liked the sensation of putting in a correct piece where sky met sky.  Knowing that each piece had its place, that everything fit together, was a calming influence.  The jigsaw became a symbol of the ideal life.

Sometimes of course I got the chance to complete a puzzle on my own.  I got to do the pretty sections and that was my relaxation.  Nowadays everyone is into mindfulness.  Jigsaws were a very mindful pastime for me.  There's been a craze for adult colouring and even adult dot-to-dot books (I own one) but if all we adults could just agree that play is a good thing then there would be no need for crazes.  We would just play and be a lot healthier as a result, dropping all our ideas of "that's just for the children."

My favourite jigsaw puzzles were the Good Companion series.  Especially the Type A and Type B puzzles.  They were numbered, an essential for the happy collector.  We weren't jigsaw collectors but if I had been it would have been the Good Companion puzzles I would have hoarded.  They each had a picture I loved, of transport, markets, a television studio, a rocket workshop, all skilfully painted in the Good Companion style.  The pieces were excellent to handle and the puzzles had a very reassuring smell.  They were also the ideal number of pieces.  You knew you would have lots of enjoyment.  But you also knew you would finish the puzzle on the day you began, that three weeks later you wouldn't be wallowing in frustration and desperation with a thousand pieces of sky still to fill in.  A Good Companion had over 400 pieces.  That's what the box said.  We knew though that each puzzle, if complete, contained exactly 408 pieces.  Useful knowledge indeed!  We would count the puzzle before attempting it.  If it had 407 pieces we could still sell it, at greatly reduced price.  But if our jumble sale purchase only contained 406 pieces there wasn't any point continuing.  Another jigsaw for the bin.

The image at the top of this post is a Good Companion.  It's number 61, Air Display and I took the picture, without permission, from http://www.puzzlehistory.com/gdcmpn.htm  That page has a list of all 177 numbered puzzles - though of course the first 80 are best.  I think in my childhood every one of those 80 and many of the rest passed through my hands.  Complete.  It would almost be pleasing to have a complete set now.

Almost, but not quite.  That was a part of my childhood which is good for reminiscing.  It's not so good for repeating.  But who knows?  Maybe I'll see some Good Companion jigsaws in a charity shop soon.  Maybe they won't have decided that since they're not brand new they must be worth a stupid amount of money - which they aren't.  And maybe one day I will complete Air Display again.  Who knows?



[2236 words.  Ouch.]