Prompt 7 - The Rocket Ship. "The Housewife and the Magazine"

The seventh writing prompt taken from http://thinkwritten.com/365-creative-writing-prompts/

The aim is that each day I will free write - or write - something arising from the prompt given.  A week into the challenge I am enjoying myself immensely.  Even though I protest and complain!

Today what follows after the complaint and the delaying is a 2,500 monologue by a housewife who is given a special opportunity.  I'm sure it could have been longer.  Or shorter.  Apart from looking up a few things to check facts and returning to add a paragraph it's all pretty free-written as it fell from my head.  I haven't edited it.  At all.

The image below is a real photograph, taken from a climate satellite in orbit around us, one million miles away.


The Rocket-ship: Write about a rocket-ship on it’s way to the moon or a distant galaxy far, far, away.

Note:  Did you spot it?  I didn't put it there though I confess to have made a similar mistake in my life.  Yes.  It's there.  A misplaced apostrophe.  I am willingly writing from a prompt containing a misplaced apostrophe.  Were I perfect in typing I might have cause to complain.  But I am imperfect and my writing is filled with errors of spelling, grammar and style.  Sometimes the passive is even used.  And I have even let fly with a misplaced apostrophe when typing at speed.  Its becomes it's and I don't even notice though I know it's wrong.  Except there when it's is right.  I spot it when a café sells "panini's" and stand amazed when the expensive signage on a shop front says "BARGIN!"  A typo is one thing.  A typist who struggles with grammar or spelling or both, for whatever reason, is another.  Both are normal.  Both are acceptable.  But when that signage contains glaring errors - in Sunderland a shop sign says it sells "confectionary" - I pause to wonder.  Why don't people think to check these things before paying lots of money for a sign?  Why do they take such little care in what is the public face of their business?  Why do café menus often contain a dozen mistakes or more?  Is it a deliberate ploy, just for the entertainment of the happy customers?

Note:  Did you spot it?  I didn't put it there although I have made similar mistakes.  There's a redundancy in that writing prompt.  The galaxy is far, far away.  So naturally we may assume that it is distant.  It's not going to be a close galaxy far, far away.  Most people would understand that without too much strain.  It's redundant!  But that's okay.  Sometimes redundancy is a writing tool not an over-use of words.  Sometimes it builds on imagery.

All of which is a delaying tactic.  I'm currently sitting in the silent working room of the Literary and Philosophical Library in Newcastle.  I'm here because it's a location without distractions.  Except for one.  I am the distraction.  I made the mistake of coming here with myself.  I've been almost well behaved though.  I sat in one part of the room and decided it was far too cold.  I went back upstairs and decided that I wanted the silence after all.  So I'm back down here in a different part of the room and there's nothing to distract me.  Except for the internet.  Except for any game I choose to play.  Except for the books which surround me.   Nine shelves high on either side.  Close enough that I can reach to left or right and pull out a book.  These particular shelves are filled with literary biographies and histories.  To my right I see Siegfried Sassoon writing about the wealth of youth.  I think I squandered my own wealth and it's only now I am discovering a little of what remains.  I see the reminiscences of Joseph Conrad, the letters of J. M. Barrie, and the autobiography of W. B. Yeats and I wonder whether such works would help in my own desire to learn to write.  Someone suggested to me that the diaries of Robert Musil might be of use, that they form the greatest book on writing ever written.  They are not owned by this library.

I am highly skilled at delaying tactics.  I am here to remove distractions.  It's okay.  I'm not too distracted.  And so to the writing prompt.  Notes: I know that the events below wouldn't happen.  I don't know why the interview took place where it did.  And I know that this woman has a lot more to say about the mission and would dearly love a chance to explore her feelings.  She wants me to spend more time with her.  Maybe one day I will.

_____________________

Image taken from this page.

The Housewife and the Magazine

Stone's the name.  Lucy Stone.  Twenty-seven years old and a housewife from Surbiton.  That's nothing to be ashamed of, being a housewife and all that.  Nothing at all so don't look at me like that as if I'm not a proper woman, as if feminism has passed me by and I'm a slave to some version of patriarchy.  I chose this life.  It suits me and I love it.  Me and Jill, well we've got three gorgeous children we have.  All adopted.  They're all little bundles of joy mostly and big handfuls of trouble too sometimes.

Sam's the oldest.  He's seven and we fostered him first.  He was in a children's home because his own parents had left him there.  They couldn't cope you see.  It's sad but it's not their fault quite.  Sam's autistic and that comes with a whole bundle of challenges.  But he's amazing and we love him and couldn't imagine life without him now.  He's in a good school, well suited for people like him and he's making lots of progress.

And then we adopted twins, Sara and Tara, both utterly gorgeous.  They're five now and just started school last term.  They're really bright and I was so proud of Tara when she played the part of the angel Gabriel in their school play.  She was brilliant and then on came Sara as one of the wise men.  They had six wise men they did.  They didn't just bring the normal gold, frankincense and myrrh.  It was just the funniest thing when they brought their gifts of shower gel, maltesers and a copy of the A to Z.

That's our family, five of us.  And a cat.  Oh, mustn't forget Speckles and Sparkles.  They're our rabbits.  We couldn't be happier.  We're not rich by any means but we have enough and try to make each day as colourful and bright as we can.  We like to try new things, challenge ourselves and in our house the word "impossible" is banned.  "Just go for it," we say.  "What's the worst that could happen," and we lift each other up and if it all goes wrong then never mind because we tried our best.  Our walls are covered in art made by our children.  Well, we call it art.  It might all look like a mess to you if you saw it.  It's all colour and it's all memories and our house might not be perfect and it might not get featured in any of those horrible programmes about how your house should look like this and have these styles and designs and a whole load of nonsense.  But it's our home and it's full of comfort and warmth and don't judge me that it's not all neat and tidy because we like it as it is.

And I love my housewife life.  It's just the best.  Jill would hate it.  She loves being out at work.  She's a natural therapist and to be honest I think a few of the things she's into are a bit woo, but she's popular and people keep coming back so she must be good at it.  I thought that once the twins were safely ensconced at school I might train up as something too.  After the last few weeks I know I'll find lots of new challenges.  I've got a college degree of course but two years into a politics course I decided that it wasn't for me.  I'm not going into politics no matter what.  I'd be awful and it would be awful for me.  At college I used to go to political meetings.  I tried to be one of the radicals, join in with the enthusiastic speeches about everything that was wrong and how we were going to fix it all.  Now I think that most of the people there couldn't fix a leaking tap let alone a society.  It was all just nonsense dressed up as clever words and discontent.  I couldn't fix a tap either back then but I can now.  I've taught myself to fix most things in the house and I learned to make furniture too.  Me and Jill, well we share a bed of course but I made the bed.  It's six foot wide in a strong wooden frame.  I have one single mattress.  A soft one.  And she has another.  She likes a hard bed.  Our bed is luxury and with two duvets nobody ever gets cold.  Can't beat our bed.

I'm not sleeping in our bed at the moment though.  I'm sleeping in a bunk that's not much wider than me.  I've left home for a while and I'm doing something amazing.  Looking forward to being back I am.  Another week and I'll be there again all being well.  It's been quite an experience but I don't want to leave my family ever again.  I miss them every second.  Every second.

You see, what happened was this.  Like I say, we always push each other to try new things.  Well it was Jill who saw it first and read it and thought about it and said to me that it might be for me, that I could do it.  She was joking of course.  It was a silly idea.  When she gave me the magazine and I looked at the advert I knew it was silly.  They wouldn't want someone like me.  Christ no.  Not like me.  I'm just a housewife, ordinary and happy.  But I joked back and said that I could give it a go if she thought I could.  She laughed and said I'd look good in a helmet.  But then as we lay in bed that night she said, "Well why not?  What have you got to lose?"  She told me to try.  Said I should apply.  And she was right.  What was there to lose?

So the next morning I retrieved the magazine from the recycling bin.  I keep thinking that we shouldn't put magazines in the recycling bin and that we should give them away to people.  They're not cheap you know.  If we all shared our magazines they could be read lots of times and we would have a lot more of them to read.  I should suggest it when I'm back home.  Back to normal life.  The last month has been anything but normal.  It's been amazing.  Stunning.  But I miss my kids so much.

I read the advert again and decided that I would apply.  They asked for a woman aged 25-30, of average build, and without any major health problems.  That was me.  I knew I wouldn't be accepted.  I wouldn't be the one.  I thought they would have thousands of applications and mine would be thrown out at the first hurdle.  But it wasn't of course else I wouldn't be here now looking out of the window at the moon in the sky and the earth beyond.

The advert could have been a joke in itself.  I thought it possibly was.  Some scam - although I didn't see what the scammers had to gain.  Or some prank from one of those comedies preying on the gullibility of the public.  But maybe it might be fun anyway even if it was all a sham and some version of Jeremy Beadle would jump out on me with a big microphone and everyone would laugh.  The advert asked for volunteers to be the first woman to fly solo around the moon.  I ask you, would you believe an advert like that?  I applied anyway and wrote and said yes, I'd love to fly around the moon and would be able to be free for the period specified.  I was sure my mum would help with the kids but pretty sure she wouldn't have to.

I couldn't have been more surprised when a letter arrived asking me to come to an interview, combine with a behind the scenes tour of Jodrell Bank.  It was ever so exciting and Sam's pretty obsessive about the hunt for aliens and he must know almost all there is to know about UFOs so I called them straight away and said I'd be there and asked if I could bring Sam on the tour, explaining about the autism and how much it would mean to him.

And there we were, just a few weeks later, taking the train up to the north.  Sam couldn't have been more excited and when he first saw the big dish he screamed with happiness.  Couldn't contain himself and the taxi driver nearly had a heart attack I think.  Sam had a brilliant day.  They gave him the full tour and he got to press buttons and see what they do and before we left they gave him a big bag of souvenirs.  Not just a hat and a badge from the visitors centre but some really special space things from the scientists and a soft toy of an alien they had found somewhere.  He's still cuddling it every night and the souvenirs are all lined up neatly on a shelf in his room.

There were maybe a dozen other women there that day being interviewed for the role.  We were all pretty excited at the prospect of winning but I saw those women and thought that surely some of them were far more suitable than me.  They would want a scientist, not a failed politician.  They would want someone in peak physical fitness, someone with a gym membership they actually used.  I'm not unfit but I'm hardly an Olympian.

I was just there for a good day out so I didn't worry much at all about the interview.  That was in a well lit office and I sat before a panel of three judges.  I'd had to leave Sam which was a bit of a worry in case he had a meltdown but he was okay and spent that time sitting happily while one of the scientists showed him pictures of Jodrell Bank and the things that might be discovered there.  They asked me a lot of questions they did.  About my life, about my family, about why I wanted to be an astronaut and why I'd applied.  The thing is, I'd never wanted to be an astronaut and didn't think I'd be wanted.  I just wanted to push myself a little and see what happened.  I said I knew I wasn't suitable at all and said how shocked I was to be thought of for an interview.  I was just ordinary and happy that way and happy to be giving my son such an amazing day.  I thanked them for the opportunity and then left.  I was pretty sure that a woman called Lisa would be chosen.

Then Lisa wasn't chosen was she?  And neither was confident, clever Crystal with the perfect teeth and the degree in physics and a body carefully honed to perfection in a thousand gyms and on a thousand sun beds.  None of them were chosen.  They chose me.  Little me.  Housewife from Surbiton.  Queer.  With three happy kids.  With reasonable GCSEs in science.  And content to keep house and love my family.  They chose me.  Well you could have knocked me over with a feather I was that shocked.  They phoned to tell me and I had to sit down and kept asking them if they'd made a mistake because what about Lisa and the rest?  I told the man on the phone that he must have got it wrong and to check again and asked him if he was having me on.  Well it wasn't a mistake was it?  They really had picked me out of all those other talented women.  Me.  Lucy Stone.  I was going to be an astronaut.  I was going into space and I would see the dark side of the moon.

And here I am.  Half way through the journey.  I'm in orbit about the moon.  It's sixty miles away and every two hours I'm back where I began.  I won't be getting any closer.  I won't be landing or anything like that.  I've seen the dark side of the moon now and I can let you into a secret.  It's not dark.  At least, no darker than the light side.  You probably know the science so I won't bore you with all that stuff about rotations and revolutions and how it is that only one side ever faces the Earth.  Well the other side gets sunshine on it too.  It's just that we don't normally see it.  I've seen it and I can tell you this.  It's just a load of bare rock.  Just like the light side - the near side.  Just with different craters.  It's all a bit ordinary really once you've seen it a few times.

All a bit ordinary.  But I'm still as excited as anything.  Apart from when I've had a job to do on the capsule I've been pretty much glued to the window.  This ordinary piece of rock is the most extraordinary thing I'll ever witness.  This dead thing contains more life in my mind than anything else I've ever seen before.  Except my family of course.  I'm the luckiest woman in the world I am.  Can't deny that because it's true.  I don't want you to think I've got a downer on the moon or anything like that.  It's awesome and when I see the earth too that's even more awesome that all us billions of people live on that little circle in space and that we haven't got another home and that we don't look after the one we have.

Having seen the earth from space I will never again recycle a magazine that only I have read.  Yeah I won't will I?  None of that waste if I can help it.  Ha ha.  Come to space and decide to reuse things.  Because the world deserves it.  It's not just going to be that though is it?  It can't be.  Not now.  I don't know quite what I'm going to do.  So many choices but I've got to do something to help the planet survive our craziness.  It doesn't matter though.  It's not as if I can start any projects right now, not when the moon is so close I can almost reach out and touch it.

Well, I'm going to be out of range again in a minute, back on the dark side.  See you again soon my lovely planet.  Thanks for listening.  This is Lucy Stone, space housewife, signing off for now.  I'll be here another couple of days hanging in the vacuum above the moon.  I can tell you this.  Sam's going to be disappointed.  There's no sign of aliens here.  He knows the moon is a rock not a spaceship really but he likes the idea that it's artificial.  He's so clever.  And he's important.  We all are.  Take care of each other until the next transmission.  I'm waving.  Love you all.  Be good.

And don't throw away a magazine if you can give it away.

Prompt 6 - Eye Contact. A First Meeting And An Autistic Manifesto

Eye Contact: Write about two people seeing each other for the first time.

A story:

I remember it with what I believe to be a crystal clarity yet I know that my memory is undoubtedly cracked and coloured by dreams and contains a mix of reality and shadows.

I saw her in a station car park.  Standing.  Alone.

I too had arrived in the station car park.  Standing.  Alone.  Afraid.  Excited.  Bewildered.  Surrounded by strangers.  Hopeful.  Anxious.  Four days of the unknown awaited me and though I had prepared and memorised and read written information over and over until I had accounted for practical eventualities there were still social eventualities and the uncertainty of a half-made timetable.

I stood and looked at the people there all waiting for transport to take us to the event, the festival, this shared celebration.  Some had experienced this event before, returning again and again in love with this autistic space.  They talked with each other.  Some of them even hugged one another.

Others, like me, like her, stood in that station car park.  Alone.  Looking forward perhaps to be wearing an interaction badge that said we found it hard to start a conversation but that didn't mean we didn't want one.

I saw her and knew instantly there was something special about her.  From outward appearances she seemed the most interesting person there.  Her clothes?  Well let's just say that they were a rule of their own, and showed her to be a rule all of her own.  She was bright, she was a sight for my eyes.

It wasn't just her clothes. There was something else.  I can't say what because I do not know.  And yet I knew she might touch my life in some way.  It happens like that sometimes.  I see a person and I just know that they are likely to enter into my life and cause an explosion, big or small, before staying part of my life or moving on.

She saw me too.  Dressed in black.  Dressed up to the ones.  Dressed to not impress.  On that day I was dressed to hide, to walk in invisibility, to be average, to never amaze.  She saw me.  And thought I looked boring.  She was right.  I did.

As we were taken from the station to the event we did not talk.  We sat in the same taxi and between us was a woman who turned out not to be Australian.  I think it would be different now.  I would be different.  The taxi driver didn't really know where he was going.  Nobody else did.  I did - because I'd worked so hard memorising a map.  And I tried to speak out the route but was unable to find the confidence to speak loudly enough to be heard or listened to.  Perhaps if the woman who exists now had arrived that day she would have been able to say which way to go.  Perhaps she would have been able to chat in the taxi.  The woman of that day could not.  That woman did not meet the eyes of another except by chance, a momentary fright before hastily looking elsewhere.

Later we met.  The interesting woman and the seemingly boring woman.  Initially refusing eye contact.  Because that would have been too much.

I noticed her hair and took in those colours again.  I noticed the way she stood and played and I wished I was able to play like that.

She noticed my bare, drab exterior.  She noticed the crookedness of my front teeth, uncorrected by teenage orthodontic work.  I looked a little like a cipher, a nothing.

We did not see each other's eyes.

Not until later.

Not until freedom came to me in the storm.

Not until I shed, for a moment, my boring exterior; my total control; my refusal to enjoy and release passionate laughter in the rain.  Not until transformation came, and friendship followed.  Now we see each other's eyes and in those depths everything is well.

That's a story.  A fragment of a story.  But it's only one story.  It's just one happy story of one person meeting another.  Many autistic people could write many stories about eye contact.  Because, for better or for worse, lots of us aren't very good at it.  We're just not.  And you know what?  That's okay.

If you were to meet me three things might happen:

1. I might meet your eyes and maintain "good" eye contact.
2. I might appear to meet your eyes and appear to maintain "good" eye contact.
3. I might not maintain "good" eye contact.

Which of those takes place is in part dependent on my anxiety levels, on how overloaded I am, and on all kinds of inner situations and capability levels.

If the first happens, I am meeting your eyes.  What's going on there?  I am breaking with an autistic stereotype.  Sometimes it's fine.  Sometimes I am able to do it and it feels okay.  Sometimes I am not swamped by the information pouring out of the windows to your soul.  Oh what a rubbish autistic person I am.  People have told me they don't believe I can be autistic because I can do eye contact.  Well bugger that for a game of soldiers.  [What an odd turn of phrase.]

Sometimes I am able to do it but it hurts.  God dammit it hurts.  Maintaining that eye contact produces a terrible headache and every portion of my being goes towards continuing to look at you.  Every portion.  There's nothing left.  If that's happening I won't be processing a single word you are saying to me.  I won't have a clue.  Not until I look away.  I've spent my life doing that and became a wonderful actor.  Almost all of the time people did not have a clue I was experiencing difficulties.  And what does it matter if I miss what someone's saying?  Most of the time it doesn't because nothing important was being said and I could fill in any gaps afterwards.

Sometimes I appear to be making eye contact when in reality I'm not.  I'm not looking at your eyes.  That's too hard.  I'm looking between your eyebrows or at your nose.  I've got to tell you that most people's noses aren't extraordinarily exciting to look at.  I've never seen a nose and wanted to pay for it to have a half-day portrait session and hang pictures of it round my house.  While it must be admitted I've not wanted to pay for anyone to have a portrait session that's not the point.

And then there are the times I just can't do eye contact.  On occasions I can't even manage it with the people I trust the most.  On others I can't manage it with the stranger or the acquaintance.  I just can't.  Even though I might have tried I can't do it.

And I tried.  I did.  I've spent my life trying.  Must maintain eye contact.  Must look at this person even though it's more painful to my mind than a burn is to my skin.  Must do it.  Must do it.  Look.  Look.  Look.  It's right.  It's proper.  Don't look away.  Don't be so rude.  What will they think of you?  You're fucking weak that's what you are.  You're stupid.  You're broken, a mess, and if you don't look that person in the eyes right now then you've failed.  You sodding failure.  Should be ashamed of yourself.  And you are ashamed.  That's good.  At least you've tied yourself to the whipping post and know where you belong.

Yeah, I tried.  Mostly I got away with it, suffering for the art of normalcy.  Breaking myself for the sham of socially acceptable behaviour.  I'm an actress and I trod the boards every time I met you.  I'm an actress and the show must go on and the jazz hands must razzle dazzle the world because without eye contact what would our relationship be?  I acted my way.  Sometimes I would feel crushed by this simple thing.  Yes, simple.  Compared to acting happy.  Compared to faking that smile.  Compared to telling you I'm fine even though I wasn't.  And of course that obvious one:  Compared to pretending to be a man, pretending there wasn't a woman screaming to be released.

I tried.  Because I believed.  I believed one whopping great whopper after another.  I swallowed the lies told to me by society.   There are so many lies.  So many customs and so many social mores.  So many ways we are told what to be and told to buckle down and fit in.

We're told this:  Eye contact is good.  Eye contact is an essential of face to face communication.  Over and over as children we get told that.  All of us do.  "Look at me.  Look, look, look, look, look."  If you look away it's a matter of shame.

Today I say this to you: That's bullshit.  Baloney.  Hooey.  Nonsense.

And I say this to you:  For those of us people, autistic and otherwise, who struggle so hard with eye contact it's oppression, it's one of the little murders inflicted on us by a social structure that does not accept us.

There's a reason why I said "good" eye contact rather than good eye contact.  It's because it isn't good.  And it isn't bad.  It just is what it is.  It's a social construct that people are used to.  It helps many of you communicate and that's fine.  But it's not a law.  It's not something to be enforced.

Across the country autistic children are rewarded for eye contact.  Penalised for avoiding eye contact and maybe for not considering eye contact at all.  Across the country children are told that eye contact is right and they are encouraged (forced) to participate in a custom they find painful.

Even adults can face compulsory eye contact.  It's frequent.  And sometimes it's unexpected.  At a Sunday Assembly meeting last year the keynote speaker talked of laughter yoga.  We were all expected to join in.  He said some shitty things to make us feel stupidly guilty and bad about ourselves if we didn't want to.  Or if we couldn't.  I'm sure he thought he was making a good joke.  So I got up too.  I joined in.  But then he introduced eye contact.  Compulsory eye contact.  Prolonged compulsory eye contact.  With a stranger.  And made us feel bad again if we didn't join in with it.  Well fuck that.  Fuck it.  Excuse my language but such behaviour merits worse than that.  I fell apart.  But not before grabbing my bag and walking out.  That meeting of the Sunday Assembly - a group of people I love meeting with - was a complete disaster for me.   I refused to be forced into that intimacy.  Had I not refused things would have been much worse.

Every time I am assessed - whether by the DWP, a gender specialist, a GP, or a job interview if there ever was to be one - they take note of eye contact.  When I see a gender specialist the statement "Clare maintained good eye contact" means I'm more likely to get referred for treatment.  When I see the DWP the statement "Clare could not maintain eye contact at all" means I'm more likely to score a point, even if I never score enough to qualify for some help.  Both statements by the way were completely true on the occasions they were written.

Today I say this to you:  No more.  No more.  I'm not going to live that way any more. 

I'm going to be a rebel.  Except in those assessments.   I'm not a fool.  I'll not rebel then.  Because I want help.  And I want treatment.

But if I meet you?  For the first time.  For the thousandth time.  If I meet you then that social rule can just sod off and stop causing me pain.

I'm autistic.  I can struggle with eye contact.  So what?  It's not wrong.  It's just me.  And if that causes you any concern?  Well get over it.  Because I choose to be me.  I hereby forge a new manifesto stating that nobody has to look anybody in the eye.

To enforce it in an autistic child who is in pain is close to cruelty.  To expect it of autistic adults is prejudicial.

If I don't look at you don't be offended.  It's not because I hate you.  It's because I don't want to hurt and do want to be able to process what you are saying to me.  To want eye contact is to want pain.  To enforce it is to break me.  From now on - if I can overcome all that lingering guilt - you're going to get eye contact on my terms.  Mine.

______________________

The above was pretty much free-written, the words were typed as they came to me.  If you want to read something more clearly written, a thought-out article rather than a rapidly felt-out stream, there are lots of good sources out there.  Here's one by Judy Endow, an autistic woman who helps a lot of people and has written many good articles and books.  http://ollibean.com/autism-and-eye-contact/

Thank you for reading.

Prompt 5 - Food. When Was The Last Time You Ate A Radish?

Free writing from the prompts found at http://thinkwritten.com/365-creative-writing-prompts/

Prompt number 5.

Food: What’s for breakfast? Dinner? Lunch? Or maybe you could write a poem about that time you met a friend at a cafe.

Image from www.loveradish.co.uk

We met at home, we did.
Just one evening to be together
One evening to rest in the gentle
Caress of quiet acceptance.
No plans to eat beyond the immensity
Of a brilliantly regular takeaway.

A perfect immovable feast
From an establishment serving us well
With high quality enjoyment
But low quality cleanliness.
There's no cause to fear:
A one star hygiene rating
Hasn't led to our deaths.
Yet.

Together we ate and savoured
Each prawn, each nut, each unwashed seaweed.
We laughed.  We shared.  We knew our safety
And then we lay back in a friendship
Finding strength in our shared silence.

The feast was gone
But she stayed on.
A bed was made, a plan was not.
In that realm of uncertainty we knew
That all would be well.

The morning came and together we decided.  She wanted to eat out and decided that she would treat me and take me and whisper sweet nothings in a tea room laced with more romance than tea.  I lie of course.  We wouldn't have any sweet nothings or sweet everythings.  We wouldn't have whispers filled with sour tastes or bitterness either.  And others would be welcome to all the romance floating in the air.  We would eat from a minimalist menu, drink from a maximalist menu, and hold each other in light and the love of sisters without a wish or whim to hold each other's hands.  We, more platonic than Plato himself, would know there was no risk of injury in sacred space.

So we dined.  In light conversation.  In silence.  In the reading of books.  In conversation.  In silence.  In books.  In circles and cycles and sensuality.  I don't lie of course.  Rich sensual stimulation of the sight and sound of the Sutra, of the smells, tastes, textures of the food we were served.

I was greedy.  Isn't it easier to be greedy when another is treating you.  I ordered the most expensive item from the short menu.  I'd do it again too if treating myself in that place.  We're not talking Michelin stars here.  We're not talking nouveau cuisine and fifty pound dishes containing fifty grams of food; three cubes of flavour and some artistically arranged foam.  That's not my style or her style.  We're talking a big bowl of vegan food for seven and a half pounds.

Now I don't do salads.  The last time I prepared a salad at home for myself to eat was ... trying to think ... straining to remember ...  The last time was ... never.  I don't do salads.  When I was growing up a salad consisted of some big lettuce leaves, some carrot, a tomato, and as a luxurious extra possibly a couple of radishes or worse still a piece of celery.  I couldn't imagine anything more unappealing.  Five foods I wouldn't eat arranged disgracefully.  Salad was something to be refused, something to be abhorred, something to prove the madness of a mother who claimed to like salads. The memories stick.  And I don't do salads.  Even today if any of those foods sat there in that form I would turn away.  I'd hold placards saying "No Carrots Here", "Let Us Leave that Lettuce Leaf", "Gelato not Tomato!", "Get Rid of Radishes!", and the famous banner of war, "God hates radishes!"

No salads for me.  Thank you very much.  And yet.  What did I order?  A big bowl.  Of salad.  It's true that there were additions - houmous, a garlic dip, falafel, roasted Mediterranean vegetables.  But the bulk of the bowl was salad.  I had ordered my nemesis, willfully invited my arch-enemy to sit with me at the table.  Like Jesus welcoming Judas.  Except with the prospect of eating.

I knew I was safe.  I'm going to level with you here.  Total honesty.  Cards on the table.  Face up.  All I have is a pair of threes so it's almost sure you'll beat me.  I'm going to lay down that losing hand.  And then I'm going to place a bet anyway.  Here goes.  My first three says that I was looking forward to that salad.  My other three says that I had ordered a salad from the Sutra before.

I do salads.  If they are the Sutra salads.  Or if they're the ones served at church meals I went to, prepared by a vegan with culinary flair.  Or, as it turns out, if it's the one served at a cafe I went to recently with another friend in another town.  The salads of childhood don't deserve to be given the same name as the salads of the Sutra.  They are not the same species.  It's no wonder my mother always had to give up on her diets.  With food like that who would choose to continue?  Who wouldn't reach for the nearest chocolate biscuit in simple desperation?  Had her salads been as rich and vibrant and full of knock-your-head-off taste as the one I ordered I suspect she would have only needed one diet and she might have stuck with it for life.  It is strange to me.  She claimed that salad was the best thing.  But those chocolate biscuits soon needed replacing.

Yeah.  I do salads.  I do.  However, this one had an extra challenge: It contained pieces of radish.

Radish.  RADISH!  It's not my greatest foe.  It's not a food that my taste buds resolutely categorise as satanic.  Sprouts are satanic.  And broccoli was part of the curse laid on mankind when Adam and Eve got themselves kicked out of the garden by a god who got unreasonably cross with them and couldn't find it in his heart to forgive them without bumping off his own son thousands of years later in a famously bloody death.  Eden contained no broccoli.  No sprouts.  And no celery.  My taste buds had told me so.  Too many times.

But radish.  I just avoided radish.  I am radishophobic.  In the true sense of the word.  It is a word.  Don't doubt me on that.  It's just a very new word.  Such a word needs to be added to the dictionary with urgency because I am not alone in being a radishophobe.  I'm a beetrootophobe too but that's another story and I wish I hadn't just thought of it because the beetroot image in my head now is enough to have given me a headache.  Enough of beetroot.  I have fear and loathing in Las Beetroot.

When did I last eat a radish?  Last year I asked several questions like that to a friend.  The friend from the salad from the other town.  She kept producing things for me to eat and I would ask her, "When did I last eat a persimmon?" or whatever food it was.  Sometimes the answer was many years before.  Sometimes the answer was never.  So when did I last eat a radish?  To the best of my knowledge the answer was never and I'd just known instinctively how terrible such a vegetable would taste.  Just the sight of a radish in the fridge when growing up was enough to create anxiety.  It's all wrong.  The colour, outside and inside.  The little micro-textures I can see even now.  A radish is wrong.

I know that if anyone had ever tried to force me to eat such a - god I haven't got words for such a dread item - I would have melted.  No radishes for Clare.  Even today as I sit and type and see radishes in my head, both whole and sliced - the sight in my mind of a radish being sliced is almost paralysing - my heart is racing and I have an urge to shout obscenities.  Even today I know that I would not willingly buy a radish.  I wouldn't choose to eat one if there was one in the house.  Ach, sometimes there's beetroot in the fridge but rarely a radish.  Keep those bloody things away from me!  It may be fair to say that I have some issues with food.

That salad from the Sutra contained little pieces of radish.  Not whole radishes - I'd have pulled them out and let them.  Not full slices of radish.  I'd have pulled them out too.  But slivers of radish.  I considered removing them too but felt a shame.  I don't think my friend would have minded.  She would have understood.  I know she would.  But I felt a shame anyway about wanting to remove tiny slivers of red and white from my otherwise very appealing salad.  (Why would anyone just use a lettuce when they can include rocket too?  Just asking.)

And so I picked out one sliver of radish.  One.  I was very polite and separated it with my knife and fork rather than digging in with my fingers.  I'm a very polite woman.  No serious breaches in etiquette here and I'll even put my knife and fork down correctly after eating.  I might hold them wrong but at least I put them down correctly - in the position that makes it easy for someone to murder me but harder for me to commit murder.  It's true.  Table etiquette is based on the prospect of death.

I then took that sliver of radish from my fork with my fingers.  A minor breach in etiquette.  That's all.  I think.  It was radish.  The equally evil sister of celery.  A thing to be feared, despised, avoided, shunned.  A vegetable to be vanquished.  Who will rid me of this turbulent radish?

And then I placed that sliver in my mouth, watched carefully by my friend.  I was overcoming a phobia and I wouldn't have done it without her watchful eyes.  Inside my mouth there was radish.  For the first time ever.

And it tasted okay.  Not the best.  But not the worst.  I'm not going to go out and buy radishes this week.  I wouldn't write home about it.  Strictly speaking not a lie.  I've just written from home about it.  There was no revelation of bliss but it was good enough to be able to swallow and good enough that I could eat the rest of the salad without great injury to my psyche.

I had eaten radish.  Eaten radish.  And there wasn't a congratulatory medal.  Not even a card praising my bravery in fighting prejudicial radishophobia.  I'd done it.

I'd only bloody gone and done it!




[1734 words]

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.

Prompt 3 - The Vessel. When Free Writing Is A Tale Of The Unexpected

Three down.  Three-hundred and sixty-two to go.  Here's the third writing prompt taken from http://thinkwritten.com/365-creative-writing-prompts/

3. The Vessel: Write about a ship or other vehicle that can take you somewhere different from where you are now.

The trouble with free writing is that I never know where it will lead.   I type this on New Year's Eve, not long before midnight.  I think there must have been something in the water today - or in the meditation group I attended this afternoon.  I promise that the vessel in this writing would have taken me somewhere different from where I am now - very close to the window I began with although, it being nearly midnight, I can't see the garden.   The plan was in my head.  I'd look out.  I'd see a boat.  I'd go somewhere in the boat.  A simple plan.  And then this happened instead.  1400 words later I stop the pretty free writing not knowing where it would lead were I to continue.

Perhaps in January I will find some answers.  Perhaps.  It could be the beginning of a beautiful discovery.  It's too late to find answers now.  And soon there will be a thousand fireworks to watch as the people of Newcastle conspire together to light up the sky in joyful explosions.

Sorry to leave you without an ending to this tale.  And to leave you without being taken somewhere different.  Tomorrow a new dance will begin and I will try to let it end too.



I looked out of the window this morning into the back garden.  The wind was blowing.  Powerfully, without shame about who it might alarm or what it might cause to change its journey.  Perhaps I should be more like that wind.  No more hiding.  No more fear that another might be hurt if I choose to fully live and express my being.  It's not a bad being.  I have some core personal values and, though I fail so often to express them in deed, I know they are mostly based on love not murder.  To be myself.  Without blame or shame or forever guilt.  To look upon myself and truly mean those words, "I am sorry - I forgive you - I love you - Thank you."  I can do it.  I will be like the wind and blow wherever I blow because in this is creation just as in the beginning.

I looked out of the window and to my surprise I saw a rowing boat.  Brightly painted in all the colours of the rainbow and a few beside.  Whoever painted the boat did not seem to fully grasp the enormity of the ways pink can class within a bright spectrum.  I hadn't expected to see a boat of any kind since our garden is not near the river.  The wind must have been more powerful than any I'd seen before.  Yet the trees seemed unworried by the gale.

A boat in our garden?  It seemed impossible that it could have been carried so far on the breeze and then landed upright and neat, oars still in place - bright lime green oars they were, adding to the discordance of the scene.  And what was I meant to do with a boat?  It would never fit down the path to the front of the house.  How was I ever going to get it out of the garden and back onto open water?   Would the owner want it back?  I'm ashamed to admit it.  I saw the boat and instead of appreciating it as a thing of wonder, a meteorological miracle, I fell into a panic.

But maybe, after all, it would be okay?  Maybe I could learn to live with the boat.  Turn it into a garden feature.  Fill it with earth and plant it with the finest shrubs.  Or fill it with gravel and plant it with anemones and sea cucumbers and the choicest kinds of kelp.  And drape bladderwrack from the bow and pretend my garden was the bed of the ocean and the good ship Wind Torn had been sunk in the tempest.  Or maybe not.  I thought afterwards about the impossibility of planting anemones.

I opened the back door and went out to see the boat, still dressed in dressing gown and slippers.  The inside of the boat was plain varnished wood and that seemed perfectly normal.  As normal as it could be considering it was a wind marooned boat in a suburban back garden.  The oars looked pristine.  In fact, come to think of it, the entire boat looked to be brand new or at least maintained so well that it could be returned to the factory for a full refund if I only had the receipt.

On the side of the boat, in large black letters, was the name.  Hope Costs Nothing.  I thought that a strange name but who was I to judge the names people give to their boats.  Or their cars.  Or their soft toys.  At least the name of the boat had some grain of truth to it.  It would have been equally true of course had it been named Hope Costs Everything.  Maybe more true.  Someone had obviously put a lot of hope into building this lovely craft and lovingly painting it.  Where was that hope now that the boat was washed up in a waterless garden?  I could hardly row my boat across the lawn.  The oars would wreck the turf with every stroke.

Then a voice.  "Eeuuurgh! Eeeeeeuuuuuurrrgh!"

I turned and looked and saw underneath the rose bush with thorns in his side, a man.  He was dressed as a Napoleonic sea captain with ripped clothes and his hat had fallen off revealing hair flecked with rainbow glitter.  His eyes were dark and his nose crooked as if it had been broken and badly set and his teeth were as crooked as his nose.

I called to him, "I say, are you okay there?"

He looked at me and answered, "Eeuuurgh!  A bit of help?"

"Oh God, sorry."

I rushed over to him.  "Let's get you up and inside and see what I can do for you.  I'm not sure I can help your clothes but we can get those thorns out and patch you up with a bit of witch hazel."

"No.  Not that.  I wouldn't want to trouble any witches.  Most of them are a little crazy and those that aren't ... well let's just say I'm not worthy of their help.  Could you help instead?"

I held out my hand and helped him onto his feet.

"Well that hurt.  It's that wind you see, sometimes it likes to play tricks on me.  There I was one minute rowing my way across my reservoir and back home for dinner and the next the wind has swooped down and picked me up.  It's done it before you see but not like this.  End over end it spun me and it was all I could do to hold on.  I must have lost my grip when we landed in your fine garden and passed out for a while.  I don't know what's gotten into the wind recently I really don't.  I'm worried that it's ill."

"Never mind about that for now.  Let's just get you in and patch you up.  I've got a sewing kit somewhere too if it'll help."

"Stitches for my wounds?  No thank you kindly no.  Not for me.  You hardly look qualified for that?  I must refuse your offer.  I do hope the wind isn't too sick.  Maybe someone's hurt it.  Maybe someone's stolen its beautiful crystal wand.  I do hope not.  Oh my, no."

He seemed quite the most peculiar man but I thought maybe it was just concussion and I'd have to call casualty and get some help.  I got him inside and sat him down on my couch.

"It's a comfy chair you have here, that's right it is.  I've never seen better, not even when I was hired by the Marzipan King to lead his daughter under the ocean and through the tunnel in the world.  His chairs were sumptuous but even they were not so soft as this.  His were far more purple though.  And he served the tastiest grapes it's ever been my pleasure to eat.  Have you met the Marzipan King?"

I had to admit that I had never met such a king or any king and that I didn't know quite what he was talking about.  A tunnel in the world?  What nonsense.  He must have knocked his head harder than I'd thought.

I pulled back his shirt and gently removed the thorns.  They hadn't penetrated deeply and I was able to cover the wounds easily enough, without the use of witch hazel in case he started worrying about the witchiness of the situation again.

"Look, is there anyone I should call to let them know where you are?  And would you like a cup of tea?  No, don't get up, you just rest there."

"There's nobody to call I think.  Nobody at all.  Unless you know my three cousins.  Faith, Hope and Charity.  Lovely women.  Could you call them?"

"Do you have their phone number?"

"Phone?  What is that?  Just call them.  I'd do it myself if I wasn't so shook up by my fall.  If the wind is sick then the sun and moon will begin to be confused and then day will become night and night become day.  What to do?  What to do?  And what is this tea you speak of?"

"Tea? Well ... it's tea.  It's just tea.  Don't you know tea?  It's a drink.  A hot drink usually.  Drunk with milk.  Or without.  It's tea.  I'll make you a cup anyway.  I'm sure it'll do you some good."

He nodded and then lay down on the couch and when I returned with the tea I found him snoring.  "Better leave him," I thought.  "I'll sort it all out when he wakes up."

Prompt 2 - The Unrequited Love Poem

Writing prompt 2, taken from http://thinkwritten.com/365-creative-writing-prompts/

2. The Unrequited love poem: How do you feel when you love someone who does not love you back?


Free writing.  As a poem.  I don't do poems.   Or unrequited love.

I've written a few poems in the past few years.  They haven't been good poems.  But they were poems.  Today I present another not good poem.

Maybe this year I'll start to write poems and learn something of the skills involved in such an art.  Maybe I'll read poetry too.  The classics of centuries old English literature.  Modern poets too.  Those I will meet and hear in workshops and performance spaces.  Those I will read in print.  Middle-class white British poets.  Working-class black Americans.  Learning from Milton and Blake.  Learning from the local writers.  Learning from Maya Angelou and Audre Lorde.

Maybe 2017 is a year to awaken poetry in myself.

I hope it's not also a year for unrequited love.  I was never good at dealing with an unrequited crush.  I don't want to think about what I'd put myself through with unrequited love.

Maybe only poetry would get me through it.  Poetry was my reaction to being called an abomination.  Perhaps it is a sound reaction.  Certainly more sound than the reaction from the woman below who lacks the ability to write.

I admit it.  This was not quite as free as yesterday's writing.  I've had to think about it.  All those lines of tetrameter.  Except for one of them which has a missing syllable.

I also admit it that the poem is not how I feel.  After reading it you will be pleased to know that.

If you could read it in my voice, with my intonation and at my exact performance speed that would be appreciated!

_________________

Twisted, twisted, twisted, twisted,
Burning stomach, heartbeat crazy.
I'm wrong, I'm wrong, I must be wrong,
To feel so much, to dream of her.

She breaks my soul each time she looks
at me, each time she turns away.
She knows I love, I told her so,
She laughed and said, "You don't mean that."

And yet I do, she fills my thoughts.
Desires can't be joked away.
My mind beats faster than my heart
My heart beats fast with no control.

She looks at me and sees a friend
A girl to meet but not to call.
She looks at me and holds my gaze
But won't consent to hold my hand.

Is there no way to stop this love?
No way to share my fire with her?
I cannot write or find a way,
To share this truth with honesty.


I scream, I want, but must repent.
Because of this I am not free.
Love's walls imprison me without
a hope that I will rest again.

Love's cruelty wounds. Love's evil scars.
Love is for me a crown from Hell.
In love there is no peace at all,
In love is death, In love my fall.

In love I am, in love I'll stay,
In love with pain's exquisite touch.
In love remain and she must know,
I'll find a way, and she will know.


And she will know, and she will turn,
And she will run, and she will fall,
Into my arms, in love also.
She must. Is there no other way?

Twisted, twisted, twisted, twisted.
My pain released because I know
that she will love and she will want
me. She must love, must give me love.

Twisted, twisted, twisted, twisted,
She will not look at me again
like that.  I'll make her gaze at me
And fix her smile and fix her hair.

And hold her close and will not care
That she is cold and she is quiet.
I love her still.  She'll love me too.
Her death is love forevermore.

Days of Gratitude - This Is The End, The Final Days of 2016

2016 is over.  If you are reading this then you survived all the highs and lows and the joys and sorrows.  Well done.  Give yourself a pat on the back.

This is the end.  The final set of gratitude diary entries.  It's January now and the first day in a year on which I'm deliberately not posting anything.  For me it's served its purpose and I am moving on to whatever exciting things happen this year.

2017 is the year for doing.  That was in part of a message received yesterday by/through a friend.  She's crazy but she speaks sense.  This is a year for doing.  Not just talking but doing.  Getting on with it.  Getting on with whatever the vision is and with embracing self and others and walking the path.  That's what my friend said anyway.  And do you know what?  On this occasion I believe her.

Perhaps the song by The Doors isn't appropriate.

Because this isn't just the end.

This is the beginning.


26^thDecember

Grateful to have tidied a room. I can now see the desk table again.

I put things on the walls again, securely, that had fallen off.

And my collapsing Catholic pictures now have the addition of a ten foot rosary, an essential item for any forty foot tall Catholic enthusiasts.

27^thDecember

Grateful for new writing ideas and for hope.

Grateful for sorting out the CDs I cleared out months ago and that selling some of them - not the ones in the picture - should nearly pay for my Lit & Phil membership. 

28^thDecember 

Grateful that I can move on from a game obsession after a week of wasting too much time.

I have reached this point.

 

Let's just ignore the thousands of user made levels and move on. A good idea!

29^thDecember

Crappy day of a PIP tribunal that didn't happen. They adjourned it. It was not pleasant.

Grateful for these tasty treats forming a most unhealthy dinner.

31^stDecember

Grateful to have spent the end of the year as I wish to begin the new. With family, crazy people, and friendship. With reading and writing. With walking and seeing the sea. With meditation. And with a lot of hope.

Grateful too for the way Blob Thing helped me in 2016. It's his first birthday.

Days of Gratitude - It's Getting Very Near The End

Yes it is.  It's getting very near the end.  I wanted to present to you The Beatles recording of the reprise of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band.  Unfortunately all the YouTube videos of that have been blocked on copyright grounds.  And that means that none of you will hear the performance and rush out and buy the album.  Instead, here's Cheap Trick.

The end is over.  It's January 1st 2017 and my challenge to post every day in the Sunday Assembly Gratitude Group for a year is complete.  I didn't quite succeed.  On average I missed posting on one day a month.  Now I'm moving onto other things.  I've started a blog to post free writing on as many days as I can manage it, without worrying about quality although hoping that generally the quality will improve as the year continues.  That blog can be found here.  I've started another blog in which I want to consider the Gospels from the New Testament from my post-church, post-Christian, post-theist perspective.  I also know that there will be many things I write this year that won't ever see daylight.  I'm just going to enjoy myself with it.

The gratitude posts helped me a lot in 2016 but in all honesty I am glad to be leaving them behind.  Maybe if the group had remained a place where lots of people posted I'd be happy to stay.  But it didn't.  There are so few of us and I know it's time to move on, with gratitude for the memories and gratitude for the change.

You can almost tell in these entries - or perhaps you can tell without a shadow of a doubt - that I have been quite looking forward to leaving it all behind.

I sit here on the afternoon of January 1st 2017 with reading books, writing books and with a Bible I wasn't expecting to be reading.  I sit here with unformed plans and hopes and know that the year will contain surprises, triumphs and setbacks.   I sit here believing that 2017 is a year for living more fully than I have ever lived before.

21^stDecember

Grateful for a quiet day. The tree is up but undecorated!

Grateful for reading, silly games, DVDs.

Grateful that though the exercise from the physio is (swear word) painful it should do some good for my spine and leave it slightly less the wrong shape.

22^ndDecember

Grateful that people have liked the story I posted a few days ago.

Maybe it could be edited, proof read (it has typos!) and tweaked and submitted somewhere for next Christmas.

23^rdDecember

Grateful that all the shopping is finished without too much pain.

Grateful that none of the things I had to in town were Christmas related and that they included seeking refuge in the Lit & Phil and browsing a magazine about writing.

Think I'm going to enjoy using that place as a refuge. Once I've bought myself a decent flask so I don't have to pay for tea that comes in mugs that aren't large enough and isn't chai.


24^thDecember

Grateful to have free written something about Christmas in addition to the 15,000 word story posted a few days previously.

https://theautisticwanderer.blogspot.co.uk/…/happy-christma…

Grateful to have photos from my childhood, showing a few edited highlights of those years.

This photo isn't in the blog but was taken on Christmas Day 1974.

25^thDecember

Grateful for a quiet day at home with no pressures and pain au chocolat for breakfast.

Beth bought me some maps and books.

Prompt 1 - The Weather Outside the Window

1. Outside the Window: What’s the weather outside your window doing right now? If that’s not inspiring, what’s the weather like somewhere you wish you could be?

The Weather Outside My Window.  But not the current weather.

Last night I slept a little better.  I'd taken extra drugs to help myself.  After the previous nights I knew that without some solid sleep getting through another day would be more challenging than I would like.  I aimed to be asleep by midnight and nearly managed that feat.  Nearly.  And I set the alarm by my bed.  A foolish move.  It's an alarm with a mind of its own.  Sometimes it will wake me by sounding as if it could wake people in the next street.  Often though it won't wake me at all.  It decides, "No, I don't want to sound an alarm this morning.  It's all too much effort today.  She will just have to stay asleep."  If my alarm clock was an old-fashioned knocker-up then nobody on this estate would get up on time.  If it was the knocker-ups' knocker up, a most important role, then the people of Newcastle would either sleep blissfully until mid-morning or wake early and scared and be in a bad mood for the whole day.  I should sack my alarm clock.  Sack it and just use the alarm on my phone which comes with the advantages of reliable frequency and volume.

It's not only that.  My alarm clock is on an old Roberts cube radio and CD player.  It is of an age.  And it buzzes.  That electric hum.  For at least a couple of years I have thought in bed, at least a few times a week, that I need to replace it with something silent.  It's not a complex job and most people would have completed such a simple task a year ago.  But I'm autistic and it's the kind of executive function thing that autistic people can struggle with.  I choose to play the autism card here.  It's less morale sapping than playing the useless sod card.  It's also got some truth to it.  Nevertheless, I'm going to get the job done.  I am.  Or just unplug that annoying, temperamental, demon possessed machine unless I want to play a CD, an event that becomes more of a rarity as the years progress.

I dragged myself out of bed this morning - well that's an odd chap of a phrase.  Dragged myself out of bed.  How does that work?  As I typed it the imagery was there, impossible in life but amusing.  Maybe though it's possible for a story.  If someone could drag themselves out of bed in the same way that someone else might drag them, willingly or kicking and screaming, what person would they be?  Would some part of their being split off to drag the other part out of sleep?  Or would this have to be a time travel thing - heading forward each night to get their future self up the following morning before returning to the sleep from which they have just woken themselves?  Would they be dragged into an upright position?  Or would they fight the process and end up falling to the floor each morning?  I think story-wise I prefer the splitting version of the character.  A bit of bi-location never did anyone any harm.  It's not a trick I've mastered but there are tales of holy men managing to be in two places at once.

So no, I didn't drag myself out of bed at all.  I got up.  Willingly but still feeling a little of the effect of extra drugs.  After dressing I opened the curtain of my bedroom.  It's a challenging task because I have so much in front of the window.  I have to climb the armchair to reach the curtains and that's a dangerous feat when feeling the effect of the drugs.  If ever I'm going to become a successful tightrope walker I'm going to have to get off the meds.  Perhaps that's not a likely scenario.  More likely is that I will never even join the local circus school.

The curtains were open.  Because I had just opened them.  And I saw it.  The weather.  Yes, this free writing is about the weather.  You've read through four paragraphs without even a hint of the weather outside the window.  This is only the first prompt and there I was writing about things that might only have been related to it in my own head.  Now I can mention the weather.

The window was completely covered with condensation.  It had been cold in the night, the coldest night of the winter so far.  I rushed to find the designated towel I use to wipe down the condensation from windows.  We don't have this problem with most of our windows but those in two of the bedrooms need replacing.  They are double glazed but you wouldn't know it from the insulation they don't provide.  That means as soon as it's cold we have a condensation issue.  It's an issue but it's not the end of history.

After wiping the window I looked at the street outside.  It would have been strange had I looked at the street inside.  I'm not sure we would have bought a house suffering the malady of having a road passing through the bedrooms.  It would make getting to the loo in the middle of the night dangerous.  As things stand the worst that happens is I might stub my toe on the legs of the bed.  If I was likely to get run over by a juggernaut I might choose to stay in bed and ignore the urgent cries of a distressed bladder.  Not that I'd be able to sleep very well with juggernauts crossing my bedroom tarmac.  I'm being a bit unfair there because the street outside isn't known for a proliferation of juggernauts.  It's a quiet cul-de-sac not a major trunk road.  Even so.  Exaggeration makes a point and who knows, they might want to build an extension of the A1 through our house.  It wouldn't be an ideal situation, especially for someone who couldn't bi-locate and guide themself safely to a toilet.

My head is now considering the homeless.  Those who sleep on the street.  Those who have cars and people passing through what is a bedroom of unfortunate circumstance.  They sleep.  They have to.  I am not sure I would manage such a life.  And yet.  They manage somehow.  Maybe that's a topic for another writing prompt.  This one is about the weather.  Not about what we are told to call "the homeless problem."  That's a phrase that psychologically has a subtle meaning that homeless people are the problem rather than homelessness itself.  While we might rationally know that the "problem" isn't "the homeless" it's a concept present in the phrase that we use.  They have the problem.  They are not the problem.

I looked.  The street was covered in a thick frost.  Ice.  The roofs of the houses were similarly covered.  It had been the coldest night of the winter so far, a reminder that winter in Newcastle can be a cold time and that not every day can be like Christmas morning when it was thirteen degrees.  Ice.  My thoughts turned to the winter and to the way our streets seem to be the most icy in the entire city.  On some days getting from our house to the main road can be a struggle.  This morning would be fine with a little extra care.  Not that I will experience it today.  I have to wait in for a parcel to be collected.

That's a pity because the sky was clear and it looked like the perfect winter morning.  All I wanted to do was eat breakfast and then go out and experience it.  The chill, the light, the sky the palest of blues, the stillness of the air and the way my face would feel that it might become as crisp as the grass.  I'd love to look at the ice on the plants if there were any - although the evergreen trees and shrubs seem clear.  I'd love to see it all and to travel and sit by the sea and listen to the calm of the water.

This is the morning for being outside and enjoying the smell of the cold.  But I am inside.  Waiting.  To be honest going out would be difficult today.  I have a very stressful appointment tomorrow.  It's my day in court.  And the thought of being out is almost too much.  Today is the day for surviving.  Not for thriving.  Not for being spectacular.

But God it looks good out there.  And I just received a text telling me that my parcel will be collected in the next hour.  So I don't have to wait.  Maybe I'll manage it after all.  See the sea.  Smile as the air juts against my skin.  And then find tea to drink somewhere and smile again.  I can try.

Oh the weather outside is delightful,
But my mind is something frightful.
But since I've got a place to go,
Let me flow, let me grow, let me glow.

Slowly:
(Bungalow, mistletoe, puppet show!)

Day one is done.  Written.  Four days early.  Okay, okay, I admit it.  I'm posting this on January 1st.  But it's not January 1st.  It's December 28th.  I'm getting a run up because I couldn't wait to begin.  This year I've posted nearly daily in a gratitude group.  I started that early too.  I won't be posting in the group next year.  It's been very helpful for me to keep up that discipline.  Hopefully I can keep up this new discipline and write freely.  I'm looking forward to seeing how this progresses.