Remember: You Deserve More Love, Not Less. Every Single Day

Yes.  Still ill.  I feel somewhat better today and was able to get out and do a few essential jobs.  I'm worn out now though and not up to writing a blog post.  Especially as I have to write a talk today.  It should have been written during the weekend but that wasn't possible.  Hey ho.  Illness.  It happens.

Instead of giving a new piece of writing - finishing that story or writing about the man who keeps the Earth turning - here's something old.

I saw the name Joubert yesterday.  It didn't belong to the Joubert mentioned below.  And I remembered this:  You deserve more love, not less.  Always.   It was helpful to remember.  When I'm ill and can't do everything I want I have a tendency to be unkind to myself.  I'm great at adding a few self insults when I'm already hurting.  Not so great at remembering I deserve more love and to offer myself more love.  Today, when not writing something new for this blog I find I want to metaphorically whip myself until I am very sore.  My instinct isn't to tell myself it's okay, that it doesn't really matter and that I am still deserving of as much love as I would be if I wrote a 5000 word story today.

So here today is something I wrote six months ago.

Love yourself.  And love others.  Even when standing firmly against what they stand for, love them.  And love yourself when you screw up many times a day in the matter of loving others and yourself.

Recently I attended a meeting of a not-church. I call it a not-church anyway. It's a meeting for people who are “guided by the life and teachings of Jesus” and who meet “in the presence of a God whose love is freedom, whose touch is healing, whose voice is calm.”

The people at the meeting are good people, seeking their God and I find it less difficult than most meetings. It's still hard though because every word in the little bit of the liturgy prepared for each meeting is phrased with theism in mind. It's a language that takes theism as a presupposition of a shared belief in an interventionist deity. I don't believe in that deity. I'm not sure that everyone there believes in the deity either. But the language, like the language of a church, is theistic.

It's not exclusive though and it's not evangelistic so usually I've been able to cope with it and just miss out what I couldn't say at all and translate the rest into my own meaning. That day I couldn't participate at all. Just as the meeting began my brain decided it had had enough of things and I spent the whole time wanting to walk out and sit in the sunshine. Perhaps that's what I should have done. Afterwards I left very quickly and couldn't speak even when grabbed for conversations, including one with a person who offered to buy me a ticket for an event in October.

The subject of the not-church this month was kindness. As always, the liturgy includes some quotations about the subject and after they are read there is an open group discussion – something that I can't participate in at all vocally because I can't deal with group discussions. My head just doesn't know the rules and can't process everything quickly enough. By the time it has something worthwhile to say the topic has moved on and even if I have something to say at what might be the right time I don't know how to break into the group and say it. Never mind. That's just how things are and they're not likely to change. The diagnostic criteria for autism still mention a triad of impairments. My inability in group situations is part of one of those impairments. It truly isn't my favourite part of my autism and it's one in which this so-called very high functioning autistic person is pretty severely impaired.

One of the quotations struck me:

A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.

Joseph Joubert

Joubert was a French moralist who died nearly 200 years ago. His Pensees were published after his death. I haven't read them – I hadn't heard of Joubert at all. Then again I never managed to finish the Pensees of Blaise Pascal either. I guess I will probably never read Joubert. But I guessed I would never read a lot of things that I have since read.

One of the members of the not-church discussion really liked that Joubert quotation. She talked about it. I wasn't able to speak and was rapidly sinking into a state in which it's quite difficult to even get myself home. If I had been able to speak I might have talked about this quotation too. Because I didn't like it. I still don't like it.

Joubert says “loving people more than they deserve.”

I take issue with that and ask a question:

How much love does a person deserve?

I believe that every single person on this planet deserves more love than they give themselves. They deserve more love than other people give them.

Basically, whatever is happening, whatever the situation, whatever a person has or hasn't done, a person deserves more love not less.

However they feel, however they dress. Whatever their gender or sexuality or race or height. Whether they are disabled or not disabled. Whatever their politics. Whatever their religion. They deserve more love not less.

Even if they treat us badly or treat others badly they deserve more love not less.

And for ourselves. We deserve more love not less. Always and at every moment.

My belief is not an original idea. I've inherited from others, and recently heard it expressed clearly by a spiritual teacher who has been known to use “more love not less” as a kind of mantra and as part of a liturgy. It's pretty powerful to look at a person we don't like and tell ourselves that they deserve more love not less. It's even more powerful to look at ourselves when we unfairly criticise ourselves and say “I deserve more love, not less.”

More love, not less. In fact I would say that we deserve total love. All of us. Total love. Constantly.

Joubert said “loving people more than they deserve” and I sit here typing about it two hundred years later. And I type this: Joubert's thought was nonsensical.

You cannot love any person more than they deserve.

You just can't. It's impossible.

What we need to aim to do is to love each person as much as they deserve. Total love. Always. If anyone lived according to that aim it was Jesus, a teacher of the way of love.

Unpacking that is hard. It raises many questions of how to love people as much as they deserve. It raises questions for what to do when we fail to love people that much. It raises questions of how best to love ourselves, and how to keep loving ourselves when we fall short of the aim of a life of total love. I am not even going to begin to attempt grappling with those questions in this post.

I think Joubert is not to blame for getting it wrong. He was living in a society with a Christian based morality. Even those Frenchmen who killed priests in various revolutions were really only removing a Christian establishment and morality and replacing it with what, beyond story, was just another Christian establishment and morality.

The Catholics of Joubert's day believed in original sin. They believed that God loved them but that loving them was in itself an act of mercy because they didn't really deserve the love of God, let alone to have God as a friend. The Church taught that each person deserves to go to Hell and suffer for eternity, separated from God in fire and torment and damnation. That's what humans deserve. Anything about that is mercy. It's true that the mercy story was rich – the loving, merciful God finding a “just” way to rescue the fallen, sinful humans from hell if they followed him and his son. But it's also true that the Church had a very negative view of human beings. Gee, thanks Augustine for developing that doctrine so well.

Every now and again you might have heard that we're all fearfully and wonderfully made or heard about the dignity of human beings. But the Catholic liturgy was based on the idea that we need to repent – and that one sin of the wrong type leads to Hell without that repentance and reliance on mercy. The Protestants of the day weren't much better and sometimes were much worse. Thanks Calvin, for outdoing Augustine – the very first point Calvinism makes is that every single one of us is totally depraved. It's not a good starting point for developing a healthy, loving view of the human race.

I confess that I used to go along with all this. Original sin. The fallen nature of human beings thanks to Adam and Eve eating some fruit. There was a time I even believed in the literal truth of that story, that there really were two people wandering around a pretty garden being tempted by a wily serpent. I believed that we were fully reliant on God for salvation, hope and anything that might be nice. I believed in a literal Hell once. And in literal human souls burning for eternity. I believed that the Bible taught it so it must be true. The preachers in my churches taught it too, straight from Scripture and you wouldn't want to go against what God wrote in his book, would you? Yeah, I believed people were fundamentally sinful. I believed I was fundamentally very sinful. I was a worm – as Scripture puts it. I was a wretch – as John Newton said in the hymn “Amazing Grace.”

I don't believe any of that now. It's been a long journey to get from there to where I am now, which is a much more free place. And I don't like that hymn any more because I am not a wretch. I was not a wretch. I just believed in my own wretchedness and acted accordingly.

Now I believe that humans are fundamentally good. It's a statement of faith. It would be easy to look at newspaper headlines and see the suffering we inflict on each other and to despair, to see the obvious faults – and let's face it, the way humans act is sometimes particularly awful and the way I act falls short of the way of love. But we're fundamentally good. And we're fundamentally deserving of more love not less. Yes, even those of us we see as monsters. To prove Godwin's law because it's fun to prove Godwin's law: Even Hitler!

Human beings deserve total love.

So. A rewrite of Joubert's thought is in order, removing all the nonsensical stuff about deserving or not deserving love.

“A part of kindness consists in loving people.”

But hey, that's not right either.

It's backwards.

I want to rewrite it again:

“A part of loving people is showing kindness.”

Yeah, that's better.

Love people. And in that love, show kindness.

Here endeth the lesson!

Those final words could have come from Jesus who said to “love one another.” He didn't say anything about deserve did he? Just “love one another.”

Sometimes it's good to be like the people at not-church. And as an ex-Christian I can say this too: Sometimes it's good to be “guided by the life and teachings of Jesus.”

[1694 words]

In A Time Of Illness The Blank Page Laughs At Me

Still ill.  I managed to get out on Friday and had a good time.  Then I sank again.  Yesterday was pretty rubbish.  I couldn't write a thing.  Today is looking like it won't be that much better.  By last night I was feverish for the first time in quite a while.  Mostly if I'm feeling rough and take my temperature the thermometer informs me that I am below average.  If I reach 36.5C it's a rarity.  If I hit that benchmark 36.8C it's front page news.  Last night I was way above that.  A proper fever.  Woo hoo!

I'm hoping to be able to write today.  I have a talk to write and the second half of that fortune cookie story.  And I was hoping to write a poem for a performance workshop today.  As it turns out I almost certainly won't be there and that's a sadness for me.

But there is this.  Written just now.  And published slightly later than I normally post these things.  Going away and then getting ill has stolen away any current hope of writing my posts a few days in advance.  I guess I'll get it back.  Just not today.

Blank page image from here.

Through black, blear eyes
I stare at an empty page.
It taunts me, jeers, tells me I am rubbish
For not being able to hold a pen
And make meaningful marks.
Each line shouting too loud
That it's not worthwhile me trying;
That nothing I could possibly say
Would be sufficient.
Each line a blank whiteness
An infinite possibility
And I do not have the guts to limit it
To my possibility, my vision and voice.
The page remains empty.
I look down upon it
More lost than an insignificance
In an ocean of dead calms and fire storms.
I cannot do it, cannot bring myself
To make the first mark
Scar skin with surgeon scalpel precision
I condemn myself too
Belittle myself because yesterday
This page remained just a page
A wilderness snow out in a sixty pence pad
Bought on a desperate day when
The word and sanity went hand in hand.
Today I am not a writer, not fit to be wordsmith
Today I am frightened, fogged, and anxiety asks
Whether I will ever be able to write again
Whether it's unrealistic to walk the artist's path
Whether this day is a sign I should quit.
The page abuses me, breaks heart and mind
Tells me I would only spoil its perfection
With the addition of inky contrasts.
And yet ... and yet?
The page is filled, the words written, almost outside volition.
Dark frustrated pen scratches but they are life
At least, life as I must live it today.
No less worthwhile than any other day.
The page was wrong and this scrawl not be Chaucerian
But it is my truth, undeniably embraced.

Musings On Another Colour On Another Day of Ill Health

Another day.  Another day of fog and illness.  I promised that today I would post the second half of the story I began yesterday.  Today I promise that I'll do it tomorrow.  I hope you can all bear the suspense.

Instead I'm going to muse on some more colours.  At least, one of them.  I'm just too exhausted today to think of exciting or dull things to write about the others.

Blue


The colour of pornographic movies.  A friend refused to believe that I was sweet and innocent until I told her that I have never downloaded pornography.  Why would I?  I confess I find the desire to watch or read about people having sex to be something my brain cannot quite comprehend.  Does that make me strange?  A question which, for reasons of my own, set my brain off singing a song called Jesus Freak to itself.  My best friends were not born in a manger.  At least I don't think so.  I've never asked them.

The colour of sadness.  During my life my shade of blue has often been indistinguishable from black.  And yet ...

The colour of the clear sky in which the sun shines.  At this time the sky contains almost as many shades of grey as to make it a pornographic bestseller.  Grey is a more blue colour than blue.  Blue is the colour, on a crisp winter day, that makes me glad to be alive and eager to have enough time and energy to walk beneath it by the ocean or in some wild place.

The colour of a Joni Mitchell song and album.  It's not the album I own.  And that's on vinyl, languishing unplayed.  I mention it because part of the song was played several times in the current National Theatre production of Hedda Gabler.  I saw it last week, with a friend who was not born in a manger.  We saw it screened to a cinema.  I find recently that half the people I know are intimately acquainted with Hedda Gabler and a wide selection of classic plays and literature.  I am not and that's unlikely to change soon because I'm finding it so hard to concentrate on reading.  I love books but I can't take in the contents.  That makes me blue.  At least I now know something of the story of Hedda Gabler though I confess it's not going to stay at the foreground of my mind for long.  She was sad.  She did some silly things.  She did some horrible things.  And then she killed herself.  Finally, someone said that people don't do things like kill themselves.  A completely erroneous statement to end a classic play.  It is unlikely that I will ever become a theatre critic.

The colour of the cold.  I associate it with chilblains even though they aren't blue, rather than frostbite and the painfulness of getting something from a freezer or having to chop a cold carrot.

The colour of the sea.  That's what they say.  Columbus sailed the ocean blue.  And began a tradition of oppressing the native peoples of the American continents that continues to this day.  The Mission was about such an oppression and powerful white men.  The church oppressed the locals and then the Jesuit missionaries were nice to them when they created what may have been the first socialist society on the planet.  Then they were killed by the oppressors.  That's the story in the movie.  Except in reality the socialist society was extremely rigid and authoritarian and not as freedom loving as Jeremy Irons' acting would make it seem.  His role was first offered to the then head of St. Beuno's Jesuit retreat centre in North Wales.  Someone from there led me through the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises.  Thankfully the good priest declined the offer.  If Ignatius walked in the sea he would have got very wet feet.  There was a purpose made hole in the sole of his shoe forcing him to walk in pain.  He called that a spiritual discipline and a penance.  I call it foolishness.

The colour of Buxton.  Not the place in Derbyshire that I won't be visiting next month.  Long story.  But the cat.  The blue cat.  From the classic movie "Dougal and the Blue Cat."  He says, "Blue is beautiful, blue is best.  I'm beautiful, I'm blue, I'm best."  He then replaces all of the colours in the magic garden with blue.  A sad day for Florence.

The colour of the fifth chakra, representing communication.  You want to communicate better.  Get something blue.  I have a blue stone I can wear over my throat.  I'm not sure that it improves my communication when I wear it but it looks good when worn with the right clothes.  I wouldn't know about that.  I am famed for my lack of colour coordination.

The colour of my cot blanket.  I still have it.  It's much smaller and much thinner than it was forty years ago.  If I hold it much more it will disintegrate entirely.  Fortunately I've been clutching a warthog in bed recently.  No rude jokes please.  Also the colour of the blanket in The Producers.

The colour of the creature which, poor thing, has been the wrong answer in questions in the panel game QI more than any other.  It's also been the right answer many times and on such occasions the panelists refuse to say its name in case it is wrong.  A blue whale fell from a great height onto the surface of Magrathea, where our own planet was designed by mice.

The colour of the Savannah in a song by Erasure released in 1990.  A friend in my first and only year at Bradford University was a big fan.  On occasions we would go to a bar, buy ourselves a packet of crisps and a pint of soda and something, and would proceed to win back the money on the general knowledge quiz machine there.  We knew not to gamble too much.  Don't go for the big money or we would lose everything.  Keep it small and we would know the answers.

The colour of a lampshade on the other side of this room.  It's a good shade.  It's a rubbish bulb.  One of the energy efficient bulbs that is less efficient in actually producing light.  With the light on there is not enough light to read.  Useless.  It's fortunate that I haven't been good at reading recently.



Indigo

This is NOT a colour of the rainbow.  A rainbow does NOT have seven visible colours.  It has six.  And indigo is not one of them.  We only think a rainbow has seven colours because of the influence of Isaac Newton.  He was steeped in the philosophies of alchemy and so knew that seven was a pretty special number.  There had to be seven colours in a rainbow.  Even though there were only six.  Because six wasn't a special enough number.  Indigo is a con.  It's often omitted from modern divisions of the visible spectrum.

That means I don't have to speak of it here.  That's convenient because my head is not jammed full of musings about it.

Indigo dye is the colour used for blue jeans.


Violet

I'd like to call it purple please.  No?  I'm not allowed.  Right then, I'm not going to talk about it at all.  Not the flower.  Not parma violet sweets and the sweet dinner lady.  Not Miss Beauregarde.  Nor amethyst - the name of the first soft toy I bought under the influence of a particular friend.  Just one toy.  And then dozens more.  Not the crown chakra and pure bliss.  They say that our ultimate reality is bliss.  Who are they?  And are they just trying to make us feel better?

If I can't call violet purple I'm going to have a temper tantrum.
I'm going to stop writing.
I'm going to end this here before I get too emotionally attached to anything purple.
Hopefully soon I will be well again.

The Girl Whose Good Fortune Nearly Killed Her - Part one of two

I'm not well again.  So for today you're only getting half a story.  I'll finish it for tomorrow's post.

The following was inspired by the Sunday Assembly, Manchester.  Partly.  I was able to be there for their meeting last weekend.  Unfortunately I couldn't stick around for cake.  The subject of the meeting was luck and a fortune cookie was placed under each chair.  I sneakily took two cookies away from me and as I waited for my coach back to Newcastle a story idea came to mind.  What if someone believed such fortunes and took them literally?  This is the first half of that story, based on the two fortunes I received.

Please excuse the bad focus on my photos - my phone wasn't coping well with tiny writing and bad lighting.

Mary woke up in pain.  Her chest hurt more than anything else, as if an elephant had stood on her rib cage or a family of mice had burrowed into it, ripping through flesh with their tiny teeth.  Her head hurt too as if she was subject to the worst of hangovers.  Thinking about the pain only caused her more pain.  Thinking about opening her eyes when there was obviously an intrusive bright light above her made the pain in her brain far worse.  Mary lay there for a while.  Maybe if she lay still long enough everything would feel much better.  She didn't know how long it was but the torment inside her mind gradually subsided from hurricane force to just a severe gale.

Mary opened her eyes.  She was in a hospital bed and her mother was standing over her.  Staring at her with a very worried expression on her face.  She had been crying.

"Thank God.  You're awake.  You're a fucking idiot Louise.  What the hell did you think you were doing?"

The sound of her mother shouting made Mary's head hurt again.  She closed her eyes for a while.  Slowly it came back to her and she realised what must have happened.

"I was obeying it mum.  That's all.  I did what it said and you told me it was true didn't you?"

"What was true?  Whatever possessed you Louise?  You're bloody lucky to be alive.  Could have killed yourself you dunce.  And heaven knows how we're going to get the stains out of the carpet."

Mary's mum started to cry.  "Just look at what you've done to your mum.  I could have lost you."

Mary could only stare.  It had all made perfect sense in her mind.  Had she really almost died?  How was that possible when she had only been walking in obedience?

"Mum, mum.  Don't cry.  I did it for you.  Because you said to and you gave them to me.  It should have been okay."

"Sod it Louise!  Of course it wasn't going to be okay.  And you'll be scarred for life.  Scarred.  I was so scared when I found you lying there.  Thought someone had murdered you.  Oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph I did.  And then I saw those knives."

She cried more and fell across Mary's legs, grabbing her hand and clasping it tightly.

"Mum?  I'll be fine and we'll work it out.  Maybe I did something wrong.  Although I can't think what.  And mum?  My name's Mary now, do you remember?"

"God Louise, is this somehow related to that?  I told you the first time that you didn't have to take it literally and act on it."

"Yeah, but mum, that's not what you said in the restaurant and it was such a special night and that Chinese man said it too and you said that he looked like some kind of prophet.  I think he was.  My name's Mary.  I had to obey because you said and I did too."

Perhaps it had been a mistake from the beginning.  Perhaps Mary's mum should never have agreed to take her to a Chinese restaurant to celebrate her twelfth birthday.  At home they only ever ate good, wholesome English food and that's the way Mary's mum liked it.  But then Mary had seen a programme on television about Chinese food and had spent the next month repeating those strange words over and over again and pestering to be allowed to try them.  Chow Mein.  Foo Yung.  Wonton.  What kind of words were those?  Mary's mum believed only in chips, steak and kidney pudding and foods she could understand.

But Mary had gone on about it so much that eventually her mum could take it no more and said that they would try one Chinese meal.  At a restaurant in town.  When the day arrived Mary was dancing in excitement.  She had been obsessed with the menu for weeks, downloading it from the restaurant website and learning it off by heart.  All she could think about was what Kung Pao and Dim Sum might be.  Her mum was scared.  Scared of the new foods in the new place.

At seven o'clock they arrived for their meal.  Mary's mum didn't know what to do or what to ask for so the waiter helped her explore the menu.  She was relieved that the final section contained some English dishes so she settled on roast chicken and chips for her main course.  Mary said, "Oh mum, that's so boring.  I'm going to order a starter, two main courses and a pudding and you can try them too.  You'll see.  You'll like them."

It was true.  Mary's mum did like the food and by the end of the meal was surprised that she regretted ordering chicken and chips.  That char sui chow mein Mary had ordered turned out to be delicious even though it had such a strange name.  She decided that one day she might risk a Chinese ready meal from the supermarket.  Maybe they sold chow mein there too.

At the close of the meal the waiter gave them the bill on a little plate.  There were also two little packages.  Mary's mum called the waiter back, saying, "Er, excuse me, sorry.  But what are these?"

"Madam, special gift from us to you.  These are fortune cookies.  Inside each cookie there is a piece of paper and it will tell your fortune or give you a special insight into your life.  It never fails.  It's almost as if the gods were inside the fortune cookies."

"Oh, I don't think I want to try that.  It all sounds a bit superstitious to me.  It's probably true if you say it is but I'll stick with my God thank you and trust him to know my fortune.  I don't want my cookie.  Sorry."

"That's fine madam.  You don't have to accept the gift.  How about your little girl?"

"No.  I shouldn't think she'd want to have one either."

Mary piped up.  "Actually I'd like to.  The man said it never fails and you said it's true.  Can I have your cookie too mum?  Please.  It is my birthday."

Mary's mum relented, saying, "Louise, Louise.  You do have a lot of funny ideas.  But I suppose it won't do any harm just this once."

Mary put the cookies in her pocket.  "I'll read one tonight and then the other in a few days.  Make my birthday last a bit longer."

That night Mary opened her first cookie.  It didn't taste very nice.  Nevertheless she ate the whole thing before opening the small piece of paper inside.

It read "A good name is better than riches."

She thought hard about what that might mean.  She hadn't got many riches, just a few pounds in a piggy bank.  She didn't think she had a good name either.  Louise?  In what way was that a good name?  It wasn't in the Bible or any of the other holy books her mum had.  It was a bad name and she couldn't begin to see why her parents had given it to her.  Perhaps it was all her dad's fault.  Mum often said he was a bad man and they hadn't seen him since Mary was two.

There was only one thing for it if she wanted to obey the fortune cookie.  She had to get rid of her riches and change her name.  Then her life would work out for the best.  It was obvious.  The Chinese prophet said so and he was obviously right.

The following morning Mary went down to breakfast with her piggy bank.  As her mum served her with toast and jam Mary said, "Mum, can I give all my money into the second collection on Sunday.  It's Peter's Pence isn't it?  It'll all go somewhere worthwhile."

"I suppose so.  If that's what you really want.  But weren't you saving up for something?"

"Oh, that doesn't matter.  It's only riches and there are better things than riches.  Can I?  Please mum."

"Okay.  You're a kind girl Louise.  I'm so lucky to have you."  Mary's mum gave her a hug.

"Oh, and mum.  I'm changing my name.  I don't like Louise any more.  I want to be called Mary.  That's a good name isn't it?  It's the kind of name you might have if you are pure like Jesus' mum."

"No you can't.  That was your dear departed gran's name and she was a good soul even if your dad turned out to be a child of the devil.  You're not changing your name.  And that's final."

"But mum.  I like Mary.  It suits me because I want to be obedient too.  And you said it was probably true and it is true just like you said so I've got to be Mary.  Got to be.  Please mum.  I have to do it."

"Louise Baker you shut your mouth now.  You're not changing your name.  Not while you live under my roof."

Mary shut her mouth.  It was all so unfair.  The fortune cookie had told her to be called Mary, hadn't it?  So that's the way it had to be.  And since it was impossible to change her name while living under her mum's roof ...  Later that day Mary wrote a note to her mother.

"Mum, I'm sorry but I am leaving home today.  I have to be called Mary and you've made it impossible.  So I've got to go.  I've left my piggy bank next to this note.  Could you see that the money inside, three pounds and fourteen pence, are put into the offering?  Thanks Mum.  I love you.  I'm sorry to leave because I do love you ever such a lot and it was so funny watching your face when you tried that first mouthful of chow mein.  Don't worry about me.  I'll have a good name and that's better than riches.  I have to obey and I hope you can see that I'm doing the right thing.  Your obedient daughter, Mary."



[1680 words]

A Few Musings On A Day On Which I Am Too Ill For Profound Or Crazy Writing

Today I am unwell.
My brain is very foggy and I'm finding it difficult to focus on anything at all.  Everything hurts.  I managed a Facebook status update this morning:

A thought on a day on which I am ill.

I never asked to be born.
But I am not going to ask for a refund on life.
I can't. It was a free gift.
As freebies go
It's much better than being given a whistle
By a trades union at a rally.
A whistle is just an empty noise maker.
Life's noise is an echoing thunder
Vibrating the whole universe
Into purposeful crescendos of meaning.

But I want to post something more at eight in the morning tomorrow.
So.  Some not-truly-random, brain fogged musings on colour.  Musings are possible tonight.  Just about.  Writing the stories and poems I want to write is an impossibility.

The colours of an elephant. One of several in Bolton.

Red

The colour of the squirrels I have never seen, endangered accidentally due to an introduced species.  We humans are skilled at altering the balance of ecosystems.  Are we facing the next mass extinction?  Some say that we are.  Either way, we're still stripping the earth of her biodiversity at a frightening rate.

The colour of blood.  The blood of angry men.  The blood of forgiving women too.

The colour of blood, fire, and sacrifice.  Colours of the Salvation Army and of the crosses of the Jesus Army.  I wore my red cross with pride and with a love of God and of my church.  I wore it again a fortnight ago as I stood on the stage in the persona of a murderer.

The colour of a big book of Rumi and a small book by Mao.  After a thousand years Rumi is the most popular poet in the USA.  Will Mao be remembered in a thousand years?

The colour of the large boxes on my art room floor that hold no art, just bedding.  Practicality winning out over creativity.

The colour of the first chakra from where kundalini is said to rise.  I was once told that an attempt to do this is a veiled attempt to become unwittingly possessed by Satan.

The colour of Mars.  A question for H G Wells:  How big would a plume of gas rising from the surface of Mars have to be in order to be seen as a massive event with a nineteenth century telescope?  Wells cannot answer.  He is immortal only through his stories.



Orange

The colour of peace in Buddhist traditions.

The colour of a Joris liquorice box.  Those joyful zouts that have bought me many smiles.  On Friday I will meet a friend outside a liquorice shop.

The colour, unsurprisingly, of an orange.

The colour of a mobile phone company who had to think of a different advertising slogan for Ireland.  "The future's bright ... the future's Orange," would not have been appreciated by all the people.  In Lancashire a family attended the Baptist church for a while.  They were members of the Orange Order and they believed that to kill a Catholic was to do the will of God because Jesus said "an eye for an eye."  They were devoutly bowed down to the will of God.  Their version of it.  A version with little room for love or forgiveness.  A version that didn't even bother to listen when Jesus finished his "eye for an eye" sentence.  Another Gospel verse is perhaps truth here:  "Jesus wept."

The colour of the second chakra.  They say it's connected with sexuality.  They say it's connected with sexuality.  Then they say it again and again.  They very rarely speak of it as being connected with acceptance.  Acceptance is a much greater thing to talk of than sex.  People are sex obsessed.  I went to a stand up comedy evening last week.  Nearly everyone spoke in some detail about masturbation.  And then there was the man who talked about his granny "taking it up the ass."  I guess that's funny.  People laughed.  Perhaps, when I was fifteen, I'd have found it hilarious too.


Yellow

The colour of custard.  I am outnumbered in this house.  The only custard lover.  I grew up with custard and my mother named our cat "Arnold" after the (unofficial) system for measuring the thickness of custard, the "Lancelot."  It's a system unknown beyond our family.  The term came from my uncle and aunt.  There was always custard when we visited them.

The colour of cowardice.  Originally that meaning may have arisen from racism against Mexicans.  A problem that still continues.  It is acceptable to be racist against Mexicans.  My proof:  You can be racist against Mexicans and still be elected as President of the United States of America.  Were racism unacceptable he wouldn't just have been unelected he would have been barred from standing in the election at all.  In my world, racism isn't acceptable.  Do I live in the real world?

The colour of jaundice, of some bile, and of vanilla ice cream when it's full of artificial colourings.

The colour of a large book of short stories on the shelf of this art room.  I bought it a year ago, desperate to read the contents.  I haven't read them.  I haven't even read the contents page.

The colour of the third chakra.  Don't get kicked in the solar plexus.  It hurts.  Don't get punched there either.  Unless you have very strong, very prepared muscles.  Houdini was strong.  But unprepared.  He died and still hasn't turned up at the annual seance on the anniversary of his death.  Either he can't come back or he's having a laugh in the afterlife and staying away just to prove that mediumship is tosh, piffle and balderdash.  Much like the chakras may be.


Green

The colour of grass, the fields, of leaves.  Except when they're not green.  The colour of the village green except in a drought and in the centre of the cricket pitch.

The colour of money.  Douglas Adams made a joke about how most of our problems are related to green pieces of paper.  The green paper has been taken out of play.  Our problems persist.  Perhaps if I destroyed my pound note the world's problems would be solved.  I am told that the only legal tender in Scotland is - according to the letter of the law - the English pound note.  That seems to be an issue for Scotland.  Except it isn't.  Most money is an illusion.  World government debt stands at sixty trillion dollars.  Most of that money doesn't really exist.  It's a myth.  An invention.  And when there isn't enough mythological money the governments invent quantitive easing and invent some more money to borrow.  The question isn't who the money was borrowed from.  It's how they acquired so much money to lend out in the first place.

The colour of every internal wall of a house we lived in.  No more lime green walls please.

The colour of the back of the enemy of Danger Mouse.

The colour of the beginner.  Except in martial arts.

The colour of your fingers if you like gardening.

The colour of the fourth chakra, the heart.  It's love, it's joy, it's inner peace.

The colour of envy.  And nausea.



That's enough colours.
Today I am unwell.
And I have been nauseous since last night.
It does not comfort me to consider that when I am experiencing the colour of nausea I am experiencing the colour of joy.
I end tonight lacking in all comfort.
Except, as I wrote to a friend this morning, I have two dodos and a warthog.
Therefore life is good.

On Commonwealth Day Britain Became The Ruler Of Nothing

A free written Facebook status update, morning of March 14th.  (Pi Day)

On Commonwealth Day

We celebrate how Britain

Took over half the world.

A coincidence?

On that day we passed a law

To cut ourselves off.

We fled from Europe.

Ran from our integration

In shared community.

Do we still believe

We have a God given right

To independence?

Does Westminster dream

Of our Empire past? The years

When we ruled the waves.

Hard Brexit or soft?

Let's hope it's a Kind Brexit,

Rich in compassion

For three million

Who now live in fear of us

And our Parliament.

On Commonwealth Day

I sigh to live in a land

Where wealth won't be shared.

Cry for broken dreams

Of full cooperation

With our neighbour states.

On Commonwealth Day

Britain decides to rule again.

Without free kindness.

On Commonwealth Day

The world is afraid of us

And I am ashamed.

March 14th. Morning. After the House of Lords gave up trying to amend the bill in Parliament so it would protect the three million EU citizens currently living in the UK. The Law will now be passed without those protections and the process of our leaving the EU will probably be triggered this week. This is Brexit. We had a vote. But how many of those who voted for leaving the EU wanted to be unkind about it? Hard or soft, I believe most Brexit voters want to be kind. Our government seems not to want kindness and only to railroad through their own monolithic idea of what form Brexit should take.

People didn't vote for that.

We've heard a lot about the three million. What of the one million? The UK citizens living in the EU. Does their future depend on how we choose to treat the EU citizens living here? Should they be living in fear too that their sunny life in Spain might be replaced with a flat in Scunthorpe?

The Tale of Haycock The Rainbow Pony and the EHCP

The following is inspired by a writing prompt that was in itself inspired by words that exist somewhere on a piece of paper - an actual EHCP (Education Health and Care Plan).  Those words are "Haycock the Rainbow."  For the writing prompt a friend added the word "Pony."

Forty-eight hours later, in an afternoon free-writing burst following on from the prompt circulating in my head, this is the result.  A 2000 word children's tale.

A little of what a rainbow garden feels like

Haycock The Rainbow Pony

Haycock the Rainbow Pony knew she had a lovely life.

There was nothing she liked to do more than to frolic in her garden, planting new beds of flower seeds that would grow up to produce the most fabulous plants in the animal world.  They had stems of many colours and each stem would be topped with seven different flowers, one of each colour and one of each shape.

One plant might have a circular yellow flower, a triangular blue flower, and a shining diamond purple flower among its blossoms.

Another might have a beautiful green dodecahedron and a red rhombus and if Haycock was very fortunate it might display a fantastically rare indigo icosahedron.

Haycock the Rainbow Pony liked all the colours and shapes but she liked the indigo flowers the best.  It didn't matter what shape they were.  The colour still produced the warmest electric buzz in Haycock's head.

Sometimes the rainbow flower plant would produce more bell shaped blossoms than usual.  Then it would rain and the whole garden would chime out melodies and harmonies and the animals would raise their voices in joyful celebration.  Even the worms would wriggle out of their holes in the ground and sing thankful worm songs.

Haycock loved her garden.  She loved her house too and loved to sleep in her bed and dream of the next crop of flowers and how happy they would make the other ponies when she took them to the market.

Haycock was never going to get rich from her flower selling.  She didn't want to.  She had a little house but that was enough for her.  Haycock's reward was knowing that she was a good rainbow gardener.  Her second reward was seeing the smiles on the faces of the other ponies.

Haycock's life was everything she wanted it to be.  How could it not be?  She had enough for her needs and her work helped the other ponies have a happier life.  She thought she was probably the most fortunate rainbow pony in the whole land.  Every day she would wake up smelling the flowers and every night she would lay her head on the pillow and tuck her legs under her duvet and fall asleep in total contentment.

Until the horses came.

Three of them.

She was still in bed one morning when she heard them outside.  They were shouting.

"Come outside you pony.  Come and see what we're doing."

They didn't sound like they were doing anything to spread the love of rainbows.  Haycock quickly got out of bed and ran out of her door even without stopping to brush her teeth.

The three horses were in her garden.  In the flower beds.  Cantering up and down them.  They were neighing and laughing and looked like they were trying to kick every flower.  Haycock's garden was almost destroyed already.  Would there even be enough seeds to save?

Haycock shouted.  "STOP!  What do you think you are doing you horses?  Why are you in my garden?"

The horses stopped.  Glared at Haycock and shook their manes at her.  They walked up to Haycock and stood menacingly over her.

"Hello Haycock.  Horrid Haycock.  We're going to destroy your garden until there aren't any flowers left and then we're going to destroy it some more.  And you can't stop us."

Two of the horses went back to their trampling.  The other stuck his tongue out at Haycock and made a very rude noise.

"But why?" asked Haycock.

"Because we can," said the horse.  "We hate rainbows and we hate rainbow ponies even more.  Horses can't make rainbows so you shouldn't have them either.  Especially as you're just a little pony.  You're much less than a horse and we want to prove it to you so that you never try to be better than a horse again."

The horse joined its friends and they laughed even more.  Haycock watched as the bell flowers were smashed.  And then the last rare indigo icosahedron was trampled into the ground.  Haycock shouted and shouted for the horses to stop but they wouldn't.  And then she fell to her knees and cried.

"Ha ha," shouted one of the horses, "Look at the silly little pony.  It serves her right."

By lunchtime every rainbow plant had been destroyed.  The earth was a mess of fragments of colour.  There wouldn't be smiling ponies at the market that week.  There wouldn't be smiling ponies for a long time.  Perhaps there would never be smiling ponies again.

The horses gathered around Haycock.  One of them said, "We're going now.  I think there is a Shetland pony in the next valley who makes colourful lollipops.  We're going to break his lollipop factory.  You're just ponies.  Don't try to be colourful.  Because we're horses.  Better than you.  Don't forget it or we'll be back."

The three horses turned there backs on Haycock and trotted off, still laughing.

Haycock lay on the ground among the broken flowers.  She cried so much that she was still crying the next morning.  Then she slept on the earth until the rain woke her.  There were no bell flowers to chime out their melodies.  The worms appeared and they cried too when they saw the scene.

On the next day Haycock worked very hard.  She collected all the broken flowers.  She dug through all the beds.  She hunted and hunted.  There would be just enough seeds to start gardening again.  If the horses didn't return.  Haycock knew the horses were still out there.  By now they had probably destroyed the lollipop pony's tasty treats.  Maybe they would move on from there to other ponies.  Perhaps soon there might not be any colour left in pony land.

Haycock thought hard while she replanted the seeds.  She decided that while everything was growing she would try to stop the horses herself.  Make sure they never came back to pony land.

Haycock had a plan.  She would trot all the way to horse land.  Once there she would join the EHCP.  The Evil Horse Control Police.  Once she wore her very own shiny Sheriff badge she would call on the police horses to control the evil horses who had invaded pony land.  Haycock knew that if any horse was evil it was the three horses she had met.

What could be more evil than hurting ponies and trying to destroy all the pretty rainbow colours?  What indeed?

The next day Haycock left her home and garden in the safe hands of the three rainbow cats who lived nearby.  They promised to water the flowers on the days it didn't rain and to regularly chime any bell flowers that grew.

Haycock took plenty of food and water with her.  If she needed more she would just have to eat grass.  That was free in pony land.  She said goodbye to the cats and the worms came out to wave her goodbye.  Or at least, they wiggled her goodbye because they couldn't wave very well.

She trotted all that day and slept in a field under a full moon, chatting with the man in the moon until it was late.  He said that if he saw the horses being naughty he would try to do something to stop them.  He couldn't promise though because he lived a very long way away even though it looked like he was just there in the sky and because he only woke up at night when the horses were probably asleep.  Haycock thanked the man in the moon anyway.  He was a very optimistic man and cheered her up somewhat.

She trotted all the next day too.  And all the next.  Horse land was a long way away.  Finally she crossed the border and came to the big town, Hoofsville.  There were thousands of horses.  None of them were rainbow coloured.  All of them looked a bit sad.  Everyone stared at Haycock.  It was as if they had never seen a rainbow pony before.  It was almost as if they could hardly believe that a rainbow animal existed.

Haycock eventually arrived at the EHCP headquarters.  She walked into the building.  It was full of horses who looked even more grumpy than those outside.  She walked up to the main desk and rang the bell.

"Er.  Can I help you little pony?"

"Yes, you can.  I want to join the Evil Horse Control Police.  Then I have some evil horses who need to be controlled.  They're causing lots of harm back in pony land."

The mare constable behind the desk laughed.  "You?  YOU?  Ha, ha ha.  YOU!?  But you're not a horse.  You're a pony.  You can't join the EHCP or tell us which horses to control.  That's so funny.  Wait until I tell the sergeant."

The mare constable went off to find the sergeant.  He was a black stallion.  When he appeared, two hours later, it looked like he had almost been crying from laughing so much.

The stallion sergeant looked at Haycock and said, "It's true.  And on my watch too!  You're right constable.  This is the funniest thing ever.  A rainbow pony in EHCP headquarters.  Wanting to join."

"That's right sir," said Haycock.  "There are some evil horses in pony land and I want to join you and stop them."

"Stop them?  In pony land?  Why would we want to do that?  You're just ponies.  You don't matter.  You don't have any rights.  Why should you?  You're not horses.  And you look so stupid too.  Try to be better than us horses with your rainbows but you're worse.  You're hardly even equine.  So what if those horses are hurting you.  Good for them, that's what I say.  You deserve it the lot of you.  For being ponies.  Only horses are important you know.  Now go away.  Before I arrest you."

"But ... but the evil horses.  They're evil.  Please stop them."

"No.  Go away rainbow pony.  And get your hair dyed brown on your way out of town.  Or I'll throw you into prison.  Constable.  Take the silly pony to the hair shop."

So Haycock was escorted out of the EHCP building by the constable who kept calling her stupid.  Poor Haycock.  She was dragged into the hair shop and wasn't allowed to leave until every single strand of her hair was a muddy brown colour.

"There.  That's better," said the constable.  "You almost look normal and acceptable now.  Except you're a pony.  Go back to pony land and don't come back.  Ever."

Haycock had to go back to pony land.  She had failed.  And she was a boring colour.  It would take months before her hair regrew in glorious colour again.  It was true.  Legally ponies had no rights.  They had all been taken by the horses.  It was unfair.  Desperately unfair.  Haycock had hoped to find help and support anyway but the unfairness of the system had obviously turned to hatred and spite.

Then it got worse.  Haycock had run out of food.  So she ate some grass from a field.  Grass isn't free in horse land.  Nothing is free.  Haycock was spotted and a horse shouted "Stop!  Thief!"  Haycock had to run as fast as she could and only just reached pony land without being caught and arrested for eating some grass.

Haycock walked home, crying all the way but thankful that she was able to eat without fear in pony land.  When she got home she had a cup of tea and then fell asleep on her bed, totally miserable and defeated.

The next day she looked at her garden.  She was able to smile a little when she saw that the new rainbow plants had begun to grow.  She had a shower.  Then another.  Then six more.  After eight showers she had managed to wash out some of the dismal brown hair dye.  She could just make out her rainbow colours under the brown when she looked in the mirror.

The cats visited her and brought her a tasty dinner.  The worms gathered round and said the most kind and sympathetic words they could think of.  And Haycock went back to bed.  She was still very sad.

The next morning she had an idea.  Perhaps, if the ponies worked together they could rid pony land of the three evil horses.  Perhaps they could go further.  As a collective they could fight against the oppression of the horses and gain rights for themselves.  Perhaps one day there would even be some kind of equality and no pony would ever have to worry about being a pony and the rainbow ponies could spread their colours without fear.  Perhaps it could be done.

So that's what happened.  Haycock gathered the ponies together.  They organised.  Became strong together.  Fought back against the three evil horses.  Defeated them.  And then fought back against the repressive system.  The horseiarchy was smashed.

Haycock the Rainbow Pony became a hero.  But that's a story for another time.

She didn't really mind about being a hero.  Once the victory had been won she went back to her garden.  Expanded it.  And spread rainbows not only in pony land but in horse land too.  Even the horses began to smile.  Haycock continued to fight when she had to.  But her reward was to see the creatures smile.



[2223 words]

Following My Bliss And Believing The Doors Will Open

I returned from Manchester last night.  Five days and four nights away.  They were great days but I didn't have a lot of time for writing.  And when I did have a little time I didn't have the ability.  I return home and have no blog post written for today.  So this will have to be it.  I also returned with a couple of wonderings:  I wonder, should I sign up for a course in improvisation?  I wonder, should I aim at performing a stand up comedy routine somewhere?

I heard a quotation yesterday.  “Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”  ~Joseph Campbell

His books are now on my wish list!  Perhaps an improv course would be part of following my bliss.  Perhaps this stand up thought is part of it too.  Or perhaps they are doors I didn't know existed.  Doors that would lead through some circuitous route to something I don't imagine.  This year is a year for writing.  And that for me is following my bliss.  The doors will open.  I will end up in an unknown place.

I told the person I'd been staying with about the quotation.  She said, "Yes, that's true!" as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.  I start to see it in her life.  She's following her bliss.  Putting in a lot of hard work and devoting her life to her bliss.  She could make more cash if she didn't.  She could be more "respectable" in the eyes of some people if she didn't.  But then she wouldn't be so happy or fulfilled and would know she wouldn't be living as herself.  Yes, it's been hard work and it will continue to be.  But what I've noticed recently is that doors have been opening unexpectedly.  I believe there will be lots more doors for her, lots more occasions on which she tells me, "I've just been asked if I want to do ..."  I could look at others around me too and see the way they follow their own bliss.  It's not about money.  It's not about a big house.  It's not about career chasing.  The doors might lead to such things.  Or they might not.  What they do seem to lead to is a deeper smile within.

But for today.  I should write something today.  More than one thing.  "Thing."  I need to find a better word.  I don't just want to write a "thing."  I want to write something of more substance than that.  Not a thing.  A story.  A myth.  A poem.  A play.  A comedy routine.  An autobiography.  An opinion.  A fact.  Shakespeare didn't present Macbeth or Hamlet by telling everyone he'd written a thing.

I'll work out what to write later.  I have returned with some ideas.  One is based around fortune cookies.  Another is a command to write about glitter, rainbows and a ferris wheel.  I have been explicitly told not to take that into dark places and include murder.  It's just as well I've been told because I'd already worked out how the murder would take place.  And then there's Haycock the Rainbow Pony and her experiences with the EHCP.  I also have lots to write from Writers' Cafe sessions.  That novel to write.  Possibly a children's novel too based around secret rooms and homophobia.  I have a monologue to polish.  A story to edit.  Items I'm meant to be submitting to see whether anyone will publish them.  And this week I have to apply for something that I probably won't get.  That's okay.  I definitely will not get it if I don't apply and won't lose anything through the application process.

Whatever I write it will be part of my plan without a plan.  And it will be following my bliss.  While there might not be a door opening today, there might.  Perhaps I have enough doors opening already if I can only dare to walk through them.  Perhaps it doesn't matter that today it feels more like walking into a blank wall.  Perhaps it doesn't matter if the wall is blank.  Not if I carry a pen to write or to paint with.

Oh, and there's a doll house story to write too.  I'd forgotten about that one.  I need to write down ideas more consistently.  Before going away I'd been eager to write it.  I'm still looking forward to it.  Maybe that's something for today.  A doll house.  A ferris wheel.  A writing down of ideas.  And a damn good tidy because my writing room is a complete mess.  I've not properly tidied it since returning from Manchester last time.

But for now this is today's not-writing writing post.  I have to publish it in a minute.  It's a place-holding.  It's a cipher.  It's an update on part of where I am, ten weeks into this writing year.  Next weekend I'll attend my second performance poetry workshop.  The following week I might get to a performance evening.  Put myself forward for the open-mic slots because I need to be doing that.  This week I'll be at an acting session.  Applying for this thing.  Maybe I'll submit something too.  Reach the point a friend reached - she's aiming for at least one hundred rejections this year.  And I will write.  Write.  And write some more.

Because this writing thing is part of my bliss.  And I want to follow it.  And discover the doors.

I'm already seeing doors.  Which leaves me with two questions:  Which doors are the right ones and which are only imagined?  and,  Will I have the courage to walk through lots of doors in this year of writing?

At the close of the year I will let you know.

The photos were all taken on a day on which I was challenged to take pictures of door handles and door knockers.

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.