Measuring Up

Coffee spoons are not the only the way to measure out a life. I find that hopping from one nice thing to the next, and trying to ignore the boring or bad stuff in between seems to work out ok for much of the time. The lily pads of life, perhaps. 

It's harder to make this strategy work when you know it's a hell of a jump coming up from one nice thing to the next, and a long and perilous leap in between. I expect this is why I burst into tears this morning, sitting in France and knowing I was about to head back to the grim, grimy grind of the drear dark days. 

Leaving the holiday from life, with the golds and rusts of the trees, the smell and the tread of soft wet leaves underfoot, the last low rays of the sun before it disappears for months - oh it was hard. Who would want to come back to all of  -  this?

I have been dropped off from the ferry and have already done 5 hours of work on the journey. Now I am in a Travelodge, alone (of course) and contemplating a week where I won't have a moment to get my head up. 

I sometimes doubt that I will be able to see through my plan.  But you know what? I've had a little rest and so I'm not ready to quit just yet. Look out world, I'm still kicking.

Book Hopscotch

This is my view every Saturday. As an aficionado of 'shelfies', it's not a bad outlook. 

I try to sit somewhere different each week, so that I don't become one of those people who have their own spot. Deadens the thinking, having the same perspective all the time. Did you know this is why we instinctively tilt our heads when we're curious? Animals do this too. It's to get a slightly different view. 

This weekend I can take a journey through time, just by scanning the shelves opposite.  I can start with the fabulously titled Feeble Mindedness and Mental Deficiency. On through Outwitting Our Nerves to the Psychotherapy section. Scan past Freud, Kinsey, Shere Hite and Why Is Sex Fun? then before you know it, I'm straight into Psychosexual Problems, Perversion and The Pathology And Treatment of Sexual Deviation. After that we segue into depression and suicide. 

Pretty miserable stuff - and fortunately not my own topics of research. Sure I'd much be rather be having sex on a rainy Saturday afternoon than working in the library, but you can't always get what you want, right?

Her Comes The Bride

How very Guardian. Here’s a piece about a girl who was so in love with herself she decided to marry herself.  As if reading this article wasn’t bad enough, I also suffered her being interviewed on the Today programme on Monday.  When you’ve finished laughing (at her, not with her) let’s ponder what this ceremony might actually be about. 

There are a number of unpleasant alternatives from which we might choose.

Is it the self-obsession of young people taken to its extreme? And I’m asking this with only the merest trace of irony as someone who blogs the interminable drivel of me me me.  

Is it about showing off, about being the kind of person who can’t do anything without announcing it to the world? Making some promises to myself in diary just wouldn’t be enough, it has to be formalised and witnessed.  Sadly most of her family weren’t able to attend “for logistical reasons”. You don’t say.

Is about being so desperate to be a bride that you just can’t wait any more? Just want to get that wedding dress, design the invites, choose the flowers?

Is about Verfremdung, about splitting yourself into parts? If you marry yourself, you must feel that you were separated before. That’s not a good way to be.

I’m sure the honeymoon would be great fun. But how would it be different from any other night on my own? Seducing myself wouldn’t be much of a challenge – I figure after all this time it’s a bit late to play hard to get. I’m sure I wouldn’t mind if I hadn’t shaved my legs, and I wouldn’t bother with the suspenders and all that jazz.

"I'd been essentially single for six years". Well, no shit. Having listened to this young woman on the radio, I have a sneaking suspicion that I know why she might be on her own. She sounded like a total pain in the arse. At least this way she won't get left on the shelf. 

Wonder whether she'll publish another article when she gets bored with herself and the nag nag nag of her inner voice, and has an affair? I can't wait. 

Hero's Welcome

You know I like a sexy building. And they don't come much sexier than the Wellcome Library. It's been one of my favourite places since I ran a project there a few years ago, but lately it's become my second home.

I'll be spending Saturdays there, writing. There is hardly anyone here at the weekend, so it's lovely and quiet. There are no more excuses not to get on with it. Here are the things I'll be working on (in no particular order).

• developing a poetry collection
• submitting poetry to journals
• writing my novels (yep, 2 started)
• writing reviews
• blogging

These are a few of my favourite things. More about the raindrops on roses, brown paper packages tied up with string, crisp apple strudels and all that shit later.

God's Own Shortlist

As if we needed more proof that Cameron is completely out of touch with everything and everybody, he said last week that William Hague is the greatest living Yorkshireman. 

This is so ludicrous I couldn't even think about without foaming at the mouth for a fair few days. Then I thought I'd better make a definitive list. Why shouldn't it be me? I'm better at choosing than Camoron. 

So here we go - in no particular order. See if I'm right.

• 
  
• Alan Bennett
• Geoff Boycott
• David Hockney
• Michael Palin
• Margaret Drabble
• Patrick Stewart
• Jess Ennis
• Jarvis Cocker
• Sean Bean
• Judi Dench

Sorry about Sean. I know you might dispute it  -  but I can't live without that man and his starring role in the spank bank. 

Reboot

So I am all out of excuses now, about not having time to write.  I have every Saturday, and long evenings stretching into night in the spare room.  It is time to do this properly.

I have started by sorting out all my files, the bits and pieces of poems and prose, the seeds and germs of stories. The two novels that are nothing more than ideas and a few thousand words. 

Why now, you wonder? Well it's all part of a wider plan.  More on that in the weeks to come.  Suffice to say for now that an end is in sight. Still quite far away right now, but close enough to start making an actual, concrete plan. With a couple of key milestones to break the journey. 

One of the parts of the plan is writing. This is the only thing I've every really, really wanted to do. For all the success I've had in the day-job, it's not the same as fulfilment. Writing is something I need to do, I have to do. 

It'll be a shame if I'm crap at it, won't it?  But at least it gives me an excuse to do absolutely anything I damn well please, all in the name of research.  A poetry friend of mine once said when I was going through a desperately dark time - "think of all this as raw material".  That immediately made it better, if only because it started to place a distance between me and the stuff, as I thought about how to write it, and started to get a sense of proportion and a more clinical viewpoint. 

I'm aiming to write my postcards two or three times a week (at least) so if you're interested in updates from my tour around the inner landscapes, do drop by. 

Looking Forward

The place we chose for our half term break was strangely deserted. Some days we saw no one at all. This should have been lovely but was rather unnerving until we found the rhythm of the days.  Reading, swimming, sunbathing and eating freshly-caught fish in a wooden restaurant right on the beach. 

My birthday passed quietly. Two cards - 37 messages on Facebook.  Most of these people wouldn't have sent a card in the old days of snail-mail so that was rather nice. There was plenty of time on holiday for thinking, reflecting, planning.

Reflecting is hard, of course. Thinking things through is difficult too, given all that has happened, and so much of which I do not care to re-live. However, plans must still be made, as the future rolls forward ruthlessly and relentlessly, whether we want it to or no. 

I decided I should set myself some goals to attain by my 50th birthday, targets that I can hit no matter what else life throws at me. Here is what I've come up with.

• Keep Thing 1 and Thing 2 happy and healthy
• Spend quality time with my friends and family 
• Become healthy and fit
• Be happy by doing happy things 
• Publish more poetry
• Write - here, there and everywhere
• Develop a plan for the next 10 years

I do not want to be a Fat Frumpy Fifty. Significant remodelling and reinvention will be required so I'd better get cracking. 

The Empty Chair

Having said I was in a writing group but not submitting, I then found myself posting a poem after all. Funny how things work out like that. 

The prompt was about writing a letter  -  I was astonished at the number of women who wrote to their miscarried children. It's an experience that is explained away by statistics: the miscarriage rate for women over 35 is 25%, and for women over 40, one in three pregnancies won't make it to full term.  So, yeah, pretty much anyone has been through this experience and it's supposed to be like getting a flat tyre or being gazumped. A bit of a pisser at the time, but hey that could happen to anyone, move on, get over it. 

it struck me that there a lot of women pretending to be ok. 

I've written about this before, although I don't really talk about it - no-one does, do they? Didn't that happen ages ago? Haven't you got two beautiful children now? Do you think it helps to keep on thinking about it? What an awkward topic. It will make everyone feel uncomfortable.  Keep calm and carry on. 

I'm going to lose the last stanza, which is fitting since a 33% loss is in line with my age group.   But now it is floating about like a spirit without a resting place, so I'm going to let it anchor here in the clean white empty space. 

Your growing up marked by

No lines on the door frame

And unlit birthday candles

Just Fine

If people ask you how you are, for goodness sake don't tell them.  

When things are bad, the only people who want to hear all about it are those fuelled by schadenfreude, the ones who always thought you needed bringing down a peg or two. Quite a lot of the mums from school fall into this category.  Happy to drink my coffee and eat my cake. Happy to use my nanny, then my au pairs, to help them out in a tight spot. Happy to accept teas, lifts, sleepovers when they had other plans.  

I thought there was a longitudinal reciprocity in this.  And I thought at first that enquiries into my wellbeing, or lack of, were rooted in concern.  That now the time had come for them to help me in return. A sleepover for the Troubled Child. A trip out to cheer up the other one. An invitation to pizza, coffee, spa days. Lifts and pick-ups, even a hand with the many, many appointments we now have to attend. Silence. Where are you now, you bunch of bitches? 

The larger group of people don't want to hear any bad news at all.  They loved hanging out with me when I was the life-and-soul. I've had a great idea! Let's do this! Let's do that! Picnics. Parties. Dinners. I'll arrange this, I'll arrange that - tickets for a show, a day out in London, a weekend away, a holiday. We had plenty of money too, and we were generous with it. Why not? They were our friends, and as Charlie Sheen said, "If I'm eating steak, my friends eat steak too".  Where are you now, you fuckers? 

The people who give a shit about me and how I feel can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Exactly, precisely. They know who they are. This is hell and high water, and here they are. 

Fingertips

Inching my way up the cold unforgiving flank of each week is almost insurmountably difficult.  My approach involves an hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute focus in which I edge from one precarious balance to another, all the while resisting the urge to tumble backwards into oblivion simply by letting go. 

From a distance each week looks as smooth and hard as Portland stone, but right up close there are toeholds, tiny ledges to hold me a up a little while, until I can settle my equilibrium and creep tentatively to the next situation.  A phone call. Ten minutes with a magazine. A walk over a bridge before a meeting. A coffee. A little chat on Facebook.

So what happens when I reach up, fingers straining at full stretch, to find the next place to hold on has gone? I'm doing this climb without a harness - when does a gripping point become a tipping point? 

I've never been climbing so I don't know what happens next. 

Come Up and See Me

If you can't make someone smile, it's a sure sign you've outstayed your welcome, I reckon. 

Back in the day, I could make your eyes light up. Light up the room. Light up your life. Lighten your load. Light your fire. 

Now I am in the negative. A black sun radiating darkness, casting white shadows like the ghostly outlines of the Hiroshima victims, their absence etched forever into the stones. 

The distance is growing between us every day you do not smile when you think of me. I am so lonely in this cold, quiet place where no one wants to come. I never had anything to offer you except myself, but neither of us thought at the time that this might be more of a burden than a gift. 

There is no need to shoulder it.  Lay it down and walk on with a spring in your step. 

Epistolary Emission

In my writing group (to which I belong but no longer submit....) the prompt this week is Letters. As we're poets, we only tolerate the vaguest of prompts. Who would I write to, and what would I say? 

A few years ago my sister wrote a letter to my parents. She said she was advised to do this by her psychotherapist. I feel pretty certain the advice might have been Write not Send. Anyhow my parents received this letter, taking them to task for bestowing upon my sister a raft of problems not in any way of her own making.  They were distressed and bewildered by this letter, and it made me really angry. For heaven's sake - we are grown people in our forties, surely we must own our situations by now?

Perhaps I would write to my sister.  She says that since I had reason to suspect her husband was cheating on her again, I should have told her not to move the family to Australia, where she is now abandoned as a single parent and can't have her dream wife-life.  I could explain that I started a conversation with her about whether it might be a good idea or not, to which she responded "don't try to make me change my mind, you're always pissing on my plans. It's all arranged, we're going, we've resigned from our jobs, bought the flights and paid six months rental up front on a flat".  At her leaving party, I was so worried about the situation I cried for the whole evening, which did not go down well: "pissing on my party".  I could write and ask her why she recently, seemingly randomly, blocked me on Facebook. But I probably couldn't be bothered.

Perhaps I would write to my brother and ask him why, when I took him on board to do some work for my company after he lost his job, he hardly did any of the things he agreed to but still pressed for the money.  Awkward  - better to leave that letter unwritten and move on. 

I don't need to write nice letters to people I love and care about  -  I make sure that I tell them the things I want to say when I see them.  Why wait? Life is short. Say the things that are important while you have the chance. 

Dear John letters should be banned as a matter of course. The least you owe someone you've cared for is to look them in the eye as you say goodbye, and to allow them the courtesy of the last word.  

Perhaps I would write to my younger self.  I might have some advice, but at this point in my life I don't feel I could write anything encouraging. How could you make a young person understand the joy of being a parent, of amazing sex, of love, of good books, of a project well done  -  but that all of this is tempered at best with the tedious drudgery of work, hoovering, sock-washing, and at worst streaked through with the terror that you might outlive your children. 

Dear Universe. Please tell me things are going to get better. Please tell me my girls will grow up to be happy, healthy adults. Please tell me I will not always feel as lonely as I do right now at this moment. Please?

Couch Potato

I've been seeing a counsellor. 

She thinks that I need to work on acknowledging my emotions. She thinks that the putting-things-into-boxes-then-ignoring-them strategy may not be a sustainable approach in the long term. She thinks there are too many boxes now, and the things inside the boxes are banging to come out, and the boxes are rattling and the lids are coming up and oh my god it's like that scene in Poltergeist where all the bodies start bursting up out the bottom of the swimming pool and and and....

Even writing about the boxes opening makes me feel a bit panicky.  I've spent my whole life boxing. Why would I stop now? 

Well yes, there is the small matter of the breakdown. Of the being tracked down by the police. Of the escorting to hospital. Of the nearly being sectioned.  That. 

I insist on referring to it as a "meltdown". Somehow that isn't as scary, and makes it sound rather wry and perhaps more like a tantrum or a bad day. As I explained to the emergency psychiatrist, I'm not mad: just sad, scared, lonely and really fucked off. 

Three months on, I don't feel any different.  Most of the time I don't feel anything at all.  If I open myself to those feelings, it will be horrible, won't it?

"Have you tried writing things down?" she asked me.  That's when it really struck me how far I was from myself. Three months of seeing a counsellor and I hadn't even told her I'm a writer. 

Can You Tell What It Is Yet?

“I can’t help feeling sorry for Max Clifford. He only groped a couple of wannabe’s, back in the day. Things were different then. It’s unfair to judge people on today’s standards for things that happened in the last century”.

How can you be so wrong?

Max Clifford was jailed. You might have thought it was different way back in the good old days when he was feeling women up in his office, but guess what? It was ILLEGAL. Back then. Back when some people thought it might be ok. Like one-for-the-road was ok. Like smacking one on your wife was ok.  It was against the law. And the sentences being handed down for these dirty old men are the tariffs for the offences at the time they committed them.

Yes Rolf, there are often times when “it takes two to tango”. But not when one of you is a grown adult man and the other is a frightened thirteen year old child. Yes Max, she wanted to be on Page 3. But that didn’t give you the right to touch ask her to take her top off and touch her breasts. Yes Jimmy, you raised a lot of money for charity – but that’s not the legacy you’re leaving behind in the nation’s memory.

Do we miss the Good Old Days? Those were the days when a girl couldn’t bend over to pick up a dropped paperclip in case her boss put his hand up her skirt. When she couldn’t smile at her colleagues for fear they would take it as a come-on. When she had to walk home from the station a different way to avoid being shouted at as she passed the building site. When her college tutor persuaded her not to make a complaint about the student who raped her at knifepoint because “these things are so often a misunderstanding”.

Dirty old men are being hung out to dry after a life-time of leering, lechery and illegal assaults.  These things are so often a misunderstanding – but if a few extra heads roll, it’s not going to trouble me over-much. In the overall cosmic scheme of things, if all the attention, the discussion, the debate, the jail-terms make someone re-think his own  behaviour, then it might just make a difference. Max is taking one for the boys, and it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. 

Write Now

Anyway, my counsellor pointed out that if not-writing makes me feel as if I don't exist, it might be a good idea to consider writing.

It's quite a bold assumption - do I want to acknowledge that I do indeed still exist? I suppose I can't float around in limbo forever, physically vital, heart beating, head aching whilst my mind is a dead, flat fog. 

So here I am. 

I'm trying. The rest of my life still ahead of me, dammit. There it is in the picture: a blank page. 

I had better write myself better, write myself a better story.  Keep your fingers crossed for me. 

Ungrateful

Yeah, so I turns out I'm not dead after all. And I'm not grateful either.  

Seems you can't just wish yourself away, in this day and age.  Seems those ties bind stronger than we think. 

Perhaps I can write myself back to life. Let's find out.

Indifference

"I get confused", she said "between Bob Marley and Bob Dylan. Are they the same person?" Well, no. They are both influential musicians, though, so let's interchange them a bit in our heads. I conclude that Marley could do some interesting covers of Dylan songs, but it wouldn't work the other way around. 

Many other such confusions can be made, so allow me to explain a few. We'll begin with music.  The most influential band of all time is Crosby Stills &Nash. It was started by Bing Crosby, and they were so important that Nashville is named after them.  Neil Young was also a member of this group for a while. There are a number of Neils who frequently collaborate together musically, and their songs are interchangeable (Young, Sedaka, Diamond and Tennant). Most other important musicians are called Johnny (Cash, Rotten, Hallyday and Marr). 

It's the same situation with films.  Katharine Hepburn could happily cover all of Audrey's roles, although Audrey would be rubbish in The African Queen, with her pearls and her little black dress.  Marilyn Manson would be a perfect substitute for Marilyn Monroe. Woody Harrelson, Woody Allen and Woody from Toy Story are all interchangeable, as are Judies Garland and Dench. 

There family relationships in the fame game too. Neil Young's son is Paul Young, the smooth Eighties popstar. Daniel Craig is the lovechild of Butterflies actress Wendy Craig, and Sienna Miller's grandfather was Windy Miller of Camberwick Green fame.  Hugh Grant and Eddy Grant are half-brothers, as are Bruce and Spike Lee.

Much of life is confusing like this, I find. 

Monkey's Wedding

Have you ever wondered what happens to the good time girls when they stumble haplessly into the bad times?

Speaking from personal experience, the first thing I noticed was that the phone stopped ringing.  No invites to meals, drinks, parties, outings from that extended group of friends who formed my wide and lively social circle.

Then I thought – hang on. The phone never rang at this end anyway. This was me, organising all this stuff, jollying everyone along, booking up the holidays, sorting out the picnics, throwing the parties, buying the cinema tickets, phoning out for the takeaways, firing up the barbecue.  After 15 years of being the life and soul for a group of local mums and dads, you’d think I could live off the return matches for a good few years, wouldn’t you.

Not a bit of it. Of the dozens of people who attended all our last 10 years of New Year parties, not a single one of them invited us to them this time, when we didn’t feel like organising one.  I thought about it a bit harder and counted up quite a few couples who had been over to ours for supper five or ten times, and never so much as invited us back for tea and biscuits.

And that’s not even counting the person I formerly counted as good friend who thought that our family difficulties would present the perfect opportunity to make a play for my husband – in my own kitchen while I was serving them dinner! It would be funny if it wasn’t so disappointing. Whatever happened to the sisterhood?

The second thing I noticed was that people who specifically wanted to hang out with a good time girl have no idea what to say when they ask you how things are and you actually tell them. Blimey they didn’t sign up for all this heavy shit. So who can blame them for quietly slinking off to hang out with someone chirpier, cheerier? All this angst and suicide and depression was never part of the deal.

The most important thing, though, is that a time like this sorts the wheat from the chaff.  There’s that tiny handful, the Golden People, who are the ones that do keep ringing. And texting. And emailing. And coming round, or dragging me outdoors.  Who drove us to hospital. Who had us over for New Year. Who drove over from France. Who have looked after my darling but oh-so-troubled daughter, even though it scares the bejesus out of them to shoulder that responsibility.  It wasn’t a surprise – I knew these people would be the ones to do this. They are my four corners, they hold me up, make sure I don’t fall when I need to stay standing.  I wonder why I ever spent time with anyone else. 

And there have been surprises too. People who I thought were business contacts rather than personal friends, who noticed I was not myself, and wrote notes, sent flowers, took me out for coffee and lunch and offered support – without prying, without even asking what the trouble was, just seeing I could do with some support. Bear in mind I put on a damn good show, so it wouldn’t have been easy to spot that I was drowning not waving.  And people I thought were acquaintances at the other end of a flirt or a tweet, who reached out a hand of friendship, totally unexpectedly.

I guess it has to be raining before you can see rainbows.

Carcassonne

How important is authenticity?

Eugene Viollet-le-Duc was born 200 years ago today. Not many British people would have heard of him before he was honoured with a rather fine Google-doodle, but his work is the cause of much controversy amongst historians and architects.

When he was restoring the city of Carcassonne (and Notre Dame, for that matter) he decided to add a number of new features: modifications, improvements or just plain whimsy, depending on your point of view. Some people think this is an outrage, but I suspect most visitors are not architectural historians and find the place simply gorgeous.

If you were rebuilding something that was all broken  -  a family, say, or a marriage  -  I guess you're not necessarily obliged to try and recreate it the way it was. Times may have moved on so why not incorporate new ideas, new features? I don't suppose there's any law that says things have to go back exactly the way the were, and since we can only move onwards not backwards in life, why not ditch the parts we don't like, and bring in some improvements? 

Part of the decision involves the initial assessment - whether the construction is a write-off, beyond economic repair, or whether it's storm damage, nothing that a few new windows and a lick of paint won't sort out. 

If your building, your city, your life is no longer fit for purpose, there are a number of options. These include: move to a new location; rebuild to the original plan, recycling as many of the existing materials as possible; clear the ground and build something completely new and different.

Unfortunately in this, as in so many decisions, there are no easy answers. Opinions are divided as to what is right, best, appropriate. But people are often happier with a charming, fake version of life than a dirtier, more difficult authentic reality. Carcassonne is as lovely as you hoped it would be, and you don't really mind that it isn't "real".

Sky Falling

The sun is shining with a cold, false-friend brightness that hurts at the back of the eyes. The sky is a fake, flat blue, everything else is brown and grey. The railway spools its clickety-clack tentacles all the way from one meeting to the next and nothing seems to matter as much as lying down on the bed. Sleep, though, is a cock-tease, playing with me all day then disappearing just at the critical moment. The sheets are too cold, then too hot. Time reels back a year and we’re still in the same place, all of us: pointless in a courtroom with money draining away, driving around the corner and seeing her up in the window, looping the curtain cord over her head and kicking the chair…… Life now, such as it is, forever the jump from the still-moving car, the howl of her name and the running upstairs – over and over and over.  I am always too late to catch her, however many times the film loops its repeat. Always not there when she needed me, always finding her lying still on the floor, lying unconscious in the hospital bed, always too late. Rumer has stolen Karen Carpenter’s voice and asks again and again to be forgiven.  Someone needs to tell that girl to stop singing: there is no forgiveness to be found.

Not Waving

I tried so hard last week – and for a while it worked, I think. I put on a good show all round. I saw people and did things that made me smile. I felt human, I felt as if I had a life of my own outside this cage.

This week I feel as if that was all the energy I had, putting on the good face just for those few days.  The anniversary of my little one’s first attempted suicide is approaching this weekend and I have such a sense of impending horror I am being stifled by it. 

I am overwhelmed by my life, the heaviness of it, the sucking heavy mud pulling pulling pulling me down.  I can’t remember what you’re supposed to do. Struggling, fighting, that sinks you down, doesn’t it? Staying still and keeping calm, that doesn’t stop the inexorable dragging under either.  There doesn’t seem to be anything to hold on to, nothing solid to anchor me.

I am cold. I am sinking.

Instructions for Living

Bollocks to all these self-help books. Adults have no bloody idea how to live their lives - just look at us, for heaven's sake. What a mess.

I am going to take all my advice from 6 year olds in future. Here is the instruction list two friends made.

How To Fall In Love

1. First you stare at the person.
2. You get close to each other.
3. You ask for a date.
4. You go to bed and do sex.
5. When you kiss you suck and lick.
6. Get nacked in bed and do more sex.
7. -
8. Go dance and put your noses together.
9. -
10. Then kiss forever.
11. Take a shower together and kiss.
12. Give each other rings.
13. Go to the pool together.

Yep. I think that has everything covered.  Steps 14-24 are blank - as they should be. It's all downhill after you get back from the pool.

Moon of Alabama

When is the right time to say goodbye? And when is it better to stay and face the music (even if dancing can't be contemplated)? Only hindsight makes sense of the actions we take  -  we overlay a skin of meaning onto the bones of the facts, pull it into shape and fashion it into a body of evidence. Posthumous, but nonetheless convincing. 

I'm still deciding. So come on and let me know: should I stay or should I go? 

Music always has the answer. Is it to be Stay (just a little bit longer)? Go, walk out the door (and survive)? Or Burning down the house? Je ne regrette rien.

Lure

This is it - the path. This is how it looks in winter. This year I will walk it. 

I know I have said this before. I've said so on this very blog, in fact.  And if I am going to be kind to myself, I had better start by keeping my own commitments to myself, particularly when they are basic, free-of-charge, uncomplicated activities that will be enjoyable and healthy like this. What I really mean by all that waffle is, why couldn't I have given myself a couple of hours off, some time over the last nearly 4 years (4 years!!) to go for this walk? I don't think I am kind to myself at all. 

This week I have Tried Harder. I spent time with friends (hardly a trial, of course, but I had to allow myself to "deserve" that time).  I tried hard with my husband (and believe me this is very trying indeed). I went on a Mummy-Daughter date, supper and a night in a hotel in London. And this afternoon while I wait for her to finish dancing, I have been for a wonderful facial in a Thai spa I found on the internet, and am now writing. 

It will be very hard to get used to having time for myself that does not involve running around doing things for other people. 

But I Asked For Help, and help was forthcoming. Of course it was, my friends are wonderful (well, most of them, with notable exceptions but let's not go there for now). The writing is creaking into gear, I am on my fourth poem of the year, and it's only Week 2 of my 52 Challenge.  One of my poems was about the path. 

I am going to get off the clickety-clack of this railway existence and walk up that hillside. Yes I am. 

Fresh

I have to find a way to live my life as it is. The meaningful changes I would like to make cannot be made at this point - I am a mother before anything, and I need to do what is best for my children.

Thus I have made some New Year Resolutions and I have been trying to stick to them. 

Be kind to myself: life and other people are throwing rocks at me, I don't need to help them out by beating myself up.  I am going to try and talk myself up instead. I have a continual inner voice constantly talking me down, so this will be a real challenge.

Write: I have signed up to an initiative to write a poem a week (I'm ahead of the game as I've already written two).  I will organise my material and submit more of it for publication, see if I can raise my game a bit. This will give me something purposeful to do now that I have to spend so much time at home. I am also going to write other things. This blog for a start (expect to see all sorts of writing on here going forward, sorry it's been such a wrist-slitter lately).  Crack on with the novel. Maybe also a work-blog - I have set this up on the company website, all I need to do now is blurt some opinions on topical issues. I'll need to give a shit first, I guess.

Get fitter: notice this is a relative objective.  I need fresh air and walks and to keep myself moving. It's always hard for me, as I fight my body's natural urge to chub, and I would rather sit on the sofa with a glass of red and a good book than go for a run, any day.  However I am going to try. Harder than I have so far this year, otherwise this aim will be over before it's even begun. 

Yesterday for instance, I started well. Had Fruit & Fibre and a coffee for breakfast. Planned to go for a run later in the day.  Then had a very distressing therapy appointment with Ultra High Risk Daughter. The day was derailed after that. For lunch I had a samosa, a bag of Cheddars and a Star Bar. Then I had a bag of crisps later on.  For supper I made a leek and mushroom risotto (quite healthy) but ate some pate with crackers while I was making it.  Then I had four Thorntons Continentals in bed. Today I will do better (see? I am still able to be optimistic, that must be a good thing). 

I realised I needed to do something very important that I have rarely if ever done before. I understood that I can't struggle on being this lonely, feeling so alone. So I took a lifesaving step: Ask for help. Wow! Yes, I know! So proud of myself. I contacted the people who are important to me, reached out to them. This might sound easy but believe me, it's a huge step. I don't feel like talking to anyone, any time, as I don't feel I have anything to offer them. I'm the life and soul, right? I'm the party organiser, the drinker, the fixer, the sorter, the fun-times girl.  No one wants to see me white-faced, silent with panic, beaten by my spectacular failure to build a happy family. Do they? 

Actually maybe they do. I think I might have been underestimating my friends. Times like this sort the wheat from the chaff, for sure. And the people who are left are the golden ones, and just sitting with their glow will help me feel better.  I hope.