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.