This is for ordinary people
This is for ordinary people (and we won’t be telling you that you’re extraordinary just for being you).
You won’t recognise us from the television.
We are not prodigiously talented.
My body did not spring back into shape.
You won’t be surprised by my down to earth nature, make-up free face or wry sense of humour.
I didn’t overcome the odds.
I’m not an example of where hard work and determination will get you.
I say never.
A lot.
I don’t live a simple but fulfilling life.
I didn’t write this in a café.
It didn’t come to me in a dream.
All kinds of things that I expected would happen in my life have not happened.
I forgot to buy peppermint tea.
I want to believe in someone other than myself.
The floor needs vacuuming.
If I had a choice I’d rather live with someone else too.
If you watch long enough you may see them.
They wear sunglasses and smiles and walk in slow motion down busy streets.
They are scared to be alone.
They wear careful make up and studied eye-liner, the right shaped underwear and designer clothes.
This is not for them.
It is for you.
Forgiveness - a definition
I heard on the radio today, a snatch of an interview, with a couple whose daughter had been murdered. They could of course never condone the actions of the person who killed their daughter, but it sounded like they had learned a way to live with it.
They spoke about the concept of forgiveness and offered this definition:
Forgiveness is the act of letting go of someone and letting them get on with their life
The words stayed with me as I got out of the car to do my various tasks, buy bread, something for dinner, go about my day.
I couldn't imagine what they gone through or how they had managed to distill that concept down into something so simple and profound.
I carried it with me throughout the day.
I like the shape that it made and the possibilities it created.
Star gazing (or what I learned from one hour with Stephen Hawking)
We are made from the stuff of stars,
in the beginning there was
no outside, everything was inside
gravity is the hero of the universe
it pulls together what has been exploded
iron does not create energy when it fuses
so the fire at the heart of the star
starts to die
the death of a star is called a super nova
it is the birth of something new
black holes form when a star
comes to the end of its life
when a star explodes it makes a cloud
called a nebula
nebuli are beautiful
our sun was created when a whole lot
of hydrogen fused together
the earth is made from minerals and rock
the universe is expanding, ever expanding
those stars that look red in the night sky,
they are galaxies moving away from us
things are born, they create energy
they explode and all the bits
are blown away, then eventually
the bits are pulled back together
and something new is formed, that
is how stuff is made
there is more than optimism to this
it is expansion, it is wonder
it lifts us out of ourselves, physics
is a religion, but there is
no punishment and no reward
it is just exploding and dispersing
and fusing, each body is an atom
that is made in the same way the
universe was formed
my body in the night sky
is dancing, I run on the earth
which lifts to hold me
my serious face, like gravity,
slowly pulls objects together
and turns in on itself
when it goes unchallenged,
bring hydrogen! bring helium!
touch the gold and silver and platinum
that are forged in the heart
of an exploding star, the cosmos
is born from imperfection
mistakes make life
a perfect state is a dead state
nothing comes from stasis
see where the blobs of gas are thicker
see where they are thin
in between is where
the good stuff happens
the stuff of stars
the stuff of us.
Pollyanna moments
My friend: Which is best: anxiety or depression?
Me: Anxiety, because there is something to hope for.
My friend: I agree.
Sound massage
flint flick
flutters around my ears
tiny twangs
lament of miniature troubadours
brush of bracken
against my hair
brain matter bubbles and pops
tap of a molecule
my cochlea tuned
to a more delicate frequency
spa for the grey matter
symphony fluted just for me
the ultimate antidote
to white noise
Thank you Liquid Architecture and Pascal Battus
When we are old
When we are old and lonely,
let's make voice recordings for each other and send them.
Listening will make us laugh and cry.
Let's keep the conversation alive as long as possible.
Listening for time
A door closes
It doesn’t slam
Shuts with a kind of
Red velvet hush
A moment passes
Maybe a clock ticks
Or a bird flies past
I don’t know which side
Of the door I am on
The inside or the outside
Do I need to look for a window
Another door
Or a different building
Stand still a moment
And wait
Time might tell
Answers without questions
I recently watched a TV interview in which particular questions were asked of the subject. Here, I answer them, without explaining the questions. I think the words tell their own small story:
1. I try.
2. Yes it did.
3. I don’t know.
4. “I could see that you were trying.”
5. “But was it enough?”
6. Seeing my father in the audience of a show I was doing after he had died.
7. It makes no promises to be fair, but surprising gifts can come.
8. Everyone.
Big words from a small man
My imagination captured this week by a beautiful book: The Emperor's Last Island by Julia Blackburn. It gives an account of the last few years of Napoleon's life, spent as a prisoner on the island of St Helena.
The writing shines, peppered with the author's own experience of travelling to St Helena, quotes from the journals and letters of people who lived on the island with Napoleon, and a number of bons mots from the man himself:
"Who screams the loudest on the battlefields, the English or the French?" (p. 152)
"Which is more refreshing, milk of almonds or lemonade?" (p. 153)
"Doctor, you have known the human body so intimately, have you never found the soul when you were at work with your scalpel? In which organ do you think it might reside?" (p. 161)
Fascinating insights into the mind of one of the most famous men of all time, a mind that was clearly active, curious, creative, questioning. Words that seem to speak of a man who deserves the reputation of being larger than life.
Finding the gold
I came home to find this beautiful gold leaf suspended from the bathroom ceiling.
It was hanging on a barely visible spider web thread.
I assumed it was a leaf that had blown in from outside.
Or a gift from an enchanting bathroom fairy.
It was beautiful and magical, I kept going in to check it was still there, this gold leaf, gently swaying.
It remained, suspended, for a few hours, and then dropped to the floor. I picked up it but it dissolved at my touch.
Days later, cleaning the bath, I found another one. Upon closer inspection I realised what they were. Clusters of mould from the ceiling that had dried and flaked into a singular piece.
One step up from lemonade from lemons, or the silver lining on a cloud ...
I'd discovered the gold in the mould.
Stars from the past
A Reding Universal Exercise Book, ruled feint, and approved by The Education Department.
Of its 32 pages, just 6 have been used.
On these pages a series of gold star stickers.
2 pages for my sister, 2 for my brother and 2 for me. The date beside each of our names: 1974.
After each installment of gold stars, a message, hand written in red pen, from our father:
A very good girl/boy (mine says 'wee girl' - appropriate as the youngest). The black stars have all been taken away.
And they have. There are no black stars to be seen. There are gaps where we can presume the black stars once were.
The only thing we don't know is what any of the stars are for and why there was a range of black and gold ones in the first place.
Were the black stars bad things we did? Or might have done? Or were about to do? I was only born in 1973, how many black stars could I have accrued in just one year? Or were they perhaps dark spots in his life that we somehow helped take away?
It will forever remain a mystery.
The story behind these stars from the past.
Silky dreams
My wardrobe is dictated
by a sporadic and reluctant approach
to hair removal
these April days are still
warm enough for bare legs
but shaving is so harsh and time consuming
and to wax you need
to let the hair grow
I am a failure in the depilatory arts
wish I could let my silky locks
blow gently in the breeze
but I remain susceptible to the whims of fashion
sometimes I imagine living
in a world that worships body hair
where ripping and tearing and bleaching and burning ends
and attention is turned instead
to how the models on TV get
such rich foliage
what foods best promote moustache growth
and how to encourage wayward hairs
on chins, chests and cheeks
such is the stuff of my
autumn daydreams