Poems, stories, dreams and realities.
this life
that’s what it’s all about
this life
a tent pitched
on a cliff
nothing but sea and sky beneath
easy to forget
caught in the frantic pace
the race for success
the strive the stress
and the mess of it
sometimes we need a gentle nudge
in the shape of a text
or a photograph
to remind us that
that’s what it’s all about
Out walking today I came across these incredible narcissi blooming against all odds amidst a tangle of brambles and nettles. I got right up close and personal and I can testify to their amazing scent. I have the stings and scratches to prove it. Beauty rears it’s head just when you’re least expecting it.
Life moves forward at an alarming pace.
Yesterday, with the help of a dear friend, I bought a car for my second born son. A recalcitrant student for many years, he has just spent (without prompt) the whole of Sunday working his socks off in the school library. First born son has waved goodbye calling, ‘Evening mother, see you tomorrow. Can we look for accommodation in New York when I come home?’ and driven off in his car to visit a friend. Youngest son is busy revising for his first GCSE in R.E.
We have discussed, during the course of the day, and latterly over our lasagne, the Da Vinci code, the Unificaton church and the cult of the Moonies, Bob Marley and the new biopic of his life, God and atheism, (always a hot topic in our house,) various friends and family members (hilarious), head rushes and teenage fainting, smoking, revising, I.B. versus A levels, the questionable value of A.S., course work versus exams, dog allergies, Dave Brubeck and Take Five, the Radiohead Five Step mash up, the Rodrigo y Gabriella version, being shy when you are really young, school being a passport to university being a passport to further study/a job and therefore whether it has or has not any intrinsic value, love and relationships, the hallucinogenic properties of nutmeg, Andy McKee…
Where did the years go? How did we get to here, this point, where we all co-exist, separate and together, living our own lives, yet inextricably linked. It’s nice. Nice is not an adequate word you may think, but I have decided it is. Nice.
I looked up the word just to check: (Chambers. iPad app)
adjective
And I’m still happy with my choice. The meaning is right, other than wanton, which in a family situation is obviously not the mood I’m looking to describe, nor perhaps coy, and I also do not use it in the ironic sense at all.
Even a mouse,
a quivering slip of a thing,
needs a nest and a touch
and a loving
to cease his scoring
raw weals in his skin.
Just perhaps,
this, how not to stress,
this, how to live…
If we recognise this,
could we not sort
all manner of things?
So… the update continues. And to keep you entertained incase I fail…
A new love… so cool, so retro, so eighties, so Everything Everything….
I hope I’m not boring you. I really hope I’m not boring you, but I suppose I do it for me, you know, this diary thing, as much as for, more than for, you, and then I just hope that it’s somehow vaguely interesting. My life. Very arrogant really. Don’t think I don’t consider it. Double negative. I do! I do! Often. But hey ho… here we go again. You are not incidental by the way. Whoever you are. Well, some of you I know, but a lot of you I don’t. Anyway. Onwards. Someone once told me that self doubt was extremely unattractive… who was that? Oh, I remember… my ex-husband! Ha! Yes… Learn your lessons girl…
Where was I? Sunday…
So Monday- work- normal- only got really irritated once- oops!
Tuesday. At home. A writerly day. My first ‘legitimate’, read between the lines as you will, writerly day. Craig came round with Connor. Oh! But I nearly forgot!
Monday evening… two of my delightful ‘sons by other mothers’ dropped by with tesco bags full of fags, vodka, coke (the drink not the drug) and lambrini… We had a ball. The pre-text was that a CV needed some work on it… the subtext- Fuck knows! But they managed to keep me up until 5am so they must have been entertaining. CV got written, plus an alternative version incase ‘son by another mother AJB’ ever wants to apply for Broadmoor, as a client, not a service provider… Much Youtube was watched, much music listened to, much music played on guitar and sung, (how delightful) much alchohol drunk, (by them, not me, I moved onto tea at about 1am) much hair clipping undertaken, (they wanted to give me a ‘buzz’ cut, thank God I refused that vodka/lambrini cocktail and balked at fashion suicide, instead just insisting on ‘sorting’ their bad hair days.) I left them buzzing and talking about watching a movie. They were quiet and let me sleep, which was all that mattered to me at that moment so, as always, they are adorable in my eyes.
And yes… I awoke, as you do hopefully, (… the alternative is not good…), and Craig and Connor came round. God- I love that man. A true friend. Connor walked the dogs with Michelle and played killing games on the PS3 and Craig and I talked in the sun on the swingy basket chairs and did ‘Tarot.” And my cards are FUCKING BRILLIANT at the mo. And I was so happy I wrote a very happy poem… ‘Today.’ See a pre-previous post.
What a beautiful day. All of it. Beautiful.
Wednesday
Attended a great workshop at the Central Library in Leicester. An event organised in conjunction with ‘Everybody’s Reading’ week. Not sure when that is, but it’s a national thang so…
Jean Binta Breeze ran a workshop. They’re running for eight weeks. It was fab- she is- and I’m going to go to as many of them as I can. All to do with reading, writing and the inter-connection. Really fun.
Lunch. Home. Writing. I was moved by the riots and all the fucking bollocks shit that’s going on in England at the moment. Who wouldn’t be? It’s worrying. I worry about our country, our young people, my own kids and all the kids I know and love, and education, the state of the nation. Fuck!
I worry.
We have to change. We have to change a lot of things. Now.
And I worry that I’m OK and other’s aren’t and I don’t want to feel guilty for having it good. I’ve worked hard. But I do. Feel guilty, that is and no doubt so I should… but I pay bloody heavy taxes- 60% of everything I earn goes to this government and it’s what they’re (not) doing with it that I’m not happy about.
It’s a difficult situation, I feel, trying to be political when you’re also comfortably off. I’m a socialist at heart, yet I’m a capitalist because of the way I live. I’m beset with middle class guilt and I don’t like it, but I didn’t vote them in. What to do? it’s difficult. I think things are shit and I don’t want them to be. There’s enough to go round. It should do and it needs to… But how? I don’t know. I don’t have the first fucking clue. That’s why I’m a fashion designer and trying to be a writer and I’m not, nor have I ever wanted to be, a self serving twat of a politician. My opinion. But we need to talk about it… as a nation. We need to sort it out. I love England, Great Britain, my country, my home.
And I want to feel proud.
I want to save this for posterity…
So true... remember them all...
A fashion designer for years, now a writer –
of short stories and poems, some of which get aired here
and seriously aiming to write a novel this year...
Would one day like to own a lady parrot.
