Something a little different I wrote while on holiday, triggered by some incredibly generous people:
Some of you
Small seeds of information
About you
Fall from your boughs
And drop onto the surface
Of my still pool.
Some skim the cool surface,
Skating over the rippled waterscape
Of my understanding;
Others drop to the depths,
Their hard casings
Saving them from the relentless
Decomposition of my insecurity.
Still others are drawn
To the reeded shore,
Where they take root
Grow, flower, change
The aspect of my outlook,
Beautiful additions to my soul.
My normal blog post is half written and on my mind, I just wasn't happy with the direction it had taken. It will appear soon!
Thursday, 21 April 2011
Sunday, 27 March 2011
Primal Parenting
We sat in the school room that looked nothing like a school room, and the pain and desperation of the parents in the air was a living, breathing, wounded animal. It was palpable. Our children had suffered, and there had been nothing we could do to stop them suffering. Then, we had been given something good, that worked for them in the way that no other education or social enterprise had, and now they were taking it away from us.
This could be the opening paragraph of a dramatic fiction, but it isn't, it is the opening paragraph of a description of a real life event. Our real lives. We are the painfully real result of a social policy that has arisen because of a dozen or so egos, a few decisions that have gained momentum, and a refusal to go back.
We were well brought-up parents. We listened as politely as we were physically able to, as they rained their philosophy and politics on us like blows. We challenged, reigning our anger and fear and desperation in as far as we could, but it slipped through in every word. We all understood that the people sitting in front of us absorbing our response were only part of a whole. They weren't going to stop the wheel of policy change rumbling over us any more than we were. We just wanted to understand their justification for it.
The truth is, there was no justification. There are no reasons. They can close a centre of excellence that has been of unmeasurable benefit to our children for no better reason than that they don't have it in Fenland; they need to get out of the building; 'we' think children are always better off in school.
Do they really, truly believe that children are always better off in school? Surely that is not a belief that an intelligent, thinking, functioning human being can actually hold?
Schools are brutal. Even the very best – and by what measure we define the very best requires a long debate of its own – brutalise children in some way, in order to have them conform. That's okay. For most children, a brutal training ground for the adult world is more beneficial than not. We might not like it, but we understand it, and so we allow it. Parents are protective of their young, but they are pragmatic, too.
Some children, though, through no fault except of fate and nature, are made to suffer inordinately. It might be through physical illness, like us; mental illness – no less painful; or circumstance. Life can hurt, and it can hurt our young before they are ready to take the pain. The idea of taking children who have suffered beyond others, and forcing them into the storm of a huge, statutory institution - an institution with not only the potential of making them suffer more, but the experience of having already made them suffer more - to their parents, at least, is anathema.
And to have had something good – something soothing and stretching and challenging and gentle, an imperfect gift, but a gift nonetheless – to have that withdrawn, for no good reason – that hurts.
There are good parents and bad parents. Mostly, there are parents who do right and wrong by their children every day. We respond to the circumstances of our bewildering lives as best as we can, and sometimes we get it right. In that painful, anguished meeting, we did do something right.
It is important that our children see us fight for them, even if we don't win. They need the lesson that the smallest of us can effect change; and it is more important to show our love by standing up to the juggernaut of social policy than to actually achieve our ends. If the only change we manage to make is an understanding of why something is wrong, we have done something good.
Even though our children will remain subjected to anxiety beyond their reasonable capacity, shifts in understanding will make a difference. Tiny changes in attitude and motivation, even at this stage, will affect the actions of policy makers and policy activators. Determination to control our lives, though control is an illusion, will motivate us to take our own steps to put alternative measures in place.
As parents, we are in a better place to protect our young than we were before we went in to that room; even though it doesn't feel that way at all.
Following on from this meeting, we met with the Head and management of the local school that is going to take responsibility for educating our daughter back. The Head, with no conscious instinct for survival, felt compelled – driven, almost – to make us listen to his political and philosophical reasons for wanting to provide an education for our daughter.
I have never in my life come so close to physically attacking a relative stranger.
Social policy can, and frequently does, come between good parents and their children. It is the world we have to live in. There are too many of us for it to be any different.
Those who wield social power would do well, though, to remember that the bond between parent and child is primal. You have read my words, you can acknowledge the breadth and depth of my understanding; you know I am no fool.
But if you want to hurt my child - even though you think your reasons for doing so are justified by beautifully constructed and morally sound philosophical and political motivations - you have to get through me first.
And I know that you, for all your standing in society, would do the same for yours.
This could be the opening paragraph of a dramatic fiction, but it isn't, it is the opening paragraph of a description of a real life event. Our real lives. We are the painfully real result of a social policy that has arisen because of a dozen or so egos, a few decisions that have gained momentum, and a refusal to go back.
We were well brought-up parents. We listened as politely as we were physically able to, as they rained their philosophy and politics on us like blows. We challenged, reigning our anger and fear and desperation in as far as we could, but it slipped through in every word. We all understood that the people sitting in front of us absorbing our response were only part of a whole. They weren't going to stop the wheel of policy change rumbling over us any more than we were. We just wanted to understand their justification for it.
The truth is, there was no justification. There are no reasons. They can close a centre of excellence that has been of unmeasurable benefit to our children for no better reason than that they don't have it in Fenland; they need to get out of the building; 'we' think children are always better off in school.
Do they really, truly believe that children are always better off in school? Surely that is not a belief that an intelligent, thinking, functioning human being can actually hold?
Schools are brutal. Even the very best – and by what measure we define the very best requires a long debate of its own – brutalise children in some way, in order to have them conform. That's okay. For most children, a brutal training ground for the adult world is more beneficial than not. We might not like it, but we understand it, and so we allow it. Parents are protective of their young, but they are pragmatic, too.
Some children, though, through no fault except of fate and nature, are made to suffer inordinately. It might be through physical illness, like us; mental illness – no less painful; or circumstance. Life can hurt, and it can hurt our young before they are ready to take the pain. The idea of taking children who have suffered beyond others, and forcing them into the storm of a huge, statutory institution - an institution with not only the potential of making them suffer more, but the experience of having already made them suffer more - to their parents, at least, is anathema.
And to have had something good – something soothing and stretching and challenging and gentle, an imperfect gift, but a gift nonetheless – to have that withdrawn, for no good reason – that hurts.
There are good parents and bad parents. Mostly, there are parents who do right and wrong by their children every day. We respond to the circumstances of our bewildering lives as best as we can, and sometimes we get it right. In that painful, anguished meeting, we did do something right.
It is important that our children see us fight for them, even if we don't win. They need the lesson that the smallest of us can effect change; and it is more important to show our love by standing up to the juggernaut of social policy than to actually achieve our ends. If the only change we manage to make is an understanding of why something is wrong, we have done something good.
Even though our children will remain subjected to anxiety beyond their reasonable capacity, shifts in understanding will make a difference. Tiny changes in attitude and motivation, even at this stage, will affect the actions of policy makers and policy activators. Determination to control our lives, though control is an illusion, will motivate us to take our own steps to put alternative measures in place.
As parents, we are in a better place to protect our young than we were before we went in to that room; even though it doesn't feel that way at all.
Following on from this meeting, we met with the Head and management of the local school that is going to take responsibility for educating our daughter back. The Head, with no conscious instinct for survival, felt compelled – driven, almost – to make us listen to his political and philosophical reasons for wanting to provide an education for our daughter.
I have never in my life come so close to physically attacking a relative stranger.
Social policy can, and frequently does, come between good parents and their children. It is the world we have to live in. There are too many of us for it to be any different.
Those who wield social power would do well, though, to remember that the bond between parent and child is primal. You have read my words, you can acknowledge the breadth and depth of my understanding; you know I am no fool.
But if you want to hurt my child - even though you think your reasons for doing so are justified by beautifully constructed and morally sound philosophical and political motivations - you have to get through me first.
And I know that you, for all your standing in society, would do the same for yours.
Thursday, 17 February 2011
Extra-sensory Nutrition Perception
Don't get me wrong, I am a science kind of woman.
I mean, I hated science in school, it never made any sense to me at all, apart from biology. Physics was as much of a mystery to me as an Edgar Allan Poe tale. (He's a miserable-looking man, isn't he? I think it is the down-turned 'tache). I couldn't settle for the fact that electrons moved from one pole to another, I wanted to know why they did. Who made them? Did they decide on their own? Did they fulfil a pre-ordained destiny, or was it complete chance that they did so, a random universal coincidence of fortune for the humanity that had managed to tap into it? I fully understand why my teachers didn't like me very much.
But now, I love science. It fascinates and intrigues me. I read about it and watch television programmes about it and talk to my family about it. Admittedly, I still can't help Eldest Daughter with her GCSE physics homework, but I'm no sap, and when I hear the arts graduates on radio four mangle their interpretation of the scientific news it drives me crazy.
One of the particular areas of science that I find most interesting is that of nutrition. There are good reasons for this, of course. You know I love to cook; and at one stage in my potted life, I even catered for a living. And then there is the issue of nutrition and illness, and we have an awful lot of THAT in our lives – it's natural that an intelligent, well-read woman would make it her business to know all she can about the effects that minerals, vitamins, proteins, carbohydrates and roughage will have on a body suffering from the wide range of immune-system related disorders in our family.
Nutrition is one of the very few areas in which we feel some sort of semblance of control over the evil forces of CFS/ME and psoriatic and/or rheumatoid arthritis. It isn't just us – it is the straw that the medical profession is grasping for all around us currently. And who can blame them? They want to help, they feel as helpless as I do, they are looking for their very own bazookas in the headlights of our need.
I try to reassure them that when it comes to feeding my daughter, I really Know What I Am Doing. But saying it, even with capital letters, doesn't help them to understand the depth of my knowledge. I never will be able to make them understand this, because my knowledge is not actually derived from study, or science, or anything remotely understandable to anyone with a medical degree. I have a secret that I am going to share with you, and you, too, are going to think I am mad, and may even worry for the safety of my family.
{Whispers – I have extra sensory nutritional perception. Sssshh.}
Have I lost you?
There are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, whether you are called Horatio or not. This is something I know to be true, and yet, how can I make anyone believe me, ever? What I can do is this: I can sense the nutrients that my daughter's body needs. This sense is exponentially improved the more time I spend with her, and I need to be physically fairly close to her to be able to sense it. But I don't do it through sight or sound or touch; I look somewhere inside of myself to find what it is that she needs, and when I do this, consciously or unconsciously, I am always right.
I say my daughter, but in fact I can do this for both girls and my man, too. Hell, I can even do it for myself, that's fairly easy. But I most often do it for the youngest, because her nutrition is regularly more urgent than Eldest's or my man's. This is because they eat pretty well, and through a week, usually take in more than they need of most elements. I do have to work to ensure Eldest gets the iron and protein that she needs; and my man is terrible at feeding himself. But youngest will frequently need very specific nutrients at odd times of day, and when I am there, I can read and fulfil her need.
Do you believe me? I ask because I am intrigued by how this will come across. There is such an emotional connection between a mother and the feeding of her children. Anyone who has ever breast fed a baby will understand the depths of this. The first time your baby rejects your breast? Iron to the soul. And moving onto weaning, the emotion involved can be overwhelming. I have seen an otherwise gentle woman physically hold her toddler's mouth open and force food into it, in her frustration at his refusal to take in the nutrients she had lovingly prepared for him. Feeding our children can make us mad, I know it. And the way we feed our children can make them mad, too. Anorexia, bulimia and over-eating are enormously prevalent in young people. Using food as a means to self-harm is a child's most accessible weapon against himself and his parents. (Yes, this is not a female issue, boys use this weapon too).
So, I get that people might think that I am a deluded over-bearing mother with food control issues, especially if they are doctors and see people like that all the time. And I get that even if you know me and know that I am not controlling in this way at all (and I have enough self-awareness to try to avoid the other ways in which I tend to be controlling), you might think that I am deluded, even if I have great excuses for my delusions. There is no way that I can explain myself or prove what I know to be true.
I am a scientist who believes in magic. Or am I a magician who understands science? Either way, I am highly unlikely to be the only mother out there with extra sensory nutritional perception. Will my declaration bring others out into the open? I would LOVE to hear from you if you think you can do this too. Read this, share this, leave a comment - you know you want to.
Would you like a recipe? Hmmm... don't have much time this week. How about a quick and easy cocktail? Chill some lychee juice almost to the point of freezing. Pour half a glass full, add a double tot of gin, and top up with soda. A slice of lemon will tart the sweetness up just enough. Enjoy!
I mean, I hated science in school, it never made any sense to me at all, apart from biology. Physics was as much of a mystery to me as an Edgar Allan Poe tale. (He's a miserable-looking man, isn't he? I think it is the down-turned 'tache). I couldn't settle for the fact that electrons moved from one pole to another, I wanted to know why they did. Who made them? Did they decide on their own? Did they fulfil a pre-ordained destiny, or was it complete chance that they did so, a random universal coincidence of fortune for the humanity that had managed to tap into it? I fully understand why my teachers didn't like me very much.
But now, I love science. It fascinates and intrigues me. I read about it and watch television programmes about it and talk to my family about it. Admittedly, I still can't help Eldest Daughter with her GCSE physics homework, but I'm no sap, and when I hear the arts graduates on radio four mangle their interpretation of the scientific news it drives me crazy.
One of the particular areas of science that I find most interesting is that of nutrition. There are good reasons for this, of course. You know I love to cook; and at one stage in my potted life, I even catered for a living. And then there is the issue of nutrition and illness, and we have an awful lot of THAT in our lives – it's natural that an intelligent, well-read woman would make it her business to know all she can about the effects that minerals, vitamins, proteins, carbohydrates and roughage will have on a body suffering from the wide range of immune-system related disorders in our family.
Nutrition is one of the very few areas in which we feel some sort of semblance of control over the evil forces of CFS/ME and psoriatic and/or rheumatoid arthritis. It isn't just us – it is the straw that the medical profession is grasping for all around us currently. And who can blame them? They want to help, they feel as helpless as I do, they are looking for their very own bazookas in the headlights of our need.
I try to reassure them that when it comes to feeding my daughter, I really Know What I Am Doing. But saying it, even with capital letters, doesn't help them to understand the depth of my knowledge. I never will be able to make them understand this, because my knowledge is not actually derived from study, or science, or anything remotely understandable to anyone with a medical degree. I have a secret that I am going to share with you, and you, too, are going to think I am mad, and may even worry for the safety of my family.
{Whispers – I have extra sensory nutritional perception. Sssshh.}
Have I lost you?
There are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, whether you are called Horatio or not. This is something I know to be true, and yet, how can I make anyone believe me, ever? What I can do is this: I can sense the nutrients that my daughter's body needs. This sense is exponentially improved the more time I spend with her, and I need to be physically fairly close to her to be able to sense it. But I don't do it through sight or sound or touch; I look somewhere inside of myself to find what it is that she needs, and when I do this, consciously or unconsciously, I am always right.
I say my daughter, but in fact I can do this for both girls and my man, too. Hell, I can even do it for myself, that's fairly easy. But I most often do it for the youngest, because her nutrition is regularly more urgent than Eldest's or my man's. This is because they eat pretty well, and through a week, usually take in more than they need of most elements. I do have to work to ensure Eldest gets the iron and protein that she needs; and my man is terrible at feeding himself. But youngest will frequently need very specific nutrients at odd times of day, and when I am there, I can read and fulfil her need.
Do you believe me? I ask because I am intrigued by how this will come across. There is such an emotional connection between a mother and the feeding of her children. Anyone who has ever breast fed a baby will understand the depths of this. The first time your baby rejects your breast? Iron to the soul. And moving onto weaning, the emotion involved can be overwhelming. I have seen an otherwise gentle woman physically hold her toddler's mouth open and force food into it, in her frustration at his refusal to take in the nutrients she had lovingly prepared for him. Feeding our children can make us mad, I know it. And the way we feed our children can make them mad, too. Anorexia, bulimia and over-eating are enormously prevalent in young people. Using food as a means to self-harm is a child's most accessible weapon against himself and his parents. (Yes, this is not a female issue, boys use this weapon too).
So, I get that people might think that I am a deluded over-bearing mother with food control issues, especially if they are doctors and see people like that all the time. And I get that even if you know me and know that I am not controlling in this way at all (and I have enough self-awareness to try to avoid the other ways in which I tend to be controlling), you might think that I am deluded, even if I have great excuses for my delusions. There is no way that I can explain myself or prove what I know to be true.
I am a scientist who believes in magic. Or am I a magician who understands science? Either way, I am highly unlikely to be the only mother out there with extra sensory nutritional perception. Will my declaration bring others out into the open? I would LOVE to hear from you if you think you can do this too. Read this, share this, leave a comment - you know you want to.
Would you like a recipe? Hmmm... don't have much time this week. How about a quick and easy cocktail? Chill some lychee juice almost to the point of freezing. Pour half a glass full, add a double tot of gin, and top up with soda. A slice of lemon will tart the sweetness up just enough. Enjoy!
Tuesday, 18 January 2011
If I haven't talked to you in a while, this could be why.
It's not you, it's me.
The people this blog post applies to unfortunately probably won't ever read it, because they have no idea that I occasionally write a blog. But before trying to mend or build bridges, I need to examine the underlying broken structure, and writing seems to give me the opportunity to do this. What a wonderful thing the written word is.
The thing is, it is so much easier to write about things than to talk about them. When you write, you are in control. You can make light of the sad and fun of the ridiculous. You don't have to answer questions, you don't have to respond to anyone, and you don't have to lie. I suck at lying. I can’t even get lies past my lips - not without a great deal of practise, anyway.
Social intercourse is peppered with white lies (and black lies and red lies and pink lies, too). How are you? Fine. How've you been? Great. What have you been doing? Lots. How's the family? Just wonderful. See where I'm going with this? I can't answer any of these questions without pain. Or lying - and I can’t in all conscience spend the time before I speak to you practising lying. What kind of small, furry rodent would that make me?
So, we have a stalemate, missing friends. I can't bring myself to call you, because I can't bring myself to lie when I answer your questions, and although it seems overly dramatic to admit to this, I can't speak the truth without feeling the pain of it. I don't really want to experience any more pain right now, so I won't call you. I’m sorry.
Remember me as the rabbit in the headlights with the bazooka? When I think of calling you, I just can't find that damned bazooka.
Let's say I take my courage in my hands, and I call you. We navigate the minefield of truth on my part, and we begin to explore yours. Actually, we will do this very quickly, because although I am not at all skilled at lying, I am a master of deflection. I will swat at the conversation ball with my silvery verbal squash racquet, and we will very quickly enter the territory of what's been going on in your life.
Either, the stretch of time since we spoke last will have been filled with predominantly happy things, or your life will have brought you more darkness than light. Either one will provoke guilt. If you have been having a really tough time, I will feel the guilt. I will listen to your suffering, and wonder how I could have been so selfishly wrapped up in my own petty tragedies. On the other hand, if you have been having the normal share of moderate weather, with more sunshine than storms, we will both feel the guilt. You will feel guilty for having the pleasant existence you more than deserve; and I will feel guilty for making you contrast your petty tragedies with mine. You will do that, compare them, because you must be a self-aware, thoughtful and moral person, or you wouldn't be categorised in my head as Friend. Feeling guilty is painful, and I don't really want to experience any more pain right now, so I won't call you. The bazooka must be well-hidden down the rabbit hole, and I’m not looking for it right now.
Next, we come to the issue of our past. We have a shared history. We have enjoyed things together, laughed at things, perhaps cried at things together. We have shared stories and given advice or just listened to one another. We might have been drunk together, experienced art together, played games with one another. We may have been important to other members of each other's family. You may have given me far more than I gave in return; or I may have been the giving one, and you the taker. Whatever it was that we shared then, we haven't been sharing for some time now. There is a gap that has been unexplained, and you will have your own theories on what the cause of the gap has been. I will find it impossible to explain the gap, without invoking the pain of difficulty number one and number two, so the gap will probably remain unexplained, causing its own special kind of pain; the pain of the unsaid. I don't really want to experience any more pain right now, so I won't call you. I'm not sure a rabbit is strong enough to hold a bazooka, anyway.
For my part, I don't know why you haven't called me, and I won't speculate. I have frequently felt the need to protect myself from pain over the last few years, cowardly as that is. I often won't answer the phone, because I can't really bear to make myself interact. I stopped sending Christmas cards, because I have always felt the need to share something of myself in them, and really, I don't want to share. There isn't quite enough of me to share because there are people in my life who really, really need me. One of the things I most feel the need to protect myself from is your caring concern. And, yes, you are a caring and concerned person that ordinarily I would value very highly, because if you weren't, you wouldn't be categorised in my head as Friend.
Almost everyone who feels care and concern will have the urge to do something or say something to help 'fix' things. Your inner Bob-the-Builder will leap up and ask me questions about what anyone can do and what has been done, and the answer to these questions will be very, very painful, because we have tried so hard to do everything that can be done, and nothing - nothing - has helped. If there is something to be done, either we have done it, or we have very good and well thought out reasons for not doing it. Believe me. I don't want to experience any more pain right now. Fingers firmly in rabbit ears. La la la. Can’t hear you.
This is all sounding horribly serious, isn't it? I was thinking that friendships are like the ingredients to a recipe. You need a compatible range of them to make a decent meal. You need the fats and the fibre; the sweet and the sour; the salt and the meat. Oh, dear absent Friend, you are part of my recipe, and I do need you. I don't want to think about you not being a part of my life. I will have to find a new way to prepare you or myself, so that there is enough friendship to feed us both. I only wish I was addressing fewer people when I say this, because I have many, many bridges to mend. Perhaps some of you will read this, and begin to understand, and find a way to fix me instead.
I do have a recipe for you though. This pasta dish reminds me of friendships, because you cook most of the ingredients together, and the size that you cut each ingredient to is crucial to the taste. Like friendships.
Roast Sausage and Butternut Pasta
Slice a red onion into semi- or quarter-rings. Cut a butternut into roughly 2 cm cubes. Peel and dice a sweet potato into smaller cubes. Cut some tart apples into quarters, leaving the skin on. Place in a roasting pan with some whole sausages (Linda McCartney’s for vegetarians http://www.lindamccartneyfoods.co.uk/ ; Great Big Sausages from the Good Little Company range for meat eaters http://goodlittlecompany.com/ ). If you have a fan oven, these can be frozen. Drizzle over some olive oil and mix so that everything is covered, shake on a little salt, or it will be too sweet, and some garam masala. You’ll need to stir it again so that the oil-covered food coats the spice. Place in a moderately hot oven (about 190 *C) for as long as it takes to reach a moist, caramelized-ish state, stirring occasionally to ensure flavours combine. In the meantime, cook some pasta on the stove. When the roasting is finished, add the cooked pasta to the pan and stir again. Rich and delish. Enjoy, Friend.
The people this blog post applies to unfortunately probably won't ever read it, because they have no idea that I occasionally write a blog. But before trying to mend or build bridges, I need to examine the underlying broken structure, and writing seems to give me the opportunity to do this. What a wonderful thing the written word is.
The thing is, it is so much easier to write about things than to talk about them. When you write, you are in control. You can make light of the sad and fun of the ridiculous. You don't have to answer questions, you don't have to respond to anyone, and you don't have to lie. I suck at lying. I can’t even get lies past my lips - not without a great deal of practise, anyway.
Social intercourse is peppered with white lies (and black lies and red lies and pink lies, too). How are you? Fine. How've you been? Great. What have you been doing? Lots. How's the family? Just wonderful. See where I'm going with this? I can't answer any of these questions without pain. Or lying - and I can’t in all conscience spend the time before I speak to you practising lying. What kind of small, furry rodent would that make me?
So, we have a stalemate, missing friends. I can't bring myself to call you, because I can't bring myself to lie when I answer your questions, and although it seems overly dramatic to admit to this, I can't speak the truth without feeling the pain of it. I don't really want to experience any more pain right now, so I won't call you. I’m sorry.
Remember me as the rabbit in the headlights with the bazooka? When I think of calling you, I just can't find that damned bazooka.
Let's say I take my courage in my hands, and I call you. We navigate the minefield of truth on my part, and we begin to explore yours. Actually, we will do this very quickly, because although I am not at all skilled at lying, I am a master of deflection. I will swat at the conversation ball with my silvery verbal squash racquet, and we will very quickly enter the territory of what's been going on in your life.
Either, the stretch of time since we spoke last will have been filled with predominantly happy things, or your life will have brought you more darkness than light. Either one will provoke guilt. If you have been having a really tough time, I will feel the guilt. I will listen to your suffering, and wonder how I could have been so selfishly wrapped up in my own petty tragedies. On the other hand, if you have been having the normal share of moderate weather, with more sunshine than storms, we will both feel the guilt. You will feel guilty for having the pleasant existence you more than deserve; and I will feel guilty for making you contrast your petty tragedies with mine. You will do that, compare them, because you must be a self-aware, thoughtful and moral person, or you wouldn't be categorised in my head as Friend. Feeling guilty is painful, and I don't really want to experience any more pain right now, so I won't call you. The bazooka must be well-hidden down the rabbit hole, and I’m not looking for it right now.
Next, we come to the issue of our past. We have a shared history. We have enjoyed things together, laughed at things, perhaps cried at things together. We have shared stories and given advice or just listened to one another. We might have been drunk together, experienced art together, played games with one another. We may have been important to other members of each other's family. You may have given me far more than I gave in return; or I may have been the giving one, and you the taker. Whatever it was that we shared then, we haven't been sharing for some time now. There is a gap that has been unexplained, and you will have your own theories on what the cause of the gap has been. I will find it impossible to explain the gap, without invoking the pain of difficulty number one and number two, so the gap will probably remain unexplained, causing its own special kind of pain; the pain of the unsaid. I don't really want to experience any more pain right now, so I won't call you. I'm not sure a rabbit is strong enough to hold a bazooka, anyway.
For my part, I don't know why you haven't called me, and I won't speculate. I have frequently felt the need to protect myself from pain over the last few years, cowardly as that is. I often won't answer the phone, because I can't really bear to make myself interact. I stopped sending Christmas cards, because I have always felt the need to share something of myself in them, and really, I don't want to share. There isn't quite enough of me to share because there are people in my life who really, really need me. One of the things I most feel the need to protect myself from is your caring concern. And, yes, you are a caring and concerned person that ordinarily I would value very highly, because if you weren't, you wouldn't be categorised in my head as Friend.
Almost everyone who feels care and concern will have the urge to do something or say something to help 'fix' things. Your inner Bob-the-Builder will leap up and ask me questions about what anyone can do and what has been done, and the answer to these questions will be very, very painful, because we have tried so hard to do everything that can be done, and nothing - nothing - has helped. If there is something to be done, either we have done it, or we have very good and well thought out reasons for not doing it. Believe me. I don't want to experience any more pain right now. Fingers firmly in rabbit ears. La la la. Can’t hear you.
This is all sounding horribly serious, isn't it? I was thinking that friendships are like the ingredients to a recipe. You need a compatible range of them to make a decent meal. You need the fats and the fibre; the sweet and the sour; the salt and the meat. Oh, dear absent Friend, you are part of my recipe, and I do need you. I don't want to think about you not being a part of my life. I will have to find a new way to prepare you or myself, so that there is enough friendship to feed us both. I only wish I was addressing fewer people when I say this, because I have many, many bridges to mend. Perhaps some of you will read this, and begin to understand, and find a way to fix me instead.
I do have a recipe for you though. This pasta dish reminds me of friendships, because you cook most of the ingredients together, and the size that you cut each ingredient to is crucial to the taste. Like friendships.
Roast Sausage and Butternut Pasta
Slice a red onion into semi- or quarter-rings. Cut a butternut into roughly 2 cm cubes. Peel and dice a sweet potato into smaller cubes. Cut some tart apples into quarters, leaving the skin on. Place in a roasting pan with some whole sausages (Linda McCartney’s for vegetarians http://www.lindamccartneyfoods.co.uk/ ; Great Big Sausages from the Good Little Company range for meat eaters http://goodlittlecompany.com/ ). If you have a fan oven, these can be frozen. Drizzle over some olive oil and mix so that everything is covered, shake on a little salt, or it will be too sweet, and some garam masala. You’ll need to stir it again so that the oil-covered food coats the spice. Place in a moderately hot oven (about 190 *C) for as long as it takes to reach a moist, caramelized-ish state, stirring occasionally to ensure flavours combine. In the meantime, cook some pasta on the stove. When the roasting is finished, add the cooked pasta to the pan and stir again. Rich and delish. Enjoy, Friend.
Monday, 3 January 2011
Helpless but not hopeless
It has been so long since I wrote my blog that I can't recall how to post on it any more. But on the eve of Real Life restarting in 2011, I thought it was possibly time to try again.
2010 was like battling through a raging storm. It became harder and harder to move forward, so more and more luggage was set down along the way. Writing felt like a luxury too painful to indulge in, so it was set aside in favour of getting one foot to move in front of the other. I don't mean to overly dramatise the difficulties we have faced, I know there is still a very long way to fall and so much precious to lose before reaching the dark depths life has the potential to take us to. I count my blessings religiously, like a mantra. But, yeah, 2010 was a rough, tough walk.
I am also determined to place no significance on the turning of the year. Nothing has changed, nothing improved, nothing got worse on January first. 2011 could be as bad, much better or infinitely worse. It doesn't matter – one foot in front of the other. This is the way. There is one change. I have had some time to think over the Christmas period (not always a good idea) and I have been able to identify the emotion that has kept me hostage for some time. Helplessness.
There are so many situations that have left me with this feeling that I don't really know why it has taken me so long to put a name to it. I'm only going to describe one, because I know that the key player – youngest daughter – will understand. There are countless more, so although I know you'll read this, dear youngest, you will know this is not only about you.
Christmas is lovely – exciting, pretty as a tree, full of food and sweetness and fun; and if you have CFS/ME, it is utterly energy-sapping and exhausting. So when, a couple of days later, youngest daughter staggered from her bedroom and laid herself in a puddle of tired at my feet, it wasn't a surprise. She didn't have the energy to speak, so communicated in little moans. I knew lifting her would hurt, and I didn't know where she wanted to be or what would immediately help, so I turned to oldest daughter for help. We improvised a system of communication – moan if you want this, don't if you don't; then oldest gently helped her up and in to her arms and carried her to a warm, soft spot while I found the food and drink to give her a quick boost. And all the while this was happening, I felt helpless, but didn't know it. Weird, huh?
Helplessness is a numbing emotion. It is the opposite of control, which is about action and initiative and movement. Helplessness shuts you down and clams you up and saps your reason without your knowledge. It is the rabbit in the headlights situation, only the reason the rabbit doesn't move is because it doesn't know it's paralysed in the glare of oncoming doom. When you feel helpless, all you can do is stand there and take it, and hope to hell you survive. When the car misses, you stumble on as though nothing untoward happened. You don't deal with the emotion,because you aren't really aware of its presence at all.
But, helplessness is not hopelessness. To be without hope is a wholly different thing, a deep, dark thing that if you were to experience in the glare of oncoming headlights, it would have you turn your back and wait for the impact. Helplessness is easier to recover from, once you know it is there.
When I was a young twenty-something, desperately seeking an identity, I asked my man one wrung-out day what made me special. What was I good at, because I felt bad at everything. His answer surprised me so much, I mulled it over for years. He told me that the thing that made me special was how good I was at being able to love. And no, he didn't mean that physically – well only a bit, anyway. He meant that not only did I have a high capacity to love, I was very good at doing it too.
Twenty odd years later (and you can take odd any way you like), I think perhaps he was right. If there is one thing I can do when life holds me hostage in the headlights, it is love. I can't change anything – I can't take away the pain or the frustration or the sadness or the anger or the fear or the despair that the things my family has been going through have engendered, but I can love. I can listen and hold and talk and hug and cook and soothe and smile and laugh. I rarely say the right thing at the right time, but I can try. And to try is to be active, and to be active is to take control, and to take control is the opposite of helplessness.
So this is my new year's resolution. To recognise the feeling of the rabbit in the headlights, and to consciously decide to arm myself with the only weapon I can use. I will be a rabbit, true – but I will be a small furry mammal armed with a bazooka. The bazooka of love. I do hope you enjoy this image.
Winter Love Soup
In a heavy-bottomed casserole or saucepan, sweat an onion gently in a tablespoon of olive oil. Find a selection of vegetables that your family likes and chop them into small pieces to add to the onion and olive oil – as many as you like. Leave any green leafy ones to the end though. Crush some fresh ginger and add it to the mix, then cover with stock to simmer. In the meantime, cook rice and red lentils separately, then add them to the stock with any greens. Add the secret ingredient, which in my case is ginger wine. Simmer altogether for a few minutes, then ladle into bowls. It will be very hot. Add some creamy plain yoghurt, or not, depending on how you feel. Eat with a spoon.
I meant to use this blog to explain myself to the friends and loved ones that I have not spoken to in some time. I guess that will have to wait. If any of you actually read this, though – I am sorry. I am, after all, only a small furry mammal, very recently armed. Give me time.
2010 was like battling through a raging storm. It became harder and harder to move forward, so more and more luggage was set down along the way. Writing felt like a luxury too painful to indulge in, so it was set aside in favour of getting one foot to move in front of the other. I don't mean to overly dramatise the difficulties we have faced, I know there is still a very long way to fall and so much precious to lose before reaching the dark depths life has the potential to take us to. I count my blessings religiously, like a mantra. But, yeah, 2010 was a rough, tough walk.
I am also determined to place no significance on the turning of the year. Nothing has changed, nothing improved, nothing got worse on January first. 2011 could be as bad, much better or infinitely worse. It doesn't matter – one foot in front of the other. This is the way. There is one change. I have had some time to think over the Christmas period (not always a good idea) and I have been able to identify the emotion that has kept me hostage for some time. Helplessness.
There are so many situations that have left me with this feeling that I don't really know why it has taken me so long to put a name to it. I'm only going to describe one, because I know that the key player – youngest daughter – will understand. There are countless more, so although I know you'll read this, dear youngest, you will know this is not only about you.
Christmas is lovely – exciting, pretty as a tree, full of food and sweetness and fun; and if you have CFS/ME, it is utterly energy-sapping and exhausting. So when, a couple of days later, youngest daughter staggered from her bedroom and laid herself in a puddle of tired at my feet, it wasn't a surprise. She didn't have the energy to speak, so communicated in little moans. I knew lifting her would hurt, and I didn't know where she wanted to be or what would immediately help, so I turned to oldest daughter for help. We improvised a system of communication – moan if you want this, don't if you don't; then oldest gently helped her up and in to her arms and carried her to a warm, soft spot while I found the food and drink to give her a quick boost. And all the while this was happening, I felt helpless, but didn't know it. Weird, huh?
Helplessness is a numbing emotion. It is the opposite of control, which is about action and initiative and movement. Helplessness shuts you down and clams you up and saps your reason without your knowledge. It is the rabbit in the headlights situation, only the reason the rabbit doesn't move is because it doesn't know it's paralysed in the glare of oncoming doom. When you feel helpless, all you can do is stand there and take it, and hope to hell you survive. When the car misses, you stumble on as though nothing untoward happened. You don't deal with the emotion,because you aren't really aware of its presence at all.
But, helplessness is not hopelessness. To be without hope is a wholly different thing, a deep, dark thing that if you were to experience in the glare of oncoming headlights, it would have you turn your back and wait for the impact. Helplessness is easier to recover from, once you know it is there.
When I was a young twenty-something, desperately seeking an identity, I asked my man one wrung-out day what made me special. What was I good at, because I felt bad at everything. His answer surprised me so much, I mulled it over for years. He told me that the thing that made me special was how good I was at being able to love. And no, he didn't mean that physically – well only a bit, anyway. He meant that not only did I have a high capacity to love, I was very good at doing it too.
Twenty odd years later (and you can take odd any way you like), I think perhaps he was right. If there is one thing I can do when life holds me hostage in the headlights, it is love. I can't change anything – I can't take away the pain or the frustration or the sadness or the anger or the fear or the despair that the things my family has been going through have engendered, but I can love. I can listen and hold and talk and hug and cook and soothe and smile and laugh. I rarely say the right thing at the right time, but I can try. And to try is to be active, and to be active is to take control, and to take control is the opposite of helplessness.
So this is my new year's resolution. To recognise the feeling of the rabbit in the headlights, and to consciously decide to arm myself with the only weapon I can use. I will be a rabbit, true – but I will be a small furry mammal armed with a bazooka. The bazooka of love. I do hope you enjoy this image.
Winter Love Soup
In a heavy-bottomed casserole or saucepan, sweat an onion gently in a tablespoon of olive oil. Find a selection of vegetables that your family likes and chop them into small pieces to add to the onion and olive oil – as many as you like. Leave any green leafy ones to the end though. Crush some fresh ginger and add it to the mix, then cover with stock to simmer. In the meantime, cook rice and red lentils separately, then add them to the stock with any greens. Add the secret ingredient, which in my case is ginger wine. Simmer altogether for a few minutes, then ladle into bowls. It will be very hot. Add some creamy plain yoghurt, or not, depending on how you feel. Eat with a spoon.
I meant to use this blog to explain myself to the friends and loved ones that I have not spoken to in some time. I guess that will have to wait. If any of you actually read this, though – I am sorry. I am, after all, only a small furry mammal, very recently armed. Give me time.
Monday, 26 July 2010
Comfort me with apples
Strengthen me with raisins, comfort me with apples, for I am faint with love.
Songs of Solomon
Some things are very hard to write about. Like the fear shadowing your mother’s face when she has been diagnosed with breast cancer.
So I thought I would write about the things that bring me comfort, instead.
The different kinds of hugs my family give are high on the list of comforts. Youngest daughter’s are infinitely gentle and delicate, very similar to her grandmother’s in fact. They convey peace, compassion and cherishing. Oldest daughter’s are similar to her father’s – warm, generous, strong and fiercely devoted. My father’s are squashily understanding and caring, my father-in-law’s are hard and dependable. An embrace is an expression of love more demonstrative of the character of that love than any other; a kiss is less intimate (apart from a lover’s kiss), a look can be misconstrued, words are even less dependable.
Despite that, friends’ words are definitely another sincere source of comfort. Close friends provide the scaffolding which keeps me upright in the storm, but even those I don’t see very often say wonderfully comforting things. Thank you, all of you.
But there are strange things that comfort me, too. Not in the same way, or in the same league – sport even. But these small moments of peace and pleasure from my world sustain me.
One lovely re-occurring moment is watching my beautiful dog bouncing joyfully through a colourful meadow, where we commonly take his walk. I know this sounds like a bad advert for toilet paper, but if you can imagine a setting ringed with old and ancient trees, green and mauve waving grass speckled with buttercups, violets and forget-me-nots, swallows circling over-head, and a particularly attractive golden Labrador-cross-golden retriever grinning from ear to ear, you can sense my little piece of heaven. No, I’m not saying where it is. Find your own.
Here’s a strange thing which consoles me. It’s a cup – more aptly a mug, but the word has such poor connotations, I don’t want to sully my drinking vessel with them. So, my cup was given to me by my mother, mostly because she had no shelf space for it. To be honest, it is more my kind of cup than hers. She prefers delicate china. My cup is solid, glazed earthenware. It fits snugly into my hand, keeping the heat inside where the tea is. The rim of my cup curves almost sensuously on my lip, and the weight of it is solid, utterly to be relied upon. It is soothing and dependable, and no-one else in the family would use it unless desperate. It is a pretty blue, and it bears the slogan ‘Comfort me with apples’. I was intrigued by this, so I looked it up, and it is one interpretation of a line from the Old Testament, found in the Songs of Solomon, verse 2.5. Isn’t it beautiful? Can you judge me for finding it comforting?
Chocolate is predictably comforting, not just for the pheromones or the sweetness or the calories. Chocolate – good chocolate – has an other-worldly taste. It is an escape from reality, a sensual departure from the stress of daily life. It is sex for the tastebuds. And although I am certainly no fan of Tesco, I have discovered an award winning chocolate bar from their Finest range which is mouth-orgasmic. It is called Organic Dominican Republic 70% Plain Chocolate, and it has the added comfort of being Fair Trade. Some people are cynical about the Fair Trade movement, but my buying power, limited as it is, is my only influence on the trade juggernauts of this capitalist world, and I intend to use it as much as possible. Even this tiny thing – the thought that an infinitely small amount of the money I spend will improve somebody’s outlook to a tiny degree – brings me comfort. For I am faint with love for the world and the people in it, and I take my comfort where I can find it.
Songs of Solomon
Some things are very hard to write about. Like the fear shadowing your mother’s face when she has been diagnosed with breast cancer.
So I thought I would write about the things that bring me comfort, instead.
The different kinds of hugs my family give are high on the list of comforts. Youngest daughter’s are infinitely gentle and delicate, very similar to her grandmother’s in fact. They convey peace, compassion and cherishing. Oldest daughter’s are similar to her father’s – warm, generous, strong and fiercely devoted. My father’s are squashily understanding and caring, my father-in-law’s are hard and dependable. An embrace is an expression of love more demonstrative of the character of that love than any other; a kiss is less intimate (apart from a lover’s kiss), a look can be misconstrued, words are even less dependable.
Despite that, friends’ words are definitely another sincere source of comfort. Close friends provide the scaffolding which keeps me upright in the storm, but even those I don’t see very often say wonderfully comforting things. Thank you, all of you.
But there are strange things that comfort me, too. Not in the same way, or in the same league – sport even. But these small moments of peace and pleasure from my world sustain me.
One lovely re-occurring moment is watching my beautiful dog bouncing joyfully through a colourful meadow, where we commonly take his walk. I know this sounds like a bad advert for toilet paper, but if you can imagine a setting ringed with old and ancient trees, green and mauve waving grass speckled with buttercups, violets and forget-me-nots, swallows circling over-head, and a particularly attractive golden Labrador-cross-golden retriever grinning from ear to ear, you can sense my little piece of heaven. No, I’m not saying where it is. Find your own.
Here’s a strange thing which consoles me. It’s a cup – more aptly a mug, but the word has such poor connotations, I don’t want to sully my drinking vessel with them. So, my cup was given to me by my mother, mostly because she had no shelf space for it. To be honest, it is more my kind of cup than hers. She prefers delicate china. My cup is solid, glazed earthenware. It fits snugly into my hand, keeping the heat inside where the tea is. The rim of my cup curves almost sensuously on my lip, and the weight of it is solid, utterly to be relied upon. It is soothing and dependable, and no-one else in the family would use it unless desperate. It is a pretty blue, and it bears the slogan ‘Comfort me with apples’. I was intrigued by this, so I looked it up, and it is one interpretation of a line from the Old Testament, found in the Songs of Solomon, verse 2.5. Isn’t it beautiful? Can you judge me for finding it comforting?
Chocolate is predictably comforting, not just for the pheromones or the sweetness or the calories. Chocolate – good chocolate – has an other-worldly taste. It is an escape from reality, a sensual departure from the stress of daily life. It is sex for the tastebuds. And although I am certainly no fan of Tesco, I have discovered an award winning chocolate bar from their Finest range which is mouth-orgasmic. It is called Organic Dominican Republic 70% Plain Chocolate, and it has the added comfort of being Fair Trade. Some people are cynical about the Fair Trade movement, but my buying power, limited as it is, is my only influence on the trade juggernauts of this capitalist world, and I intend to use it as much as possible. Even this tiny thing – the thought that an infinitely small amount of the money I spend will improve somebody’s outlook to a tiny degree – brings me comfort. For I am faint with love for the world and the people in it, and I take my comfort where I can find it.
Sunday, 30 May 2010
For the love of ...
I want to live in a world in which people are motivated by love. A world in which the reason we grow food or make money is in order to feed our families or improve the lives of our neighbours. Where we invent things for the greatest possible good, and destroy the ill-conceived fruits of our labour in order to protect others. A world in which the study of happiness is given the level of investment that the study of weaponry has been enjoying lately. It might be pie-in-the-sky, but it is no wonder that I love my job.
Family Learning is all about love.
The reason there is Government funding into a programme which effectively promotes happiness is because of the figures. Studies have been made which show the link between parents’ involvement with their children’s learning and children’s attainment.
If we get the adults back into school and show them what a creative and scientific place it has become – far from the desperate battleground it was in their day – they will be much happier about sending their offspring into the soft melee. If we help to teach them the basic skills they couldn’t learn when they were young and vulnerable, they will be confident and able to help their own children with their homework in the future. And if we gently teach them a few parenting skills along the way, they will be better at coping with the demands of fraught modern life without collapsing and becoming a drain on resources in so many other ways.
So goes the theory. And for once, the theory is very close to the truth.
For the past year, I have had the privilege of spending Government money on love. I have helped to set up courses for parents who don’t speak any English, but who have to negotiate the eccentricities of the English system for themselves and their children. I’ve set up confidence building courses for parents whose children have such demanding needs that they can’t bring themselves to hold a conversation in a playground with parents of ‘normal’ children, for fear of mental collapse under the strain of their misunderstanding and judgement. I’ve helped to develop courses to teach basic ICT skills to parents who have been frankly frightened of their children’s knowledge of the cyberspace they haven’t dared enter.
I’ve been lucky enough to teach parents, too. To take them through the bewildering world of graphemes, phonemes and split-vowel digraphs; to reassure them that if their offspring refused to read their school books in the conventional manner at age 5, it did not mean they were going to fail to read anything for the rest of their lives; and to introduce them to poetry that both made sense and touched their own experience of the world.
This is what I leave my daughter at home for. Someone else would do it if I couldn’t. But – but. Oh, the aching pain of that decision. Is my spreading a little love around for a minor-league salary worth the anxiety? Every day, I’m a little less sure.
Family Learning is all about love.
The reason there is Government funding into a programme which effectively promotes happiness is because of the figures. Studies have been made which show the link between parents’ involvement with their children’s learning and children’s attainment.
If we get the adults back into school and show them what a creative and scientific place it has become – far from the desperate battleground it was in their day – they will be much happier about sending their offspring into the soft melee. If we help to teach them the basic skills they couldn’t learn when they were young and vulnerable, they will be confident and able to help their own children with their homework in the future. And if we gently teach them a few parenting skills along the way, they will be better at coping with the demands of fraught modern life without collapsing and becoming a drain on resources in so many other ways.
So goes the theory. And for once, the theory is very close to the truth.
For the past year, I have had the privilege of spending Government money on love. I have helped to set up courses for parents who don’t speak any English, but who have to negotiate the eccentricities of the English system for themselves and their children. I’ve set up confidence building courses for parents whose children have such demanding needs that they can’t bring themselves to hold a conversation in a playground with parents of ‘normal’ children, for fear of mental collapse under the strain of their misunderstanding and judgement. I’ve helped to develop courses to teach basic ICT skills to parents who have been frankly frightened of their children’s knowledge of the cyberspace they haven’t dared enter.
I’ve been lucky enough to teach parents, too. To take them through the bewildering world of graphemes, phonemes and split-vowel digraphs; to reassure them that if their offspring refused to read their school books in the conventional manner at age 5, it did not mean they were going to fail to read anything for the rest of their lives; and to introduce them to poetry that both made sense and touched their own experience of the world.
This is what I leave my daughter at home for. Someone else would do it if I couldn’t. But – but. Oh, the aching pain of that decision. Is my spreading a little love around for a minor-league salary worth the anxiety? Every day, I’m a little less sure.
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