Growlery

Image by Evan Leavitt

I think this is the sister blog to Nourish, written last week. If Nourish was about good things in…. then this is about bad stuff out…..

Sometime being good and keeping things going just gets too much, right?

Sometimes, full of frustration or fear or disappointment, full of loss or anxiety or confusion, full of duty and responsibility, our ability to hold together the stitching of our better selves just… unravels… and we show up in the world in fearful, frustrated, broken ways.

When I’m fearful and frustrated, I can be sharp, rude, verbally rapid and, I’m told, a little intimidating. I can be judgemental and impatient. My “good girl” finds herself transformed, mascara-smeared and snarling (metaphorically, mostly) as my demon-self settles in for the fight. 

It ain’t pretty.  It’s also rarely gratifying, even in the moment… mostly because I have some awareness I’m being an arse, even as I continue to be one. 

Yet, I have some love and sympathy for my Mad Woman in the Attic and I defend her right to exist with some relish (knowing, of course, a healthy dose of privilege means my mad woman has greater permission to roam than others’, which comes with its own set of stuff…) Anger is an energy and sometimes that white-hot crossness feels good.

Other times, when I’m full up with coping, with dutifully paying my bills, walking my dog, attending to work and the people I love and care for, eating well, exercising, being responsible and grown up… I just don’t have the energy to be a mad woman. Sometimes I just want to lie down and have a tantrum or wail pitifully into the wind: 

It’s not fair.…. It’s so unfair. 

I’m too tired.….. Are We Nearly There Yet? 

Poor me.…. Poor us. 

It’s too much. …. It hurts

….or variations of this with a lot more swearing.

Right now, I’m seeing more and more of this mad/bad/sad stuff in the collective consciousness. People tired, exhausted, digging in and working through stuff themselves, leaving less tolerance, less patience for “others”. I live near a crossroads in Edinburgh – I’ve never heard so many exasperated car horns as I have recently, as drivers are chivvied along for hesitating at the lights. What is showing up in our world – the external expression of our internal angst – can feel a little overwhelming and baffling at times… it can add to our sense of fear and anxiety…and so things spiral.

I am, therefore, committed to not add to it – to the collective mad/bad/sad – I try to manage my own stuff and be in the world with as much care, kindness and hope as I can. Sometimes, in order to be this way, I have to withdraw and re-strengthen. 

One of the great joys of this year, for me, has been joining a virtual writers group based on Shetland. There has been a wellbeing project running, which involves writing and reading together – mostly around themes which allow collective expression. One of the sessions revolved around archaic or little-known words and my most favourite was “Growlery” – defined as “A place to retreat to, alone, when ill-humoured”– which is believed to have originated in Charles Dicken’s Bleak House:  

“Sit down, my dear,” said Mr. Jarndyce. “This, you must know, is the Growlery. When I am out of humour, I come and growl here.”

You can see where I’m going with this, right? As much as we need to nourish and replenish ourselves, we may also need to get the filth and fury out of ourselves. Sometimes cosy socks and reordering our bookshelves is an inadequate response to the undulating, unsettling sense of madness and the world disassembling… sometimes you have to find a place to growl that will do no harm to others.

I tend to growl on page – writing the fury and fear out of myself until there’s space for the calm and the joy. I used to growl more to my loved ones, but everyone feels so full at the moment, I’m cautious about spreading my less positive stuff around unhelpfully. Maybe this is where creative outlets come in – dance it out, paint it out, dig it into the garden, swim it off in the sea, sing it, rap it, weep it out… I dunno….(I found myself crying over the video for Ariana Grande & Justin Bieber’s “Stuck With U” video last week and, mortifying as it was, I kind of just went with it and, after I allowed myself just to be sad for a bit,  it was weirdly satisfying.)

I figure this is not the time for private stoicism. I figure we need to go somewhere with the mad/bad/sad…. If there are private places we can break, or show sorrow, or externalise our mad/bad/sad stuff, without publicly adding to a lot of the toxic BS that is out there…surely that is in service of everyone?  Because fear and anxiety have viral elements to them – they spread, you can catch someone’s fear if you aren’t wise to what’s happening… and they can catch yours.

So I’m mentally building a growlery – lots of padding for the acoustics and a free space to set fire to the keyboard to be mad/bad/sad for a bit – on the understanding that I don’t hang out there for too long and I return to the world less infected with anger and fear.

Anyone joining me?

About me:

I’m Julie Drybrough, Organisational Consultant, Coach, Facilitator, Speaker, Blogger & Dialogue Guide. Working with people & organisations to improve conversations, relationships & learning – Doing stuff with love.

Follow the fuchsia blue blog 

Find me on Twitter @fuchsia_blue

Contact fuchsiablue to find out more

Nourish

love cups – photo my Ralph Nardell

Last week, I wrote a blog titled Endurance, which seemed to resonate with folk in ways I didn’t anticipate… meaning it got read, shared and commented on far more than anything I’ve published in the last few years. It made me think there’s something more to consider in the space of enduring, being resilient and making our way through the darker months well…so then the question of the week for me became about how we Nourish ourselves.

In order to endure, to be resilient etc, I figure there has to be a source of energy we can draw on… and if everyone is running around depleted, that energy source can’t reliably (or fairly) be pulled from others – some of it has to be self-generated… which means, we have to nourish ourselves practically, emotionally, physically, in the coming months…THEN we can share our nourished selves around, so others are nourished and they can share and….on and on it will grow.

And…I’m thinking about how we do this cheaply, easily – so being nourished is not a privilege thing, it’s a Universal Access thing, a Human thing.

(and as I write this I’m fully aware of the political wrangling in the UK over the need to nourish our poorest kids. I’m not getting into that here, particularly, but Marcus Rashford’s Twitter feed and the outpouring of generosity this week has felt nourishing on a number of levels and sort-of proves the point that kindness and  big-heartedness are generative, not finite) 

As is so often the case when I am sort-of ruminating on a puzzle, I’ve found myself noticing stuff on nourishing our internal capacity, energy and ability to “continue kindly” through all of this… ways to support ourselves…so I thought I’d share a few things that  have piqued my interest. 

One source in particular is Dr Brené Brown’s Unlocking Us podcast ( posted on 23^rd September) where she talks about three things on her mind. The whole podcast has merit as Dr Brown reflects on the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg and the importance of legal dissents in the US Legal system ( and beyond). The next section is on an article entitled “Your “Surge Capacity” is Depleted – It’s why you feel awful” – which deals with ambiguous loss and some of the aspects of coping with long-term disaster 

But it is the third section, the one on “Play” that really got my attention. Quoting from Stuart Brown from the National Institute of Play  (see Ted talk here)  comes the assertion that “the opposite of play is not work, the opposite of play is depression”. Neuroscience and social science repeatedly evidence that “Play” lights up our brains, renews our sense of excitement in life – energises us…. So if we are to endure, to get through all of this… play seems to be one way to re-energise and help us continue.

Something about that invitation disturbs me. Play? Now? Are you kidding me? How can I play when the world’s gone mad? Is this not indulgent, unimportant nonsense? And also… I’m not sure I’m naturally playful… I’m all grown up and serious… I can be task focussed, on-purpose… I like a clipboard of stuff to tick off and I’m horribly badly organised at times, which means playing around just frustrates me… 

But Brené Brown seems to make an invitation around Play, which feels more connected to something I can work with.. more nourishing…she asks that we identify:

Time spent without purpose

Activities where you lose track of time

Activities where you feel free and uninhibited.

Her own list includes things like “Alone time, riding my bicycle, fun TV” – all of which resonated for me… and so I spent some time, identifying some of the “play” activities I already have in my life…Even taking time to think about these, made me feel better… even dwelling on nourishment, instead of how depleted I feel, made me feel more nourished…

And I was going to share my list here.. but then as I wrote it out, it became less nourishing, more curated “here – look at my list”… and my list won’t be your list…and your list is important…and not to be judged. You might value time knitting socks or playing Xbox, sweeping the back yard, washing your bike, kicking a football, star gazing, playing exploding kittens (other card games are available)… these are your sources of nourishment and it feels like knowing these might be kind of important right now… so after this, go wander about your house or out for a walk and just think about the things that replenish you – things that require nothing more from you than you show up and potter. Things that make you feel free.

Another source of interest was returning to the Danish notion of Hygge (in the authentic sense, not in the “force yourself cozy under a £150 blanket you bought because you are certain THIS ONE will relax you”). It’s defined as “a quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being” and going back to paying attention to when I feel cosy and cared for – those small things like hot chocolate or cuddling in to watch TV in thick socks – means I have a sense of nourishment and things-are-well-in-the-world which can counteract the chaos long enough to strengthen me. 

So play for a bit and then rest within yourself. Treat yourself as the precious and beautiful thing that you are and be well – you have it in you to get through this and many, many other things besides.

Keep nourished. Endure. 

Endurance

It’s 6:30 on an October morning and it’s dark in Edinburgh. I’m walking the dog, wrapped up like it is already deep December: hat, scarf, jacket under rain coat. The rain beats down, the wind whistles along the Union Canal and the pup, whilst still wagging her tail, shakes the water off her back and looks at me like: “Run this whole “morning walk” idea past me again?”

I’m thinking the clocks haven’t changed yet. 

I’m thinking it’s going to get darker and colder for a long time yet.

I’m thinking of the looming second wave of an invisible force and the impact it is already having and I’m wondering… how the hell do we do this?

How do we do this?

How do we look after ourselves, our loved ones, those around us who are anxious or skint or lonely or in peril right now and in the months ahead?

How do we hold on to our sanity, our goodness, our kindness, our humanity when we are knackered and disconnect and confused by changing rules? When there is so much uncertainty? When you wake up and the rules of social conduct are supposed to be different to yesterday? When so many people seem furious about everything and Social Media bubbles with outrage and accusations and half-truths…When Facebook or Insta isn’t awash with weddings, birthday celebrations, folk meeting up for concerts or festivals…..

Because we are in this for the long-haul, right? It’s not going to be “over” any time soon and when it is “over” (and that won’t be on a specific date.. there’s not going to be an annual CE (Covid End) Day celebration) the effects will be felt for a generation or maybe more. 

So How? What is required right now?

The word that came up was endurance.

“the ability to keep doing something difficult, unpleasant, or painful for a long time”

“the ability or strength to continue or last, especially despite fatigue, stress, or other adverse conditions; stamina”

The obvious analogy for endurance is a marathon, not a sprint… but folk who run marathons typically train for hours, run for hundreds of miles… So what happens if we ask someone with little or no readiness to do the distance? What would they need to get through?

Maybe the right kit. Certainly food/sustenance. Mental & emotional support – People to cheer them on, support them, notice if they are falling behind. A focus on getting through, not on getting fast…

I can’t help thinking that there is a calling right now for those who have done emotional and mental marathons. Those who have done “the Work” and can already function and endure in this type of odd-liminal/ half-life where things are restricted, yet not. Where we are alone, together. Where things shift without due warning. Where there is so much fatigue and fear and fury…

They might be coaches, therapists, psychologists, scientists, people of faith, they might be people who have lived with long-term illness or deep personal pain or addiction and overcome it… it might be the very people who have been seen as being Hippy-tree-hugging-touchy-feely outsiders… but those who can articulate and sit in amongst all this confusion with a modicum of calm, patience, empathy and understanding…these are the very resources and leaders we need right now… because those who have run paths of long-term uncertainty and have sat with grief and loss and confusion… they have something in them.  

Resource, wisdom…an antidote to fear and anxiety.

They are out there. They are in your life somewhere.

They may help us endure.

—–

And, without intention of smugness or rightness, my endurance pledge to myself runs something like this & in no particular order

I will begin… or continue to begin.

I will get up every day, determined to make things better…Determined I can.

I will approach each conversation as if I can be helpful and useful.

I will call out BS kindly. 

I’ll bring my view.

I will acknowledge my own fears and sadness, and commit not to infect others with them.

I will work with my negative stuff first – reflect, reconsider, adjust – and where I find myself struggling, I’ll ask for help with someone who can help me dissipate it effectively.

I will write, walk, run, meditate, stretch, drink water, look after the pup, tidy my house, pay my bills, try not to mainline chocolate or booze, be outside, pay attention to the weather and beauty where I find it… these things resource me, so I am available to resource others.

I will be thoughtful about what I post on Social Media.

I will shop locally or ethically and support someone’s income where I can. 

I will try to laugh and make others too.

I will check in with my elderly neighbour who is fearful and frail.

I will text love to friends and call people.

I will endeavour to receive love and care back, with grace, when it’s offered.

I will sometimes make myself unavailable – I will rest up, get cozy, sleep, feed myself and find space to breathe – I will try to see this, not as an act of indulgence, but as an act of restoration and readiness.

When someone shows up knackered or vibrating with anxiety or overwhelm, I’ll endeavour to be present and be with them.

Visible

• 

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_{Julie Drybrough – Visible on Zoom – October 2020 (photo by Chris Nichols)}

Improv and I have gone another round. 

It and I never seem to encounter each other without some sort of profound learning moment on my part….By profound learning moment, I mean snot and tears on my part. Oh joy.

Improv itself seems relatively untouched by my unravelling; which, frankly, pisses me off beyond measure. It remains relaxed and absolute, generous and expansive in its purpose and process. I on the other hand, wriggle uncomfortably, muttering at Improv suspiciously, giving it the side-eye. Grudgingly knowing that there is something in it, but wishing it were altogether less tricky to be around…mostly wishing it would sod off because I tend to end up visible when I mess with it. I’m awkward around Improv, shy, clumsy, defended…yet even though it’s not an equitable or easy relationship, I can’t quite bring myself to leave it alone….

I see others dance with Improv in very different ways to my ludding side steps. It can bring them inspiration, unlock creativity, confidence, locate words or actions they forgot they had. I love watching those who are an open channel, willing and able to jump in with an idea, an experiment, I love their lightness, their playfulness, their deftness in the moment. I’m all admiration and envy…

Alex and Karen are leading a Jazz Improv session on Zoom with the Gameshift Partners. Over lockdown we’ve gathered every couple of weeks for Extended Hangouts, where we bring our stuff for each other to try. From zen doodling, to walking, to dreaming and meditation, to discussions on inclusion, climate, purpose in organisations, deep systemic change… we bring and cover a world of topics. It has been a profound thread of learning, connection and community for me for months and I love it and being part of it.

You would think Jazz Improv on Zoom would be impossible. but Alex runs the session at pace, he on piano, Karen on Sax, taking us through experiments that show how equipped we are to create in the moment, how errors and omissions create moments of possibility, how connected we can be – even at a physical or digital distance. 

These are the conversations for the here and now, right? The need to be able to respond without knowing what will happen, to take chances. To trust ourselves, to back those around us that are trying. Never has this stuff been more necessary or poignant. Part of me thinks about all my HR/ OD contacts who are heads-down, noses-pressed to the organisational sandpaper, giving themselves a hard time about having The Answer or An Answer and I wish we could find ways to give them time for some of this stuff, these conversations….

And so we work through the experiments and as ever, Improv invites me to dance and I stumble, clumsily and grumpily with it, my reluctance to embrace it the very mirror of a hundred colleagues I know…. And Alex asks for a volunteer for the last experiment and I am resolute that it won’t be bloody me… and at the exact same moment a part of me says: this the practice, step forward, challenge yourself… so I thank my resolution for keeping me safe and I grit my teeth and say Yes.

Alex says he and Karen are going to paint a musical portrait of me. My response is What In The Name Of All That Is Holy Have I Agreed To Here.

I am fear. 

I am NO. 

I am regret…. 

….I am curious.

All I have to do is sit on screen and they will play. It’s simple.

It starts with a soft sax and gentle piano chords and I am holding my body tight, feeling spotlit and stupid. I can see the other Partners on screen. I don’t know anyone well enough for this. I don’t know myself well enough for this….At first I can’t hear the music over my own internal guff, my relentless, defensive chattering…but after some moments, it reaches into me and I smile.. the musical response to the smile is bubbling little piano riffs and I start to giggle, embarrassed but I can hear something in this….and it softens again and I think I sound softer, sadder than I know myself to be… and then I know myself to be sadder and softer than perhaps I admit… and the tears slowly rise and it’s OK and awful all at once…..I have my left hand pressing onto my right shoulder, hiding my heart and I cannot move….

In the aftermath, it takes me a while to speak. Others speak and I’m grateful for the space to find my breath and my words…I’m liquid inside – my solid resolute state melted and swilling about. I will reform differently, less rigid for the rest of the day, maybe even the coming days, maybe even always…..It was a gift. An exquisite gift. One I’d recommend to anyone and everyone – sod Christmas socks or Tik Tok… buy your loved one a musical portrait….let them be bathed in notes and kindness…nothing will ever quite be the same again.

Later, Chris sends through some photos he took and a poem…I find the photos almost unbearable to look at -I’m soft and I don’t recognise myself fully….

Oh to be visible when you are so deft at hiding. What a thing.

_{The session was run by Alex Steele as part of the gamehift partner network. I thoroughly recommend you check them all out}

Dancing With The Coat of Fear

I’ve noticed myself being a right miserable sod sometimes, of late. In small interactions I’ve been bemoaning others’ success, questioning positive actions, doubting intent. I’ve not been kind, at times. And it’s not a state that is nourishing me.

Along with this has been an urge to withdraw. I peer at Twitter or Instagram and have this sense of woeful inadequacy: look at all the things I don’t know how to do, or comment on or change or contribute to. Everyone’s wiser, better, more. There is so much nastiness out there. I have no power.

I want to run and hide. I want to bicker at the world as it shows itself to be: unfair, imbalanced, unjust.  When I’m in this place, I slowly, slowly lose my sense of hope and purpose; my optimism and willingness to be in the world well. So I get miserable and small and I moan. 

And as I do this, My sense of my own smallness increases and….oh hello to a joyless cycle.

It’s an old thing. A coat I wore for ages and know well. The coat is bit manky and not very appealing to see or be around, but in it, I’m safe. Wrapped up in fear and inadequacy, I can look a bit rough and mutter hexes or malicious incantations and keep the world away. It has some power. Splendidly miserable isolation. Fabulous life choice. 

But it’s a heavy coat, it takes effort to lug the damn thing around. It’s a bit stinky and leaves me feeling I need a refresh. Sometimes, I don’t notice myself wearing it– then I realise I’m all tensed up and snarky. Sometimes I’m so wrapped up in it, I can’t figure out how to get out, wrestling with the damn thing like a kid in a cagoule with a broken zip. By the time I get to that point (probably before I got to that point, to be honest, but I’m a slow learner, at times) I know I need help.

Help comes in various guises and last week, it came in the guise of Playing at the Edge: Dancing with your Inner Critic, run powerfully and compassionately by Steve Chapman and Simon Cavicchia. When I signed up for it, a large part of me was rolling my eyes at myself – why must I always pick the mad stuff?  Proper people with proper concerns don’t choose to do stuff like this. I am the wrong type of consultant and coach. No one will ever take me seriously. The foolishness of me. The folly and self indulgence. Etc etc…

Yeh, well… that’s as maybe… and I don’t want to keep wearing this damn coat. I’ll never be free of the judgement and fear it’s made of, but if I must carry something of it on my person, I’d rather it was pocket hankie sized and not quite so all encompassing. I don’t want to be swathed in stink and smallness. No-one – neither myself nor my clients – does well when I’m there.

So how about I step out of the coat, dance with it a bit, see if I can’t get it a little cleaner, or chop it up a little – make it less huge or more appealing or something.

So I did. We did. I have been running scared of human contact for the majority of this year, so showing up without my ugly coat to protect me and then getting it out in public did feel…somewhat counter-intuitive. OK.. so actually it felt terrifying and stupid and exposing… It is, therefore, a testament to the skill, the warmth and the care of Steve and Simon that I (and others) felt able to look at, work with and start to re-configure our versions of an ugly coat.

Theirs is a masterclass in navigating emotional landscapes with compassion and wisdom. Every time I felt off-map, I could look up and there were two guides, with compasses going: yeh, you’re alright. You are roughly here someplace… want the compass? It meant I was able, willing, to keep going.

It was a profound two days. I left with a sense of knowing how I react and respond when I’m critical or when I feeling under threat.. and a sense of how to shift that, so I’m not so in the grip of the fear. I left with a different sense of my ugly coat – it’s a little prettier, a little less stinky than I think – it and I still have some work to do.

Turns out when I’m not coating myself in judgement and fear, life is more free, richer and I have a sense of ease in the world. Like I belong more. I can be warmer, bigger, more trusting, happier. I can challenge with less fear. I can stand in the heat of clients protecting their status quo and hold for a few beats more, keep the opportunity for difference open for a longer stretch. I’m more compassionate to myself and that bubbles out to others, which generates trust and shift….

What’s not to love?

So as I brush the lapels of the stinky old coat and whisper to it that I’m going to be wearing something with a bit more colour and freedom and joy, more often, for a wee while, but that I know it well and I know how well it can protect me; I’m thankful for being able to see the stinky coat and for places to take it to dance.

The photograph is entitled “Fur Coat on the Run, Tunisia, 1983” by Richard Young and can be purchased here

The Power of Music – #21daysofWriting – Day 15

Today’s topic comes from top Twitter type Mark Catchlove 

The Power of Music.
Where to begin?
ABC?
Do-re-mi?
De La Soul?
La Boehme?
Bohemian Rhapsody?
Rhapsody in blue?
Blue Monday?
Manic Monday?
Do we begin with a beat?  Something that reflects a pulse?
Or with a melody?

When I read a dictionary definition of a melody – “a sequence of single notes that is musically satisfying; a tune.” – it’s so far from melodic, it makes me smile at the daftness… Some Things? Some Things are beyond words or descriptors.

Music is a language all by itself.

It can seep into your body, through your ears or through the thump of it, the vibration of it through your skin and your bones.

It can be terrible and tinny and annoying – pop-py, repetitive, surface throw-away crap.
It can be so stupidly beautiful, that everything stops and you are entirely alone with it.
It can be something that bonds you with a thousand strangers, as you sing together – one tune, well known, uniting.
It can be lofty, intellectual, refined.
It can be basic, dirty, gritty, ubiquitous.

It can be painful – I once met someone who found music excruciating – all music. No-one understood how this could be (I didn’t either). It drove them from restaurants, it upset them in lifts, shopping was hideous for them….it seemed to literally hurt their body. I remember saying “you are allergic to music?” and they said, basically, yes.  My reaction of “shit that’s AWFUL” was one they got a LOT. But it wasn’t awful for them. That was their life. Worse was folk like me saying: “How Awful” ALL THE TIME.

There are those who can read music, write music – to me that’s wonderful.. The sheer privilege of being able to create music, not just consume it. Oh what a thing to have. If you are musical in any way shape or form, I hope you appreciate the landscape you can navigate….. I don’t mind if you think you are awful.. if you can play,  if you can read music – if those tiny strange notations on a bunch of straight lines makes sense to you, or more miraculously still, if you can look at that page of notes and “hear’ what it is there,  in your head, without a instrument interpreting it. Wow. That’s a thing.

Without thinking too hard, powerful musical moments can come to mind. As a child, scooped up on my Mum’s hip, as she swayed about the kitchen singing Abba’s “Thank You for The Music” to me. Feeling giddy with the movement and the joy.  Singing in the School Choir for some competition and literally feeling the resonance of voices around me – my arm hairs rising and being slightly freaked out by that. Dancing to “Fools Gold” in a village hall in Fife, copying dance moves off the cool kids, wearing a sun-hat indoor & dressed in jeans so baggy I needed two belts to ensure safe upkeep… having sense I wasn’t a little kid any more. Heading up the M6 with my best mate to her Hen Do in her new fancy “I’m a lawyer now” car, top down, singing Wham songs and Billy Joel (even though it was 2000-and-something) and feeling life gets no better than that. Standing in Albert Square in Manchester last year, 1 year on from the bomb, as the crowd sung Elbow’s “One Day Like This”  -crying with strangers at the awfulness, the sadness, the resolution of staying united.

Standing stunned at the purity of Suzanne Vega’s live voice, last summer, as she sang songs I had endlessly played on a crappy tape machine in my bedroom – emotion shifting through my body I didn’t fully understand – nostalgia, happiness, melancholy for simpler times….

Music evokes.

It is magical, powerful….how lucky we are.

Finding your voice – #21daysofWriting – Day 14

 

Today’s topic is brought to you by Gina Chapman, who is an all-round good egg & Twitter -type.

When I started all of this, I didn’t know what writing would fall on what date. That a post on “voice” would come on the day of a controversial European Election was definitely not part of the plan.. and yet here it is.

Over the past few weeks and particularly the past few days, the “voices” I can find and hear seem less-than-satisfied. I hear anger. Fury. Hatred. I hear people yelling at other people, sometimes on the same “side”. I hear voices of anguish – depression, loneliness, anxiety – our mental health under siege. I hear fear, loathing, despair. I hear brave voices, kind voices who are exhausted because they are shouted down by louder, less kind, more entitled ones.

I hear sensible, informed scientific voices given no credence or space. I hear the very things I thought I and everyone knew – the earth is indefatigably round – questioned and “disproved”. I hear the denial of rights, the dehumanising of each other to the point we are objects, rather than living, breathing, marvellous, daft, dumb, clumsy, striving beings.

It feels like a shit storm.

I want to switch off, curl up, knit for the winter, watch old movies with cups of tea, drink a LOT of gin, go walk in the hills… do anything to escape the madness. But it’s not going to be that way, for a while….buckle in, good people, we are in an epoch of change…Finding your own voice in all of this may require some care.

I can feel my natural hope and optimism being tested. The stoicism I try to find – the thing in me that says I can and will endure, and that to endure in a good state requires certain things of me – can be hard to locate at times.  I have to work at being kind when I can be, without being a pushover. To call out BS with what grace and humour I can muster – and stand within the reaction that comes back (no-one likes their BS being called. Including me.) without getting vengeful or hateful… it takes practice… sometimes I am vengeful and hateful – I tend not to spread that around, when it comes. There’s enough of it about. Keeping my own council is often better for everyone.

In times of such negative emotion it can feel like an act of rebellion or naivety to seek something more affirming to counter the crap. Words like cheerful or happy, joy or fulfilment, contentedness, love – these words are still seen as trite, unimportant and right now, they don’t get a lot of space. We need to find them space.

Reclaiming and living these words, actively, daily might just be the counter-cultural shower we need to wash away some of the current shit. So if I give myself permission for shameless joy and daft laughter, which starts someone else off. If I grin into the wind as I cycle & someone else grins back. If I take such pleasure in that first mouthful of raspberry brownie that I HAVE TO SHARE THE BROWNIE. If I take the bin out for my bonkers old neighbour because it’s a kind thing to do & no-one walks out of that deal worse off. If I send love to my friends who are feeling hopeless or chewed up, in a more useful, active way than “U Ok Hun?” and try to listen or nudge them to a thing that might help or away from the thing that doesn’t. If I vote in a way that represents the things I most closely believe will be better for me and the environment I occupy. If I politely push back at invitations come to Some Big Place to observe a “manel” bestowing mono-cultural wisdom on the less-well informed or say I don’t want to Chair one at some other Big Place and that statement gets traction. If I do these things and a hundred, thousand other things that make stuff better and less hateful and more harmonious…

If I actively participate in not participating in the brouhaha because I don’t do well in those spaces and my voice would weaken… if I write from my heart and put that into the world, with hope and belief that where we are at right now “this too will pass”. If I do these things…I’m not part of the problem, for now.

So maybe it’s not about finding voice, but finding when actions really do speak louder.

 

I don’t know what to write – #21daysofwriting – Day 13

Today’s topic is from the delight that is James Wilson – verse 8, particularly, is his.

 

Today I’ve tried some Haiku ( 5-7-5 syllable) poems. They can be deliciously descriptive, but the form means they can be…bloody annoying, frankly….you should try to write one though… the form kind of holds you as much as it restricts.

The creation of these required much taping and counting-of-fingers to figure out the number of syllables in a word. Anyone sitting around me on the train must have thought I was a little odd.

I’ve gone with 13 Haiku for 13 days – the original plan was to write 12 verses  reflecting on each of the 12 posts so far, with a 13th to finish… that just got too complex. Went back to what felt simple.

-1-

I don’t know what to
write except I seem to find
The words from somewhere.

-2-

If I seek words they
Slip through my grasp like water
My job is to wait

-3-

This challenge has been
more giving than it would seem
I have found joy here

-4-

I said I would do
Topics allocated to
Me from all of you

-5-

Writing Haiku is
Deceptively slippery
Each word is loaded

-6-

Now I think I am
Trying to write sentences
Not “proper” Haiku

-7-

So let me try to
Be more artfully wordy
In the next verse here

-8-

V&A London
Artist in Residence found
Making giant shells

-9-

A poem can hold
All of life’s meaning in it
Magnificently

-10 –

An empty bottle
Holds the possibility
Of liquid to come

-11-

I’m trying to find
Luscious, evocative words
And trying too hard

-12-

Each morning begins
With publishing written word
Scary satisfaction

-13-

Thirteen days so far
I can see an end in sight
Beginnings start there

 

 

Bees & Butterflies – #21daysofWriting – Day 12

Today’s topic is chosen by Bee fan & beautiful human, Fiona McBride, with whom I have shared many cups of tea and slices of cake.

The whole place smells incredible. That fresh-baked sweetness, tempting to anyone who comes near. Tanya stands back and takes in the light sponge honey-cakes, cooling satisfyingly on the rack, and for the first time in a few days, she feels….. like she’s not entirely crap.

She seeks out a bowl and mixes icing sugar, butter, lemon. No measurements, she goes by the feel of the icing, the sloppiness of it, the weight under the spatula. When it’s beaten enough in the bowl, she scoops a little on her finger and tastes…. The sensation hits her tongue and she assesses… more lemon needed. Two more squeezes, more mixing…another taste – perfectly fine. She leaves it to go hunt the decoration.

Bees. Tiny yellow-and-black bees made of icing. Arrived this morning off the internet. They look so cute. Just the thing.

15 more minutes and she knows the cakes are cooled enough to not-melt the decoration. She slathers the icing on each cake – more messy than the internet prefers – then adds one small bee to the top of each. Beautiful…even if she does think so herself for a second… then immediately remembers how they “should” look and how unrisen the cakes are and how she hasn’t coloured the icing like the recipe recommends. She is a woman without yellow colouring in her cupboard. Only blue & red, after the yellow colouring got spilled last week..One less towel in the house from that incident & a weird jaundice-patch on the kitchen surface. She really is shit.

But 12 cakes exist now. She takes off her apron & goes to wash the flour and icing from her hands and face. She takes 4 cakes and puts them carefully in a deep Tupperware container. Making tubes of kitchen roll, she places them between the cakes to secure them. The Bees swarm merrily. She smiles at them for a second as she puts the lid on.

Box carefully placed in a bag, Tanya checks keys-money-phone and leaves. 10 minutes walk, two flights up and along to the right, she knocks firmly on the door.

Sadie take her time, as always. When Tanya first starting visiting, when she was a kid, either Sadie was quicker or T had more patience… Back then, Sadie seemed invulnerable. Now each time she knocks on the old lady’s door, there is a possibly that Something Has Occurred. Tanya wonders when that shift happened.

But she hears the shuffling slippers and the pissed-off voice “Hold on. One minute. I’m COMING!!” like the door was being battered down. Three locks get unlocked..dark muttering from the other side as if Sadie had cast an unlocking spell. Tanya smiles to herself at that.

The door opens. Sadie glances at the girl and turns immediately, starting back into the house with no greeting, as if Tanya was expected all along.

“Take yer shoes off if you are coming in. I don’t need dog turd on the carpet”

“Afternoon, Sadie”

The retreating figure doesn’t stop shuffling “what you doing here in the middle of the day? `You got no work to go to?”

Tanya ignores her, shucks off her shoes and makes her way through the magnolia gloom to the front room. Sadie’s kingdom. It smells like old lady. Decomposition and wee and  clothes-well-worn. The TV is blaring out some crap gameshow. The room is covered in family photos.  For all her slowness, Sadie has made it back to her throne and sits resplendent.

“If you want a cuppa tea, you’ll have to get the kettle going. And don’t forget to make me one”

“I made cakes, Sadie. We can have afternoon tea”

The old lady flashes a look of genuine pleasure for a second. Her eyes wolfish “What am I? The bloody Queen? Afternoon tea? When did you get posh, my girl?”

Tanya grins to herself and goes into the tired brown kitchen. She fills the plastic kettle and places two flowery china mugs on the side. Teabags are in 1970’s original stoneware containers. Tanya fancies these when Sadie has gone.. they are properly trendy now. She makes tea, adds milk and sugar-for Sadie. Finds the tray with the faded picture of a robin on it,  puts the mugs on the tray. She finds a not-chipped plate and places all four honey-cakes, icing and bees still in place, proudly on it. Tea and cake.

“Maybe we are bloody Royalty, Sadie” she says loudly, coming out the kitchen with the tray.

The old lady eyes the goods on the tray and grins: “I won’t tell if you don’t, sweetheart” she coos. “Splendid”

She leans forward painfully, picks up a cake and studies it. “Whassis?”

“Honey-bee cake, with lemon icing. I made them this morning.”

Sadie considers the cake a second longer, then looks straight at Tanya “Whasswrong?”

Tanya tries to laugh to off “What? What do you mean, what’s wrong? I’m all good, Sade. Baking cakes is all”

The old girl is having none of it. Tanya looks at the decrepit body, the terrible polyester skirt,  the baggy wool tights, the pale blue jumper and whatever that bobbly bloody grey cardigan is and feels unafraid. Sadie is old. She holds no power. It’s only when she looks at the wrinkled, angular face…. Sadie’s dark eyes bore into her. Two small windows, more alive and alert than T’s whole body feels. Bollocks. There will be no secrets today.

Sadie turns the cake round slowly, looking at it from all angles, muttering at Tanya, “ “Baking cakes”, she says. In the middle of the day. And her with a fancy job and a boyfriend. Coming here on a Tuesday. Like nothing’s happening. “I’m all good, Sade”.” She looks at T, “ You’ll have to do better than that, Sweetheart.”

“Try the cake, will you?”

“I will in a second. Pass me m’tea?”

Tanya watches the old girl slurp her tea and unwrap the little cake from its delicate paper wrapping. T’s focus grows intense….the world slows down. Sadie regards the cake for a moment. Sniffs it, impolitely and then takes a bite, chewing thoughtfully…… No reaction…. Nothing..Then…..

“Oh. My. Saints” The old lady looks 20 years younger for a second as she looks at the remaining cake in her fingers, grinning, eyes glittering with glee. She looks at Tanya.

“That. Is. Heavenly, my girl. Heavenly, you hear?”

Tanya, who has been holding her breath, feels tears rising. Her face crumples and she hears herself sob.

Sadie is aghast. “Oh Darling… darling… what’s happened? What’s the tears for, eh?” she coos. “I said the cake was good…”

“I know!” T wails, surprised at the noise she just made. “I made it on to the Great British Bake Off, Sadie”

“Oh My Saints! Tanya my girl that’s… that’s…. Oh My Saints…” Sadie seems unsure what to do with her tea-and-cake filled hands. “brilliant, sweetheart… bloody bloody brilliant.”

Tanya cries harder. “AND I found out Matteo has been shagging…that…ugly cow he works with….. I KNEW he was. I got home from work early when I found out about Bake Off…. She was sitting out in our garden.”

Sadie is baffled by this piece of information “That doesn’t mean he’s been shagging her”

“She was in his dressing gown, naked underneath”

“Ah. Well in that case…… yes. He’s shagging her”

Tanya cries harder.  Sadie puts down the cake and taps the side of her leg, making the sort of “come here” gesture you make to a scared animal. T moves toward the old lady, sits on the floor to her left and cuddles in, awkwardly at first because of their size difference, but the two women seem to meld into each other as Tanya sobs. Sadie strokes her hair and mutters unintelligible things.

“What’s he DOING shagging her?” Tanya asks.

“Do you need me to explain the bees and butterflies to you, my girl?”

“What?”

“The ways of the world. Men’s needs.” Sadie says.. then in a faux whisper “Sex”

“Oh Christ Sadie, no.…. and anyway… it’s birds and bees.”

“Bees and butterflies makes more sense.” The old lady declares. “ A bee would sting a bird. A bird would eat a bee. Stupid idea if you ask me – wrong sort of couple. They’d kill each other.”

“And bees and butterflies work because….?”

“They’d fly about happy. Nice colours. Hang out in the garden pollenating and things.”

“Why would the bee not sting the butterfly?”

“It’s go no beak.” Sadie says, authoritatively.

Tanya recognises Sadie’s tone, one of stubborn correctness.. the conversation, in the context of everything else, make no sense..she gives up. Stays cuddled in.

After a moment or two Sadie says, “Great British Bake Off” reverently.

Tanya wipes her eyes and looks up at Sadie.

“I know, right? I need to practice my Crème Pat.”

“ I’m thinking about the tea party at the end.” Sadie says. She squeeze T gently “When you win, Sweetheart. When you win”

Then she starts to giggle, “Anyways, I don’t know about crème pat. The only pat I’m interested in is the one I’ll put on Paul Hollywood’s Bum!”

The two women collapse into laughter, holding each other, in the midst of cake crumbs and tea and snot and tears.

I am from – #21daysofwriting – Day 11

Today’s topic is from Lesley Moorhouse  who is a Shindig Alumni from Edinburgh… today we go a little Universal…

 

I am from stardust.

So are you, by the way, I’m not getting grandiose on you or anything. (see example here from the National Geographic ) The elements that make up our bodies – Oxygen, Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Calcium, Phosphorus – are shared with, and are likely to have originated from stars. I get strange comfort from this – the sense of being connected to something way way bigger than myself.. a wee spec in the Cosmos…. A kind of celestial puzzle piece.

If you ever want to feel small and humble or wonderfully huge and important – have a look at some of the research and writing that comes from astrophysics or molecular biology. I am in no-way well read on this stuff, but even beginning to look into it all, can start a sense of wonder in me (or terror, if you can’t quite cope with the existential nature of it all… have a go. See how you go). We are inner space, woven from outer space… I just love that.

So you/ we are truly remarkable – stellar, endless, vast, beautiful. You/we are also utterly unremarkable – part of an endless cycle of birth and death. The good news is (irrespective of what your religious beliefs are & I believe this part fits with whatever God you may or may not pursue) when you die your atoms reshuffle and get redistributed into other things – plants, animals, the Cosmos. (I’m not tackling the Soul question here or matters of Heaven etc.) The point being we truly are interconnected, intimately, with every living thing.  We are inseparable from nature around us and intertwined with the Universe, our bodies are created thus. We share elemental building blocks with everything. Whether you believe that, like that, or whether that gives you the heebie-jeebies is yours to work with…. But it’s worth thinking about as you move through your working week.

Everyone you meet is remarkable and unique. Everyone is unremarkable and the same. And you are connected to them. At an elemental level, you are no different. I think that’s so cool.

That thinking might be helpful in these fragmented times. Emphasis not on philosophical difference, but physical and cellular similarities, emphasis on connection and our place on the planet… these things might be worth re-thinking and learning about. I listen to The Life Scientific on Radio 4 in the UK, often, and I’m struck by how spiritual or religious those in the Scientific fields can be.. how seeking empirical truths can still leave space for spiritual pursuits. I like that paradox.

So. I might be “from” Fife and other places I have lived. I might be “from” my family. I might be “from” my gender, ethnicity, education and “from” my physical and emotional experiences which have forged me …I am all of these things, and others…and, on a cellular, elemental level, I am from stardust.

cool.

Reflection

So it’s fun to go a little stellar.. and it’s not an area I’m very knowledgeable about… and as I wrote it, I was thinking how I might be offending those with religion, or get caught up in arguments from science-deniers ( not that it’s written to shock or evoke anything other than thinking wider…).

I love these conversations and the thinking around all of it – It’s so much more satisfying ( and unsatisfying) than binary hate-filled guff that gets spouted. If you are going to think about the stardust in you, it pretty quickly moves to existence and God and nature and can we Believe Things We Can’t see…..can we hold some sense of ourselves in the face of things that are too big to make sense?

So on this one, I’m out of comfort zone and feeling like I need to do loads more research – but I’m thinking, at least.