Southern sky

It’s been a long time that I’m waiting,

It’s been a long time that I’ve blown.

It’s been a long time since I’ve wandered

Through the people I have known

And if you would and you could

Straighten my new mind’s eye.

     Yes, it’s still my favourite song, that one, 22 years later. I deliberately ration listening to it now; concerned that overexposure to it will somehow diminish the soaring swell of love within me as the dying notes fade. I don’t honestly think that will happen, but I’m not taking the risk.

     Thing is now, I no longer have a northern sky. The first day I saw Maisie*, it was a cold, grey and bleak January morning. Uninspiring from the outside, then the full on horror that was the technicolour yawn on the walls. Jesus. I still shudder, just thinking of it.

     And yet… I knew it had potential. Underneath the grim flooring and multicoloured walls, doors, and skirting boards (or more accurately, over the top of them with a fuckloads of magnolia paint and beige carpet). And mostly it was because of the view. From my bedroom, and The Girl’s. From the living room and balcony. South facing. 3^rd & 4^th floor, on top a small hill, looking out across the Rose Valley.

     It gets the sun all day, stunning sunrises and sunsets, cloud formations, the ability to see where the weather’s coming from and what it’s bringing. Because of our location high up in the sky, I see sun and rain most days. Rainbows too, at least five since we moved in a month ago. No light pollution either, so clear nights show me every constellation. A thunderstorm a few weeks ago happened in full Dolby surround sound widescreen HD.

     And if ever I have doubts or worries about whether we were right to move here, about the direction I’ve taken our lives in, I look out at that view again. All of the houses, every rooftop, every home, hundreds of them, if not thousands. Every front door closed behind people who are living lives I know nothing of, whose paths I will never cross. I don’t know anything about what they have had to deal with, what has hurt and damaged them, nor what quiet words bring them comfort and joy, what raises a quick smile to their face when they check their phone. And they know nothing about us either, how when The Blondies saw Maisie as she is now, with furniture moved in and most traces of paint gone [side eyes the still pink crackle glazed kitchen ceiling], they knocked me to the floor with a rugby tackle, and we all cried (me mostly because they really fucking hurt my broken foot, which spoilt the moment a little). They don’t know that when I finished painting**I sat on the stairs and cried for an hour, wondering what the hell I was doing and who or what I was doing it for. They don’t know how one text message can change a life.

Those people, whose lives I get a tiny little glimpse of, don’t know me and I don’t know them, but I see the lights go on in their houses every night, and I feel at home, here. I look out at that great expanse of lives, spreading out as far as my eyes can see, and I love it. I love it, all of it; I will never tire of this view. I love this feeling of all of these lives happening around me, all of these people, all of these stories that may never get shared, but still they happen. I love this place. I love the light that streams in. I love this. This brightens my southern sky.

*Yes, I call this place Maisie. No, you fuck off. It’s not a house, it’s not a flat, it’s a maisonette on t he 3^rd & 4^th floor, it has a number, but I needed to give it a label, to help The Blondies feel more of an attachment to it, so ‘Maisie’. No, seriously, fuck off.

**yeah, not finished, to be honest. It might get done one day. Fukkit.

Hopes and fears

     It’s the middle of April, so I thought I’d tell you that my favourite Christmas carol is O Little Town of Bethlehem. I can’t truly say why. Something about the combination of lyrics and music, the memories of singing the descant in CHOIR perhaps, the yearning nature of it, maybe. And that quiet line ‘the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.’

     I think of that line every time I enter a place of worship, like some kind of mental jukebox, soundtracking my life. Because essentially, it’s true of every church I visit, from the smallest, humblest, most out of the way ‘one service every four weeks’ little village church to the overwhelming and soaring beauty of Norwich cathedral. They don’t even have to be that old either – I sobbed a fair bit in the hideous late 1960s environs of Xabia church not so long ago. Churches are places we turn to when we are celebrating, when we are grieving, and most of all, when we are troubled. A place of worship, yes, but also crucially, prayer, communicating our thoughts to some higher being, a saint, a deity, a some Other whom we believe may bring us comfort, deliver us from evil, and bless our endeavours.

     And that thought, that appreciation of what has brought so many other people to this place catches in my throat every single time. The thought of all those souls, some long dead, some present in the same place and moment as I; all of them have sought solace here. That haunts me. Even thought I know that many happy events will also have taken place within these walls – christenings, weddings, celebrations – it’s the unspoken awareness that these stones hold the secrets of so many people. That people whispered their prayers to a god I don’t believe in, and the only witness to their private torment was this building. If only walls could talk, eh?

     And of course they do, as I’ve discovered, having fallen head over heels in love with graffiti from any and every when. But that is nothing more than a glimpse at those other lives. It tells us more than we knew before, but we can never fully know the horrors of so many lives, the impulse within them that sent them here, to offer up that which weighed upon their mind, whether in trembling expectation, or quivering anticipation.

     And that is why I cry in churches. Every time*. Because just stepping inside reminds me that the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight. And when you feel the weight of that thought, how can you not cry?

*Salthouse has thus far proved the exception, because exceptional.

Wibbly wobbly timey wimey

     I knew this time would come. I knew it, I expected it, but I didn’t anticipate it. I am Having A Wobble.

     It’s well overdue. You don’t go through the sort of crap I’ve dealt with in the last six months without there eventually being a reckoning. This should be the easy bit. What it is instead is the hangover.

     Thing is, when you walk through the storm, hold your head up high and don’t be afraid of the dark. At the end of the storm, there’s a golden… sorry, I’ve got You’ll Never Walk Alone as an earworm today. You’re lucky you’re not in the same room as me.

     ANYWAY. What I mean is, for months, I’ve had to just ride out the storm. Of everything life has thrown at me, from assault to access, from family disintegration to The House Of Many Colours, from ruptured relationships to bewildered Blondies. Annnerrrmmm [whispers] I’m pretty fucking proud of how I’ve managed and coped and the things I have achieved (photo below was an especially cathartic moment).

 I’m not saying I deserve a medal or anything like that*, but everything I did, I planned, was methodical. I got my head down and told myself ONWARDS. Always ONWARDS. Don’t be distracted, don’t overdo things, trim it all down until you know what you’re facing, deal with it, ONWARDS.

     I was offered a lot of Proper Support by the relevant types. Counselling, advocates, an IDVA, therapy, a place in a refuge, GP appointments, Victim Support, the whole shebang. But after the first ten days or so, I refused all offers of help. Because I knew I needed to be as robust as I could be, and talking about things would upset me too much. It was bad enough with the things I had to talk about, let alone the things I was asked if I wanted to talk about. I couldn’t afford the emotional energy, and I really couldn’t afford to fall apart again. I’m not going to pretend that this was a healthy way of dealing with things, but it worked. Shit got done, stuff got sorted, The Blondies didn’t miss more than two days of school, and I got the case stopped, ditched detritus, and redecorated almost an entire house on my own, armed only with a chair, a vat of magnolia paint, and, as it turned out, a broken foot.

     So now I should be freewheeling, right? The dark days are over, spring is sprung, I should be able to relax. And I am. But by relaxing, I’m allowing myself to experience emotion again and FUCK ME, I’VE GONE FUCKING MENTAL.

     I sort of suspected it a bit last week, when a considerable number of niggles and annoyances led to me spending most of Friday with my lips clamped together, trying not to cry. I was a bit concerned when I realised on Saturday, just before giving a tour of medieval graffiti at Norwich Cathedral, when I realised I had absolutely no enthusiasm for it (yeah. Within five minutes I was flying man, totally flying, and by the end of it, my victims were preparing to fashion me a ball gag from a scarf and devotional candle, just to get me to SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP TALKING ABOUT FECKING GRAFFITI).

     But then my downfall came. My debit card. It was due to expire at the end of this month. Replacement card arrived. And I burst into tears. Big, proper, full on, fat, hot, face soaking tears as I got out the scissors to cut up the old one. Because we’d been through so much, that card and I. It’s been my bank account weapon of choice since I first started writing. It’s been there, been a constant, a source of both joy and sorrow. It’s been there when I’ve been told I’m loved, and when I’ve been told I’m nothing. It’s humiliated me in shops; it’s delighted me at cashpoints. All of the silver has worn off the letters and numbers, the chip is more akin to mash, and my signature on the back has worn off. But saying goodbye to it made me cry because, symbollockly, I was saying goodbye to the old me, the me I once was (or wasn’t), the life I had (or didn’t), the life I had that I shared with someone (or not).

     So fare thee well, 03/13 – 04/16. You were there when I had everything, nothing, and an all the times in between. I shall never forget the times we shared. For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, til debt do us part. And saying goodbye to you made me realise that perhaps I’m not quite as ok as I thought I was, and this is just another storm I’m going to have to ride out. And I’ll be alright, I know I will. Just a bit wibbly wobbly for a timey wimey.

     *But YES I WOULD LIKE ONE THANK YOU.

Cold calling

     An unwelcome reminder of normal life arrived last night. Announcing itself with a RAT A TAT TAT on my double locked front door, with security chain on. My immediate thought was that it must be a neighbour – perhaps they’d taken in some post for me, or wanted to ask if I’d seen their cat. You can only gain access to our floor via key fob, or entryphone to the home you wish to visit, which is just a handful of us, and I knew I wasn't expecting anyone.

     So it was something of a shock to open the front door and be faced with a strange man I didn’t recognise, towering over me and launching into a long spiel about how I ought to give money to the Marie Curie charity. I listened to him for a few good minutes until he paused to draw breath and managed to inform him that actually, for me, that is quite a lot of money, thank you, good luck, hope other people can help, good night.

     I was annoyed, I had a bit of a chunter about it on twitter, I went to bed, I woke up this morning feeling fine.

     And then I got coldcalled. By someone on twitter. Someone who doesn’t follow me, nor anyone I follow. Someone who, now I look at their other tweets, clearly searched out a few people annoyed by cold callers, chuggers, charity door knockers, and decided to challenge them. And I was taken to task for not appreciating the social interaction of a complete stranger turning up on my doorstep at half past eight in the evening to ask me for money. Because I should appreciate my life being intruded into. I should value my time being taken up with someone suggesting that £30 a month ‘isn’t a lot of money’ (Mate, listen. I’m a single mother, on benefits, renting a council maisonette, and I haven’t received a penny in child maintenance since October. £30 is more than I spend on food in a week for three of us).

     And this person on twitter seemed to think that I was the one with a problem (yes, I know, but shush). That cold callers and their like should be welcomed, engaged with. This person didn’t seem to grasp that actually, it can be quite distressing to be forced to engage with someone. And to prove that, they just kept going. On and on and fucking on at me. They didn’t seem to pick up on the fact that actually, I’d had enough of the conversation now, I’m starting to get upset, and part of that upset was caused by the dawning realisation that I’m not as secure in my home as I thought I was, and last night, I could have opened the door to someone who could have inflicted pretty serious fucking damage on me and The Blondies, without me even thinking about it. It also hasn’t helped that I realised last night that a murder I thought had happened over there, actually happened… just here. A house I pass every time I go in or out. Focuses the mind, that sort of detail.

     In the end, to get rid of my cold tweeter, I had to reveal stuff I normally wouldn’t, especially not to a stranger. I had to do it, because I realised I was getting more and more upset, and I wasn’t coping. And not long after I sent that tweet, I did something I never wanted to have to do again – I protected my account. And I’ve spent most of today in tears. Quiet, hand over mouth, silent tears, angrily swiping away at my cheeks so that The Blondies won’t see.

     Because I hate this. I fucking hate this. I hate feeling like this. I hate being reminded of how vulnerable I am, how insignificant I am, how people see me. I don’t need fucking protecting; I’m not some droopy little flower, waiting in her tower to be rescued. Fuck that shit, frankly. But I hate being reminded that I am not in control.

     I am not in control of who knocks on my door. I was not in control of who replies to my tweets. I am now, obviously.

    Cold tweeters, kindly fucking do one. I am, until such time as this horrible feeling has passed, ex-directory.