The gift.
A wind-up toy, it was.
A colourful tin mouse. Plastic whiskers bristling with fun. Little teeth grinning cheekily.
A suggestion of haunches, with 4 rubber wheels where the mousey little feet should be.
Silver key on the back. Simple clockwork.
Just turn the key and watch it go.
Straightforward fun. No batteries required. No technology needed. No app. No plug-ins. No USB sticks. No codes, no cables, no connection.
Simple.
Not so simple if you don’t have fingers that work. Or hands. Or arms.
Then you’d need a loving person who will lovingly, willingly, wind up the toy for you. Again and again. As often as it makes you smile.
Infinitely patient. Able to watch the clockwork run down, over and over.
To fetch the toy for you. To bring it back.
To wind and re-wind. Again. Again.
Giving one small pleasure to another.
No key required. Doesn’t need winding. Never needs batteries. The perfect wireless connection.
Hard to find a reliable power source like that; looks so simple and keeps on running.
Better than clockwork.
Tuesday, 24 January 2012
Friday, 23 December 2011
Why Arm In The Door
Because
she wrote a story
and was too scared (too afraid of hate) to ever read it aloud
so nobody ever heard it
she kept shutting her arm in the door
so no one could read the words that she had written
no one would hear them
she wanted to hide them
and never let them be free
it was a gift she didn't like playing with
she has been told she has to write one story
just one
and then she will be left alone
she can't ever write it
but it never stops
she will write the story
just one
story
she wrote a story
and was too scared (too afraid of hate) to ever read it aloud
so nobody ever heard it
she kept shutting her arm in the door
so no one could read the words that she had written
no one would hear them
she wanted to hide them
and never let them be free
it was a gift she didn't like playing with
she has been told she has to write one story
just one
and then she will be left alone
she can't ever write it
but it never stops
she will write the story
just one
story
Random
i am therefore always waiting for the axe to fall,
the shouted words, the recriminations
the ugly, angry man's faces and tight strict voices
the terror of the little girl who cannot answer back
who expects and knows she is bad, unworthy, stupid,
unnecessary.
i hate myself for hating myself
hate the waiting for the punishment
and so on and on it goes ...
round and round the mulberry bush
i'm unstrung, unsung, un-fun
worry breeds worry and grows
i cannot escape the words the stories
the thoughts go round and round my head like a macrabre merry go round
i worry, i fret, i hate, i cry, i talk out loud
i can't stop i can't STOP
the feelings, the thoughts, that dig and poke
and hurt hurt the hurt.
the teeth that bite.
Sunday night.
wake up! prepare for life.
the last twist of the knife.
the shouted words, the recriminations
the ugly, angry man's faces and tight strict voices
the terror of the little girl who cannot answer back
who expects and knows she is bad, unworthy, stupid,
unnecessary.
i hate myself for hating myself
hate the waiting for the punishment
and so on and on it goes ...
round and round the mulberry bush
i'm unstrung, unsung, un-fun
worry breeds worry and grows
i cannot escape the words the stories
the thoughts go round and round my head like a macrabre merry go round
i worry, i fret, i hate, i cry, i talk out loud
i can't stop i can't STOP
the feelings, the thoughts, that dig and poke
and hurt hurt the hurt.
the teeth that bite.
Sunday night.
wake up! prepare for life.
the last twist of the knife.
Tuesday, 14 December 2010
Bird Brain
I saw the birds perched in a tree at the end of the Close.
Black bird shapes on black branches, settled in silhouette against the cold white winter sky. I count 10. I think there are 10.
What is in their minds? I know birds cannot be said to have consciousness of self in the same way humans do. Or can do.
I am sitting, staring out of the window and wondering about the birds.
I try to get into their birdy brains. I am thinking of my claw-like twist-sticks feet curled around the cold twig of the branch. I am flicking, fleeting random thought of tree, bird, branch, twig, claw, bird, sky, fly, twig, tree, bird, branch, sky.
Of course I have no language. Not in the way that humans have it. For all I know the bird word for ‘tree’ is ‘Kaaah’ but of course they have no concept of language at all, only the black and white reality of tree, sky, earth; and the moment which is always Now.
No past. No future. They live in the moment.
All 10 birds – suddenly, almost as one – take to the air. Uncurl those cold feet from cold bark and take flight into the cold sky. No chatter about when or where. Just unfurl and fly knowing all will follow. A time to perch. A time to fly. Always living in the Now.
I am sad watching the dark birds wheeling in the sky.
I am wishing I could also live in the Now. Forget the past. Not worry about the future. Just stretch out. Step off. And fly.
Black bird shapes on black branches, settled in silhouette against the cold white winter sky. I count 10. I think there are 10.
What is in their minds? I know birds cannot be said to have consciousness of self in the same way humans do. Or can do.
I am sitting, staring out of the window and wondering about the birds.
I try to get into their birdy brains. I am thinking of my claw-like twist-sticks feet curled around the cold twig of the branch. I am flicking, fleeting random thought of tree, bird, branch, twig, claw, bird, sky, fly, twig, tree, bird, branch, sky.
Of course I have no language. Not in the way that humans have it. For all I know the bird word for ‘tree’ is ‘Kaaah’ but of course they have no concept of language at all, only the black and white reality of tree, sky, earth; and the moment which is always Now.
No past. No future. They live in the moment.
All 10 birds – suddenly, almost as one – take to the air. Uncurl those cold feet from cold bark and take flight into the cold sky. No chatter about when or where. Just unfurl and fly knowing all will follow. A time to perch. A time to fly. Always living in the Now.
I am sad watching the dark birds wheeling in the sky.
I am wishing I could also live in the Now. Forget the past. Not worry about the future. Just stretch out. Step off. And fly.
Monday, 25 October 2010
It pays to get down on your knees and beg
I've been made redundant three times in my life. Never a nice thing. First time it happened at an ad agency, me and my team mate knew it was on the cards for us. But we kept on going in to work. Gritting our teeth. Brassing it out.
First they stopped giving us briefs (our work). Then they took away our office and put a new team in there.
We had to sit on a desk in the 'video library' (a corridor with shelves in it).
We still dutifully kept going in. Papering the (video cassette) walls with ads. A bit ashamed at how far we had fallen from grace. But we had to keep going in, even though we knew we were a lost cause. No one could look us in the eye. No one came in to ask about our work, or give us deadlines.
We were being cut out of the picture.
Invisibilized.
That's one of the worst things about the 'R' word; people's embarrassment and wish that you would 'just go away quietly.'
The Creative Director had lost faith in us. He kept pulling everything we did into pieces. Meaningless pieces. Confusion. Mis-direction.
Worse. We had lost faith in ourselves.
After months and weeks of daily pain and humiliation, the CD came down (nervous; quite nice man really; dead now -- died in a strange way, using self-asphyxiation sex technique that went wrong .. anyway, I digress); he stood in our 'doorway' (video library corridor entrance) and mumbled shamefacedly, "Let's call this your last week then."
I don't know what possessed me. But I decided to make a joke out of the horrible, drawn-out situation we'd been putting ourselves through. I threw my head into my hands and screeched "NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" Then I play-actingly sobbed, "No, No Nooo", wretchedly and pathetically. I started rambling, using an over-acting cockney kid voice, "But I got bills to pay Mister -- a cat to feed and fings ... " I think I got down on my knees, but i definitely implored him with open arms and begged him for mercy. I remember saying (in my fake cockney 'Dodger' voice) "Avent we always done our best for you? We've worked our fingers to the bone for you -- we 'ave!!" And i showed him my fingers (which were bony back then).
He walked backwards out of the room.
Me and D (my partner) looked at each other, smirked and sighed heavily as we began to pack up our bits and pieces. 5 minutes later, Mr CD-Shameface hovers back around our 'doorway'.
"OK OK" he says. "I've got you another 2 weeks."
Me and D didn't know whether to laugh with relief of 2 weeks more in warm, safe agency environment ... or cry with the knowledge of dragging ourselves through more continued invisibilized torture.
Maybe I should have changed careers and gone to RADA?
First they stopped giving us briefs (our work). Then they took away our office and put a new team in there.
We had to sit on a desk in the 'video library' (a corridor with shelves in it).
We still dutifully kept going in. Papering the (video cassette) walls with ads. A bit ashamed at how far we had fallen from grace. But we had to keep going in, even though we knew we were a lost cause. No one could look us in the eye. No one came in to ask about our work, or give us deadlines.
We were being cut out of the picture.
Invisibilized.
That's one of the worst things about the 'R' word; people's embarrassment and wish that you would 'just go away quietly.'
The Creative Director had lost faith in us. He kept pulling everything we did into pieces. Meaningless pieces. Confusion. Mis-direction.
Worse. We had lost faith in ourselves.
After months and weeks of daily pain and humiliation, the CD came down (nervous; quite nice man really; dead now -- died in a strange way, using self-asphyxiation sex technique that went wrong .. anyway, I digress); he stood in our 'doorway' (video library corridor entrance) and mumbled shamefacedly, "Let's call this your last week then."
I don't know what possessed me. But I decided to make a joke out of the horrible, drawn-out situation we'd been putting ourselves through. I threw my head into my hands and screeched "NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" Then I play-actingly sobbed, "No, No Nooo", wretchedly and pathetically. I started rambling, using an over-acting cockney kid voice, "But I got bills to pay Mister -- a cat to feed and fings ... " I think I got down on my knees, but i definitely implored him with open arms and begged him for mercy. I remember saying (in my fake cockney 'Dodger' voice) "Avent we always done our best for you? We've worked our fingers to the bone for you -- we 'ave!!" And i showed him my fingers (which were bony back then).
He walked backwards out of the room.
Me and D (my partner) looked at each other, smirked and sighed heavily as we began to pack up our bits and pieces. 5 minutes later, Mr CD-Shameface hovers back around our 'doorway'.
"OK OK" he says. "I've got you another 2 weeks."
Me and D didn't know whether to laugh with relief of 2 weeks more in warm, safe agency environment ... or cry with the knowledge of dragging ourselves through more continued invisibilized torture.
Maybe I should have changed careers and gone to RADA?
Voodoo Coat
Never under-estimate the power of a new coat.
The Coat of Power is upon me, and yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow on the way to town, I SHALL fear no evil.
It's amazing (and frankly, quite shallow) how much a new coat and a new perfume can lift your spirits as the year turns.
Since I bought the New Coat I have resolved:
1. To stop drinking every day
2. To eat more healthy food again
3. To lose AT LEAST 2 stone for my health and my children's sake
4. To start walking or running every day
5. To look after myself more
6. To have more patience and not live with constant regret
7. To stop berating and accusing myself for every small mistake or slip I may make
8. To stop seeking approval from the people in my life; I AM OK
The Coat has a mysterious power, and it is working over and through me.
It is a shiny black Parka with silver zips and toggles and has a furry rimmed hood. It makes me feel extraordinarily good when I wear it. So therefore I am acting more like the woman-in-the-coat I want and hope to be.
I can't wait to walk and go out in it!!!
Maybe it is a Voodoo coat??? Drenched in power from some unknowable lady who worked on its silver accoutrements, binding spells into its shining lining, singing strange words in a low voice to an ancient tune and breathing ritual positivity into its fur-lined hood.
It was in the Sale at House of Fraser down from £250 to £175.
Bargain.
The Coat of Power is upon me, and yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow on the way to town, I SHALL fear no evil.
It's amazing (and frankly, quite shallow) how much a new coat and a new perfume can lift your spirits as the year turns.
Since I bought the New Coat I have resolved:
1. To stop drinking every day
2. To eat more healthy food again
3. To lose AT LEAST 2 stone for my health and my children's sake
4. To start walking or running every day
5. To look after myself more
6. To have more patience and not live with constant regret
7. To stop berating and accusing myself for every small mistake or slip I may make
8. To stop seeking approval from the people in my life; I AM OK
The Coat has a mysterious power, and it is working over and through me.
It is a shiny black Parka with silver zips and toggles and has a furry rimmed hood. It makes me feel extraordinarily good when I wear it. So therefore I am acting more like the woman-in-the-coat I want and hope to be.
I can't wait to walk and go out in it!!!
Maybe it is a Voodoo coat??? Drenched in power from some unknowable lady who worked on its silver accoutrements, binding spells into its shining lining, singing strange words in a low voice to an ancient tune and breathing ritual positivity into its fur-lined hood.
It was in the Sale at House of Fraser down from £250 to £175.
Bargain.
Tuesday, 12 October 2010
Apple Bobbing Hell
I was press-ganged into helping run a stall at the Infant's School Autumn fete this weekend. I was not keen, having done similar stints before, and having worked all the previous weekend on my own business and pulled two late-nighters midweek to finish up work. However, I find it quite hard to say 'no' to the mummies.
I would not say I am a weak person. Or particularly impressionable. As I enter the playground at pick-up time, a mummy will ask "Are you helping out at the Autumn Fete on Saturday?", and I will truthfully say 'No', and give full reasons why not.
But then something strange happens to me. The mummy will volunteer me to help run a stall and I can't make my lips say 'No'. Even though I have a better case not to volunteer than the mostly non-working women around me. (By the way, this all comes after having to provide a bottle of booze for the tombola (in return for 'Mufti Day' at school), a NEW toy for the Toy Tombola for feck's sake (in return for 'Mufti Day') and then a plate of home-made cakes for Mufti Day (snort -- 'home-made' by the good people at Waitrose bakery). I mean what do they want next, Blood for Mufti???
The idea then is, you waste your precious family time at a weekend running a stall, and then you can pay to win all your donated goods back. See?
Well, anyway, I couldn't say 'No' -- and when the mummy mentioned we were in the 'Halloween Theme' room and could dress up as witches I thought well, at least that might be a laugh. And it was Apple Bobbing. What could be stressful about that?
Come Saturday and I pull on my black and red stripey tights, do full face witchy make-up with blood red lips, long black Morticia Addams wig and huge pointy black hat, layers of black cloaky clothes, and off I go to have good community fun.
What a mistake a pointy hat and wig are in a hot, overcrowded classroom full of Freyas, Ellas, Caspers, Harrys and Hannahs.
First off the organiser (in chic sexy witch hat) rushes over to explain there are Health & Safety issues with Apple Bobbing.
1. NO CHILD may take part without a parent present to agree to the risks
2. We were handed a slip of paper with a Pediatrician's Emergency Number on it
Right. Before we could even get to grips with the dangers of death we had been given, the floodgates opened and a rush of spoiled grabby (but well-spoken) children swarmed in. I was in charge of stamping their tickets to show they had paid and played.
Try that when they are already heading towards the tank of water whislt you are holding onto your witches hat and wig and gabbling frantically "Have you got your mummy or daddy with you?"
THEN, while your back is turned, pushy mums and toddlers are over at your cauldron of prizes and fecking acting as if this is Lucky Dip -- just putting their hands in and helping themselves.
So you grab your hat and cloak and run back to the table to explain about the apple bobbing, the stamping, the queueing, the safety issues. Who designed the stamping areas so far apart from the bobbing area?? The children don't care or want to know about paying, or the issues of drowning in a lungful of snotty apple water. They are just going right up and putting their heads in the tank.
But then your helper (who is sensibly dressed, just wearing a comfy velvet hat) says "Have you stamped their tickets???" You grimly hold onto your wig as you bend over and try to stamp the soggy fiddly bits of paper thinking "Who's bloody stupid idea was this?"
BUT there is no time for that, because a constant stream (literally) of children is flowing from tank to table and prize cauldron and some of them just want to put their heads under water to get wet, which is fine, but trying to impose order on the chaos is mind numbingly, spirit crushingly awful.
Pushy mummies shove their 'cute' be-curled youngsters at you and say "He doesn't want to do Apple Bobbing. Can you just give him a prize?"
Er, no. ??? What sort of planet are these people living on? How fair would it be if I pushed to the front of the Hoop-La and said "My Simeon/Thomas/Grace doesn't want to throw a hoop. can she just have the prize?" !!!
I looked at my watch, thinking at least I was only down to do one hour on the stall. Barely 10 minutes had gone by.
The towels we had laid out were dripping wet. The prizes were mysteriously disappearing, faster then I could give out. My head was hot and itchy under the stupid wig and hat -- why on earth did I think this would be a 'laugh'?
As always, the 'relief' team arrived 5 minutes late (and let me tell you , those 5 minutes are like 5 hours in the Halloween Room) and then prettily faff about in their gorgeous silver pixy hats watching you hot and stressed as you heave towels, stamp limp bits of paper, try and give out prizes (WHERE DID THEY ALL GO???) and supervise the HSE rules on children who couldn't give a TOSS if their 'mummy or daddy' was there -- they just want to jump in with the apples for Christ sake!
At last, after wasting another 10 precious hot agonising minutes, the relief team say smilingly, 'I think I've got how it works' and I am FREE to go.
i tear off my hat and wig and go in search of a drink. Saying "Is your mummy or daddy with you?" 1,000 times gives you something of a thirst.
By the time I had drunk my own body weight in watery squash and tea there were no toys left on the tombola, no bottles left on the bottle tombola, and nothing much left except for me and my throbbing head and stupid outfit.
I would not say I am a weak person. Or particularly impressionable. As I enter the playground at pick-up time, a mummy will ask "Are you helping out at the Autumn Fete on Saturday?", and I will truthfully say 'No', and give full reasons why not.
But then something strange happens to me. The mummy will volunteer me to help run a stall and I can't make my lips say 'No'. Even though I have a better case not to volunteer than the mostly non-working women around me. (By the way, this all comes after having to provide a bottle of booze for the tombola (in return for 'Mufti Day' at school), a NEW toy for the Toy Tombola for feck's sake (in return for 'Mufti Day') and then a plate of home-made cakes for Mufti Day (snort -- 'home-made' by the good people at Waitrose bakery). I mean what do they want next, Blood for Mufti???
The idea then is, you waste your precious family time at a weekend running a stall, and then you can pay to win all your donated goods back. See?
Well, anyway, I couldn't say 'No' -- and when the mummy mentioned we were in the 'Halloween Theme' room and could dress up as witches I thought well, at least that might be a laugh. And it was Apple Bobbing. What could be stressful about that?
Come Saturday and I pull on my black and red stripey tights, do full face witchy make-up with blood red lips, long black Morticia Addams wig and huge pointy black hat, layers of black cloaky clothes, and off I go to have good community fun.
What a mistake a pointy hat and wig are in a hot, overcrowded classroom full of Freyas, Ellas, Caspers, Harrys and Hannahs.
First off the organiser (in chic sexy witch hat) rushes over to explain there are Health & Safety issues with Apple Bobbing.
1. NO CHILD may take part without a parent present to agree to the risks
2. We were handed a slip of paper with a Pediatrician's Emergency Number on it
Right. Before we could even get to grips with the dangers of death we had been given, the floodgates opened and a rush of spoiled grabby (but well-spoken) children swarmed in. I was in charge of stamping their tickets to show they had paid and played.
Try that when they are already heading towards the tank of water whislt you are holding onto your witches hat and wig and gabbling frantically "Have you got your mummy or daddy with you?"
THEN, while your back is turned, pushy mums and toddlers are over at your cauldron of prizes and fecking acting as if this is Lucky Dip -- just putting their hands in and helping themselves.
So you grab your hat and cloak and run back to the table to explain about the apple bobbing, the stamping, the queueing, the safety issues. Who designed the stamping areas so far apart from the bobbing area?? The children don't care or want to know about paying, or the issues of drowning in a lungful of snotty apple water. They are just going right up and putting their heads in the tank.
But then your helper (who is sensibly dressed, just wearing a comfy velvet hat) says "Have you stamped their tickets???" You grimly hold onto your wig as you bend over and try to stamp the soggy fiddly bits of paper thinking "Who's bloody stupid idea was this?"
BUT there is no time for that, because a constant stream (literally) of children is flowing from tank to table and prize cauldron and some of them just want to put their heads under water to get wet, which is fine, but trying to impose order on the chaos is mind numbingly, spirit crushingly awful.
Pushy mummies shove their 'cute' be-curled youngsters at you and say "He doesn't want to do Apple Bobbing. Can you just give him a prize?"
Er, no. ??? What sort of planet are these people living on? How fair would it be if I pushed to the front of the Hoop-La and said "My Simeon/Thomas/Grace doesn't want to throw a hoop. can she just have the prize?" !!!
I looked at my watch, thinking at least I was only down to do one hour on the stall. Barely 10 minutes had gone by.
The towels we had laid out were dripping wet. The prizes were mysteriously disappearing, faster then I could give out. My head was hot and itchy under the stupid wig and hat -- why on earth did I think this would be a 'laugh'?
As always, the 'relief' team arrived 5 minutes late (and let me tell you , those 5 minutes are like 5 hours in the Halloween Room) and then prettily faff about in their gorgeous silver pixy hats watching you hot and stressed as you heave towels, stamp limp bits of paper, try and give out prizes (WHERE DID THEY ALL GO???) and supervise the HSE rules on children who couldn't give a TOSS if their 'mummy or daddy' was there -- they just want to jump in with the apples for Christ sake!
At last, after wasting another 10 precious hot agonising minutes, the relief team say smilingly, 'I think I've got how it works' and I am FREE to go.
i tear off my hat and wig and go in search of a drink. Saying "Is your mummy or daddy with you?" 1,000 times gives you something of a thirst.
By the time I had drunk my own body weight in watery squash and tea there were no toys left on the tombola, no bottles left on the bottle tombola, and nothing much left except for me and my throbbing head and stupid outfit.
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