The World’s Worst Blogger

by Mothership on April 11, 2011

I have been hopeless.

I have hardly written anything, not kept anyone up to date (not that there is a legion of followers who particularly give a toss), not stuck to my promise to post more often, failed to record the adorable antics of my ever-growing children.

In short, I hardly count as a blogger anymore.

But I have, in my defence, been rather busy.

It is now official and announceable: We are leaving Stepford and going to San Francisco.

The houses are rented in both places, the schools are secured, the business is started, the office space found, the friends and families alerted and I have already started gleefully throwing things away in anticipation of the big move.

I have been working round the clock to make sure that all of this falls into place, and it has, in a most serendipitous way, right down to the old-lady-tea-shop (yes, you read that correctly and they do serve tea in pots with proper strainers and plates of freshly baked scones) just a few blocks away from our new home.

Perfect! It was clearly meant to be.

Of course, this is only ostensibly for a sabbatical year. We are due to come back the following summer.

But it’s quite possible that in the packing up to return, Husband might mislay me and the children..

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Gare du Nord

by Mothership on March 11, 2011

I saw you last night, though you didn’t see me.

I was watching a film in my faraway bed, hadn’t thought of you for years when you made your cameo.  I recognized you by your taxi rank and the particular quality of the pale winter light as it filtered through your dirty glass ceiling. I even thought I heard the coo of a grubby pigeon.

My girlish heart flew through time and space to place me on your sparkling concrete concourse, walking with dizzying fear, toppling desire, breathless longing towards a lover I hardly knew.

This happened more than once.


{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Before We Were Grown Ups..

by Mothership on March 6, 2011

On Friday, as we all sat around the table for supper, I asked Six what she had done at school that day.
I was expecting to hear about maths or reading, but instead, far more interestingly, there had been high interpersonal drama in the classroom.

“Matthew was, like, REALLY naughty!” she said gleefully. “He made Jason really MAD and then Jason yelled at him and threw a book and then Jason hid under the table. Then they both had to stay in at recess”.

“Oh, poor old Jason” I said, sympathetically. “He does get upset very easily. What did Matthew do?”

“Oh my GOSH!” said Six. “It was SO FUNNY! He went like this:”

She stabbed her index finger towards her father a few times and then twirled it around beside her cocked head with her eyes crossed and her tongue hanging out.

“D’ya know what that means?!” She demanded.
Not waiting for an answer, she continued
“That means you’re CUCKOOCRAZY!”

Three immediately let out hearty gales of forced laughter and copied her gestures while I exchanged weary glances with Husband.
Six continued, unabashed

“And d’ya know what he did right after that?! HE DID THIS!!!”

She pointed at Husband again, screwed up her eyes and made a silent exaggerated show of rubbing her eyes and pretending to wail. Then she prodded me to make sure I was still paying attention, stood up for full effect and rocked an imaginary infant in her arms.

“I bet you don’t know what that means, do ya?” she taunted.

“Hmm. I’m fairly certain it still means ‘you’re a crybaby’. Am I right?”

“How did you know?” she said with genuine wonder.

“Oh honestly, sweetheart! What do you think I was before I was a grownup?”

She thought about this carefully, stumped for a minute, then a smile spread across her face when she realised that of course, she knew the answer.

“A nerd?”


{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Social Studies

by Mothership on February 22, 2011

I went to the city last week to apply for schools for Six. I flew up for a brief 36 hours having carefully mapped out my time so I’d be able to wander over to Geekymummy‘s house (who was kindly putting me up),  have the following morning to take care of all the administrative details,  possibly an hour or two for shopping and then dinner with a friend before flying home. It was all going to be very pleasant and efficient.

However, I got in a bit early and ended up being so incredibly efficient that I took care of all my school stuff that afternoon and thus had a WHOLE DAY to myself in the city with nothing to do. What utter bliss. I was very excited.

I slept late – half past eight (not quite sure what happened to the girl who considered getting up at noon an early start) and pottered around drinking tea in Geekymummy‘s cosy kitchen – they had all left for work (very brave of her to trust me not to run off with the family silver). It was pelting with rain outside and I was relying on public transport so I hatched a plan to shop for several hours, then visit an art museum and finally, daringly, to go to a grown up film all by myself.  Whilst happily disposing of several hundred dollars between Zara and a shoe shop which was having a sale (had to buy two pairs, really, at that price) I got a text from my dinner companion-t0-be saying she was ill, so I had even more free time before my plane. Good grief! I was practically giddy with it! I quickly rejigged my plans to go to an evening talk at the gallery and sloped off to have lunch and then slipped into a downtown cinema to see The Social Network which everyone else has seen but me because I’ve been holed up in the boondocks with small kids.

I must say I had my worries when I was sitting watching the trailer. You know how they try and tailor them to the feature and this did not bode well. They were advertising a movie called SuckerPunch. This is what the director says about it: “The film follows a young girl in the 1950s about to be lobotomized as she attempts to escape an asylum with her inmate friends.”  Gritty drama? No! Of course not. It’s a fantasy film that looks  like a cross between a Russ Meyer movie, a violent video game and a manga sex cartoon. The eyeleashes and push-up bras alone were enough to make me physically wince and the high-flying kicks with freeze animation so you can look up the girls’ skirts from every angle was so blatant it was almost laughable. Although with an $85 million dollar budget I daresay they weren’t trying to crack a funny.

After a few more loud and boring previews the feature finally started. I enjoyed it. I really did. The story was fascinating and although one never really thought Mark Zuckerberg was exactly delightful, it’s quite interesting to see what a phenomenal shit he was to his friends. The thing that really stuck with me, though, was how women were portrayed in the film. There were a couple of actual characters who had some depth and were awarded some sort of moral compass, but for the most part the film was populated with half-naked girls, gyrating-in-their-knickers-on-tables-girls, public-convenience blow-job giving girls, falling-over-drunk-stupid girls, lingerie-clad-kissing each-other-for-boys’ titillation girls, psychotic-gift-burning-over-texting girls. Stereotype girls who either are there to fuck or make a scene. Many of these girls were purportedly Harvard students, but I note that they were not writing algorithms or studying or hacking or writing or thinking. Because they were too busy being hot and wearing lacy bras so they could fulfill the sexual fantasies of the male Harvard students. Or not fulfill the fantasies of Mark Zuckerberg. Whatever.

My sister is at the other big Ivy League university right now. I wonder if she is getting her best skivvies on for a free show-&-wiggle every Saturday night because that’s what all the cool girls do?  I doubt it somehow, she’d consider all this type of thing beneath her, but I’m interested that so few young women seem offended by this kind of imagery, and in fact many participate happily in their own objectification mistaking it somehow for power?

I don’t know what can be done about this other than maintaining vigilance and continuing to voice discontent. I don’t want my daughter or my son growing up thinking that this kind of objectification is okay or normal, but it’s depressing to see how the tide has turned against women, often by our own hands just during my adult lifetime.

And where do you draw the line at home? Six is just becoming aware of her appearance and enjoys prancing around in front of the mirror making winning faces. Clearly she enjoys this – and she’s beautiful! Why not love that? I don’t want to tell her not to be interested in or like how she looks – it seems pretty normal to me. But how does one honour that and still make sure our daughters are engaged in their personal development so they are armed against the onslaught that is surely facing them and only getting worse?

Your thoughts, please!

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Old Friends

by Mothership on January 7, 2011

The other day I had a visitor whom I had not seen since I was a young teenager.

It was a FaceBook friend who had found me through other people that we knew in common  “You and XYZ have 58 mutual friends” though when I accepted her request a year or so ago, I wasn’t even exactly sure who she was. The name and early photographs seemed familiar so it seemed somewhat churlish not to respond. I was aware that I had blocked a great deal of my specific memory from that period – a miserable and turbulent two years spent with my mother in the early days following my parents’ acrimonious and drawn-out divorce.   The adults were not handling things very well and domestic life was unpredictable and frightening. I compensated for this by cutting a dashing social swathe. While not universally liked, I was certainly well known – I was very good at  rage, swagger and rebellion  (It’s a very good disguise for loneliness, if you didn’t already know).
By the time I was 14 the home situation had become untenable so I left and went to live with my Dad which was better in some ways, and not in others.  I hardly saw anyone from that time and place again, and never really expected to. The previous few years had been a series of upheavals and long-distance moves with zero adult interest in continuity. In fact they all seemed very keen to divest themselves of the past, of any memory of what had been my little family and given my utter failure to hold on to any shred of that safe space, it seemed my best bet was a sort of self-inflicted witness protection plan.
Forge new identity. Forget the past. Move on.

I have become a specialist at that – it takes a certain knack.

I recently read a book called The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25 Year Landmark Study

Arguably this was a monumentally stupid book to choose for Yuletide reading.

Husband recently confessed he “dreads Christmas” with me.

DEUTSCHLAND – NIL POINTS

I do go slightly overboard, it’s true. I get tremendously worked up about having things be perfect for the children but you don’t have to be Freud to work out that really, I want it to be perfect for me. I’m trying to compensate for all those less-than-perfect years when I was torn between two warring parents or shunted off to somebody or other’s house who wasn’t my real family as a sort of appendage and always felt like an outsider, somehow responsible for my 3rd wheeliness. Despite my best efforts, my plans never work quite the way I want them to and then I break down in hysterical tears, often when someone else dares to have their own emotions or opinion (this is not allowed in my perfect Christmas. Only my feelings. And perfectly happy children who love their presents).
Despite my questionable judgement I read the book  anyway and though it was agonisingly sad at times, it was also wonderful because I realised that I’m not just a fucking nutcase with severe emotional problems that won’t go away.
I’m one of MILLIONS of fucking nutcases with severe emotional problems that won’t go away!

Not alone! Not alone! Plus there appear to be some perfectly obvious reasons for my continuing odd reactions that I’d just never quite looked at or realised.

It was a relief to realise that just because this event was over decades ago doesn’t mean that the repercussions are not still happening, which is both comforting and terrifying.

It was also interesting to note that it wasn’t all bad news.  Apparently, along with a deep, abiding sense of loneliness, anxiety and fear that the sky will fall on our heads, children of divorce are hardworking, adaptable and frequently ingenious in their approach to the curves life throws them.  Unfortunately they don’t often recognise this in themselves and instead run around squawking and panicking.

I have failed to write very much recently, other than the odd post which bored you all with my vows to start my new business, move to the city, find schools, blah blah blah, and you might have gathered that from this I was now either:

a) Extremely BUSY AND IMPORTANT   or

b) feeling incredibly BLAH

hint, select  (b)

By the time 2011 rolled around I’d had Christmas,  (b) and my cheery little book to consider I can’t say I really felt very excited about my new career, the move, my life, anything anymore.

Then my friend came to visit.

It’s funny talking to someone you haven’t seen in over a quarter of a century. My worries about not remembering much from the past were unfounded as I immediately remembered all sorts of things as soon as I saw her, and we didn’t really try to catch up  as much as just easily talk about who we are now, and trust that the other was an old friend with whom we didn’t have to have defences. She was lovely. Quiet, open and gentle – a still, intelligent, presence. She asked me what I was doing, to which I mumbled “Nothing much right now” but then began to tell her, with some hesitation, about my plans for this year which had lost their lustre over the last buffeting weeks. She just listened to me and then said, genuinely:

“It’s so wonderful that you can just reinvent yourself over and over again. That is a great skill to have. I wish I could do that”

Oh!

I had not thought of it that way.

I just thought that everything falls apart eventually no matter what and then I have to panic/scramble to cobble together some kind of BS that will also fall apart in due course. Isn’t this the way it’s always been? And according to my book, as a child of divorced parents I was now permanently programmed to think I will be alone and things will fail and that I, singlehandedly, have to take care of everything with no help at all because nobody’s going to be there anyway.

It was seriously not until yesterday that I saw that there was a good side to this. I am very self-motivated. I’m comfortable with risk. I frequently step over boundaries because (in the absence of formal guidance) I didn’t notice they were there. I am unimpressed by authority and hierarchies. My long tenure as an outsider has freed me from the need to fit in, which inhibits so many people.
So she’s right. I can, and have, and do reinvent myself all the time.
Forge new identity. Move on.

But I’m thinking now that it’s rather better to remember the past.
Like my friend who came to sit a while and so sweetly made a present of it.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Outraged in Stepford

by Mothership on November 30, 2010

I quite often read the BBC website. It’s the only place I seem to find any news that tells me what is going on outside the USA, and quite often the only place that tells me what’s going on inside the USA without spectacular Op Ed bias.  There are also frequently very interesting stories on all sorts of subjects which I browse through and I usually find Auntie to be a comforting and reassuring measure upon which I can rely for relative neutrality and the upholding of general standards.

But not always.

Today, as I was clicking through the Science and Environment section, I chanced upon this story:

‘Old maid’ butterflies fly more frequently

I beg your pardon?

Old Maid?  I thought we only used that term these days when talking about an antiquated Victorian card game.

The article reported that a group of scientists had published a study claiming that older virgin speckled wood butterflies appeared to fly around in the sun more than younger, unmated females. The males sat in sun spots watching them. The deduction – the first of its kind – was that as the females potential egg-laying span dwindles, she will work harder to  gain the attention of a prospective mate.

Okay. That’s quite interesting. It was actually more complex than that and I really enjoyed reading about the animal behaviour.

What I did not enjoy quite so much was the layering of these findings with sexist and recidivist anthropomorphism, calling the displaying insects  ‘old maids’ to grab a bit of attention and a cheap laugh at the expense of an entire gender.  Despite decades of women’s liberation it still seems to be the case that any female who is not paired off or procreating by a certain age is judged, however subtly, and society encourages us to look upon her with pity, ridicule or possibly both ( I don’t think we’re allowed to admit envy).

Steaming about the ears, it was time for an “Outraged in Stepford”

Dear Sir/Madam,
I am offended by use of the term ‘Old Maid’ in your headline for this story. It is cheap, sensationalist and utilises outmoded and sexist terminology that is inappropriate and I would have thought beneath the general standards of the BBC. If you MUST draw parallels between another species and the human race in order to illustrate an interesting scientific finding (and why must you?), could you at least do so in a way that is not demeaning to half of your readership?
I don’t think you’ll find there is a s imilarly denigrating term for older, unmarried males.

Regards,

MTFF

It seems a small thing. But it’s not. It’s a big thing. If it was race that was at stake there’d be a big hoo-ha. So there aren’t racist headlines, at least on the BBC.

The article’s still there. I expect people are still reading it. And I’m still offended.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Black Friday

by Mothership on November 26, 2010

There are very few advantages to living with small people who like to rise at 6am, but today I managed to reap a not inconsiderable benefit by dragging said persons down to GapKids-pre-10am-everything-is-50%off-sale as soon as I could stuff them into their clothes and the car with a nutritionally suspect but distractingly tasty granola bar for breakfast.

You see, even more important than feeling thankful on Thanksgiving Thursday, here in America, one is practically obliged to be at the shops as early as 3am on Black Friday so you can trample over other shoppers, possibly crushing them to death, in order to secure a plasma screen TV for $299.

It’s actually patriotic! Just ask Sarah Palin.

Being British, I was much more measured in my approach and only kicked aside a few elderly ladies shopping for their first grandchildren on my way to the toddler boy section.
Three was determined to choose his own clothes and promptly picked out six identical shirts in red with a fire engine on them in size 12-18 months.

I congratulated him on his excellent taste and suggested he get his very own shopping basket and fill it up with all the things he wanted to buy. This suggestion was met with great enthusiasm by Three, a jealous complaint (soon appeased by a similar missive) from Six, and a really spectacularly unpleasant look from a sales assistant. Mainly, though, a tantrum was avoided and I could shop in relative peace.

I usually try to leave the children at home when I go shopping for them, but as Husband is away in the Galapagos Islands working (poor baby!), I had no choice, so at some level I abdicated responsibility for their behaviour. I am not exactly proud of this, but there are only so many balls a girl can juggle at a time.

Three battered ankles by zooming around with his basket on the floor, Six instigated a game of hide-and-seek in the racks with another girl, pulling clothes onto the floor willy-nilly, and I blithely pretended they didn’t belong to me. At one point Three tried to put a mannequin in his basket saying

“I like her, Mummy! She can sleep in my BED!”

I was a little alarmed by that.

Have you seen Guys and Dolls ??

All things considered, we were in and out of the shop in less than an hour, including the long wait in line to pay for our purchases. I was very happy to have kitted out both children for the winter for well under $150 and neither of them seemed to notice that we didn’t put anything from their baskets through the till.  It was fairly painless as these things go.

However, I couldn’t help but feel as we walked out of the mall and I saw literally hundreds of people carrying bags full of consumer goods for themselves and their loved ones, that so much of this stuff was going to spend a very short time with its new owner, and such a long time in the rubbish.  By next Christmas, most of those gifts will be junk. I can think of very few things I got last year that I’m still using and loving, can you?

My mother had a science teacher who gave her a definition of dirt as
“Matter out of place” and this has stayed with her all her life, and me, too.

I think that applies to rubbish, too.

And yet, every single component of every single thing we throw away is made of some raw material that was assembled in a factory, probably somewhere far away, and it took energy to make it – oil? Coal? And someone got paid enough, or not enough, in good or not good enough conditions to create this thing and it went in a ship to arrive at my house. I loved it for a minute, then I threw it away. Now it’s in a landfill leaching chemicals into my community. Or I shipped it back to someone else’s community who is poorer than me and they can get sick because I don’t know them. Sometimes the things I buy are made of materials that are actually in short supply but nobody tells me about that because I, and my dollars are not in immediate danger. |
My dollars are very, very important and that is why I must be lured to the mall at all  costs.

And look! It the machine works! Here I am, with the most important things I own at 7am, and I didn’t even feed them properly. They could even be, just in this moment, as hungry as the people who made their clothes.
Lovely synergy there, MTFF.

But you know, I’m not all bad. I managed to leave with only what they need to wear this winter. I did not buy any consumer electronics. I did not buy any CPCMIC*. I did not even buy stupidly hopeful items of clothing for Husband that he will thank me politely for and then put in the back of the closet like he does every year.

*Cheap Plastic Crap Made in China

I really am going to put my money where my mouth is this Christmas, and if you’re on my present list, you’re either going to be getting a flock of chicks or part shares in a goat.

The best part about this gift is that you won’t even have to look after them! Someone else will do it for you, and on top of that you will be feeding a family who will in turn feed others as their livestock increases.

Six was ‘given’ a flock of chicks last year and she was utterly ecstatic. It’s a beautiful way to teach a child about giving, sharing, and also about life cycles and sustainability.

Highly recommended.

www.heifer.org

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Unhappy Hookers

by Mothership on November 8, 2010

The other night I had dinner with some very glamorous ladies at Soho House, L.A.

We sat in a velvety booth high above the city drinking champagne surrounded by expensively careless hairdos and self-important laughter and I reflected that although I was very pleased to be out with my dear friend Liberty London Girl whose visit was the catalyst for the occasion, and I always like a good girls’ night, I was also having to suppress the urge to pick my nose or do something desperately, ostentatiously uncool because there was too much style and not enough substance in the room (our party excluded, natch).

But I didn’t because I is well brought up, innit?

The others were all local ladies and either do or have worked in Hollywood in some capacity so I listened with some interest to their industry gossip and L.A. stories although obviously I had little to contribute.
I obligingly ate most of the contents of the bread basket – I thought they’d probably want to avoid the carbs so it was generous of me, really.
However, at one point they got around to talking about one of the hotels that LLG had stayed in and how at night the bar had been full of high-end hookers. Apparently it was famous for it and ‘everybody knows’ that that is where the girls operate. This then led to a general discussion of what great clothes they have, how much they make, where they live (near the hotel in an expensive apartment complex.
In other words:

These girls don’t do too badly

At this point I had to stop stuffing my gob with baked goods and speak up.

I think they DO do badly.

Who the fuck wants to sit around a hotel while all the ‘normal’ people loftily judge you and wait for some bloke to pick you out like a piece of meat, shag you, and dismiss you?
And that’s your JOB?

Are you supposed to feel good about this? Really?

My companions disagreed. They thought that these girls were

“Beautiful, like models! And they make a lot of money! They have great clothes! And some guy puts them up in an apartment.”

Again. I don’t think this is great. Let’s say you’re 21 and really, really beautiful. Lucky, lucky you! (Or not).You decide to come to L.A. You have a big dream!
Is that dream to be a model? Or an actor? Or to be on TV?  Well, that’s not a crime.

I bet it was not to sit in a hotel bar and wait for some fat old bloke to fuck you up the arse and call you dirty names.
And really, is beauty supposed to be a reward  -or a punishment- in and of itself?  I’m sure looking at your lovely face the morning after that type of ordeal is no comfort. And your money will just be a consolation prize that you spend on your great clothes (tools of the trade?) to compensate for not fulfilling your dream.

The L.A. ladies remained unconvinced. They thought it sounded better than working in a supermarket.
Maybe?  I’m not sure. I’ve worked in a supermarket. It was a bit boring but there was at least a worker’s union, camaraderie, health benefits and most people didn’t have to lie about it and they could wear comfy underwear. Plus, think of the social implications of prostitution, even at the top levels. Can you call your mom after a hard day’s work on your back and complain about how tired you are at work? How do you engage in a healthy, intimate relationship with a partner? It seems pretty awkward and damaging, no matter how you slice it.

I knew someone – a bloke actually – who had worked as an escort, and he said the most heartbreaking thing to me about the money he made

“You never remember how you spend it, but you always remember how you earned it”.

I kept on trying to argue but I don’t think I got anywhere. I think perhaps the only thing I managed to plant in their minds was the suspicion that I either am or used to be a prostitute.

Note: I am least likely person EVER to do this. Not because I am prude but because concept of selling consent enrages me

Nil points scored for the sisterhood, MTFF.

I felt sad that even clever, attractive, grown women with daughters could think that this might not be a horrible, exploitative cycle. Could think, somehow, that because these young women were being compensated with money, (temporary) accommodation in prime real estate and (also temporary!) good looks that they somehow had thoroughly chosen their lot with no coercion in a way that girls on the street had not, and therefore did not deserve sympathy, help or understanding.

Girls and women are bought and sold every day in every country in the world. It doesn’t matter where they are. On Craigslist, in the Four Seasons, in a backstreet brothel in Mumbai, in Nigeria, on the wrong side of the tracks in your town.
It happens. It is bad.

Each time one of us finds a way to say that it’s okay for some of them – they’re beautiful, they know what they’re doing, it’s better than the alternative, they make good money, they have great clothes, it’s not that bad, whateverthefuckexcuse for making it not a crime against civil liberties and human rights, we make it okay for all of the people who exploit ALL OF THEM.

And they’re all exploited, one way or another. We just might have to look beyond their fancy shoes and our own complicated feelings about sexual competition because frankly, I think that’s what a lot of it comes down to with women. It’s easier to feel sorry for the ones we can pity (some poor cow with track marks and a haunted look on the street corner) than the one who looks like Gisele that quite a few men might prefer to pay to shag than do us for free. (Hmm. That’s complex and not entirely comfortable, but I’m throwing it out there.)

But I suppose the real question comes down to whose side are you on?

We don’t always get to feel superior to those who need our help or support. But that doesn’t mean we get to justify why they don’t need it.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Past, Present, Future.

by Mothership on October 15, 2010

Earlier, as I was kissing the children goodnight, Three furrowed his soft little brow and anxiously caught my arm as I rose from hugging him.

“Mummy, I want to go to my blue house!”

Three, for those of you unfamiliar with his parallel universe, has a whole other life with two alternative mothers and several fathers and a variety of siblings, pets, vehicles and superior toys, all contained neatly within his imagination. Most things there are blue.

I said of course we could go, which seemed to relax him slightly, and then I asked how he thought it best to get there.

“Maybe we can go with the tooth fairy. She can fly. But I don’t want to go to a tooth house”

I reassured him that we would ask the tooth fairy to take us to the Blue House, and I was sure she would be agreeable.

“A tooth house is SPOOKY” he observed, and I agreed with him.

After further grave discussions of our route we decided it was best, perhaps, to depart for the Blue House in the morning.  He seemed happy enough with that and settled down to sleep without further fuss.

As I was coming downstairs I reflected that while I had had plenty of similar conversations with Six in the past, she was now at the age where she understood many more of the limitations of the physical – and metaphysical – universe, and no longer believed  that anything was possible if you just thought it hard enough. I’m wondering if this is the year when someone will tell her Santa isn’t real. I am scared it will break her heart.
Or maybe I’m scared it will break mine?

I saw a photograph on FaceBook that a high school friend of mine had posted of himself aged about 15. I could suddenly see us standing outside the school, smoking illicit cigarettes, laughing and gossiping about bands and who was cool and how, once we graduated, our lives were going to be amazing, unfettered by interfering adults and, like, totally cool!
Note: We were all simultaneously afflicted by adolescent limited vocabulary syndrome which is uncannily like newspeak from 1984

We could not imagine then that we would become older than, say, 25 (really old!), and I never dreamed that I’d be looking back a quarter of a century later and wishing, just for a day or two, to go back to that time, when we were so young, when we didn’t know what we do now, when our parents were, irritatingly, still looking after us,  and just look at the landscape and the people as they were. And to see my  young self and tell her that things were going to turn out okay, she didn’t have to fight so hard. I also wanted to give that 15 year old friend a huge hug and tell him that I knew for a fact that the sweetness he tried to hide under his mohawk was going to stay with him, unchanged, throughout his life, and I would instantly recognise him by it when he crossed my path again, some 20 years later.

I feel so sad to think that the past is really over (and I know that sounds stupid), but I don’t think it really dawned on me until recently that when you miss certain times in your life, it’s not just the characters and scenery you’re longing for, it’s an earlier version of yourself.

It seems so unfair that you can never go back, only forward. And though there is no cure for the lost past, I believe these thoughts serve as timely reminders.

I need to be present in my own life.

This is not always an easy task for me as I have a tendency, when confronted with sadness about the past, or anxiety about the future, to whirl into action and do something about it, or make big plans which means that I neatly skip over what is happening right now under my nose.

I’m not paying attention. I don’t see it.  I can’t sit still in case something painful or awkward comes up.
Then, of course, I miss out on today’s experience and it just becomes more of my past that I didn’t quite appreciate when it was happening. That I’ll long to visit again because I didn’t spend enough time there on the first pass.

Did somebody say vicious circle?

My friend and I didn’t think about being 15, except in terms of how quickly we could escape it. And although I looked forward to it, I never quite believed that Six would ever be big enough to challenge my views, make her own snacks or wipe her own bottom.
But she is.
And now Three is teetering on the edge of toddlerhood. All too soon the day will come when the only person who will want  to go to the Blue House will be me.

I’ll call the tooth fairy in the morning.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

I was just dropping by..

by Mothership on October 11, 2010

Not really sure if anyone has even noticed my absence (apart from me), but I’ve been somewhat distracted of late and didn’t feel like writing anything.

It’s a long boring saga of skunks, fleas (no knees or hidden elephants, though), delusional parasitosis and a general assault on my sanity.

Frankly, it was so awful to live through that I can’t bear to write about it as I’d have to relive it in some way or other and I’m not quite ready for that sort of therapy. I’d rather have some nice pills, please.

So, rather than tell you anything more about me, which will quickly descend into a hamster wheel of endless whining, I will instead tell you this which popped into my inbox and left a tiny crack in my heart this evening. I can’t say why.

On this day in 1786, conflicted and love-torn U.S. Ambassador to France Thomas Jefferson composed a now-famous love letter to a married English woman named Maria Cosway. It’s more than 4,000 words long, more than three times the length of the Declaration of Independence, which Thomas Jefferson had composed 10 years before.

He had to write out this letter with his left hand because he had broken his right wrist while leaping over a fountain in giddy delight during a stroll with the woman. The letter is now referred to as “A Dialogue between the Head and Heart.” In it, he records an inner dialogue he had as he sat next to his fireside one evening, solitary and sad, shortly after parting ways with her. His Head and his Heart take turns speaking, one bubbling over with romantic desire and longing, and the other lecturing him about the need for integrity.
His dialogue begins:

Head. Well, friend, you seem to be in a pretty trim.
Heart. I am indeed the most wretched of all earthly beings. Overwhelmed with grief, every fibre of my frame distended beyond its natural powers to bear, I would willingly meet whatever catastrophe should leave me no more to feel or to fear.
Head. These are the eternal consequences of your warmth & precipitation. This is one of the scrapes into which you are ever leading us. You confess your follies indeed; but still you hug & cherish them; & no reformation can be hoped, where there is no repentance.

In the end, Thomas Jefferson’s Head wins out, and he concludes that the only “effective security against such pain of unrequited love, is to retire within ourselves and to suffice for our own happiness.” And so he apologizes to his beloved reader Maria for the sermon, and promises he’ll keep his letters shorter from then on out, and talks about the weather and the casual comings and goings of mutual acquaintances, and about the book that he happens to be reading at the time.

Maria Cosway stayed married to her husband until his death in 1789, and then moved to Italy to start a convent school. Thomas Jefferson became the third president of the United States in 1801, about 15 years after writing this letter.

I wonder if he ever thought of her as he sat in the newly built White House?

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →