Slipping - Postcard Fiction

I met up with Mog today and we did some writing exercises and I promised I would blog the results so this is the first one. If you haven't been completely put off by this morsel feel free to check out the other on The Cherrypicker or Mog's work on Time to Tell the World.

Slipping

The condensation clung desperately to the glass as it began to slip down the vertical sides towards the mahogany stain table top. There it joined the amassing throng of water congregating at the ring. As the glass lifted free of the surface the water converged on the dry centre to be squashed by the returning glass.

Saul stared at the slowly changing water with marked concentration far beyond the capacity of his usual five pint threshold. It was becoming increasingly difficult to forget the hollow shell he wished to obliterate.

He raised his glass again and gulped down the dregs of his pint. The face that floated before him as a constant reminder faded with every swallow. One more pint should do the trick.

Pick Me Up

Hey, just to let you know out there that I haven't fallen into a big hole of despair. I have reread my post from last week and it is so negative. I am not going to apologize, although I did consider it, but I'm not. It was an honest view of where my head was at in that moment and I'm glad I put it out there.

I left the pity party fairly quickly and just got on with life. I really thought about what I was thinking at that point and threw it out. I went back to my original thinking about what was important to me and what I was going to do about it.

I got distracted by the possibilities and began concentrating on things from the wrong way round. My priority has always been being Happy above anything else including career. When I think about my recent disappointment in this frame of mind it doesn't seem that bad.

I have plans again. I am pressing on with my writing, because I have to try and feeling happy with my writing is the most important thing to me. I also haven't given up on teaching. I am going to get some advice about where I went wrong and what I can do to make myself more appealing to the university, then I'm going to re-apply next year.

Failure

I received word today that I didn't get into the second teaching course I applied for.

To say I’m not surprised is true, to say I’m miserable, perhaps also true, but mostly I’m terrified. Teaching was my practical option. My sensible choice. It was the thing that I figured I would enjoy and was the most likely to be successful of any of my courses of action. Now it has fallen through. I am completely without anchor because I’d convinced myself not to plan for every eventuality. I have no plan B at this stage, nothing to push me forward.

All other ideas of what would make me happy are not practical. I have spent many hours pouring over what I would like to be doing and none are financially viable:

I want another degree – I feel I wasted a lot of my 1^st degree and although I enjoyed the creative based work I would like to do something more theory based. The problem with this is that it would cost way more money than I could ever think to afford.

I want to write – If I could make a living from writing my life would be wonderful. It is my dream to be able to write knowing I didn’t need any other form of income. This is problematic as it is highly unlikely to ever happen. Even if I manage to get published it is unlikely to bring me large enough sums of money to make ends meet.

I want an MA – Again my need for intellectual stimulation rears its ugly head. What I would really like is to push through to PHD level and teach University level students. The problem with this is again financial. It would cost a lot more than I could find to do this. It is not an option.

I love designing and making things – I have been making handmade baby clothes the past few weeks as something to fill my time. I have booked a table at some small craft fairs over the next few months to see if they sell. I love doing this, it feels so calming but this is also not a practical way of making money. My output on making these things is not enough to make any decent money from them. It’s a nice supplement to any income but not an income in it’s own right.

These are all I have left in my list of things I would enjoy doing, none of which are practical options. I know I can’t go back to working in an office again it just kills me physically and mentally. Shops are also a no no because of my ME (I have trouble shopping in shops on my own let alone working in one).

I keep reaching, trying to find a solution, an option of some kind that is not going to make me ill and I come back with nothing. Where I go from here I don’t know and that scares the hell out of me.

waking up

I wrote 1500 words today. I have been having trouble getting sat down and writing something that isn't just self-indulgent drivel but this is not awful. It is actually something that fits with a project I keep trying to get off the ground which is good news.

Don't get me wrong it's really rubbish at the moment and it's going to need a hell of lot of work. But its something and something feels good.

A small step away from complete inactivity.

Procrastination

My ability to procrastinate shocks even me sometimes. I have spent the week doing pretty much fuck all, apart from reading a couple of books. I’ve not even got dressed most days, preferring to veg on the sofa in my PJs. I have plans, plans I’m excited about, but the more I think about it the more immobile I become, the longer I lay in bed and the less I seem to do of anything. I know this habit, its one I’m very familiar with but I have yet to learn to break it. I know what I want which is a real rarity for me and now I’m left frustrated with my own lack of movement on these issues.

I guess the problem is more about my own need to know what I’m doing and the possible outcomes before proceeding. This is ok in principle but what happens when I don’t know where it will lead? This is what happens, the rabbit in headlights look descends. It really winds me up because not all my life is like that. Most of my life I have sorted in my head and I have the possible outcomes all mapped out. I know how to get those things therefore I can predict a series of outcomes that I am ready for.

There is only one thing that I haven’t been able to sort out in my head. This is because I don’t know how proceed because I’ve never done it before. I have very little frame of reference to draw from having just happened upon it the last time, besides I would not want to base anything I do now on that as it was such a spectacular disaster!

My brain doesn’t function without a plan, at all. I haven’t got a clue how I’m going to get this particular thing on the list. As usual if there’s just one thing that’s not 100% thought through my brain goes into shut down. It’s like ‘Wing it?... Do not compute!’ I get absolutely nothing done, even the stuff I know what I’m doing with. I have no idea how to break this particular manifestation of my inner control freak and it’s annoying the hell out of me.

Any suggestions?

Positive Mental Attitude

It's been an interesting few weeks for me. I've caught up with some friends I've not seen for a while, nearly been run over and been disappointed and through it all (bar 1 day) have managed to keep my upbeat attitude.

After a very busy week I had the worst day with ME than I have had for a long time. I just let it have me for the day curling into a ball and telling the outside world to go to hell. By the evening I still felt awful and had so much going through my mind that I decided to write out. I considered blogging it but I found that some things are just too personal. I kept it though, I thought I might revisit what I found when I feel ready for it.

The next day I felt ready to face the outside world again and thought I was doing much better. Apparently I was not as with it as I thought because I walked out in front of a car! Luckily the driver was more alert than I was and managed to stop in time to just run over my toe. At this point I could have been dismayed and gone down the spiral of what could have happened but instead I just thought how lucky I was that it hadn't been worse and then moved on.

A week ago I received another blow. I have been turned down for the teacher training course I applied for in Scotland. As I read the news I thought I would be overwhelmed with the downer of failure. I wasn't. My mind automatically started thinking of alternatives and within 15 minutes I had found a course somewhere else and applied for it.

This new positive attitude is a strange animal that I have very little experience of. My entire life plan has been altered and I'm still feeling positive. I can make anything work. Whatever happens I know I can cope with it and find something else to aim for.

Well thats different

Well I guess it's that time of year again. This year it feels a little different. At the moment I'm really trying to make sense of how I feel about a lot of things. I made some decisions this year, decisions I feel I've been leading up to for a while. I felt I'd come a long way last October, when on my birthday I spouted about my journey and how I felt so much better and so on. I guess I did at the time feel a little smug, like I had made this big leap forward, like that was the destination.

Obviously I know how that ends, there is no destination just the long path we walk through until we can't walk anymore. That path can be frightening or boring, happy, sad or middling, that part is up to the traveller I guess. This last year has had its ups and downs and many moments where I have felt that I am achieving nothing. I have been silent and I have not been able to shut up, I have been really lonely for the first time, I have felt connected and disconnected.

Importantly I have made some big decisions about what I want and taken steps to get there. I have looked closely at what I don't want and was a little surprised at what I found there. Now, as christmas nears and brings with it the end of another year my thoughts have settled on what I do want and I was surprised. Not really surprised by what is in there but how I feel about it.

I have been cynical for so long, shutting out the things I used to want. Five years ago I opened up the possibility of something that I loved to be a part of my life. In taking that step I didn't realize what else I would receive and what other possibilities would open along the way. I found real friends who I feel I'll be friends with for the rest of my life and I found that the person I am is not that bad.

I am looking at what I want with hope. A feeling I wasn't sure I still had. It's difficult to explain but a long time ago I broke and it took a lot to put myself back together. I made myself a new life but I still felt broken. I shied away from the things I had wanted, deciding I couldn't have them anymore. I have been slowly picking up the things I left and now I want them all back. I am not the same as I was back then but what I want hasn't changed and thats ok because I'm better able to deal with them now. More importantly I feel like I deserve them. And you have no idea how odd that feels.

The only problem is my whole attitude has made a turn for the romantic, which has not happened for a very long time. I have been lusty, obsessive, infatuated but not romantic. I'm not sure what to do with this. I am in exactly the position to be swept off my feet, but there is nobody around to do the sweeping...

Finally done it

So the primary teaching course application is all done and sent. It is beyond my meddling and procrastination and in the hands of those in the know. I spent a long time worrying and trying to think through every possible obstacle and in the end I just bit the bullet.

I definitely want to teach, that has never been the problem. I decided I wanted to move at the same time and it was that that worried me. I jumped back and forth about where I was applying to, my heart pulling me one way and my head telling me it was not sensible. I went for my heart in the end with the optimistic theory that all the issues could be sorted.

Now I've done it I feel relieved. Give it a couple of weeks and I'll be worried again but for now I'm good.

By Firelight

I feel the leaves crackle beneath my feet as I look up and find you

haloed in fire light. Your effervescent glow in the raging bonfire

fills me with a heat not known by mere flickering flame.

The light catches your hair as the soft tendrils dance

in the light breeze of the chilled evening.

The sun has set behind me, the last vestiges of day

have finally given up its steely grasp on the expectant revellers.

They mill about the firelight like moths drawn to its warm embrace.

I stand clear in the newly formed shadow watching you dance

around the crowd capturing all those you look upon

and wonder when it was that you first seized my heart and clamped

it in your fist. A tight embrace I would never relinquish.

Darkness takes the party as the smell of burning permeates the air,

the firelight and you are the only barriers to the cold night that

seeps in around our small gathering. Groups huddle protectively

both anxious and enthralled by evening’s soft kiss on their cheek

the tender stroke of its cold fingers down their necks

and along fragile arms folded across chests.

A shiver passes through your body though you do not flinch,

smiling into the encroaching darkness in anticipation

of further delights offered only in dark hours.

The sky explodes into life illuminating the grounds once more,

touching all the faces with hues of green and red.

You see my face illuminated in man-made stars destined to burn out in a heartbeat.

Your eyes penetrate my being and send the cacophony of many fireworks

skittering to the back of my mind. Our breath holds us,

sentinels watching the world catch light and burn around us.

Reflected in your eyes I see myself rooted as the light of the world

rains down on me and for a moment it is beautiful.

Then I fade again to nothing the stars gone out, too fierce to linger.

The leaves crackle beneath my feet as I turn back to the darkness.

The silent room

So the hushed silence from my end of the virtual room has not gone unnoticed by myself. I battened down the hatches and hunkered in for some silent time and I am not sure why.

My birthday came and went very uneventfully. My birthdays always tend to be quiet but this year was even more low key. Not that I didn't do anything just that it was done in dribs and drabs as though my mind couldn't handle more than one person at a time. It was exactly what I felt like doing but it felt like a non-event.

I visited my parents and started my volunteer work in a school, both of which are good things. My life isn't hideous, I'm plodding along but somethings not right.

I haven't written in a while and it's been a month since I blogged last. After the roller coaster my life has been the past two years I have plateaued and it doesn't feel right. There is nothing wrong that I can put my finger on but I have a niggling feeling.

hmmm...

Negativity is bad for your health

So this week I have mostly been feeling awful. I have had a constant headache and felt like I was coming down with something really nasty. General feeling sorry for myself ensued until thursday I was forced out of my house by unpleasant financial issues which should not have happened.

I was so angry and frustrated it fueled my ill ass getting into town to have a go at a few people and try and sort it. I know I looked awful, but I didn't care, I was being taken for a ride and I wasn't having it. When I got back I was tired but my headache had eased.

Friday I got up feeling positive and my headache had gone. It made me wonder whether I was feeling negative because I was ill or feeling ill because I was being negative. I guess it's a chicken and egg scenario. Either way they both disappeared at the same time.

Black and White - Peeping at the surface

So the facts are:

The day after I had the good news I had a school to volunteer in I had some bad news. I got made redundant. Now those of you who have followed my blog for a while will be a little confused as I had only just started the job. After 4 weeks of working in a job I didn't hate they get rid of me. So I am back on the unemployed pile, forced to jump through the government hoops to get money that, lets face it, even a monkey couldn't live on!

I think what made it worse was that my tv had broke the week before and I had borrowed money from my parents to buy a new one with the promise to pay it back quickly out of my new wages. Oops! so now I'm poor again with the added guilt that I owe money. How annoying!

Second Hiccup came later in the week. I decided that I wanted to move to Scotland. I'd lived in Scotland for a while when I was younger but had not been ready to be that far away from my family. I really loved it though and think it's now time for the change. I figured I may as well do my teacher training there rather than have to wait until I'm done before moving up there.

So I was going through my study options when I glanced at the entry requirements. In England I have all the grades necessary but apparently not so for Scotland! If I want to teach there I need to re-sit a GCSE I thought I was done with 11 years ago.

After a bit of ranting, followed by disbelief I had to weigh my options. If I really wanted to teach in Scotland then I would need to swallow my pride and re-take the damn GCSE. So I did.

The problem was that I was already booked on a textile course that I was really looking forward to. With my recent poverty I could not justify paying out a second lot of money on a course so I did the mature, adult thing and cancelled the textile course and instead booked on my GCSE course. :-(

It felt like the first of many sacrifices I was going to have to make to have a stable adult life that didn't suck. I guess with this and the redundancy I was visited by what my blogging friend calls the Self Pity Gnome. No worries though I sent him packing as is only right and have gone back to blindly pushing on ignoring any niggling doubts I have.

On the positive side my new course is on an afternoon which I could not have made if I was still working, so perhaps my redundancy was meant to be?

Sewing With My Grandmother

The crisp, clean piece of white cloth was handed to me with quiet reverence. I let it pass through my hands feeling its properties, the starched stiffness of a new project barely embarked on. Around the edges it was finished with lace trim much softer than the main fabric, delicate to the touch. The sensual rub of the lace pattern delicately dancing across my fingertips.

To one corner I noticed the transferred design boldly infringing on the stark perfection of the fabric. The bold blue lines seemed clumsy and intrusive against the elegance of the lace. Remembering my purpose I looked up to my grandmother.

Her face was lit half with amusement and half with impatience as she held out two rings in her hands waiting for me to take them. I took the white one first. The cold hard plastic was strange to the touch, its outer edge concave. I carefully placed the ring beneath the fabric meticulously lining it up so the transfer was in the centre.

I reached for the second ring. It was dusky peach in colour and completely unlike the first. It had the consistency of rubber, flopping comically in my hand. I noticed with some confusion that there was a small brass ring attached to its side glinting slightly in the sun filtering through the lacy net curtains.

I pushed the second ring over the first as I had been shown, trying to keep the material taut. It was messily done and I had to straighten it out before my grandmother noticed the imperfect ripples over the fabric. I lifted it to the light with my chubby childhood fingers marvelling at my success in the first task, which would one day enable me to create masterpieces like my grandmothers.

My hand dropped and I started to fidget on the sofa, the soft sheen navy fabric clinging to my legs in the warmth of the room. I fingered the space next to me where the large peacock stared back out at me through its fabric prison.

My stomach lurched as the lesson began.

Growing pains

Hey, it's been a week already and no blog. I guess I didn't know where to start or what to say or what to leave out. Some things I guess are difficult to convey in black and white. Like I've said before, for someone who perpetually sticks their head in the sand, it is always scary to see the contents of ones life in print. It's so final.

I went to see Julie and Julia tonight. I wasn't expecting much. I viewed it as my indulgence, a fluff movie about cookery and I thought it's just what I needed. It was more than just a sickly sweet film about food. Something really struck a chord with me. The modern part of the story is about a woman who is stuck. She's a failed writer who is working a thankless desk job. In an attempt to give herself focus she decides to cook everything in a well known cookbook in a year and blog about it.

It got me thinking about blogs and life in general. I am no longer stuck, I have a plan which I'm following, overcoming each obstacle as it arrives. I am working towards a goal. I am no longer directionless. But am I happy?

I guess the answer is not really. I have the beginnings of an actual life again, I have plans that will make my life ok. Is it what I really want to be doing? Probably not, but who really does what they actually want? My plans push me into adulthood where dreams are shelved for more practical endeavors. It is a place where second choice is really not that bad. I try to get excited about my new adult life but I guess it alludes me. How I wish I could.

Because in the end second best should be good enough, some people don't even get that. They slave away at jobs they hate just to get by. Why should I be any different? Dreams are only dreams because they are ideals when in the end real life is about compromise.

And still I haven't actually told you what is going on with me in the real world. Instead I rattled on about the world in my head and never had to confirm in print words I'd rather bury in the sand as far from my head as possible.

Dickensian Boy

Lit by the harsh florescent light
A smile thins his lips
momentarily disturbing the route
of a glinting spoon piled
with cereal.

A bowl balances the scene
jauntily held 
in statement more than purpose.

He glides into the classroom 
to an open desk
in simulated nonchalance,
discarding the bowl noiselessly 
on the Formica surface.

An exhibit in a freak show
created to obscure
a mundane life.

Out of our time he floats among us
long enough 
to assert his oddball brilliance
without a hint of irony 
in his sunken eyes and glib persona.

He scries oratory delights on 
crinkled scraps of paper tied together
with a blue shoelace.

He vanishes when not in our midst,
delving the depths of obscurity,
hands buried in patched pockets
of a gentleman’s blazer.
Hunched against the tide of modernity.

An over intellectualized ghost 
of a personality hiding behind 
his clever words and witty rhetoric.

This poem is based on a purely fictional character. Any resemblance to a person living or dead is coincidental and unintended!!

Spot the difference for those following Cherrypicker. Better worse or the same?

Back to School

So today, after a seven week wait, I finally went into the junior school that had agreed to see me about volunteering.  Strangely I didn't feel nervous at all.  I walked into the school and knew that I would be comfortable there.  I had spent time worrying over the summer that just because I wanted to teach that it didn't mean I'd be any good at it.  I had no idea how I would feel being in a school again.

I'm sure now that if I decide to teach that I'll be good at it.  It's a strange certainty that hit me as I sat in an empty classroom talking to the learning support teacher.  I feel comfortable in that environment, if I'm going to do anything apart from write for a living this is it.  

They were really friendly and keen for me to help out with them.  She pulled out the card I had made whilst talking to me and kept drawing attention to it.  So I guess that worked.  I have a few legal hoops to jump first (CRB) but once that is done I will be a volunteer teaching assistant! 

Feeling good

So my life is fairly positive at the moment.  I expected to feel a lot of things after starting to work again but what I did not expect was to feel well.  I feel more well than I have in over 2 years!  My head is clear, my muscles aren't screaming at me and I'm feeling reasonably social.  The optimist in me thinks this may be the end of this period of ME hell.  If it is then thats brilliant!

I'm probably jumping ahead of myself so I am being cautious, keeping a close eye on my health.  I had a milestone this week, I came off the medication given to me for the worst period of my illness.  2 months ago I decided that it wasn't doing me any good anymore, maybe even making me worse.  So I started cutting my dose to wean myself off them and the results were amazing.  Over the last few weeks I've been slowly getting better, feeling brighter and ready to tackle the world again.  

Finally this week I have come off them completely.  The relief is more than I describe here.  I know how depressed it made me when I went back on them in the first place, it felt like a failure, it signified my inability to control my illness.  Since then I've worked through a lot of the issues I've had about having ME and have accepted that I will never control it.  I just have to live with the illness and do all I can to make my life easier.  I wasn't expecting the relief of ridding myself of the retched medication that I think may make things worse.

Next time I start getting ill, and I know there will be a next time, I'm not sure I'll take it.  We'll see anyway, if my theories on the cyclical behaviour of my illness is right, I don't need to worry about that question for another 2-3 years.

Whoosh!

Another week gone and its really flown by.  I managed to get some things done but there are many things I haven't.  I'm still feeling fairly positive but also a little frustrated.  I guess I always have a million things on my to do list and I barely scratch the surface.

I have made great strides with my quilt, nearly 50 squares done already!  I have managed to get through my first full week at work without major incident and I finished reading my book.  But I've gone another week without writing anything, no research done for my book and my house is a tip!

Why is it there is never enough time to get everything done?  There are some women that do it all and seem so organized and on top of things.  I doubt I will ever be one of those women.  Look out for me running behind that woman, late, ragged, with bits flying everywhere just one step away from being mistaken for a hobo! 

A new job

So this week I have been busy starting a new job.  It happened kinda quickly and took me by surprise.  I guess I've been looking for a job for months and had stopped thinking I'd get anywhere and then out of the blue I'm employed.

I now write information packs for a company who arranges for volunteers to go abroad to help in orphanages and schools etc.  It has actually been fairly interesting so far, learning about places like Ghana and Thailand.  It is also pretty stress free which is so important for my ME.  I just head in, work on the computer and then leave.  When I get home I don't think about it until I go back in the next day.

It feels so strange to be back in work again after so long.  I went off sick from my job last June and never went back.  14 months of contemplating my own navel has done me some good I hope.  I won't be making the same mistakes again and hopefully I will fare better than before.

I'm feeling positive.   

Christmas is coming

So this week I started thinking about Christmas.  I know what you're thinking, a bit premature, getting in there even before the shops.  But I make quite a few of the presents I send so it is important to get an early start.  So Monday I started thinking what I wanted to do this year for my nearest and dearest.

I'm always taken by surprise by how relaxing sewing is.  Somewhere inside me a switch flips when I get fabric in my hands and start bending it into something new.  A calm descends and I feel connected.  I feel home.  I don't know if that makes sense at all but that's how it is. 

When I was younger I learnt a lot of crafts, sewing, knitting, embroidery etc. but when I hit my teens I slowly stopped doing it.  The last thing I made was a dress when I was 15 and then after that nothing.

I went through nearly a decade where I didn't do any sewing or knitting or anything.  Then, whilst doing my degree I started playing around with fabric again.  I fell totally in love with the process.  Differences with the same Likeness wrote a blog the other day that got me thinking, about the nature of quilting.  I guess for me the process of creating with fabric is something that I shared with my mother and my grandmother and they shared with theirs.  It is a tangible link to the past, where I come from, it's my anchor to memories I'd forgotten.  It's comfortable, familiar and at the end you don't just get a quilt or item of clothing, or whatever it is you create, you have the memories of the process which will always be linked to the item.

I have to say I've been a little lost of late, which I think is obvious from my blog, I've been preoccupied with so many things which are important and I forgot to do the things that really mean something.

I signed up for a textiles course last week, I figured that just because I haven't got my life sorted doesn't mean I have to stop doing things that I enjoy.  I have started my Christmas crafty projects and everything is right with the world.  I am myself and only myself and I am immersed in the world I love.