Black holes and revelations

I was reading Someday Syndrome this morning, and read the Madonna article over there. I was thinking about the apparent hypocrisy of Madonna’s stage tour vs her eco-message,

I don’t necessarily condemn her actions as hypocrisy, partly because I don’t like to judge people, but mostly because I am aware how easy it is to drop into black holes, or blind spots, if you like, when you do things without thinking, out of habit, because you’ve always done them that way and haven’t paused to think if there’s a different/better way, because so-and-so is your friend and you don’t want to hurt their feelings by changing, for a thousand different reasons which all boil down to a lack of mindfulness. For example, the people who complain about the wastefulness of energy & resource consumption implicit in the production of the tour & associated merchandise - but still went, contributing to the demand for that product, and increasing (presumably) energy use by travelling to and from it.

This is an example of a black hole. It’s when our actions are triggered by our feelings, without first passing them by our rational, thinking, mindful self. Corporate advertising is very skilled at doing this, at pushing illusions of better, more perfect lives if we have product x y z. It’s insidious, pervasive and so subtle we don’t really notice it unless we’re really paying attention. I’ve become more aware of it since I stopped watching television, but I still get knocked sideways by it from time to time.

Yesterday I bought 4 pairs of shoes. I did need new shoes – my everyday slopping-about ones and my boots are literally coming apart at the seams, and we have an ‘event’ coming up that requires smart shoes. But these are excuses and justifications as I try to wriggle out of it.

I saw, I wanted, I bought.

Did I ask where they had come from? No. Did I ask if the leather in the uppers came from nicely-treated cows? No. Did I ask if the wood in the heels came from sustainable forests? No. Were the dyes toxic? I don’t know. Did I ask if the person in the factory (wherever in the world it may have been) received a decent living wage and enjoyed union rights? No. Does the company from which I bought the shoes have an ethical policy, any sort of green credentials? I don’t know, I didn’t look.

So, for all my eco-tastic other things – the recycling, the local shopping, the avoidance of waste, supermarkets and excessive energy use, and my absolute commitment to pursuing a greener way of life, more mindful, more in touch with the earth and the systems that support us, more careful about what we use and how it can be disposed of and reused – I still fell into the old consumerist trap, seduced by the pretty sparkly things, and fell crashing off the wagon.

I guess a part of this comes of being a child of the seventies/eighties, one of Thatcher’s breed, with an innate belief that I am entitled to anything I want, and greed is good, and worth is measured not by what you are, but by how much you have. I find this an unpleasant outlook on life, and I am trying to escape it, but I think my generation are a tainted generation, the generation that was force-fed the idea that the self-interested pursuit of gain is some sort of basic right. It’s a big hole to climb out of . . . but I feel like I can see the light outside and I’m heading for it, and trying not to give myself a hard time for slipping from time to time, but letting myself learn from it. The lesson today is that old habits are hard to kick – it’s like being in recovery – and that next time I go into town (I can’t avoid it altogether – their big PO is only place to get IRCs!) I need to be more aware of the seductions and temptations and the effect they have on me.  It’s a buzz, sure, but it’s expensive, and it doesn’t really do me much good in the longer term.

These thoughts really chimed in with a discussion on Radio 4 about the state of the economy and the banks and the credit crunch, and the one thing that really struck me was that not one of the experts stood up and said that living on personal debt was wrong, and that we need to address/reduce that. All of them appeared to be stuck in the mindset that debt for cars, houses, college, possessions was OK, and normal, and needed to be maintained, and that actually what the world needed was to find a way to make sure everyone could get that debt as easily as before but without as much risk. It’s insane. The amount of money they were talking about – hundreds of trillions of dollars (total debt, not just the bad stuff) - is all theoretical. It’s not real, it’s an illusion. It’s debt, money people owe to other people. Trouble is, there’s not enough money in the world to pay it all back, ever, so there must be more debt and more debt and more debt just to stop the whole thing collapsing in on itself. Surely, it has got to stop? But there are no real solutions. I heard Bush called a ’socialist’ today (eh?). The politicians play at problem solving, but they’re just as guilty. Last I heard, the election campaign had a combined cost of some $94 million. And it’s not even really got started yet. That’s obscene. Just think of how much good that money could do. Where’s it going? TV advertising? Where’s it coming from?  Heh. The bank never loses. The rich men who got us into this aren’t suffering, and no matter who wins the election, they won’t be affected.

As the immortal New Model Army lyric would have it (Ballad, 1986) “We’re the ones who knew everything, still we did nothing, harvested everything, planted nothing . . . floating in comfort on the waves of our apathy . . . until we mortgage the future, bury our children . . . but still we can’t feed this strange hunger inside greedy, restless, unsatisfied”.

I don’t understand why more people are not standing up saying that actually, living in constant debt is lunacy. We must, as a society, CONSUME LESS. Have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful and believe to be beautiful (William Morris). And debt is for dummies – that’s a lesson I can’t let go of, and other than a mortgage I live debt free. Opt out.

Simple, and our grandparents had it right: if you can’t afford it, don’t have it. You don’t need loads of clothes/shoes/books/cds/THINGS to make you a valid person, to make you happy, to make you content. These things come from within and you either have it or you don’t.  (Emerson: nothing can bring you peace but yourself). I guess: consume less, live more – be mindful of what you do and what you need – people make people happy, not things.

I was talking to Rumpus on the way home from school today. Tomorrow is the weekend. He was happy.

“That’s good,” he said. “Me and Honey don’t have to go to school. Daddy doesn’t have to go to work. We can all stay at home with you and Minni Babaloo.”

“What about me? Do I get a day off?” I asked.

“You have a day off every day, mummy,” he replied.

And you know what? He’s right. I’d never framed it like that before – seeing the sometimes relentless routine as work work work. But actually, it’s not. I do what I want all day long, I get to stay at home and be there for the kids, and I get to do the things that are important to me, without having to worry about where the next meal will come from, and without having to do a crap job that just brings me stress. I AM INCREDIBLY LUCKY.

It was a moment of glorious revelation, and I’ve been high on happiness ever since. Just seeing the situation from a different angle, a new perspective, seeing it as a strength not a weakness, an opportunity, not a threat or a problem. I think it’s a valuable lesson I can apply everywhere in my life. Strangely, it also links in with a part of my How To Think Sideways course. Suddenly, an awful lot of things in my life are starting to link up together and make sense – my writing, my art, my lifestyle – all a part of a coherent whole. Actions and words are coming together, finally, into an integrated whole.

I know I still have a long way to go, but I am certain of my values and principles, and I want to keep my integrity intact. And I want to live in the moment – loving it – not hung up on the past or stressed by the future. So I’m going to, because today is my day off and I’m going to please myself and do what I want to do and what I think is right. I feel a hell of a lot closer this evening than I did yesterday. But it took the wise words of a small boy to complete the train of thoughts started this morning.

It’s all so simple – I don’t need to complicate it, I don’t need to question it.

It just is.

Taking the pledge

I have become increasingly concerned about the proposed use of the National Idenitity Register here in the UK. State surveillance, and it’s more or less totally unapologetic about it. I do not buy the government’s claims that by sacrificing my freedom to have a private life free from state intervention and surveillance (at all levels) I will be more secure (and nor, apparently, do security experts or the police).

As Benjamin Franklin said: “he who sacrifices freedom for security is neither free nor secure”.

So, I joined the No2ID campaign some time ago, and have done everything I can to secure my opt-outs where possible. However, the announcements yesterday by the government that despite the massive compromises on data security in the last couple of years AND the spiralling costs AND the general opposition amongst the population it is still ploughing on with the scheme. And it starts with foreign nationals, because we all know they’re untrustworthy, right? PAH! Makes me sick to my stomach, to think they’ll whizz that right on through because they think no one will protest the fact that foreign nationals have equal civil rights to UK citizens.

I do.

I have hesitated to fully take this pledge for some time now, because as a parent I have to think through the implications: if this iniquitous piece of legislation is implemented and I do not comply, I will be imprisoned. I need also to consider that I and my family may well be excluded from accessing some forms of public service: education services, the NHS, for example. I may lose some civil liberties: the right to vote, for example. Do I feel strongly enough about it to put my kids in that position? After yesterday, the answer to that is yes, I do.

And so, I solemnly and publicly promise that:

• I shall not register for a national identity card
• I shall not supply personal details or fingerprints to a National Identity Register
• I shall not apply for any document or service if joining the National Identity Register is a condition of obtaining it
• I shall not co-operate with any Identity and Passport Service Interview concerning my identity.

and furthermore, I will not allow any agency to register my children’s personal details and fingerprints, will not allow them to apply for any document or service if joining the NIR is a condition, and I will not co-operate with any attempt of the IPS to interview my children concerning their identity.

I will encourage others to do the same.

And that is my pledge.

Minor dramas and major performances

this week there has been a conspiracy of irritations, minor dramas and major performances, specially designed to raise my stress levels and to add completely unnecessary complexity to my life. Why can’t it all be simple?

Here’s a rundown . . .

blocked dishwasher - ewwwww. lots of ucky water swooshing in the bottom when I opened it this morning. I just LOVE rummaging around filters in my marigolds. NOT.

wonky worktops – having paid a small fortune for a new kitchen a mere 6 months ago, we have a problem. One of the worktops has a join near the sink. It has been improperly sealed and now water has (of course) got into it and made it go all wonky. Added to that the sealer around the sink has come off and the edging on one of the worktops has chipped, I’m a little annoyed. When the miserable cow at the kitchen place told me that worktops are not covered under the warranty, I nearly went into thermonuclear meltdown. The big bang machine would have had nothing on me . . . . fortunately, I managed to stay more or less reasonable whilst at the same time making it clear that her response was both inappropriate and inadequate. She’s going to talk to her manager and get back to me. She’d better.

broken toaster – I think I jinx electrical equipment. Our old 4-slice toaster was nowt fancy, but it worked for years until the front fell off. My mum bought a new one and gave us her old 2-slice-toaster . . . which was fine, but not up to the job when there are 5 people demanding toast at the same time. So, I took advantage of a half-price appliance sale . . . . and bought a nifty new Kenwood 4-slice toaster – v nice and chrome and shiny – about a month ago. Now, only 2 of the toastery bits will go down. When I tried to take it back, they wouldn’t exchange it because I hadn’t kept the packaging. I’m very extremely narked, and now have to go through all the aggravation of finding a box for the wretched thing and posting it off to Kenwood so they can look at it. Meantime I have no toaster, because I Freecycled the old ones. Gah!

I’m getting militant about the school run. On our way we pass a building yard, or building site, I’m not sure which. This of itself is not a problem. The problem is that it lies on a particularly twisty bit of narrow country road where there are no pavements – blind corners coming from each direction – and people really belt along there in their cars. Very often there are lorries and other plant either parked or crossing the road, with no-one looking out for traffic to warn cars to slow/stop or any sort of traffic control when one lane is blocked. I’m sure it’s only going to be a matter of time before there’s a nasty accident there.

Second gripe about the school run: part of the road floods. It wouldn’t flood if “they” (the council, I assume) properly maintained the drainage channels taking run-off from the road into the ditches beyond the verge. The same ditches wouldn’t overflow if the channel taking the water down into the canal wasn’t blocked with dead leaves and other debris.

Third gripe! We have to walk under a railway tunnel . . . . it’s single file traffic on a 3-way control, but it’s very narrow, an ‘A’ road (hence v busy in the mornings) and there is no protection of any kind for pedestrians – and it’s the only place you can get through, and is used by a large number of school mums both ends of the days. Frankly, getting through it with 3 small kids unscathed is little short of a miracle and is the single most terrifying thing I’ve ever had to do. And I have to do it every day.

And driving is not an option. Why? Because the 3-way control aforementioned doesn’t take into account a 4th road feeding in on our home side of the bridge – to get under the bridge depends on kind people letting you out of the traffic. It can take 40 minutes sometimes to do a 2 mile journey (which is a one of the reasons why we walk) in the car because of the queueing. Why they can’t just bring the lights back 50 yards and put a 4th phase on to let that feed out I have no idea.

sniffy receptionists - I handed my letter exercising my right to opt out of the NHS national database (Care Records Service) and the receptionist got all tutty and irritated with me. She tried to tell me I couldn’t do it! And then made a big fuss about how much work I was now making . . . grrrrrrrr. I was tempted to point out that I paid her wages, but thought that was a bit Tory of me so refrained. I’m worried that I thought about it, though!

waiting for appointments . . . gah! make an appointment for 2:20 because I have school pickup at 3 . . . and THEY KNOW I have Aspergers and I can’t cope with being late (particularly where my kids are concerned) and that delay and getting close to breaking the routine means my stress levels go sky-high . . . so, when I turn up and it gets to 2:49 and we still have not been seen, I’m about to throw a major tantrum . . . when Rumpus decides he needs the toilet . . .  I’m standing in the queue to tell the obnoxious tart on reception (see above) that we’re going to have to cancel and re-book (doubtless to further tutting and disapproval) when the nurse swans out and tells us she’ll see us now. O thank you, o mighty one, for deigning to grace us with your presence. Our time is as nothing compared to yours. Actually, it’s not her fault. Reception have overbooked, allocated 5 min appointments where she needs 10/20 mins, and they’re short-staffed – one nurse instead of 3. And yes, we (just about) make school pickup, though Honey is the last one stood there and starting to look a bit anxious as I belt across the playground . . .

cupboard unpackers – Minni decided to unpack all my kitchen cupboards this morning. Egads, the mess! Took me a good 30 mins to sort it all out again . . . (I have cupboard tidiness issues).

what to do with kale? got some in the veg box, no idea what to do with it. Off to google. It does not look appetising. I expect a rebellion on this one . . .

I’ve been naughty!

Shuh!

 

What can I say?

mmmmmmmmm

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have no excuses . . . I have a thing about shoes . . .

Caution! Work in progress

and build! More track . . .

We like to build . . .

Me and Rumpus had great fun yesterday afternoon – not ONLY the Scaelxtric, but also the Tomy track AND the Brio had to come out . . .

Only running out of space and regular de-construction by a marauding Minni stopped us.

(We still have more track in the boxes).

Faffing about . . .

It’s one of those days today . . .

Minni had her injections yesterday, so we had the obligatory sleepless night last night – an hour and half of restlessness, needing cuddle, not wanting cuddle, squawking – leg hurts, cuddle. Squawk – teeth hurt, need cuddle. Not comfy. Wriggle around a lot . . . at 5 am we both collapsed in exhaustion. I feel sorry for TOM (The Old Man) who had to get up at 5:15 and go to work. I feel sorry for ME who had to get up at 6:30 am for the school run. Why it has to take an hour and a half to get up, dressed, breakfasted and out of the house I have no idea, but Rumpus did not help this morning by announcing he wasn’t going to school and refusing to get dressed. They know, you know, when you’re frayed around the edges . . . and do their best to make you snap. Fortunately, we’ve played this game before so I put on my best bored and ignoring mask and went about everything else. (Not too hard when I feel like a zombie anyway). Further provocation in the shape of unmaking beds, announcing that he’s going to school in his pyjamas (yawn, been there, done that), throwing his uniform down the stairs and other unmentionables . . . HOW I managed not to blow my stack I do not know . . . but my parting shot (“we’re going to school in 15 minutes. If you want breakfast before you go, you better get dressed”) seemed to do the trick. Five minutes later he was downstairs and clamouring for toast. Admittedly, his shirt AND shorts were on back to front, but he HAD got dressed. Why he couldn’t have just done it in the first place I have NO idea.

School run safely over, we get home . . . Minni throws cornflakes around whilst I get the kitchen cleared down, put the washing on and hoover up the enormous spiders (see here) . . . She’s cheery for a while, but almost as tired as me so thankfully we go down for an early nap.

Perhaps the sensible thing to do would be to join her, but experience tells me that grabbing a nap really doesn’t help – in fact, I usually feel worse, and I worry too about getting back to the school for Rumpus’ lunchtime pickup . . . so I decide to get on with “the things I want to do”, because I have banned myself from doing housework during naptime (essential for my sanity – I was getting to resent never getting a minute for myself. Now – the house is a bit scruffy around the edges, but I’m happy, so there!).

I have a stack of jobs to do in the garden . . . but it started raining and I’m too tired to be committed enough to get drenched, and nothing’s that urgent it can’t wait so I make coffee and decide to do some writing work instead . . .

Last night, I read Jay Lake’s post on fiction submissions and what he says made so much sense, and particularly tracking back through some of the earlier posts where he talks about building an inventory and writing/editing a story a week, I felt all fired up and thought: yes, I can do that for a month, and we’ll see where it takes us – it can’t do any harm, and it’ll definitely be an improvement on hanging about waiting for my three current stories out on submission to come back. I also thought that my immediate task must therefore be to review the current pile of written-not-edited and do the bin-edit-ready sift-through and get some more out, before I start generating more. There are over a hundred stories in that pile, so it may take some time . . . . but I AM excited about the process, it’s something that instantly clicked and made huge amounts of sense.

I have the same issue with novels. I have one in edit that I have been editing on-and-off for a year now. Egad, I must finish it . . . and then I can get to work on the other six first-drafts sitting in line behind it. WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING?

Exactly what I’m doing right now.

Faffing about.

I’ve fiddled with my calendar, I’ve sorted out my emails, I’ve done a little bit of surfing, a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but NO WRITING, and NO EDITING. And now it’s too late to start because in 20 minutes I’ve got to go and do school pickup.

What is wrong with me?

Exhaustion, I’ll admit, is a factor. But, looking over my state of mind, and given that one of the places I surfed to was Someday Syndrome to read the “fearfully moving forward” post, a number of recognitions have fallen into place.  When I add this to the work I’ve been doing in How To Think Sideways, a lot of things are starting to make sense about what I’ve been doing and, I guess more importantly, why I’ve been doing it.

I’m scared.

What if I fail? What if I’m not good enough? What if I take a shot at my dream and I don’t make it? I’m chicken, and I’ve just realised it.

hmmmm – meltdown, anyone?

Question is, do I have the guts to face it down and get on with it anyway, or am I going to hide under my duvet for the rest of my life?

Time to stop faffing about, I think . . .

Something I hadn’t thought of before . . .

I sent some short stories out at the beginning of this week, and just as a ‘by-the-way’, I emailed copies to my mum. I spoke to her this evening, as I do every Sunday . . . she didn’t say anything about them, so I asked her if she’d read them.

There was a really uncomfortable silence.

I got really worried: she’s always been unfailingly enthusiastic (to the point that her praise doesn’t really mean much anymore because everything is wonderful). Cripes, I thought. They must be really terrible and she doesn’t know how to say it!

In the end she said: “I think they are compelling, intricate and very well-written. But they are very dark.”

And?

“Well, I’m your mother. I worry about you. Are you depressed?”

WTF??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

NO.

So then I had to explain to her that very little of myself actually goes into the stories I write. I am not the main character, and I rarely if ever draw on autobiographical details for backstory. An occasional element or experience may be the trigger for something, but there’s a clear distinction between who I am and the people who populate my stories.

It really seemed to throw her, and I’m not sure she’s entirely convinced that I’m not a total lunatic.

But it got me thinking about the whole writing process, and how it feels when I’ve got the flow on, when the words are coming and I’m not fighting for wordcount or progression. And it IS almost like my conscious self is totally suspended – it just seems to get shunted off to one side where time and control have little or no meaning, and the stories come from a whole other place.

It reminded me of a book I read, years and years ago, by Richard Adams (Watership Down, not Hitchhikers Guide). It was called “The Unbroken Web” and was a collection of short stories. I don’t remember many of the stories, but I do remember the introduction. He talked about how stories are told over and over again, and how the experiences of the teller change and influence the way the story is told, but not the core elements of the story. I think he quoted an example of the Cinderella story, which has a parallel both in English/European storytelling AND in Chinese stories. The emphases in the two traditions are different, the cultures highlighting different points of the story, but the core of the story remains the same. He went on to evoke an image of the world revolving in space, and then added to the layer(s) of atmosphere an ephemeral, unbroken web of stories which rotate with and around the world like a carved chinese ivory ball, and all the storyteller has to do is reach out/up for them, and draw down the web to release the story. What makes it their story is the filter of their own culture and individual experiences and beliefs.

For some reason, that image has always stuck with me, and now I think about the hows of writing, when it’s going well, that is how it feels. Like I’m making some connection on a level that I can’t really comprehend, but is physical and actual, almost like I’m mainlining the story, a direct flow from the ‘web’ to the page where I am the intermediary, the facilitator, or perhaps something more mystical (though that sounds a bit pretentious) – a diviner, or medium, or shaman, perhaps, an interceder with the ‘other’ that allows the experience of the ‘other’ to be translated to an experience that is universal and comprehensible.

This image also ties in with the idea that there are 36 basic plots out there and the variations around those are, again, the filter of culture and individual experience. The two seem related, or maybe only so because I, as a writer, find them useful tools for understanding the mechanics of how I do what I do, and how I know when I’m on to a good thing (I’m in the web) or not (I can’t connect).

The importance of that image has a bearing on the name of this Blog, too:

“This web of life is a mingled yarn” – All’s Well That Ends Well (Mr Shakespeare)

Foraging, planting and other parsimony

We are enjoying some lovely late September sunshine here – would you believe glorious sun and 21 C today? I wouldn’t have thought it a week ago . . . but it’s fantastic and I hope it lasts a bit longer!

We had an early-ish start (just for a change – early starts seem to be a feature of having pre-teen children. I’m looking forward to the days when I can kick THEM out of bed), but we needed to be up and about today anyway, because today was the day of the NCT Nearly-New sale. Hooray! I’ve been waiting on this for a while now, because Minni is fast outgrowing all her clothes and urgently needs a winter wardrobe. Someone I know used to volunteer for them and she told me that they call it ‘Nearly-New’ rather than ‘Second-Hand’ because no-one used to come to buy secondhand clothes. Hmm. The human psyche is a funny old thing, is all I have to say about THAT. Anyway, I love the Nearly-New, because I can literally get an armful of clothes for next-to-nothing, like, less than the cost of a complete outfit from a standard generic baby-clothes retailer, and being as we live in Surrey, dah-ling, it’s usually all great quality and often designer. I do *try* not to be a label snob, but we are living in a material world and some of it’s bound to rub off although I try to decontaminate myself as much as possible! AND I just can’t afford the crippling prices of the eco-friendly organic baby clothes . . . pure extortion.  So there you have it. So, I return triumphant with the loot . . . and of course this now means I need to sort all the old stuff out and get it shifted. This is a big job, because I have to sort it into stuff that was given to me by two different people so I can give it back to them. Stuff I got that’s in good condition that can go on ebay. Stuff that’s not so good that can go to the charity shop. Stuff that’s trashed and needs recycling. And finally, the gorgeous, much-worn clothes that I can’t bear to part with that will go into Minni’s patchwork once she’s accumulated enough to make one up. Too much like hard work when the sun’s shining!

And the sun is *lovely*. I managed to de-weed the brassica beds and get another sowing of spring cabbage in. (My husband slightly spoiled the effect by making some fence repairs and dropping a fence panel on the cauliflowers. To say I was not impressed is a massive understatement.)

He and Rumpus made a sharp exit into the woods to forage some firewood. I’m impressed - a year ago he would have been horrified by the idea of doing something like that. But they were both pleased as punch with the half-tree they dragged back into the garden and it’s now neatly rendered into a log-pile. Yeay! With the cold nights setting in, I’m looking forward to firing up our wood-burning stove again. It is such bliss . . . especially with a glass of wine in hand.

AND, even though Missie had a riding lesson this afternoon, I still got almost all of the root/onion beds weeded – it all rather got away from me the last couple of weeks of the holidays – and I’ve got a row of spring onions in, and a row of early (very early) carrots. The fleece is on already, but I’m annoyed with myself because I recycled the polythene I used to make my polytunnel/cloche thing last year. Sometimes, my need to de-clutter gets ahead of me. I’m kicking myself over it. Now I have to see if I can track down someone getting a big delivery of something so I can snaffle their packaging . . .

I’ve had a cosy evening in front of the fire with the seed catalogues, dreaming of next year – which will, of course, be bigger and better than this year – and getting my vegetable lust under control. They all look so tantalising . . . but I must be strict and not indulge myself – we don’t have that much space so it all needs to be worked out – what will we actually eat, and what makes the best use of the space. I’ll give myself the old five-day rule on it. AND, of course, my Rodale’s companion planting guide won’t be here for another week or so, so I *must* hold off for that.

Tomorrow? Gah. I really can’t put off dealing with the compost heap any longer. I hate, hate, HATE that job.

Alien Goo and Giant Spiders

A very dear friend came to visit this week, using us as a crash pad on the way to and from a sponsored walk she was doing – 60k along the South Downs in 4 days – with a group of old college friends. Given they’re all in their sixties, this is no mean feat! Anyway, she’d been up to London shopping before she came to us (any excuse), so she left some of her goodies with us. The kids raided the spare room so I had to go in set things straight . . . and discovered a tin of “Callaloo”. What is it? It looks revolting, a sludgy, green alien goo. I wonder if the fact that it has “loo” in its name is relevant? Why has she bought it? What was she thinking? It surely does not look like an appetising treat to test and investigate . . . very, very strange. I shall wait for her to come back and quiz her on it.

We have another visitor this week as well. The biggest spider I have ever seen in my entire life has taken up residence in our bathroom. Not quietly, in a corner, out of the way and minding its own business. No, that would be far too helpful. This monster appears to KNOW I am phobic and has taken up residence DIRECTLY above the door. One of things I am most terrified of is giant spiders dropping on me . . . I just can’t bear the thought of those evil leggy predator alien monstrosities on me. Ewwwwwwwwww. I’ve gone all squirmy and shivery just thinking about it. I think it’s because they are such alien predators that they are so scary – there’s no level with which you can identify with a spider, and there’s no way you can communicate with or even understand why it does what it does, and if it has a consciousness (one assumes so), on what level it operates. And that’s probably far too much speculation. There are any number of critters (including actual alien predators) that come under my ‘alien predator’ phobia. Most of them are probably fairly innocuous – assorted various bugs and sea-nasties for the most part – but they creep me out big time. 

Desperate not to pass my phobias onto the children, I have trained myself to “deal” with either the very small ones (ignore them, mostly they will go away), and the spindly idiot ones (correctly named the daddy-long-legs spider I believe) are quickly dealt with via a hoover. (Now I’ve read the link, perhaps I should have left them – it appears they eat the big hairy ones!). This strategy seems to have worked – the children are fascinated by spiders, so we ended up having to let a nest of the spindly ones survive the hoover holocaust so they could watch the babies develop (about half of them got eaten by the other half). We also have a regular spider-watch in the garden – at this time of year there are some fabulous webs and we’ve had to stop everything to watch said garden spiders catching and wrapping prey. I think the fact that they catch flies is marvellous. I just wish they could do it without being so predator-y about it.

But I digress.

This monstrosity of a spider is just sitting there, right above my bathroom door. And it’s waiting. Waiting for me to walk right under it and then it’s going to drop on me. And then all my phobia-defeating self-training will go right out of the window and I will have the heebie-geebies right there on the spot. (Probably, everyone else in the house will laugh at me).

How do I know this?

It’s happened before.

It must be 15 years or so ago now . . . we were round at a friends house after a big night out, and everyone was crashed in the living room. A giant spider appeared and starting creeping around the picture rail . . . heading for my chair. I don’t trust spiders. They want to drop on me. So I made the guy sitting in the chair in the opposite corner swap with me. Everyone laughed at me for being such a wuss. Anyway, spider didn’t fall and kept on around the room . . . heading for the corner I was now sitting in. It got to 4 feet of me and I made the guy swap back, even in the face of extreme mockery from everyone else in the room. Still, the spider did not fall. On it went again, round the picture rail, not very fast, but making steady progress. Of course, everyone’s watching it now, waiting to see how long this entertainment is going to last, because I’m pretty much hysterical at this point (everyone else is hysterical with laughter, but there you go). Back it comes again, and again we swap chairs, and again everyone else in the room thinks I’m a lunatic, because of course the spider won’t fall – because a) they have sticky legs so they can’t fall, and b) it hasn’t yet. Uh-huh. So, spider reaches corner, guy is looking up, and just as he’s saying ’see, I told you it wouldn’t fall’, down it comes – SPLAT – right on his face. He leaps out of the chair like his ass is on fire, screaming (!), spider goes flying (who knows where), and every girl in the room runs screeching from it (including me). Needless to say, I couldn’t resist an “I told you so”, even though I know they’re not helpful. So, I don’t trust spiders, and I wish this one would go away. I’d try hoovering it, but I’m afraid it’s so big that it wouldn’t actually get sucked up and would come running up the hose to get me. Eeep.

Please go away, o spider.

Journeys of discovery

I’ve taken a step back from my writing this week, and have spent some time thinking about what makes me tick, both as a person and as a writer, and exploring those elements and how they feed through into my work. It’s made for an interesting (as well as fun) couple of days, and I’m still kind of obsessively firing off it and thinking of more and new things, but the connections between them are all boiling down into a couple of major thematic elements. Some of it I already knew, but it was helpful to unpack it all.

I was not surprised to discover an inquistive, exploratory streak concerned with patterns and systems and reducing them all to stark and beautiful simplicity – very much my cold, rational side in play there – the political, the scientific, the minimalistic.

What I wasn’t expecting to come out was an equally strong hedonistic, sensual side that loves the bright, the complex, the dramatic – erotic even – that’s rococo, baroque, gothic in its preoccupations.

As I dug down deeper through it, the relationships and conflicts between different sets of apparent opposites – for example, the juxtaposition of the personal and political, how an individual balances their own needs and desires with those of their wider family/social group/society norms and laws . . . . I could probably go on all day, but I feel as though my brain is on fire and I’m so excited about exploring these themes and contrasts even further in my writing.

What is fantastic about it all is that it has unblocked me on an edit for a scene in the novel that I’ve been blocked on for a good month. I now understand what I was trying to do with it, and where I missed that target. It’s also shed some light on the whole of the second half of the book, and I need to go through all of that again just to make sure those themes are coming through as strongly as I want them to, and that there’s as strong a logical connection between the two halves of the novel – that the denouement is a natural and satisfying flow-through from the building blocks of the first half. Suddenly, it’s all come clear. It’s a real ‘EUREKA’ moment, and I feel like running around the house shouting “I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT”. Possibly, the kids would think I’ve gone mad, so I’ll scream, shout and jump up and down quietly to myself. I can’t wait for this evening when I can properly get down to work. I haven’t felt this excited about the novel in months. It’s such a relief to re-discover my energy and enthusiasm for it.

This journey is inspiring and liberating. And I need more paper.