New Year's Resolutions, part one

I had a transatlantic conversation with a friend. And it started me thinking about the philosophical nature of this holiday. It went a little like this:

It’s interesting what you say about the dark side of people. I
think that's right. I have tended to look at people as though they are all dark, and maybe that is because of some fundamental fear
within myself about being good/evil...but it does make the world a
dark and judgmental place, which I suppose around the time of a
christian holiday which glorifies death and guilt (although not as
badly as easter) while holding out the hope of resurrection, makes
sense.

When you think about it, the pagans welcomed the light with
no strings - aside a big clean and burn of old things and some
drunken revels. The sun would return to the sky no matter what -
as long as you were thankful, or maybe killed a few marauding
tribesmen....even the catholics allowed confession and repentance,
for a price.

But the protestants - you're always fucked. No
wonder we drink.

More or less. No real conclusive answer to the dilemma of human nature or spirituality versus religion. Perhaps, if you inhale deeply, along with the scent of burning pine trees, you can smell desire for some cleansing rite, a moment where in leaving reality, you come closer to what is real.

And another Christmas holiday creaks to a close. We are now at the time when people start hearing the call of a return to life in the background – but it isn’t resurrection. It’s the insistent chapel bell, the deafening drone of the school buzzer, the endless repetitive ringing that echoes through our most intimate dreams, turning our feet back towards what we expect, and away from what we hope.

In between buying at the sales, and lying in bed, or taking the dog for a walk, while observing the ritual niceties of watching the children play, or talking to friends over coffee, or just hiding away in the kitchen, cooking another meal, we pour another glass of wine, wonder when New Year’s Eve became so boring, and lazily flutter over to the contemplation of resolutions.

Everyone seems bored with them – not just the people who find their hopeful tone somewhat reeking of not innocence, but idiocy. The stupidity of the country dweller as opposed to the calm cynicism of flagging down a taxi in heels. This year – what shall we think of? It’s a little like throwing a party – let’s make the calls and see who turns up.

So what this year? Or, perhaps, this year, so what? Last year nearly done, but if I blinked, I wouldn’t know which year I was in, so closely matched are they in dismal sentiment and lack of esprit. Joie de vivre, all the things that you are supposed to imbibe with your champagne. I’ve been drinking since Thanksgiving, in some reversal of an attempt to feel the Christmas spirit. I don’t feel it. I don’t, I didn’t and I probably never will. No – that’s wrong. I do feel it, in the moments where I remember my innocent dreams and my upwards gaze towards various objects of my love and affection. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just that it doesn’t match well with wrapping paper, cards and the round of songs that everyone knows so well. I can’t find my colour or my size. Existential mall crisis.

I am bored, I’m frustrated and I’m angry - and that’s a recipe for trouble. Everyone should know by know that when people get complacent, we either get maudlin or edgy.

I feel danger flickering over the hilltops, and that’s not a very holiday way to feel.

New Year’s Eve is coming up, and I need to make a new set of resolutions. Which hopeless disappointment in life should I attach the colours of my ship to this year? My love life? My grey hair? My arrested writing career? All of the above? My worries bore me. I want to walk away from them, but I keep getting caught in the wrong story. Don’t they get it? Something’s wrong here.

There’s a line from some song that says ‘as long as I keep fighting, I’ll be all right’. Is that the resolution then, to keep fighting, whether it’s the danger over the hilltops, coming closer with every one of my stunted half-breaths, or the danger from my own anxiety?

Unable to live as myself, and unwilling to live as everyone else, I haven’t really made an easy road for my life. Maybe this will be the year I cut myself some slack. Maybe this will be the year when making life easier won’t mean settling for third best and trying to convince myself that it’s ok.

I saw a blog (linked to advertising, of course) on choosing your personal style - to show who you are – they said. Considering most of their clientele is young girls who read nothing but webpages like that one, I wonder if the irony is totally lost on the people who create that drivel. But they are right in one area – it’s easier to have a presence when you are not erasing yourself.

I guess that is the resolution. And not to beat myself up about fancying actors literally half my age. What the hell. No one stopped Picasso. When did someone make me the standard bearer for appropriate behaviour?

Bring on the champagne.

On the red carpet

Well done Al Gore. I think. I see that the news in the US have taken it up with the usual provisos – left leaning Scandinavians with Ikea sensibilities – making a choice that must be examined in light of their obvious light headed desire for cheap furniture and outdoor hot tubs.

Growing up, winning the Nobel appeared like some great horizon, a sign of merit accorded to the very few. These days, as with so many of our cherished values, those who seek to control us, or should I say, control the status quo, downgrade those we admire, especially those who may be dangerous to the system.

Al Gore is particularly dangerous, as he looks and acts, except for his consciousness raising exercise, like a typical American. One of us. A bit overweight, good looking in a suburban well fed and dressed manner. Trustworthy. Which makes it all the more interesting that the American newspapers appear to be playing down the feats of this former candidate for the highest office in the land, just as they tried to deemphasise the narrow margin between his loss and the current office holder’s win.

Why now, after a Nobel Prize and an Oscar (possibly interchangeable in the American psyche on some levels), are there claims that try to destabilise his argument on climate change? In the UK, a teacher fought and won to only allow schools to show his film if there were appropriate arguments against the premise of dangerous climate change caused by man presented at the same time.

I’m glad I didn’t know about that. Maybe I’ll show it next week to my classes, most of whom don’t even know what the Nobel Prize is, but can explain the term ‘suicide bomber’ with ease.

Interesting, our society’s drive for self-destruction. Thanatos, the name of a minor Greek god that Freud borrowed to try and name what he saw as our irrational wish for ending everything, appears to be fighting for centre stage. Is it our choice, or are we just on the couch now, victims of ourselves, talking into space?

Chris Martin: world's sexiest vegetarian?

Confession time.

I feel the need to digress and confess. And it was just a little song that brought it to mind, the sudden sensation of pleasure, alongside of which emerged my need to apologise and feel utterly guilty. Guilt equals confession, so I won’t say I am sorry, as I’m tired as **** of apologising. I will try to outline this forbidden emotion and I’ll hope that you sympathise, while I wrestle with my own need to speak the truth. As it is my problem, not yours, it is wrong to ask for sympathy. I’ll just have to immerse myself in the idea I can’t let go of, the pleasure that always seems inherently wrong.

I am getting off the track here. Let’s just get it out. Wait. Before I do, I have to say that this is not my only secret. I don’t want you to think I’m a one-note song. But here we go, deep breath, deeply unpopular point of view coming up.

I think Chris Martin is really … fanciable. There. I’ll let your mind fill in the ellipse; I am incapable at this point of actually speaking the word. And I am trying to keep this blog vaguely intelligent, although that is project doomed to failure. But instead of looking at my inability to speak my truth, look at him: he’s passionate, strange, driven. And when I heard that song off ‘X & Y’ again, the excitement I felt on the first listen reappeared, just when I thought I had gotten over Coldplay. Instead, I was swept off my feet, caught up in a feeling of love, the unusual emotion of warmth, as though someone actually cared how I felt. I like the singers whose voices reach out like a whisper in the dark to me, their poetry expressing some unresolved conflict of mine. In other words, the slightly embarrassing midnight journal writing school of rock. Chris has a soft voice that murmurs understanding; as though you were crying on his shoulder and he didn’t mind. And coupled with the strange soothing joining of masculine and feminine in his accent, there are the images, like the one of him lying on the stage in a yoga pose, feet touching his back, stomach exposed, eyes closed. Ask a cat. To do that before a crowd of strangers shows trust and bravery -and he’s obviously very flexible.

Even though the concert I saw was really disappointing, I feel that alone, Chris must be a firebrand. He’s just not a superficial crowd-pleasing testosterone frontman. Anyway, how can you have an intimate moment in a giant warehouse like Earl’s Court? So I forgive Chris that imperfection. He’s a homebody who travels the world, trying to make things good and right. And at home, what does he do? Is it true that he composes music in the nude? That he and his significant other eat dinner naked? It’s an interesting yet disturbing thought, which makes me want to try it the next time I cook up some brown rice. A spiritual, yet practical sensuality that makes the everyday different. The idea of Chris playing piano without clothes provokes a rush of imagining, especially when I recall his energetic piano playing at Glastonbury a couple of years ago. And I always thought that the guitar was the only instrument one could…engage with. I must point out that I am putting Gwyneth from my mind here. The idea that she watches him, equally nude, is not helpful to my thoughts. This is my fantasy, so back to our original subject.

‘I feel life,’ goes the refrain of one of his songs. What does he feel? Is he as sensual as the insistent rhythms he embraces for the anthemic Coldplay chorus? The camera certainly embraced him during his appearance on the comedy show ‘Extras’. Acting the star suited him, and let’s face it, whether you like him or not, he and his band are a huge success, so he knows what he’s about. Why shouldn’t he enjoy the experience of at least pretending to act in an egotistical way? We permit Mick Jagger all sorts of liberties, why not Chris? Is it because of his feminine sensibilities that he becomes an easy target?

I like a man who can laugh at himself. Men are very amusing; so few of them are able to recognise it. If he can take the image and play with it, that’s a very disarming quality. But admiring Chris physically apart from his humour adds to his appeal. He’s thin, long-limbed, quick to laughter. His intense blue eyes are very beautiful. It’s how I was able to recognise him once, as he was walking down a fashionable residential street, wearing a scarf as a sort of headdress, thinking somehow that made him less conspicuous. He was very slender, a reed in the wind, and looked rather crazed. Apparently he once said in an interview that no one would recognise him on the street as he looked like ‘a drug dealer’. It must have been him then, I couldn’t help staring. Chris was vibrating at a higher frequency, a charismatic beacon. He had the lovely look money gives some people: well brushed; glowing, not shiny; lines smoothed; slightly insane with self-contentment. Out on the street, I thought he looked nervous. I wanted to give him a big hug. If only we could have comforted each other, facing life at the end of the afternoon, a slight sadness in the air. We were alone in the emptiness of the day, no one else around, no one to confirm our sighting of each other. I was the supplicant, startled into desire; he was the glorious fool, watchful on his solitary journey, thinking. Always thinking. But not clearly enough or he might have realised that wrapping his head in a colourful scarf was not enough to hide him.

Chris has long fingers. At the end of ‘Extras’, as he was seated at the piano, endlessly plugging his song with an energy and irritation that caused you to wonder if this was a cathartic experience for him, the camera lingered upon his fingers. They were manicured, of course, slight, long, complicated, talented without explanation. His hands made me think of sex, which is also complicated and requires talent without explanation. What it also necessitates is a sense of the ridiculous. Where else, except in art, do you need to be able to lose the plot, feet off the ground and lost in deep fantasy, in order to succeed? I would bet that he knows that.

What else can I say? Chris Martin’s ability to be both ridiculous and serious at once, to be able to fight off the critics, even as they prod his weak points, is something to be admired. And the fact that he can go on television and make fun of himself, while looking sexy as hell, well, what more do we want? A man not afraid to kiss his best friend in the band on stage, a social reformer who isn’t afraid to be different. In an article where Chris spoke about the phenomenon of their band being hated as well as loved, he hinted at the fundamental androgyny of Coldplay: ‘Maybe we’re too feminine for the masculine and too masculine for the feminine.’

I like that he knows he is pushing the boundaries. He’s slightly outrageous, decorating himself with his drawn on Fair Trade stripes, and blue and red taped fingers. He’s gentle, as in the photo where his baby is in a carrier against his chest, and his face is pensive, softened, sheltering his child. A man, no, a person, who isn’t afraid to show his feelings, who admits to caring. A man who isn’t trying so hard to be hard 24/7.

Maybe that doesn’t make Chris popular. But it makes him deeply attractive.

faithful readers

Hello faithful readers - or non readers.

I suspect someone out there reads this from time to time, although I could be wrong.
I wrote this in a trance, thinking for once, of what they might be like.

Hello faithful readers. Or non-readers, although I do suspect that someone reads this from time to time, at least, at last. I am not entirely sure that their silence on the matter indicates displeasure, although this could be an egotistical delusion on my part. I would like to think of one particular person reading at this moment, the first one that has come to mind. May I point out that my imaginings on this subject are complete fantasy, and have no relation to anyone living or dead (although I’m not sure why they bother putting the last one in, surely no one dead minds at this point? What does it say about us as a culture if we think they mind? I suppose it’s their family we worry about, or is it?).

I imagine this person, distracted from what they call the real labours of their life, which can only be undertaken alone, begins to surf the internet in order to find something amusing to do that will permit them to avoid actual effort. They go over the usual news channels, perhaps a chat room or two, they glance at the responses to pieces they themselves have written. Then, idleness coupled with a hidden desire to see something they fear will be base and dross, which will encourage them in their sweet egotism and permit them to face the day, reminds them of a blog they had heard of, once. For some reason, they actually find the title on the litter of papers and books on their desk. And taking one look out over the green trees and garden of almost middle August, they heave a sigh and hope, in the darkness of their hearts, that it will be readable at worst, and at best, will contain some laughable quote or idea that could be cannibalised. No, there is another deeper layer – and that whispers to them that it might be compromising, it might actually speak the truth about the Pandora’s box of social interaction. Will it be a diary entry, filled with unspoken longings and deep dreaming? Will it mention soft fabrics and tasteful colours, harsh words and hidden desires? Hard wooden seats, and sudden exchanges of eye contact that certainly contain volumes, if only this foolish person could see it? Suppose they do see it?

The person I imagine stops for a moment, energised strangely by the thought that perhaps the blog will reveal that the writer has seen it and even more strangely, has been able to express it. Foolish thoughts! The reader begins their own voyage of imagination, observing the changes wrought in their own mind and body with a sort of wonderment. Not for the first time, they contemplate the fury and power contained in possibility, rather than completion. It is this thought that has let them achieve all that they have. Their ability to sublimate and contain, to push off instant gain for future solidity. The writer, they know, has not done this. They have gone down the road of desire and impulse, they have not been able to support pain, and so in this way have merely increased the difficulty in their life.

The voyeur in the reader wants to see this detailed. They tell themselves that they want to read what they have intelligently avoided in order to feel that they have made the right decisions. They don’t mention to themselves that they would like to see what impulse looks like, and if it resembles any part of what they drift into imagining.

How deep is their shock when they discover a vaguely middle class moan on the observations of the day, class structure and the hours. This is not what they had in mind.

The writer of the blog laughs. If they only knew! This was the one for general consumption! No wonder it is so dull! Then they pause. Perhaps this is why people find the writer’s life dull – as the best parts are hidden.

Note to self: give more clues.

A sense of humour

‘You have to have a sense of humour,’ she said. ‘Otherwise…’

‘You’ll cry,’ I interrupted.

‘Yes, exactly,’ she replied, laughing. ‘It can be a really soul destroying job.’

I agreed. We had been talking about a meeting she had recently attended, ostensibly called to give her a voice in a decision making process that had already been decided upon. Another wasted hour. And we both sat there in silence, sharing the table with two other teachers, eating our lunch. It was a freebie, part of the course we were all on, learning another way to try and motivate the under-achieving. It made a change from patrolling lunch lines and keeping kids from going too wild while they snapped up cheap little pizzas and coloured drinks. But somehow, the idea that we were going to be delighted with our over-cooked vegetables and salmon in tomato sauce, while we chatted over a table decoration limited to an aging pepper pot plant, and a water jug with a slice of lemon was almost as grim. In many ways, our relative contentment was more a sign of our meagre expectations than an actual delight. Yet we were happy, in a way. It was relatively peaceful; there was no screaming; and if some of us were wondering why teachers as a group were so miserable and badly dressed, it was at the same time acknowledgement of our middle management state that we were part of the polyester and matching floral soap and hand cream universe of the business hotel. ‘It’s a treat,’ said one red sweatered teacher, as she slathered on rose hand cream from the dispenser by the side of the sink. Real towels too, not meaningless air dryers, or scratchy paper towels that came out in a burst when you managed to get them unstuck. It was luxury.

Ironically enough, when the word ‘business’ did come up during the session, it was spoken with reverence. ‘He comes from business’, the trainer said breathily when describing her colleague who specialised in interpersonal leadership or something like that. It didn’t sound much like something you would have in business, but the hush that fell over the room at the mention of experience in the real world was as humbling as the entrance into the room of a Mother Superior. A person in business was a person in charge, someone who had managed to succeed in the real world, while we were stuck in school. It didn’t really make sense, but there was the curiosity of the cloister for what was beyond the gates. Teachers have managed to imbibe the idea that they are somehow ill equipped to teach children about life, how to deal with the day to day. From this policy comes the notion of the ‘academy’, that businessmen will know how to run a school and manage people successfully, in a way that the nuns and monks of the teaching profession cannot. Perhaps it is our childlike delight when we are freed from school that gives people this impression, or the necessary idealism of those who try to believe they are making a difference. Or perhaps it is just easier to blame teachers as a group, certain that at least 50 percent of your constituency is going to be able to look back at a bad memory of school, and say yes, teachers are responsible for everything that doesn’t work.

It’s disheartening to see this attitude, especially when these days out from school are the only time for many of us that we are able to meet other teachers while not dealing with the school politics we have all escaped for the day. Our words are liberated from caution, to a certain extent, and therefore, so are we. We bond during these moments and come together as a group, linked by a similar world view. Teachers desperately want to feel that their jobs are worthwhile – having put so much energy into them. Yet we receive very little in return, except for these professional courses and the chance to hear that, yes, life at other schools is much the same as at ours, even though we had hoped that there was greener grass somewhere. And over-cooked salmon on a china plate.

The next day, back at school, the hush of neatly folded towels and white tablecloths is a distant memory, buried under the routine of discovering that the supply teacher could not find the work, or more likely, that the children, faced with a supply, did not bother to do anything. All the good ideas, neatly copied down, ready to be tried out, take second place to re-establishing order and reminding everyone in the staff room that it wasn’t just a day out, you were actually listening to someone drone on in a windowless room all day. A real day out would have been one without worry, on the beach somewhere. A real day out wouldn’t have involved the return to student passivity, sneaking a cigarette in the bar, moaning about the lecturer, leaving just before the end of the course. Back in the classroom, it is pulling together the children, praising them for their work, punishing them for their lack of attention. The day to day. It is humanity you are dealing with; moods, frustrations, relationships, anger. It takes real presence of mind and courage to pull those new ideas from the back of your mind and try them out, in the real world of the classroom.

Teachers are expected to be the ultimate adults: inflexible, all knowing, slightly dull, on time. Even the police get to drive fast. We get pads of paper and grey hair. It’s little wonder that even as any link between teachers and sex is greeted with horror and dismay, those in charge try to ‘sex-up’ the profession by bringing in consultants, academies, consortiums. In their suits, bristling with authority, they are expected to sweep out the maiden aunt quality that apparently is the sole cause of underachievement, particularly in boys. Treated as petty bureaucrats, pencil pushers, weighed down by mountains of filing, reports and repetitive paperwork, even the most poetic English graduate begins to fall into line, dully copying down the latest directive. Ideas are traded for neat penmanship, energy for punctuality. Why do we do it?

‘Miss, where were you?’ ‘Where did you find that supply teacher? He was awful.’ ‘I didn’t do anything without you here.’ ‘I hurt my arm, look Miss.’ ‘I drew this for you.’

The children don’t know we are seen as boring, sexless, cloistered, insignificant bureaucrats, in need of a major overhaul. They just know we are there, listening to them, every day. Should we change that?

princess diaries

According to the BBC, ‘Japan’s princess is getting better’. Her illness came as news to me, not being as well read on matters of Asian politics as I could be, unless it has to do with angry Vietnam vets or underage Thai prostitutes or the latest scare that North Korea is just going to say to hell with it, and nuke us all. Apparently the president of North Korea is very keen on his luxury goods, and an embargo from Vuitton was enough to keep him on the straight and narrow for a while, so I’ve heard, so there’s a sigh of relief. Thank god for greed, right?

This story concerns the Crown Princess of Japan, who has not been seen out in public since 2003, which is starting, I would have thought, to be a seriously long time. She was a multi-lingual diplomat before she, like so many others, fell sway to the Cinderella legend, and married the Crown Prince. Perhaps it was love. Who knows. Rumour has it that she is suffering from what is gently named, ‘adjustment disorder’. What a great title for an illness. Stop slipped discs, depression, anything bipolar. No, adjustment disorder. My first thought was that it was an adjustment to life in the royal family. Possibly the biggest lie Cinderella told us was that moving to the palace was a good idea. Ok, she got to stop washing floors, and watching her less sexually endowed sisters get nice clothes and go out, which would annoy any girl of spirit, but who said everyone loved this idea? Can you honestly imagine a royal family welcoming someone who was ‘not one of us’? It’s a phrase that you can hear any weekend at bistros from Wandsworth to Richmond, in case you thought it was outmoded. Not to mention the fact that no family becomes the royalty without chopping a few heads here and there. These aren’t nice, welcoming people. They are the leaders, the ones whose ancestors schemed and planned their way, if not to get to the top, to stay there.

But the couple has been married since 1993. Since then, again according to articles on the BBC website, she has only been permitted to travel infrequently, as she needed to focus her energies on ‘conceiving’. One miscarriage led to fertility treatments, which resulted in a girl. Happy days, one would have thought. But no, these are funny times we live in, where our mediatised image of slick modern life convinces us that we have escaped a feudal, dogmatic past. Fortunately, our religious training has allowed us to accept any manner of ‘truth’ without calling upon it to actually make sense. So we have our heroine, the poor princess; not lucky enough to produce ‘the heir and the spare’, as Diana managed, she only came out with a girl. Not good enough to assure the succession. But there’s more. Plot twists worthy of any good soap. The Empress, the mother-in-law, does not like her, surprisingly, it seems, for she as well is a ‘commoner’, that funny term given to those who have something to do with royals when they oughtn’t. The sister-in-law has managed to drop a boy sprog, so the royal family will keep going. Some pressure off. But a close friend of the Princess, a cousin of the Emperor, died playing squash at the Canadian Embassy. Call me old-fashioned, but I see conspiracy. The man could have been putting the line at risk. What if he was going to father the next emperor? Possibly a greater danger is that he was on her side. Boom. Off he goes, no one the wiser, and the princess’ camp is one fewer.

I have the impression we get into problems when we start putting women in these fixed categories – princess (of all kinds), breeder, diplomat, wife, sex symbol. But this has been going on for a long time. Women, conform to your ‘highest and best use’ – a little like a tax assessment – or else be subject to the nasty sounding ‘adjustment disorder’. As the princess said herself in 1996, ‘at times I experience hardship in trying to find the proper point of balance between traditional things and my own personality’. Find me a woman who hasn’t said something like this at least once in her life, though probably not as politely.

We have seen a number of Cinderella fantasies go wrong in the past few weeks. There’s the tragic demise of Anna Nicole Smith, who may have been a junkie, but was smart enough to get her hands on the fortune, and savvy (if cold) enough to know that her baby daughter was going to be of more interest for her money, than for any intelligence, beauty, or humanity she might bring to the world, and wrote her out of the will. It’s a little bit like Onassis’ daughter, who finally died from the weight (literally) of her loneliness and misery, a vast fortune not able to prevent her from terrible depression. Then we have the fascinating spectacle of Britney and her shaved head, a woman who is certainly trying to ‘adjust’. Britney, who, as teen conventional wisdom would have it, was never the same after Justin, the love of her life, left her. But everyone was so excited when she finally dumped the loser who got her pregnant not just once, which might have been an accident, but twice, which appears like carelessness. What was she thinking? And who pushed whom? Now, like many single mothers, she is caught between a rock and hard place. Be your former self: sexy, slutty, making money for everyone. Go back to being the cash cow. But there’s a problem; she’s got the little ones to think of, and maybe she’s a little pissed off. It’s possible she’s going to have to fight the father, who may still want to prove a point about who is the better person. There can’t be many stronger incentives than having an entire country dislike you. Must be the kind of case lawyers dream of, and again, there’s money up for grabs, a lot of money. But the Cinderella story isn’t supposed to end with Cinders contacting the best lawyer she can find, or going into rehab. I can still remember the movie and Cinderella’s hair when she is dressed for the ball: blond, upswept, with those strange little lines drawn on the side. Imagine what I might have thought as a child if the last frame of the film was her letting her hair down, just to cut it off.

Which sort of ‘adjustment disorders’ are these women suffering? They had talent and their beauty and it was supposed to get them the Cinderella story that ‘every little girl dreams of’. Of course there were a few variations on the theme. Anna was a Playboy bunny hooking up with a man 3 times her age. Philip Roth territory, and someone was bound to get hurt. Then there’s poor Britney, who went from Mickey Mouse good girl to nymphette with cash. She seems to have lost her way, or found it. Cutting off your long, flowing blonde hair can’t be a clearer sign that you don’t want to play the secondary sexual characteristic game. Too bad we’re so hooked on the rules that as an audience we’re all happy to damn her to rehab hell without finding out what her second act might be. A lesser character in our shooting fairy tales in a bucket dream, Lindsay Lohan, just came out of a month stay in a facility. It’s too soon to see if it’s cured her ‘adjustment’ problem. And we can’t ignore Kate Moss, who bounded back so spectacularly from her fall into ignominy, she should write a how-to book. Or at least she could give Britney some advice. When you think that at the height of the media frenzy, she was not only accused of doing drugs – (imagine! – a model, doing cocaine - shocking), but of having sexual affairs with both men and women. The power of the story to keep us in line backfired a little, mostly because she seemed to be having so much fun. Kate has sorted out the adjustment problem, but it can’t hurt that she is in the business of making cash from her beauty and sexuality, rather than just trading it over in a relationship, for some kind of non-existent stability.

As a society, we are pretty happy to watch our heroes eat dirt. Men love Cinderella. They ‘save’ her, until she gets bored of being barefoot and pregnant, or playing the adoring fan, and reminds the men exactly how she managed to put up with washing floors unjustly all day. But what woman hasn’t gone through some kind of ‘adjustment disorder’? We have to play so many different roles, it’s easy to lose track of who you really are. Most women don’t demonstrate the extreme reactions of a Britney, or suffer the house arrest of the Japanese princess. But women are twisted into uncomfortable shapes frequently enough that the troubles of these iconic women should resonate. Our fictions are what we make the world out of; how difficult our world is finding it to live up to the myth.

It’s ironic that Cheney, everyone’s favourite saviour of democracy, just went to visit Japan, hot on the heels of the US government asking the Japanese to apologise for the use of women as sex slaves during World War Two. The Japanese were offended. Maybe he should have really carried interventionism a step further and visited the princess. But what do we do with the spectacle of women everywhere staggering under the weight of the roles society has handed out, calling it choice? At present all we manage is to watch women struggle, and condemn them, with prettily named stones right out of the DSM-IV, and if they are lucky, we might forgive them for letting us down.

Land of bones

This was a winter, and everyone coughed. That’s what it was like. There wasn’t a lot of time for thinking or anything approaching reflection, there was just the cold, and the shut windows covered with condensation on the crowded trains. Looking out at the building works designed to transform London, the largest structure so far an immediate and in your face concrete works, the beauty of the architect’s design was lost beneath the alcohol-drenched sweat that filled the train. Somehow, in the modern studios with slim secretaries and smart cappuccino machines, sheltered from the sound and fury of the urban environment, they surely hadn’t predicted this. Dust. Garbage. The iron slope of the new train bridge already decimated by a dangling group of agile graffiti artists, leaving the mark of their high wire temper as a morning sign for us, the workers of London, looking out grimly from the train as it passed. This was our life, standing on the platform, waiting. Waiting. Smoking. Pretending. And some went East, some went West, for no reason more plausible than chaos theory. Whether we chose our situation, or had it thrust upon us, we had no idea. And maybe, we wouldn’t want to. If you had asked any of us, we couldn’t have told you why we were there, what we hoped to do, or how it had all happened anymore than we could have explained the dirt on the seats, or the angle of the wintry sun, or how many times during an hour we could be likely to cough.

For us, it was just another day and I was trying to take some comfort in belonging to humanity. The four builders across from me, eager for money, come over from Eastern Europe because their expertise in building fast cheap concrete flats made them desirable, even more so than I was, a lowly member of the educated class, were alarmingly close to me. Plaster grimed and skin yellowed from smoking, they related to me not only by their proximity to my seat, but their connection to one of the perks of my job. Flats. New flats, cheap, half share, like the one I was angling to buy, the one would apparently fool me into thinking my job was worth something to the market at large. Apparently someone didn’t think I was watching them tear down the derelict factory every day from the train, the lone lot next to the scrap heap; that I wouldn’t mind living over some toxic waste site. Or having my bijou little terrace overlooking the scrap yard, the one they had somehow neglected to buy in their development fever, with its collection of fierce and dirty looking barking dogs that you could sometimes hear when the doors whooshed open at Homerton. A sorry lot, defending their collection of car doors with alacrity despite their dishevelled state. They thought I wouldn’t notice it was built on the oil-soaked ground of a former factory or that next door was a rotting alley I could have moved into for free with a caravan and no one would have noticed. This urban luxury was supposed to make my role as police teacher more palatable, supposed to make me feel I was doing something worthwhile, something rewarding and rewardable.

Meanwhile, as we passed through Hackney Wick, in the distance stood the towers of Canary Wharf. Masonic and forbidding, they reminded me that what ever I did, it was never going to have the smell of rich carpet and endless halls, silk shirts and new Swiss underwear. It would never be easy like Sunday brunch and hand knotted carpet and pushing the heavy curtains open to another reassuring day. It was never going to be like that again. Instead, life was going to smell of plaster and old brandy on the large floppy tongues of the Polish builders, soot and Persil, yellow rainy dust, hand cream and cheap perfume and beer breath. You could see into their mouths sometimes as they yelled to each other, either unreasonably cheerful or still hung over this early in the morning. The saddest one was the older man who took up two seats, stretching out his injured and inflamed leg, looking both weary and angry at anyone who approached him. With his leg stuck out in front and his grimly determined face that reminded of my mother, he made me pray every morning that she wouldn’t have to work until she could barely walk. His leg was stiff and awkward before him and his dark bushy eyebrows pulled together when he had to rise from his position, won and guarded on the crowded train, when, heaving his ancient leather toolbag onto his shoulder, he struggled his way out of the carriage. I always used to watch, holding my breath, as this progress to the door was so slow and wooden, I felt sure that he was on the verge of finding the door shut before him, and being forced to sit painfully down and try again at the next station. Somehow, he always made it out in time, and after weeks of this, I was no closer to admiring the suffering that he lived with as a daily occurrence. Instead, I kept wondering what he had fled from that made this grim trip that much better.

But then, I often reflected, I could have asked myself the same question. Which misguided concept led me to perch myself here, upon this train, watching the comings and goings of a million people, half of whom at least, I could no longer understand, after happily having chosen a country that spoke my mother tongue. Ha. What a nonsense all my notions of making my way in the world seemed now, and I stood on a quicksand of all the ideas I had once embraced. Here I was, a million miles from the clean crispness of the great Northern Woods, thousands of miles from wolves and pine trees and snow; on the same streets where Jack London had written that one never saw a family in the same place beyond two generations, because they all got the hell out or died. Which was it to be today, death, or another half-life? How much longer could I go on, pretending that I knew what I was doing, when I was just a sandbag between the cultured society and the flotsam, the brownish scum rising on the Bisto of modern British life that potentially threatened everything?

Pretending that the Other was harmless and grateful was as foolish as thinking your new shoes alone would get you past the velvet rope at the club. The original Brits left behind in Canning Town were not pleased that they hadn’t managed to escape to Essex, or that they and their children were now in the minority, in their own country. Their anger matched that of the newcomers who had taken all the promise literally, and were surprised at the little they had to enjoy. Their depression at not achieving what they saw quite plainly on the TV was intended for them, was what both groups had in common, and their frustrations led them down a road of suicidal depression or murder. Which would I lean toward today, myself? Fighting another day? Winning the war, not the battle? Because in this world where chicken bones littered the grease stained concrete sidewalks, going blue and soft after a heavy rain, a small disintegrating danger to be stepped over, beauty and faith were found in small protected pockets, noted and dissolved like a secret code before they were attacked. It was a place where ‘you cunt’ was sounded from the youngest throats a thousand times more often than ‘hello love’; a siren filled street where you could watch a mother kicking her child, her boyfriend looking on; see a gang of young mixed race teens running as fast as they could, brandishing wooden two by fours with nails jutting out; anything, anything was likely to happen. And I counted myself as one of the lucky ones. Where was my bedsit, covered with damp, filled with six fatherless boys all with various stages of psychotic disorder and general dysfunctional behaviour? By comparison, sitting next to the old man form Poland was a pleasure akin to cucumber sandwiches and Pimms on a hot day. I didn’t want either of them, but I wasn’t suffering, after all, was I?

I was stepping over the cracks, and the new crop of gnawed over bones that re-emerged on the pavements, with the smashed glass of the bus shelters, diamond-like scattered, hurt me like I was seeing my own body, sliced open. My relationship with the area was complicated, difficult. Co-dependent, on one side – mine. I was getting addicted to the rush of adrenaline that went along with fighting back, with fear. The feeling that I was seeing something I needed to learn. There were mornings where it was a life that revealed some kind of insanity. Who would willingly do this? I was a teacher, an outsider who belonged if only because I’d learned to hide my apprehension like everyone else. I was watching my step, and getting on with it. Fuck off. Disbelief becoming second skin. Like they all said out there – is it. Not a question. A statement that everything was up to be constantly questioned. The ultimate cynicism, born out of trusting in nothing. Is it.

Looking out the window at the remnants of Victorian houses built overlooking the railway cut, now bijou residences, to the square bungalow style wooden houses, with flat leaking roofs, past the new Tesco in Hackney, real shelter from the ugliness was unlikely.

Child care uncovered - or we are no. 22, we don't try at all...

Here we go, another report on the state of the world, this time through the analysis of children’s lives, done by the very worthy charity Unicef. It’s caused a huge crisis in the UK, due to figuring last in the sweeps at number 22. Children here are worse off than anywhere else in the developed world, with the US one step above. However, little in the US papers mentioned beyond a brief one liner the status of the children in America, choosing instead to focus on the failure of the British government to provide an environment that cared for children. I haven’t had any personal letters yet telling me I chose badly when I came here, but it’s bound to happen.

Ironically, parents reading the New York Times could have discovered how to make snow for themselves at home with a small version of a ski trail snowmaker, which surely would make for happier children. Reading the papers is frequently the emotional equivalent of taking a very strange drug. Some elements are weirdly magnified, and some ideas take on the properties of magical life saving powder; add water, and presto! Things are instantly better. Questioning anything is beyond the power of the advertising driven media, who rely on quick messages to gain the trust of tiredly over sold people. Headlines need to be quick and snappy – Iran, bombs, happiness, failure, the dollar, talks continue, interest rates. Instant snow. It’s like instant white Christmas, and that means instant love, families, simpler times.

The British response to the public acknowledgement of what anyone with eyes to see on the tube at half-term could have told them – the Brits don’t really like children – seems disjointed. One columnist claims that it is no good to be upset – something must be done. But what? Tory oiks claim that it’s Labour’s fault, lack of investment, realistic planning, that sort of thing. Labour says it’s the result of Thatcherite policies that made poor parents of people and focused everyone’s attention on money. The one thing no one seems to be doing, despite the existence of a new website designed to ask children themselves about their own lives, is actually letting the children speak. Or talking to people who spend their entire lives with children, at least during the day – teachers. The other big news about children is being downplayed -the shooting of three boys in South London, all seemingly unrelated, all killed in the last week or so. Somehow, black boys in ghettoized suburbs don’t really come into the debate, which may be part of the problem. There is a deafening silence around what might be the cause of such a horrible tragedy, unless it is to mention that the area has had a great deal of investment. As if that should solve everything. And again, maybe that is a part of the problem.

As a teacher, I see it a little differently. I remember the time I had to bring in my son to work, something I will have to do again next week, as half terms are not lined up, which has been causing me a lot of stress. He was thrilled at the idea of helping out, and made sure every desk had a dictionary and a little note that said ‘welcome’. His enthusiasm and innocence twisted my heart, already corrupted by the lack of respect and long hours that teachers endure. Despite what people say about us deserving whatever we get, due to long holidays, it’s a pretty harsh road to walk, and your own sanity wins out over whatever impulse towards universal good you might have had at the start. I felt the initial thrill I had at the beginning of my training, when it really mattered that I got it right, and the whole business of teaching seemed a mystery to be unravelled, in order to help the whole world. My son apparently felt the same way, privileged in his connection to these students, none of whom he knew. But on the way out, we met up with one of the deputy heads. I introduced my son, and she asked him how he enjoyed being in the school. ‘It was wonderful!’ he cried, ‘I’d like to come back and help out when the kids are here.’ My heart swelled and then sank back down upon seeing the expression upon her face. Her small aging princess face, surrounded by her neat blond highlighted bob became pinched and her eyes grew cold. ‘Oh no’, she said. ‘That’s not possible. No. We are much too busy.’ Nothing more.

She turned away, busy upon whatever task she had set herself, saving a new crop of children from themselves and their lousy environment, out there where the Olympics are the latest sham thrust upon a disbelieving public. But to me she had already proved that she knew nothing about children, and was quite happy to crush their spirits in the endless search for a better bureaucracy. There was no room for a small boy wanting to help, just as there was little room for any enthusiasm. On a practical note, there was no concern for my interests as a parent. Anyhow, as a parent and a teacher, I am an anomaly, an oddity. Most teachers are single, a throwback to the times when female teachers were not allowed to be married. It allows them a free schedule, a chance to not be with children, a chance to see the children as part of their job, rather than part of their lives. There are teachers who do phenomenally well without being parents, and the profession would be poorer without them, especially when so many of them are gay and devote their time to the helping professions because they feel it is the right thing to do, not because it fits in with holidays or provides a meaningful stop on the way to marriage.

But there are others who see children as second-class citizens. Annoyances. Not adults. Not really important. This is shown in different ways, all revealing an awkward psychology as far as adults’ interaction with children is concerned. Sometimes the adults show a permissiveness that allows the worst students a constant stream of treats in order to keep them even vaguely in line, a ‘we are mates’ approach which does not teach them much about respect or boundaries, as other adults are used in a good cop/bad cop scenario where only one adult has the power. Sometimes it is shown by a callous disregard for what is appropriate around children. I’ve been in a pub twice now with my son where people thought it was necessary to swear either at him or over him. Why is it necessary to say ‘you’re a cunt’ to someone while sitting next to a child? I’m not sure, although the last time it happened, I overheard the man saying ‘but it’s a pub’ to his friend, who seemed shocked that his English friend had said ‘I don’t give a fuck what you do’ directly to a nine year old boy telling him what he was about to go and do. The shocked friend was from Ireland, so perhaps that’s a hint about the deeper instincts of the English. Maybe not. But I don’t see the friendly gestures that have been standard any time we go to France, the ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ idea that means any child, all children are potentially wonderful and worthy of being loved, just for the fact of being an innocent out in a big scary world, a small person just trying to figure things out, not all that different from the larger versions. No one has ever hugged my son here, while in France, he was routinely picked up and swung around by friendly adults, to their mutual delight. Here in the UK, I have the impression, just as in America, that children are best not seen or heard, unless it’s to show how the children are mimicking their elders, in terms of money or sophistication. Innocence is a debased offering; we don’t want to see what we have lost; only what we have corrupted. Maybe that’s why less than half of children trust their friends. Could their parents say any different?

Unfeeling bitch

Well I promised myself I would write a blog every day that I was off on holiday. Some sort of present!

Today has been very strange in a way. I was able to take my child to school, which I usually cannot do, having to go to work. I should accept this as a matter of course, but I can’t. And now I see very clearly that I am missing time that I can never replace, with this stupid work thing. My son wanted me to stay in the room, but I said I had to leave. I’m not sure why. I felt as though I was in the way, as if the teacher needed to get started. But I think the real reason was that it was just too painful, or too pleasurable, to be able to stand there, and talk to the teacher and see his little class room, things I never get to imagine, rushing off as I do. And what kind of life is that for either of us? It’s pathetic. I should be able to stay home, or work some sort of flexi time so that I could see him at school. If I had been clever, I would have captured a good husband so I could have stayed home.

But no no, I had to have morals and standards. I had to be independent. And now where has it landed me? I can’t even take my child to school. Why did I do this to myself? There’s no way to make it better, and cleaning my bathtub this morning only added insult to injury. Other women managed to play this game a lot better. I’ve really screwed up and I still can’t manage it properly.

I said good bye to my son, and ran off. I don’t think I even focused on him. Why do I spend so much time trying not to think, not to focus, not to pay attention? Is it just the pain factor? He wanted my attention, and I couldn’t even manage that. What a loser. I try to look as though I know what I am doing, but I don’t. Not at all. And now he is at school, and I am here, and what am I doing?

All he wanted me to do was stay, and all I could think about was keeping up appearances. I am just sad.

In a dream world, I would quit my job, and take him to school every day. I don’t know how the rent would get paid, or who would keep us in food or clothing, but sometimes I don’t even care. He just wanted me there in the room with him, and he gave me a big hug, and did I respond? No, I just sort of pushed him away. I think there is something seriously wrong with me. And what should I do about it? I would like to spend the week off fixing it, if possible. When you think of all the things I don’t even know about my own child. What his class room looks like filled with children. Where he sits. What he does in the morning on the way to school. It’s ridiculous. What kind of stupid life is this? And why am I unable to show any love, or to receive any? I just run off and hide and try to go through the motions. That’s it, going through the motions. I spend my entire life talking crap and lying to others and to myself. And this is called being organised. Ha. Did I even look at him as I left? How does that make him feel? Who do I think I am kidding? I am messed up. And now I am lonely and alone. I deserve it. I reject normal life all the time, no wonder I am the way I am.

Did I even look at him properly as I left? Do I have any feelings left at all? What was I thinking? Just guilt. Do I belong there, should I leave him behind, what will people think? Did I wash my hair this morning? Really. This is the level of thinking I bring to my daily life. No wonder I am on the losing end of things. And to think I hurt my son. I rejected him. He hugs me, and I push him away. I am deranged, seriously. I spend all my life trying not to feel. And now I’ve just noticed, that I can’t feel any more. Except I can. I feel pain and anger, mostly at myself, for being so cold and unfeeling to everyone. I just can’t do it anymore.

The end of being in denial. Except I don’t really see what good it will do me, except the wonderful experience of feeling more pain, more failure. Can I change any of this? I don’t know. But I don’t know why I’ve just shut down. It’s eerie. I just want to give him love. So why can’t I? Or why didn’t I? Maybe that is what is going to change now, my own relationship with what I know and what I want. Work work work. As if that was going to solve anything. A teacher spends more time with my son than I do. Is that right? Hardly.

And here is the garbage truck. Well they can take my outdated ideas about who I am and who is watching me with it. What can I do to change all this? I suppose the first thing is to actually pay attention to what is going on around me. When I feel pain, instead of pushing it away, I should acknowledge that it is there. Stop trying to pretend it isn’t happening. The same for anything good, should I happen to feel it. Let others see me happy, for once. My child. Hugged me. I need to feel everything, and the trouble is that everything hurts.

Dark days

I woke last night to the sound of thunder…it’s a line from a song from the late 70s or early 80s, but last night it was literally true. Sadly, unlike the song, which always made me think of summer nights and thinking about chance, and change, and memories, this thundering reminder only woke me up to consider that only a few days ago it had been snowing. There was shouting outside last night as well, possibly due to the rain, and someone at some point threw a bottle. Why they did so, is anyone’s guess. But these considerations are secondary, a preamble to a larger questioning. And this is it – why are things going so badly wrong? Not for everyone, as the saying would have it, it’s an ill wind that blows no one any good. At this very moment, I know people on holiday – I’m one of them – and they are having fun. There the resemblance ends.

At this moment in time, I feel as though I have woken up from yet another in a series of strange dreams which have led me astray, and been designed to hide the truth. A truth which a quick glance at my sister’s Vogue magazines, left behind as she went off to begin a new life elsewhere, will confirm. That there are people out there actually enjoying life. They have money, and friends. They own islands, and have managed to convince the world of their own special brand of madness. Of course these are extreme examples. But when you think of the mass hysteria brought on by the notion that if one were rich, everything would be fine, it doesn’t seem so extreme anymore. Dreams are for people with enough time and money to consider them a possibility. The rest of us…well, it’s hard to say. Why do we carry on? What makes us think that this spring is worth waiting for, that it will be any different from the previous disappointments?

At this point, after a week of having the flu, and many years of trying to convince myself that I know what I am doing, both health and intelligence have hit some sort of crucial wall, where anything but the hard truth seems an insult. And the truth seems to consist of some terrible family curse, designed to bring unhappiness and poor decision making skills with it. Of course, it could be worse. There are people in much worse situations. But I wonder if they feel the weight of the family disaster behind them, quite as strongly as I do at this moment. Badly chosen partners, lack of self control, money spent ill-advisedly, trust put in the wrong people, an unbearable sense that things will work out, when it is patently obvious that they won’t.

I think this all means that I have lost faith. Which is bad.

I’ve gone away and rested a bit after writing this. And it occurs to me that this is the root of all evil. This loss of faith. This endless insecurity, sure that everyone can see loss and aloneness. All our holidays have become encomiums to the absence of what it is that we should be celebrating. So at Christmas, we have suicides. At Valentine’s we have hatred and war – oh wait, I forgot – we have those all the time now. Those with something are sure that they are being hounded by those without, and children suddenly find themselves hounded from lesson to lesson, desperate to maintain their slippery hold on their social station, while those who traded money for morals quite successfully, get on with the business of impressing the world. The rest of us get on as best we can.

But funnily enough, after having my moment of reflection, I decided my biggest strength was going to be not giving in. I wasn’t going to let some background of madness dictate my future. That way lies madness. It’s perfectly possible to see how poor choices make for an uncomfortable bed to lie in. The difference is in whether you give in, accept defeat and the fact that you will never be a size zero, or a millionaire, as the only defining moments of your life. Or whether you go against the editorials, keep fighting and refuse to have mediocrity as your only goalpost. I have a million faults, and I’ve done a million stupid things. I probably will keep doing them, or at least new ones, idiocies that will make me cringe upon reflection. Like … oh never mind.

Isn’t that the essence of being alive? Forward, etc… And with those brave and foolish words, I will do my best to forget yet another Valentine’s without flowers, an endless parade of worries, and flaws, and try to see something beautiful in life. The chattering classes aren’t making it easy for me, and neither are the poverty stricken. I will have to look further afield for inspiration. Or maybe just within, as I cling to those moments where I actually believe you can overcome adversity. Perhaps some people will read this and decide I actually must be mad, trying to believe that my life holds anything of interest to anyone, and that my initial reaction, of doubt and fear, was the correct response. Maybe this instalment will be completely without merit. But if it is, then it should only show that I won’t give up, I won’t pretend that everything I do is perfect, and that at least, I continue trying, if nothing else. So. There.

Ah maturity.

Reader, I married him.

Another divorce dream. Whoever thought that mere separation was enough to effect some sort of psychic change that would allow you to begin a new way of life, well, they were wrong.

Since the papers have been filed, I have been treated to an entire elaborate set of revisionist dreams. I thought I was past all this. Not so, says my subconscious. Last night’s dream had these interesting components: my chest of drawers filled with the other woman’s old Converse sneakers; a group of people who were saying how nice she was; my house taken over by these people, leaving me with nothing; a group of casual visitors to the grounds that had to be flushed out and sent on their way, one of whom protested by sending his large Doberman to jump on me, sniffing at my face; an outdoor café filled with the trays of empty strawberry tins and two foster children, heading to their new life in America; and finally, getting into a car that was too small for me, with the ex and my child and a load of baggage, and grumpily moving off.

Now, I’m well aware that one of these images alone would probably fund at least a year’s worth of mortgage payments for a lucky (or hapless) shrink. But so many! It’s a spa detox of the mind. I can only guess at the underlying messages within most of these. But there is a theme, oh yes; I can see a definite theme. Things that belong to me are taken over, and images of happiness and caring (dogs, strawberries) turn into images of last suppers and death and fear.

Ok, so good so far. But what does this oceanic sweep of dream world negativity mean for me overall? Is it that, now, process in hand, unstoppable (well, it could be stopped, but who wants to?), the reality of it all is sinking in? Not so much a case of ‘oh, what are my chances for happiness at my age and situation, etc. etc.’, but rather ‘that was my chance at happiness, and now it’s filled with old shoes’. I know some men who, bleak in their marriages, surround themselves with other couples, all equally unhappy. They console each other with their greater financial security and exude socially permissible sanctimonious smugness. Sometimes in moments of weakness, the very brave hint at an emptiness threatening the edifice. But for most of the time it’s a universal condemnation of those who would give in to an emotional wasteland. Love! They can only say it pityingly. Love! They cry from the rooftops, it’s a mug’s game! For children and those whose faith remains intact! Or as someone I know used to put it, ‘the triumph of hope over experience’.

However, I think there could be a flaw in this casual hypocrisy. After all, they all stumbled their way to the altar, or at least to joint bank accounts. And they didn’t risk the afterwards that such a seismic break creates. What else haven’t they risked, complacent in their dismissal of others not as fortunate?

Let me put this another way. I asked a class if they thought ‘Romeo and Juliet’ was a love story. Of course, they all agreed. But it has a very unhappy ending, I said to them, it’s a tragedy. There’s death, despair, destruction. Yet the world sees it as a great love story. Do you think Shakespeare was trying to put people off grand passions and falling in love?

One of them put up his hand, glumly. ‘He couldn’t, miss’, he said with all the world-weary intonation of an old man shaking his head over a cup of tea in the caf, reading the paper. ‘They’d just keep doing it. You can’t stop people from going after love.’ A few of his cohort mumbled their assent. No one disagreed, however unhappy they seemed about the prospect.

So then, love - the inevitable torment. Looking at it from their point of view, my story actually becomes the symbol of love. It’s not the white wedding, which inevitably leads one’s thoughts to its inverse operation, and it’s vast capacity for deceit, mostly of the self. It’s the divorce, symbolic of our ‘going after love’, and giving us, at least some of us, the ones without children and a few too many grey hairs, the chance to go after it again. We lick our wounds and begin yet again, caught in society’s thrall, forced to pantomime an indefatigable taste for not giving up.

What if we want to give up? What if we read Shakespeare, and say, ‘no thanks mate, no tortures of the soul for me’. Look at Macbeth, Hamlet, Romeo. All heroes whose tragic flaw was that they let their secret (or not so secret) desires lead them. Whether Shakespeare was observing, or cautioning, is finally incidental. Personally, I’m tired of tortures of the soul. I’m hoping that all these dreams are a catharsis of sorts. I am shocked at how angry I am in the night, how I pull out drawers of shoes in front of wine drinking revellers, and dump them. How I admire a pair of new high heels, then, realising they are hers, throw them across the room. How I tell Doberman owners I’m not frightened of them, how I cry over the desecration of my belongings, and look at the ex with contempt, while letting him drive.

I met a woman at a party over Christmas. Somehow we got onto the subject of relationships, and I told her a morsel of my own story. She was not happy with the emotion I was still displaying. I only found this out later from our mutual friend who was giving the party. Apparently, she had declared that I was still too wrapped up with the old relationship, that I was bitter, and I would never be able to move on, because potential suitors would see that. Hadn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t. My entire emotional life summed up and dismissed. My feelings in the matter judged, and judged wanting. I hadn’t ‘picked myself up and got back in the race, that’s life’. Maybe I did seem like an old dog, sitting in the corner, licking old wounds, until the source of the pain was self-inflicted. Maybe.

But what I see are people that expect me to act as though nothing ever happened, as though I’m a clean slate, waiting again to be written upon. But I am stubborn. I insist upon bringing my battle scars with me. I’d like to think they give me some dignity, separate me from the hordes of horny young things, battling it out over packets of imported crisps on Australia Day, eager to hook up with the hotties, and finally with almost anyone, just to make a night of it. And from those who chose once, chose best, chose wisest, and don’t question it any further, lest the whole creation collapse around them. I’d like to think of myself as more of a Colonel Brandon figure, wounded, kind, not the most exciting rake at the ball, but ultimately one of the best. Of course, the colonel was Jane Austen’s dream, whose failure to make an appearance in real life possibly led to her early demise. That’s no good. Or maybe I’m just too susceptible, too open to interpretation, too quick to accept the blame for my lack of second act.

I can’t be bothered to refute or discuss these claims. Or wear my medals. Or wait. Forget it.

Table for one, please.

Lamb chops

As I stood there, before the butcher’s window, the sharp stained odour of blood and sawdust in my nose, I knew I was lying. It didn’t occur to me all at once, but the idea, once begun, possessed a kind of elemental force that captured my innocent attention, let loose by chance upon the evening. I was drawn by the red and white curls of perfectly formed lamb chops, 15 pounds a kilo, meek and waiting for the ultimate conclusion of the dinner table. I said how nice they looked, how I didn’t really eat lamb but maybe just this once.

The smell was strong in my nose, as I tried manfully to find something among this carnage that appealed to me. It all looks so good, said my friend, and I nodded, unable to voice even a small part of what I felt, knowing anyway that it was a waste of time. Chickens, round and white. Racks of lamb, with little white socks and frills. Roasts, also 15 pounds a kilo, waiting to be put in some expensive John Lewis pot, one given as a present at a wedding that could only seal artfully two destinies, and lead them to their rightful place upon the hill. A basement kitchen, reclaimed from the servants, briskly yellow and white, Wellington boots in all sizes lined up, straw mats, flowers in vases, Corian countertops, all trace of renovations eliminated.

There was a smaller yellow chicken as well that caught my eye. Corn fed, it appealed to my colonial sense of what a chicken should look like, unaware that chickens were any other colour than yellow before I began my exile, over 20 years ago. It was wrapped in plastic though, and it looked sterile and store-bought amongst the gaudy and extravagant display of flesh laid out for my approval. Within, there were sausages and chopped meat for the standard child’s meal of Spag Bol that I was expected to produce at regular intervals, cementing my membership to this clan of proper meals, and things properly done. However, I had already forgotten any purpose I might have had in stopping there, caught as I was in my lie, denying both the twitching of my nose and my vain summary of the shapes of red flesh in the display window. It does all look good, I repeated again. Should we get something? Again, another lie. 15 pounds a kilo on one meal was an extravagance, unnecessary of course, but almost tempting for the sheer theatre of it. I am a person that spends 15 pounds a kilo on lamb chops for dinner. I do go home, uncork a good bottle of Bordeaux, listen to Radio 4, and decline Latin verbs for the greater education of my child, while listening to his attempts to climb the first ladder of success, the music grading system.

It was such a good dream, that it held me there, caught in my lie, even to myself (it’s the money that had jinxed it, not even the overpoweringly warm metallic smell of blood had managed to keep me from my fantasy). I had noticed there was a problem, but I tried to ignore the sense of worry, convincing myself that it didn’t exist, and credit cards could surely pay for one dinner, and music lessons could be bought and I was here, wasn’t I?

Never mind the larger fables I had armed myself against. The loneliness of modern life, that trite cliché, disregarded at all times except perhaps another Saturday night. The fact of the divorce papers finally going through, nothing remarkable, certainly expected, and mostly desired. There was really no reason it should fall into the category of all things avoided. Except maybe that the girlfriend had been clearly heard in the background, assisting with the answering of questions in response to the court’s summons. Only a simple series of yes or no questions, similar in their demand of right or wrong in the way ‘have you ever been treated for depression’ is not what you tick when answering health questionnaires or online dating surveys. But there she was, in the background, really nothing more than the dot on the i to the whole process that had brought the ex and I together and apart. We had spoken on the phone briefly the summer before, and she had mentioned her desire to help out the ex, give him direction; her hope that he would finally find himself. I looked upon the litter of the last several years. The remains of the dinner party, the next morning, the fine glassware red stained at the bottom, the crisp napkins soiled and soft, thin porcelain smeared with fat. Uneaten morsels gently congealing in heaps. What was once a good idea turned to detritus, shrunken and dismal in its waiting to be rectified and restored.

I stared at the meats, willing one of them to seem like a good idea. But not even the lie was working. I saw a fortune squandered and anticipation discontinued, then only blackness before my eyes, as I closed them, as I turned away. The gaily lit window, promising home and warm dinners. The gay cadence of her voice in the background, obviously joyous that this rupture was about to be made final, so that she could begin her resurrection properly. The tiny lights upon the lampposts, Edwardian and festive in their memory of Christmas and their struggle against the darkness.

All was good. The paving stones still old and uneven, the fairy costumes in the window still waiting for doting fathers to twirl their occupants, the pub still pulling pints in its yellow smoky comfort, the white linen tablecloths and candles, too early to decorate Saturday night diners. All was fine. Money was saved, dinner would be had, tea would be brewed, bedtime would come. Nothing was out of place, or unexpected.

Only the memory of the lie, hung bitter behind the air, and followed me down the hill, colouring the evening air, like the quick cold fading of sunlight in a winter garden.