Rosetinted

I think I have a plan. It is a vague one, but I just about see the outline in the smog. My life has been devoid of plans for a while. Quite some time ago, I had a fixed long-term plan and it fell through, not dramatically - it quietly crumbled without so much of a care from anyone, except for me. It was, as is often the case of plans that crumble quietly, a life changing plan and its demise caused my grief alone. Sadness held alone is a lonely affair. Perhaps I didn't mind, at least not as strongly as I first felt and with the joy of hindsight - I was quietly relieved that the plan had been wrong all along. The aftermath of a plan failing is that you live in a state of loss, feeling awkward and embarrassed that you ever afforded yourself the belief, time and money to pursue a goal that led nowhere. It is hard to lift your head high when your  self has been so wounded.  But time ticks on and you have a choice, accept your lot or continue to tug at that string that things as the...

This week my mind has been occupied with my inadequacies. It is confession time and here is my confession; as a wannabe writer I possess only rudimentary knowledge of grammar. Allow me to elucidate-I know what sounds alright but have no knowledge of why, and if you asked me to label the grammatical devises I use, I would not have: one, single, clue. In fact as I write now I am wracked with the self-consciousness of the 'non-grammatical' class. You may inwardly sigh and tut (here she goes again), but my lack of grammatical knowledge has always felt like part of the thing that we dare not speak of - class divide. Competent writers can dissect text, like a surgeon's knife through flesh, identify and classify, diagnose and be part of the cure- at least that is the message I have received. And because I have never been able to dissect text: only like or dislike, follow the journey the author sets out or get hopelessly lost- I thought that writing was beyond me. I heard another r...

My inner voice is speaking to me quite clearly. It says, and this is no whisper, get any old shit out or this gig is up. This is my fourth draft since August. Things seemed different back then, in some ways there was a hope that we might learn to live with whatever this thing is and find some sort of normal. I suspected that we would be living in a hinterland and with no end in sight but I was feeling my oats for my new found love of the written word and my drive to seek out words seemed like a wall of protection surrounding me. I did not believe for one instance that this time, I would be gaping dry- mouthed with nothing to say- this time was different than the others, this was the first time, for example, I had lived and written through a global pandemic. But if there is one thing I have learned, you are who you are and real change is a position hardly ever won. Those who change have the fortitude to chip away at the bedrock and foundations - not chosen but left behind; they don'...

Alongside the easing of lockdown, my time has been punctuated by small efforts (I am currently trying to practice Daily Yoga and cut out alcohol) and life-affirming trips into nature, all this between the hours I wander from room to room in the throes of I 'Should be doing something'. I have been doing something, I have been busy disentangling myself away from the cold-comfort of Facebook and Twitter, at least I have made the step of removing the apps from my phone. Of course I still have access, both are accessible on my laptop and from time to time I pop in to look at what other people are doing. We all know by now that these places are not without a health warning and as much as people make me laugh, a percentage make me long for the climatic disaster that now seems inevitable (is the end of human race really such a horror?) When I am not being driven to nihilistic musings, I am led into deep thought about other things (realising that perhaps these humans are not all bad). C...

I like Charles Bukowski. When I read his books as an early 20 something, with the mind of an early teen, I admired many of his characteristics. I liked his clipped sentences and simple vocabulary. I liked that he worked and lived in mundanity and made his observations compelling. I liked that he wasn't afraid of his disdain of everything and everyone (I on the other hand was being eaten alive by my own).  I liked his ambition and his daily dedication to two things I liked: drinking and writing. Most of all I liked that he was the archetypal writer: difficult, ugly, and alcoholic. His talent transcending background or opportunity or trends. I read a fair few of his books - Ham on Rye, Factotum, Post Office and perhaps Women. It was comforting and a source of hope that his success came so late on in his life, after being laid so low by the day in and day outness of boring jobs.  I also really liked the fact I was reading Bukowski whilst other young women were immersed in Austin ...

It is now officially the summer holidays, the time of year many of us look forward to, some of us (teachers, politicians and a few blessed others) have a decent amount of time where we don't work and god knows I look forward to it. Only, this year it is a little different - I had some time where I did not work at school, followed by a half-term of being a child-carer more than a teacher. So I wonder, why did I feel that I needed the holidays so much? Why at the end of that paltry half term was I so bone tired and utterly exhausted and why does that feeling continue?  Perhaps, I have gotten accustomed to doing little for a state payout, 'addicted' to it, as some politician somewhere has suggested. Yes, it is dreadful that the less middle class amongst us, who have been working regularly since 13 should want a rest from it all- how very dare us. Our job is to work incredibly hard until our old age, enjoy a few years of pootling around Morrison's cafe and trundling boxed t...

It has been very difficult to write lately, you see I have unintentionally returned to a childhood state of fear and I know it is through no one's fault except my own. Whilst I struggle with this burden  I have rendered myself mute. After years of inwardly complaining that it is external factors that have silenced me, I have in effect put a rather large sticking plaster over my own gob. It was never my intention to turn my lockdown journals into political rants and I would rather not become too opinionated; I thought I would be the champion of light entertainment, teatime magazine posts with the odd dad joke and breezy life observations; all positioned through a rose tinted lens. Alas, as this confounded pandemic has gone on I have found myself on the precipice of something new and I fear the leap I could take. I am under no illusions - I know that right now, not one person is asking me to write my life observations and this is nothing more than a hobby. I think the few I have gath...