Category: writing

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Going Through the Motions

Going Through the Motions

Get up and do what you always do,
even though your head is full
of all the times it hasn’t worked before;
of all the reasons why it doesn’t work;
of all the many ways it might go wrong;
of all the problems you can’t imagine
until they happen.

You want to run away and hide,
but you’ve tried that before,
and it never worked
so why should it now?

This is life,
this is how it works.
Stumble on,
from one day to the next
and maybe you’ll
get away with it
for one more day.

Linda Rushby 18 August 2020

There was a post on the FB dyspraxia group asking how many members write, and what we write. I started thinking about poems I’ve written down the years which relate to my dyspraxia (even when I didn’t know that’s what it was). They tend to be the ones I don’t share much, because I don’t expect people I know to understand them or like the fact that I’ve written them about myself. The two I first thought of were ‘Cahos’, from 2005 (oh, look at that typo again – I may make that the actual title of the poem from now on) and ‘The Awkward One’ (2017, I think).

I saw the post at bedtime, and started going through my Google drive from my phone looking for the two I’ve mentioned and to see how many more I could find (a very bad idea when I was supposed to be going to sleep). And then when I got up and was doing my morning routine, I came up with the one above.

I could probably fill a whole book, but I doubt it would be very popular. From one point of view, these poems are seething with self-pity, self-loathing and shame – which is why I often keep them to myself. On the other hand, they are also searingly honest, full of pain, sadness, regret, frustration and barely suppressed anger. Both of those descriptions sum up my underlying emotional landscape a lot of the time.

The anger in particular WAS COMING OUT A LOT IN MY THERAPY SESSIONS towards the end of last year (oops, must’ve hit the caps lock without noticing, but that also seems quite appropriate!) I suppose my current task is to learn how to deal with it without turning it onto myself – incredibly hard and stressful, but I am trying.

One way of doing that is to have routines and stick to them even when I really don’t feel like it. Yesterday I skipped my weekly yoga-in-the-park session because I convinced myself it would rain – but then it didn’t. And I felt bad for making that an excuse for my lack of commitment. So I’m trying to deal with that.

I heard a podcast of the TED Radio Show on BBC R4Extra yesterday, about choice and making decisions. I need to listen to it again, then maybe I’ll have something to say about it.

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Foxes in the Night

Two nights ago I went to bed leaving the side door open – not by accident, but because I didn’t know where my cat was, and I suspected she might still be outside (this was the last night before the heatwave broke). There’s no way for anyone to get to the side door without going through multiple gardens and over connecting fences and walls, so I wasn’t unduly worried about security. I usually try to get her to stay in at night, but I’d been out in the dark garden for a few minutes calling her name, and I just wanted to get to bed, so for once I left the door open.

Not long after I’d dropped off, I woke up to sounds of scuffling and unearthly screeching. I went back down again and this time found her on one of the kitchen chairs, so I closed the door, happy to know she was safe, and went back to bed.

I slept again, and the next time I woke, Miko was sitting on the bed and staring at the window, and the foxy scuffling noises were much louder and closer. I went over to the window and watched a shape or shapes in the shadows under the wall at the end of the garden, running back and forth and calling. Then it came out onto the middle of the lawn, where the light was a bit better and I could see it more clearly, running a few steps, rolling over on the ground, jumping up and running again, and so on. It all looked very weird, and I wondered if there was something wrong with it – could it have been poisoned? Then I remembered my daughter’s dog once fishing some cat poo out of the litter tray and rolling in it all over the front room carpet – the behaviour looked very similar.

I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I read some more of the book I mentioned, the one where someone is killed 50% in, far enough for them to appear alive again at 60%. This didn’t surprise me – though I had thought they’d stay dead for a bit longer – maybe till 75-80%. That’s an advantage of a first-person narrator – you can show their grief because at that point they genuinely believe the person is dead, and hence make it appear more convincing.

I’m still enjoying it, although there are a few odd time inconsistencies – like the post lady turning up just before dark. The detailed references to various parts of London which I’m not familiar with sound quite convincing, but the casual mentions of frost and snow, as though they’re normal in winter, make me wonder whether the author has actually lived in London during the last thirty years.

I keep thinking about plots which are written to that formula which I’ve heard about a lot of times this year, and I’m reminded of a book I read earlier, just before lockdown.

Maybe I’ll finish reading it today.

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Along the Way

Back again.

This does feel like a chore. I seem to have slipped back into that demotivated state where I really don’t want to do anything. Maybe it’s the heat – doesn’t help, that’s for sure. That’s quite an odd phrase for me to use: ‘for sure’. Slipping back thirty-odd years into Dallas-speak – maybe it’s the heat – though it’s nowhere near as hot as it was there, but then nobody went outdoors at this time of year, they stayed inside and froze in the air-conditioning.

This morning, doing my exercises in the spare room with the window open, I felt stifled. Usually I have a high tolerance for heat, but this is getting even me down.

Taoism – must’ve been in a pretentious mood the day I mentioned it. How about Existentialism? Let’s throw that into the mix.

My yoga teacher said (a while ago now, must be, because we were in the Community Centre at the time, not the park), that the difference between fate and destiny is that Destiny is the true purpose of your life, what you should be doing if you allow everything to happen as intended (by whom? The Universe, or God, or whoever). But Fate is what happens to you anyway if you’re not following your Destiny. I liked that, I thought it was a nice distinction, even though I don’t believe there is such a thing as a ‘True Purpose’ to the Universe that underlies everything that happens. Why should that be? I suppose, to my ‘left brain’ (if we want to go back to that cliché) it’s quite clever, because it allows an ‘out’, as positive-thinking based philosophies often do: ‘Oh well, things didn’t turn out the way you wanted or expected, but that’s because you didn’t want it deeply enough, or you didn’t believe in it enough, or because the Universe has a different plan for you, which you can’t see right now, but one day you’ll see why it happened this way.’

Looking back over life, or history, it’s easy to see the Way that brought us here, the turning points, the (sometimes) tiny events that can trigger enormous consequences. We look back, and we construct a pattern (because that’s what humans do), and we can see that, well, that had to happen for this to be the way things are now. But we can’t know what would have happened if that point hadn’t turned, or had turned in a different direction – we can speculate, perhaps, but we can never know.

The example that just popped into my head wasn’t ‘tiny’ at the time – in fact, I’ve always thought of it as a tragedy, until just recently: the fact that my grandmother was widowed with five children at the age of forty – but if she hadn’t been, she wouldn’t have moved from Manchester to Cleethorpes, and my parents would never have met – pretty fundamental, from my point of view (and my children’s and grandchildren’s).

More along this thought path another day, perhaps.

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#amwriting, #notwriting – What is the point?

I was quite surprised earlier this week to discover that I was attempting to write 500 words daily as far back as April 2005 – six months before I even started blogging – and possibly even earlier than that (I haven’t gone digging any further back).

Having said that, I just checked the oldest of the clutch of backup CDs that I dug out the other day – dated 2 November 2004 – on which I found a folder called ‘Journal’, containing another folder called ‘October’. I opened the file from 1 October and the first para was as follows:

“Friday, 01 October 2004 There was an interview on Radio 4 last night with Grahame Greene’s biographer, apparently GG used to set himself targets of writing 500 words at a session, don’t suppose what he wrote was drivel, though.”

Somehow the use of the word ‘drivel’ suggests to me that I’d already been writing that journal for some time – I’m not sure any of it’s been preserved for posterity – though there are earlier paper journals lying around. I remember buying A4 lined Pukka Pads from a cheap stationers in Bedford which has long since gone out of business. But I definitely started writing daily at the beginning of 2000.

Well, all that was what I wrote on Saturday, until I got a phone call from a friend asking for help with uploading the current Southsea Storytellers group anthology (‘Flights and Fancies’) to Kindle. As usual, there were a few annoyances where what appeared ok in MS Word didn’t look so good when uploaded, but I went to see him and we managed to sort them out between us (apart from the placing of images on the page, which never works, even in professionally published books). Always another learning opportunity.

When I got back at lunchtime, I didn’t feel like resuming this post, and yesterday I decided to go out for breakfast before going to writing group (which used to be my habit on Sunday mornings). The place where we now meet, by the beach, is different from where we used to, and a cafe en route, which just happens to be one of my favourites, only reopened last week – seemed like a good excuse to skip blogging.

This morning I didn’t want to write about anything at all, but as I’d already got a couple of hundred words from Saturday, I thought I could add to that, and now I’ve done another two hundred justifying why I’ve missed the last two days, I’m on the home straight.

Does this idea of setting a quota every day help at all? I really don’t know. I can feel myself moving towards not writing anything again. Some mornings it just feels so stressful, but it’s not usually so bad once I get started – like everything in life. But once again it raises the perennial question of whether there is any point or value in writing like this, and I honestly just don’t know the answer to that.  

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Tell Me the Old, Old Story

I think I surfaced just about bang on sunrise this morning: 5:40. I went to the window and saw the pink glow creeping over the house roofs, then left the gap in the curtains and went back to bed, watching the colour briefly suffusing the wall. At least it’s sunny – well, it was for most of yesterday too – the rain didn’t last long.

Am I feeling any more sunny this morning? Maybe. Yesterday did not turn out to be a good day. I spent most of the morning digging through old laptops, archived files and a set of data CDs and DVDs which I burnt as part of a back-up system around 2005 and 2006 (amazed myself by finding them, although I knew I’d seen them somewhere recently – well, in the last three years at least). I was looking for photos – a specific photo, in fact – of my cat from October 2005, when we first got her, because yesterday was her fifteenth birthday and I wanted to make a post about it on Facebook, with then-and-now pictures. I did it partly because I suspect she won’t be around to see another birthday, and I am preparing myself for the inevitable letting go, but also because her entry into my life was such a bizarre turning point – and yesterday I not only found the background to her name, which I’d saved in one of those fifteen-year-old files, but my journal entry for the morning of the day we brought her home – before I knew what a shit-storm I was initiating. And that photograph (on one of the back-up CDs), which featured, ten days later, in the first blog post I ever wrote, on a blog called ‘Husband or Cat?’ on a platform which no longer exists.

I could tell that story again. Should I? There are people who know it already – at least one of whom might even be reading this – in essence, at least, even if not in detail. But the details are still there, still documented, still accessible. It’s an odd story, full of drama, and passion, in its way, with a beginning far too implausible for fiction, and an ending… how did it end? Well, I guess – at least, as I’ve said before about all the world-churning choices I’ve made in the last fifteen years, if I hadn’t done what I did, I would never have known how things would turn out if I did, now would I?

I suppose that’s what fiction’s for – to explore the other side of the ‘what if’ – but I don’t have the energy or inspiration for fiction. Maybe that’s why I was compelled to make the choices I did – because it was the only way of finding out? When I think of the dreams and expectations I started with, it’s true that none of them quite worked out as I thought they would, but they shaped my life nonetheless.

I was going to write about writing advice – and Taoism. Another time, maybe.

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Monday Morning

Back here again. Why? Because half the time I swear I’ve given up for good and then one morning I think I might try again. Just this once. On the understanding that it’s the same old nonsense and, basically, a complete waste of my time writing and yours (whoever you are) for reading it.

But we both still have a chance. You can stop right here – or I could, in which case you wouldn’t have the chance either way, because obviously I wouldn’t bother to post this. But I probably won’t – stop, that is. Though with another potential 400 words… Who knows?

It’s nine o’clock now (I went to the Co-op before starting) and it’s Monday. Does that mean I can play music without worrying about disturbing the neighbours? There again, they might work shifts, for all I know.

Okay, now I’m playing Roxy Music’s ‘Flesh and Blood’, that being the first cassette I pulled out of the shoebox at random that I haven’t already transferred to the PC. Still haven’t done anything about replacing the stylus on my turntable.

Reached the second track, ‘Oh Yeah’, and the sound quality is pretty awful. I have the original album somewhere, so if I get my finger out and do something about that stylus, I can play that. But I still feel a bit wary about playing these old albums – they’ve been kept for all these years and moved from place to place, and maybe it’s all been a waste of time because they’re ruined anyway.

Next track, ‘Same Old Scene’, isn’t much better.

How do I manage to do anything? Repetition, routine, and constant self-bullying. I bullied myself into going to the Co-op this morning. I bullied myself into putting the shopping away when I got back, and starting a ‘to-do’ list. The weight of the things I don’t do is always in my head, because I’m always thinking about them, except the times when I let myself off and sit in the sun or listen to the radio and/or crochet. Or else I’m thinking about other things, worse things, that I’ve read or heard or people have said or done to me that make me angry or sad or hopeless.

I think constantly about these things, but never do anything – worse, the thinking itself is completely aimless and futile, it’s not even as if by thinking I ever produce a coherent plan of action which I then proceed to complete. Except – well, I did start making that to-do list. If I completed some of those things, I suppose I’d be happier. But a more reliable way of becoming happier is by quietening the thinking – and the way to do that is by doing things that make me happy directly – like sitting in the sun, listening to the radio, and/or crocheting – all of which I may do later after I’ve had breakfast.

The second side of the album sounds better than the first one did.

Think it’s time for breakfast.

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Surprise Visitor

I had a lovely surprise yesterday afternoon. I was sitting in the garden when there was a knock on the door, which surprised me a little, because although I was expecting my daughter and the grandkids, it was a bit early considering she’d messaged me not long before to say they were in McDonald’s at Petersfield services – and also I’d left the door unlocked, and usually the kids just barge in when they get here. I was even more surprised when I opened the door and saw her brother waiting to be let in. I knew they were trying to meet up here while she was staying (it’s his birthday today), but apparently there was an email and two texts which I’d managed not to see, saying that he was coming, but that his wife was staying home with the two dogs. I must be getting even scattier than I thought I was.

Anyway it was lovely to have the four of them here, it was almost nicer in a way that it was just us without their other halves, (although I get on well with both my daughter-in-law and prospective son-in-law). We sat in the garden drinking prosecco and tea (Simon was driving) while Simon and Flick (whose birthday is next week) opened their presents from me. Then my wonderful offspring managed between them to fix (for the time being, at least) the shower room light switch, the speakers on my kitchen music centre and the strimmer.

There’s another family birthday coming up next week: my little cat will be fifteen on the 6th August. She’s still not eating – it’s been over a month now, and I am preparing myself for the worst.

I may or may not be writing in the mornings while Laura and the children are here. Depends on when everybody gets up. Yesterday I didn’t have time because I’d had a rough night then slept in till 8 and was in a rush to get to a writers’ group meeting for 10.

I feel I should have more to say. Life gets in the way of thought and writing.

I’ve downloaded a sample of a book that was recommended to me on Amazon. It’s very spooky the way it does that, because it is about a writer who is trying to write a biography of DH Lawrence, and a novel, and is a stream-of-consciousness rant about how he miserably fails to write either (but writes this book instead). The opening section got me hooked, though I can see how it could also be massively irritating to a lot of people. Like this blog, it rambles on and on without ever getting anywhere, although he is obviously doing that deliberately and skilfully, whereas in my case it’s just about incompetence and lack of imagination and talent.  

For a brief moment, it made me determined to stop fart-arsing around (excuse the expression) and actually do something with my writing. A brief moment, until reality set in again.

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No Answers

What am I doing? If I censor myself to write only what I think people want to read, can I write at all?

Round and round in the same old circles. I sit and stare at the colourful icons across the bottom of the screen.

I feel as though I could go back to sleep. Maybe I could – it’s nine o’clock now, so I’ve been awake for about four hours. But if I went and laid my head down on the pillow – which I can’t anyway, because my hair’s wet – no, I won’t, I’d just spend another frustrating hour or so lying on the bed wanting to sleep and then feel like I’d wasted the morning.

Earlier, when I was doing my yoga/tai chi/sitting practice, I had a line from a song stuck in my head: ‘and I, I have no answers…’ I had no idea where it was from, or who, or how it went on from there (except that I knew there was some awkward phrasing in the next line). So I’ve just googled it – which didn’t help much, because do you know how many songs include the phrase: ‘no answers’? My search threw up a link to a web page listing songs with that phrase in the lyrics – 12,414 of them. But while scrolling through them, I had a flash of memory which told me it was called ‘A Thousand Roads’ and it’s by David Crosby. Then I remembered when I discovered it, which was about ten years ago, because it was when I was living in my flat in Bedford – and I remembered blogging about it then. I still couldn’t remember that awkward next line, so went back to Google, and it’s: ‘I’ve got no patented path to set you free’ – it was the ‘patented path’ bit that didn’t sound right when sung – iffy meter, stress in the wrong place.

Well, that has taken up most of today’s quota, I’ve managed to skate away from the angst again. Who can I share my angst with? No one. No one wants to deal with my angst, ever (unless I pay them). I’m stuck with it, first thing in the morning, every morning – well, most mornings.

I want to play that David Crosby song – on Youtube, because I haven’t got it anywhere. But yesterday I was playing music while I wrote, because all week I’ve been digitising my old cassettes and transferring them to the PC – and while I’m doing that I have the volume turned on so I know when it finishes, and also because I want to hear these songs I haven’t heard for years. But then someone in the equivalent room next door started playing music, and it occurred to me that they could probably hear mine too, and not everybody is up and about at this time in the morning, especially at the weekend, and I don’t want to piss off my neighbours.

Once again, I’ve managed to fill 500 words with non-contentious rubbish.

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Two Haikus Inspired By Birds

Listen to the gulls.
Are they laughing or mourning?
Who are we to ask?

Small bird on the roof,
pecking amongst the red tiles.
How simple your life is.

Linda Rushby 17 July 2020
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Control

I finished yesterday’s post with a rhetorical question – which I intended to continue today – I remember that, but I can’t remember what it was. Excuse me while I have a quick check…

…

‘Why not just let it all go, accept that I am who I am, not cut out to be A Writer. After all, I’ve given up on so many ideas about how my life should have been (happy relationship, career, financial independence etc), why do I keep picking away at this one?’

Ah right, yes, that is what I was going to write about. It’s been in my head quite a lot and I thought I had an answer…

The main one, I think, is that that is the only one of the four which is still within my control. I could argue over whether any of them are realistically feasible, but I’m not going there today, beyond saying that all of them rely on huge amounts of luck, but also, more significantly, on other people – potential lovers, potential employers, potential clients. One thing I have learnt to accept in life is that any situation where I have to persuade or convince anyone else is stressful, unlikely to end well for me and hence best avoided.

But I can write. I can even ‘publish’ – even if it’s only posting these daily 500 word mini-essays about this, that and nothing in particular, it’s still publication in the sense of putting it into a public space where anyone with access to the internet can potentially read it. I can even go further, I can gather my words together and dump them into e-books, or have them printed into paperbacks which I can put on my shelves with my name on the spines. The technologies and processes are all at my fingertips.

A couple of years ago I met a life coach who suggested I visualise writing a best-seller, then plan the steps to get there. I don’t really know why I reacted the way I did, but I got very angry – she was trying to help me, but setting extremely unrealistic aspirations just seems frustrating and depressing, not motivating, as far as I’m concerned. I suppose it’s the tired old chestnut about the glass of water again – the significance of the gap seems overwhelming compared to that of the contents.

What I really long for is that buzz of excitement from creating a world in my head, finding out what’s going to happen next, bringing it all together. There really is nothing in the world quite like it – except the buzz of intellectual discovery, the moment when the ideas interconnect and click together and suddenly some small part of the world makes sense in a way it didn’t before – I’ve felt that too, but not for many years.

So, all I can do is to keep going, doing what I can, not being distracted by what I can’t. Letting go of expectations, and letting the words take control.