Solent Green – blog

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Roads Not Taken

Shopping day disrupts my routine. I had breakfast when I got home, in the garden, trying not to think about the fact that I hadn’t done my yoga/tai chi routine or my writing. Well, does it matter, when these routines are self imposed? That’s the slippery slope, you let yourself off for one day and then down and down you go till suddenly you’re back to… well what? Formless chaos, a sense of emptiness, hopelessness, pointlessness… are there any positive words that end in ‘ness’? Goodness me, I can’t think of any.

There are the things I know need doing, and the tasks I’ve set for myself, and the overwhelming temptation not to do any of them… Just to sit in the sunshine, making another scarf, drinking coffee and eating biscuits, ignoring the weeds pushing up through the gravel and these thoughts popping up into my awareness (oh, note to self, that one’s fairly neutral). Kindness, hopefulness, carefulness, busyness – I wonder why business is spelt the way it is? Or should that be: pronounced the way it is? English is wonderful, actually all languages are wonderful, and fascinating. In some ways I wish I’d followed the path from mathematics into linguistics, rather than into statistics, when I chose my first university course. Maybe if my sixth form had been able to accommodate my wishes to do double maths and German at A level, instead of having to compromise on double maths and economics, I would have done it – though I considered applying for a maths and linguistics course anyway – I can’t remember where that was, but it wasn’t Southampton. The road not taken – I would probably still have ended up going into computer programming after graduation, but I would be in a different place, with different people – and that would have made all the difference – I assume.  But how much of what I’ve done in my life has been down to the inherent personality and characteristics that were laid down in those first eighteen years of life? Maybe things wouldn’t be as different now as I think – different places, different people, yes, but thinking about the last fifteen years or so, the different places and different people don’t seem to make that much difference to the inner me.

Ooh, this a bit deep, and it’s starting to give me vertigo. It goes back to my ideas of the Crystal Space, the paths we take and the ways through the mirrored labyrinth, the network of possibilities, probabilities and improbabilities, the book that I’ll probably never write but that haunts every now and again.

Well, I came back from my shopping expedition and now I seem to have written quite a lot after all.

I’ve even got a poem, of sorts, which I cobbled together yesterday from a cluster of little poems or ideas which had popped up at different times, each too long to be haikus, loosely connected but all a bit rough and ready – as my poetry often is.

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Day 20 – Strange Dreams

I dreamt I gave birth to a baby daughter,
and when I awoke, though it was fantastic,
at my age, in my state,
for the briefest of moments, I held on to the joy,
and couldn’t let go.
When I saw the truth, I felt such a loss,
as though for a real child.

I slept again, and dreamt of my mother
(twenty years gone now).
In a clean, white world, she was cold and distant.
When I spoke to her truly, she walked off in silence.
When I found her again,
I pinned her down, and told her I loved her.

When you dream of a child, you dream of yourself.
This much I know.
Is that who I grieve for?
When you dream of a parent, I don’t know the meaning.

I don’t like these dreams,
that carry such meanings I cannot untangle.
Please give me the daylight.

Linda Rushby 20 April 2020
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Day 18 – Istanbul

I saw a photograph today,
of a sandstone palace,
frosted with blue and white tiles.
And I thought of Istanbul,
though I knew it couldn’t be.

‘Germany’ I guessed,
‘another of Mad King Ludwig’s confections’
(I’ve been caught out like that before).
But no, it was Seville, and I thought
‘Aha, Moorish influences!’
and ‘I must go there one day,
to southern Spain.’

But oh, Istanbul,
beautiful, dirty, noisy city of my dreams.
Byzantium, city of Constantine,
with your minarets and domes, gardens and palaces,
cats, magpies and wonderful cafes,
sunshine and storms and clinging fogs,
and best of all, your waterways,
ships and ferries and fishermen on Galata Bridge.

The taste of that fresh fish sandwich,
bought from the boat, where I watched them fry it
over a brazier by the water’s edge.
Or the tea I poured from a double pot,
the russet colour, clear as the glass I sipped it from
as fragrant as the roses in Gülhane Park
a sensual delight, sweet as the pastries
in Hafiz Mustafa’s.

Perhaps one day I’ll find
my way back to you,
(though somehow I know I won’t)
but you’ll always be there
in my heart.

Linda Rushby 18 April 2020
Gulhane Park, Istanbul May 2012

http://damson-tree.co.uk/travel/?cat=39

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Dilemma

Because I thought up a poem (of more than four lines) first thing yesterday, I ducked out of writing anything else for the rest of the day. I guess that’s cheating really, but it’s not the first time I’ve done it. Today I’m clueless as regards poetry, but we’ll see how the day develops. I write spontaneously or not at all. If there isn’t that voice in my head telling me what to write, it’s all much too stressful. Of course, when I start writing, I often get into a flow, but usually what flows out is more of the same; hard to spot the gold dust, however fine the sieve.

Last week I sent the link for my blog to my therapist (we’d discussed it the week before and I asked if she’d mind or if it would be professionally inappropriate). It made our weekly Skype session a bit odd, as we started talking about poetry and writing in general and bizarrely I felt a bit awkward. She said she liked my poetry, but the rest not so much, because of the way I write about myself – which I found quite surprising, because I thought I’d been remarkably chipper recently. She commented that she could understand why my friends get exasperated with me over it, but that’s inevitable, isn’t it? When I write I’m writing about the real me, the person I am inside, the person I live with first thing in the morning and last thing at night, the woman I wake up in bed with at four in the morning, not the fantasy Melinda or Cassandra they have in their heads, so of course they’re not going to like this woman with all her self-loathing and insecurities – she’s hardly an attractive person. Isn’t that why I write about it? Because I can explain who I am without being shouted down and told not to say those things, like my brother reducing me to tears in a curry house or the ‘friend’ who rang when I was very depressed and then hung up the phone because she didn’t want to hear me talking about how I felt.

The therapist wants me to stop judging myself but how is that even possible? How can I think honestly about myself and the things I do and the thoughts I have without making implicit judgements – the language doesn’t exist. I can say: ‘I know I’m lazy, disorganised, chaotic, forgetful – most of that is down to dyspraxia, and I accept that that is who I am and I can’t change’ – but I can’t say any of those things are not true. Are there any words to describe those characteristics of my personality that don’t carry some negative charge? There have always been two choices: to become a better person, or to accept who I am and say it doesn’t matter. This is the dilemma which has torn me apart psychologically and emotionally all my life, and still does.

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Day 17 – Sonnet for An Introvert

Having already trashed the terza rima, I thought today I’d go for another classic poetic form – the sonnet.

Apologies for the longer final couplet, which I found written (as four lines) in my notebook, scribbled there a few nights ago and promptly forgotten by morning, when I wrote something completely different.

I could have used it another day, but I think it sort of fits (and saves me having to think up another two lines to finish with).

If I can write a poem today.
perhaps the world will go away
and leave me in this happy place
of never meeting face-to-face.

I burrow like a worm or mole
and hide inside this cosy hole
while listening to the radio,
relieved I’ve nowhere else to go.

I do the things I like to do,
and never go and join a queue
(not even one two metres spread)
I buy my milk first thing instead.

Life feels strangely normal – or perhaps it’s normally strange?
That same old déjà vu, coming around again.

Linda Rushby 17 April 2020

PS Just thought I’d add Miko as my ‘featured image’, given that this reflects her philosophy on life as well as mine.

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Passing Time

I was standing in the street in my dressing gown, it was 10.45 and I wondered how come I had slept in so late.

Then I was in bed looking at the clock, and it was 5.17, and I realised I had been dreaming. I was reassured, because that made so much more sense.

Thinking of what to write every day is difficult (except when it isn’t, when it just pops up) but the writing itself is easy.

The days go by so fast, even though I do hardly anything, one day after another, hard to tell the difference. The longer it stays like this, the less I feel inclined to interact with people. Life is so much easier this way. I think it will be a shock when external things start up again. I’ll have to make decisions then, do I make myself go out or do I carry on as I have been doing?

Over the last couple of years, people have said to me: ‘You do such a lot!’ and I’ve thought: no, I don’t, not really. When I listed all the external things I did each day: Monday: swimming, writers, yoga; Tuesday: tai chi; Wednesday: coffee (sometimes) etc etc it might sound like a lot, but it was just me, making myself go out, trying to make myself be sociable because I thought that was what I needed. But I wasn’t DOING anything – I would meet ‘the writers’ in the library, but I would never actually write anything. Now I am staying home and writing, but still I’m not actually writing ‘anything’, just spewing out words. Passing time, revelling in the dullness and emptiness of my life. Sometimes crocheting or weaving, but not to make anything – I’ve unravelled this latest cardigan so many times that by the time it’s finished I’ll probably have made it twice, then it will just go in the wardrobe and I’ll never wear it. The weaving and the weather blanket, both completely pointless (though I’ve promised this year’s weather blanket to my daughter, and I gave last year’s to my son). But the point is in the process of the making – it passes the time and makes me happy. And then there’s killer su doku – can’t even pretend that achieves anything.

The same goes (in spades) for the writing, of course. I’m quite impressed that I’ve kept it going for as long as I have – though in the past I’ve done it for years – why did I give it up? Maybe partly because it takes up a huge amount of time, that’s why the mornings go so fast, and afternoons are always filled up with the radio, so that’s the day gone. It’s interesting, though, to reflect that it’s not these things that make me stressed. I’m calmer and happier now, and that’s because I’m doing these things by myself – these pointless, meaningless things – and I don’t feel like I have to make myself go out and be with people.

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Retirement

I didn’t write a long post yesterday (if 500 words counts as ‘long’ – probably does, in today’s frantic world). I missed out my morning routines because I got up and went straight to the shop, then when I got back I made a poem of it and felt I’d done my ‘writing duty’ for the day. Today I feel inclined to do the same, because I had a poem that popped up first thing and then developed while I was in the shower. But I mustn’t keep doing that.

Have I mentioned on here yet about the phrase that’s apparently going round: ‘…if you don’t come out of this with a new skill, you never lacked time, you just lacked discipline’? Bollox to that say I – (but then I would, wouldn’t I, because I’ve always been a lazy, selfish cow who’s never even tried to become a better person… etc etc etc).

What occurs to me is that what’s currently happening to a lot of people (but not everybody, let’s not forget that, a lot of people – including but not exclusively those employed by the NHS – are having to work their arses off) is a kind of enforced premature retirement. Of course, the fantasy of retirement is that you’ll have the freedom to go swanning off wherever you like, and do those things you never had time for, but in reality lots of retired people just don’t have that many options – whether because of lack of money, poor health, commitments to others (lots of older people are carers for their partners, or want to be available for children, grandchildren, friends, even cats and dogs). Even without those limitations (and I speak from experience as someone who retired relatively young and financially comfortable), sometimes you just don’t have the energy or motivation to get out and do stuff.

I’ve always thought of it as the housewife syndrome (apologies if that sounds sexist, but I spent a lot of my middle age involuntarily unemployed/underemployed so I know what I’m talking about). When you theoretically have lots of time to do things that need doing but you really don’t enjoy, and there’s no formal commitment or external authority (like an employer) imposing sanctions (like the sack) if you don’t do them, it’s easy to slide into a mindset where you’ll do anything but, and spend huge amounts of emotional energy and time on finding reasons not to do those things, and by the end of the day you feel like you’ve achieved nothing, but you’re still exhausted, frustrated and bitter. Well, you do if you’re like me (but then we’ve already established that I’m lazy, selfish, self-pitying… see above).

I think many people who are currently on furlough from work are in that position. It’s not an easy adjustment to make at the best of times, and I’m sure that knowing it will end at some point in the future – but not when, or if, or how, or what happens next – exacerbates it.

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Day15 – Terza Rima

As we are now half way through the month I thought I’d push the boat out and write something in verse.

The image above is genuine footage of Dante’s reaction to my poetry.

I thought that I would write a terza rima.
I had to look it up to find what’s what.
But every poet is at heart a dreamer.

Though rhyming is a skill I haven’t got.
It’s not because I think it’s for the birds,
but when I try I just sound like a clot.

It’s rhythm that I love, and sounds of words,
alliteration and internal rhymes.
Free verse is where I soar above the herds.

So please forgive me for this garbled (c)rhyme.
Perhaps I’ll try again another time.

Linda Rushby 15 April 2020