Being Six

There’s a birthday cake and a pile of presents. Your family and friends are singing you a song as you prepare yourself to blow out a collection of candles sunk deep into icing. You are full of party food and there is a sugary happiness around the table. Your friends, clutching balloons and happily remembering their own special day, watch excitedly as you draw in the biggest puff of breath you can to extinguish all those tiny flames. You’ve been waiting for this day all year. This is A Special Day.

But why? Why are birthdays so important? What are we celebrating exactly? Why is the day we were born so special to us?

I’ve often had the feeling that it’s actually a much more pertinent day for our parents. Although we’re the ones with a new age, we don’t remember anything about the day we were born. For our parents though, it’s a marker signifying that however-many years ago today, their lives changed forever. It’s a marker of the day they acquired a new member of the family.

I suppose that when we are celebrating a birthday, we are celebrating that we exist and that people care about us. We are celebrating the day we came into the world because it’s important that we’re here.

That in mind, I have mixed feelings about my own birthday. I never make a fuss of it and then I feel secretly sad when people don’t remember it. I don’t like all that attention on me so I don’t arrange to see my friends or a throw a party… and then I feel sad that no one’s made a fuss. But even if I really wanted them to, why should they? What does the day I was born actually mean and is it really important? I know I’m here and that people care about me… what is it about a birthday that tells me I need to be told so?

I had a lovely birthday this year, but it was slightly tinged with disappointment. There’s still a little girl in me that hopes for post in the morning: coloured envelopes with familiar handwriting; pictures of candles and cake; bad jokes with misplaced apostrophes… I know it’s not important but it represents something I miss.

The word ‘birthday’ for me conjures memories of iced biscuits and the smell of birthday candles; strong feelings of anticipation and excitement; carefully crafted cakes and jolly wrapping paper; balloons and presents; the feeling of being Very Important… and it doesn’t matter how much I know that these aren’t things that happen on birthdays anymore, a little part of me is still sad that they’re not.

Image by Ed Sanders

Endorphins

Have I really become the sort of person who needs to exercise to maintain a good mood? Have I, who hated PE at school, who has consistently failed to find a sport I enjoy, who sees exercising as a chore, really come to appreciate the effect of exercise on my mental well being?

It is only over the last year or so that I have managed to settle into a regular and sustainable exercise routine. In the past, I have known that I should exercise and I have committed to something for a couple of months, but then it has always gone by the wayside. Now it is a part of my life. A small part, admittedly, but it’s there.

For various reasons, I haven’t been doing much exercise over the last few weeks and I have been a little grumpy. I didn’t really notice this until I finally got round to doing half an hour’s exercise the other day. I felt the adrenaline immediately. I had been feeling a little bleak about nothing in particular, and the change after a quick round of boxing the air was very noticeable. Although I was glad to finish the exercise, I was buzzing when it was over.

Yes, I know that this is supposed to happen. I’ve heard all the stuff about endorphins and exercise… I just never really believed that it had this much effect on me. I never thought that I would become someone who could really see the value in exercising regularly!

Image by Delmas alain

Funeral

‘Do you want to play with us at playtime?’
‘I can’t – I’ve got a funeral.’ She says it seriously, matter-of-factly.
‘I was invited to the funeral too, but I don’t want to go.’

I am concerned at first. Who did all the children know that died? Why don’t I know about it? Will there be anyone left in the classroom after playtime? Does the office know they’re all going out?

‘Whose funeral is it?’ I ask one of the kids. He doesn’t answer me. I wonder if it’s too sensitive a subject, but he seems unconcerned.

‘Oh, Miss,’ says another child, ‘it’s not a normal funeral.’
‘What is it then?’ I ask.
‘It’s a funeral for Joe’s DS.’
‘For his DS?’
‘Yes – his sister broke the screen so he’s having a funeral for it at playtime. Everyone’s invited…’
‘It’s a long story,’ interrupted another girl, wisely. They nod gravely and walk away.

Right then, I think. The children are holding a funeral at playtime for a Nintendo DS. That’s normal.

Image by Gerdthiele

Escape

There are days when I would like nothing more than to walk endlessly. I’d like to walk and walk and walk until I find the answers to questions I don’t even know I’m asking.

It is not that I feel unhappy on these days exactly, though there is something very deep within me that is unsettled, something without a shape. Maybe the answer I want to find is simply a name for this distant feeling, a way to categorise it.

I would walk myself, I think, into a trance, soothed by the rhythm of my own footsteps. I imagine this sometimes and in my head, there are no roads to stop at, no people to bump into: just miles and miles of vast walking space. When I imagine it, there is sea and sometimes piano music*; there is a breeze and each footfall feels like walking on heather.

The act of imagining is almost enough.

When I can’t sleep at night, I imagine that I am swimming. Not in a human way really. It is more dolphinesque than that. If you can imagine clutching onto the side of a swimming bath and then pushing the wall with your feet so that your body is thrust backwards into the water, it is a lot like that. The energy and power behind these simple, graceful strokes that I dream of is something I find hugely relaxing. In my dreams I swim like I will never be able to in real life.

Why do I imagine escape like this, I wonder?

Sometimes it makes me sad to think that I will never be able to swim like a dolphin or walk endlessly in a fictional landscape. Sometimes I get frustrated. But I am also hugely grateful that my imagination allows me these little escapes.


*which is usually when I realise I’m just being dramatic and exercising my inner film-heroine!

Image from NOAA

Home

I am at home this weekend. Not home, the place where I live, but home, the place where I grew up, the place where some part of me will always live.

I love coming home. But I also find it very emotional. I should know this by now, but somehow it always surprises me.

I took the bus home from the station, the same bus I would take to the cinema or the shops or the pub when I was a teenager. It costs 80p more than it did back then, but otherwise, it’s exactly the same journey.

I passed the dodgy clubs we used to go to at the end of a long night when everyone was having too much fun to go home. I passed the pub where we used to see live bands and a crazy new apartment complex that wasn’t there last time I was home. I passed the toyshop we used to go to on a Sunday when I was little or when we needed to buy a present to take to a birthday party. I passed the shop where my Dad and I would go to buy me a frog shaped ice-lolly (his was a Strawberry Split) and the bench where we would sit to eat it. I passed the houses of hundreds of people I knew at school, the church where I went to Brownies and finally, the street where I grew up, the street where I once knew the name of someone from every house.

Everywhere along the way were tiny little memories, little moments I had forgotten until I saw that taxi rank, that garden, that building again; little moments that are so happy or so sad that they hurt just a little.

‘Home’ is funny thing. It is not one place for me. Because I don’t live here anymore, there will always be another home and it will change with every house I move to. But this is a place that will always be home, no matter how far away from it I am.

Image from Geograph

In Defence of The Teenager

Teenagers get a lot of bad press these days.

I regularly see large groups of them on my way home from work. They congregate outside the local shop, queuing to buy sweets and chatting loudly with their friends. Every time I approach them, I get a little anxious. I think this is mostly left over from meeting groups of teenagers when I was a teenager myself. Twice my friends and I were set upon by unpleasant groups of girls; this has left an impression on me.

But every time I pass the teenagers that hang around here, I am struck by how pleasant they are when they’re forced into interaction outside their bubbles. True, they are often unaware how loud (and sometimes intimidating) they are, and unless you make eye contact, they don’t seem to see you. But when I’ve had to get past them to get in the shop, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how polite and apologetic they often are. They hold the door open; they say ‘excuse me’ and ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘thank you’: they are everything you’d expect from a polite human being.

Why, then, are they so bullied by the media? Why do we hate them so much? Surely we can’t all have the remnants of our own teenage problems lurking around our shoulders? Surely we can’t really think that all teenagers carry knives and get caught up with gang culture? We can’t have totally forgotten how it is to be a teenager, to live a life where everything is so big and so dramatic, to feel such extreme happiness and suffer such terrible moods.

Why on earth would we want to alienate an already alienated sub-group?

It seems that I’m still outraged…

Image by Unisouth

Happy Meat

If I’m being honest, I’m not conscientious enough to always buy truly ‘happy’ meat. But I do aim to buy happy-ish meat where I can. I only buy free-range poultry and I only buy British pork and beef. I know there’s a lot that doesn’t cover, but I figure, one step at a time. Sometimes though, the special offers catch me out.

About to warily spend a small fortune on semi-ethical barbeque food the other week, I passed the freezer aisle and got over excited about a family barbeque pack that included a variety of barbequing meats for ONLY £5! I put my fresh products back and made for the check out. And then I thought, ‘Bugger. That’s probably really bad meat.’ And then I felt guilty.

I can absolutely see how people just buy the cheapest stuff without really thinking about it. I don’t blame them. The meat sold in supermarkets is so far removed from the animal it came from that it’s hard to remember it’s from an animal at all. Everything is shiny-wrapped and super-advertised and ONLY £5! is extremely tempting when you have a big family to feed and bills to pay. Not that I do have a big family to feed. I'm being hypothetical.

The question is, why is unethical meat sold at all? It shouldn’t be acceptable for meat to be anything other than free range and well treated. We shouldn’t have to choose between what we can afford and what is right – it should just be right full stop. It should never have got to a stage where it is anything other than right. If we hadn't got used to eating so much meat, we wouldn’t even have to struggle to eat less of it.

I feel much the same about imported fruits and vegetables. How is it possible to live in a country that grows apples and pears yet walk round the supermarket unable to find a bag of fruit that hasn’t been imported?

Yes, as individuals it is up to be strong and do what we believe in…. but surely it is up to the systems that govern us not to make that a challenge.

I appear to have a written a couple of semi-political posts in a row. I’m outraged easily at the moment, it seems. Sorry about that.

Image by Nicolai Bangsgaard

European Elections

In the UK at least, Thursday was the day for the European Elections. Finding out the relevant information about any of the parties was peculiarly difficult.

We didn’t get many leaflets through the door this time round – only from the parties I knew I wouldn’t be voting for. Most of the ones that stood a chance of getting my vote didn’t put anything through the door or mentioned very little about their agendas for Europe. I searched the Internet for some kind of online leaflet about the elections but I didn’t find anything helpful.

What I did find was a list of key issues. Now that, I thought, I could vote on easily.

Which led me to wonder, why can’t we just do that? I know what I think about how food should be produced, packaged and sold. Why can’t I just tell them that? I know what I feel about standardisation. Why don’t they want to know what I think?

Why can’t we just vote every time an issue is raised and then the parliament can implement what the people think is right? Maybe we could turn one day of the week into a National Voting Day. We wouldn’t take a cut in pay, but our places of work would shut down once a week – let’s say it’s a Wednesday – and we would all vote on the issues affecting both our country and our continent.

Am I being naïve? Yes, totally. But the point is, I have much more enthusiasm for voting for issues I believe in than for voting for someone because their beliefs correspond more closely with my own than someone else’s do.

I voted for the party I would have voted for in a national election, even though I never found out exactly what they intended to do with their position in the European parliament. It was probably a fair thing to do – but why couldn’t I find sufficient information about what that party intends to do in Europe and how they intend to do it? And why didn’t all the candidates try to take the opportunity to get the people on side who might not normally vote for them by outlining their policies for Europe? Particularly when British politics is in such a mess that most people are entirely disillusioned with voting at all. It seems like they missed an opportunity.

It’s hard to trust anyone who isn’t proud enough of their agenda to make it known.

Image from S. Solberg J

Squirrels

Last week, we took Dave’s four-year-old niece who was staying for a few days to St James’ Park.

St James’ Park, for me, is one of those places you never quite get round to going to as much as you should. If you ignore the vast amounts of sunbathers when the weather’s warm, it’s a lovely place to visit: lots of open space with trees and water birds and squirrels.

I didn’t realise how tame the squirrels were until last week. A couple with a toddler had come to feed them with peanuts. They weren’t very patient, and quickly moved on, leaving a few nuts scattered on the grass where they had tried to coax the squirrels. Dave’s niece picked them up and tried to give them back to the family, which was sweet of her, but we decided it would be best to feed them to the squirrels ourselves.

We crept into the bushes where the squirrels were much more forthcoming and dropped nuts for them and watched them bury them less than a metre away from us. It turned into a very educational walk for a four year old.

Then we played a game where we were squirrels burying nuts, but I needn’t go into that…

I know it's a bit out of focus, but that's a squirrel up there in the tree!

The New Dress

Let me show you my outfit, she said eagerly.
It was giving her a new lease of life, all this planning. Not that it did me much good.

I followed her upstairs, stopping midway for her to catch her breath, hand firmly gripping the banister.

There, she said, beaming, gesturing at the black sequined dress that hung on the outside of the wardrobe door. I thought maybe I’d have a red scarf with it. What do you think?
I shrugged. What was I supposed to think? You’ll look lovely, I said.
I’ll need to lose a bit of weight first, of course, she said. I bought it a size smaller.

I stared at the dress.

Cup of tea? She asked and bustled out of the bedroom.

I followed her.

Our kitchen was – always had been – spotless. Everything in its place and a place for everything, she liked to say. I sat at the table and watched her squoosh teabags in bone china mugs.
Let’s have a biscuit, she said, waving her hand at the tin on the table. The biscuit tin had been a wedding present. It had a gold handle like a doorknob on the lid and pictures of fruit painted round the barrel. I tried to count the apples once when I was drunk but I could never remember where I’d started.

There you are, love, she told me, setting a mug in front of me and pushing the biscuit tin across the table. We were silent for a moment, enjoying the strong, hot tea. She used to tut at me when I put too much milk in, I remembered. When did she stop doing that?

You like the dress then? She asked suddenly, half way through a custard cream. It’s not too dressy?

I shivered. It’s fine, I said.

She looked at me sternly. You’ll remember which one it is?

I nodded.

She looked satisfied.

I was thinking I might look into ordering the coffin as well, she said. Save you a bit of trouble, won’t it? Anyway, it’ll be nice to see what I’m going in. What do you think?

She took a long sip of tea.

I watched her silently as the afternoon shadows trickled across the kitchen floor.