fragments and smithereens

I don’t know what I’m writing. I don’t know what I want to say. Just that I want to write.
So I’ve made myself, really forced myself to sit down here and get something 'on paper'.

I have a million passing thoughts in a day that I feel I must write down, but I let them do just that, pass.

It’s such a hassle to get to the sitting down in front of the pc stage in the wreck of a room at the moment that I manage to avoid myself.

I thought of something earlier, but couldn’t bear to start clearing things away.
Moving the dustbin, taking all my clothes of the chair... I decided to look for what is currently passing (neglectedly) for my diary, an A5 black moleskine, but after
I rummaged for a while in the likely places (near the tops of piles mostly) I gave up.

My desk’s not especially bad, only two inches or so deep in papers and beads and 'things', but around the edges is getting terrible.

Piles of books, the borrowed granny shopping trolley that I have been using to ferry materials up to the playcentre (the idea is that it saves my back, but in actuality I think all I’m doing is making my wrist worst and twisting my back and/or hips oddly as I trundle it along, up and down kerbs and broken paving)

Things I brought away from Uni at the end of term, files, papers, more books,
Things I brought away from Uni after the fire, damp smoky stained, bewildered, displaced

Clothes on the way in; cast offs and acquisitions.
Clothes on the way out; if I could only come to terms with the fact that I really am never ever fitting into those jeans again. It’s the first time in my life that I’ve been what is according to my thick doctor ‘ a healthy weight’ and it’s going to take some serious getting used to. My tiny mini skirts? Never again my Atomic k888s? No more, alas, and the factory is gone forever so I can’t even get a size up. My cute little dungaree dress? Obscene.
In fact my wardrobe needs a serious overhaul; I’m altogether different person, mentally and physically since I could get away with baggy blacks and a push-up bra (nothing like a bit of light engineering to set off an ensemble, eh?) Having said that I don’t want to be Miss B either, long wools skirts and shapeless grey items are, well, um… to the look I aspire to?

It’s hard to do this clearing because I’m not sure what my criteria are. Who am I? What outfits do I need? What books do I need to hand? What tools shall I keep at the top of the box? How to order my cd’s when I don’t know what I like?

I’m listening to the same seven Audioslave tracks on repeat… I can’t quite explain what they do for me, I can’t even understand two thirds of the lyrics… well maybe if I really listen I under stand a lot more than that, but I’m not sure how much ‘it’ has to do with the lyrics, his voice reaches me here in this strange grey inbetweeny place I’ve taken up residence, and moves me. To what? Oh I don’t know… but away from the edge of despair...

I just stare at my walls three pages deep, or more in places, mementos of what feels like a past life. A life I’ve been meaning to glue down for a long time, into a book, full of tickets post it notes, pieces of serviette, business cards, warning stickers, labels, gift tags, teabag tabs, beads, cd covers, lyrics, shopping lists, receipts, phone numbers, cartoons, newspaper cutting, photos, match books, drawings, pieces of ribbon and string, badges, invitations, bills, invoices, reflectors, decals, iron on patches, buttons, a jelly baby, a rubber chicken, stamps, a dried orchid, a sweetie, a moomin, a token, an address….

Smithereens I call the stuff sometimes, I have a jar of it at Uni, and I think it’s after a poem… I can’t remember whose it is, but someone collects fragments of life, of smithereens… and I know how that is…. Every little scrap of paper, every lost object sparks my memory, brings rushing to me the smells and emotions of times past and moments half forgotten….

I wonder if I do it to tie me down?

12 Step Butterfly

How difficult is it to find a pattern for an origami butterfly?
Very difficult. I might, in fact, go so far as to say Very Very difficult.

I do need to be able to use this with the kids tomorrow so I have to stipulate that
a). it must not be too complex. Having 37 folds and turning out with little legs is all very well, but not if your age range is 4 - 12 years old.
However it must b).still look quite a lot like a butterfly, otherwise I know that the kids will not be satisfied.

Frustratingly I used to know two different ways to fold a butterfly, one from a rectangular piece of paper which would have been ideal, but I seem to have forgotten them both...

I'm surrounded with misshapen insects and envelopes torn into squares (paper that comes for free and has white on one side and pattern on the other? Have you never looked at the envelope your bank statement comes in?)

I must not panic, everything will come right in the end...

Realisations

1. When I'm upset and freaking out, maybe in a confrontation or negotiation, I push the other person until they freak out. Then, weirdly, I can relax. I'm not the one out of control anymore.

2. When I reach the quiet place, quiet on the inside , I cut off my emotions. I can watch the other person impassive. No matter how much I usually care for that person I can quite happily watch them becoming distressed , slightly amused even, at the way they lose control.

3. After both of these stages, later, eventually; and let me point out here that this can take some time, in the Captain Oates "I may be some time" way, I eventually realise that I'm numb and that I want to reawaken my emotions. Not in any complex intellectual way, I just want to feel something, feel anything. So I go out and find someone to make me feel, some sordid encounter, that even if enjoyable at the time inevitably leaves me feeling cheap and worthless.


I do this over and over again, only sometimes do I 'wake up' partway through the cycle and realise what's happening. Depending on when I become conscious of what's happening it may not be too late to stop and leave, or calm down and back away... Sometimes I've woken up and found myself in an awkward position that I'm not brave enough to admit I didn't want, many times I've gone through the motions thinking it would be easier than trying to get away. Which just adds to the feelings of worthlessness and pain that is the result.

I've spent so much time in my life trying to wash the feeling off.
If only I could stay out of the cycle I wouldn't end up scrubbing off my skin in an attempt to wash myself clean.

the sound ...

...of safety
of home
of magic and the wide horizon
the sound of my childhood

Viking North Utsire
South Utsire
Forties Cromarty Forth
Tyne Dogger
Fisher
German Bight
Humber Thames
Dover
Wight Portland
Plymouth Biscay
Fitzroy Sole
Lundy Fastnet
Irish Sea
Shannon
Rockall
Malin
Hebrides
Bailey
Fair Isle
Faeroes
Southeast Iceland

Weather has problems too

The general synopsis at 1300:
Low Forties 1009 expected Cromarty 1004 by 1300 tomorrow. Atlantic low moving east expected west Shannon 996 by same time.
Low west Fitzroy 1018 losing its identity.
High Faeroes 1020 losing its identity.

who knew? i never realised that weather had such fragile existence...

"Borderline Personality Disorder. An instability of self-image, relationships and mood... uncertain about goals, impulsive in activities that are self-damaging, such as casual sex."

"Social contrariness and a generally pessimistic attitude are often observed."

Pushing Away

It's what I do. The closer and more intense a situation becomes the harder I push.
The more someone demands that I don't, the more I do.
It's like a physical reaction.
They tell me off and I close down, emotions cut off, face goes blank, muscles stiffen...
I find that I don't care, like an isolator switch has been tripped.
And It's the hardest thing in the world to go back on.