Hair Toss, Check My Nails, Baby How You Feelin,?

It’s been a rough week. I won’t lie to you. Thank goodness for writing, which always helps. Last week’s blog, Christine Keeler’s Eyelashes, hasn’t done what all my other pieces do. I think about them, write them, publish them and let them amble out into the world by themselves. Christine won’t leave. Like a shy child hiding behind its mother’s skirts, she’s still very much on my mind. The very last scene in “The Trial of Christine Keeler” just won’t go away. Out of jail, pretty much friendless, still young, still beautiful, Christine walks into a club and pushes her way through the crowd on to the dance floor. She dances with abandon, her eyes closed, her arms up in the air, not for attention, but for herself. I found this scene incredibly poignant as that’s the last image the viewer has of her. Not the tired and ravaged face of a woman who has had to fight all her life, or the hunched figure walking down the street, head bowed, or the worn-out woman dying of a pulmonary embolism. A final hurrah before the millstones of the establishment grind her down.

Driving back from gymnastics with my 11-year old on Monday night, Lizzo came on the radio. “I love her!” my daughter exclaimed, turning up the volume. “She doesn’t care what anyone thinks about her.” We sang along (me badly, her well) to Good As Hell, a fine track. I watched The Brits on Tuesday night and there she was again, dancing, singing and radiating positivity. I sat there, beaming ear to ear. Why? Not just because I like her (I do), not just because her songs are unbelievably catchy (they are). It’s because she is who she is and she is comfortable with that. Her backing dancers are called The Big Grrrls. I’ll leave that there for a minute.

Lizzo is big on body positivity. Nearly every interview you read about her will mention that. Should it have to? I think not. Who cares? She sings beautifully, she’s a great role model. Does it matter what she weighs? Reading through the papers, apparently it does.

Since I started writing this blog, I have posted it first thing on a Thursday morning, every week. I’ve never been late. I was kind to myself last night (cold coming on, very tired) and decided to finish and post it this morning. Funnily enough, just as I was putting it together, a post popped up on Facebook. It was from a person I like and respect. She is a doctor, has two young children and is incredibly eloquent and principled. She was furious as what she described as: “Utter, misogynistic bulls**t. In a world where people are feeling so inadequate already this is just toxic! Nice job, patriarchy- well done for ensuring she never shirks her caring responsibilities for one moment.”

The post which had enraged her was an update from a couple called Sharny and Julius. I’d never heard of them. They are a “fitspo” couple who post to their followers about their fitness programme. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Fitness and health are something to aspire to. However, on the latest post, the following words appeared, about Sharny, who is a mother of six:

“Instead of raging or hiding, she has the energy to outplay her kids with boundless joy until they are laying on their backs, completely exhausted, deeply contented and infinitely loved.

Instead of headaches and arguments, she’s still got (lots of) energy for loving after the kids go to bed, and lots of time for meaningful work after her profoundly satisfied hubby drops off to sleep.”

You could look at this as a testimonial for the fitness programme FitMum which Sharny and Julius run. It’s obviously working and that’s great. However, what is deeply concerning about these words, to me, and to my friend, is that they underline the constant feelings of not being good enough, too tired, too fat, too worn out to be all the things a woman wants to be. I am delighted that Sharny feels so energetic. I’ve researched her page and it makes me happy that she stands proudly in a bikini with her stretch marks on show. She’s birthed six children and doesn’t pretend to be perfect. But that second paragraph concerns me deeply. After a full day of working and parenting, she loves her hubby till he’s profoundly satisfied, then when he’s nodded off, she addresses her meaningful work. Is it just me or does that have an echo of The Stepford Wives?

“Instead of”. Instead of – what? Ordinary mortals, juggling work, families, housework, responsibilities could read this and think “Why can’t I be like that? What’s wrong with me?” This world is not short of messages telling women they’re not good enough. I’ve got a headache as I write. I have no energy. But I know that I am a good wife and mother and that I do my best. What about a woman struggling with depression, or low self-esteem, or an abusive relationship? What might she think, reading these words?

And finally, I can’t sign off without mentioning the death of Caroline Flack. You won’t have to spend much time googling before you find examples of the kind of toxic, cruel, abusive journalism that surely contributed to this woman feeling that she had no alternative but to end her life. Lighting the fire last night, crumpling up balls of newspaper to get it going, I read a news snippet by a syndicated national woman columnist about Caroline Flack which made my blood boil. Her entire page was thinly veiled criticism, snide remarks and downright unkindness. Isn’t life hard enough already? I am writing these words with passion. I am aware that some of my readers may not agree with me. But that’s fine. We live in a democracy and I would be happy to hear your thoughts.

Image from Pixabay

From that young girl dancing in a club with her eyes closed and her arms outstretched, to Lizzo owning the stage at the Brits, to Caroline Flack alone and desperate, these are all women. All women who make choices and who have fought against prejudice and unkindness and barriers. As I said last week, I want a better world for my daughter. If her role models are people like Lizzo who wears what she wants and is honest, I will be a happy woman.

How am I feelin? Cross. But words can change the world and I’m darned if I’m not going to keep swimming against the tide.

Recollected In Tranquility: Poems And Stuff

Happy New Year, valued readers, and welcome to my first blog for 2020. I wrote it months ago, but each time I went to post it, something else came up and I found myself writing a new one. Today, though, is the time for this piece and I hope you enjoy it.

You may remember that in my first blog, I mentioned that I write poetry.[1]Back in the day, at primary school, I knocked out loads of the stuff. If there were competitions for budding young writers, I didn’t know about them. Life might have turned out very differently if I had.

I can still remember sitting in Class 9 at my table, pencil gripped firmly in hand, composing some kind of ode, written on orange sugar paper. If I shut my eyes, I’m back there. It’s probably autumn (a season which is important to me) and outside, the sumac tree by the big playground is dropping scarlet tears near the water fountain, the huge weeping willow is sighing gently in the breeze and the oak by the hall is turning the tarmac brown and slimy with its falling leaves.

Back then, I knew nothing of William Wordsworth and his assertion that poetry is emotion recalled in tranquillity. [2]It’s a good line, though, and it’s true. Stuff happens, it hurts, you push it down and hope never to see it again. If you keep on doing that, plus blaming yourself for it for most of your life, you’re going to end up with plenty of emotion to recall.

I wrote a lot of poems about Epping Forest (the village I lived in is right in the middle of it), the weather and whatever topic our teacher gave us. At 10, I was already constructing the foundations to become a freelance writer, exactly what I am now.

At the same time, without realising it, I was building up a fine reservoir of sadness, doubt, pain and anguish which was going to come in jolly handy for my poetic efforts later in life. I always think there are two ways to look at challenging situations. Either you can wallow in misery (and I’ve done this), saying how unfair it is and how everyone had it easier than you, or you can take the vast piles of ordure life handed you and let them mulch down (much like those oak leaves in the playground). I mostly do this.

I studied poetry for English Literature at secondary school and loved it. I hated nearly everything else, but poetry was my friend. I got it. And I still wrote it, but not nearly as much. By the time I escaped from school, Essex and my miserable life, it was firmly on the back burner. I still read plenty of it, discovering new poets with joy (Carol Ann Duffy, Simon Armitage, Wendy Cope and so on), but I wrote no more.

And that was it until two years ago, in the autumn (naturally). I went to see a counsellor. I was rather hoping he would make me feel happy. As it turned out, he took me to a door, helped me to open it and then stood back while a torrent of emotion foamed out, recollected in tranquillity (sort of).

Gosh, though, it was weird. A phrase would drop into my head, I’d sit down and out would come a poem. They were all really, really cross. Either that, or really sad. None of them rhymed. I showed them to my husband. He’s not a crier, but on several occasions, tears poured down his cheeks. My close friends reacted in a similar way. I was surprised. But also pleased. I’d watch as their lips trembled and their eyes filled and feel really, really happy.

Once they’d read a poem, I’d quiz them on their feelings. “So that made you feel sad?” I’d enquire. “How sad? A dull ache? Sharp pain?” They would explain their feelings, wiping away tears, and the sadder they were, the more I felt I’d succeeded.

This is exactly the opposite of my normal behaviour. I hate it when my friends are upset and will do anything I can to make it better. Seeing people responding viscerally to my words, however, was quite another matter. Something powerful was pouring from my heart on to the page. It took me a little while to realise what was going on. Long-buried memories, none of them pleasant, were coming out into the daylight. One of the ways I processed them was to write poetry.

Reading my poems doesn’t make me cry. I remain quite imperturbable. But then I suppose I would. I’ve already gone through the pain and misery which occasioned them. They do say, “write what you know” don’t they?

The great thing about poetry is that you can write a poem which isn't about a specific person but was inspired by a situation or experience.

One of these days, I may put one of my own poems into a blog. I nearly did with this one, but decided against at the last moment. Emotion recollected in tranquillity is great when you feel tranquil, but perhaps those emotions need a bit more time to simmer down. A bit like making jam. There's a poem in that .......

  

Photos by Pixelbay

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[1] https://bigwordsandmadeupstories.blogspot.com/2019/11/how-i-became-writer.html

[2] “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.”