"We are not our brokenness."

There are two pieces of graffiti in Stroud Library.  One says, “We are not our brokenness.”   The other reads, in one hand, “Your life is in God’s hands,” and in a second hand right below, “I wish he’d leave me alone, my life is horrible.” - I may have the wording of the second wrong.  I looked at the first again today, prompting this revisit to the Marmite moment.

I had plans for today.  I had plans for the whole week, actually.  Back in the saddle after Christmas, it was time to start work again and pick up where we left off in December.  I hadn’t banked on my head getting in the way.  It has chosen to do so.

Today: I had chores to complete; I then had a plan to go to the cinema and to go shopping – I have a birthday to buy for.  The day began on track: up and at the chores.  Chore number one, tick; chore number two, ticked as much as it could be.  Positive.  Chore three, a snag and immediately the mood lowered.  The cloud started to descend.  It was a travel snag, so I resolved to go and speak to a travel specialist and resolve it.

Approaching town I could hear music and the betraying tinkle of the Morris Dancer bell.  The Wassail Festival was in full flow.  Town was full.  That meant people, specifically, people enjoying themselves.  The mood sank further.  The travel agents was full. And so I found myself on a loop, walking around and around.  The cinema part of the day fell away, just completely evaporated from my thinking.  Robotically, I ended up at the train station paying for a day return and then realising I was forty-five minutes away from the train departing the station.  Back out into the loop.  Back around to the agents – fuller.  And, hence to the library and the graffiti and actually debating with myself that I am indeed my own brokenness.

I sat on the train.  I went on auto-pilot and found myself in the Cathedral and I sat and listened to the pipe-organ and swam in the embrace that the history of this building offers.  The religiosity is poppycock, the thousand-year steadiness of the structure is something to try and centre yourself in – certainly somewhere I find helpful to centre myself.  I could have sat there all afternoon.  The wistful whisper of conversation a susurrous balm to match the hive of noise inside my head.

Home and then just sitting, after wandering and buying stuff, just because some stuff was there to buy.  Browsing in shops, heading into places for no reason other than to eat up time.  And then home.  Annoyed at the empty carriage being filled immediately around me by people speaking and having conversation whilst the remainder of the carriage remained empty and quiet and inviting their noise to go there instead.  Different to the whispered hum of the Cathedral. Sharp consonants.

And just sitting.  Time moving past me.  All plans gone.  Brain not engaged.  All passive consumption.  Until, of course, I decide to do this.

I have a very difficult relationship with my own mental health.  For a time, my doctor considered me to be depressed – not to the point where she prescribed anything except counselling, but on the way there.  I don’t know.  Counselling did not work.  I could not engage – perhaps then was a time and place thing and perhaps now might be different.  See, I know that I have done this to myself.  I am entirely responsible for the situation I am in and so my increasing isolation and trepidation at being around or being with people, at even trying to form friendships, has its roots in the worthlessness that is me.  I am negative impact: selfish but now self-aware enough to realise this and absent myself from social.  It is, though, still a massive struggle to then face a day.

Today dissolved.  Tomorrow is another day that sees fine intent at its start.  Only history will tell if I can deliver on intention.  I’ve known for a while that I am my brokenness.  The graffiti today cemented that thought for me nicely.

One Year, Minus 20 Days...and the Marmite is still a mess...

This time last year, I was preparing for the end of my time in New Zealand and getting ready for the journey back to the UK.  This year minus twenty days back in the UK has changed me both physically and psychologically.

I caught my reflection about a week ago.  Cheekbones bulged, and below the skin hung concave; gaunt.  A few weeks further back than that, I had chance to see my reflection and found my father looking back at me.  I never wanted to look like my father; especially my father in his later years.  That’s who I could see.  This morning I had a face scan at the opticians, and when it came time to map glasses on to my face – to see which style made me look less oil rig – the face sag in the image they had captured gave the appearance of a man having a stroke.  It was quite a shock.

As I have withered away physically, so I have withered psychologically, too.  I had opportunity to go to a pretend German Xmas market, last week.  There were simply too many people there.  It was impossible to feel comfortable.  I know that many feel hatred of the crowd so: today I was at a drama performance, sat in the audience, and could feel myself physically shrinking into my seat; tears welling up at the simplest emotive heartstring pluck of the sentimental songs.  That is not normal.  I’ve walked home on a Friday on a few occasions now feeling crestfallen at the fact that the shit week I’ve had won’t have someone it can be related to when I get home…and then brain kicks in and flashes reruns of all the reasons why there will be no one at home to hear me moan and I completely understand and remember why there will be no one there.

It feels appropriate, somehow, that I have come back to the UK to wither, when the country – this tired, worn out, old country – has chosen the same time to wither too.  This is not going to segue into a Brexit piece – I’m far too self-centre for this to shift away from being about me, don’tchaknow – but this political decision has highlighted just how tired, worn out and old this country actually is.  Sorry, excuse me, not country: collection of countries.  The complex nature of the make up of the United (ha!) Kingdom continually appears to slip the mind – especially of those who are supposed to be leading it.

The fractious nature of the manner in which we are approaching the end of membership with the European Union is appalling to see, and far too appalling to be this close to and actually have affecting my life and the life of those who I hold dear.  That the country voted across party, geographic, class and gender lines should have meant that the political system put aside their petulant differences and childish goal-scoring to work together to form a united front to our European partners and negotiate as strong an exit deal as they possibly could have done so.  How does Olivier’s Doctor put it in A Bridge Too Far as he tries to negotiate a halt to the fighting to bring assistance to the wounded and dying? “Winning and losing is not our concern.  Living or dying is.  Cease fire… one hour… two… just to evacuate our wounded.  Afterwards you can kill us as much as you want to.”  Once we get out of Europe, they could go back to being dicks to each other, just like normal.  For now, they should be stood shoulder to shoulder to ensure they are representing and working on behalf of every UK citizen.  But, like me, they’re too worried about their reflection in the mirror.  Too worried about judgement and taking the risk to put other people first.

I bit the bullet, the other week.  I bought Marmite again – seems Vegemite has gone to stay.  It is still the oxtail crisp, honey textured, HP sauce mess it was just under a year ago.  It does not taste like it should do.  It is a marker for how bad a year this had been.

Existential Clothes Horse

I had pause to think about what makes me, this week.  I was wondering up the road, about to be picked up and driven to the theatre, and my mind for reasons of its own choosing decided to run the once over on the clothes I was wearing.

To whit, I was wearing a jumper bought in Next some time around 2002 or 2003; a T-shirt from Farmers (NZ shop) from about 2013; jeans from Peacocks, 2018; socks and pants from M&S 2010 and 2017 respectively and trainers from some sports shop 2017, too.  The various British bought guff having travelled to and from the other side of the earth and now too, the t-shirt.  I was a composite of countries and stores and times and different mes.

The me who bought the jumper is alien now.  I cannot bring myself to look at that man in photos.  He is entirely not me both in the sense that every cell that existed in him has changed and that the views and the attitudes he held aren’t mine anymore.  At the very least, I have the good graces to be embarrassed at the manner of the man I once was.  It isn’t pleasing to be reminded of him and what tells you everything about him is that the jumper bought then he never wore.  It never fitted him.  Now it hangs loose on me.  The weight I carried as that man gone.  Going.

The M&S socks are a revelation.  They have stayed with me for an age and are only now holing.  They held firm whilst all equivalent NZ varieties, whether cheap make-dos or proper socks from proper shops snagged and tore, some on their very first outing on foot.  Oddly, a later vintage of M&S sock are already fraying and breaking.  Vimes’ shoe theory expanded.

The T-shirt is a cheap one from a Kiwi department store.  It has been worn many, many times.  A comfort blanket.  Grey.  Apt.  It now shows signs of discolouration and overwear about the seams and down the back.  It has done its dash and carried me through these long days.  Perhaps it needs retiring.

The pants and the trainers were bought as a stocking-up process a Christmas visit to Blighty a year and a bit back, now.  They were to see me through until the next visit back – whenever that was going to be.  They wre not to be worn over here, that’s for certain.

And then it all changed.

And then I needed to spend cheaply on a pair of jeans.  Peacocks.  The belt has disintegrated around the waist already.  The heels had frayed out where they’ve been trampled on.  They are already loose about me.  The first purchase back in the country.  The first part of the new me and they already do not fit properly.

Being me back over here has not been a simple shift.  Still, nearly a year on, my brain refuses to dream of anything other than New Zealand and the life I had there.  It sends me crashing back to the time and the place or to the people night after night and I wake each morning sore headed and irked by the vivid pictures remaining behind my eyes in the initial stage of day starting.

The play I was on my way to seeing was Dracula.  Apt, really.  My Mina is everywhere and I am stuck in one place unable to escape…and, as you can see, I am given to the melodrama that such a comparison lends itself to.  It does feel like I’m stuck in a melodrama.  One of my own making, I freely admit, but one nevertheless.  I am struck by highs and lows day-by-day, week-by-week.  The highs don’t peak too high, it must be said, but the lows…man, they are a sheer drop and take an awful lot of effort to climb back up from.

Realising I am this composite man is curious.  I am fractions and oddments from all this time; I am not a whole but an ever changing construct – one that can consciously dissemble elements now obsolete – though one, it seems, with a blind spot for worth and penchant for melodrama.

Back in the groove...but not in a funky way, sadly...

It’s been a while.  Sorry.

The academic year has started and I’ve been sucked back into its cycle.  It has allowed me two experiences of it: mine and daughter’s.

Hers has been interesting.  She was a little overwhelmed by scale, at first, but appears to have quickly settled into the routine and started to appreciate and take advantage of the opportunities available to her.  Mine has been like looking through an out of focus lens – much like the move back to the UK, in fact.  A school is a school, and the intention and outcome remains the same: educated pupils.  The systems and the processes have their idiosyncrasies, and this is the aspect tripping me up at the moment.

The opportunities available for daughter, for all students, in fact, are pretty great – this is something that does niggle me about expectations on those that work in education.  It is the question that occurs in interview, “And, how will you contribute to the co-curricular activities at the school?”  The approach of the Head of PE, “I understand you’ve coached (insert sport here) before?”  Camps, plays, choirs, debating, tournaments, competitions, events…oh, and do remember you have ensured that that data is complied, analysed and entered for collation and processing by the end of this week, thanks.

I was at school in the 80s when teachers went on strike.  I remember all extra curricular activities stopping.  I remember clubs and supervision at break and lunchtime stopping, and us being told to leave school grounds during these times.  All stuff again taken for granted; all that is dependent on good will.  “It’s part of the job” runs the argument – often from those who then say, “Such short hours” and, “All those holidays”. 

Being late into education, the imposition of the job on personal time is conspicuous.  I used to compare it to having to turn up to work at my old job as travel agent and having had to write the brochure before the seasons start; to have to compose the blurb for each resort differentiated to accommodate the various kinds of tourist that may or may not read the brochure description; to have created the spreadsheet or database that stores all the information about the sales made and then transferring this information from my own record to the company’s record; to having to attend evening meetings with returned holiday makers to discuss their holiday and how it could be improved in the future, to refining the pitch and re-writing the brochure once again to accommodate these aspirational improvements…etc….whilst organising and coaching a company sports team and helping out backstage or with the lighting for the company play….and running a company club at lunchtime.

Of all the jobs I’ve had, this is the only one that inhibits life outside of the four walls of the factory – so to speak.  Never as a travel agent, as a library assistant, as a secretary or office manager, never as a warehouseman did I ever have to take sales home to complete or call from home to confirm an appointment; or take stock home to sort and stack ready for the next day.  Never did I have to go home and design, make, print, guillotine and laminate labels for stock ready for the next day.  It’s all part of the job, remember?

I salute those teachers who give their time and their expertise or revel in their amateur enthusiasm for an interest.  These are the people who fire the imaginations of students, who round and fill their educational experience, who give a place and time for them to feel secure in investing themselves in an interest too.  Daughter is able to take advantage of this generosity so she can sing, act, travel, learn.

As in all jobs, there are exceptions that prove the rule – there are less effective people who work in education, just as there are less effective people who work in any walk of life.  There are, however, many more exceptional people who give much of themselves for the betterment of the young of this country, and in countries all around the world.

Goodness knows how they manage to fit all that in by 3:30pm, eh?