I Thank My Younger Self

During yesterday's school concert , I got one of those throat tickles that makes my eyes water.  It came out of the blue, and within a few seconds I was struggling to contain a cough.  It arrived in the second half, and I'd bought a bottle of water at the interval which I quickly opened. The water soothed my throat and I didn't interrupt the young man who was giving a solo from Les Miserables his full and intense purpose.

Only an hour previously, I had expressed my gratitude to my former self, the one who'd thought to leave a packet of mints in the car for those occasions when, on arrival at a school concert after a long day at work, my mouth feels fuzzy with the coffee drunk at elevenses.

Those acts of water and mint, coming so close together, were kindnesses, forethoughts, on behalf of my slightly younger self to my slightly older self. So I said, "Thank you, Liz," out loud.

So too the plastic bag stashed in my handbag, the tissue in my pocket, the plaster in my purse, the emergency £20 note under the cover of my mobile phone - all these are thoughts I've had for my future self for which I may, one moment in the future stood at a till, or having cut my finger, or reaching for my purse and finding it gone, be grateful.

It's easy to say to myself, "You Idiot!" those times when I late for a meeting and have to hurry, or when I accidently throw away a piece of my car when cleaning it or checking the tyres, or when I set fire to my table because I hadn't thought about the combustibility of packs of poppadums; but I've noticed that practising compassion to myself includes not only going easy on myself when I didn't anticipate the future as it turned out to be, but also acknowledging the small triumphs of preparation which make my days better.

There are more memorable kindnesses too: this evening I'm grateful to my slightly younger self for having the forethought to buy two tickets six months ago for the live transmission to our local cinema of a performance from the Royal Opera House - a Bernstein Centenary celebration in dance and music.

The celebration of Berstein's work was full of wonder, power, depth, rhythm and grace. A performance of the Chichester Psalms, to which the Royal Ballet danced Yugen, moved me unexpectedly. The choir sang in Hebrew; the set was simply monumental, the red costumes flowed against the sensitive lighting: all this adding to a sense of sacred space.  The dancers were sculpted like immortal beings, moving to the music with fluency and power, to a plan thought out long in advance.

http://www.roh.org.uk/showings/bernstein-celebration-live-2018

I Receive Royalties

Chatting with a friend today, she told me about seeing the Queen when in London earlier this week. "Did she look like the Queen?" I asked. "Yes!" came the reply, along with photographic evidence.  Republican or Royalist, you'd have to admit she looked dazzling and very much like herself in a bright orangey-red coat and matching flamboyant hat. https://www.royal.uk/queen-visits-royal-academy

I have had encounters with royalties of my own today.  A four figure (plus decimal point) sum was paid into my bank account courtesy of ALCS - the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society.  https://www.alcs.co.uk/  This made me feel, for a moment, like a poetry princess.

Like most famous people, The Queen is shorter in real life.  Very early one morning, I once saw the Royal Train on the platform opposite me on Shrewsbury station.  I thought I saw a curtain twitch. And once I saw Peter Ustinov in the Oriental Hotel, Bangkok.

I earned the taller-than-I-expected royalties because I registered my poems published in anthologies, and my own pamphlets, with ALCS.  I did this after I'd seen a friend's post on Facebook about this organisation which collects money on behalf of writers from libraries, and those who've legitimately photo/copied their work.

When I receive money which comes from my poetry, I like to spend it on something memorable. I think I'll be spending these royalties on a meal out with my sons and heirs.

I Languish In Bed

I can tell I'm getting better because there is a new splodge of paint on my bedroom wall. 

Last Sunday, I was chatting to my eldest son on the phone when I was felled by a virus, not that I admitted it at the time. My eyes started streaming and I choked on my words. Always one for a bit of healthy denial, I told him that my response was probably an allergic reaction to some cut lilies I had bought which were starting to unfold their petals after a couple of days in the warmth. The fact that I have never reacted to lilies like this before didn't strike me as a reasonable objection to my theory. I couldn't possibly be ill, I told him and myself, as I've had the 'flu vaccine and I'd made it through the winter in good health and wasn't going to be caught now.

By evening I was in a position of defeat - horizontal, lying on my side with a tissue under my nose. And for the next three days, that's pretty much how I stayed, with occasional forays to a sitting up position and my laptop whilst I reassured myself that the bits of the world for which I feel a keen sense of responsibility were doing absolutely fine without me.  I leapfrogged Ibuprofen and Paracetamol and went off lots of things including coffee.

Then yesterday, I got dressed at midday, went to the shops to get more pills, and on the way back, picked up a paint sample pot. Within 15 minutes of being seized by the idea of decorating something, and soon, I'd dolloped a small patch onto my bedroom wall.  I then sunk back into my pillows, feeling more peaceful.

As for the sudden onset of decorating fever, maybe it was the result of staring for too long at four walls this week; or maybe it arose from the need to feel a sense of achievement after being taken out of my daily routine - that deeply ingrained work ethic which says that ill or not, progress must be made!

Two days on, that paint splodge has become a mark of comfort: something about an intent almost as convincing as a fully painted wall. I've fallen for its pale light blue-grey - a fresh, clean hopefulness. Maybe on my brief trip outside, I was caught by something else - by the sense that spring, with all its promise of new and bright colour, is at last in the air.

I Parallel Park

Once, I lived in a one-way street with tightly-bound on-street parking. I was an expert at parallel parking on the left-hand side of the road.  Looking over my shoulder, I could, thanks to power steering, nudge my way into a space just longer than my car and end up with it neatly straight, placed at a few inches distance from the kerb.  I might wake up the next morning to a broken wing mirror and a curry splatted onto the windscreen, but at least I knew my angles.

I thought this skill for keeping things on the straight and narrow was, like making brownies, one I had acquired for life. But it turns out it was just for particular situations, and my son kindly pointed out to me the other day that, whilst my brownies remain roughly square, my parking has become skewed.

Parallel parking is an occasional activity these days - I travel by train as much as possible, and when I do have to park, it's usually in a marked out space, or a street-side so ample and so generous that I can drive into a space headfirst.

For reasons of basketball, though, last week I had to get into a small space: mercifully left-hand side. It took me five, or maybe seven, attempts of backing in, checking the kerb, realising I was adrift, heading out to start all over again. My son sat patiently with me throughout, occasionally opening his passenger door to look down and see where we were up to.

It was a companionable sort of dance this - me edging in, him checking, me edging out, him offering encouragement, me edging in, him checking, us chuckling, me edging out, him commenting on his game's highlights to pass the time before I edged in again. 

Back home, we concluded I need more practice, or less practice. Either way, I'm up for it.

I Rate My Jams

I have been wondering how to rate my jams - the 11 jars plus one of blackcurrant I received from my Longest Serving Friend for my birthday. Five jars in, and I'm in danger of losing the plot. I haven't been sure how to do the rating - I've been mulling over categories such as 'Jamminess', 'Blackcurrantiness', 'Jamminess' ... and generally going around in circles. 

Inspired by marking some assignments, I have decided to use categories I'm used to - ones which are used to judge essays. The four categories are:

Presentation - How's the look of the thing, the grammatical integrity of its label?

Structure - how do the blackcurrants sit together? Is there a sense of flow and logic?

Content - How relevant is the jam to the question set?

Knowledge and understanding - Does the jam understand what it's trying to do?

The table below is a work in progress. I'm five jars in, seven blissful more jars to go.

 

Type	Presentation	Structure	Content	Knowledge and Understanding
St Dalfour	Slim and elegant	Untested
Hartley’s	Predictable and shapely	Loose – random placement of blackcurrants in a thick enough syrup.	Blackcurrant-lite compared to the others but maybe not compared with budget versions which my LSF didn't consider birthday material	This jam does not understand that it’s a jam. It thinks it’s a form of entertainment
Fortnum and Mason	Conservative and purposeful	A dense, thick jam. More of a spread, with its own definition of integrity	Blackcurrant-superior-and-don’t-you-know-it	This jam, whilst rich and privileged, lacks self-awareness. It approaches toast as if it is triangular and crustless
Wilkin & Sons Ltd	Traditional yet stylish	A delightful texture which accommodates to any surface: toast, bread, spoon, tongue	Blackcurrant-just-right.	The baby bear of blackcurrant jams. This jam can do no wrong, but it is risk-averse.
Meridian	worthy and lower case	Untested
Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference	Get your act together, Sainsbury’s	Somehow, the blackcurrants are whole and plump	Tart and sweet. Best of both.	This jam has the maturity to know when to lay it on thick. Every spoonful is a coming of age.
Streamline	Oh pl-eeease! Streamline! I like the lid, though.	Untested
Waitrose	You know how I feel about Waitrose	Untested
Waitrose Duchy Organic	Jam is a classist issue	Untested
M & S	Come on M&S. Get in a new graphic designer. Maybe my friend Pixie.	Untested
Bonne Maman	Perfect. Does what it says on the jar. But what about Bon Papa?	Untested
Goetre Farm	Perfectly acceptable home-made appearance	Perfectly acceptable home-made structure	Perfectly acceptable  home-made content	Perfectly acceptable  home-made understanding of jam

I Grind My Teeth

... at least that's what the dental hygienist suggested to me today. Not that she suggested I start grinding them (in fact, maybe she was suggesting that I stop, but she didn't say that or offer me any suggestions, and neither should you). She suggested that night time grinding might be the explanation for wear and tear. I thought of mentioning eating as another possible explanation for wear and tear, but decided not to as I had a suction thing in my mouth by this stage.

And earlier today the Council suggested I won't get listed buildings consent for some loft alterations I want to make. When I look out across the town centre, at some of the various shop fronts clad in garish plastic, I wonder what the objection could be to me making an internal improvement to a building which has already been internally improved / altered by many people in its past: especially as this objection is designed to preserve some things that no one ever sees.

The hygienist also said that my teeth were stained green. Although I'd not noticed this, in the interval between her hypersonic jet cleaning and her more traditional tooth pick cleaning, I claimed peppermint tea in my defence. This was a precautionary measure in case she mentioned crème de menthe, or moss.  She said that chlorophyll is good for me, and I can keep drinking peppermint tea, but I have to brush my gums in the crowded part of my mouth with more discipline.

Before I wrote to the Council asking for their permission, I thought they'd be enthusiastic about my plan to upgrade an unused part of my home into useful space. I'd imagined it light, spacious, airy. And me, being a poet, looking out over rooftops before going downstairs to make peppermint tea.

Before I went to the dentist, I felt quite okay about my teeth. I have the same three fillings I've had since my sugar-fuelled childhood, and only one of those filled teeth is currently heading towards greater catastrophe.

I think I may grind my teeth particularly hard tonight, in-between bouts of snoring and dreams about being hemmed in, or losing all my teeth.

I Refuse A Biscuit

I know - I am surprised too. It was, admittedly, a second biscuit. Context is everything.

Another bit of context is that I've been reading about boundaries in relationships. Having clear boundaries means knowing what you will and won't accept from people before that thing happens.

So I knew I was going to refuse the second biscuit because I've decided on a lo-biscuit strategy for the time being. This is on account of the cheesebelt, or the cakebelt or the winebelt or the whatever-it-is that's-contributing-to-the-unboundaried-bit-about-my-middle belt.

I like biscuits a lot.

Just thought I'd put that out there.

If you were to offer me a biscuit, as my Longest Serving Friend did earlier, and if that biscuit were to be of high quality (All Butter Salted Caramel, for example) it would require an act of decisive will based on an earlier decision about biscuit-boundaries on my part to refuse it.

Boundaries are ours to tend and nurture. If you were to offer me two biscuits (let's say two Chocolate Olivers) and if I were to accept and then eat both, and then a third, that'd be my responsibility.

Just thought I'd put that out there.