Hen's Basket

Hoola

HOOLA

I, Priestess (15)

I, PRIESTESS (15)

Garage clearance.

It seems my abode rests on sound foundations, so I'm burning my journals: melancholy meditations.  Thirty years of musing (for the most part bemusing). I've borrowed a brazier.

It's repetition that makes the diaries familiar; thirty years of reinterating thoughts all too similar.

Time to grow up and move on.

Four trips to the tip: I got lost the first time, but I threw away things that were and weren't mine. (The hoover was heaving from swallowing dust - and spiders and snails, cobwebs, paper-rust).

Now. . . .

De-cluttering a place mostly leaves me elated but, this time, I felt quite defeated, deflated. 

To throw things away is a sort of life-edit. (Keep what served you well and still does you credit.)

But you cannot ignore the alternative version: the irrational and messy illogical person (in boxes and plastic bags).

I'm so pleased that person's now gone.

I, Priestess (14)

I, PRIESTESS (14)

Well, I think, I got lost in translation or transmission.

Going home.

Never fear, I'm back; just consider it some kind of omission.

Remission from narrating. Writing life can be hard. We remember so little, but, what we remember - our memories - reminds me of lard.

Blocks your arteries and constricts your blood flow.

Stifled and strangled as they are, memories dictate what you think; who you think you are, what you know you think.

Mojo, and kitchen-sink.

'Supposing truth is not continuous, but is discontinuous, untrustworthy, mottled, pitted, full of irony, ambiguity, paradox, failure and instability'.

Let's tell some stories.

(ref: Rick Moody 'On Counternarrative' in (ed) R Rugoff, 2013, The Alternative Guide to the Universe, London: Hayward Publishing)

Going Home's Such a Lonely Ride (2)

GOING HOME'S SUCH A LONELY RIDE (2)

Dehli to London (Gatwick).

Got my passport and boarding pass, credit card and purse; all that I need and nothing that I'd wanted. Eight hours to endure from the time of take-off. Then, the M23, and home via Dorking.

Home to everything I'd tried to leave behind.

My boyfriend left me at the check-in desk. He didn't wait to watch me untie my boots and walk barefoot through the security checks. He never saw my searching look.

It was a night flight.

I sat next to a couple. The wife was keen to talk and her husband went to sleep. He snored a bit while we kept up the chit-chat. She had stories to tell; Asia suited her so well. I worked hard to stay interested but felt tired and bloated.

I tried to remember what I knew; that to stay whole you have to hold on to the past; the geology that is you - petrified forms that define you - and not get scared.

Finally, thank God, we descended and landed.

My mother and father were waiting for me.

Going Home's Such a Lonely Ride (1)

GOING HOME'S SUCH A LONELY RIDE (1)

I am cold: a frozen tundra. But, my eyes are itchy and hot from crying. 

I never planned it this way.

The funeral was in All Saints; a lively church, so the ten-penny brochure claims. It's typical of my sister to bury my father, an atheist brought up by got-the-high-ground Methodists, in an Anglican cemetery. (I know for a fact that, though he died intestate, he wanted to be cremated and have his ashes scattered. Probably in Canada, but I have no real idea. We haven't spoken for fifteen years.)

But, I left her to do it, to struggle through and sort it. My sister arranged the funeral, with the help of her partner and some neighbours of my father's, who felt better placed to put on a benign face once he was dead.

So, it'd be churlish to criticise and, besides, if I pointed out her denominational confusion she'd be the first to laugh and, then, point back that none of it mattered because he was a secular humanist. Or, so he always said, she'd add.

Nine people attended the ceremony, including the vicar and not counting the organist. The latter sounded like he might still be practising as he oozed out the notes of Psalm 23 at a rate, in a key, that left us confused and chorally mute.

We were surprised to see our mother there. She'd dressed nicely for the occassion but, after fish and chips and a half pint of Guiness (once the interment was complete), she forget herself for a while and related tales from when they were still married. (We're talking thirty years ago.) She was full of bitterness and bile. My sister mastered a weary smile.

My wife was too ill to come today. (For many months, now, we've had nothing to say.) When, I get home tonight, I'm going to leave her.

I'll miss my mother as well as my sister.

But, it just seems I must get away.

I, Priestess (13)

I, PRIESTESS (13)

Kind of thought - all in all - I was doing just fine; earning enough to enjoy my spare time.

Then, Yahoo took the trouble to email me. (Updating my 'contacts', apparently.)

Burst my bubble.

The business of living involves carefully ignoring the things that make you weep; the things that just get you too deep.

I was trying to ignore the fact that my brother had died. Yahoo's deleted his details on the grounds he's 'retired'. 

Should I laugh or should I cry?

I, Priestess (12)

I, Priestess (12)

While focussed on shrinking, I couldn't help thinking of the men I've adored who just couldn't stop drinking. 

Each one found too hard this project of living; already and always eternally sinking. 

Silently drowning; not bothered with shouting.

In the end, each was sunk in the pond.

Teach me.

Were they right? 

Or, terribly wronged?

I, Priestes (11)

I, PRIESTESS (11)

Well.

The politics of dieting are powerfully disarming but, honest to God, quite frankly I'm starving.

That said.

You won't find me grumbling; I'll not be complaining. An eating disorder's a form of campaigning; a means of insisting your voice will be heard (however self-harming, ill-judged or absurd).

Where once excess fat was a feminist issue it is now the concern of ecologists, too.

Afterall, how on earth can the planet be saved if we all stuff our faces with the food that we crave? If we use up resources on multiple courses of mass-produced produce (and over-rich sauces)? If we fly in our fruits from far-away lands, and feed our desires from kiosks and stands that only sell meat that's industrially-processed?

Anorexia's the answer.

Subscribe and feel blessed.

I, Priestess (10)

I, PRIESTESS (10)

The council dump was still playing on my mind so I made a list: things I should leave behind.

It seems to me - if you want to be free - the answer is glaring, you just stop consuming.

So, I'm currently considering anorexia (it's more effective, much cheaper, than bulimia).

Now, the regular thinking on dieting and shrinking is that girls just want to be thin.

Well, that's fine.

But, it's wrong.

There's something redeeming in giving up eating.

(I suggest you read Simone Weil.)

I, Priestess (9)

I, PRIESTESS (9)

The trip to the tip left me sick with unease, so I shot a few pigeons and cut down their trees.

I couldn't dismiss, though, the sight of that trash piled up in those crates; it gave me a rash. (I've applied steroid paste to calm my hives down but consumption ain't cured by prescribed cortisone.)

A culture of waste, that's what we've become (a secular place built on late-capitalism). A terrible place with no space for free-thinking (therein lie the pleasures of drugs and hard-drinking).

I wish I believed in some god or some system, where numbers made sense or bad luck had a reason. A meaning to life, a blue-print or template; I'd pray for forgiveness and accept my own fate.

But, when I trod - by mistake - on a snail on the lawn the random nature of life left me feeling forlorn.

I, Priestess (8)

I, PRIESTESS (8)

Now.

My utopia was generally going quite well: exciting, exhilarating.

Life-affirmingly swell.

So.

I took the carpet and underlay (which we'd removed very happily in less than a day) to the tip.

Should've paid for a skip. (Why, on earth, do we acquire so much idiot shit, when we only throw it away?)

The trip to the tip sort of ruined my day.

I downed a gin and hit the hay.

I, Priestess (7)

I, PRIESTESS (7)

With utopia, comes the promise of ascension.

Today we created my stairway to heaven. We pulled up the carpet and underlay. Wrenched out all the staples, prised tack-strips away from the plywood beneath that requires little sanding. (I'm thinking of varnishing or, maybe, just painting.)

Masks still on our faces, we hoovered and swept. Scraped off the detritus (dust stuck to the paint). We lever-ed out cable-tacks left from BT.

I have to admit that it makes me quite happy to bring down a house to its former essentials. (With nothing but brute force and old-fashioned hand-tools.)

Perhaps I've succumbed to the DIY bug. More like, I'm addicted to being a thug 'cos I loved - with full force - this act of disassembling.

But, already, I'm lacking the desire for re-decorating.

I, Priestess (6)

I, PRIESTESS (6)

I wanted to create a utopia. Envisaged a number of grandiose structures.

But, it's structures and things that obscure clear thinking. The material world leaves one drowning.

I'm sinking.

I'm done with re-decorating, renovating, building: with off-the-peg fixtures and ornamentation.

Fed by consumption: banal acquisition.

I'm now in the business of property-deconstruction.

I, Priestess (5)

I, PRIESTESS (5)

This is how our local waste-disposal operates.

Every other Friday the council collects domestic rubbish and garden trash. The weeks in between are for paper cans cardboard plastics glass.

Those every-other Fridays are our days of shame. (When nobody's looking we pop our bottles in next-door neighbours' bins - in the hope of avoiding humiliation and self-blame.)

I wish we could do the same with our pasts. (Just how long does atonement have to last?)

I wish we could recycle our guilt and regrets; re-think them and make them useful. Bin our miserable failures and transform them into something worthwhile and functional.

I envisage a trash-can crowned with flowers.

Imagine this.

Well-disposed and lightly-perfumed; a world that never goes rotten and never sours.

I, Priestess (4)

I, PRIESTESS (4)

So, I've made a decision to take control: lean and fit and healthy and well.

You'll find me each morning with chalk on my fingers, hanging from a Beastmaker while the sliced bread singes.

So what if the smoke-alarm's ringing?

I can't be found quitting this crimping or clinging to those (beautifully-carved) wooden jugs. You see, I'm practising learning how to handle pull-ups.

Even if the house is razed to the ground, in the process.

You'll find me each lunch-time eating soup from fresh vegetables. Forcing it down despite each bowl tasting quite terrible. (The midday bevy has been replaced already with carrot juice or a mixed-berry smoothie.)

Then.

You'll find me out front, pumping the tyres on my bicycle. (I have to admit, it leaves me quite miserable. Too many sad memories of good times in the nineties.)

You'll find me in the afternoon, hula-hooping in the back-garden. (Got it off amazon.com. It tones one's lower abdomen.)

And, in the evening.

You'll find me behind the sports centre, slack-lining. (The butt-bounce was tricky; it proved quite demanding, but I managed it in the end.)

And, later.

You'll find me at night, curled up in bed, trying to focus on a some contemporary women's fiction. But, it has to be said, those late night-caps seriously fuck your concentration.

I, Priestess (3)

I, PRIESTESS (3)

My step-mother was a lazy cow. 

I'll tell you a tale from a far-away land; as much as I'm able. (Perhaps I still misunderstand.) 

As I remember:

A boy and a girl who'd yet to do harm; they were pretty and charming cack-handed disarming. Serious curious quite bright and still humorous; they met every day with a light-hearted optimism. (A characteristic that is life-affirming).

They loved each other, and their mother and father. The boy was my brother. The sister was me. If petitioned in the years prior to 1973 we'd have said we were happy as happy as can be.

So, here's to stupidy ignorance naïveté. (Will you wait while I crack open a good Pouilly-Fumé?)

My father and mother didn't much like each other. They quickly divorced on the grounds of infidelity. The result: bad-feeling, court orders and alimony. 

My father married again. 

I remember, clearly (every other Saturday), my father watching Grandstand: Benson and Hedges and a glass of whisky balanced precariously on the arm of his green-upholstered chair.

(We never ate properly while we were there.)

And, our step-mother was nowhere to be found. Each alternate weekend she faked 'flu and went to ground.

My brother and I spent our formative years playing poker for Tic-Tacs and cans of stolen beer.

He was cleverer than me, and his game was strategic. More often than not I was miserably defeated.

Hungry as hell, that's how I learned to be - in future years - such a gracious loser. After all, tell me.

How on earth do you fight back when you love the person who's beating you?