Weeping angels and speaking hearts

Posted on May 14, 2013 by memoirsofahusk

Since the age of eight I’ve been a fan of Doctor Who, a children’s TV programme in which an anonymous Doctor (who?) travels through time and space, battling evil. The Doctor’s also a Time Lord, which means he ‘regenerates’ rather than dying like the rest of us. Very convenient when you need a change of actor.

We humans are fascinated by what we cannot do, so travelling through time and space  almost guarantees televisual success. But that’s not really what Doctor Who is all about.  At least, I don’t think so.

For a start, there’s always a malign force to be overcome. Strange, evil creatures from other worlds or familiar ones from our own, rendered unfamiliar.

The weeping angels are, I reckon, the most terrifying creatures the Doctor’s ever faced. Familiar but alien, benign yet cruel, they’re just stone statues. Statues of angels. Well, as long as you keep your eyes open they are. Blink for an instant and they swoop. The only way to keep safe is by keeping your eyes open. So simple. So impossible.

But the Doctor will triumph, won’t he?

The classic duel. Good and evil. Fear and hope.

And conquering mortality.

Isn’t that why the Doctor never really dies? It’s a glimmer of hope. There may be a life beyond our own out there – somewhere, sometime.

And so we keep on striving. Live longer, travel further. Know more, do more. Earn more, buy more.

But then what?

What do we really care about?

When I was seven I learnt about the soul. The soul, in case you didn’t know,  is made of chalk. White chalk. Draw a human silhouette on a blackboard, shade it in and you’ll see what I mean.

Sin is the absence of white chalk. A little sin creates a small black hole, but a big sin erases the lot. The whole soul. Leaving a big black silhouette.

I also learnt about God being everywhere. Seeing everything, hearing everything, knowing everything.

I began to believe that nothing existed but God and me and all the saints in heaven. That I was living in a make-believe world which existed solely to test me – to see if I would sin. To see if I would behave badly, pick my nose, think wicked thoughts, say nasty things.

I still feel like that sometimes. But now I’m aware of the reality of love. You learn about love partly by losing people who matter to you, my friend Ros, for example. My parents.

Love is the stuff of life. And though I haven’t been a parent I’ve seen the boundless, almost painful love a parent can feel for a child.

But is it infinite, that love? A parent must, one day, die. So how can it be endless?

‘Humans have an appetite for the infinite,’ says the priest. And I write it down on the newsletter. It’s printed on green paper on this ‘Communication Sunday’ – whatever that is.

Atheist-man frowns a question but I ignore him, listening hard.

I doubt the good Monsignor considered Doctor Who when composing his sermon, but I think he might agree with where I was going.

Because now he’s talking about heart speaking unto heart. He’s referring to a treatise on the love of God written by St Francis de Sales:

Eyes speak to eyes, and heart to heart, and none understand what passes save the sacred lovers who speak.

It was the theme of the last papal visit to this country. And it speaks (sorry) volumes, without even trying.

Technology has changed the way we communicate, says the priest.

But not how humans need to live.

To be friends on Facebook is not an expression of true feeling. Trading newsy Tweets is not about real knowledge. Blogging, no matter how thoughtful, is not the human heart reaching out and feeling the love of other human hearts.

It’s all just minds working. And as far as I’m concerned, my mind alone is never going to reason its way to a better world – much less a faith in God.

Dipping into the Cloud of Unknowing again this leapt out at me:

Of God himself no man can think. He may well be loved, but not thought. By love he may be grasped and held, by thought, never.

By thought, never.

I’m not attempting to construct a God my intellect can know. But I am, with some trepidation, leaving the door open to love. Infinite love. Even if the thought of it terrifies me.

Perhaps, one day, it will creep up on me when I blink.

Will Atheist-man keep his eyes wide open, I wonder?

Posted in Religious for a year: Atheist-man's experiment | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

The lip pencil of invisibility. And a grown-up woman’s request for JK Rowling.

Posted on May 3, 2013 by memoirsofahusk

Are you fraying round the edges? I’m not too bad, but then I never smoked –  not much, anyway. I did buy two packets of Gitanes when I was at university so I could stick the packets on my wall. I smoked them too – well, waste not, want not. And I did go through a brief cigarillo phase, in my mid-twenties. Long, elegant, they made you feel like Lauren Bacall. Or perhaps that was just me.

But I digress.

When lips start fraying around the edges, lip pencil becomes your friend. No more the smile of Coco the Clown where once you were Coco Chanel. You draw a line, set boundaries, get tough with slippy lippy. Though sometimes, I have to say, you do end up looking like one of those poor souls who actually took the ads for permanent make-up seriously. Tattoo your lips? Ooh no. Your eyes? Eeeek.

And then there’s clear mascara. What? You don’t get it? Eyebrows, my dear.  Bernard Ingham. Groucho Marx. Enough said.

It’s sad, but true, that the older you get the more your preening time is spent in mitigation not enhancement. And for what? Does anyone actually notice? Will it stop the gaze of passers-by from sliding right over you as if you’re not there?

My dad used to repeat a  rhyme:

the other day upon the stair I met a man who wasn’t there,

he wasn’t there again today…

I realise now he got the gender wrong.

Take the bike shop man. I’ve shopped in his shop, bought a wonderful (plum-coloured) bike from his collection. Discussed saddles and helmets. Lights and gears. I’ve even been in a meeting with him.

He doesn’t recognise me. Walks past me in the street. Turns round, with a  frown, several paces later, when he – perhaps – remembers.

Women of a certain age.

Something happens.

No need for an invisibility cloak.

We just vanish.

Ping.

And it’s not just the visual thing. When you finally do notice a woman who’s over – well whatever I’m over – you start to see just that – a woman, nothing more. A mum, a nan, an auntie. No past, no personality, no added dimensions.

Yes, it happens a bit with men – you do that, ‘ah, what a nice old man’ thing – well, until he pats your bottom or winks with a leer or sneers at your idle chatter. But if you thought a bit more you’d wonder what he did – for a living I mean – wouldn’t you? And if you wondered, you’d think about things like bus driver, tax collector, bank robber. Not dad, uncle, grandpa.

The other day upon the station (not the stair) a woman with silver hair and a fuzzy Kangol hat smiled at me with lips that – yes – had frayed, just a tad. But her lipstick was applied with care and beneath the hat she was buttoned up tight in a smart, beige, suede jacket. I’d have ruined it in no time. Tomato sauce. Or newsprint.

I returned her smile and that was it. On the Liverpool line chatting’s obligatory. We nattered our way into town. In twenty minutes I learned she had been a lecturer, that she’s a lawyer, a mother of four, a mature student.

The shame of it. I’d looked at that hat and that hair – and those smartly slicked, lipsticked lips – and saw just a nice, older, woman. I’d never have guessed she’d been a lecturer, or a lawyer.

Why?

I have no answer. I just don’t like it.

And so, here’s my request for JK Rowling.

Dear JK,

Please could you invent a cloak of visibility?

Not for our fraying lips and bushy eyebrows, comfy midriffs or laughter lines, but for us. Whoever we are.

Whatever we have – or haven’t – done.

As well as being women.

Thanks.

Yours sincerely,

A woman. Wearing lip pencil. And clear mascara.

Posted in If you only read one ..., Thinking, or ranting, or both | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 177 Comments

Two dog night, no dog morning

Posted on April 24, 2013 by memoirsofahusk

Saturday.

Under clear blue skies we set sail for Manchester.  (I lie. We drive.)

The hotel’s grand. Victoriana at its best. Come six o-clock we head out, past the old town hall, accessorised for fun with helter-skelter, big wheel and roundabouts.

IMG_1650Outpacing the stagnant traffic, following signs saying ‘mosque,’ we’re passing the old fish market when I spot the black cowboy hat. We grin at Kinky Friedman – for it is he – and, despite the fat cigar clamped between his teeth, he grins right back.

Yee ha!

Our table seats six. Three couples, each a stranger to the other two. And they got there first. We have our backs to the gig.  Harrumph.

Settled in with a glass of red wine, I let it go. Respond in kind to the friendly woman facing us – and (small harrumph) the front.

It’s seven o’clock. The veggie platter’s good – but there’s not that much of it. Well, not when you consider we have a long evening ahead. And two bottles of red wine to be drunk. By us.

The Kinkster strolls to the microphone, strums his guitar. Sings about an ‘Asshole from El Paso’.

I’m not sure the staider couple at our table get him. I suppose it could be a bit of a shock if you’re expecting – well, what were they expecting? Probably not jokes about Germans tying their shoelaces with little Nazis . . .

Maybe they don’t realise he’s Jewish.

Maybe they sussed he’s not too fond of golf.

Maybe they’ll like Roger’s poems better.

Or maybe not.

After the second interval they’re gone.

Roger McGough

Roger McGough

I buy a book of Roger McGough’s poems. ‘As far as I know’ comes wrapped against dust in a picture of Crosby Beach. Our beach. We chat. (What do I blather on about? Sigh.) He dedicates it to, ‘Mary, from Crosby’ which moves me. Odd. Maybe it’s the wine.

By the time the Kinkster returns we’ve got to know the other couple.

She  and I were born in the same Catholic nursing home. They’re buying a house on a hill. Yes, these folks will live on the hill where I scattered mum’s ashes last Christmas. Oooh.

Kinky returns, interrupting the chain of spooky coincidences.

An initial spike of laughter sputters and dies as he sings,  ‘Ride Em Jewboy’. Our request. It’s not a jolly song. Camps and smoke. Yellow stars. Dead limbs – and ringless fingers.

‘Wild ponies all your dreams,’ he sings, ‘were broken.’

Beautiful, but no comedy turn.

We talk to him after the show and I blather some more.

Kinky, he's the one in the black hat and jacket. Thanks, camera.

Kinky, he’s the one in the black hat and jacket. Thanks, camera.

Give him a copy of my book for his sister. Well, why not? (She worked in Africa.) We leave with his phone numbers – to use when we’re in Texas, next month.

‘Will you answer the phone yourself,’ asks my resident Texan, not at all certain what’s going on here.

‘Sure!’ grins Kinky. We shake his hand and bid him farewell. But the evening’s not quite over.

Like wicked serpents, the evil other-couple hiss to us in our weakness.

‘Another drink?’

I take it back. They’re not evil – and definitely not serpents. Still, we’re tempted – and head off into the night.

It’s a mad, noisy, frenzied fabulous world out there. We stand, in the rain, in a heaving pub’s back yard. Except it’s not raining. It’s the air conditioning. Legionella springs to mind.  Oh well.

But we’re not twenty something any more. We wilt. Share hugs. Remember that scene in ‘Four Weddings’? The bride, tipsy, to more or less anyone: ‘I love you!’ That’s me. Except older.

We totter back to our Victorian splendour. Take the lift to the fourth floor. Listen for sounds of hens at the party next door but hear none. Relief.

And so, at last, I rest my brimming head on a fine cotton pillowcase.

Outside a bright, noisy night folds-up into a quiet Sunday morning.

I have felt better. In search of a café breakfast we stroll through a deserted town. And I’m thinking about dogs.

‘So,’ Kinky said to us, last night, ‘shall I put you down for two dogs?’  He supports a dog sanctuary called Utopia. It’s in the Texas Hill country. Near a place called Comfort.

I don’t think he was serious. Or was that why he gave us the phone numbers?

We round a corner and happen upon a man on his knees. It may be Sunday but he’s not praying. He’s peeing down the pavement. I try not to look but can’t help it. And now he’s struggling back into his sleeping bag.

It’s a cold shady alleyway, the place where he spent the night. A no dog night, in the chill of early spring.

The world has a habit of making you notice it, one way or another.

Posted in Art, jaunts & going out | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

A cloud of unknowing. A cloud of forgetting. Where’s it all going to end?

Posted on April 17, 2013 by memoirsofahusk

I’ve woken up dazed. A concert arena popped up in my head overnight. The band’s last encore finished hours ago and the crowds have melted away, leaving fragments of tickets, bits of Malteser bags, beer-stains on the floor. It’s an empty, echoing void. (And no, it’s not a hangover. I think there’s a cold on the way.)

We’re six months into Atheist-man’s religious experiment and I’ve reached that point. That, ‘do I really have to go to church today?’ point.

‘I don’t mind if we don’t go to Mass,’ I say, expecting a rueful smile of acquiescence. Or something like that. But, no.

‘I suppose we could look up the readings,’ he says.

Oh dear. I should have known. If he’s going to do it, he’s going to do it.

I bathe away my reluctance. Stick my head underwater, hoping to unplug my muffled-up ears. It kind of works. No echo now. Just the hollow sound of something missing.

The first sign all’s not well with Atheist-man slips by me unnoticed. He leaves half his breakfast. But then, we did gorge our way through his birthday. Crunching through crisp battered haddock and chips. Chewing on brownies, sipping champagne. Twenty four hours’ indulgence.

But now it’s Sunday and it’s time to go – if we’re going.  (I’m still sort of hoping.)

‘Would you mind driving,’ he says, ‘I forgot to put an egg in the pancakes.’ 

Ah. That explains it. He’s not all there. I ate the dollops of dough, dotted with hot banana, speckled with toasted walnut, out of politeness. I thought he left his because he didn’t need to be polite to himself.

Silly me. He’d never leave a walnut.

The first hymn’s rousing. By verse three my voice is an unpredictable squeak – then nothing at all. My larynx has gone on strike, come out in sympathy with my head.

We stand for the Gospel.

‘Do you love me?’ Jesus asks, three times, of Simon Peter – echoing the apostle’s own triple denial as that wretched cock crowed.

I turn to look at Atheist-man. A sixth sense tells me he’s in another place entirely (and it’s not Crosby Beach*).  

‘Go walk around the graveyard,’ I hiss, risking the wrath of my neighbours for speaking during the reading. Face pale, he sneaks away.

And I turn my thoughts to love. Love beyond all knowing. Love that’s not been earned, deserved or even, maybe, desired.

Infinite love.

Try and imagine it. It’s a wee bit scary, don’t you think?

With God, infinite love can be yours. But you have to want it, to accept it. You have a choice. You have free will.

But first, you have to find God.

A medieval mystic wrote a famous work, The Cloud of Unknowing, about finding the reality of God. Contemplation is the key. It’s far too deep to sum up in a shallow blog, but for me its essence seems to be, don’t use your intellect to find God.  Forget knowledge. Lay bare your consciousness. Leave the window of your soul open. Let it all flood in. Feel the love.

I’m intrigued – you might say mystified – by the Cloud author’s concepts of ‘ought and nought’ – something and nothing. That ‘nothing’ is not an absence of everything, it can be felt. Everywhere and nowhere. Phew.

And then there’s the less well-known Cloud of Forgetting. That’s where you dump all your desires, distractions – and, I guess, your boring everyday thoughts, your did-I-lock-the-back-door, must-do-a-big-wash-this-weekend kind of thoughts. Well, that’s just my own, banal interpretation, reflecting my own banal thoughts.

Which brings me back to our secular, materialistic, twenty-first century world. Because we have a mystical cloud, all of our own. Yes, in this digital, ethereal, hyper-connected yet disconnected world we’re storing our dreams, hopes, worries, work, lives, loves and friendships in – a cloud.

You back-up your data and float it off to the cloud. Store your  important stuff off site where you feel it’s safe. Protected from fire and theft. Accessible from anywhere.

Everyone’s doing it. Well, I’m not, consciously – though there are times when I have no choice. That’s the virtual world – free will, but only to a point.

But, where is everything?

Where is all this stuff that is everywhere – but nowhere?

They burned women for less.

[*Crosby Beach is the location of an installation called ‘Another Place’ comprising statues of iron men by the sculptor Anthony Gormley]

Posted in Religious for a year: Atheist-man's experiment | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Africa, the first time. Passports are important things.

Posted on April 10, 2013 by memoirsofahusk

You learn a lot from travel, not always the obvious things about culture, diversity, language and stuff.

My first trip to Africa taught me that you really should keep your passport up to date. Especially if you have ‘journalist’ as your occupation (when you’re not any more) and you’re visiting a place that’s recently been a battleground.

The year – cringe, was it really that long ago – was 1982. The place, Zimbabwe.  Quite exciting times. Salisbury had just become Harare, Que Que had just become Kwe Kwe and Bulawayo – well, it was still Bulawayo.

I arrived (with said passport stating ‘journalist’) and was told I had to report to the Ministry of Information. Given I was visiting Philips’ operation there I wasn’t too worried – after all, with a massive international business behind me (gulp) there would be a fuss if anything went wrong.

And the most they were likely to do was throw me out, right?

So, I went to the Ministry and queued behind a handful of ‘real’ journalists.

The windows were criss-crossed with brown tape. It took me a moment to realise that it was not there for decoration. I’d become used to the billowing ‘net’ curtains in London that were supposedly there to catch glass fragments in event of a bomb blast, but sticky tape? I am not, despite my great age, a war child, I never saw the windows of the blitz years, though now I have seen pictures.

It went off uneventfully. I left with a permit. A bit of a disappointment? No, thank you, quite a relief.

Thanks to my employer I was privileged to be staying in the Meikles Hotel. What a sophisticated place! I felt as if I was in a movie from 1950s America. Cosmopolitan, smart, modernist. Such good service, such good food, such a pleasant room.

By way of contrast, my first visit to an African factory was an eye-opener. I guess the voluptuous, shiny vehicles on the road should have been a clue. If the hotel was a little like the ’50s the cars were a lot. Beautiful.

Through years of sanctions under Ian Smith (following his Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain) Rhodesia (as it then was) had become used to making do and mending. Deprived of modern goods people kept the old beautifully. Of necessity.

Telecommunications technology was also a time-travel experience. No semi-conductor production lines with people in hairnets here. No, it was wiring diagrams on the wall, copper cables in coloured plastic.

And the people. Black or white, white or black, people were friendly and optimistic. To me, to my face, anyway.  One of the white folks who showed me around wanted to start a shrimp farm. I wonder if she ever did and if so – well, maybe best not go there.

My final treat was a trip to the big commercial show of the year. Like one of our annual agricultural shows but with a big audience seated around a show-ground. A visit from the Air Force was one of the turns of the day. It was a helicopter.

I’m sad to say that despite sanctions, despite war, despite everything, my first trip to Zimbabwe set me up with expectations that my first trip to Zambia dashed. But then, three days in Harare was hardly preparation for a visit to Mumbwa Caves . . . Of which, more, next time.

 

Posted in Socks, spoons, stones and sunsets, Travelling, Zambia | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Grand Local

Posted on April 4, 2013 by memoirsofahusk

In hairdressing salons all around town girls coiffed in big rollers sit, patiently, reading magazines, scrolling phones. Waiting for lash extensions, manicures, make-up.

Outside, bitter gusts blow rubbish down the street. Men wearing scarves bend into the wind as they walk. Women in sheepskin hunch against the chill as they shop. Nearly midday – and only 5 degrees.

But something odd is happening.

It’s the flesh you notice first.

Bare arms, bare legs.

Tight dresses, draped dresses, big hats and fascinators.

Bright colours, loud colours, soft colours, no colours black or white.

A sign of the seasons changing.

It’s Aintree races. And it’s cold. Frosty lawns have melted under the weak sun. Crocuses shiver in the shade of bare trees. But out on the streets something’s blossoming.

A spectacle. A party. A peacock parade. A welcome harbinger of a real spring.

So, what’s not to like?

It’s a trial for Aintree residents, no doubt, Grand National time of year.  Collective annual madness. Rubbish in their gardens. Chaos on the roads.

Photographers, beamed up from planet snooty, will scout around the racecourse for fat girls on the razzle.

Go on love, show us yer knickers! Vomit for the camera! Get your picture in the paper!

But they would, wouldn’t they? Through the lenses of the media it’s a class thing, isn’t it? I mean, you wouldn’t find chubby girls, whose best friends should have told them, at Goodwood, or Ascot, or Cheltenham. Well, would you?

Yeah, right.

It’s a different world, this world, but not that different. So don’t see it through their eyes, those lazy photo-hacks.

Set aside your preconceptions.

Today is local day.

Girls poured into slinky dresses totter around on skyscraper heels, leaning on bffs for mutual support. Curled, tanned and manicured. Dolled up to the nines and looking great.

Men in fidgety gaggles gather outside bars. They’re shod in Aintree-best black lace-ups, buttoned in crisp white shirts, trussed in silky ties, clad in shades of ‘suits-you’ grey – or rarer black.

Outfits for weddings, christenings, races. For joy, adventure, fun.

And behind the scenes the people who make it happen are working overtime.

Hairdressers and florists, barbers and beauticians.

Bus drivers, train drivers and ‘what-do-you-think-I-am-a-bleedin-chauffeur’ drivers.

Who cares if the national media make sport of our local fun? Well, I suppose we all do. That’s Liverpool, isn’t it?

But think on this, Aintree’s not in Liverpool it’s in Sefton. Whoever heard of that?

Bring back Lancashire, that’s what I say.

Posted in Art, jaunts & going out, Liverpool, Thinking, or ranting, or both | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Travelling through time and space – with a crache

Posted on April 1, 2013 by memoirsofahusk

I watched Doctor Who last night.

‘I don’t know where I am!’

Such a  familiar feeling.

So now it’s Sunday morning and the wretched clocks have gone forward – depriving me of yet another hour’s sleep. But I’m ready for church. Bathed, coiffed, wearing a bright green linen coat in honour of spring and resurrection. And early.

For the very first time we arrive before the bell starts telling – yes, telling, not tolling – us we’re late. The memory of Friday’s sardine-like experience still vivid in our minds we’re determined to get ‘our usual’ seat.

Dream on.

We end up almost at the front. As the organ pipes up a very large chap squeezes in next to Atheist-man. They’ve run out of hymn books, so the three of us share.

Soon the ushers are directing folk up the stairs, into the gallery above the side door. Standing room only again. Amazing. Utterly amazing.

We’ve sung two hymns, the Gospel’s done and dusted, the sermon well underway when I realise how noisy it is.  Thank goodness the church has a sound system. Or maybe not. Maybe that’s why the toddler yelling ‘hiya’ and waving at the priest is quite so audible. He is, after all not far from the microphone, up there in the gallery. The toddler, not the priest.

We stand to renew our baptismal vows. Atheist-man never made them in the first place and is, understandably, silent. Time for a good look around.

We’ve just finished rejecting Satan and all his works when Atheist-man bends and whispers in my ear.

‘It’s a bit squirmy here today, isn’t it?’

It certainly is. And squawky, squeaky and crash-bang-clattery.  I can’t help but think the priest looks pained, wincing at times. What a contrast with Friday. Not a peep from anyone. No children, Atheist-man pointed out. I hadn’t noticed, too busy holding my arms close to my side to keep to my personal space – and, more cerebrally, empathising with a man dying a horrific death.

The noise from the gallery increases. The toddler’s been moved to the back but I think he’s now found an echo chamber.  

‘A crèche?’ Atheist man suggests.

‘A crache’, I respond, despite myself. The two of us look down and try hard not to snort with laughter. (You had to be there.)

‘My peace . . . ’ says the priest, then pauses ever so slightly and (am I imagining it?) looks up at the gallery before continuing, ‘I leave with you, my peace . . . ’ looks up again. Now I’m squirming.

‘Let us offer each other . . .’  he definitely looks up at the gallery before turning to us all, ‘the sign of peace.’

As the choir sings the chorus from the Messiah – you know the one – I ponder. Is this what English churches would all be like if Henry VIII had been gay? Or monogamous? I mean, setting aside the Lutheran reformation, Puritans, etc. After all, Spain and France remained Catholic.

Would all those beautiful Anglican churches (feels envy, a sin) that once were Popish be full to bursting? Pulsating with glorious music, with people singing and raising their voices, overjoyed that Christ has ‘a-risen, a-risen, ari- -i-i- -i-i-i- i-i-i- isen’?

I shift to a parallel universe. The sun is shining. England is Catholic.  The Queen’s just a Queen. The crosses in small town centres are not all war memorials. Statues of the Blessed Virgin adorn many a flowery bower.

Back in my home dimension, Mass draws to a close. The good Monsignor tells the children to claim an Easter egg from the altar servers as they leave, then he hesitates, looks around wickedly (not really, obvs) and says, ‘but I saw them first’.

Nice one, Monsignor.

Oh, by the way, Atheist man says you can feel joy at the arrival of Easter Sunday without believing in God. Something to do with ‘the last one for a week’.

Well he did start this.

Happy Easter Week, everyone.

Posted in Religious for a year: Atheist-man's experiment | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment