The Chase

When I was a teenager I went on a trip to the seaside. Lucky me lived far enough away from the sea to get proper snow in winter, but close enough to take a short car ride to the coast. Once there, I remember standing on the pier at Saltburn, and looking out across the vastness that is the ocean. If you look into the distance all you see is blue. It gets paler as it snakes outwards, until you can't tell which is sea and which is sky. When I stood there and looked out I had that feeling you get when you see a rainbow.

You know what I mean! You look at a rainbow, and you want to see where it ends. Not just for the silly pot of gold tale, more because...it's gotta end somewhere, right? Look I don't know that much about science but I know that a rainbow isn't a thing you can touch, it's something you perceive, it can't be chased, it can't be caught. Despite this, even now I'll look at a rainbow and want to see where it ends. One day, when I was much younger, I saw the end of a rainbow. It was going right into my next-door-neighbour's back garden. I raced down the stairs of my childhood home and announced to my family that I was going out there to find it! Rushing to the kitchen, I looked out the window and was horrified. The end of the rainbow had moved. It wasn't in the next-door-neighbour's garden anymore, it was arching down a few roads away. Needless to say, I gave up easily, I didn't bother chasing it any further.

Well, that was kinda what it was like looking out to the sea. I wanted to see the end, but I knew the horizon would only get further away. In any case, even where the sea did end, it wasn't the edge of the earth. It was only the end of one journey. And if I were to look behind me, I'd only see that horizon I was chasing again.

No, what I was more concerned with was what I would see on the other end. What was through the looking glass? I asked my Mum this very question, "If I could swim...and I swam out right now, until I came to the shore on the other side...where would I come out?" Mum said, "Norway, I think." That was it, then. I looked out again and I knew Norway was there. I could stare and stare and all I would see in the distance is nothing, but I had an answer. I could almost sense the other people on the shore on the other side. It was there.

I don't know why it meant a lot. I guess I liked being connected to the rest of the world in some way. I hadn't ever been to Norway, yet I was sharing the sea with its inhabitants.

That feeling of chasing the end of a rainbow returns time and time again. When you wonder which country would be directly underneath the spot you are standing in if you were to dig a tunnel straight through the earth. When you walk into thick fog and it's not thick at all, but you can see the thick fog right there in the distance, but when you get there it's moved further away again. When you are walking along the shoreline and the sea is just stretching out, tickling the toes of somebody else, wherever it is they are in the world.

I won't ever stop chasing the horizon, because it doesn't matter if I don't ever get there. As long as I was looking for it, I'll find the answer. It's there.

Screw Loose.

When I consider so many different aspects of who I am, most of it is a re-iteration of what already exists in the world. By that I mean, I'm nothing new. My opinions, beliefs, values and ideals are nothing revolutionary, nothing to blow your mind, freak you out when you hear what's going on in my mind. I am basically recycling the opinions and values of those who socialised me. And who are these people?

Well, look, I'm not going to go all sociological on you, and I feel no need to conduct a deep analysis from a social science angle, but let's just say that who I grew up with, who I hang out with and the things I hear/see/perceive all have some claim to the framework which I use to see the world. This doesn't particularly bother me in and of itself, I mean, that's the beauty in a way, the fact that we're all sort of joined together by an invisible web which underpins society. People look through different parts of the web, but I guarantee you, it is the same web.

The part that bothers me is how many of the values that I have been socialised to believe, without even being aware, are ridiculous when I examine them. And most of them, sexist.

Now I wouldn't call myself a feminist by any stretch of the imagination, mainly because I am probably one of the worst offenders when it comes to sexism, but now that I have discovered the pins which my values pivot upon, I have the urge to take them out. But they're well screwed on.

An example, let's see. My friend opened a bottle I wasn't strong enough to - I gave him 'man points'. I tell people to 'man up'. I find the phrase 'house husband' strange. If I see anything with more than 2 legs in the house I assume I need a man to come and kill said mini-beast...I could go on.

I don't think I could really pin point at what point I latched onto these phraseologies and values, but I don't like that they're there. I want to be free to be who I am, with or without a man, but similarly, it works the other way, men are just as free to be who they are, whether they are afraid of spiders, or can never get the lid of the jar of olives. Is it getting silly to want to ditch vocabulary like 'man up'? I don't know. I think I more want to make it known that I as a woman can man up. Women can be courageous, and strong, and provide for their own. A women is not limited to simply be the things this society say she should be. Nor is a man.

This is really just an organisation of my thoughts over the past couple of years, I'm not really coming to any hard and fast conclusions. All I know is I like being feminine, I like being a woman, and I'll never be able to get rid of spider with my bare hands... but that doesn't mean I'm not strong.