Falling

I am a woman of habit. Of compulsion and obsession too (oh no, it's obsession and compulsion, not compulsion and obsession, how could I have got that wrong? OBSESSION and COMPULSION) See what I mean?

Today I was walking round the glorious retail mini-paradise that is the Metro Centre and had to inform my friend that we were 'on the wrong sides' and I had to swap round from her right to her left. Seriously.

And then I was standing on the upper floor where there is a balconette type area. You can stand by a bannister thing and look down to the floor below. See the people walking. They look like tiny ants (Well, they look like people only smaller, I think I have confused myself for the BFG or something....) Anyway the point is, there I was looking down...and I wanted to jump.

Now, don't get me wrong, I am not suicidal. I have not had the best week this week but I am not a depressive. I don't WANT to injure or kill myself by falling from great heights, but....the thought was there.

Perhaps, more worringly, this isn't the first time this has happened. At University I remember we had a lecture in a large room on the upper floor of a huge building, affectionately known as 'Parky'. When I'd climbed the stairs and was leaning against the railings, looking down, I would often announce to my friends 'Don't you just feel like jumping off?' to which they would reply 'NOOO' insistently.

There was also that time I was in Tesco with my Mam. On the upper floor, surveying the clothes, I suddenly turned around to see the aisles of food below. I said to my Mum 'I just feel like jumping down' to the horror of a nearby shopper who mumbled something such as 'Oooh no I don't, it doesn't bear thinking about' wheeling her trolley away in disgust.

But I'm not mad.

Well, I am....but this has nothing to do with that.

It's that feeling of being free. Of 'I can do anything up here'. The potential adrenaline rush. The fear. The blood pumping. The lack of your comfort zone. Of just being 'close to the edge'. I just feel good like that, looking down. I don't want to jump down, I want to feel jumping down. I want to feel like I could jump down if I wanted to. Like for a second the impossible is possible, and I could defy gravity, I could prove Isaac Newton wrong, I could reach into my dreams and take a dose of fantasy, and float near the ceiling like I have there before. Everything becomes brilliant, no matter how small the gap between my feet and the floor. Everything becomes a possibility, no matter how far my feet from the ground.

I found out recently that these thoughts of jumping from a high place are linked to OCD, something which I do suffer with considerably. But I think the message of this irrational split-moment thought remains all the same. That is,we all want to feel free, to feel challenged, to feel on the edge. For things to happen for us so easily, as easily as just falling - it requires no skill, just the daring to jump.

Next time I'm hanging out my window, or walking up Roseberry Topping, I think I might refrain from launching myself to the ground on a whim. All the same, next time I'm at a metaphorical high point, with a beautiful view and the audacity to believe....I'm going to jump.

SMILE it's Lent (nearly)

This is my project over the next few weeks. Starting 9th March, Lent begins, and therein a bunch of people fumble through a 40 day fad. Well, this year I have decided that my 40 day fad is not going to be a praise-seeking, worthless stint of giving up chocolate or coffee (or Johnny Depp...) but instead I'm going to do the pro-active, DO SOMETHING type of Lent activity. I wondered what I could do precisely which would meet this criteria that could actually, seriously be something. And as someone of tiny proportions I decided that maybe starting small would be a good idea. So, this year, my aim is to make EVERYONE on my facebook friends list SMILE at least once before Easter. Now, there are a number of potential to objections to this, which I will examine briefly as follows...

1) That's not really much of a big deal.

No, not really, I did say I was starting small. But maybe it is more of a task than you had originally thought. I mean I have 130 odd friends on facebook, the vast majority of which I have limited actual contact with. Just a quick look at some of the names on there faced me with friends of friends, people who have me on limited profile, family members who I see only twice a year and...exes. Some of those people I don't much feel like making smile. But then, that's the whole point. Jesus didn't come to Earth thinking 'I'll just save my bessie mates, the rest of them I'm not too fussed about' If He had, I doubt I would have made the list. No; love is universal, and it has nothing to do with liking someone, or, indeed, how much you talk to them. So...you know, not a HUGE deal but a LITTLE deal. For now.

2) You can't measure this!

The Sheldon Cooper in me pointed out that in order for this to be success I needed some way of measuring the number of people who smiled before Easter and whether those people smiled because of me. And how on earth do I do that? It is so impractical I feel it's not worth bothering with. This social experiment is not scientific, it would be nice if people did let me know whether my attempt to make them smile worked but it's not always gonna happen, but if I have attempted to make everyone on my friends list smile before Easter that will be enough. And if some people let me know it didn't work then I will definitely have another go at it!


3) It's not selfless.

This brings me to that episode of Friends where it was more or less discovered that every seemingly 'selfless' act is actually selfish in one respect at least. I'm not especially doing this for a gooey 'I did good' feeling, but I won't complain if it turns up. And yeah maybe I'm not doing anything life changing or anything amazingly selfless like that, but I'm making a start. Seeing if I can actually help people within my Internet community. Maybe I can? I don't know.

4) How does this work, practically?

Basically, I'll do it whatever way I can. Via snail mail, e-mail, facebook, in person, whatever I think is appropriate. I might get it wrong, but I'm willing to take that risk.

This brings me onto the rules for the Lent challenge, because, let's face it, there needs to be some sort of guidelines. They are as follows.

1) I am not allowed to delete any facebook friends between the date of this blog post and Easter Sunday.

2) I can add as many friends as I want between now and Easter Sunday, but any added friends must be included in the challenge.

3) I am allowed to tell the person that I am doing it for Lent, but I am not obliged to.

4) I do not have to use facebook to make the person smile.

5) I must have attempted to make everyone on my facebook friends list smile by midnight on Saturday 23rd April 2011.

6) Any attempts made before midnight on the 9th March 2011 do not count.

That's basically it, before this task becomes less a spontaneous, good idea construed on a whim and more a carefully structured, mundane activity done out of a sense of duty.

Hopefully this will be a worthwhile challenge, and hopefully I'm not the only one who thinks it is worth anything... so I think that's it. Oh and, if you are interested...don't forget to check my blog for further updates once the challenge begins.

The handbag diaries

I have an awful lot of handbags. It's no surprise really, given the current cultural stereotype of the typical 22 year old female graduate, I suppose I feed such characterisations. Anyway, yeah, the point is...handbags...I have lots of them. I don't suppose I really need them ALL, but necessity isn't really on my mind when choosing and purchasing bags. It's really not the point. And since I met my best friend and discovered the art of co-ordinating my bags with outfits, well....you can guess the result.

My main problem with the quantity of bags I own (other than storage; my current system can be summed up as chaotic) is the faff of changing bags around. You see it's not just a case of take out the purse, phone and keys and shove them in another bag...no, it always seems to be much more complicated that. As I have a tendency to be lazy when it comes to cleaning out my bags, things accumulate in there, and so I end up with bags here, there and everywhere, with bits and bobs still stuck in them. Over the summer, when I tend to take lighter or smaller bags out with me, it's noteable how much of my life can be pieced together through old receipts, bus tickets, train tickets and such like in pockets and pouches, I neither think to, nor feel compelled to remove.

I came to consider this whole situation because I have just been swapping a bag over and I decided it was time to clean out my good old reliable black bag. Said handbag is trendy and sufficiently big enough for all my work things, as well as passing 'the handbag test' (i.e does it look good hooked over your arm?) Anyway I was changing it over because I have a new one I got for Christmas which I think will cheer me up with its bright colour. As I tipped the contents out onto my bed to appraise what was there I was shocked, not only at how much rubbish was stuffed inside, but also the length of time it must have been stuck in there. Of course there was the usual Tesco receipts, bus tickets, and train ticket (goodness knows which train journey that was from...I seem to take trains quite a lot!) there was also an empty tube of handcream, a lipgloss I thought I'd lost and a folded up piece of lined paper.

I decided to open up the folded paper to see what it was. There's no good throwing out something that was important. I actually thought it might be a mock-up register that I needed to dispose of (i.e the computer wasn't working at work so I get all the kids to write their name down on a bit of paper) Anyway I opened it up and the handwriting wasn't my own.

At this point I should probably say that I was playing music and the song had just changed over to 'Movielike' by Jimmy Eat World, a song which takes me straight back to 7am on the bus in early November, heading to work. As soon as that point in my life was flooding back to me, the paper in my head more forcefully brought that point in time to the forefont of my mind. What I was holding was directions to 2 Costa Coffee shops in Norfolk.

Now, don't laugh! These kinda things are important to the caffeine hooked Costa fans on the go. The writing was my sister's and it was from the 13th Novemeber, when we had road-tripped down to Norfolk to see Jimmy Eat World tour their new album. I was back there, in a flash! And it made me smile when I saw it. I remembered that she gave it to me 'for safe keeping'. She knew there was no way I was letting anything so important out of my sight for even a second!

When I surveyed the contents sprawled on my bed, what I was actually viewing was memories. Good, bad, the mundane, the ordinary, the extra-ordinary. Sometimes I think the odd bits of paper like that could tell stories. I think if they could speak, they would speak volumes, and they wouldn't waffle, they'd be precise and funny, maybe even sad.

I haven't kept all the tickets and receipts and rubbish and things from all the events in my life I consider important. Some memories were painful, thus train tickets were discarded with in a theraputic manner, tears streaming down my face. Other bits were hastily disposed of in a rush to get a bag clean and tidy again, not considering what fun it could be to look through old memories. But I think, if I did, it could be thought of as some sort of record of my life, not just a boring account of where I went when, but a point for reflection on different moments in my life and what they mean to me.

I really love that black handbag. I can't help but wonder what junk will be in it this time, next year.

Capsule of Joy

At the time of writing, I am sat on my sofa, still wearing my work clothes, dressing gown on top, hood up and shivering all the same. I have been complaining for the past 11 plus hours that I have no electricity, and therefore no heating. Whilst bus services are delayed, disbanded or altered due to raging wintry storms, and temperatures reach lows which are oft seen in Scandinavia, I have no means to warm up my flat.

It took me a while to see the funny side of things.

Firstly I don't even own a torch. A pathetic but simple truth. So when the power went off last night I was fumbling around trying to light candles, and brushing my teeth by the soft, romantic glow of phone-light. Oh yes. Once in my bed I convinced myself that things would return to normal soon. The Electric Board had estimated that it would be back to normal by about quarter past ten. As it was half-past I figured they were a little out of synch with their guesstimations.

I had a restless sleep. I was in and out of bed, up and down, testing lights and so on all through the night.

I guessed at 3am, when nothing was working, that it wouldn't be back to normal soon.

So still I huffed and puffed. I ate my breakfast at quarter past six in the darkness. I shoved on my wellies and went out into the pale, moonlit dawn. As expected it was slightly warmer outside. I looked at my watch and was alarmed to see that putting on my hat, scarf, coat and such seemed to have lost my five minutes. Basically, I was going to miss my bus. Again, I huffed, and practically skied to the bus station.

And it wasn't there. The bus wasn't there and there was an hour to go until the next one. My inner monologue might have been Bernard from Black Books at that point in time.

But then came the text that work was cancelled, and I had an idea. I was cold, and I wanted a hot drink, I had some free time....CAFE NERO!

It didn't seem to take me very long to get to Nero once I had made the decision that a strong Americano was in order. I dumped my heavy bags on the chair opposite me and enjoyed my coffee slowly. My handbag was perched precariously on the little wooden table, and it seemed to have given up, like me, and it crashed to the floor, defeated.

A slow and hearty cackle came from somewhere behind me and I turned my head slowly to see a woman in her fifty-somethings throwing her head back and laughing.

“Sorry, but you have to laugh” she said and then she did it again.

She was starting to get on my wick then, but it wasn't long before I had a sort of revelation.

Here was this stranger, a woman who shared nothing but locality with me, with the wisdom, the sense, the right attitude that allowed her to see this little bit of nothing as something to be enjoyed. Whereas my bag attempting a suicide jump off the table was the last straw for me, for her, this was a little capsule of joy on a miserable and cold morning.

I wanted a capsule of joy too. So I shared.

I told her about my lack of power, how work had been cancelled, how I was cold and had come here for at least a hot drink to warm me up. And she listened. She was sympathetic and understanding, conversational and helpful. She gave me some gems of advice, and assured me that I would probably get some sort of compensation for being out of electricity for so long.

Suddenly, I had a capsule of joy too.

A problem shared is a problem halved, and I certainly left the little coffee shop with a weight off my shoulders. It had begun to snow outside, but that was perfect, because my flat certainly didn't seem so cold when I returned, not compared to out in the frozen wind, with the icy flakes sticking to my coat and scarf.

As I shivered on the sofa a little later I thought about how much hardship I had decided I was facing just because I was having to go without electricity. When really I should be grateful that I had somewhere to go when work was called off, that I had a roof over my head and somewhere with clean, running water. That I had the gift of sight – having it restricted by the power cut the night before merely made it seem all the more important now.

So, okay I can't make a cup of tea, and sure my Bird's Eye Chicken Pie is defrosting as I type, but, all the same, at least I have food and drink at all.

For every hour I spend without electricity, I will donate a pound to charity. This money will go to those in emotional, spiritual, psychological or physical darkness. To those imprisoned, to those with no hope, to those with no warmth or love, to those with no clean water, to those with no light to guide them home. I will update with a specific record of money donated and to which charity/charities when I know the total amount of money which is to be donated.

Today, I want to give someone else a capsule of joy.

***UPDATE*** 14:44 The charity will be Save the Children, total amount £16

Spilling beans....

Honesty.

I have a problem with honesty. That's not to say I'm a compulsive liar, rather that I always seem to be on the wrong side of the 'truth/lie' line.

Firstly, I always seem to be getting in trouble for being 'too honest'. You know when your friend says "Do you like my new top?" and you say "the colour makes me feel a bit sick"? Kinda like that.

Then there is the 'accidental lie' that you can't quite seem to correct. When somebody asks me a question such as 'do you enjoy skiing?' I know what the answer is, I know how I need to answer the question, and that the word is 'no' but somehow my brain tells my mouth that the word 'no' sounds like 'yes'. As soon as I've said it, I know that I've got mixed up and need to correct it. However said questioner is soon gibbering away about the alps and log cabins and such like and you can't quite bring yourself to correct the mistake. After all, what kind of person answers 'yes' when they mean 'no'? (Me, apparently)

And the worst one of all, the compromising situation. You have to make a choice, do you tell the truth or do you tell a white lie to save the moment? Sometimes I get that one right, sometimes I get it wrong.

My Mum always used to tell me that honesty was the best policy. Sometimes telling the whole truth doesn't do any good though. But in the face of the truth can you really tell a bare-faced lie?

And of course that one depends on the situation. Telling a lie to save face is pointless, it's better to be out with it - or else it will come out in the wash any case. But when it concerns other people it is even more difficult. Is it your secret to tell? The problem is I've never been a good liar. On top of that, my conscience gets the better of me. I might plan to keep something secret...but then spill the beans because I've been up at night worrying about it.

There isn't much that can be said to resolve the matter. But when in one of these situations, maybe honesty isn't the best policy? Maybe the best policy reads something like 'zip it, lock it, put it in your pocket'?

My conclusion is thus: silence is golden.

Mostly.

Perception and Pennies

Yesterday the curate at my church ripped up a £5 note.

I don't know if you have ever seen anybody rip up money before, but it reminded me of that episode of Friends where they all buy lottery tickets. Squabbling ensues over how many tickets each person should get and in a bid to stop the arguments Phoebe holds the bowl of tickets over the balcony. The look on the gang's faces says it all, but unfortunately before the tickets are returned to a safe place a pigeon swoops down and knocks the bowl to the floor. Tickets everywhere, blowing around in the wind. You can almost feel the horror. The discomfort. The incredulous looks on faces.

Well, it was sort of like that when said curate ripped up the money. Bearing in mind that this is five pounds we are talking about here, the kind of money that one might just as easily leave in a pair of jeans which get thrown in the washer. A noticeable prize when found in the pockets afterwards (a little damp but otherwise no worse for wear) but in all fairness...you didn't realise it was gone in the first place!

You should have heard the gasp that omitted from round the room though, including, I hasten to say, the one which escaped my own lips. She was illustrating a point, and, frankly, it was a point well made.

I never realised before how much emphasis I seem to place on money, but when I realised she was actually going to destroy the currency of this country I somehow felt the need to put a stop to such an atrocity.

But it's five pounds. And what is five pounds? A number on a computer screen? A piece of paper in your hand?

To some people five pounds means an awful lot. And I don't dispute that. But other than basic necessities, it holds no other meaning. It is not love, it is not awe, it is not beauty, it is not truth. It is not God.

So I guess my perception of money has often betrayed this truth, because quite often having that five pounds in my purse becomes a pursuit in itself. It is not what I can do with the money, it is what that money represents.

I suppose for me it is not about status or power, it is more a symbol of a safety net. Money to fall back on. But if you have the arms of God to fall back into, what more do you need? If I were to make a net out of five pound notes, and I fell into it from a height...well the net would probably break, or be in danger of breaking. It is too flimsy. The five pound notes might not be there one day. And then what will catch me? My family will all be there, but that strength to hold me up is founded in, is modelled by, the Ultimate Safety Net.

I suppose what I'm saying is... if we link our arms together, then we make the net ourselves. And isn't that sort of what Jesus was telling us all those years ago?

Something for the bleary-eyed morning people...

I opened my curtains this morning and sort of gushed at the view. Like a wet blanket.

I don't much care though, you should have seen it. The sun was the milky pinky-orange colour of a runny egg yolk that was dripping over the skyline. Some of it had even landed onto the trees, onto the hills, onto the rooftops of the three-floored houses. The sky seemed to have forgotten that yesterday it was the drizzly, misty, eerie reflection of something you might see in the art of Lowry. Today it was pale and bright, and more significantly, blue.

And then there was the best part of all. In the distance, almost clinging to the thick trees on the hills, is the train track. A train was just sailing past, preparing to come to a stop in the station. Ready for its passengers to alight. For more to board. For the trolley-bearing woman to find somewhere awkward to stand while these events ensued.

That's the benefit of having this view on a morning, on an afternoon, on a night. Somehow having this train going past this morning made it perfect, and that's because a train always seems to take me into a moment. A moment that's past, a moment that's yet to come.

Seeing a train transporting others seems to transport me to a time and a place that is other than the present. I'm near York, I'm eating a sandwich, I'm looking out the window thinking of home. I'm in Scotland, I'm debating pedagogy with a stranger with a cheery smile. I'm somewhere between Manchester and Liverpool and I know someone who's bought a double chocolate chip muffin with my name on it.

So I can't help but think, whenever I see these trains go past, who's on board, where have they come from, what are they doing? I try to imagine. We will shortly be arriving in Durham. Durham is our next station stop. If you are alighting at Durham, please do not forget to take your personal belongings with you. Mind the gap between the train and the platform edge.

So, when it's 6.10am on a wet Monday morning, when the view that meets my eye as I pull back the curtain isn't worthy of any note, I'll always be pleased to see a train going past. And it will always get me thinking...

"Who the blimey O'Reilly is on a train at this time of the morning?"