Stamping ground

 

I began writing this blog two days ago…when the winds had arrived and I’d moved yet again.  Today, as I opened sleep-thick eyes to see the hands of my travel clock reach 12…things were destined to change.  Not by altering the force of the wind or drying the fine, invasive rain.  By via a succumbing.  My Dad, God rest his soul, used to love to aggravate me.  He’d sit behind his newspaper and keep peering around the edges, to stare at me. My short temper would rupture it’s delicate film and I’d tell him to ‘stop staring’, this would be repeated once, twice…perhaps more before I’d whine, ‘Mum, tell Dad to stop’.  ‘Jimmy, stop annoying her’, she’d shout from behind her usual position in the kitchen.  He’d go on and on, denying he was doing it but his eyes were twinkling impishly.  In the end the intense anger would abate and an involuntary smile would replace my ‘cross’ face.  My eyes would flash him a theatrical dirty look, my mouth would be biting back laughter.  This is kind of what happened to me this week.

This is the blog I began to write yesterday…..

I woke in the third bed in as many weeks.  I am beginning to long for home…only trouble is..not sure where that is anymore.  Fear and indescision has gagged my breath for days.  I’ve been searching for inspiration but my vision is blurred, it’s like I’m looking up to the sky from beneath the mercurial crust of the ocean.  Usually, at times like these I send out a search party for something good…something fun.  Fun for me anyway.  Or is it comfort?  I needed company, to seek comfort/fun with my friends.  Some of them have the power to nudge me sideways, with their humour and wit.  Others challenge me.  Honest connection sparking minute pricks of agravation..like static bristling about my warm skin as I peel off a layer of manmade fibre in my darkened room.  This livens things up.

Last night I met with a couple of friends at Komedia in Brighton. The event…Hammer and Tongue.  A poetry slam.  Talent stepped on and off the raised platform. Entertaining (mostly) us.   One poet Sally Jenkinson, made a river of syntax roll like a ball bearing, dropping down level to level….plundering the depths of terror, running through 100,000 miles of her blood vessels, intimately sharing a crisis; being paralised with fear, post break-up and how desperation made her seek refuge in two gas men attending to an emergency in the building where she was bunking down in on her friends kitchen floor.   Hilarious and tragic.  She had me chuckling at her oddball conclusions from mindful ponderings, spending far too much time thinking, she surmised, that should it ever happen, blue bummed aliens would put on their seatbelts to visit the oblate spheroid we call home…. with two intentions; to nick our alchemic practices of beer making, and our ability to turn rocks into glass.  Perhaps the humour is lost on the wind cursed street between venue and laptop but it was present in trug loads when delivered in her soft Northern lilt.  Funny gal.   My companions did much to entertain too.  We made frequent sounds associated with myrth.  A trick dampened of late by crown skimming clouds and a damp wicked wind that has turned my hair into something resembling a frizzy felt bonnet. 

It was a good night.  I breathed easy.  Until I wake up next morn.  New room.  Orange cotton sky.  The near flourescant pink carpet and wispy painted storks flying around my room fail to inspire.  Where, what, who, why, how.  Mind racing at greyhound speed.  Every thought trapped with my shallow breath.  I cannot think…decide..My faith in God is strong.  I cannot rush ahead to see what I’m to do.  I have to remain fixed on the goal in my mind.  HE is the master baker.  I’m just showing HIM the recipe and doing the food shopping.  I panic.  I want to leave Brighton, but think I should stay.  But nothing is holding me here…Brighton is thwacking knocking through my centre like  one of those 80’s desk toys..the craddle with the five steel balls knocking from east to west.  Love/hate.  Love/hate.  Brighton seems old.  Then it seems full of originality.  But then I spot a guy wearing tiger eye contact lenses and balancing a confused white rat on his shoulder.  Kissing couples with rainbow striped badges, mouthy..gob spitting youths, caterpillar eyelashes batting the damp air and statement dressing pushed beyond the ridiculous.  Breasts spilling out of neck lines like custard boiling over the rim of a pan. Mini demonstrations, pounding on pavements, trying to get a reaction like the seagulls I spotted in a patch of grass stamping the ground.  Unsettling the worms.  It’s all so clichéd and I’m irked.  IRKED.

The day after my night of comedy  I am making poor choices; not going to the theatre just incase the storyline didn’t delight and I’d waste £8.  Not thinking straight.  No friends were coming out to play.  I was at a loose end.  This loose end was feeling mischievous.  I wandered around the town.  Eating bags of crisps and cheap animal shaped chocolate.  Stuffing vegan cake into my greedy, bored cake hole.  I was FED UP!  This morning I staged a protest, at myself.  Failed to carry out the early yoga/ jog start to my day.  I was feeling like life that was rubbing me up the wrong way. I got dressed.  Downed copious amounts of green tea and grabbed my new winter coat and boots and headed down to the promenade.  Jousting with the wind.  My body frequently being rendered motionless by its might.  I was bugged but I struggled on.  After an while my mood began to lift. Despite being pushed along the seafront by the gale  I was happy I had a coat to protect me and boots that remained dry and warm.  Happy was I to be out of my cheap hotel room, seeing joggers, families and friends still posing for holiday snaps, hair and scarves slapping across their faces in the wind.   Dogs were barking at the frothy, lofty waves.  As I made my way to the Marina, I saw black bodies emerging from cars and big yellow vans, clutching surf boards.  They ran past me down the slope to the beach.  Smiles lit their faces.  I was so delighted to see them so excited.  I watched the black bodies for while, occasionally catching a wave in the dirty tumbling sea.  When I walked back up the slope, a skinny guy was battling with his blue checked shirt that flew, inflated, above his head.  ‘You guys are crazy mad’, I said as I walked by.  He laughed, ‘No, it’s warm in there….this is the worse bit’.   He grappled the shirt over his damp curly hair.  ‘Did you catch any good waves?’  I wondered aloud.   ‘No, but I had fun….just what I needed’, he said, his face was luminescent.  That sealed the deal.  I walked home with a smile on my rain battered face, I made up my mind to do what it takes.  A few phonecalls to friends.  An airline ticket booked.  Hair washed and fresh warm clothes on and a date with the cinema and I am sure I am back on track.

Sometimes, life can rub too hard and I can’t help grinning.  

One question from today…..why do small birds manage to stay firm against the wind when a human is nearly knocked off their feet?  Is it all to do with surface area?  Any ideas?