Life Under Canvas.

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Mantra

I’ve heard it argued that you shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ too often. The phrase loses it’s power, they say. The words become meaningless, hollow. They don’t send shivers down your spine like the first time they were whispered in your ear, the impact is lessened, and soon the phrase becomes bland, like saying ‘what would you like for tea?’ or ‘it’s raining again, it’s supposed to be summer.’

I am here today to testify. Me and Owen say ‘I love you’ to each other at least fifty times a day. That’s no exaggeration. If anything, it’s a conservative estimate. On days where he’s at work sometimes I pick up the phone, dial his desk, wait till he answers and say ‘I love you’ then hang up.

He usually rings back:

‘I love you too’

It is something we do, something we have always done.

Yet the words have more power now than they ever did the first time: spoken by nineteen year old Jen, my nervous laying down of the cards before I even knew what those words really meant. I knew that by saying them, I crossed a line that would shape us forever. It was a week into the relationship. I said them once. It took Owen three months to respond. Maybe some people would have taken that as a snub. I didn’t. I knew very quickly that this would go the distance. But Owen is more tentative, more hesitant. He likes to be sure about things. He likes to think before he acts. I knew this from the first day we met. I had to accept him for the way he was. So for three long months I waited for the answer I wanted to hear. When I finally heard the words, I knew they were heartfelt. I was curled up on his lap. I had been crying. I don’t remember why. Owen was stroking my hair. His hands fell gently on my scalp, weaving patterns among my follicles. Nick cave was singing softly in the background. ‘Into my arms, my love… into my arms.’ I still don’t know if that was deliberate. He said ‘Jen, I think I love you too’. I fell to sleep with those words ringing in my ears. I smiled and dreamed about us holding hands, our ringed fingers interlocking.

Now its seven years later, we are married. We have said those words almost a million times. They have acquired a history. They have become a ritual. They are a part of us. There are stories I can tell about those words. Some of the times we spoke them stand out. Like the time Owen sang them to me drunkenly on our wedding night before he fell asleep and I felt happier than I ever have in my life. Or the time I said them to him when he had taken his first pill and he looked back at me in sheer delight and awe, like I had given him the secrets of the universe in one single sentence. But mostly when I think of the phrase it is almost as an invisible thread, weaving in and out of our lives, binding us tighter together, strengthening the bond between us.

It can mean different things. Rather than simply being a statement of devotion, these days there’s a whole art form involved in interpreting the sentence.

‘I love you’ can mean, amongst many other things:

‘Shut up’

‘That joke wasn’t funny but you still make me laugh.’

‘I want to have sex.’

‘I’m going to cum.’

‘That food was nice.’

‘Please?’

‘Thank you.’

‘You’re annoying me.’

‘I can’t imagine life without you.’

‘You rock my world.’

‘Goodnight.’

‘Stop being silly. God, you’re a plonker.’

‘Goodbye.’

‘I’m proud of you’

‘Good luck.’

‘I’m with you.’

‘Happy birthday.’

‘Don’t leave me.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Get on with some work!’

‘That’s so typically you.’

‘Do you promise?’

‘I promise.’

‘I want to be with you forever.’

‘Do you love me?’

‘I love you. I mean really, truly, so much I’m going to explode.’


*******************

So the list goes on. We never define what the sentence means at the time. We just say the words and we both understand. It’s a language within a language. It is comforting and inspiring and reassuring and challenging. It’s sometimes a little stifling but mostly utterly utterly freeing.

Has the phrase lost it’s impact since the first time?

Well, yes and no.

The words are just words. Their power waxes and wanes with the force that moves them.

When they are said out of habit they are meaningful and nourishing but not knee knocking. However, even now after seven years, and I would hedge a bet that even after twenty seven years we will still be able to pull a mind-blowing ‘I love you’ out of the bag. It’s all in the context. The power is in the chemistry between you at the time. ‘I love you’ is the product of a reaction, a winning formula. I savour the words, I roll them round my mouth and taste them on my tongue. I have never found a more potent mantra to help me through this life. It might be a cheesy line to finish a rather cheesy entry, but ‘I love you’ is the most important thing I have ever heard, or will ever say.

Fructose Intolerant

Why is it I can look into somebody’s eyes and tell if they’ve been there?

To the place where the air is too heavy to breathe, time sticks to your shoes like treacle and the pain burns brighter than the sun in the midday sky.

I read people like a book, I decode their suffering like a secret language. I can tell its depth, its duration, it’s lasting damage. From looking into their eyes I can see the scars in their history, how far they have fallen and how fast. They could be telling a joke, they could be giving me a hug or dancing on five pills. If its in their eyes, I know. There’s no escaping, no need to hide. I read it in an instant, it transcends body language or clothes or the silly words we all say. If it is there, it’s all in the eyes and I will see it. Don’t ask me how but I can just tell if they’ve ever sailed that ship. I can tell if they haven’t come back yet; if the air in their lungs still feels like steam in a pressure cooker. Sometimes I think I can see that they will never return, but predicting the future is the only thing I wouldn’t swear to. Everyone can change, after all.

Sure, you say. You recognise intense suffering. Big deal. Who in their life has not known that? You could see it in everyone if you tried. It is true, there is a lot of pain in a lot of people’s lives. But there are some people who remain untouched, more than you think. Call it water off a ducks back, call it numbness or ignorance or luck. Whatever your label; I meet them in the street, they are in my family and amongst my acquaintances and I can’t relate to them. Not the happy people, the ones who know true joy. I don’t mean them, I spend a lot of time being in a very good place with a lot of very happy people. I mean the people who even when bad things happen, they have never engaged with their pain, who have never wrestled with their dark side, who shrug off depression as easily as tossing the damned black dog a stick when it is their turn to walk him in the park. I don’t wish them harm, it’s a wavelength thing; I just don’t understand how you can exist in this world without having a relationship with pain, with this darkness.

When I look into someone’s eyes and the pain’s not there I feel a moment of panic. It’s like a woman who falls in love with the guy in a cubicle opposite her at the office and then one day on her way to the coffee machine she glances downwards and sees a ring on his finger. The future comes crashing down there and then. If I’m talking with someone and then I look into their eyes and it’s like looking at a blank slate, if I’m getting serious vibes that this person ‘hasn’t been there,’ I tend to make my excuses and leave. It’s not that I want my friends to be a big bunch of depressives to hang out with and all slit our wrists together in one morbid jamboree. I just need people around me who understand, who have had a taste of the darkness, no matter how big or small. This black dog plagues me, I need people around me who are experienced animal handlers and it’s very rare you get an dog trainer who hasn’t got a dog himself at home.

Of course, having suffered yourself doesn’t automatically make you an empathetic person, that’s where other clues come in; conversation, history, body language etc. But having been there yourself: it’s definitely a starting point. Life is a journey. I need people in my life who, with empathy and understanding, can help me wrestle my demons and find inner freedom. I promise all my friends I will do the same for them in return, as best I can. But if, as a friend, your reaction to seeing your first Jen demon is being so shocked you hide under the bed or run away then what use are you to me? And believe me I have known people like that. I haven’t always been so adept at reading suffering. There have been people who in the past when I let them into the big bag of crazy that is my inner world, they can’t handle it. It short circuits their wiring, it scares them, they don’t know what to do. The black dog can be a scary beast with all its teeth bared. To this day, there is only one man who knows everything about me. It took a long time for me to be honest with him and sometimes I think even he is frightened by it all. He is a brave man, trust me. To befriend someone who is shackled to a beast is true courage. To marry her, well that’s just plain dumb.

The hidden code was something I had to quickly master. I learnt to know, without asking, who to trust and who would understand. There’s nothing worse than giving someone a big slice of your home baked crazy pie only to find out they are fructose intolerant. Why then, give it to anyone? It’s a valid question. My answer is simple. Call it selfish, call it needy, call it whatever you want, but I always believe that a problem shared is a problem halved. I try not to burden people unnecessarily but when it hurts too bad sometimes you don’t have a choice. You say something, you reach out, or you die. It’s that simple.

Sometimes in the throws of the darkness the very worst of you surfaces; the real nasty, twisted, horrible, ugly parts. When, (not if), you find there are people; friends, good friends, who can’t cope with this side of you and run for the hills it’s important that you don’t hold a grudge. You must understand; people have their own shit, sometimes a big black dog barking in the room is too much for them to deal with. These are not fair weather friends, give them some credit; the kind of problems that fair weather friends abandon you for are things like a lack of money or drugs, a change of musical taste or a bad haircut. Then there’s the shit I put my friends through: visiting me for the second time on a locked ward, having to spend a whole night talking me out of cutting my arms to ribbons in the toilet with a carving knife during the fresher’s Christmas ball, or spending hours on a mobile stopping me jumping in front of the next train. It’s just a different league. I mean, if people don’t want to be a part of that, you mustn’t hold it against them, you mustn’t think them fickle or callous. Think about it, they just have their own shit, really they’re just being sensible. You wish them well, you smile when you see them awkwardly coming down the high street towards you, you send them a Christmas card at the end of the year, but ultimately you move on.

Why is it, then, that I can look into somebody’s eyes and tell, right away, if they’ve been there? To the place where the air is too heavy to breathe, time sticks to your shoes like treacle and the pain burns brighter than the sun in the midday sky. Why is it, that if they haven’t, I give them a fake phone number and walk away?

Because I’ve lost too many friends who just didn’t understand. Each time it happens, it hurts like a bastard.

And I don’t want it to happen again.