No Ripple

I have grown to like being still.

I have taken to sitting in silence, especially in the daytime when Owen is away. Sometimes I play a record on softly in the background, usually an old favourite: Nick Drake or Leonard Cohen. Often even that is overwhelming. I dislike too much noise. I sit, with my thoughts on mute; sitting, breathing, just being.

I can do that for a long time, sometimes hours. I can’t explain why, or how but I find such beauty, such depth in silence. I feel a stripping away of the layers, a crumbling of the barriers until all you’re left with is a pure and calm stillness. Sometimes, my body rebels. It gets bored and restless, it longs for the shiny, for the new. I persevere. Still I sit, still I breathe, in and out, in and out. The boredom, too, eventually melts away.

I focus on the breath. I count to ten like I’ve been taught. One to ten and back again. Just me and the breath. Everything else disappears. I count to ten. I breathe in and out. Until the thoughts are still and all is quiet within.

Sometimes, when I am feeling this calm, I take out pad and pen and let myself write. This is a true joy. I write spontaneously. I have never done this before. I don’t know where the words come from, but I don’t think them first like I usually do. I do not edit, I do not delete. They sometimes make sense, they sometimes don’t. I don’t care what happens to them. They are not my words, they do not belong to me. They are pure: free from ego and competition and paralysis. I like writing this way, although it feels more like channeling than writing. When I read the words back though, I can tell they came from somewhere inside me. I am no medium, except of my own subconscious. It is so different when you let the words form on the page without worrying about them. You learn that they usually take care of themselves. It’s like a mother finally having the courage to let go of her child’s hand as they cross the road. It’s all in the act of letting go that things become pleasurable, really pleasurable and that you become free. The stress disappears, the knots unravel. The words on the page do not belong to me, nothing belongs to me, hell, there is no me! It’s just all good. Really good. And it makes me smile.

But that’s the writing. I do that because I can’t not write. I’ve never been able to live a life where I don’t write. But the day is long and mostly I just sit. I sit on my stool or I sit on the sofa. I sit on the park bench, I sit by the river. The water flows like time passing. You never put your foot in the same stream twice.

Home again: I stare at the white wall. I see so much peace and beauty there. I walk into the garden. I smell a flower. For a moment, that flower is the universe. I watch the bees and wasps fly around the garden. I wish them well. I breathe, I breathe, I breathe. I go inside. I brew a cup of tea in my old china cup. It is white with a golden rim, and a chip in the top. I pour the water slowly, watch the leaves diffuse. I blow. I sip. I swallow. The tea becomes part of me. Water becomes blood. Hydrogen and Oxygen along with everything else. I wash the cup, the soapy bubbles pop on my arm. I rinse. I dry. I place the cup back in the cupboard. I am aware of every movement in my hands, the feel of the rough tea towel against my moist knuckles. I walk back to the sofa. I sit. I stare at the white wall. I see such beauty there.

Later: I smile. It is colder now. I pull my blanket round me. I don’t know the time. I don’t want to know the time. He is not here, but will be back. Until then, I sit. I make Nick sing some more. I don’t listen to the words, just the melody, the sound of his instruments; his guitar and his voice. That’s how it’s always been with Nick and I. The sun sets, I watch it on the horizon through my window. I do not ignore the building site opposite. I try to see the beauty in the cranes and the scaffolding. It is not difficult, although it was at seven o’ clock this morning. I yawn and stretch my arms into the space above me. I sit, I light a candle. I stare into the flame, I don’t know how long for. Soon, I don’t hear noises, not even Nick. I stare at the candle, I stare at the flame and its many different colours. My eyes softly, gently close.

There is a smell of smoke. I open my eyes. The candle has blown out. Its plumage spirals towards the overhead light. I lick my fingers and pinch the wick. It fizzles but does not burn.

I stand, fully awake. Nick has long stopped, the disk ejected. Outside there is darkness. I shut the curtains, turn on the light. The stillness remains within me, unshakable. My stomach rumbles. I walk into the kitchen, open the cupboards, ponder quietly what to create for us today. Whilst I am thinking, I hear the front door slam. He is home. I smile: another day over and not a ripple in the pond. What joy I have known today, what more could I want for? The door opens, he is wet with drizzle and his nose is red. He kisses me, throws his arms around me, says; ‘It’s good to see you, it’s great to be home.’ Here, you see, I have everything I need. Here, you see, I want for nothing. After all, this is my home. Not this town, not this house, not this man, not even this body. Home is the stillness, the rich beautiful stillness that lies here: deep down inside me.

More Poems from the Archives

The following poems were all written in the second year of my university course in Lancaster. It was a tumultuous time for both me and O, with my mood being all over the place and although we had some really good times we also went through some of the toughest times in our relationship to date. I do not claim that the following poems are some of my most technically competent or well written, but I am publishing them here because I think they have something to say, and capture something of this part in my life.

Pregnancy Scare

He sits in his cage
day and night.
A small box
full of his own shit.
I'm scared of him:
scared of his teeth,
scared of his tail,
scared of his potential
to run away from me.
More than just an impulse buy
guilt on legs.
If I am too scared to love a rat
then how can I
love a child?
Brittle bones
and tiny hands
she will break into pieces easier
than the cornflakes
on the kitchen floor
underneath my feet.


The Truth of the Matter.

Having a mental illness is not about slashing your wrists and rocking backwards and forwards whilst grown men hold you down in four point restraints.
No,
It’s wearing knickers that are fifteen days old.
It’s your jealous friends not being jealous of you, but full of pity.
It’s realising you can’t do something that you could do when you were five, like eat a sausage roll without thinking you were going to choke and die.
It’s being full of self doubt twenty four seven.
It’s not being able to ever participate fully.
It’s not being able to remember a film you watched last night.
It’s cringing with shame for the next week when you get somebody’s name wrong.
It’s cutting your leg with a screwdriver because you haven’t and will never finish that essay.
It’s ruminating for hours about what the last thing you eat will be before you die.
It’s going around in circles and recycling old epiphanies again and again and again.
It’s knowing in your heart of hearts that you are boring.
Its knowing you are a cliché, so clichéd you can’t even write a book about all this one day.
It’s not ever being able to think as clearly as you did the day before.
It’s over idealising yesterday and fearing everything about tomorrow.
It’s never being able to live in the moment.
It’s eating a whole chocolate cake without even feeling guilty.

It's killing time watching “A Place in the Sun” when the sun is actually shining and you sit in your gloomy living room.
It’s not being able to enjoy a kiss because you’re obsessed with the way your chin looks.
It’s not being able to think of anything artistically except illness and death.
It’s watching torture victims on the news and feeling nothing.
It’s wanting to die and being terrified of death.


Born Lucky

Right now
in this, our beautiful world
someone is taking their last breath,
someone is doubled up in agony,
someone is crying, but more than that
millions are crying at this very second.
People are starving.
People are burning.
A man is hung on a rack in a torture chamber,
A woman is spread legged on the gravel
being taken, foreign hand over her mouth.

A boy’s balloon pops.
An old man is having his teeth removed.
Some poor nurse is having to say the terminal words
I’m sorry you’ve got cancer,
I’m sorry there was nothing more we could do for him,
I’m sorry, you’ll never walk again,
Would you like us to turn the machine off?
And I look at my trainers
I think of brown hands stitching
the child at the machine
the beads of sweat along their brow.
A gun is being aimed to kill,
a needle is sliding into a vein.
Vomit is hitting the ground with a splash,
a woman is fondling herself alone in her bathroom.
Brakes fail,
hearts fail,
rain fails,
appendixes rumble.
There is mud and dirt
and endless hunger.
People are thirsty
desperately thirsty
yet on this Tuesday morning
over elevenses
you snap your head up
from your grainy cup of coffee
pick up your cupcake and growl
“What the hell are you
grinning for?”

Teacher

Yesterday I had a weird experience. I sat for half an hour and had a wonderful meditation full of peace and joy. I was totally serene and happy, even after quite a stressful day. Then, (as I often do) I looked at a photograph of the monk who despite the fact I have never met him, I consider to be my teacher, the venerable Ajahn Brahmavamso. I don’t know why I get the urge to do this, I just always have, since I first heard him talk the Dhamma. Anyway, yesterday I got out the photo and I just spontaneously burst into tears. My eyes welled up with water and I felt such happiness and such pure overwhelming love for this man who has touched me so deeply. I just sat there, for a few minutes, just crying and smiling at the same time, feeling blissfully calm and loved and content.

Now this is going to sound like the biggest load of hippy crap that has ever come out of my mouth to date, but I must relate to you my weird experience in full. I stared at his image and clearly felt his love radiate out of that picture, almost like ripples from a stone that has plopped into a pond. It was that real I could almost see it. I stared at the photograph, transfixed. His posture, his smile, his silly double chin all just seemed to me to be the image of absolute love, and kindness. It seemed to me the perfect symbol of all that is right with the world. I felt so devoted to this man that if I had been actually in the room with him I would have wanted to throw myself at his feet. I seemed to be looking at goodness and truth itself. I felt almost like I was in a room with him, and he was speaking to me, not in words but in emotions: he was moving me, comforting me, healing me.

And I was moved. For the rest of the evening I walked on a cloud.

Man, this religion stuff is some powerful shit.

In the cold light of day, my rational side comes into play and I woke up this morning and thought to myself, yeah, nice projection there Jen. You want to be real careful messing with that. That’s fertile Bootham territory, right there. One minute you’re crying at a picture of a benevolent monk, the next you’re hearing spiders talking to you and you’re back on the ward.

So this train of thought naturally got me thinking about religion and madness. Historically, the two have been intertwined, with many religious people having the accusatory finger of madness pointed at them. Jesus and Mohammed were repeatedly accused of madness as well as their many followers from Joan of Arc to, more recently, footballer Glen Campbell. There is certainly a large grey area where the two overlap and in Britain, in our increasingly secular society those with strongly held religious views, especially of an exotic nature (i.e. not your cucumber sandwich eating C of E garden party variety) are often treated with suspicion. Certainly, to talk of visions or voices, of ecstasy and higher plains of experience has people either running for the door, reaching for the phone to the hospital or at least raising their eyebrows with contempt. In hospital I have met many messiahs and prophets. I even met a guy who had given away all his possessions including his house because he had read a secret code in Revelation that told him the world was going to end tomorrow. Myself, I have had an admission to a psyche ward that revolved around delusions I had that God was communicating with me through animals and insects.

So to me this raises some interesting questions:

* How can anyone with a mental health diagnosis be sure that any spiritual experience isn’t just a symptom of their illness?

* How can we distinguish psychosis from genuine visions/ enlightenment etc?

* For that matter, whether you officially have a diagnosis or not, how can anybody be sure that their religious experiences fall within the realm of sanity?

* With my history, that I have blogged about here, How can I, of all people be messing with this stuff again? What is the appeal of it all for someone whom in the past the spiritual has had such a negative impact on their life?

I know I can’t really answer this for anyone else, as I can’t get inside their head. For sure, I have seen the conviction on the face of a fundamentalist Christian arguing that the world was created in six days, and thought to myself; ‘are they absolutely bonkers?’ It is true, their eyes glaze over with a passion and in the heat of the debate I find them claiming the strangest things: that carbon dating machines are the work of the devil, as are the planted dinosaur bones that might as well be the skeletons of red herrings rather than huge prehistoric reptiles. It's bizarre really, what a religious faith can make you believe, in my lifetime I have heard the strangest arguments come from the mouths of impassioned believers, desperate to defend their faith.

However, I think our understanding of mental health has developed enough to realise that beliefs that we consider to be wrong, even passionately, ignorantly, flying in the face of common sense and science and laws of reason wrong do not in themselves equal insanity. I didn’t agree with the principles of Tony Blair’s government, but calling the man insane? That’s a laughable concept to me. I have spent many years in the company of seriously mentally ill people and many of them struggle to get their groceries together on a weekly basis. If you are mentally ill enough to be termed insane, you can hardly remember your name let alone run a country. Yes I know world leaders have dealt with bouts of depression and mania, (Churchill for example) and I’m not saying that mentally ill people can’t achieve great things in their life, but here I am drawing a distinct difference between being depressed and being psychotic or insane. Insanity doesn’t just mean holding an irrational belief- however wacky, it is a total breakdown of reality within your life.

Wrong or irrational doesn’t equal insane, then. But then that of course brings us onto: what does?

Yes I know: the DSM-IV diagnostic system, yada yada. These days we all know the twelve signs of depression, we all know our schitzos from our elbows. Yet if I write down on paper two brief case studies who I have personally come into contact with over the years I think the point I am trying to make will become obvious:

Linda (Met in hospital)

Believes that Tony Blair is the devil incarnate. Believes that Tony Blair speaks to her on a daily basis and tells her that she is going to hell. He tells her to do things, from what to wear everyday, to what to eat for tea. She has intricate visions of the future and hallucinations of things she believes will pass. Is hospitalised indefinitely on a section because of her relationship with “Tony” and for fears that she might one day, attempt to harm either him, or more likely, herself.

Steven (Met at a Church in Sheffield)

Believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Believes that Jesus talks to him, personally on a daily basis and gives him intricate instructions on many details of his life. He has sold his house and possessions to work as a youth worker in the church and lives only on the donations of the congregation. He sees actions of ‘the devil’ everywhere, from the new civil partnerships for gay people, to abortion laws to the promiscuous behaviour of today’s youth. He spends his time pleading with young people to ‘repent’ or else they will go to hell. He speaks in a divine language, has prophecies and visions and believes that the end of the world is imminent.

Of course these are just two hastily constructed case studies. You can believe them or not. But I am sure you will have met or read about people who resemble these two in your own experience. The overlap in psychology is clear, the main difference being to me that whilst Steve’s views and beliefs are equally as unsubstantiated (if not more so!) as Linda’s with the weight of the church behind him he is a prominent figure in the community whilst she languishes her 2nd year away on a locked ward.

So what am I saying here? That the billions of people worldwide who all follow a religion worldwide are in actuality insane?

Well, no: it is clearly more complex than that.

I can only speak for myself but having experienced both intense religious experiences and psychotic episodes, all I can say is that there are similarities, for sure, but there are also vast, vast, differences between the two.

For example the first one that springs to mind is that a psychotic experience at least for me is usually accompanied by a whole host of unpleasant things; a complete breakdown in day to day functioning, a lack of self care, an all consuming sense of paranoia, a total detachment from reality and a serious mood problem as well, at either end of the spectrum. I am quite obviously ill, sick, loopy loo, round the twist, whatever you want to call it.

Spiritual experiences are not like that at all. (I’m not going to get into the authenticity of spiritual experience full stop, I think that is too big to tackle right here and now, lets accept for now that spiritual experiences do exist, whether they be caused by altered states or mass hysteria or the goddess divine channelling through you, lets leave that for another time.) But as for them differentiating from madness, I would say that although they might involve beliefs and behaviours that seem hard to believe or odd to the casual onlooker they are usually contained within a system, a framework. Within religious traditions there are people who have trod the path before you and these spiritual phenomena not only have strict guidelines but are not seen as particularly unusual. Followers of mainstream religions will often be well versed in what to expect from a religious experience before it happens to them, and in this sense they are ready for it when it happens, and can cope with it when it occurs.

Most religious people, even after undergoing a pretty significant spiritual experience within their chosen framework, whether that’s receiving a prophecy from Allah or reaching a Jana within Buddhist meditation or collapsing through the power of the holy spirit at a Christian rally, will dust themselves down, talk to the minister for a few minutes or go for a walk in the rain to clear their head. Then they will fairly quickly get back to their day to day lives, albeit from a renewed perspective. They go back to their kids and their jobs and talking about football on the bus with their friends. I’m not saying these experiences don’t change you, indeed they can have a profound effect, but if it’s a spiritual experience, it shouldn’t leave you in a corner banging your head against the wall for weeks on end or swinging at the end of a rope. Your life may be transformed absolutely but these changes should not leave you sick and poorly. On the contrary, most people who undergo these experiences often appear to be in great health, approaching life with a new strength and vigour. In my experience some of the most spiritual people I have met, whether I agree with their beliefs or not, seem to be some of the happiest of all of my friends.

So, in a nutshell I think mental illness is when your mind works abnormally causing you great distress. Spiritual experience also involves stepping outside of everyday emotions and perception but in a much more controlled, less random, and consequently much less disturbing way.

Are they two sides of the same coin, well, who can say?

All I know is this: my psychotic experiences make me crippled and broken. They leave me hospitalised and in need of strong medication even to get dressed properly in the morning. My buddhism and spiritual practice on the other hand gives me great strength, energy, clarity and hope. It leaves me feeling healthy, happy and focused. Sometimes I feel challenged, sometimes confused. But never suicidal, never bedridden, never hopeless.

If you don’t think there’s a difference between a religious vision and a psychotic one, then all I can say is go visit a Pentecostal church then a psyche ward. Both places will shake you out of your comfort zone, but any great ideas you have about them being one and the same will be dispelled in an instant.

So maybe that’s the reason I feel able to continue down this spiritual path. I trust that I know my own mind enough to know what is healthy and what is not, to explore my mind’s potential without breaking it. Sometimes, it feels like a gamble. Sometimes, I think ‘girl what the hell are you playing at?’ But mostly this sense of inner peace that grows daily as I go through the daily rituals of chanting, zazen and kinhin, the strength that is blossoming within me calms my doubts and leaves me thinking this can only be a good thing. So to go back to the whole weird experience thing, maybe it does seem a bit odd that I would cry at a photograph of a man who I never met. But before you write me off as a religious nutter, or even worse just a nutter full stop please bear in mind that I have tried every drug under the sun and every therapy on the market to get rid of this black hole in my life. None of them have ever had any lasting effect. Ajahn brahms teachings on the other hand are turning my life around at a rate of knots and giving me a chance of genuine happiness and stability that I thought I’d never have. So is it any wonder then, that staring at his peaceful smile (and silly double chin) can make me shed a few tears? I may not be able to give a definitive answer to the ‘what is madness’ question that has puzzled academics, doctors and patients alike for centuries, but I can tell you certainly what it is not. Madness is not rising from your zazen stool after half an hour’s silent meditation, making a cup of green tea with jasmine and sitting quietly all evening feeling content, like you are glad and so, so happy to be alive.

A Sneak Preview

Defying Diana: A Guide to Fashion by the Hand Me Down Kid

Like many women of our generation, my attitude towards the very clothes I wear everyday is conflicted and confused. On the one hand, thanks to an indulgent twenty five year long diet of adverts, peer pressure, popular culture and magazines I am adept at reading the “hidden codes” behind the clothes we all wear. Like so many women I have spoken to, I learnt from a very early age that wearing the wrong thing can land you in all sorts of trouble. One bright summers day, when I was aged seven, the bullies in the playground battered me over my head with my bright green trainers that I loved but had bought from a market rather than a sports shop. At this moment I had the rather abrupt and startling realisation that this fashion thing wasn’t a passing trend, it was here to stay and how I reacted to it would shape my life. It was here the confusion began.

At such an early age, it seemed I had two choices, either to play the system: follow all the latest fashion trends and be thought of as stylish by all my friends. Or, on the other hand, I could rebel, refuse to conform and wear the green trainers, batterings be damned! I don’t think I am unique here. Consciously or unconsciously, every single child in mainstream education has to make this choice. Even when schools desperately clamp down and put uniforms in place, fashion has a way of seeping through in the little details, from shoelaces to bags to hairbands. The bullies have an eye for detail and will always find a way to separate the weak from the strong, the rich from the poor.

For many, conformity is bliss and for the children who choose to play the system, you can see why. They buy the branded goods and follow their favourite magazine’s “Top Tips for Hot Hair”. They dutifully lower their eyes to the ground when big, stilettoed Diana from year 10 is coming down the corridor. They hope to God she won’t notice them, because they heard what she did to Tracy Evans last week for the crime of having a dodgy perm. Who can blame them, really, for playing the game, and making their life at school just that bit less hellish? Of course, there has always been bullying as long as children have congregated and not all of it is fashion related. Yet, I feel that the pressure on our mother’s and grandmother’s generations to look the same and blend in was not as intense as we have experienced, due to the prevalence of advertising and dominance of global brands in the twenty first century. I have talked so much about the school system not because of lasting trauma (although that trainer did have a nasty sting!) but because these tender years are where our attitudes to the fashion machine are forged, shaping our adult thinking for the rest of our lives.

The situation is worse for girls than boys as they are targeted more ruthlessly by the media and fashion trends seem more fickle for them, changing at a bewildering speed. I remember many midnight conversations at sleepovers with teenage girl friends when they urgently confessed deep insecurities about being ugly, the wrong size, hideous, and unworthy. In a healthy society there simply should not be such a prevalent undercurrent of self hatred in the psyche of our female youth, a time of life when you should be full of self pride and vitality, not despair and an ever present feeling of hating your own skin.

In terms of my own journey, I did not, could not, and would not conform. Even aged seven, something did not sit right with me that anyone, however big and threatening, could pressure me into wearing something I didn’t want to. Moreover, it made me angry and defiant towards them. I clearly remember, standing in the playground with tears streaming and a bruised head, that I couldn’t understand why one shoe with a tick on it was better than one without. This acute sense of the absurdity of the fashion industry has stuck with me into adulthood. So, at school I wore my hand me downs with pride, and in my teenage years when I first became responsible for buying my own clothes, made a point of shopping in charity shops and jumble sales because I felt so angry towards a system that, as I saw it, caused so much misery. Although I didn’t have any political or analytical terms to criticise it in my vocabulary I instinctively felt the injustice and stupidity of the industry.


Several years and many run ins with Diana later, I escaped the school system and enrolled at university. There my relationship with clothes became even more complex. I was enrolled on a course that encompassed theory, politics and literature, and learnt about the systems that fed the injustices that I had only experienced on a very micro level. Now I was all focused on the macro, and it blew my mind. I developed a political conscience, learning about feminism and other women’s complex relationships with the fashion industry. I read about capitalism and globalisation and was shocked to read about the depth of the very real suffering that goes into production of the latest unnecessary fashion trends. In the West we are mentally imprisoned by what Alain De Botton calls status anxiety and the compulsion to conform. That is bad enough, but on a more global scale there are sweat shop workers all over the world working 14 hour days with no breaks or rights, companies pillaging natural resources, animal experimentation, even widespread use of child labour. I just couldn’t see many good sides, and whatever you might say to me about a healthy consumer capitalist economy, I still don’t. To me the whole thing stinks. We are slaves to the brand, and whilst the wheels of the fashion machine keep turning, so do the cogs of human misery, poverty and injustice that keep the whole thing ticking over.

I am no economist. I don’t have all the answers to the global problems. I know there are some positives to the fashion industry, I’m not denying that shopping for clothes can be enjoyable, or give you a sense of creativity and pleasure. All I can say is, as far as I’m concerned, count me out. For me, clothes are mostly functional things that keep me dry and warm in winter and cool in summer. Sure, I have a couple of “best” outfits and clothes that are suitable for smart occasions and going out. I live in the real world, I do regular stuff and my wardrobe reflects that, it isn’t particularly outlandish or strange. But I mostly buy second hand and I buy what I like rather than what is fashionable. I don’t read beauty magazines, I believe (as the song goes), they only work to make you feel ugly. I don’t wear makeup, I like my own face. I haven’t shaved in years, yet my husband worships my body. I recycle and pass on things I’m not needing and gratefully receive it when people do the same for me. I don’t own anything branded, second hand or not, I believe I’m a person not a billboard. I don’t watch adverts so I hardly even know anymore what is cool and what isn’t. If all this is the most unbelievable mortifying thing you’ve ever heard then know this, I can’t tell you my life is perfect, but I do feel free. I have a thriving body image and a guilt free conscience and all this serves to make me a happier person in the long run.

My rejection of the fashion industry does not give me an easy life or the right to look down my nose at those who choose not to, the purpose of this article is not for me to guilt trip everyone into making the same choices as myself. But all the time I save not being a slave to fashion means that I actually have a lot more hours to do things that matter to me. As a small example: clothes shopping is a twice yearly rather than a weekly event for me, so that gives me so much more extra time, energy and space to read a book, take a walk in the rain, have fabulous sex or even write this article! Think of all the precious time in a week you give to the fashion industry, either by shopping, preening, talking, reading, or just thinking about it. Then think about what else you could achieve in that time. For me this is the whole crux of the issue. Any doubts I occasionally have concerning my choices and way of life are resolved by asking myself these two simple questions: are there not many more interesting and important things in the world than contemplating my own fingernails, hair, clothes, tan and makeup? If so, shouldn’t I, just possibly, be doing them?

(Due to be published on the 19th July on the womans collective website: 'Imagining Ourselves' in response to a call for articles about fashion and image around the world. I thought I'd give my blog readers first dibs!)

Respect

This is one of the best articles about Nirvana that I have ever read. I used to want to write an article about this band, their complex messages and what they meant to me. I always put off doing it, now I don't think I ever will. Forksplit has said it all for me and more. She is simply a kick ass writer with a voice stronger than most bloggers I have ever read. If you haven't checked her out on my links section yet, then do. If, by any chance you are a Nirvana fan then please read this. You will not regret it. I loved this article because it was written by someone who was genuinely touched by Kurt and whose life he shaped in a similarly deep (yet not always healthy) way to mine. I have not listened to Nirvana in a couple of years, like Forksplit I have majorly overplayed them and they now seem to belong to a bygone era. But reading this reminded me of how much they were a part of the landscape of my life for a long long time. It's beyond nostalgia, reading this made me feel like for a split second I was connecting with all those spine tingling sensations I felt when I first heard the opening chord to Serve the Servants or saw for the first time the famous picture of Kurt wearing too much eyeliner in the markets in southern Spain on a summer holiday and not being able to tear my eyes away. It brought back the memories in a way that some corporate music journalist would struggle to do. For that I am grateful and I might even go and listen to 'All Apologies' in a quiet corner just out of respect for the great man and the way he shaped a generation of misfits.

Week of the Living Dead

At the moment I am working a short term (three weeks) contract as a temp in my Dad’s office. It’s sort of a mutual back scratching arrangement as his usual temp couldn’t do the busy summer rush and I needed the money, experience and reference so I put myself forward. On the whole it’s not a bad job although I’m not denying the fact that I definitely get special treatment being the bosses’ daughter. Most of the people working there have literally known me since I was born and spoil me rotten with cups of tea and long breaks and jacket potatoes with chicken tikka masala from the café upstairs. I’m not denying the nepotism of the situation or the cushiness of the job- I have had a lot of shitty ones in the past from being a care home assistant to factory worker and toilet cleaner to realise that right now I have it pretty good.

The work itself is easy although I had forgotten how exhausted the constant interaction with people can make me. It’s probably the same for everyone and I guess you adjust as time goes on, but I am shattered. I have been getting up at six o’ clock and not getting home till six at night and being on the go for all that time is quite an achievement for me. I’ve been getting home and just collapsing on the sofa bed in the newly decorated guest room in my parent’s house. Then curling up and sleeping and sleeping. I have found the tiredness so horrendously oppressive. I can’t think straight. I can’t order my thoughts. The idea of writing is laughable, or phoning someone other than Owen or doing anything for this blog even. The tiredness seeps through every crevice. I have christened the last five days ‘the week of the living dead’ because that’s how I felt. It was like I was looking at the world through a mist, a fog, not the kind that wafts lightly over dew soaked grass on summer mornings or hangs spectacularly over mountain tops in Nepal. No, if you’ll excuse the melodrama and run with this metaphor a little longer, this was a kind of fog that seeps through the bubbles of a sulphuric swamp, oozing from the ground: clammy and stifling leaving me just desperate for fresh air and a clear head.

I haven’t had a job for the last two years, and I often worry about not having one, that it doesn’t make me a ‘complete’ person or a fully functioning adult. I tell you, this was a wake up call. It is actually much easier to be a fully functioning adult when your days are spent in your four room apartment doing the washing up, listening to the new LCD sound system album and musing to yourself about what blog entry to do next than when you are in a non air-conditioned cramped office with four ringing phones, people shouting and complaining and all the time this awful awful tiredness. You find yourself just going to the toilet to get some space and sitting there with the door bolted looking at the peeling yellow painted door and trying to do Zazen in a desperate attempt to get some quiet.

It’s not that the job is bad- not compared to about 10,000 other jobs I could think of. It’s just that working in itself totally sucks ass.

Well, maybe I should rephrase that.

Working in a pointless futile job totally sucks ass.

I look at so many of my friends, and with the exception of one or two of them most are trapped, doing jobs they find unfulfilling and tiring in order to pay the rent and bills and feed and clothe themselves. Their salaries range from minimum wage to 35k a year, yet among them all there is this sense of oppression, resentment and the resounding feeling that they have been duped. We grow up in a world where at school career advisors tell you that ‘anything is possible; the sky’s the limit’ when in reality for most people living the dream is always elusive. It’s not for lack of ability; amongst my many writing, singing, acting, dancing musician friends some of them have more talent than you can shake a stick at, it’s just that these dreams are overpopulated, and unfairly weighted and dominated by capitalist market forces. There are not that many little girls who grow up wanting to be receptionists or bar tenders. There are not many little boys who dream of being a street sweeper or a shopkeeper. Yet, if we’re talking ratios I need hardly point out that for each Britney there are tens of thousands of these regular everyday worker bees keeping the dream machine ticking over. Some go to dancing classes in the day to keep their hopes alive. Some send poems of to crooked competitions that take their money for leather-bound volumes that never materialise. Most won’t make it and the few Britney’s that do often complain that when you get there it’s nothing like they tell you it’s going to be. A few years down the line they end up in rehab, or hospital, or shaving all their hair off and smashing cars up to the amusement of the press.

We are all so fucking dissatisfied with our lives because we all been conned by this dream machine. We have all been told ‘you can do anything’ when we quite clearly can’t, at least not all of us. Maybe one or two of my friends will get that lucky break, especially the ones that are working hard to make it a reality. But I see so many of them, if they keep on heading the way they are heading, ending up with a breakdown rather than the record deal or law degree they so desperately want. It makes me worried for them, worried for myself. People are profiteering off our dreams left right and centre and the more we listen to them the more swamped in the lies we become. So, it begs the question: should we just stop this silly dreaming and settle down to just clocking in and out each day? Like we are told our grandparents did, pleased to work in a flour mill for fifty hours a week, pleased just to have enough money to survive after the long hard war years, pleased that they were free to have a quiet job and not having to shoot at people or be shot at themselves. Should we just, like them, just learn to be quiet and settle down to the working week, accepting our lot in life graciously however shit it might be?

No, everything in me says this is not the way. My friends have too much talent, too much to say and contribute to just let them rot in offices and in shops and pubs and libraries. I have witnessed their art and it is brilliant. I have read their articles and poems, seen their dances, laughed at their self deprecating jokes. I have sensed within them great vision and the possibility of sowing seeds of change in this corrupt society. I don’t want to see them, bitter, twisted and burntout, at the age of 35, feeling like all they have achieved is insignificant. I have only spent a few days in an office to realise that every day you spend there is a soul sucking shift away from the vision you had for how your life would be. Every day spent in the working world corrupts you and your dreams. I don’t want my soul sucked away, I certainly don’t want my friends, my beautiful inspirational friends to be corrupted and trampled on by the system.

So what is the answer?

Well, that is the million dollar question.

I don’t know. Like I said last time, we all have to feed ourselves. Maybe those of us with visions should just stop complaining, grow some balls and go and do something radical- join a commune, go to protests, give it all up and go and live in Venezuela. Maybe all this trying to work within the system is draining us slowly. Maybe we need to step outside. To sell our house, give away our possessions and just throw ourselves in the lap of the gods and see where it leads us. To chase freedom rather than security. To love our art and our politics more than our money.

I don’t know, I’m thinking out loud. All I know is that this week I have had a taste of the working world that I’ve been alienated from for at least two years. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it left a bitter residue in my mouth that is hard to get rid of. I have a husband and friends who to their credit manage to accomplish great things alongside a full time job. I just don’t know how they do it, or if I could ever be like them. This week has deepened my respect for all of those people in my life who juggle their dreams and their finances and don’t let it drag them under. I just don’t know if I am as strong as them, or if I even want to be. Now the cogs are in motion, my brain is ticking round. More than anything I don’t want to end up like my Dad, who this week took a big sigh and said ‘I’ve done this job for 37 years. I hate it, I’m so tired, but the moneys pretty good.’ I do not want to be another casualty of the dream machine. There just has to be a better way.

Back Seat Driver

I had the good fortune yesterday to see two inspiring speakers at a public lecture at Leeds university: George Monbiot (who for a long time has been one of my inspirations) and Ngugi Wa Thiong'o who is a professor of Literature at the university of California as well as being an ex political prisoner, author and long term educator.

The lecture was about activism and social change, and both speakers know intimately about that subject. They had both endured hard times for their beliefs and shot from the hip, yet were encouraging, realistic and mindblowing at the same time.

The lecture made me both angry at the state of the world and happy that there were people who would stand up and rally against the causes of the problem. Yet, somehow I’m tired of standing on the sidelines. Of reading Guardian articles and saying the same things over and over again to my close circle of middle class friends. In short, it made me want to do more. You know, actually help the cause, rather than just getting kicks from feeling like a part of this revolutionary movement but never doing anything to contribute. I have been a passenger for too long.

I come to a point in my life where I’m at a crossroads. A genuine decision has to be made about the kind of life I will lead. I am not in a career nor am I aiming for one. I am not about to start a family. I do not feel tied to England. I feel like my life could go in many directions. I’m not saying it’s final or can never be reversed but over the next year or so, I will shape myself in ways which are at the moment undetermined. From the decisions I make I may never recover or I may blossom. I have to push myself in new ways. I may well enter the world of work, but do I really need to? If I do what kind should it be?

I find myself being softly seduced by the capitalist dream. Owen and I have been so poor for so long and after a while it starts to take its toll. Now I am in a more powerful position where my health has returned and the possibility of generating capital is at last within me. I find myself absentmindedly looking through the paper and saying things like ‘If I worked for twenty five hours a week, instead of just twelve or sixteen we could put the money aside and afford that holiday to Athens that we have always wanted. We could save and buy a car. I could go to more gigs. I could get that T shirt I have lusted after every time I walk past the shop.’

These are things that I have been saying to myself for the past few weeks. I feel the lure of the dollar, the seduction of the slavery. I always say to myself that this is not mindless capitalism, after all, going to see the historical birthplace of democracy and philosophy is not just your bog standard package holiday. The car would open up a world of possibilities; I could attend the local Buddhist centre I can’t get to on the bus, I could see inspirational friends more often. The T shirt, you mark my words, has a political slogan and the bands I would pay to see would be firmly anti establishment. Yet it boils down to this: I am here, voluntarily thinking to myself that I should chain myself to a desk and sign my valuable life and time away in the name of a foreign holiday? Have I learnt nothing over the years? Is this what my anti capitalism boils down to? My eyes glazed over under the neon shop window lights?

Yesterday was a wake up call, a slap around the face from one of Britain’s most important thinkers. I hope I will be eternally grateful.

I am no genius or great leader. I do however possess numerous talents that could help a worthy cause. Do I want to give these talents to the corporations or even established ‘charities’ when I know there are grassroots campaigners out there fighting for things that I passionately believe in who are desperate for people to help them out? What if Owen and I made a resolution to make do with less rather than more and we sacrificed our own personal ambitions for some kind of greater good? Isn’t that something that, when it’s all over, you could really sit back and be proud of?

Yes, you always have to live and cover your living costs. If you make yourself destitute you are, unless you are an exceptional person, not going to be any help to anyone. These are the chains that capitalism binds us with. Owen has his career path, rent and bills to pay, responsibilities galore: all those lovely adult words and concepts that prevent me going off and living in a tree house somewhere. Owen has done more than his fair share of the labour in this relationship for some time now and the balance has to shift now my health is improved, it’s only fair. What a tragedy would it be, though, if I were to find myself a year from now having been rendered useless by the corporate dragons, unable to do anything except work and sleep? My brain is now this lovely fertile ground where radical concepts and ideologies are taking form. I would hate to see it in twelve months time raped and pillaged and stripped bare, leaving only a shell of a woman who struggles to stay awake and who’s thoughts are preoccupied with questions such as ‘what kind of fruit salad shall I buy from M+S’ or ‘what interesting body part can I photocopy today?’ .

I have to work, I know, I know. But there has to be some kind of middle ground, right?

At the moment I am in a powerful position in that Owen and I are fully adapted to spending very little money, less than £10,000 a year, we could hardly survive on much less. In it’s own way, my getting a job is a dangerous proposition in that it will give us freedom to consume in ways we are not used to and once we have that money, it will become easy to become dependent on it. I see money sort of like rooms in a house. When Owen and I lived in a one roomed bed-sit, we were very happy and space was rarely an issue. Then, when we moved to York we took up residence in a house with six rooms and we soon ‘filled’ the space, both mentally and physically. Then, when we decided that we wanted to downsize because it was a ridiculous concept that we were paying for six rooms when we needed much less, the transition back was much harder. In a nutshell, it is always easier to upgrade than downsize. Yet, to upgrade there is always a cost, even if the acquisition seems reasonable or even free, maintenance of the new goods are often pricy. You always pay for more expensive things with your work, your time and your energy (the housework on the six roomed house was depressing in its infinity). Therefore, maybe it’s just better for Owen and I to struggle on with a small amount of money, to make do with as little as possible and have our freedom rather than getting used to having lots of cash.

For me and Owen the problem is that the work is unequally divided, rather than that we don’t have enough money. We might not be able to jet to Greece every few minutes, but we can eat and pay the bills and pay for Owens PhD. Maybe the equation we need to be looking at is how we can both do as little work as possible to maintain our living costs and then utilise our freedom for the greater good. The last thing the world needs is another back seat driver, enjoying the benefits of the ride but full of criticism for the guy in control. It needs people who will step out of the back seat and take charge, contribute, put their own necks on the line and their own foot on the accelerator. It needs activists and campaigners, people of integrity. Folks who will not be bought or sold, who can stand up and help stop the injustices that are perpetuating the suffering we see all around. It needs you. It needs me. The world needs us to give it everything we’ve got. Today, I’m standing at a crossroads. I’m not sure what direction to head in, all I know is that I have to travel against the flow.