Month: January 2015

6.30am

It is not the clock but words that wake. Naoise sniffles and snuffles and squeaks in his sleep. I wrap him up in the duvet and the heavy wool blanket. Creep downstairs.

The snow falls and falls. Last night was the coldest of the winter, temperatures down to minus 9 in the highlands of Scotland. Mum and Dad are planning their return trip back up to their house on the north coast, it will not be the electricity but the cold that raises my concerns this time around. How relationships turn, I hope to be adventurous as them in my older years.

Momentum increases as you lift your feet onto the plastic of the sledge. The weight of your own body propels you forward, and down. Slowly slowly then sliding quickens. Over the first bump things are in your control, the second is totally random even if you do angle and position and calculate. The sleigh and you glide down the slope and occasionally make jumps over tufts of bog grass. Then as quick as you begin a sudden stop at the end. Back again dragging to the top.

I squeal and feel the muscles in my cheeks reaching far to a huge grin. It is equally as rewarding to watch others. My friends are here with me on the Pexwood Road slopes. I smile and smile at their appreciation of the snow. A joyous time. Female company. Patrick builds a snowman with the boys. It is a large man with one beach tree leaf sticking out at the top as a hat. Naoise seems to want to punch the snow out of its body. He loves the sledging. He loves to lie down in the snow and just lie and feel the cold on his back.

I share some of mums christmas cake and some whiskey liquor. It is good to celebrate the dark difficult days that the new year brings. I eat a tiny winy mince pie that C has bought with her. Its so sweet. I have been cutting right down on sugar so its sweetness is so welcome in my mouth.

I talk to S about the snow. Strange how it settles in some fields and not others. Is it the wind that drives it to different slopes and nooks and crannies or the type of soil that decides its thickness of fall in the field. We laugh, S sounds like an expert on snow fall. I am glad that we did not walk to the Pike as planned. You cannot see Stoodly Pike, the pointy peace monument that proudly sits on the highest hill. It is swathed in white and grey clouds. As we sledge the snow falls, thick spaced apart flakes. We play until our bottoms are soaked and our hands are cold and the children want to go home.

We walk around past the big trees and houses on the ridge of the hill. We slide through the two sheep fields that lead down to the road. We slide through the stone walled gaps where wooden gates should be, our control of the sledges has improved. Using both the weight of the body and the strings and heals dug into the snow to break. I delight at ending my run just a foot from the heron pond.

We warm our selves in the local pub. We talk and we laugh and we drink and eat crisps and play music on the duke box for the children. Naoise recognises Teenage Kicks by the Undertones and does a freaking dance. He spins and jumps and shakes to show his appreciation. Me and Patrick smile at our punk boy.

His joyous movements fizz as did his delight at playing kitchen science volcanoes. Mixing corn flour, vinegar, washing up liquid and red food colouring together creates a magnificent explosion. Again and again and again he mixes the ingredients together and watches the foam rise over the rather naff plastic representation of a volcano.

I marvel too at the red of the liquid oozing and bubbling and enjoy Naoise absorption in messing and exploring the experiment. He paints and I watch. I read a little more of The Winter Book. I wish to absorb Toves simple and clear way with words. Her words are calm, and cool and neatly ordered poetry.

The buzzer sounds on the cooker.

 

7. 20

Naoise giggles in his sleep and he is hot as a water bottle. I leave the comfort and warmth of a womb bed two duvets high. Outside the half moominland still exists, there is an inch of snow on the cars and slush on the roads.

The snow fell. It fell first as a blizzard of medium flakes, later smaller balls of hail, later still a greying  ominous sky and more snow. Snow perfectly timed for the weekend. Mum said when she was a child she liked it to fall thick and big first then small and light. The big flakes would make it stick the small flakes would make it stay.

Syd is a bit annoyed that it is snowing and that he won’t get to play in it today as he is going to his dad’s house. Its warmer in Manchester and flat and the snow rarely falls or sticks.” If its there on Monday can we go and sledge after school” he asks.” Of cause”, I reply.

Snow curls up, slumps down and forms and forms scrolling blankets on the windscreen of the car.

I am reading Tove Jansson’s A winter book.  Its beautifully simply written prose of life in Finland, I pass it to my mum, she would like it, a good one to read in the North of Scotland I say. Its her birthday coming up, she loved the wade jug present but its good to line up a present that can be carried in the post to arrive on her actual birthday. She loves it. She loves the words. She wants to borrow it. It will become her gift.

The snow is thick. It is good to be inside and warm and sitting on the sofa and relaxing. My mum makes me feel more relaxed. I can take things easy. A house with three adults and two children, more than enough care and attention to go around. I make my mum some porridge with cinnamon. I don’t burn the porridge. She likes it, but she is not impressed with almond butter on corn crackers. Its the texture that is upsetting her, the nut butter tends to stick on the roof of your mouth. Its just so nice to have her here sat at the table eating breakfast with me. She does’nt have to say anything to please me, though I love her conversation, its  just her presence that I enjoy.

I question her about what she did when they were without electricity for four days in their house on the far north of Scotland. “It was so so cold”, she said and “so so dark, there were candles and more candles, there was a fire and it took forty five minutes to heat up enough water to make tea. Tea is necessary. Tea is important. I cooked fish and chicken on the fire. All the food had defrosted, it was awful to have to throw it away. The roof at the back of the house is damaged. I need to sought that. All we did with our time all we did was survive. When it was too cold we just went to bed”.

There are no street lights, no other houses within sight of my parents home. There is nothing, but heather and gorse and bog grass and water and mud and birds, sheep, cattle and deer, weasels, and maybe a wild cat somewhere. There is a ridge of mountains and then the sound of the sea. You cannot see the sea but you can hear it crashing on the rocks. When the wind blows, it blows fierce and strong. It is better to stay inside. Clothes dry in the wind rather than the warmth of the sun. Clothes flap and dance and tangle on the line.

It is dark. It is so dark at night. When I slept in the upstairs room over the summer, I woke and had a panic attack. It was so dark, I thought that I had died. A black hole of darkness. I needed the loo and I stumbled and cried and found myself in the corner of the room trapped in the clothes rack battling my way out.

After Syd and Mum have departed I leave for my daily walk up the Pexwood Road. I am delighted to be walking out in the snow. It feels so lovely under my feet. In places I am the first to tread. I climb the hill, I stop at the black clothes pegs hanging on a line. The lights from Naoise school are all off. The snow picks out the buildings and houses in the valley below. The cat who usually greets me is not here. Perhaps her paws don’t like the cold of the snow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4D0KLL2AvA

Up and up and around and around the road bends. The town looks like a toy below. The cars are quieter as I reach higher. I pass the house where the dog sits in the garage next to the washing machine. A black labrador. It must be getting used to me passing as it no longer barks.

One jeep vehicle passes me on the road. There is no grit and the road is slippery. Where the tires meet the snow and the tarmac it becomes compacted. I take care with my steps.

I listen to the wit ooh wit ooh, eeep, eeep, eeep, wit ooh wit ooh, eeep, eeep, deep. Despite the cold and the snow the birds seem happy and chatty and active.

Back at the breakfast table, me and my mum watched a flock of starlings pass. All black. There little darting bodies, sweeping fast, past and past, hundreds of them swarming and sweeping. Starlings stay for the winter.

A couple of mountain bikers pass, a father and his son, they are friendly and say hello. After I filmed the two swings a couple, a man and a woman, walkers with maps in plastic cases tied around their necks pass me, they are not friendly and even when I say hello, they do not answer back. How rude and arrogant. Just off the train from the city, I am pleased when they choose a different path from myself. I stop at the gate, all the grass is covered in snow, and the sheep look hungry, they will have to wait on the farmer and his hay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNAc9XBGM0w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwySr_AsKyk

All is white and all is lovely, but it is cold. I stop again to film myself and the track. The snow and the sun is blinding. The snow falls and I struggle to see the time passing on the camera. I am glad that I am done and return quickly home down hill. No herron in the pond.

We eat yesterdays carrot soup for lunch. Naoise is not interested in healthy food he just wants to eat chocolate. Seems as if the christmas diet is extending into the new year. I bought a bargain box of chocolates for the boys on Friday and they have been working there way steadily through each delight ever since. Chocolate for breakfast, dinner and tea. It is torturous to have in the house whilst I am trying to refine and reduce my eating habits. I can smell the chocolate and my mouth waters.

Patrick goes out for his walk.

I play with Naoise. We play marble run and spinning tops and hide and seek. Hide and seek is the best. So exciting. My heart races when I hide. After a play we just lie down for a while and look out of the window.

Later I cook vegetable casserole with cheesy dumplings. I had been wanting to make this for days, ever since G had mentioned she had made one when we were talking in the playground after school. Such a warm of a glow of a comfort food. I love how the dumplings soak up all the yummiest of the sauce.

Later still we watch a film called Love about a lonesome man trapped in the international space station. He has lost all communications with ground control. The most moving scene is watching him, watching the earth and all the lights go out and all the lights never come on again. All is dark.

A thud and small feet, Naoise awake and so I have to stop. The buzzer on the oven is soon to sound.

6.55 am

Porridge, measuring it out in a cup, pouring the oats into the pan, adding the correct amount of water, lighting the stove. The fire under the pan warming, wooden spoon stirring. The oats thickening and absorbing the water. Stirring. Stirring. Sometimes words can cause harm, so its best to remove the beast from the paragraph. I don’t want this space to be a nasty place of moaning and groaning and complaining and despairing. Perhaps it is just that. I want this space to be a place of mutual understanding. I erased the words I had written about Patrick less it cause him harm. He is mostly supportive of me and my creativity,   about what I write and say though occasionally he struggles and negatively refers to my work in a deep sarcastic tone as “your need to express yourself “. I am sure that it can be irritating to live with an artist. Words, art making, its not just about expression. I hope that there is some comprehension, some  interest for the reader, the viewer, a subject, not just a therapeutic act.

Words are deleted, as the porridge burns in the pan.

The porridge sticks to the bottom, and tastes slightly charred. I will be soaking and scrubbing it later. The glue and the stick of the pan is my guilty conscience manifest. I have been punished by a pan to scrub. Whilst writing I will try to be honest, I will try not to lie, but in the back of my mind I will keep clear the porridge burnt in the pan, so as not to hurt or to be excessively malicious. Nasty words are not worth the disruption that they would bring to the peace of the house.

There are so many conversations that must remain unsaid, so many little frustrations that burn, irritations, living with another adult, living in a relationship is not easy. Little things wind each other up, Patrick hates it when I overfill the compost bin. What does any of this matter, I think. The mold accumulates, the dust covers the tops of picture frames, things that need to be sorted become so.

Naoise spilt milk at the breakfast table. “There is no point in crying over spilt milk.” How I love to sound out this saying. There is no point, especially when the milk creates such beautiful sploshes on the stone floor. I look, Patrick looks, we both get out our cameras and snap it up, later I clear it up.

It is cold, cold, cold. The morning is running better, perhaps because I triumphed at getting Naoise asleep a little earlier in the night. He makes less of a fuss about socks and clothes and brushing his teeth. He is excited about getting out of the door about riding his scooter to school.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Jj50–n9Rs

The thunder claps behind the rocks and the hills. I don’t see lightening. The thunder rumbles and roars. It is darkening and dramatic as I climb the Pexwood Road. I embrace the weather, the hail stones and the darkness. I can’t quite get to film the pegs because of the car parked underneath them, I try a slightly obscure angle. I am not interested in the car, only the pegs. The pegs that are black and swing to and fro in front of the school that Naoise attends in the valley. What is it, what is it about the black pegs and the swing and the drop into the valley and the lights that shine out from the victorian building that intrigue me. The swing of the pegs. The holding onto the line. The absence of clothes to affix to them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3kkLZBNkHg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_g0y3ZfUNO4

Snow transforms everything. Cars slow and make brilliant marks. Birds slow and hang in trees. CAWWWW CAWWW sounds on the tops, crow, rook, jackdaw, jay, magpie.

An artist friend of mine who lives in Todmorden witnessed a sparrow hawk in her garden, he caught her eye and then suddenly swooped down and snatched a blackbird from her feeding table. The blackbird squawked and wriggled and protested from its mighty talons.  How amazing, and how frightening, poor blackbird, one moment enjoying a comforting meal, the next a meal itself.

Nature reminds of the fragility. The temporal. The changing of the weather here in winter is fierce. I stand for one minute, my cheeks burn with the cold, the hail falls.

I think, I think of Raif Badawi, no flogging today, the Saudi blogger is too ill, too weak, who last week  withstood 5o lashes out of the 1000 that make up his punishment. I sign the Amnesty International petition. It seems trivial a few passive clicks. I hope, there is hope, that cruelty will end. That barbaric acts of violence cease. Words, words and freedom and fear.

Walking out, walking out on hills and looking. Seeing the wild of these moors. The beauty. The beauty in the grass that wraps itself around metal fences, knotting in the wind, the puddles, the thick of the mud, the heather, the stone walls, some intact others tumbling, and all the plants that grow in-between.  Bird tracks and tire tracks and boot tracks in the snow.

The woods that fall away from the road do so at an extreme angle, dizzying, disorientating, dangerous.

Mum is upstairs she is upstairs all dressed and all awake and waiting for me to finish writing this, and dear Syd is away this weekend. I will miss him, I will miss him. In his week of illness he has thrown his arms around me with hugs and love and affection. He has sat on my lap and pushed his head down onto my shoulder. He has demanded my attention and got it.

 

 

 

 

6.45 am

I wonder how long I can maintain this discipline of writing and posting each day. I am beginning to realise the enormity of the task. I am beginning to tire of this. Is it the words that define me or me that defines the words ? Am I being truthful, honest, or do I lie. It is important that I try not to lie. Its hard to say everything exactly as it is, mothers like to protect their brood.

I spent the morning feeling hurt. There are misunderstandings and stresses and fusses and persuading coercing and encouraging. There is misbehaviour  and tantrums and cuddles and tears.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0372ZmNZ94

There are dishes to wash, food to cook, clothes to fold and put away. Mold to remove from walls, things to fix, reading to be done, shoes to be polished, prescriptions to be collected, rugs to be vacuumed and toys to sort.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkdA8TJFf_o

I spent the morning feeling hurt because Patrick charged ahead to school leaving me with his bike, I shouted across the playground with distress. “What are you doing WAIT”. I did get to take Naoise into school. How oblivious he seems to my needs, our needs. I get to take Naoise in, I get to hold his hand, I get to walk down the corridor, to hang his coat on the hook, to kiss him goodbye. I love to be part of this parting, this handing over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxRaOrZfrVQ

I leave the school and tears fall, the kindly lollypop man gives me a hug. He has seen it all. He has seen all the children crossing and crossing and growing up. He always looks you in the eye, he always greets the children. He is kind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PM4vbHvKUM

Later I receive an apology from Patrick, he was just trying to be kind to Naoise, get him to school on time, he was concerned that he would miss the trip to the sports centre. His intentions are good, but there are many misunderstandings. There is love.

In-between I walk and walk the tops and collect the prescription for Syd who is still unwell with stomach cramps and headaches and bad asthma and throwing up.

I have been jinxed, each time a PhD dealine arrives Syd falls ill and then I have to turn my attentions to him. I wonder if I can pull it off in one week, I had allocated two weeks to completing the task. I feel that I must, I must at least try. I have piles of reading to get through and words to form into neat paragraphs of clarity. I have methodologies to decipher and comprehend. Perhaps it is unrealistic to expect this of myself.

On the tops I think of duality. Two brothers. Two brothers wrapped up close, facing each other. Two brothers, two sets of lungs lungs, two swings, two legs, two feet walking, two roads meeting and parting.

On the way to the health centre to collect Syds prescription, I fall into the grey hound charity shop. It is an old fashioned affair more akin to a jumble sale. There are always dogs sleeping and women discussing the beauty of dogs. Items are a little cheaper, there is a little less order and adhoc. I like this, I like a charity shop to offer both customer and charity a bargain. I love to find and hunt things. Amongst all this unwanted household clutter. I never know what it is I am looking for, I always hope to be surprised. A jug calls out to me. I pick it up, look all around it, look under it to read “wade”. Wade jug will do for my mum’s birthday. She is visiting today and I will give her this jug. Its one of those presents that you really wish you could keep for yourself, which is why I so want to give it away. To give away an object that carries my love.

Books arrive in the post, the Adrienne Rich book that I noted down at Lena’s 40th performance, a book on how to talk to your teenager so that they listen that M suggested I buy and Milli Hill’s book about Water Birth. A book a book with my words and my drawings printed in it. Feels like its christmas all over again. I am proud so proud to see my creative work included. Its good to hold something to smile at.

I managed to get Naoise to sleep just before nine. I am winning. I am winning the battle of the night time routine. He is a funny soul. After books and milk and toast and cuddles and lights out he says ” can we play monopoly NOW’. No we really cannot play monopoly now, his mind seems to jolt awake at every last opportunity to UP. He eventually sleeps, he sleeps and I sleep and Syd sleeps. Warm and heavy and deep.

In the night I wake to Naosie and his growing pains in his knees, I supply ibroprufen and knee rubs. Four o’clock awakening. I will feel it today, the sleeplessness the interruptions.

In the night I wake to Naosie and his growing pains in his knees, I supply ibroprufen and knee rubs. Four o’clock awakening. I will feel it today, the sleeplessness the interruptions.

 

7.50am

Two brothers wrapped up facing each other. A howling wind rattling the roof wakes words. A patchwork quilt of snow stitched by stone walls. Two brothers snoring.

A woman and a man sleeping next too each other in a bed. She hears the traffic on the road, time to awake, he wraps his arm around her body, she checks the time on her phone and rises.

The cars on the road are fast. The radiator fizzes with hot water.

I eat porridge with cinnamon and raisins and a tiny weeny spoon of honey, it is the most delicious bowl of food. I make enough porridge for baby bear and daddy bear too, Syd hates porridge. Naoise refuses it. Lots of glutenous stodge is left sticking to the pan, Abney and Teal would have made bricks with it to construct a house.

Naoise is asleep at the breakfast table once again. He covers his head and body with the double duvet that is his comfort blanket which he calls his “snuffly”. Under his snuffly he looks like a diminutive madonna, or the bundle of children depicted by Tomi Ungerer in The Beast of Monsieur Racine, he looks very funny.

The snow fall on the school run was brilliantly timed. Small little balls of white like polystyrene. Perfect. Naoise decides today is the day to take his scooter, he rides it about 20 yards and then we carry scooter and Naoise the rest of the way. His legs don’t seem to work in the morning.

I save a walk to the tops till the late morning, as J is visiting. She brings me a running magazine and says “there you go subtle hint hey”. I appreciate her directness. This loosing isn’t rocket science. She has fabulous advice about milk thistle and cutting out carbohydrates from one meal a day, what fruit is best to eat, definitely avoiding dates and dried fruit. I write notes, she is slim, beautiful, a fell runner, and one of the wisest and kindest friends I have who live near.

Syd who is still ill and yellow and wheezy, enjoys her visit. She admires his growth and height, Syd asks her how he can get another set of “peck muscles”. I love how he loves his body, this is good. he relishes each change and growth. All to be celebrated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAP9M8F0JeQ

After ginger and apple and carrot juice we set out up the Pexwood Road together, J lives on the tops. She is fast to walk, we stop at the black pegs and the cat greets us with its leg rub hello’s. It is so beautiful and bright and clear and magic with a dusting of white. At the fork we bid our farewells, I watch her fall into the perspective of the path.

I find two swings and film them in the crisp light and gentle swaying wind. Swings, pendulums, heart beats, lungs, two brothers. I imagine the boys playing on these and getting all giddy and smiling back at me. A swing so simple, a stick and a rope in a tree.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz_QhbTfzbM

I am fast to return home, I leave Syd for no longer than an hour at a time, it is not good to be alone when you are unwell. The walk is a necessity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTB6I6hM4nM

The light of the snow fills the valley. The sun reflects its virginity. There are few prints of feet that I pass. I play with my shadow. I look at the tiny balls of snow fallen within the tuffs of grass.

The heron lifts in front of me from the pond, it is majestic. I pass the mill, admire its triangle of stone and how the snow has settled upon it.

I make a film of the river that rounds the corner close to the concrete track. I think of Anne Festlers film that I saw at the Foundling Museum, I imagine a film with my voice as a narrative pieced together from all these one minute durations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNt_UdBQJAg

The oven buzzer sounds.

 

 

9.15 am

It is nipple freezing weather, Syd still home unwell, movements on the stairs he has awoken. The snow has arrived, a thin dusting, nothing too dramatic. Some fell on the way to school. Small white balls collected on the hood of Naoise coat.

Its later, buzzer on for 30 minutes, my friend J is visiting today, we will drink healthy apple carrot and ginger juice together, discuss sugar free diets and catch up on life. The road is quieter when it snows, although only a titchy bit, the slow of the cars is a welcome treat. Its noisy living by the main road, in the trough of the valley.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONZC-_uAI4M

Syd is awake, he is excited to see the snow, I tell him I have to write for 30 minutes, that I am going to ignore him for a while, can he help himself to paracetomal and water. Slightly neglectful, but the words cheer me, they make me feel I have accomplished a task, one creative task, one action.

The flow of blood is negligable, its a relief after the gushing of red yesterday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUM6lqEq_6w

Walking the Pexwood Road I was unable to film the black pegs due to a car obstruction. <Sydney distracts me taking his ventaline using his spacer, he sounds like he is blowing a trumpet, and it even makes a sound>

“Its snowing” Syd says.

Yes its snowing. I look forward to walking on the tops later, the sky is blue and clear, maybe there will be more snow, maybe not. It falls slowly and gradually. There can be several different weather fronts in one day here. Yesterday began with bright yellow sun, then grey and dismal in the middle, bright yellow sun in the afternoon, followed by freezing cold and hail stones when I went to collect Naosie.

A little wren bobbed up to say hello to me on the wall that lines the pack horse track, he did a little dance then flew away. I enjoy these brief encounters with wildlife. The snow is getting heavier, the flakes are getting bigger and the blue of the sky has turned back to grey.

Naoise has taken to playing kick a stone football when I collect him. He played kick a stone football till we were the last to leave, the hail forced him home. I was glad it was freezing.

I’ve lost one pound in weight, it seems very little for all my efforts, but at least it is encouraging that there is some loss. I am back to what I weighed shortly before Christmas. Perhaps there is some weight gain during my period. The weight of water retention. I can feel the lining of my womb shedding and peeling away. The gushing is shocking, its especially bad when I walk. Walking to school it gushed, I felt a little faint, it stopped my steps. I sent an image of a used sanitary towel to Patrick, not very romantic, but I wanted to share with him what I was experiencing. I was unsure whether to share this image here, but then I wanted to be brave and honest. I did an image search for used sanitary towel images, couldn’t find any.

Some things are hidden, some things are intimate. This woman’s body is a hinderance as much as it is a pleasure. These periods don’t seem normal at all, I am blighted by fibroids. My womb is old and is deteriorating, it is closing in, misbehaving, crotchety, difficult, stubborn, awkward, worn out.

When it hails Naoise sits on the ground in the playground and just watches, watches the hail fall onto his body. He enjoys all the tiny white balls, but it is cold and he agrees to return home.

I enjoy dropping off Naoise in the morning, mostly we are late, like today, rarely we are early like yesterday. Waiting Naoise danced around and around me, circling me, I am his territory, he is my honey bee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcRuPGZH4kg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6.10 am

The lights from the car headlights dance across the corner of the bedroom. Been awake since 5am. Keep waking early, but its ok. I wake and all I can think about is writing, what will be the first sentence, the opening. I wake, I get up, I put on my onesy, I go downstairs, I boil the kettle, I switch the lights on in the corners of the front room, I make the breakfast, take the kids to school, walk up the Pexwood Road, write or make art or do domestic work, collect Naoise from school, do domestic work, make tea, wash up, get the children to bed, sleep. Each day is pretty much identical to the previous, albeit the weather, and what is shared by family and friends. Conversations grabbed at the school gates with parents, with the lollypop man, studio friends, and text messages to my mum

My period was so so heavy yesterday. Bleeding, all is a red river. I feel drained and exhausted. I sit here on the sofa writing with the computer on my lap, the radiator on, the blanket tucked over my legs. It is dark, the cars momentum and frequency on the road quickens. Time passes. I look at the two guitars hanging on the wall, one red, one wood coloured, both Syd’s. Syd is growing at an extraordinary rate, his shoulders almost reach mine. He will soon be taller than me. He is a beautiful boy becoming a man, full of love and hate and misunderstood’s, perfectly teenage in ever way.

I am getting desperate about the bedtime routine, despite my efforts each evening to change the course of events, the same unfolds. I get Naoise bathed early, in fact last night he got himself washed, dried and in his pyjamas himself. “I am growing up”, he proudly asserted. He just will not calm in the evening, he gets a second wind, gets all energetic, no banana, no warm milk, no bath, no amount of books will lull him.

Two boys in my bed last night, no room for a woman too, I retreat once they are both asleep. Syd is unwell, a virus thing has triggered off his asthma and he looks dreadfully pale.

Completed the tax return, felt momentarily triumphant. Just pleased to make some space in my head for creative things. Next to the PhD proposal. I have to at least attempt it. I seem to be rubbish at meeting any deadlines. I have good intentions, I have the knowledge, I just, I just. You can, you can.

I will walk the Pexwood Road again today, I will stop momentarily at the line with the black pegs that swings in front of Naoise school in the valley. I will walk all the way to the top road, stand and film again for one minute. I will rush back down the hill through the two fields, past the pond, past the ladder in the tree, along the canal path, and home to work. To work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrDNyUd8OE0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yt7y6dG_GwY

The happiest part of the walk yesterday was a herron that rose up in front of me from the pond. I had startled it. The herron, majestical, dinosaur, hunting bird. I had disturbed its fishing. There are not many birds about, I always look forward to the return of the swallow, its wing brings hope, and spring and light and warmer days. There are crows and blackbirds, and bluetits, wrens, robbins and sparrows that swoop in gangs, they sing and call from within the hedge rows, the rose hips and gorse and brown heather that surrounds.

Patrick has purchased a selfie stick, a small tripod and a remote control that activates the shutter on his camera, so much fun we had playing with these. Me and Naoise and Patrick made some sofa selfies, we posed, Patrick held the camera on the stick way above our heads and Naoise clicked the remote.

The buzzer on the oven sounds 30 minutes gone.

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QANZuv8lw8

6am

Woke up early 5.30am, painful and heavy period,slept heavy. Each day preceding the next seems much the same, ground hog day. The periods are always heavy, I hate them. They don’t make me feel cleansed or in touch with my femininity or anything positive, they are an inconvenience to endure, I look forward to them ending.

Lots of cars on the road, its Monday, back to the normal rush of a routine. I am sitting in bed. Sitting upright, its a nice slow awakening. I wake and I start thinking of words moving across this screen, so no point in resting might as well type them. Twenty minutes set on my phone stop clock, this should be enough, just enough. Its Monday, and the children will be grumpy about getting up and going to school.

I still cannot settle them to sleep early at night. Things need to be better, a better routine. I will buy lavender to dose Naoise bed time bath, he was high as a kite the last. Crakers and cheese and frothy milk and book after book. He snuggles in close with my arm around his little body to finally settle. Syd and him are playing a game of competing for my attentions. It must be frustrating being the elder, having to wait, if only I could get Naoise to sleep earlier, 10pm is just far far far too late for a five year old. Because the children won’t go to bed at the right time, there is no “adult time’. Patrick is good at staying up late, I am not, so usually I say goodnight to him as I put the kids to bed, we don’t get much time together, there are few adult talks at evening time.

The Pexwood Road is long and windy and steep. It is my new workout, I need a hill. Walking it, I think of a film I want to make, based on a film I made of Syd when he was 17 months old. Syd is pushing a toy pram with a dolly in it, bare feet, the summer time, he is pushing the pram outside the front of my house in Prestwich. He finds a slopped path and pushes the pram away from his body, and the pram rolls back towards him, he holds the pram handles and repeats the same action. I could do this, dressed in black with my empty black pram. I’ll show the original footage to Patrick, he can be the camera man.

Walking up the Pexwood Road, I stop to film the black clothes pegs swinging in the wind. I did this the day before and the same cat came to rub its friendly body against my leg. I bend down and stroke it. I hope that the person whose line this is does’nt question me about why I am filming their pegs. It feels very slightly intrusive, but then they are just a line of pegs clipped, I am not doing any harm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9JszIRzxYw

Prior to walking back downhill, I stop on the brow of the hill, by the road that runs back away from me, by the mobile phone mast. I stop and I look into my phone as if a mirror and I film, I stand for just one minute. I will repeat this action until it makes no more sense to do it. A minute feels like a long time.

I can here Syd’s alarm sounding. Its really irritating, he must be awake, he will waken the whole house soon. Patrick is up there hugging Naoise in bed. Oh Syd wake up, wake up, how can you dream through that din. Last night Syd dreamt that we were out on a cliff watching orcas in the sea, but someone was attacked and eaten by one of the orca’s. Syd hardly ever shares his dream stories with me, I hope he shares more. I will record any dreams that I have. Ah at last I hear some movement and the din resides.

A train passes. My mobile phone has disappeared beneath the covers so I have no idea how much more writing is required, this is probably enough. What else is there to say ?  Is there anything else important to mention ?

At the Hepworth Naoise carved a chunk of soap based on a drawing he had made of a Hepworth sculpture. I sat with him and a group of children. He loves art. He loves making and exploring new materials. The chunk that he was working on fell into two pieces, I worried that this might stop his flow, but despite the cruel comments from the other children, he continued, he just worked with what he had and enjoyed.

Me and Patrick take it in turns to look at the exhibition. Syd is moody and grumpy and dismissive and critical and opinionated about everything that he see’s, much to my annoyance and to the amusement of the gallery staff. There is one thing he does enjoy a screen print by Paolozzi. He recounts a story about his dad. My dad knew Paolozzi didn’t he mum, he ate chips with him in a cafe, he went to his funeral.

The mobile phone sounds its alarm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5DX6ZXNVr4

7:10 am

Light a candle. Light a candle in my heart. A morbid week in the news, perhaps it is always so, a violent world. All the sleepers sleep. It is Sunday and it is quiet, with only an occasional car passing on the road. The gas fire on and sitting in my onesy. It was snug snug snug in bed, Naoise so warm and cuddly, hard to leave the nest of duvets and bodily heat.

I no longer push the pram. The black pram which is the same age as Sydney resides in the cellar. It occasionally is bought out for a shopping trip into Tod. Naoise can walk there but he struggles with the return mile. Is this blog relevant now that my children are older. I read Lena’s blog Friday records. Its full of the intensity of caring for a baby. I remember, I remember. I cannot go back though. I wished I had recorded it in such vivid records as hers. Is it relevant to write about my maternal experiences now that my children are older ? Its not as intense. I am not with a child all the time, caring all the time. I walk out alone. I am so enjoying the aloneness. It is what I felt starved of when I was caring for Naoise at home everyday. Each day slipping one into the next.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWy-RYhcXk8

All this walking out up the hill. Trying to loose weight, the weight of mother love. The weight of cake consumed in comfort.

My period has started. It has started with a fine trickle, I await the gush. My back was sore with it. Yesterday I felt snappy and impatient. Sydney was full of lots of “oh my gods”, teenage angst and I was all grumpy with my period starting. I loose all my patience. They are always shocked. All my men and boys. I hate being the only woman in a house of men. My cat used to provide some female company, but now she is a box of ashes sitting on the book shelf. I like that she still lives in the house even as dust and ashes. I’d like to make her a cat shaped urn to rest in. The cat shape urn joins a long to do list.

I found a home movie of Syd as a four year old dancing naked in my high heel shoes; “who are you pretending to be ? ”  I asked him ” oh, Helen”, he replied. The movie is so so sweet. He taps with the heels on the floor, shuffles around, delights in the shoes. I guess I am being sentimental. Sentimental about time past. I would have liked to have shared this film, but I do think of Syd, I don’t think he would thank me for sharing naked films of him here. Some things have to remain private.

I’ve rejected Sylvia again, the next entry isn’t until 20th January. She can wait. I should find some words by Anne Sexton. I should find some other words.

My head feels a blank. It is still dark outside and the street lights are on.

Naoise had his crystal confiscated by a dinner lady on Friday. He had liked to keep the crystal in his coat pocket and play with it at break times. I guess everything is too dangerous these days. Once as a child I took a magnifying glass into school and delighted in burning grass and leaves with the power of the sun. No one ever noticed. Naoise was so concerned that he wouldn’t be reunited with his crystal, I tell him it will be ok, we will get it back on Monday.

I want to take a picture of him with two crystals held up against his eyes. I want to do this too. I will get Patrick to help. Patrick is a good accomplice. Yesterday whilst out walking he took photographs for me. I wanted him to be in the picture too but he didn’t want that. I am not sure he totally approves of all this recording. He likes his privacy. Thats ok, my main focus I guess is how I view life, how I look out onto it, within it. He is so much a part of it though. He is good at looking after children, and I am clear that I want to acknowledge his part in things, in our family life. Are you reading this Patrick ? What do you think ? What do you think of what I say ?

A blank. Its getting lighter now. I pour some tea and sip it but it is cold and horrid and stewed. It was our last tea bag, so its coffee from now on.

Maybe there isn’t much to say today. Maybe I am stuck. There is no child at my breast. There is no child in a pram. There are only sleepers as I write. Perhaps I should have stayed asleep, dreaming, something there in my dreams worth writing about. The sky lightening is a prussian blue. Now I remember I was going to write about my parents. My parents in Scotland. In their remote house on the bog on the north coast, they are still without electricity. Still plunged into dark and without a cup of tea. All the food in the freezer defrosted and wasted. They go to bed early, have baths to keep warm. I ring them twice a day. They have now been without power since Thursday. Since the storm. The wind must have howled. Howled around their cottage. It knocked down the wall in the garden. A wild and angry and powerful wind. I think of how they have missed all the horrid news, that is good. I think of them eating sandwiches and sitting around candles, of doing nothing and waiting. It is good to wait, to be patient. I am not always patient. Being without electricity must be no fun at all, not after two days. There is nothing that I can do to help but check in on them. Far to far away.

Yesterday, after watching how to Train a Dragon Two, Naoise decided to draw marks on my legs, as I got ready for bed. The marks were  meant to be like those of that the  old lady made on the forehead of the main boy character in the film, when he became the leader, when he became the leader of the tribe, when his dad died. Am I a leader Naoise ? Am I the leader of your tribe ? I crawl to bed with smudgy black marks adorning my legs.

The buzzer hasn’t sounded but I don’t want to share anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

7.30am

I am sat upright in bed, its Saturday morning, all in the attic are asleep. The oven buzzer is downstairs, so I have set the stop clock on my mobile phone. 30 minutes to write. It sounds wet on the roads. As the cars pass, I hear the water sloshing under the tires. The road is busy. Footsteps on the stairs. I wonder who it is, and whoever it is they retrace their footsteps back up.

There are not many secrets in this tiny house, all movements are measured. All voices can be heard, by those in the house and by our neighbours on each side. A sandwich of small properties hugging close to a river.

I am glad it is Saturday. I am glad it is the weekend, no school run, a slow start. Spoke to mum last night, they were still without electricity and had gone to bed to keep warm. I do worry about them, all their freezer food must be ruined, mum mentioned warming food on top of the stove. All in darkness, it is so dark. There are no street lights, only the lights of the passing cars on the road that runs by. Their house sits on a hillock on the bog, surrounded by sheep and heather and gorse and in the far distance the mountains. You cannot see the sea but you can hear it. Dad sent me a message late last night. The storm had knocked down the wall in their garden, it must have been extremely fierce. I read reports of gusts of over 110mph recorded off the coast of Lewis, the most powerful recorded since 1970. I offer to help rebuild the wall.

I think about an emergency kit for my parents, solar charger, back up battery for their phones and a gas camping stove, wind up radio and torches. Not even to be able to make a cup of tea. Emergency’s need cups of tea.

Yesterday was a right off. I had to tidy and clear my studio, so that workmen could get in to fix a radiator. I will be glad of the radiator, but could have done without the disruption. I had planned to complete my tax return, now it will hang on into next week, such a bore. The weather was foul when I went out to buy some lunch, wet and cold and wet, bucketing it down. I noticed some bits and bobs on the way, some kitchen foil moulded around the cobbles of the street, run over by cars, one child’s shoe that had belonged to Imogen discarded.

With all the sorting, I found the pasta necklace that Naoise had made for me in reception, I have a matching orange ring somewhere in the house. I found dead moth bodies on the studio window sill.

Lots of sorting, lots of bits and bobs and piles of paper. Piles of the childrens’ drawings and this and that, and notes to myself. Need to get back to the drawings. I don’t think I will be able to work in the studio until the workmen have fixed the radiator. It will be good to have heat, the old heating system consists of blown air. It works to warm the space but its loud and the air blows paper around so you cannot draw beneath it.

The news of terrorist attacks in Paris, at Charlie Hebdo and at the kosher supermarket have filled me with sadness and disgust and worry. This attack on freedom of speech on cartoonists on innocent people. I read that some hostages at the siege in the kosher supermarket, a father and his toddler son  hid themselves in the refrigeration unit. How terrifying. You cannot escape the news. It fills radios and mobile phones with its messages. The news unfolds before us in lines of tweets and social media. News  is 24 hour ever available.

I think about my mum and dad in their wind battered home keeping warm. I think about the moths that died battering against the window pane of the studio. I think about the fear that innocent people feel, and my fear in hearing of it. I think about fragility. Fragility of life.

I hear Syd talking to his friend in the bedroom upstairs. I have my brood safe, each in his bed safe and warm and cosy. I look out into this room, the cot still sits unused in the corner, it has become a dumping ground for the outgrown and unwanted clothes.

The alarm on my phone signals.

9.50am

Days begin with strange questions; “what is this severed head “, its artwork, my friends artwork. Sydney holds the head of the puppet child with contempt. Its sculpture Syd I reiterate. Syd then says “so she chops off babies heads and its on our stairs ?” How Syd loves a bit of drama. Thirteen its a strange age. The head has been on our stairs for about two years now, this is the first time he has noticed it, my cleaning must have made a difference.

Its a brighter day, but the wind on the tops is wild. Its whooshing and wailing through the trees. My cheeks are red after the walk.

Naoise did not want to go to school today. He is tired and he has been complaining that his legs feel wobbly. Poor little sweet thing. He does look tired and pale. I carry him to school and he nestles down close to my body.

I am glad that it is Friday. First week back of the new term is always a shock to the system. I am liking the quiet though, I am liking having the house back for me.

The wind is whistling, the wind is whistling. The wind is raging. The wind is raging.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_maCnFgEIZk

I make two films, I just stare into the camera. Camera as a mirror. I stare hard at the image of my face. I have a good look. I capture the affects of the wind on me and the landscape around. It is simple, just a record of me standing here at this moment in time. I begin to enjoy the looking, the inward looking at my own face, and the wind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRJ4wSrv0S4

I worry about my mum. The radio reports news of over 100mph winds in Scotland and of power cuts to thousands of homes. I try to ring her, I leave a message. I get one back. “We o.k. no power warm in bed. Saving mobile phone power. I will call you later. Hope you ok. x”

She has a very basic house on the north coast, no gas, no central heating, just electricity and wood burners. Sometimes I worry. She is so far away. Two days drive. What an adventure she is having though. I remember the power cuts in the 1970’s, then I welcomed the magic of the dark.

When I was walking I thought that I had so much to say. I was thinking about walking away from Naoise school, the distance between him and me, how the distance becomes more measured the older the child becomes. Distance and aloneness.

Whilst walking I began to look at the land and how it was cut and sliced up and ordered by the walls. Walking in the fields each day is making me love it more, however bleak, however grey, my feet walk on the earth of home, of near, of familiarity.

I puff and pant up the Pexwood road. It is steep. I realise how unfit I am. I puff and pant. I feel the red in my cheeks.

Some nice complements by some mum’s on my way out of the school, “you look nice today”. It must be the lipstick (the lipstick that Lena gave me) that I wiped across my lips, perhaps this is the difference they notice. I enjoy the compliments. Cross the road with the lolly pop man, think of the hill. I am so glad that it is the weeks end.

I had a look in Sylvia’s journals and read her words for January 9th 1959, I found nothing that jumped back at me. I am also reading the illustrator Tomi Ungerer’s book Far out isn’t far enough, a graphic memoir of his time spent living in Nova Scotia, Canada. Its a fun read, full of descriptions about learning to farm, butchering, living with and holding up against the elements, stories of drunken locals with guns on hunting trips.

There is not much time this morning, I have to go into the studio and find out about the plans for the new radiators that they are planning to fit. Its a pain in the arse as I had wanted to complete the tax return that I started yesterday so that I would be free to read and write next week. Life’s plans don’t always work out how you want them to.

The bin men are outside, collecting the recycling, the truck is reversing up our tiny road with a beep beep beep to warn of its backwards movement.

10:35am

I am experimenting with the optimal time to write. It is clear that an evening session would be very challenging. The children are most unsettled. I keep falling asleep before them. Naoise loves to draw at night then he always wants an extra book. I enjoy the reading but was slurring the words and falling asleep on its pages last night. Syd just wants to stay up, he is a teenager and a creature of the night. We are trying to get him to read. Last night we encouraged him with  To Kill a Mocking Bird, I thought that he would like it, Partick says that he enjoyed the beautiful descriptions but it was like pulling teeth out to get him to begin.

To begin. A start is always a tricky thing. To begin I must start my tax return today. This is so boring and mundane yet it hangs like a storm cloud around my mind taking up, sapping up energy which I would rather place elsewhere. I found my gateway pass yesterday, I had completely turned my studio over looking for it, only to find it at home filed in a canvas bag on the coat hooks, a completely illogical filing cabinet.

This is day two of cutting out sugar from my diet, and I am taunted by cake, its sometimes all that I can think about, not just one cake but many, all my favourites chocolate, courgette, coffee, date and walnut, ginger….. a beauty contest of confectionary laid out before me. Apparently I will feel like a million dollars in three months. Just 24 hours feels like an eternity.

Naoise seemed a little more awake this morning as I carried him on my shoulders to school. He asked to be put down just before we crossed the road near the Gauxholme Arches. I was pleased, my shoulders hurt. He is getting heavier. He is getting bigger. Next month he will be six. Naoise took a glass crystal to school for show and tell. He loves sparkly things, he loves show and tell, he calls the crystal his treasure, he thinks it is extremely valuable. I am delighted when he places it against his eye and it creates a kaleidoscopic affect that is most pleasing. I get him to pose with the crystal and I take his photograph.

Walking out on the tops today.

<break mum rings from Scotland>

Walking on the tops today, its mostly grey and muddy so muddy that I slip and slide down the paths on the way downhill. I admire the dry stone walls some intact, some tumbling down, some with fox gloves poking in between and all the green moss. It hails. Small balls of ice attack me. I stop and film myself and the hail. I am trying to find myself. By turning the camera on me. Its not for vanity. Its about confronting who I am. Thirteen years of mothering, has led to a small crisis. I am all bumpy and lumpy, jam roll polly pudding and custard. I want to be lean lean lean and skipping as a spring lamb.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaep2rvvDrA

Patrick calls me the Rousseau of Todmorden. I think that I must read again Wunderlust by Rebecca Solnit. I think of the walk by  Marina Abramovic and Ulay- The Lovers (The Great Wall: Lovers at the Brink). I think about all those great artists walking. How a walk can be art.

My great auntie is 99 today. 99 what an age, what a woman. If I live to 99 I wish to be as agile in mind and body as her. I sent her an owl card. She is most certainly wise. The matriarch of my mothers family.

Mum sounds a bit sad, she is struggling with the short days and the lack of light, and this time of year. She has met so many losses. Her mother died on boxing day, her eldest sister passed away four years ago. She says she is drinking whiskey, baking nice food to compensate, to comfort her suffering. I ask if she has read more of the book H is for Hawk. Its about grief. I thought that she would enjoy it,  but she tells me she is struggling even to read. I hate to hear of her suffering. It is the dying time of the year. The bleakest. It is the time to die.

Womans’ hour was good today. All talk of women artists at the Tate Gallery, of Sonya Dellauney, Barbara Hepworth, Tracy Emin, Marlene Dumas. How I adore them all, but especially Dumas. Her show is at Tate Modern, it opens in Febrruary, maybe I will make it down there. It has been so long since I have visited, I could team it up with seeing my dear friend L and her new baby boy. I should go and see her, she was so supportive of me 13 years ago when Syd was born and I was trapped inside the maisonette at Kings Cross. She even bought Syd a pair of shoes when I had no money. This was so so kind.

Whilst up on the hills, I think of an imaginary baby, a ghost baby, my third child. Here in the wind and the hail and the cold and the mud I hold him in my arms. I imagine feeding him. I imagine a photograph me all in blood red, dress and shoes and lipstick, hair down, a read madonna, holding a baby, standing on my dinning room table, looking into the camera. I hold air, I hold my breath, I hold my imagination.

I read some of Sylvia’s journal from 1959, I extract the paragraph that seems most vivid, that has some resonance with me and my words. This is what she says about this day 56 years ago.

january 8

Thursday

Very bad dreams lately. One just after my period last week of losing my month-old baby: a transparent meaning. The baby, formed just like a baby, only small as a hand, died in my stomach and fell forward: I looked down at my bare belly and saw the round bump of its head in my right side, bulging out like a burst appendix. It was delivered with little pain, dead. Then I saw two babies, a big nine month one, and a little one month one with a blind white-piggish face nuzzling against it: a transfer image, no doubt, from Rosalind’s cat and kittens a few days before: the little baby was a funny shape, like a kitten with white skin instead of fur. But my baby was dead. I think a baby would make me forget myself in a good way. Yet I must find myself.

The Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962, edited by Karen V. Kukil, Page 458

The sun is shinning now, some blue sky appearing within the breaks of the cloud. The road is busy, cars stream past and the train at the back. I have come to a natural stop. I will rebel and stop before the buzzer on the oven sounds its incessant beep beep beep BEEP.