Word of the Week

This week I've found it slightly easier to think of a word.  Maybe I'm getting better at it, maybe I'm starting to get into the vibe of summing things up.  So today I give you ...

I often feel helpless, especially when technology is concerned.  I'm starting to reach that time in my life when I don't understand things.  I watch the news on TV and I'm frightened by the way things are going.  I worry about things over which I have no control and turn them over and over in my mind.

I also feel that here are parts of my life that I am helpless to deal with, particularly around employment.  Many months of fruitless searching and I'm still gainfully unemployed.  I cannot do anything to help myself therefore I feel helpless.  It also means as far as looking after myself goes I'm dependent on others so again, helpless.

I'm trying to take an element of control - I'm hoping to start some more educational writing but again I have to wait for someone else to make a decision so I'm still helpless even when trying to 'help' myself!  Ironic or what?

Self help - I need to do it!  So here's to helping myself gain some control and feel in control.

The Prompt

I bumped into @mumturnedmom's prompt on her blog a few weeks ago, then lost the details, have now found them again and am finally joining in!  The fact that this weeks prompt was 'Books' was an added bonus.  As an English Literature graduate, English teacher and bibliophile I was instantly hooked and my brain began to whirl with ideas.

Naturally the first thought was a list of my favourite books.  Boring, predictable but it has to be done!
This is not really in 'like' order but Number One is my all time favourite book, ever.

1. Wuthering Heights - I first read this as an impressionable, hopelessly romantic teenager.  Although I've grown up and modified my requirements re the ideal man, my heart still beats a little faster when I think of Heathcliff.  I know, I know - he's a bit of a bastard but there's something undeniably romantic about the force of his love for Cathy.

2. Bleak House - this is a recent favourite.  I've always had a soft spot for Dickens dating back to my first encounter via Christmas Carol and Scrooge.  Bleak House has such wonderful characters - Esther Summerson, John Jarndyce, Harold Skimpole, Lady Dedlock - and the wonderful, scathing attack on the legal system which allows case to drag on over generations, sucking all the life and wealth from those caught up in its ever turning wheels.

3. Lord of the Rings trilogy - I've read this trilogy three times so far and I'm never disappointed.  Or as my son would have it, I've not yet outgrown my love of elves!

3. Being Dead - this is the  first Jim Crace who has become a favourite author (Harvest is awaiting my attention at the moment) Being Dead has an interesting narrative structure, working both forward and backward in time.  It is upsetting and unsettling in places but I still loved it.  Maybe a re-read soon.

4. The Night Circus - I adored this book from the first page, I was mesmerised and enchanted, reluctant to put it down and distraught when it ended.  It is a soaring fantasy revolving around a magical circus which appears and disappears seemingly at will.  Fantastic things happen in the circus and I wanted to visit, to stay and to be a part of this wondrous world.  I hope Erin Morgenstern writes either a sequel (hard to see where she could go with it but, hey, it's magic!) or another book so I can enter a magical world again.

5. The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared - wow, what a title  How could I fail to love this?  A tale of a feisty old man who refuses to be defined by his extreme age and travels through some of the defining moments of the Twentieth Century.  A joy from start to finish.

So there you are, five of my favourite books.  There are many others that I love and have loved reading that I would recommend others to read but these are the five that I adore and will re-read.   

Second installment of the story ...

So now is the time to release the second part of the story into the wide blue yonder.  No reactions so far but maybe this part will get some comments!

No!  This wouldn’t do.  Why did it have to be that way?  She was her own woman, after all; she didn’t have to become her mother if she didn’t want to … and she didn’t want to so much!

Ellie put her mug down and headed upstairs.  After a dusty search under the bed (why did she never move furniture and clean under it?) she found what she was looking for.  Under a pile of cards, letters and postcards was a small blue note book.  It had a large yellow smiley stuck on the cover and the corners were scuffed.  Down on side was a faded strip; too many years left on her sunny window sill tucked under a French-English dictionary.  She pulled it out and stroked the cover gently.  For a moment she was 15 again; feathered hair, kohled eyes, platform shoes and Oxford Bags.  Ellie’s fingers trembled as she opened it.

There, in her younger-self’s handwriting, was her name and address.  It had been many years since she’d been there and many more since she’d lived there.  A drawing of a flower on the inside cover, several hearts coloured red and purple and a rotten anagram of a boy’s name.  What had he looked like?  She couldn’t remember.  After several pages – most of which contained a boy’s name (not always the same boy!) she found what she was looking for – her life list.

When she was 15, Ellie and her friends had each written a list of what they were going to do with their lives.  They had vowed, very serious thing to vow, that when they were ‘really old, like, 25’ they’d meet up and check their lists.  Of course that hadn’t happened – they’d lost touch when several of them didn’t stay into Sixth Form.  New friendships had formed, they changed when University started and even Uni friends had drifted away eventually.  So the life list had never seen the light of day again.  Thirty five years was a long time to wait to find out if she’d got the life she’d always wanted!   

Ellie’s Life List – by Ellie Jordan, age 15.

1. Get married to either David Cassidy or Donny Osmond.
2. Go to university and get a degree in English.
3. Become a poet.
4. Squeeze into size 10 jeans.
5. Dye hair red and get loads of curls.
6. Go to Italy and snog an Italian boy.
7. Learn to drive and buy a 2CV.
8. Learn Italian.
9. Learn to ski.
10. Become famous.

‘Wow, Ellie thought, ‘That’s quite a list!  I’ve managed 1 and a half – went to University and married; not David or Donny but that was always a bit ambitious!’

These were the ambitions of a 15 year old girl with stars in her eyes; real life hadn’t turned out quite like the teenage fantasy but that was true of most teenage fantasies – wildly impractical.  Her actual life had turned out to be rather conventional – after University a dull job; marriage; kids; some lovely jobs and several more dull jobs; approaching retirement and death!

‘God I’m depressing myself!’ thought Ellie.  ‘Better pull myself together or I’ll be in the kitchen swilling paracetamol down with gin!’

The list had depressed her more than she would have believed – all that potential, all those dreams and what had happened?  She’d got caught up in the boring business of ‘life’.  True of most people, maybe, but not what she’d wanted for herself.  She’d been the first member of her family to take A levels and go to University; these were chances that others hadn’t had – had she made the most of them?

Ellie wondered what her 15 year old self would say if she could see how it had all panned out – no snogging of fit Italian boys, little poetry and certainly no size 10 jeans!  She had a vague memory of sitting on a friend’s bedroom floor and writing the list.  Whose bedroom had it been?  She didn’t remember.  Who was there?  Still she didn’t remember.  Something so important had been pushed out of her mind and it took a shock in a mirror to remind her that she had once had ambition.  Tears welled up in her eyes and she rushed to the toilet for some tissue.

The fledgling novel's first public outing!

Well here we are, October 1st & as promised I'm putting up the first instalment of an unfinished novel I have lurking on the hard drive.  I'm not sure what to do with it - to finish or abandon, that is the question.

Read on, dear blog follower & let me know  what you think.

The Mirror

It all started when she decided to grow out her fringe.

Ellie was tired of the same old hairstyle; she’d lost count of how many years she’d worn her hair this way.  Time for a change!  A long conversation with her hairdresser later and she was growing the fringe out.  They also decided to leave her colour to grow out so they could change this at the same time.  This was fine to start with – just a longer fringe to deal with and some puffing of hair from her eyes.  Later, as the fringe grew longer, she tried in vain to tuck it behind her ears; there wasn’t enough hair to do that so it continued to flop in her eyes.

She bought some sparkly clips in an attempt to get it out of her eyes, where it was driving her mad.  However, she looked like a four-year-old who’s gripped their hair back in an attempt to look grown-up.  The hair flopped into her eyes for weeks, making her cross.

Eventually her hair was just long enough to secure with an Alice band.  She was stunned by her reflection – she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen so much forehead!  She had no idea if it made her look silly, older or just shocked.  At least the years had been kind to her and there were no visible wrinkles.  Heaven knows what lurked under the skin!  A wrinkled soul perhaps?

Then one day the dreadful moment happened.  Ellie looked in the mirror to adjust her Alice band and saw her mother looking back at her.  Time stood still.  She stared and stared.  There was no doubt about it; she had morphed into her mother.  There was the hair parted in the middle and swept back; admittedly no waves in Ellie’s but the colour was identical.  A streak of grey across the side, a sprinkling of grey through the rest.  The nose was different – thankfully she’d got her father’s nose rather than the Miller beak.  Her lips were slightly fuller than her mother’s but as she stared at her reflection they were drawn slightly down, mirroring her mother’s pursed look of disapproval.  Her eyes looked tired, dark circles under them reminded her of those on mother’s face in the last months of her life.

There was no doubt – she was turning into her own mother.

Ellie staggered away from the mirror and slumped onto the stairs.  How the hell had that happened?  All her life she’d been desperate to look like anyone other than her mother; looking like your mother was a curse.  As a teenager she’d joked with her friends about how like their mothers they looked.  The worst thing anyone could say about you was that you looked like your mother – it was even worse than being a bad kisser or wearing last year’s fashion. 

Now it had happened - her mother had invaded her face!  The scary thing was she had no idea when it had started.  Was it a sudden transformation?  Or had it crept up on her slowly?  More to the point, why had no-one said anything?

There was no getting away from the fact that she was getting older.  The last birthday had been a zero one – the ones that people always said were ‘Big Birthdays’.  For Ellie it had been a number to keep quiet about.  Not that she lied about her age; she’d rather it never came up at all.  Some of her friends had got frozen at 45 – some more convincingly than others – but she was prepared to admit to 50 if she had to but was happier if people thought she was ‘in her 40s’.  Thankfully she looked younger than her age so the question of her actual age rarely came up – she’d smile coyly if someone asked and allow them to ‘guess’ she was a Forty-Something.

Ellie got up from the stairs and went into the kitchen.  Without thinking about it she filled the kettle and put it on to boil.  She went through the mechanics of making a mug of tea and wandered into the lounge.  She felt in a daze; the years really were passing faster and she was getting older, more like her mother (curses!)  Was she really on the verge of becoming an old woman?

Was that how she thought of her mother, as an old woman?  Memories came flooding back – her mother sitting on the beach under an umbrella; her mother wrapping herself up in an Aran cardigan; her mother insisting on a plate for a single biscuit. There were no memories of her mother behaving badly; having too much to drink; wearing unsuitable clothes; enjoying life. Did she seem like this to her children, a dull, boring old woman?         

As she sipped her tea, Ellie felt sad.  There was no getting away from it – she was getting older.  The number of years she had already lived was probably greater than the number left to her.  This was a sad thought.  She tried not to think about mortality if she could avoid it – even though she joked about her funeral plan!  So, there it was; life was slipping away, she was turning into her mother and she’d got old age, slippers and a bus pass to look forward to.

By the way, by the magic of technology I've scheduled this post - as it hits the blogosphere I'll be doing a spin class at the gym!  Who'd have thought, eh?