Posts Tagged "Memories"

Brave

Posted by Josie on Oct 27, 2011 in Family, Me | 5 comments

For some reason I’ve been really missing my Grandma this week. Not Grandma just before she died so much, but the Grandma from my childhood. Missing her meat pie, and the smell of her old sofa. Missing the rocking chair with the little cushions she’d sewed under the feet. Missing the rough grey of her woolen cardigans and her shooing us out the kitchen, and sitting at the breakfast bar on high orange-topped stools watching cartoons on the tiny television.

I was very very lost when she died in March this year. It brought home a lot of other loss and grief and fear, fear of growing up I guess. As I found my way through, I would hold words of her close like a talisman. She would tell me often how she had lived a good life and held no regrets. She was fearly fearless, my Grandma, very self-reliant, practical and yet full of kindness, and moving forward I vowed I would be like her – no regrets. So I have been holding my head up and taking leaps. Project, ideas, plans. I have been trying to make the best of every day, trying to not wait till a tomorrow. Living spontaneously and fearlessly and creatively. Grandma would be most proud of a bold and daring grand-daughter, a heroine, not a damsel in distress, and I want to be someone she would be proud of.

I’ve been feeling a bit scared again lately. Just overwhelmed really. The responsibility of guiding two lives in the right direction weighs heavily some days. I don’t really know what I’m doing but I’m doing my best. And so because I was missing her, I ordered a pot plant and sent it to myself, from her, and it’s just arrived.

Thank you Grandma, for my plant and your words. I’m getting there you know, I promise. x

Writing Workshop: The girl with faith in her hands

Posted by Josie on Dec 16, 2010 in Me, Writing, Writing Workshop | 15 comments

My childhood self sits, bum balanced on the kneeler in front of the pew on which her mother sits, wriggly brother on lap, as she listens to the voice of her father from the front of the church.

In her careful, cupped hands sits the round orange of her Christingle, which she had helped the women of the church assemble that afternoon, one of hundreds, one for everyone, her tummy full of sultanas and raisins that she had spent the time popping into her mouth when no-one was looking. Her nose is filled with the smell of hot wax and the sharp tang of citrus as she watches the flame burn and flicker. Her father’s voice tells what each symbol represents: the orange is the world, red ribbon the blood of Jesus and others that she now forgets. But she doesn’t hear, doesn’t need to, the meanings as familiar, then, to her as the grainy wood of the church pew and the rough, worn fabric of the hymn books, more lost in the candle’s burn, for there seems to be some meaning in that, though she can’t fathom it.

She is six or seven. Utterly safe. Utterly loved. Her world is as certain and steadfast as her father’s confident sermon. That’s what faith is, I guess.

There aren’t many times where I miss the religious aspects of my upbringing. As someone that can find meaning in a dirty puddle these days, or the way the trees move, I never feel like I ‘need’ to believe in a specific religious teaching. Well, it’s more fundamental that, less that I need to believe, more that I just don’t. I’m quite happy enough feeling my way on my own and enormously grateful for the freedom and the sense of peace shaking off most of childhood beliefs has brought me. But as the daughter of a Baptist Minister, my dad later becoming a lay reader in a busy Anglican church, religion has always been something very firmly entrenched in my experience and in my memory.

Christmas is the one time I miss it. I almost ache with it. It’s not a spiritual longing, more a deep-set nostalgia, but I find myself drawn to the churches and the choirs, the candle-lit vigils and the nativity scenes. It makes me feel like a child again. Yes, I think that’s what it is. It makes me feel safe, held in a familiar blanket where everything is certain and predictable, where the sheep always follow the shepherds down the aisle to be placed in the straw filled stable, where you primary concern is whether or not you’ll be chosen to carry one, maybe even one of the more important ones, cradling the the tiny, swaddling-wrapped Jesus solemnly past the rows of the congregation  to place him in the manger.

I almost wish I could believe again, maybe even just pretend, just to have that feeling back.

So this Christmas I have a feeling that a girl, now long grown, may be found sneaking back into churches to light a candle and listen to soar of the Christmas carols, her mouth still shaping the words, all of which she remembers. Not to believe, but just to remember.

Yes, I think I would like that a lot.

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This post was written for this week’s Writing Workshop, a mix of childhood remembering and traditions.

Now it’s your turn. What prompt did you chose?

Leave your name and the URL to your post in the MckLinky below (the URL should be to your post not just to your blog) If you have the time it would be great if you could try and read and comment on at least two other entries.

If you haven’t had chance to respond yet, then you’ve still got till Sunday to enter your link. Or just wait till next week, when there’ll be five brand new prompts to get you thinking.

Writing Workshop: Birthday Love

Posted by Josie on Oct 28, 2009 in Me, Writing, Writing Workshop | 13 comments

Welcome back to the Wednesday Writing Workshop link-up! At the bottom of this post you’ll find the widget to post the link to your workshop posts. But first? Well I guess it’s my turn! I’ve chose prompt #5- tell us about your best friend. This was a completely orchestrated move on my part as I’ve had this post planned for a while and it gives me a good excuse to tell you about somebody very special who just may have had a birthday at the weekend… It’s horribly indulgent but I don’t care.

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My dear lovely bestest friend,

So here’s the thing. I couldn’t afford to buy you a very expensive present this year (I was thinking a pink sequined laptop case) and don’t get to see you to give you your real (humbler) present till Thursday so I thought I would send you a virtual outpouring of my undying love and adoration, and put it up here for all the world to see. Because it’s about time people knew what a very special best buddy I really have. I hope that’s ok…. (I’m taking your silence for yes).

Did you know that we have been best friends for over 20 years? That’s  a long time. A LOT of memories. Here are just a few of my favourites…

We were about 8 or 9 I think and we were baking – and we somehow managed to spill an entire bottle of food colouring all over your mum’s very posh new tea towels. I have no idea where she was but we used every single cleaning ingredient in the cupboard under the sink to try and clean this tea towel. Including oven cleaner. How we are not dead left with some kind of permanent brain damage from the fumes of our concoction I will never know. Although on second thoughts… maybe that explains  lot! Actually we didn’t have much luck with cakes did we? Do you remember those ones that we hid behind your brand new bedroom curtains in preparation for our midnight feast? The ones that melted in the sun and stained them? Your mum went ballistic!!

Upper school at Burton Manor. Sitting with you in Mrs Weaver’s class drawing cartoons about Fagin and Beaky, our two imaginary characters of the time. I think they had been inspired by Oliver Twist where Fagin is in his den with his pet owl – it had cracked us up for some reason. We had all sorts of stupid catchphrases for them and would work them into every conversation in between squeals of laughter, drawing little pictures of them in our projects and school work. I seem to remember Mrs Weaver giving us very stern looks…

And Ed Banger!! Why on earth did we call Mr Kite that? God we were so naughty in his class weren’t we – he pretty much let us run wild! I will never, ever forget that ‘future room’ project where we had to build a model of a room filled with all the things we imagined would be invented the future. We built an entire house! And it had a very complicated working plumbing system as I remember involving straws. Well, I say working… because we left the tank in the ‘attic’ full and overnight it leaked everywhere and stained the carpet. Bless him, Ed Banger still gave us an A+ didn’t he?

Carting our cello’s home to your Grandma’s house where she made us tea with tinned carrots and pudding with custard which I thought were delicious and way better than the food my mum cooked (sorry mum!) I remember going back to her house after our very first solo trip into town on the bus without grown-ups and ecstatically showing her our shopping purchases. Two lumberjacks style checked shirts that were about ten billion sizes too big, and two small matching stuffed dogs with tartan hats. We weren’t exactly fashionistas were we? And I was always horribly envious of your shell suit which you got from Kay’s catalogue (the epitome of posh in my eyes) – mine was a cheapo one from Penkridge Market and no where near as classy.

I think we’ll fast forward through all the bad boyfriends shall we? Suffice it to say we shared some pretty tough experiences in those early teen years. And as always you were there for me, always at the end of the phone or a quick bike ride away. The years pass and I get to watch you turn from the slightly gangly girl I remember so well into the beautiful, stylish, slightly more serious woman that you’ve become. You go away to Uni and come back again – something I will be forever grateful for because it’s then our friendship began all over again – this time with us as ‘grown-ups’ with houses of our own and new husbands and long-term boyfriends who seemed to be taking forever to propose and whole new set of worries and dreams.

Now we get to some really good ones. Finding out after so many months of disappointment that there was a teeny bean in your tummy – I don’t think I had ever been so excited in my entire life. My wedding dress fittings, trying to find you a dress that will accommodate your growing baby bump and then crying when we found one because you looked so beautiful. Being so insanely grateful to see you on the morning of my wedding day because I was so nervous and all the little hand squeezes and smiles that kept me going and helped make it the most perfect wedding day a girl could ever wish for. I love the fact that naughty lion was my secret third bridesmaid that day – tucked away in your teeny tiny bump! No one would have guessed you were nearly 6 months pregnant!

And then all the baby stuff. Oh my word have we talked a lot of baby stuff over the last 3 years!!  Meeting your gorgeous monkey for the first time and wanting to scream because you instantly looked so thin and beautiful! And how, despite having done it all before me, you still made me feel, through every week of my pregnancy, like it was all a brand new experience and the most exciting thing to ever happen. ALWAYS being interested in every twinge and rumble and puke and complaint and worry. And telling me every time you saw me how lovely and not-fat and not-horribly pale from all the puking I looked.

Oh god – I could go on all night couldn’t I? How about me screaming and then hysterically sobbing in the office at work when you phoned to tell me about the surprise bean number 2? And every single second I’ve got to spend with you and the ratbag and the beanbag, watching them grow and develop attitudes to match our own!

I shall stop… because I could fill pages and pages.

And through all this? You my love. My beautiful, strong, patient, intelligent friend. Do you know people reading this, that not only does this woman put me to shame every time we meet, managing to look immaculate even if she’s had no sleep. Not ONLY has this woman had two babies in less than 18 months with horrendously difficult pregnancies both times, nursed sick husbands and battled insomnia… she’s also completed and honours degree, a masters and is now submitting PHD proposals. Oh and she bakes and her house is always clean (apart from the sofa). If she wasn’t so lovely we would hate her wouldn’t we?

You are my hero. My lemon bathroom cleaner sniffing, chocca mocca addict, wonderful best friend.

Happy Birthday.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

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So now it’s your turn! What prompt did you choose?

1. Tell us about the most exciting place you’ve ever been too. Try and use all of your senses in your description: what you can see, hear, taste, touch…?
- Suggested by the very well travelled Victoria at It’s a Small World After All

2. Write a recipe for something abstract - i.e. a recipe for a good/bad day, recipe for a perfect Halloween, recipe for a happy mummy/daddy etc.
- Inspired by English Mum’s son’s… umm… unusual recipe for a witches brew this week! Oh, and by one I did ages ago…

3. Write an ‘article’ (and I use that term loosely) about a recent news item or something that you’ve made up, deliberately making it as sensationalist and ridiculus as you can.
- Inspired by the delightful Jan Moir and the Daily Mail in general (link not added – no need to give them more exposure…)

4. What did you want to be when you grew up? Or are you still deciding?!
- Inspired by Maternal Tales from the South Coast’s beautiful message from her daughter.

5. Tell us about your best friend. You can interpret this any way you like – doesn’t have to be a person!
- Inspired by me!

Leave your name and the URL to your post in the MckLinky below (the URL should be to your post not just to your blog) andleave me a comment to let me know you’ve taken part. If you have the time it would be great if you could try and read and comment on at least two other entries. And be kind! It’s supposed to be a bit of fun – we’re not looking for the next Booker Prize winner here!

If you haven’t had chance to respond yet, then you’ve still got today! Or just wait till next week, when there’ll be five brand new prompts to get you thinking.

This Writing Workshop is brought to you in association with Mama Kat’s Losin’ It – who’s lovely author came up with the concept and runs her own workshop over in the U.S.

Homeward Bound

Posted by Josie on Oct 24, 2009 in Creative Writing, Writing | 12 comments

I sit, in the almost-black. Head nestled deep into my pillow, positioned carefully between the edge of my seat and the window, periodically turned to transfer the cool window’s freshness to my rosy face. I am, perhaps, six years old, and we are in the car, cruising through the night at a steady seventy. I don’t know where we have been but I know where we are going – home. Back to familiarity and light and solid ground, my inner compass pulling us along the motorway to my waiting bed.

My body is warm under its duvet cocoon, my bed-from-bed. The close, womb-like feeling of the car heavy around my body; its thick air in my hair and permeating my skin. The only light comes from the glow of the dashboard, the comforting silent figures of my parents looming large in their seats. My mother nods sleepily in the passenger seat, her hands lying gently on her lap, my brother’s still form, huddled and soft at my side. If it wasn’t for the appearance of my father’s hand from time to time as it reaches into my field of vision to change gears I would think that I was the only one awake. My limbs are heavy, lulled by the momentum of the travelling car, but my eyes, my eyes are wide, every sense on fire.

Outside my window I watch the laser display of the passing cars. Twin star-flares fly past in the opposite direction, floating in inky black, dazzling and bright. The glare from their lights shoot up and out into the night in thin, sharp pencil lines; the silhouette of their propelling vehicles vague and gray. Motorway signs loom dimly and then are gone, their blue and white flashing in my vision with only seconds to register unfamiliar sounding names and places. The trees alongside, ghostly and dark with only the occasional flicker of a streetlamp on an adjacent road or the sudden view of tiny square lights in distant towering flats to hint at humanity outside of this long, gushing river of light and not-light and heat and sound. The noise of the engine is strong and steady. A hum that fills my ears and my head, punctuated with the sudden rush of the cars approaching, crescendo to sudden diminuendo. Sound with pressure somehow, pushing on my ears with heavy enveloping force.

The fact that we are moving at such high speed, so vulnerable in our fragile shell of metal and glass never occurs to me. I feel so safe, so warm, held safe by the close feel and smell of my duvet, by my unflinching certainty and faith in the man behind the wheel. I know I should sleep and yet I can’t close my eyes, transfixed by the sights and the sound and intoxicating sense of being an invulnerable spectator in this intergalactic light show, although I would never be able to verbalise this feeling as such. And yet I know, I plan in fact, that once our journey has come to a gentle, halting stop on our drive way I will pretend to have been asleep all along. Faking heavy, mouldable limbs and closed eyes to ascertain my transfer from one carrier to another. To my father’s strong and gentle arms, to bed and inevitable sleep, lights still flashing under my eyelids.

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There’s going to be a bit more of this creative stuff coming your way in the future I think. Hope that’s ok with you reader. Let me know your thoughts… Are you happy with my creative spewing in with the main feed? Or should I just hide them on a page somewhere for you to find in the menu bar…