Gravity

I live with my head in the clouds a bit. I’m the first to admit it. I could quite happily walk around all day staring up at the sky, making up little tunes and stories.

When I was younger people found this quirk of mine quite charming, referring to me as eccentric or fruity. There was a tolerance for my idiosyncrasies because I had time. It was expected that with all the time that I had in front of me I would mould my quirks into something productive, something that would earn me money.

I even tolerated myself. I remember dreaming about becoming a famous writer, thinking how good it would be to earn a living doing what I really love except that the problem is I don’t love doing it as much as I love thinking about it. Writing a book is bloody hard work.

It’s like living in exile in Siberia without adequate heating, where your only nourishment is borscht, three day old bread and vodka which you eat and drink for every meal so that eventually you not only think you are in exile hanging out with Dostoyevky, you know you are in exile.

I’m doing NaNoWriMo at the moment. I’ve written 15,000 words of a novel in one week. My dearest friend Jules who is the only member of the cheer squad I have left (the others dropped out because I just kept not delivering) says it is one of the best things I have written. I don’t know if she’s right, but it is certainly the book I have written with the heaviest of hearts.

I am drinking my final whisky in the Last Chance saloon with this book. I am Scheherazade trying to ward off execution with her 1001 tales. I am watching the Titanic go down knowing I can’t swim for it.

I’m telling you this not so you will say Oh no, no, no, you are brilliant. You’re going to make it, you really are. You are kind if you do say that even though you and I both know it is not necessarily the truth. Because I don’t deliver. It’s been proven.

I could give you every excuse in the world as to why I either never finish books I start.  Or leave them sitting in my desk after three drafts. Or why I dump them after one rejection. And you would hear those excuses and offer your sympathies and feel bad for me for a moment, but it wouldn’t make any difference. I would still not deliver.

Many people have tried over the years to get me out of this mindset. They have harassed me, cajoled me, begged me, killed me with positive reinforcement, but to no avail. I still cannot deliver. This is the fatal flaw in my character that even the most successful life coach in the world would not be able to address.

Is it lack of self belief?

Is it a fear of success?

Is it laziness?

Is it apathy?

I don’t know.

What I do know is that I don’t take the advice I give to others and I perplex and annoy myself in equal measure.

In my time on this planet I have learnt that there are only two ways to get what you want – put one foot in front of the other on a daily basis and work hard.

That’s it.

Should be easy enough even for me to follow.

Yet my head remains in the clouds.

But there comes a time when even the greatest daydreamers among us give in to the forces of gravity and land with a splat in their middle of their lives. When we realise that we shouldn’t leave the things we really want to do until it is too late.

Elvis is singing on my iTunes selection. It’s Now or Never. Couldn’t be more timely.

There’s no time like the present is what the King is saying.

Tomorrow will (might) be too late.

It’s now or never. My books won’t wait.

Do what you want to do. What lies deep in your heart. Find a way. That really is what life’s about.

Don’t leave it too late.

When I Was Just A Little Girl

I saw a little girl in a red tutu at the shops today. She would have been about three or four years old. She had a teddy in a little toy stroller who was also wearing a red tutu.

It’s funny how you can see things that remind you of something else. Almost exactly.

My sister, Shelley, about the same age had a tutu in non-traditional colours. It was grey.

Her grey tutu, was grey by accident. It had been a white tutu a neighbour had washed with a black leotard that wasn’t colourfast. Her little ballerina decided she would not settle for a grey tutu so it was passed on to my sister.

Shelley wasn’t a ballerina but she liked the outfits the ballerinas wore. She wore that grey tutu everywhere. It was a soft kind of grey like the fur of a cat, but everywhere she went people would say :’ Oh look at you and your grey tutu, you poor, sad, little ballerina.’

I remember Shelley glowering at all these people who thought it was unfortunate to have a grey tutu. I used to hide the magic wand I had been given for Christmas, fearing that if she got hold of it she would use that glower to curse someone.

When I saw the little girl today in the red tutu I got a catch in my throat for more reasons than one. That little girl reminded me so much of my sister who was a non-conformist of the glowering sort as a child and remained that way as an adult.

I had friends and cousins who dressed as ballerinas and fairies in the more traditional pinks, whites and sometimes (daringly) lilacs, who even today follow a more conservative way of dressing. And living. It got me thinking that it might be possible that our character is formed from a very young age. Our steadfastness. Our strength. Whether or not we are forthright. It is easier to follow the pack as a child. To not follow puts you in danger of being whispered about behind cupped hands or pointed out in a crowd. I wonder why a child would willingly encourage those whispers.

Seeing the little girl in the red tutu also made me think of when I was a little girl. My non-traditional ways. I didn’t like ballerinas with all their primping and posing. I certainly didn’t like fairies, at least not the good ones.

I used to dress up as Merlin or as a Knight of the Round Table, devising strategies to save the world on old sheets of butcher’s paper taped to my bedroom floor.

I was the way I am now from a very young age. I wonder what made me that way and not the ballerina type of girl with her beautiful posture and perfect mannerisms. Why was I a clumsy, plodding wizard or a Knight destined to never find the Holy Grail? Would my life have been different if I had worn pink tulle and had rosebuds in my hair?

The things you see at the shops sometimes bring the past back so rapidly it is as if current existence is completely imagined. And the little girl I used to be remains.

* Image sassypantstutus.

Hallowe’en Jokes Told To Me By A Punk Rocker

We didn’t go trick or treating last night. We had two punk bands playing in the shop so we got our black gear on and went to watch. They screamed a bit, but they were good.

One of the bass players, an imposing 6 foot 5 hunk of punk rock muscle turned out to be very funny. He looked like someone you’d never want to meet in a dark alley but he had a well-stocked arsenal of corny jokes.

Here are his best corny vampire jokes.

What’s it like to be kissed by a vampire?

It’s a pain in the neck.

What type of dog does Dracula have?

A blood hound.

Why are vampire families so close?

Because blood is thicker than water.

What is Dracula’s favourite flavour of ice cream?

Vein-illa.

Just goes to show that punk rockers can be silly too.

Hope you had a fun Hallowe’en!