Cat

When you read of characters who are only children when you too are one it's insightful. Thoughts you've had get echoed back regardless of whether they' re male or female, although the ones I've found most parallels with have tended to be male, but then I guess you could say that as a child I was gender-fluid – I assumed all children at a young age were!- since I wasn't conditioned to behave in a certain way or as appropriate to my gender. In terms of dress-up and play, anyway. As yes, my grandmother did remind me to sit with my legs together, as Colette's Grandmamma does in Gigi for reasons of decorum. But otherwise I played football, I played with toy cars, I made tents from furniture, yet I was still far more 'girl' than my tomboy cousin and whined like one too, though my younger boy cousin also beat me at that.
He got his way most of the time, being the only male and the youngest of our trio.
Those cousins however were related, only separated by four years, and there existed between them a sibling rivalry and jealousy that unless I was with them, in the holidays, I had no concept of. My day-to-day existence had nothing of that – fights over possessions or who could get the most attention - and I still haven't witnessed those sibling ties to a very large or close degree, because, strangely friends were and are either only children too, have much older siblings or are quite a few years older than me so a comparison doesn't seem fair.
A part of me however, does disagree with the opinion that a big gap between siblings e.g. brothers and sisters have left home, have their own lives, are married with their own families etc., somehow makes you an only child, at the very least an honorary one. I understand how it could, but if you have siblings you always have that knowledge there are others that share the same parents, the same blood. And that counts for something, even if relations are non-existent or strained, if only birthday and Christmas cards or an annual phone call are exchanged. In the final reckoning, anyway.
You won't be alone. Well, maybe one day...as who knows what roads life will take you down, but you don't have to confront that from the very beginning. Be raised to it and trained yourself for it, exactly like a plant is raised up by water and sun, to stand alone and perhaps even grow along a trellis. Sunflowers, for instance, though with their faces turned upwards, always appear to me to have further resoluteness than humankind. But then only children often take longer to get used to things, whereas sunflowers don't have that time or the energy. Their purpose is to grow, their existence is briefer.
It's that that gives some of us a reputation as difficult: that time lag thing. Because when we try to conform to the social norms and conveniences, it takes us longer to negotiate them and reach a point of acceptance, a point where whatever it is doesn't feel it has been imposed or is an effort to maintain; sometimes we're unable to reach that point at all and have to call it quits, return to a more comfortable (and solitary) way of living.
And if an only child grown tries to bridge that gap from aloneness to that of shared living, there will more than likely come a moment, and many moments after if they persist, where they realise, like Alain in The Cat, that nowadays they're never alone when before they always were, and they'll miss it, even crave it and eventually have to take themselves off to be just that: alone again. With their thoughts. With nobody else around or in their ear.
It will, to another, seem selfish, almost as if they're absconding, as well as self-absorbed, and it is, in a manner, but, in the main, it's a survival mechanism. Which, again to those who aren't only children or don't know this affliction, will sound dramatic, but only children know how to be alone. Sometimes it's all they know; all they want to know even, because this they can cope with, whereas togetherness – one to one, groups and crowds – is much tougher to tolerate without eventually showing or feeling irritation, and which if prolonged, beyond their normal endurance, escalates their resentment of the agent and the circumstances.
Personally, I've had a lot of time to reflect upon this – with more time to come – and have ultimately drawn the conclusion that I'm more cat than I thought.

Picture credit: La Chatte, a jacket cover for Colette

All posts published this year were penned during the last.

In Flight

Where my hands should be are a pair of mated birds, which distract everyone, including me with their courtship acrobatics and quarrels.
Of this I am convinced, since evidence keeps arriving to corroborate rather than disprove this theory. Though to anyone else I imagine they still look like hands, those appendages, normally with five digits apiece, at the ends of your wrists, and in spite of all the weaving and bobbing. I have taken to thinking of them however as sparrows, wagtails or house martins as they move through the air in that manner, just like a speed boat tripping over the waves, with little undulations. Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing, Onward! The sailors cry...
Tiny birds in flight, and in particular wagtails, bob almost as much as they do on the ground, and when two fly together, well, it's a feat that somehow lightens your heart. Carry the lad that's born to be King, Over the sea to Skye.
I don't however feel that same way about my hands. No, instead I want to shoot them down. And if I cannot do that without bringing further attention to them and to myself further embarrassment, hope they come up against something similar to the Big Dead Tree in the Twits' garden whose branches were spread with Hug Tight Sticky Glue, to at least hold them captive until such a time I can trust them to once again behave. If they were actual birds (and not attached to me) obviously I would want to help them avoid that fate. I'm not in the habit of eating pies, savoury or sweet. Or being cruel purely for the pleasure of trapping, to, for example, have songs all day.
But then these hands imitating birds have a soundless, almost untranslatable language, which is neither dainty nor in harmony with the words spoken. In their flourishes they are quite wild, very like singers who ad-lib with extra warbles which does nothing to improve the live rendition and makes you prefer the radio version.
What they are trying to tell – my hands, I can't speak for artists - is confused and far from supportive to that being vocalised. And if there's an audience (and there usually is), and I do mean to imply one made up of strangers or people you don't yet know very well and possibly hope to, seeing their eyes shift up and to the right, then the left, watching these fluttery creatures in flight as if desperate for some way out is very disconcerting, especially as these 'creatures' are a part of you and you feel there's nothing you can do to stop them, short of slapping them down, which if you did would really give this audience something to tweet and twitter about, and almost certainly would not foster any friendships.
What's more mortifying is that your own eyes follow them too, as fascinated as a bird-watcher's peering through binoculars. In this case, spectacles. What will they do next? Where will they go? even though this sight to you personally is more common than rare. Sometimes it's as if they're attempting to loop an invisible ribbon into a bow to a romantic score, except it's not quite coming off. Instead, there are tangles and knots, which are only made worse and not better.
A narrator in a Turgenev tale makes reference to the uncomfortable sensation when you know you're being watched from behind. Eyes boring, not unkindly but interestedly, into the back of you. That sensation's been with me most of my life, even when it's apparent I'm not being watched, because I'm generally hesitant and self-conscious, so imagine what it's like to now be so plainly watched from the front too. It's more than uncomfortable, it's excruciating. Especially because, as I touched on in my own wording, but with which Turgenev's father agreed, 'to belong to oneself, that is the whole thing in life,' and surely my hands are forever making a mockery of that sentiment. These hands do not, very often, belong to me, except of course when they're typing, but even then occasionally...
They need a more eccentric and bird-loving owner (than me) to tame them or at least appreciate their ways; someone similar to the elderly Miss Flite from Dickens' Bleak House, who, like her, one day will release them when the years of judgement are over.

Picture credit: Lady with Hat and Veil, Viewed From Behind, c.1850-1855, Aldoph von Menzel

All posts published this year were penned during the last.

Tightly Encased

Clothes that yield to the body too easily but are too unwieldy to allow movement remind me of two years serving in a college restaurant. Delivering (or attempting to since we were students supervised by a tutor and a tempestuous chef) impeccable table service, silver service and gala nights in our stiff shirt collars, tight buttonholes and waistbands that made you stand up straight, to attention like a soldier. Your breaths shallow, your abdominals sucked in, and where twisting or bending had to be thought about rather than done involuntary.
These uniforms might have been smart but were unforgiving. Every little crease showed, every little bulge identified a deficiency on your person that couldn't be rectified, not without re-tucking everything in or pulling it down. Smoothing it all away, over hips, or hiding anything unsightly with the linen serving cloth folded over your arm and held in front, stood at your station, observant but invisible (you hoped) to paying customers.
After one wearing cuffs and collars had tide marks, and your skin was stamped with ghost lines and buttons that failed to fade as quickly as they were made. And the next day you'd ache from being tightly encased; from being forced to restrict your usual fluid movements, but at least at ease until the next service, unless it was your turn to be in the kitchen.
If you were, attired differently that is, you then felt a little scruffy. The catering white tunic and blue gingham trousers were looser, much, much looser. Too big overall and made you feel like a bit of a clown. The trouser legs would flap around your calves and ankles, and the drawstring, even if pulled as far as it would go, wouldn't be tied into a bow anywhere near your navel; whereas the tunic was thick, made of coarse material which might have been fireproof, and with such wide gaps in-between the large buttons that fastened air still touched flesh and exposed it at the same time. I once got stung by a bee who'd found his way in and had to visit the nurse.
Situations like that happen to me all the time. Even now. When I don't wear a uniform, one ordered by a company, a position or superiors, except that of my own design: mostly assorted tops and boot-cut leggings and reliable footwear. It's a happy medium between wanting to be held in and wanting freedom. Yet, garments continue to cause me problems. Belts and buckles swivel even after extra holes are made; a polo neck makes my throat feel constricted; waist-tops on trousers sit nicely, too tightly or inch their way downwards so that I have to hitch them up in places where I'd rather not be seen doing so; close-fitting jumpers throw my shoulders back but pin my arms to my sides, making natural movements appear awkward, and once home there's the struggle to peel them off, alone, when really it's a two-person job; and cardigans never hang neatly on my frame, they slouch and bag.
Yes, all in all it's not an easy job clothing me. And that's before outerwear. A coat is supposed to cover most sins, and perhaps add shape through elegant lines. Though not in my experience. Coats tend to make me feel a bit trapped; one or two have done that literally. A zip has jammed, become stuck on the lining, in the most inconvenient locations, where the only way out has been to tug it over my head much to the stifled amusement of those around me. And if not that, then a button has got caught on the shopping basket, so that when the cashier comes to take the basket off me my coat and myself are going with it; in danger of being zapped along with my items. There's always some mishap...
And even if there's not, some coats take an age to put on and take off. I own a very tasteful, long-line coat, in a tweed-like fabric with a belt and swinging skirt, which for two years I was pleased to wear but which for some time now has sat in my wardrobe looking forlorn. It's not warm; its pockets are for show, they're not meant to be used. and the buttons once fastened never stay that way, though I must say I did used to think I cut a rather dashing figure. Whereas wearing it now makes me think of a dressing gown and therefore it shouldn't be seen. My confidence to don such a costume (and leave the flat) has deserted me.
Yet in spite of all that, if your outer casing is right – in skin contact and texture – there's a degree of security and fearlessness.

Picture credit: A Coat, 1860, Aldoph von Menzel, private collection

All posts published this year were penned during the last.

My Insides

Ordinarily I wouldn't discuss my insides with anyone, not even girlfriends or my mother. Much less a doctor, if I can help it, or even a blank page which only my own eyes will read. So why do I feel I want to describe how I feel about my insides here?
Because I've decided it's time to lay myself open. Because I've read what other women have to say and my perspective opposes theirs. Generally. And some do journalise it, their cycle, and how it impacts their moods, their creativity. I'm not about to do that; I couldn't anyway as those fruit-bearing years I think have passed, but that angle interests me.
I was surprised to discover in An Interrupted Life: The Diaries and Letters of Etty Hillesum 1941-43 her musings on her 'accursed insides of mine.' How it affected her moods, disturbed her work and impacted on her feelings for others. Why it made me pause I don't know...for after all she was twenty-seven-year old female and subject, like all women, to these changes in 'blood circulation', yet it occurred to me that in certain entries these events, where mentioned, were an influencer. Etty recognised that and chronicled it. She was aware of their inward effect on her outer person. This isn't unheard of or unknown of, but words aren't usually given over to it in quite the same manner. Unless I haven't stumbled across the right diaries or diarists.
Her openness also reignited in me my (stupid) requisite for privacy in anything relating to my internals. I don't even like it when my guts gurgle! And in my own journals (when I kept them) downstairs barely gets a mention. But also I'd forgotten. Because I'm not troubled by any of that any longer, and Etty brought it back.
Of course, Etty's diaries and letters during those years offer much more than that, but I like the fact that the appearance of these natural phases were erratically noted alongside her internal journey and the issues of her time: that of war and German occupation. In terms of reading, she's the older Anne Frank, and you might from her picture be mistaken in thinking it could be Anne, grown up. But Etty is her own person and, I would opine, more given to introspection. A few stages on in maturity. And experience.
Periods: ages and stages of development and ages of maturity comprise women. As they do men, but I can't speak of the male with any authority, other than that observed and then only poorly since I don't have any siblings and only one male cousin who I don't see. I'm not sure I can speak of women! Not on behalf of them, because whilst collectively we share these same stages (and the same anatomy) we all experience (and appreciate) them differently. Or don't share the same feelings about them. Some of us also skip some stages, pregnancy for example, or have a shorter procreative window.
A fertile woman is fertile in other ways, that seems to to be general view; that because you can create life you are also productive in moods and emotions, in art and ideas. An inner energy can manifest itself outwards, but it can also stay inside. A woman is neither one or the other on each occasion, or throughout i.e. intense or contemplative, it will vary. The mind will race or wander, the body may retreat to a quiet, safe corner, or dash about. Everything may instead seem and feel more leaden, or be heightened incredibly. And, of course there may be some physical discomfort, even debilitating pain. Tiredness, depression and rage, as well as leaps of joy.
None of that is false, but none of it is entirely true either. Yes, as women, biologically we're more susceptible to those peaks and troughs, and often governed by them, but none of that stops when this process comes to an end. Yes, menstruation can compound thoughts, feelings and ideas, but when that (blood) flow dries up we don't then identify less as female or feel unwomanly. Neither do we disappear, nor stop being creative. We still listen to our insides – try to make, to take something from the dissociated headaches, stomach and back aches, from the hormonal fluctuations.
Though I couldn't do it, could I? Talk about my own insides. In anything even closely resembling the detail I imagined.

Picture credit: Even Song, 1930, Agnes Lawrence Pelton, WikiArt

All posts published this year were penned during the last.