Author Archives: mumonthenetheredge

Home schooling highs and LOWS

12 Thursday Nov 2020

Posted by in Humour, Parenting, School

≈ Leave a comment

Sound the bells! Raise the glasses! Wave the flags! Beep the horns! Praise the GODS of Miseducation!

IT’S NEARLY FREAKING OVER!!!!!!!!

There is one more week of homeschooling to go, and then we can down pens, paper, random apps, videos with annoying presenters, zoom/google hangouts, confusing reams of downloads and links, exhausted printers, and any pretence that we any longer give a flying fook about any of it.

Plus in good news, they never do any bloody work in the last week before summer holidays so you can really just watch films, play out and bring in games next week, anyway! Yay!

Far from being a long terrifying stretch of childcare-juggling and scary amounts of quality-family-time, the next six weeks suddenly look like a beautiful, manageable, and blessedly finite oasis before the ultimate relief of school, school, wonderous SCHOOL in September.

I thought it apt, at this amazing milestone/juncture, to take a look back at some of my home schooling highs and lows. Mostly lows.

1. The beginning bit where I thought it might be fun, and I might actually be quite good at it. BWAAAAHAAAAHAAAAAAA!!!!!! Past-Me is CUTE. And ridiculous. And fell VERY HARD into the black chasm between expectation and reality that I DUG FOR MYSELF. Again.

2. All the hate mail from Big Small, critiquing my teaching abilities. MISSPELLED, and thus proving her point. Highlights include: “Your’ not my mother anymor” and “I hat you.”

3. When I realised I would have to either give up on their, there and they’re or give up on sanity. Also that Big Small will spell with ‘whith’ and thing ‘fing’ into adulthood – and there’s not a fing I can do about it. Never has detheat thelt so threeing.

4. Every time someone told me they couldn’t do something, before actually knowing what it was or, you know, trying it first.

5. Discovering the Small Small can only practice reading while upside down and occasionally kicking me in the face. This is ongoing.

6. Trying to persuade her that leaving 3 minutes between saying each letter makes it kinda harder to blend the sounds together… Consistently losing this argument.

7. Big Small’s insistence that all small numbers should just be taken off all big numbers in column subtraction sums, and that screaming at them will somehow make them behave differently.

8. Being told that ***Jessica*** (their Dad’s girlfriend) does all the teaching there, and that she’s far better at it than me, never shouts, and why can’t we do it like that? WHEN WE DID IT LIKE THAT AND HAD TO STOP BECAUSE YOU TWO WERE LITTLE FORKWITS.

9. The time I tried to instil comprehension and moral fibre by looking at fables and stories with lessons. When asked what she learned from The Boy Who Cried Wolf, the Small Small said: “Don’t call for a Wolf in case one comes.” Boom. Parenting win.

10. Following the school’s suggestions to do phonic breakdowns as a robot, and somehow ending up being required to do a Dalek voice for hours on end and faint whenever I’m kissed, shouting “Does not compute, does not compute” – which is apparently very funny, but equally apparently not very effective in teaching phonics.

11. Somehow ending up in a situation where I pay both kids a pound a day to do less than 20 minutes of learning, surely earning higher than minimum wage for not showing up on time, being surly, and doing a completely half-arsed job. LIFE LESSONS FOLKS.

12. The epic 5 times table tantrum of 2020. I may have to make it it’s own plaque in remembrance because it was a proper humdinger performance.

13. All the times I set up something super fun and innovative and they refused to do it, including giant snakes and ladders on the patio, nerf gun sums, a shop, and assault course spelling. UNDERAPPRECIATION. Spell that, kids.

14. The realisation that despite painfully PAINFULLY slow progress, the Small Small started this period struggling to read short words, and can now actually read short books. And sometimes even wants to do it.

15. The wonderful feeling when a piece of work DOES capture Big Small’s fancy, and I get a genuinely funny and beautifully observed story about school dinners, or cartoon strip with farting dinosaur gags.

So there have been some redeeming moments, I suppose. But boy have they felt few and far between…

We none of us really know what school will look like in September, if they’ll be in and out with shutdowns, how they’ll catch up on the half-year they missed.

But I DO know that while in some ways the extra time with the Smalls has been special, for our wee family it’s HIGH TIME.

Oh, and that teachers are freaking heroes.

xxx

Mummy – a poem

12 Thursday Nov 2020

Posted by in Humour, Motherhood, Poetry

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There is a magical stage of literacy, unique to the 21st Century, that takes place in the mysterious place just before the full formation of the written word, where small children can form coherent sentences and complex ideas, and – most importantly – can use the voice record function on a technological device.

The Smallest Small is at this stage right now, possibly not for a great deal longer, as her education is thankfully soon to be safely back in the hands of the professionals.

I still dread the weekends when my kids go away, and I still miss them terribly. But every now and again I receive one of these recorded-to-text philosophical missives that make it seem almost – ALMOST – worth it.

Followers of this page will note that I dabble in the odd bit of poetry. I am not afraid to say that I am completely outclassed by the post-modern, stream-of-consciousness musings of the Small Small – pictured here in a slowly deflating paddling pool, presumably contemplating it as a metaphor for life, and composing her next masterpiece of deep thought and emotion.

So here, for your edification, is her only very slightly edited contribution to the literary world (I’ve added line breaks, punctuation and title, and removed the complaints her sister is a meanie).

It covers the pain of love; the meaning of existence; the nature of obsession; death and reincarnation; identity; the human condition – and for some reason my behaviour. (In my defence I am actually very nice to people most of the time – honest).

Please imagine her dressed all in black on a small stage, possibly in a turtleneck, doing a full-on spoken word performance. It makes it even better.

The Estranged Greeting 
(mostly) by the Small Small (and possibly Siri)
Age 5  

Yay Mummmy,
I love you so much for different days.
Do you like it when I’m away?
Do you remember, that day, 
when I got killed?
And it was so frightened -
I didn’t want to leave you,
always. 

I get mixed up, 
because it’s all -
I just like everything.
It’s just really fun being like this, 
so I am.

I love you so much -
you’ve been a great Mummy,
I hope I have more of you next time.
I just love you too much -  I can’t stop thinking about you
so I decided to do it.
And I’m to go to you tomorrow -
but is it safer to you to move? 

I’m just doing a normal hello hello.
That’s what I need.
Hello, it’s my turn to say hello to you!
I hope you have a good time.
You still got the virus? 
Hope you’re being really nice to people. 
I wish you so much - love you so much -
I just never want anybody.
It’s not me making you, and me loving you - 
it’s not because you’re NOT
it’s just because I love you. 

And that’s how people -
people people people -
people are just people 
I just like being me - 
and you might like being you - 
and it all just depends if you are you.

I just love you so much Mummy
I wanna kiss I love you,
I love you, that’s what I do.
Wanna hear this, 
but don’t wanna hear anything.

I love you Mummy,
and I can just see you and your little face - 
I want to see you forever.
You are the best.

Part of the reason I wanted to share this is to remind myself that I’m loved, because I forget it really easily.

I haven’t got a continuous monologue with love – I can’t rest in it. It’s like a conversation I have to start over every time, like everything that went before it didn’t happen or didn’t count.

I’m always back at square one, striving to earn more of it, worrying it will disappear if I don’t, pouring so much out I feel empty of it – like I love everyone I love more than they love me – no matter what I do or how hard I try to win more of it.

I’m afraid that people will stop loving me, replace me, prefer someone else, realise I’m a bit rubbish – because all of those are things that have really happened and I’m afraid they will happen again.

I’m still learning that love isn’t always conditional, or transactional, or reliant on my earning it – on my effort or my sacrifice. That it can just be. And stay. But at low moments, it’s hard…

And this week there have been a lot of low moments with the smalls, who have basically yelled at me, whined at me, moaned, hit each other, and generally not appreciated a single thing I’ve done for them – including shaving foam craft activities, burning myself hot glueing Barbie furniture, inventive homeschooling with the Darlek spelling voice (don’t ask), garden playdates, making a cheese sauce from scratch 6 times because the bloody roux wouldn’t work and it’s all the Big Small wanted to eat, a sleepover in the lounge because it was so hot, and filling that blinking paddling pool up with buckets of warm water so they could play in it for a sum total of five bloody minutes.

So if you’ve forgotten that you’re loved, if you’re feeling underappreciated, overwhelmed, emptied out and tired out this Sunday morning – this beautiful voice recorded text message poem is for you, too.

It is a reminder to all mums, that THIS is how your kids really feel about you.

I don’t know if you wanna hear this today, or need to, but they want to see you and your little face forever. They love you for your different days, or in spite of them. It’s not because you’re NOT, it’s just because they love you. Because you are the best. Yay Mummies.

xxxx

National gaslighting

12 Thursday Nov 2020

Posted by in Parenting, Politics, Uncategorized

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It’s very difficult to know what to write on here about politics. Because politics is divisive. And everything is so hard right now that I sort of just want an easy life…

But I’m seeing over and over again arguments that now isn’t the time for politics, now isn’t the time for division, shut up and put up, BE KIND, carry on, see the bigger picture.

The trouble is that everything from the smallest pixel to the biggest panorama IS the picture. It IS politics. It’s not separate from real life, it IS real life.

What you think about schools, work, business, anti-social behaviour, parenting, health – it’s ALL POLITICS. It always has been – and now more so than ever.

If I say anything about anything, anything that matters, I’m saying something about politics.

And what I want to say today is how FAMILIAR it all is.

How the language, the binaries, the double standards of politics – even the weariness of having to deal with it – all remind me of nothing so much as an abusive relationship.

I’ll demonstrate.

When I break the rules it’s because I’ve used my superior judgement. When you do it it’s ill-advised, and irresponsible.

You’re too stupid to understand it properly. I’m following THE SCIENCE. And I speak louder. On a podium.

I never said that. You’ve misunderstood. That never happened. I never promised that. What I meant was this – isn’t that obvious?

That’s all in the past. Let’s move on.

It was a success. I did do what I said I would. You just didn’t see it.

I think what’s really important here is X, unrelated to the criticism you’re levelling at me, but somehow proving that actually you’re wrong and I’m right.

Do as I say, not what I do. Listen to who I say I am, don’t look at what I’ve done. I’m a good guy. I’m a family man.

Other people think I’m great. Look at this evidence that shows what I want it to.

Don’t look at the other stuff. It’s lies by my enemies.

You’re not being supportive. Why can’t you just support me at this difficult time? You never do.

I’m just trying my best here. This is my vulnerability: look I’m human. I’m just like you. Feel sorry for me.

You’re sorry? Good. My pain is important. Yours isn’t, let’s move on from that too. It’s about the greater good, you know.

Stop complaining and pull together. We’re a team.

Of course I trust you. But these are the rules. If you break them I’ll have to come down hard on you.

That means it’s your fault I had to do this.

I care – see I’m clapping/making an effort. No, I’m not going to give them/you more money/attention, that’s not the point. You’re never satisfied.

Look at this shiny thing over here that you wanted, aren’t I an amazing boyfriend/husband/government?

This is not the time. You’re overreacting. You’re being led astray by bad people/fake media.

This isn’t about point scoring. Why are you complaining about X when Y is happening?

We can talk about that later. Not now. Let’s focus on what’s really important.

Why can’t you just be kind?

The deja vous extends beyond the rhetoric to the response too. Because when someone just brazens it out, changes the subject, twists the facts, amends the past, deflects, passes blame – the small picture creeps in. You can’t stay angry. You doubt. You lose your thread. It gets muddled, muddied… And the kids need feeding, and the sun is shining, and the washing needs sorting, and life goes on, and they’re acting normally now, and perhaps it’s okay, and I want to be happy, and I want to go back to normal too, and everything is too hard and it’s just easier to pretend it didn’t happen, and maybe it didn’t, or maybe it wasn’t so bad, or maybe it was me, and what’s the point in fighting and frothing when you can never really win anyway?

For me, the very worst thing about all of this, if we must stray into specifics, is Dominic Cummings using the ‘exceptional circumstances’ phrase as his get out of jail free card. Wording specifically designed to help victims of domestic abuse in lockdown.

That appropriation has grated on me like nails down a chalkboard.

Domestic abuse killings have doubled in the last ten weeks. Calls to the national abuse helpline have gone up by 950%. Emotional abuse, including gaslighting and coercive control, are a part of that picture. It is part of how relationships go toxic – and all of the above are examples.

Because it is hard to define and hard to spot, it is hard enough to deal with at the best of times. It is even harder when it is being played out and echoed at a national level by the people in power. It is all about power, after all. It always is.

You can be conscious of injustice and inconsistencies but you’re infantilised, distracted, belittled, confused, shut down and shut up – or worse, riled up and pitted against someone or something else.

So I just wanted to let you know this, whatever you think of Dom, whatever you think of Boris, however you voted in Brexit:

What’s going on in the world IS politics, and it IS your business.

You are not too stupid to understand it.

Your opinion matters.

Your pain matters.

You should believe your own eyes, and ears.

Staying out of it, giving up your voice for an easy life, doesn’t actually make your life easier, in the end.

It is not selfish or divisive or unsupportive to ask questions, and demand good answers.

It is not ‘unkind’ to ask for better.

And all of that all goes DOUBLE for your personal relationships. Triple. More.

So if any of the above reminded you of what’s going on within your own four walls, there is help available to you.

It doesn’t have to be violence to be abuse.

Call the National Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0808 2000 247.

I hope you’re all safe and well.

xxx

PS. Block-colour latex-hooker Barbie brought to you by the balloon fashion stylings of the Big Small.

Lockdown love

12 Thursday Nov 2020

Posted by in Aging, Humour, Love and sex

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So today I’m going to see Boynotquiteonthenetheredge for the first time in 2 months.

And I’m a bit nervous.

A lot of people seem to have been very interested in how BNQOTNE and I have been doing in lockdown, when not locked down together. HOW HAVE WE BEEN KEEPING THE MAGIC ALIVE, I’ve been asked. Well, we have followed a simple 5 step plan.

And no, none of them are about Zanking. (Zoom Wanking). Sorry.

1. Realism

First and foremost, we haven’t been.

Keeping the magic alive, that is, obvs. (I can’t comment on the other thing, clearly, as I’m a model of discretion and patron saint of personal boundaries).

The thing is that this is not a particularly magical time, is it? Anyone feeling super magical? No? We’ve both been trying to do our jobs, entertain and home school (haahahahahhaaaaaa) small children, on our own, without any of our normal anchors or support mechanisms, including each other.

It’s boring and exhausting. It’s also weird and worrying. And LONELY. And HARD. That’s not particularly… magical.

2. Shared hobbies

When we have managed to escape reality for a bit and aren’t too bloody busy or depressed, we’ve been throwing ourselves into new hobbies.

Have you seen that brilliant Museum Challenge thing where people are recreating fine art paintings with props from home? Please look it up, you won’t be disappointed! BNQOTNE and I have been doing this, but with nudes.

I’ve never been much into sending nude photographs because I’m old, it’s never been on my radar – and frankly I wasn’t born with the natural knack of the selfie.

Despite this, so far I have managed to recreate Boticelli’s Birth of Venus standing in a suitcase rather than a giant clam shell, Eve with a supporting cast of stuffed toys including sequined snake – and several reclining nudes from Degas to Schiele.

In return The Boy has sent me an image of him as David wrestling a lion (a giant bouncy unicorn) and Franz Von Stuck’s Mermaid (with a Barbie). My favourite has probably been a self portrait by Egon Schiele again, of the artist in an orange towel – only the Boy used a Sainsbury’s bag. I literally laughed until I cried.

We have both become competitive over attention to detail, lighting and prop absurdity.

Getting the right shot takes time and considerable dedication. You need to balance your phone on something the right height at the right angle. You get a better image with the front facing camera, which gives you the maximum of 10 seconds on timer to get yourself in front of it and in the right pose.

Sadly in my rush to mount the rocking horse for my John Collier Lady Godiva parody, I stubbed my little toe on my makeshift washing basket tripod, and I think I actually broke it.

Still got the damn shot, though.

They do say love hurts. So does taking nudes, the way I do it. Anyway, I defy this not to be the most middle class thing you hear today. KEEP ME POSTED.

3. Theme Zoom dates

Why wouldn’t you?

We’ve done Buffy fancy dress and binged watched series 6, and a slightly different kind of art date, where we both did various self portraits in different mediums, with wine.

Mostly clothed.

4. Bad puns

There’s been a great deal of exchanging memes, or general word play and punning.

I still think I got too little credit for my recent cheese/sex puns, which somehow came up in conversation, and included cum-embert and mask’n’boneme. (It is possible the lack of physical intimacy is taking its toll).

5. Sharing the small stuff

We’re still sharing the cute stuff the various smalls say, the less cute stuff when they’re whinging, fighting, refusing to do any bloody work or generally being ungrateful little eejits, what’s for tea, what we’ve done at work that day, political thoughts, bad dreams, daily highs and lows.

That’s really what life boils down to, after all. And if you’ve not got the small stuff you can’t have the big stuff.

But now.

Now we’re going to see each other in person for the first time in 8 weeks, and I’m NERVOUS.

It sort of feels like a much higher-stakes first date.

I’m nervous because I haven’t driven the car more than to the shops and back once a week, and he’s a 40 minute drive away, and I’m rusty. And a terrible driver at the best of times.

I’m nervous because when I get there (presuming I do) 2 metres is still so damn FAR.

I’m nervous becuase I’m supposed to be going for a long walk on my stupid broken toe, which is still sore.

I’m nervous about all the garlic I ate yesterday and that he’ll be close enough to smell it on my breath. I’m nervous he won’t be.

I’m nervous because I’m touch starved and haven’t touched another adult – or indeed been touched by anyone not launching a killer-bee-wasp attack, demanding a strictly lift, handing me something nasty, or requiring an injury to be tended to – for a really, really long time.

I’m nervous because I could really, really use a damn hug.

I’m nervous in case I don’t have anything to say because we’ve said it all on text and everyday is exactly the same anyway, and even if the small stuff is what matters in the end it’s ALSO true that there’s nothing new or interesting, and we’re basically living in the film groundhog day.

I’m nervous because I’m different on text, and that’s a large part of how we’ve been keeping in touch – I’m funnier, I’m quicker, I’m more honest.

Given the last few weeks, I’m also a lot bloody thinner too…

I’m nervous because I can’t disguise the lockdown weight gain by controlling my lighting or angles. Or props.

I’m nervous because we’ve both been having good days and bad days and they haven’t always coincided.

I’m nervous because everywhere people are so fed up and so confused by the patently stupid new rules that they’re making up their own, and that worries me, and I don’t want to give him anything, or get anything and bring it home.

I’m nervous that I’ve been looking forward to seeing him so much, and what if he’s not as pleased to see me as I am to see him.

I’m nervous that I’ve pinned a lot on being able to see him, and it making my life so much better, but what if it doesn’t: what if everything still feels awful, what if it makes it WORSE? What if it’s snatched away again in another lockdown?

I’m nervous, because I want him like me, still. And life is hard and confusing and I’M not sure I like me much at the moment, and everything about being locked away is setting off all my abandonment issues, but on acid.

I’m nervous about everything, because everything is scary right now.

The one thing I’m NOT nervous about is him dumping me and sharing my nude photographs – partly because I doubt he’s that much of a Zanker, and partly because if he does I look great and they’re bloody hilarious.

Wish me luck.

When big and small switched

12 Thursday Nov 2020

Posted by in Parenting, Poetry, Politics, Uncategorized

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I think one of the reasons things feel so disorientating right now is that all the big things and the small things have become muddled up. Our priorities have changed, our perspective. And I want to remember how that felt, on the other side. So I tried to write it down, and it turned into a poem. 


When big and small switched
 
When the world stayed still, holding its breath or trying to catch it,
big and small got all - mixed up, switched, 
until we couldn’t tell which one was which, 
any more.
 
Something so small you couldn't see it - a dot on a dot on a pin -
stopped the big, wide world turning round.
But it turned out the world, after all, 
was so small 
we breathed down each other’s necks -
and we coughed. 
 
But as small as it was, as soft as it started, it was still too big
and too hard for us to see and care 
what happened, over there,
to those others that were so far away they LOOKED small -
so we watched them fall and felt safe and stayed free.
And then the Others were us, 
were we. 
 
And our own worlds got small, shrunk to a few rooms, 
a shop once a week, a walk.
And we could talk - but not face to face 
and it turns out the case 
was it was never cheap at all - as we recalled our big sprawling lives 
now halved, and marvelled at connections and interactions 
and how much touch meant, 
when we were starved of it. 
When it went.
 
And we saw the numbers, small news at first 
burst free of that vague page and get big, fast,
and tragedy was vast and small together overlaid
as tears became a cascading ocean and thousands become one,
the biggest number there is, in the end.
Our mum. Our brother. Our grandad. 
Our friend. 
 
And worries were now big and small scrambled
a picasso view through fly's eyes - so new we were dizzy, 
as all the angles on our life changed, 
ranging from small to big and back -
Will I get sick? Will she? Do the kids need a snack? 
Can I pay the bills this month? What’s for tea?
Is it just me that’s not coping well?
Will it ever be normal 
again?
 
And no one could tell us if or how or when, 
as we scrolled big scary news on small screens
and we leaned on the people whose jobs were now big - or always had been - 
who drove and delivered, and fed us and held our hands, as we died. 
And we came to understand that big heroes didn’t wear capes 
but they wear did masks. And they TRIED. 
And that was the biggest and smallest superpower - 
the first in the world, 
and the last. 
 
So we tried too, and as we drew together 
big differences seemed smaller, 
and small kindnesses meant big things -
because our hearts weren’t clipped, it was only our wings 
that couldn’t stretch. 
And the wretched big things that had seemed so important, weren’t, 
and we learnt that small things mattered, more than we knew -
were the glue that stopped us falling apart. 
Like pubs, and parks, and hugs when we meet
and friends, and plans, and days out, and nights,
live bands and crowds and shops and treats
and pasta, and loo roll, feeling safe - in control 
of our own lives. 
 
When big and small switched, the world stalled
until our eyes adjusted and we made a call
on which was which, now.
On how small things were big, looming tall
and how the big things seemed silly 
and small.
 When big and small switched
 
When the world stayed still, holding its breath or trying to catch it,
big and small got all - mixed up, switched, 
until we couldn’t tell which one was which, 
any more.
 
Something so small you couldn't see it - a dot on a dot on a pin -
stopped the big, wide world turning round.
But it turned out the world, after all, 
was so small 
we breathed down each other’s necks -
and we coughed. 
 
But as small as it was, as soft as it started, it was still too big
and too hard for us to see and care 
what happened, over there,
to those others that were so far away they LOOKED small -
so we watched them fall and felt safe and stayed free.
And then the Others were us, 
were we. 
 
And our own worlds got small, shrunk to a few rooms, 
a shop once a week, a walk.
And we could talk - but not face to face 
and it turns out the case 
was it was never cheap at all - as we recalled our big sprawling lives 
now halved, and marvelled at connections and interactions 
and how much touch meant, 
when we were starved of it. 
When it went.
 
And we saw the numbers, small news at first 
burst free of that vague page and get big, fast,
and tragedy was vast and small together overlaid
as tears became a cascading ocean and thousands become one,
the biggest number there is, in the end.
Our mum. Our brother. Our grandad. 
Our friend. 
 
And worries were now big and small scrambled
a picasso view through fly's eyes - so new we were dizzy, 
as all the angles on our life changed, 
ranging from small to big and back -
Will I get sick? Will she? Do the kids need a snack? 
Can I pay the bills this month? What’s for tea?
Is it just me that’s not coping well?
Will it ever be normal 
again?
 
And no one could tell us if or how or when, 
as we scrolled big scary news on small screens
and we leaned on the people whose jobs were now big - or always had been - 
who drove and delivered, and fed us and held our hands, as we died. 
And we came to understand that big heroes didn’t wear capes 
but they wear did masks. And they TRIED. 
And that was the biggest and smallest superpower - 
the first in the world, 
and the last. 
 
So we tried too, and as we drew together 
big differences seemed smaller, 
and small kindnesses meant big things -
because our hearts weren’t clipped, it was only our wings 
that couldn’t stretch. 
And the wretched big things that had seemed so important, weren’t, 
and we learnt that small things mattered, more than we knew -
were the glue that stopped us falling apart. 
Like pubs, and parks, and hugs when we meet
and friends, and plans, and days out, and nights,
live bands and crowds and shops and treats
and pasta, and loo roll, feeling safe - in control 
of our own lives. 
 
When big and small switched, the world stalled
until our eyes adjusted and we made a call
on which was which, now.
On how small things were big, looming tall
and how the big things seemed silly 
and small.
 

Lockdown meltdowns

12 Thursday Nov 2020

Posted by in Humour, mental health, Motherhood, Parenting, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

It has been a week of tantrums at casaonthenetheredge.

Some of them have been from me.

Several of them have been from the Big Small, now 8, who greets every suggestion I make for her education or entertainment with disinterest, scorn, or downright fury.

She does not understand why her 5 year old sister has to do less work than her, or indeed why she should be doing any learning at all. When coaxed to make an attempt at it she cannot be left unsupervised, as she apparently suffers from random attacks of amnesia, illiteracy, or violent interest in blank walls.

When her attention is recalled to her task it mostly results in screaming.

She has screamed about division. She has screamed about spellings. She has had a full-scale meltdown over a five times table worksheet. She has even screamed about being asked to draw a character from a book or shoot nerf gun pellets at maths answers.

I think the last one resulted in one of my growing collection of ‘hate mail’ letters from her. She wrote it to Mummy, crossed that out and put my full name, as – and I quote – “you’re not my Mummy any more.” Shade.

I chose to count it as the day’s English task, and resisted correcting the spelling or asking her to redo it in her best handwriting.

I also went to bed and cried.

Fortunately not all of her ire is directed at me. She and the Small Small have also screamed at each other, and competed over everything from who gets to sit on which side of the sofa to who’s imaginary horse is the fastest, who gets to go upstairs first to who twatted the other one the hardest.

Possibly my favourite of the week’s tantrums, however, has come from the Smallest Small.

In the run up to The Tantrum, she was engaged with the Big Small in what I thought was an innovative and enriching activity. (If I learn anything from lockdown it should be that this is a clear warning signal that it a) isn’t, b) someone is going to end up crying, and c) that’s most likely me).

In this particular instance, I had got the smalls to lie down on the floor with their arms out, drawn round them, and got them to colour themselves in. The idea was to cut these out, and send them to the Grandsonthenetheredge in the post as a life sized ‘hug’ (credit to random internetter, not my own idea).

This took some time to set up, and resulted in a full seven minutes of peaceful art – which is above average in the current concentration stakes – until the kids buggered off and I finished off all the colouring. Don’t worry, they came back every now and then to complain I wasn’t doing it to their specific instructions.

Despite this arms-length creative process, the Small Small became violently and incomprehensibly attached to her avatar, and proceded to have a full-on existential crisis at the thought of sending it off to Granny.

“I feel like I don’t exist any more mummy!”

“It’s like I’m not here!”

“I miss myself so much already!”

Having become irrevocably bogged down in the philosophical matters of reality, self determination and the true meaning of life, I did manage to get the damn picture in an envelope, although obviously I then had to colour in a second version, mostly alone, for the sake of ongoing harmony and peace.

Since then the Small Small has abandoned these pretensions to intellectualism and civility, and has basically gone feral.

It won’t wear clothes. Especially shoes and pants. It went to the toilet during dinner the other day, and came back announcing “just to let you know, I am definitely wearing knickers.” Big Small and I both expressed the opinion that people ACTUALLY wearing knickers seldom feel the desire to assert this to a general audience, a suspicion which proved on inspection to be well founded.

One day last week we managed to compromise on a swimming costume, but a lot of the time it’s just been naked.

It’s also reverted back to eating with fingers and is receding daily into illiteracy, clearly following its sister’s lead. (On the plus side I feel pretty sure if I continue to leave her to her own devices she may start spontaneously fashioning rudiementry tools next week, so I’m going to count that as a developmental win).

The thing is, when I come down to it, I feel a lot for both Smalls.

Because I feel moochy and not much like doing anything. MY concentration is shot. I am angry for no reason. There are moments when I want to tear all my clothes off and howl at the moon. (So far I’ve settled for pyjamas and crying into the cat. She cares for this even less than she cares for Cat Buckaroo).

I’m questioning the meaning of my existence, too. So many of the anchors I need to feel real and grounded aren’t there anymore – touch, social connection, routine, planning, looking forward to things. I’m flat without them – adrift. And I miss myself – or the version of me that had all those things.

I feel scribbled in and scrunched up, a paper version of myself stretched thin trying to be a teacher, a referee, a counsellor, an employee, a housewife, an entertainer, a social organiser – and I’m not doing any of it right.

I feel like I’m the one that really needs my tantrum script – the one I have whispered into the tangled hair of a melted down Small A LOT over the last few days. It’s okay. Let it out. It’s okay to feel this way. It’s okay.

So I’ll say it to you, in case you need it too.

It’s okay.

It’s okay to be a crap teacher.

It’s okay to feel stretched thin.

It’s okay to feel unreal.

It’s okay to feel like you’re failing – we all are.

It’s okay to cry.

It’s okay to shout.

It’s okay to throw a tantrum every now and then.

It’s okay to start over, and show your kids how to start over. It’s okay to be overwhelmed.

It’s okay to be afraid.

When it all gets too much, all any of us can do is to go back to basics – as the Small Small has demonstrated. And that means looking for the little things under the roar of the big ones.

With that in mind, I’ve kept the hate mail from Big Small, and I plan to tease her with it in the future. Possibly on her 18th birthday.

The phrase “just to let you know, I’m definitely wearing pants” is now a family joke.

This week also saw Small Small rename hay as ‘horse noodles,’ which is frankly brilliant, and will also become part of our family language.

Meanwhile, Big Small invented the game ‘Killer Bee Wasp’ which has had us all screaming with laughter in the garden after tea.

It’s these moments I’m trying to let in to fill me back up, fill me back out, anchor me down, make me feel real and rounded and normal again. Or as close as is possible right now.

I hope it is enough for me to weather the tantrums of next week, too.

Wish me luck. I’m sending it to you.

xxx

WILL NO ONE THINK OF THE ANIMALS???

12 Thursday Nov 2020

Posted by in Humour, Motherhood, Parenting

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They are the hidden victims of coronavirus, after all.

Here is Catonthenetheredge ‘enjoying’ a game of Cat Buckaroo with the Smalls, as evidence.

Clearly I don’t think cats are victims… (Apart from all that stuff about being carriers and having to be kept indoors, or not, as it turns out the case may be).

But if I think too much about the victims, the families, the people going out on a limb to help them all, I’ll start crying again.

And sometimes smiling at the little things, like the palpable suffering of Catonthenetheredge in quarantine with the kids, is a bit of a relief.

If you’d like to keep cheering me up I’d love to see more pics of animals spending unprecedented amounts of time with their people.

Xx

Pan-dem-ic

12 Thursday Nov 2020

Posted by in mental health, Poetry, Politics

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Hi.

I’ve really struggled to write anything on here.

I’ve really struggled full stop, to be honest.

Everything looks the same but feels different.

The world has twisted and we’re seeing it distorted from a new angle, where nothing has quite the same meaning any more – even words. So it’s been hard to use them.

I’m lost for words… and lost in them.

Everything I write is all peaks and troughs and seems irrelevant, either narrow and selfish or wide and wild. The weights are all wrong and off kilter. There’s this whole new language – from ‘coronavirus’ to ‘social distancing’.

And then old words I thought I knew mean different things now. Teacher. Doctor. Unprecedented. News. Connect. Lonely. We all understand them differently than we did just six weeks ago. We thought we knew what ‘isolation’ and ‘quarantine’ meant – but now we can FEEL them. Now we really know them. And we wish we didn’t.

We say to children, don’t we, when they are in heightened emotion – we say: ‘Use your words’. And I want to – but words have changed for me. They look and feel different, in my head and heart and mouth, on paper, because EVERYTHING looks different. Which is where this poem came from, I suppose.

I AM writing, because that’s how I make sense of things. And this is all so non-sensical. Sense, but less – but also sense-full because all my senses are all on full alert at the same time… And that’s exactly it. New raw eyes on old words, which are suddenly full of new gaps and meanings. Where sign, signifier and signified have been exploded. (Either that, or the poem came from trying to teach phonics and do **shudder** ‘Fred Talk’ with a five year old who seems to have a vested interest in illiteracy).

Pan-dem-ic

I would like to fry you

in a pan

make you fam-iliar

break you

up

beaten

like a pan-cake

a head-ache

a cough

flip you

off

scoff at you –

scoff you

whole

starting with the holes

you made

every –

where.

Dem is fighting words

fright-end words

because you are en-dem-ic

end-emic

you end,

every –

thing

one

we knew

a dem-i-god

of death and indoors

causer

of the big pause

–

tick

ick

I

C

you

and you make me sick,

pan-dem-ic.

I suppose if there is good to come out of all of this it is in the fact we are all collectively seeing things so differently – up to and including words. We all have new eyes.

And that disorientation, that space – the lift of the stomach before we plummet – might be uncomfortable, but it also makes this ROOM to grow, and innovate, and ultimately to change.

Once we have ‘survive’ under our belts, it’s up to us to choose what we do with the new perspective we’ve been given.

It’s up to us to break down and break up what we thought we knew, decide what’s important, and rebuild ourselves, rewrite our values, our families, our communities, our society.

And choose new words and ways to frame it all. New signifiers for what’s really significant.

I hope you’re all ok. God, I hope I’m okay. It’s hard to tell, sometimes, isn’t it?

Much love.

Xx

A history of stockpiling

12 Thursday Nov 2020

Posted by in Politics

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There is a long and proud history of stockpiling in the wider Edge Dynasty.

My mother didn’t have an Apocalypse Cupboard, exactly, but she did have a Just-In-Case cupboard.

We were never sure what SORT of emergency she was preparing for, but I distinctly remember my father strongly objecting to discovering over 20 tins of tomatoes and probably at least the same number of bottles of Cif cream cleaner (then Jif), in their utility room.

He wondered, at some volume, whether she was expecting to have to feed (and possibly clean) the entire FREAKING Russion Army on a surprise visit/invasion. Only he didn’t say freaking.

My mother pretended to be penitent but bought another tin of tomatoes the very next week. I was there. At the time I was never sure if this was an act of defiance, or possibly comedy.

Now I know it was an act of anxiety.

More accurately, I suppose, it was an act of CONTROLLING anxiety.

Not only does she STILL excel in accumulating things, the woman has also never knowingly thrown anything out, either. Up to and including tomatoes. Just in case. It might come in handy. You never know. Save it for best. Better to be safe than sorry. BACK-UP.

Possibly that came from growing up working class in London, and never quite having enough. I don’t know. I do know that at one stage they DID have some sort of clear out – maybe five years ago – and I think the winner was some sort of tinned vegetable with a best before date of 1985. Very possibly tomatoes.

I was reminded of this on a recent visit where I spotted this on a shelf. (Sorry, I didn’t have a Barbie on me). It is a film with a ‘best before date’ of December 1958. AMAZING, right? I mean, what’s on it? Where did it come from? What snapshots would we get of the world 62 years ago? 13 years post-war? Will it ever BE developed? Is it still developABLE? The possibilities are endless!!!

The very fact they’ve kept this relic has got to cheer you up a little at least a bit. And boy, do we really need cheering up. Especially the anxious…

I inherited my anxiety from my mother, I think. It’s more genetic than it is learned, although experiences shape it. I was a good pupil, anyway.

The first time I started my own serious stockpile it was 2015, when I was afraid of Ebola. I was also pregnant with my rainbow baby, after a lot of painful procedures, and in the midst of a relationship crisis that, erm, didn’t end well.

I was very much alone in my head. And my head wasn’t quite right. I knew it was all going to be snatched away from me, again, and this was what I fixated on. So I did what my mum would do, small actions to try to feel safe when everything is spinning out of control. I prepared.

Oh, I didn’t buy safety tomatoes. But I did literally build up a stock of just-in-case gloves, you-never-know facemasks, back-up bin liners, and better-to-be-safe-than-sorry-bleach, in the garage. I found them around a year ago, clearing out to downsize during my divorce. I was embarrassed of myself, my paranoia. Now I kind of wish I’d kept them…

My head is better now, than it was then. So it’s NOT actually me buying up all of Sheffield’s loo rolls. Honest. But I do get it. People are scared. I’m scared. Because this time it looks like it might not just be paranoia, and the world might ACTUALLY be out to get us.

I’m worried for the Smallest Small, a wee respiratory patient at the Children’s since she was 2.

I’m worried for my Dad, who has just had two major surgeries and has no immune system.

I’m worried that we’ll lose so many and so much from a generation made up of the sort of people who keep/acquire/collect/preserve undeveloped film from 1958.

I’m worried for people on zero hours contracts, with no buffers, and few choices.

I’m worried for the single parents, especially those without local support systems, and how they’ll cope. How I’ll cope.

I’m worried about actually living through in real time the first ten minutes of every zombie apocalypse movie I’ve ever seen.

I’m worried what it all means for the world the smalls will grow up in (you know, hopefully).

The one thing I refuse to worry about any more is what people think about me being worried about Coronavirus. I’ve found the derision about coronavirus anxiety to be, well, vitriolic. But do you know what? Stoicism isn’t actually COOL, in and of itself. It’s not ‘just’ flu. It’s not ‘just’ the elderly who’ll be affected. It’s not ‘just’ a big fuss over nothing. It’s not ‘just’ a stiff upper lip and and a bit of gung ho that’s needed.

Minimising the issue isn’t helping. In fact, at no time ever in the history of the world has saying ‘calm down’ ever calmed anyone down, or saying ‘don’t panic’ ever stopped anyone panicking. It just drives the anxious underground to be MORE anxious. Misery may love company, but anxiety LOVES solitude. And that’s when it gets to be a problem.

So let’s talk sensibly and coherently about coronavirus, and about being WORRIED about coronavirus. Or, you know, terrified. Let’s come together to talk about our anxieties. Let the Anxious of the World Unite!

After all, we’ll probably inherit the Earth anyway. We’re the ones with all the tomatoes.

Look, it’s OKAY to be scared. A bit of fear – but not too much – is actually probably the most normal, sensible, and PROPORTIONAL response we can have right about now. And I think a BIT of preparation might be in order too. Socially Responsible Apocalypse Cupboards.

So next time you’re in the supermarket, feel free to pick up an extra tin of tomatoes. Maybe it will make you feel a tiny bit safer. Maybe it will help you keep your anxiety under control.

But also, maybe only pick up one or two, yeah? And maybe pick up one for your elderly neighbour, or donate one to a food bank. People are going to need them, and each other. (Possibly slow down on the loo roll, too).

Being scared together is LESS scary than being scared alone. And coming together is going to be key in the coming weeks and months. I think maybe that’s something people living in post-war Britain in 1958 knew more about than we do. I just hope we don’t lose too many of them.

The shades of lonely

12 Thursday Nov 2020

Posted by in mental health, Parenting

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My house came white. Gleaming white. And I keep thinking I need to decorate it… But the prospect of decorating by myself is kind of lonely.
It’s not so much the hassle as the CHOICE. It’s such a responsibility! You see colour is HARD. It means things. It infers. It makes statements, and creates moods.
Colour makes people FEEL things.
So I suppose it’s not really surprising that colours and feelings sometimes get mixed up.
Feeling blue.
Seeing red.
Tickled pink.
The green eyed monster…
I think it’s because we know the words for colours before we know a lot of other descriptive words. Certainly we know our basic colours before we know the words to describe more complicated things – like feelings.
So when we don’t have the words for a feeling, we still have colours as adjectives to fall back on. Before words form, and after they’ve been lost, there’s colour.
Well, it occured to me there isn’t a standard colour that we’ve collectively agreed upon for LONELY.
Loneliness is something I’ve thought about a lot, in recent years.
The first time I felt lonely I was a child.
I was a child with OCD, and I needed to check the light switches and taps, and I couldn’t not do it in case something bad happened, and I couldn’t talk about it because I knew no one else would understand, and I didn’t have the words.
The second time I felt lonely – really really lonely – was when I became a mother.
I felt removed, and isolated, and drugged with doubt and fear, and I couldn’t shake off doom and I knew no one else would understand, and I didn’t have the words for it.
What I did have was colours.
The thing is that I don’t think lonely is one colour. There’s so many different TYPES of lonely… and each one has a different tint, a different flavour.
Possibly it’s so hard to pin lonely down because we don’t actually TALK about it. It doesn’t get a lot of our words.
Loneliness is the nation’s dirty secret. There are more than 9 million people who describe themselves as lonely in the UK. That’s one in every five – which is quite a lot. And for a thing that happens a lot, we don’t say much about it at all.
Being lonely is… well… lonely.
So I thought I’d try and write down some of the shades of lonely I recognise. Because by giving them a colour, maybe I can give them a shape, a voice. And maybe other people who have painted with those shades might recognise them too, and end up feeling a little less lonely in their own lonely.
If any of these ARE familiar, please let me know in comments which one or ones have decorated your life.
If you have your own shade, please add it to my list. #ShadesOfLonely
Oh, and if anyone would like to give me a job making up spurious paint names, please do get in touch (I think I may have missed my calling).
The Shades of Lonely
Jurassic Crystal
A primal, biting lonely that descends on new mothers. Appears when you are staggered by love and horror, panic and euphoria; when you are supposed to know what you’re doing but don’t, when people think you’re coping but you’re not, when you wander between wonder and wondering what the hell you’ve done, if it’s too late to back out, if you’re going mad, if you can say so, if you’ll ever sleep again, if the baby would be better off without you, or if they’d feed better with nipple shields or the very expensive bottles with scientfically nipply teets – best order them off Amazon Prime now.
Wilted Rose Shimmer
The shade of a bad date where you’ve just realised, iridescent over the top of your smile, that there’s no one in the world that will get you, and maybe actually it’s you and not them.
Amethyst Mosaic
The lonely you get in the school yard, trying to fit in with the other Mums and break into conversations, where you are all pointy purple peaks at wrong angles, with pieces that don’t fit.
Penzance Drizzle
The particular shade of Cornish skies that hangs over you at conferences, and forms an invisible barrier between you and the delegates you’re supposed to be **shudder** NETWORKING with.
Penzance Steel
The unforgiving deeper shade you get standing alone at the side of a room trying to hold a buffet plate, drink, fork, and handbag, watching interactions with both jealousy and relief they don’t involve you, while hoping no one comes up to talk to you with your mouth full, and pondering how soon you can reasonably leave.
Acerbic Lemon
The aggressive, industrious lonely you get rage-cleaning because you hate it, but like things clean, and no other bahoostard can be bothered or will do it properly – tasting vaguely of bicarbonate of soda under the back teeth.
Unsunflower Smudge
The existential shade you get browsing Facebook and trying to figure out why your life doesn’t look like this, why everyone else’s families are happier than yours, what you’re doing wrong, if you’re experiencing your own life wrong, if any of it’s actually true, if reality is even a thing anymore, and if you have a trip to the park or a family meal without it being witnessed online are you actually there/consuming calories at all?
Cerulean-brink Tincture
The clear, fearful lonely you get watching the world go to hell on a handcart, when you are powerless to do anything and afraid for the future, and when you realise a Home Economics GCSE, English literature A-level and a marketing certificate do not constitute the apocalypse survival skills you’re likely to need. Only you can’t voice those fears, obviously, because they’re probably stupid and ill-informed – but they’re still there anyway.
Velvet Rust Ice
The deep, plush lonely of 3am, feeding and rocking a fussy baby in the dark by cold light of smartphone, desperate for sleep, tarnished with the knowledge the rest of the world is muted and peaceful, far, far away. Rough and smooth with a metallic finish. Old blood, and a draught around the legs.
Toffee Dove Mist
The lonely of facing a mountain of domestic chores or even a single domestic disaster, where everything is muddied to brown and responsibility curdles it grey.
Writhing Chartreuse
The sweating, shuddering shade you get being violently ill, possibly from both ends at once, with no one to hold your hair up, help you back to bed, take the rubbish out to the wheelie bin, put the washing on, change the sheets, or basically care if you actually get up again the next day.
Fluorescent Mint
Jarringly, incongruously bright, the shade of social awkwardness overlaid with toothpaste that you get in a group of peers, where you feel slightly off-kilter and out-of-sync with everyone, and you’re looking at the world from the back of your head through the long, long tunnel of your eyes.
Aztec Tangerine Punch
The wild lonely of overwhelm you get covered in needy children when it’s just you and you have to be their everything and you’re supposed to make it all better and know all the answers – but everyone shrieking at you is only as loud as the roar inside your head that you’re not good enough and can’t help and you don’t know what to do and there are no options or good choices and you just crave some peace to pull your pieces together and hold them, just hold them, in an approximation of the right place. Acrid echoes of almonds, salt, and hangovers.
Dappled Apricot
The smooth tart lonely you get when you’re not covered in children, when there is too much peace, when they’re playing nicely or off with friends and getting independent and suddenly don’t need you – and you realise being someone’s everything was your everything, and that it’s already fading and it wasn’t enough and you didn’t notice or cherish it enough either.
Oxtail Blush
Late at night, weary and raw, when the kids have gone to bed and there’s so much to do to tidy up and prepare for the next day, but you’re so tired you can’t move and you’re watching unsatisfying crap on telly, because you can’t watch anything good because you’re supposed to be up and doing things, and it’s getting late and it will all start all over again tomorrow too soon but you can’t quite bring yourself to go to bed because the thought of brushing your teeth feels insurmountable, and you are conscious that you could just sit there all night and no one would know or care very much, and one day you just might.
Tuscan Dawn
When you’re watching a rom com, and someone says something beautiful about why they love someone else, and you realise no one in the world has ever felt that way about you.
Midnight Molasses
A gloopy black/brown, retracting sluggishly as you wake with a wrench in the middle of the night, trying to escape it. Cloying, receding nightmares and clinging, dawning realities are all mixed up and bogged down – and too sticky to let you slip back to sleep.
Hush-hush Turquoise
The cold, still lonely you get in a medical waiting room, waiting for results, possibly watching a Dr gear up to give them, where life stops at the bottom of a heartbeat in a calm that isn’t but can’t get out, where you are conscious of yourself as a straight rod of light inside, afraid to touch your own walls.
Sepia Mauve
A yellow-tinted, wavering lilac, that smells of old lady, potpourri, and burning rubber. A shade you get sitting on the sofa watching a programme you don’t want to watch but don’t want to rock the boat over, next to a long term partner you don’t really know and aren’t sure you like anymore. It is a sickly precipice of either change or resignation, and you can’t look at it directly.
Battleship Peach
When the kids go off with your ex and the days without them stretch ahead, thin, insipid pastel with a grey pearly sheen. It covers everything, at least for a while.
Sunset Ivy
Bright bitter orange, with livid green cheese-veins spreading out like poison. The shade of lonely you live when you see pictures or hear stories of your kids’ life without you, of the family that’s not yours anymore, of the woman that plays your role when you’re not there.
Hollow Ochre
The empty, defeated slurry of lonely after an early miscarriage. Where what you have to grieve is mostly an idea, more real to you than anyone, slippery, and slipping away. When you have been robbed by your own body and can’t talk about it or show your sadness, and it’s hard to see anything in colour.
Fuschia Auburn Blaze
A bright, exhausting slash of unreal pink, burning yellow to black at the edges – the exact shade of bruised fireworks behind your eyelids in the sun. It is the lonely you get when you are in the midst of an obsession or routine, when the Dark says you have to get up and do your checks, or or go through your rituals – and you can’t get out of it and you can’t talk about it, because no one is going to understand, and if you tell the secret there’ll be a price, and you’re trying to keep everyone safe, and if you stop or fail or let on, the Dark will win.
Vermillion Gash
A vivid, desperate, pleading wound, bleeding freely and seeping into everything. It is the volcanic shade of injustice and impotence converging, when no one believes you, when no one will help you, when your reality is denied, when you just want to be SEEN, to be acknowledged, to be understood – and you are clamouring for it but no one will hear you and you are screaming noiselessly into an indifferent abyss – and it hurts so wretchedly on the inside you want to claw at the outside so it balances out – so the colour of the lonely is made real, and red, and hypnotising, and both the sea you’re drowning in and your only anchor.
It has faded, Vermillion Gash. But I still feel a flash of it sometimes.
I think once it’s part of your palette it doesn’t leave you. Some of the #ShadesOfLonely are fleeting – others stain.
I hope you don’t ever feel Vermillion Gash lonely, or Hollow Ochre, or Fuschia Auburn Blaze, or lots of these colours, really. I hope you don’t have a worse shade all of your own. But if you do, I hope you show it to people. I hope you make ART with it. I hope you use it to describe part of the world not everyone else can see but that some will find a mirror in, not just a painting. Because by hiding loneliness away – especially the darker shades – we create more of it.
I suppose the first rule of Lonely Club is to talk about Lonely Club… And colours – the very first words of description we learn – can maybe help us describe the indescribable, the confusing, the secret, the shameful, the painful.
Start with the feeling, and then give it a colour. And then describe THAT.
If everyone shares a shade what we’ll end up with is a rainbow – the international symbol of inclusivity and hope. And you really can’t be lonely under a rainbow.
At the very least we can petition Dulux to create some new and patently ridiculous paint colours. Who knows? I may even use one in my living room. Eventually.