Happy Birthday to You

So another birthday comes along. Another year has gone on its merry way, another ring has been added to the tree of my life.

I have to confess i do not much like birthdays, that is to say i love to celebrate other peoples but i am far from having any fond feelings for my own. Too many unpleasant memories are barely tempered by slightly more enjoyable ones of late. Alas the negative wins out by sheer number for want of any other reason.

As perhaps is typical i mourned the loss of another year and then began to ponder my place in life in relevance to my remaining years. At first, of course,  it was easily done to follow the thought paths leading to wondering how many years i may have left and whether i will achieve the many things i would like to within my lifetime. Where will i be ten years from now? What will i be? Who will i love?

Strangely unbidden a quote popped into my head that much disturbed my train of thought and i wondered perhaps if we are so guilty of forever wanting more that we forget to live and enjoy the life we actually have.

 ”First give time to your love, family and friends. Who will remember your presentations, meetings, degrees and overtime after you died?”

I have no idea why that thought popped in my head and i sat and mused about it for a while. Whilst it is true that those very famous of us may be remembered for the things we did, the rest of us in general will not. Of all the people who are no longer in my life i confess i do not particularly remember what they did as a career, nor do i know their qualifications or if they were given awards or recommendations. Yet what i do remember long after they are gone is the kind of people they were and the roles they held in my life. For that i miss them greatly and yet for no other reason than that. They may have achieved great things, true enough, yet strangely it matters very little now that they are no longer here and those deeds have long since faded. Yet i shall remember those people and yes in many cases miss them greatly just for the kind of people that they were. 

I wondered then how i should like to be remembered when i am gone. Am i so guilty of wanting that which i do not have that i forget to be happy about what i have in the here and now. Perhaps it is all too easy to take for granted what you have, to assume you will always have it and to continually keep on reaching for the greener grass on the other side of the fence. Yet as i realised recently, assuming something is a constant in your life is easy until you see a glimpse of what your life would be without it. A thought we should all consider far more often than we do i think.

There is no doubt that we all need dreams. They give us purpose and give us something to make our lives worthwhile. Strangely though, we often do not realise that the happiest things we dream about most are often those things right under our very noses. It is not until we are in danger of losing them that we realise they are dreams at all. It may be something to consider that perhaps a dream does not cease to be a dream just because we attain it.

So another ring on my tree and if i take a rather maudlin moment to consider my mortality i shall adjust my perception and place a little greater importance on leaving a reason to be missed. No you will not remember my qualifications or my career. You will quickly forget any achievements that i made or even if i became famous. But what you will not forget, i know, is the small way in which i touched your life and hopefully made a difference. 

It only takes one person to keep a memory alive. Have you touched anyones life enough to be theirs?

A letter to Grandad

Dear Grandad, 

I should have written this letter long ago but i guess i never knew how, or perhaps i wasn’t ready. I can’t believe it’s been 30 years since you left us, would you be surprised if you knew that even after all this time i can still think of you and cry? I know you would. You’d shake your head and laugh and hug me like you always did.

”Silly Billy” You’d say. But i know you’d be glad that i remember.

I never got to be famous Grandad, never made the rich list or ever did anything to make the history books. Never got to live my dreams and you know what a dreamer i always was. But i never gave up on them Grandad and i know there’s still time.

Are you proud of me? Yes i rather think you would be whether i’m famous or not. I’m a good person you see, just like you were and i know that would be enough for you. I’m still dreaming Grandad don’t you worry about that.

I haven’t changed much Grandad, do you still see the little girl i was? i’m sure you laugh and remember the stubborn pout and the folded arms and that funny little stamp of the foot i’d do when i wanted my own way. Well i’m still as stubborn as ever  although i pout a lot less these days than i did back then. But you always gave in and laughed at the funny little figure that i was.

I met someone too Grandad, and would you believe he talks more than i do? Yes im sure you would find that funny since i really was the most dreadful little chatterbox and i haven’t changed there either. I know you’d like him Grandad he’s a good man just like you. I’m sorry i know i’ve made you shake your head over the years at some of bad situations i got myself into. I know they were wrong for me  and i’m sure you worried that i’d never get it right. Not like you and Nana. But don’t worry Grandad i’m happy and i’m sure you noticed how much more i smile these days.

I wish you could have met your great grandchildren, i know they’d have loved you just as much as i did. Would you have taken them driving, singing ‘All things bright and beautiful’ to them in that oh so funny way as you did with me. I still can’t hear that song without hearing you in my head Grandad and it always makes me smile. I was worried that my daughter would choose that hymn at her wedding and i’d get the giggles in church when i heard it.  You’d like my children grandad, im hoping they grow up to be just as good people as you were. I wonder if you’d look at them and see anything of me in them at all?

I still talk to you sometimes when i’m alone. I wonder do you hear me? Somehow i think you do and it helps that i can tell you things and let you know how i am. You always did worry for me and i miss that even though im grown and shouldn’t need a grandad any more. Somehow though i’m pretty sure you’re watching over me just like you always did and waiting in the wings for me to run to you when i fall down.  Its been 30 years grandad are you surprised that i still miss you?

Did you see that your picture hangs upon my wall so that i can see you smiling down at me?

Don’t be. A man like you will always be remembered even after 30 years and i hope one day someone will miss me when im gone as much as i miss you.

I wrote you a letter Grandad, im sorry it took so long.

Amanda Jane

Cutting Remarks

Love it or loathe it your hair is possibly the one thing designed to capture the attention of anyone we meet. Whether it be for good or bad reasons there is no doubt your crowning glory will not fail to gain attention in some way or other. You can guarantee should you be having a bad hair day you will not fail to bump into everyone you ever knew to see it for that is just the way karma works.

 For as far back as i remember, beautiful models have swished their glossy flowing waves across the tv screen. Cooing seductively they entice us to believe that on purchase of the product we too will have glorious hair worthy of any Hollywood starlet. So dutifully i oblige and dream of shiny tumbling hair, show stopping enough to halt traffic as i pass. Of course as i dream my merry little dream i am actually frantically trying, and failing,  to tug a hair brush through my unruly ‘just got out of bed’ hair. Glaring resentfully at the ever present curls in the front and cow lick in the back i grumble to myself under my breath and seriously debate chopping the whole lot off. Only imagined look of horror from gorgeous boyfriend causes me to persist in my efforts since i do not think a Sinead O’connor look alike would be at all well received.

My hair dresser, of course, enthuses frequently about how lucky i am to have such thick hair that will take any style.

Really?

As i line up the profusion of hair products and brandish the hair straighteners i really do not actually FEEL that lucky. A much straightened curl rebels for yet the third time and i am growling madly whilst pasting it to my head with straightening balm but it still refuses to behave. This is nothing new and should one section lie down you can be sure that another will not. On a bad day i often decide that should they ever decide to remake The Brady Bunch i should indeed look very much the part. I bet Penelope Cruz doesnt have this much trouble with her hair!

But today some small miracle has occurred and i for once have smooth, perfectly behaved hair.Not a curl or stray hair in sight and my cow lick is lying uniformly along with the rest. Typical then that it has forecast rain and Ewan Mcgregor is nowhere in sight to witness my small victory. Still im actually considering calling l’oreal and asking if i can skip madly across the screen swishing my hair for a much treasured moment of posterity.

Tomorrow no doubt i shall emerge looking like my usual hedgehog resembled self but until then i shall resort to smugly flipping my hair every time i pass a mirror or shop window.

After all….i am worth it!!

Escape

It should have been the stuff of nightmares and for all intents and purposes it was. She imagined time would have long since faded the memories but closing her eyes she could see with startling clarity events of a long lost youth playing inside her head. Hardly anything to smile about yet her mouth curved faintly upwards as she recalled some childish attempt at freedom. So simple in its innocence yet so profound in its efficacy, making her shake her head and marvel at an ingenuity borne of desperation from one so young. Had she really believed she could live in a tree?? Perhaps too many days seeking escape in tales of adventure had clouded her thinking yet this had been a most carefully devised plan. Childish yet naively effective if one did not look too deeply and seek fault where to her there there was none. Tarpaulins!! for a roof, she had decided, to keep out the rain and rope to construct all manner of furniture. Emulating heroes cast ashore on desert islands. Forced to improvise often most improbable necessities. That she had neither the skill nor the equipment to perform either task did not occur to her and hours were whiled away planning and dreaming of liberation.Waiting for the day to come when all would be prepared and the dream would at last be a reality. However unlikely this was, it afforded her a means of being anywhere but where she was and anywhere was better than here!!

She would have to hide she decided. The risk of discovery in daylight hours was too great a risk and so beyond the witching  hour was to be her time to risk leaving the safety of her refuge in search of food and supplies. Mentally forced to criminal activities in an attempt to survive she truly believed in the effectiveness of her plan. Blithely dismissing the small pang of conscience that prickled, telling herself this was unavoidable and not an option of choice. She knew well the difference between right and wrong for hadn’t she been taught it most frequently in the cruellest of manners, yet one sufficiently adequate as to produce the desired result. Yet even this did little to deter her. Hopeless misery obliterated all reason and she was beyond anything but a small glimmer of hope sprung to life in a well used imagination. Yes, a most effective plan were you not to examine it too closely and one most frequently put into practice, in her head at least, and strangely this was often enough. You cannot harm what you cannot reach and she was far far away happily swinging in the bough of her tree and that it was not real somehow mattered not at all. Yes she remembers and sometimes if you see her turn and smile at the sound of rustling leaves you will wonder if she is once again that small child. Adventuress and dreamer and inventor of a plan only worthy of the young.

Online bullying – intolerable ….

Online bullying – intolerable …..

The Lost Art of Propriety

Propriety. Little known a word today yet cast yourself back a mere century and you would find yourself in a time considered the epitome of propriety. In a time when ones image and behaviour were the most important factors of all, attitudes toward other people were courteous and respectful regardless of who they were. It was considered the height of bad manners to be seen conducting yourself in anything but a decorous manner and regardless of your personal feelings towards another individual you were expected to maintain this nevertheless. Of course a class  divide did exist and those of higher station were not expected to treat those below them with equality but nonetheless there remained a standard of conducting oneself regardless.

Forward again to the present time and alas the situation is very much different. Manners seem to be very much a dying practice and people in general rarely care nor heed whether their treatment of others is courteous or respectful. One would imagine in today’s society that this would be simply the evolution of the lower classes and indeed i have heard comment before that nothing better can be expected from the poor. Strangely though it has been my experience that it is not these people who are perhaps those most guilty but those more successful and affluent individuals in this modern day world of ours. Indeed i myself have been witness to a growing rudeness and supercilious dismissal of others that exists within the business classes and it becomes more obvious the higher up the ladder of success one has climbed. Perhaps there exists some unwritten rule that should you gain success of any kind this no longer puts you in the category of having to maintain a respectful manner towards others.

Admittedly our lives are so much more consumed with our careers than perhaps in any previous era and there can be no doubt that on the whole we are busier than ever before. But have we really become so self absorbed nowadays that we care little about others nor about our attitudes towards them?

Does success really make you so much better than anyone else that simple manners and pleasant manner are so far beneath you?

From recent experience it seems so and i have, on more than one occasion recently, stared aghast at some rude quickly dashed missive designed not to consider the feelings of the recipient and indeed leave them feeling curtly dismissed and slighted. Perhaps it says more about those in receipt of such ill treatment that they in turn do not respond in kind as one could argue would be justified. Whatever the reason it seems the population of today would do as well to look to their ancestors and perhaps learn a lesson or two in etiquette.

Measuring your success by how high up the ladder you have climbed may seem to many to be the way of today. But if the only respect and admiration you have is from your peers of similar ilk then perhaps you may not be quite as successful as you may believe. Courtesy and manners cost nothing and there are many that seem to have forgotten that every ladder has a bottom rung and they were once standing upon it.

Please. Thankyou. Such simple words yet amazingly profound when used correctly.

Alternative Me

It should be blue not grey, it’s always blue in the movies. She turned her head looking away into the distance, ignoring the cry of the gulls around her. The faint horn of some sea bound trawler interrupting the rhythmic swish of the waves as they rolled into shore. The sea should be blue!

She paused as though in slow motion, face smooth and expressionless, lost in the horizon and the thoughts that floated on the very edges. A smile ghosted across her face, she could hear them murmuring away far behind her. She knew they were there but it did not matter and she dismissed them just as quickly. It did not change anything and she sensed that they knew that also and so they stayed away and watched, and muttered amongst themselves. Let them, she did not care for them or their little lives. 

Again that smile flickered as she became aware of me, so close i could reach out and touch her but i did not. She didn’t turn her head, she had no need to for she had always been aware of me as i had of her. She remained as she was contemplating the ocean as i in turn considered her. We stood there for a while, she and i, neither moving both thinking and inscrutable. She closed her eyes and smiled, tipping her face upwards to the sun drinking it in slowly, spreading her arms wide arresting in her serenity. Still i watched and as i did so she turned to look at me, eyes meeting mine, blue locking onto blue yet without the smile within them that still so faintly touched her lips. She had no need to speak for i knew her as well as i know myself and i understood what she needed to say as clearly as if she had spoken the words aloud. ”Be happy” they said simply ”be glad you chose as you did”

In one fluid motion she turned, almost dancer like in movement and in one abandoned moment leapt forward arching towards the sun, suspended there as though frozen in time. I could have stopped her, i had only to put out my hand and make her stay but curiously i did not want to. Briefly silhouetted against the sky, smile as bright as the light behind her and then she was gone.Yes i knew her, this alternative me, the one who didn’t make the choices, the one who wasn’t so strong. As i gaze across the ocean i watch the gulls wheeling their merry dance across the sky and i smile, for it doesn’t matter if it isn’t blue i know that even if she did not. It can be blue if i make it so for it is my picture and i am the one painting it. My turn now to smile and as i leave the ocean behind i turn one last time lingering for just a moment ”Thankyou” i whisper softly ” Goodbye”