Patience is a virtue, and one that I do not have.
At all.
On a patience scale of one to ten - ten being Ghandi, six being Rhett Butler and one being Scarlett O Hara - I`m a 0.2. If I don`t get exactly what I want, exactly when I want it (which is always absolutely immediately), I throw my toys, my blanket, my dummy and most of the mattress out of the pram, and create such a hullabaloo that I make myself sick. In fact, I`m worse than a spoilt child; I`m a spoilt adult who has never actually been spoilt, and so where this utterly demanding selfishness comes from I have no idea: it certainly wasn`t from either of my parents or either of my grandparents. I can only assume, therefore, that it was hard wired into me in the womb - at some stage between developing toes and growing ears - and that insisting on being born one day early while my mum was cleaning the kitchen floor was just the first sign. To hell with what she wanted; I was ready, I had decided, and I was bored of waiting and that was enough.
Which is why, when I saw my friend yesterday, I made myself utterly unbearable yet again.
"It`s not working," I told her.
"What isn`t?"
"Exercise. It`s not working."
There was a pause.
"What do you mean it`s not working?"
"Well, I`m not much happier and calmer at all."
"Okay...."
"And look," I demanded, and showed her my arms. "They`re exactly the same as they were. They`re no stronger at all." I wobbled them to prove it. "And my legs, they`re still pathetic. Look at them."
My friend dutifully looked at them, and there was another pause.
"It`s been three days," she said eventually.
"Yes, but I`ve done exercise every single day."
"For three days."
"But something should be happening, shouldn`t it? I mean, shouldn`t I be feeling calmer and stronger and fitter by now?"
"In three days?"
"Three days is a long time!" I exclaimed, actually - and I`m ashamed to say this - meaning it with all of my heart. "Three days is ages!"
"Three days is only three days, Hols. People can go without water for longer than that and barely feel thirsty."
But I want to be happy and fit and calm now, I almost cried, and then managed to stop myself.
"I should keep going, then?" I asked her eventually.
"Yes."
"And it will work?"
"Yes."
"How long do I need to keep going for?"
"Take it three days at a time, Holly. But I think the answer is forever."
If people can be born with a fatal flaw, then impatience is mine. It undoes every good thing I try and do; it undermines everything in me that is worthwhile. I am bad at cooking because I am impatient - turning up the heat too high, wandering off to do something else half-way through - and I am bad at writing a novel because I want it to be finished now. I am bad at being tidy because I am constantly moving on to the next thing and too impatient to clean up behind me; I am bad at maintaining or building friendships because I want intimacy and closeness straight away; I have destroyed countless serious and budding relationships because of an inability to let things be, and I broke my own heart this year by not waiting when I should have, and for wanting everything immediately. And - just to really condemn my own happiness - I have utterly broken any chance of a reconcilliation - in friendship or anything more - by demanding that reconcilliation now, instead of giving it time and waiting with the patience and attitude of an adult, instead of a small, spoilt baby.
Every single day I ruin the present by impatiently lusting after the future: by never, ever knowing how to wait. And - in my demand to live life now - I`m not living it at all. All I`m really doing is twirling around in panicked circles, destroying everything and everyone around me and creating a demanding, selfish hole that my life falls into.
This morning, I got up early before work and I went for a run. When I got back, I felt exactly the same, but more out of breath; my legs were still weak, my arms were still squidgy, and my heart was still tired. But I have to try to remember that good things come to those who wait; and if I do not learn how to, any bad that comes to me is entirely of my own doing.
If I have to learn one lesson, now - and learn how to carry it with me at all times - it is that of patience. Because if there is one virtue I desperately need and do not have, it is that one.
Friday, 9 July 2010
Thursday, 8 July 2010
England
I am English.
I was born English, I am still English, and I will die English; whether it`s in England or not. Wrapped in an English flag, covered in little Union Jack pins and tea towels, reading Shakespeare and doused in English chip fat, probably. Or whatever it is they want to do to prove that I am, in fact, still English.
This does not mean, however, that I know the slightest thing about England.
"You`re English," my American friend told me the other day. She tells me this all the time in case I forget, although her inability to understand a single word of what I`m saying makes it a really unecessary point to make.
"I am, yes," I replied.
"Great. Can you cover my final High School class for me in July and do something about England?"
"Umm," I said, because - and I`m going to be perfectly honest, here - High School students scare the bejesus out of me. My kids are all under 14 years old - still vaguely under the impression that I`m an educated adult - while these ones are old enough to know that I don`t know what I`m talking about.
"Please. You owe me."
And so, because I do actually owe her about six, I agreed: assuming that she meant I would be standing at the back of the class, using a British accent occasionally and perhaps saying the word potato repeatedly (that`s what my American friends make me do, for kicks).
"An hour PowerPoint presentation on England should do it," she concluded happily; "and then an hour of English games."
I stared at her in silence for a minute or two.
"A PowerPoint presentation?" I eventually managed to repeat.
"Yup. Cheers!"
And then my friend ran away before I could tell her I didn`t and would never owe her a favour that big.
I did not get into teaching so that I could do PowerPoint presentations; I did plenty of them when I worked in PR, and - contrary to popular belief - I don`t actually like the sound of my own voice, continuously and without interruption, for an entire hour. Whether the subject is how to improve brand management for Homebase or an entire country, compressed for the digestion of 18 year old foreigners, I do not enjoy standing up in front of a room full of strangers and watching them fall asleep in front of me: proving, if there was ever a doubt, that what I`m saying really isn`t rendered interesting by my dynamic and charismatic personality. Either that, or what I`m saying is rendered uninteresting by the exact opposite.
A presentation about England, though, presents another kind of problem: what the hell does it mean? What is English? What is England? I`m English, and I have no idea. And neither, apparently, does anyone else.
"Harry Potter," was the unanimous answer.
"As a fictional character he doesn`t exist; as an idea, book or brand he`s JK Rowling`s, not her nationality. What else?"
"Fish and chips."
"Fish and chips are eaten everywhere in the world; they`re just called by different names."
"Tea."
"Which comes from China."
"Red buses."
"That`s just London, not England."
"David Beckham."
"Lives in America."
"The Beatles."
"Dead, mostly, and unheard of here anyway."
"Other music?"
"The only music they have heard of is American."
"What`s the most popular food?"
"Curry. Which is Indian."
"Ok, what about places of interest?"
"Like what?"
"London. Bristol. Manchester. Umm... the Norfolk Fens."
"Big cities and then a big patch without them."
"Stone Henge."
"Big rocks."
"God, you`re being negative."
"Not really; I`m just trying to work out what is not going to make an 18 year old Japanese boy with no interest whatsoever in England not fall asleep for an hour."
"You could wear a low cut top. You`re British too, you know. That would count."
The point is: England is not to the English what it is to the rest of the world. When I think of home, I don`t think of fish and chips and cream teas and knives and forks, no matter what my friends here think to the contrary (the Nichinan impression of me goes something like: "Ooooh well helloooo there, would you lark I nice cup of teeeeeaaaaaa deaaarr and perhaps a few ccrrrrummpppeetts wiiittthh jaaaaammmmm and a sit down with the Queen?"). When I think of England, I think of my family and the bars I like and my dad`s tuna and mushroom pie and the smell in Waitrose once the bread has been cooked and that little space in the local park where I sit with a cigarette and the sound of the airing cupboard in my bedroom and the sound of Oxford Circus at 7.30 in the morning when you`re on your way to work. Not: David Beckham, The Queen and JK Rowling. And - while England is different to each and every single English person - I doubt very much whether "Stone Henge and Paul McCartney" are what anyone English thinks about when they`re away from home, or how they would like to be represented to the rest of the world.
I can`t avoid it, unfortunately: a debate on what Nationality is, and how it means something different to everyone, isn`t what I`m being asked to do, and certainly won`t be appreciated by 45 teenagers with a basic grip of the language I`m using.
I`m English. I was born English, I am still English, and I will die English. But it doesn`t mean I have any idea what it means to be any of those things, other than that I was born on the same island as a whole bunch of other people. We are so multicultural that there is no `England`; not as a concept, not as a nicely outlined PowerPoint presentation. And we are not just multicultural: we are a nation full of separate people to whome `home` means something entirely different. And all I can do is try and explain that, tell them about JK Rowling, red buses and fish and chips and follow it all with a nice game of British Bulldog. Which is, incidentally, played here too, but under a different name.
Either that, or I`m going to have to wear a really, really low cut top. And perhaps enter the classroom, wearing a crown on my head and eating a hot buttered crumpet.
I was born English, I am still English, and I will die English; whether it`s in England or not. Wrapped in an English flag, covered in little Union Jack pins and tea towels, reading Shakespeare and doused in English chip fat, probably. Or whatever it is they want to do to prove that I am, in fact, still English.
This does not mean, however, that I know the slightest thing about England.
"You`re English," my American friend told me the other day. She tells me this all the time in case I forget, although her inability to understand a single word of what I`m saying makes it a really unecessary point to make.
"I am, yes," I replied.
"Great. Can you cover my final High School class for me in July and do something about England?"
"Umm," I said, because - and I`m going to be perfectly honest, here - High School students scare the bejesus out of me. My kids are all under 14 years old - still vaguely under the impression that I`m an educated adult - while these ones are old enough to know that I don`t know what I`m talking about.
"Please. You owe me."
And so, because I do actually owe her about six, I agreed: assuming that she meant I would be standing at the back of the class, using a British accent occasionally and perhaps saying the word potato repeatedly (that`s what my American friends make me do, for kicks).
"An hour PowerPoint presentation on England should do it," she concluded happily; "and then an hour of English games."
I stared at her in silence for a minute or two.
"A PowerPoint presentation?" I eventually managed to repeat.
"Yup. Cheers!"
And then my friend ran away before I could tell her I didn`t and would never owe her a favour that big.
I did not get into teaching so that I could do PowerPoint presentations; I did plenty of them when I worked in PR, and - contrary to popular belief - I don`t actually like the sound of my own voice, continuously and without interruption, for an entire hour. Whether the subject is how to improve brand management for Homebase or an entire country, compressed for the digestion of 18 year old foreigners, I do not enjoy standing up in front of a room full of strangers and watching them fall asleep in front of me: proving, if there was ever a doubt, that what I`m saying really isn`t rendered interesting by my dynamic and charismatic personality. Either that, or what I`m saying is rendered uninteresting by the exact opposite.
A presentation about England, though, presents another kind of problem: what the hell does it mean? What is English? What is England? I`m English, and I have no idea. And neither, apparently, does anyone else.
"Harry Potter," was the unanimous answer.
"As a fictional character he doesn`t exist; as an idea, book or brand he`s JK Rowling`s, not her nationality. What else?"
"Fish and chips."
"Fish and chips are eaten everywhere in the world; they`re just called by different names."
"Tea."
"Which comes from China."
"Red buses."
"That`s just London, not England."
"David Beckham."
"Lives in America."
"The Beatles."
"Dead, mostly, and unheard of here anyway."
"Other music?"
"The only music they have heard of is American."
"What`s the most popular food?"
"Curry. Which is Indian."
"Ok, what about places of interest?"
"Like what?"
"London. Bristol. Manchester. Umm... the Norfolk Fens."
"Big cities and then a big patch without them."
"Stone Henge."
"Big rocks."
"God, you`re being negative."
"Not really; I`m just trying to work out what is not going to make an 18 year old Japanese boy with no interest whatsoever in England not fall asleep for an hour."
"You could wear a low cut top. You`re British too, you know. That would count."
The point is: England is not to the English what it is to the rest of the world. When I think of home, I don`t think of fish and chips and cream teas and knives and forks, no matter what my friends here think to the contrary (the Nichinan impression of me goes something like: "Ooooh well helloooo there, would you lark I nice cup of teeeeeaaaaaa deaaarr and perhaps a few ccrrrrummpppeetts wiiittthh jaaaaammmmm and a sit down with the Queen?"). When I think of England, I think of my family and the bars I like and my dad`s tuna and mushroom pie and the smell in Waitrose once the bread has been cooked and that little space in the local park where I sit with a cigarette and the sound of the airing cupboard in my bedroom and the sound of Oxford Circus at 7.30 in the morning when you`re on your way to work. Not: David Beckham, The Queen and JK Rowling. And - while England is different to each and every single English person - I doubt very much whether "Stone Henge and Paul McCartney" are what anyone English thinks about when they`re away from home, or how they would like to be represented to the rest of the world.
I can`t avoid it, unfortunately: a debate on what Nationality is, and how it means something different to everyone, isn`t what I`m being asked to do, and certainly won`t be appreciated by 45 teenagers with a basic grip of the language I`m using.
I`m English. I was born English, I am still English, and I will die English. But it doesn`t mean I have any idea what it means to be any of those things, other than that I was born on the same island as a whole bunch of other people. We are so multicultural that there is no `England`; not as a concept, not as a nicely outlined PowerPoint presentation. And we are not just multicultural: we are a nation full of separate people to whome `home` means something entirely different. And all I can do is try and explain that, tell them about JK Rowling, red buses and fish and chips and follow it all with a nice game of British Bulldog. Which is, incidentally, played here too, but under a different name.
Either that, or I`m going to have to wear a really, really low cut top. And perhaps enter the classroom, wearing a crown on my head and eating a hot buttered crumpet.
Wednesday, 7 July 2010
Chopsticks
When you`re shocked by another culture, it can be easy to forget that they are shocked by you too.
"What are you doing?" a table of nine year olds asked me at lunch today. They had been staring at my right hand for at least three minutes, and this was a final outburst of indignation and confusion.
I looked at my hand.
"Is it wrong?" I said.
"Yes," they told me emphatically, and then tried to do what many people have tried to do over the last year: get me to hold chopsticks correctly.
I couldn`t do it. Whatever way I have trained myself to use chopsticks might be wrong, but it`s the only way I can pick up anything at all. Once I`ve finally got the right grip on it I can`t do anything at all with them; worse, I get cramp and have to keep putting it down.
"Like this," they told me, holding their hands out.
I did what they were doing.
"No, like this."
I re-did what they were still doing.
"No, like this."
And then they laughed because my little finger kept popping up, all perky, and did exactly what it does when I`m drinking tea too: makes me look extremely ridiculous and unintentionally posh (it`s actually a tendon thing, and not a class thing, incidentally).
"It`s hard," I exclaimed eventually, and they looked at me with total bewilderment.
"Why?"
"Because we don`t have chopsticks in England."
Silence. And then, eventually:
"None?"
"No." (I omitted eating in a Chinese restaurant or Japanese restaurant: that does not count.)
"What do you eat with, then?"
"A knife and fork."
"Ehhhh?" They looked at each other. "A knife and fork?"
"And spoon," I told them. "Here, here and here." I showed them where they would be on the table.
"Eeeeehhhhhhhh?" they said again. "How do you pick things up?"
"You cut them with a knife and use a fork to pick them up. And you don`t take bites from something too big, you cut it up first, and you don`t pick your plates up to eat, or drink out of the bowls."
There was astonishment, and then one of the boys bent down and stuck his face in his soup.
"Like this?"
I laughed. "Not quite. You use a spoon."
"Ehhhhhh?"
"And there`s usually one plate of food, not lots."
"But where does the rice go?"
"On the plate with the meat."
"On the same plate?" they all said at the same time. "What about vegetables?"
"Same plate. One plate. With a knife and a fork and a spoon."
I took so much pleasure from their faces that I almost continued and told them that we often left food on our plates too, but didn`t want to shock them irretrievably.
"England is weird," one boy announced finally, and the little girl sitting next to him slapped him.
"That`s rude," she told him sternly. "Holly Sensei is English."
"Well she`s weird too, then," he said, and got slapped again for his indiscretion.
I`ve spent the last year struggling with chopsticks and different plates and slurping loudly enough and picking things up with my hands and eating every single last rice grain, and yet it never occurred to me that it would be a shock to Japanese children if they realised it was any different elsewhere. A shock, I think, that they probably needed.
"I want to go to England," the little girl announced suddenly as I stood up to go and brush my teeth (another Japanese custom ingrained in me as normal, now).
"Me too," another one said.
"Me too."
"Me too, even if it`s weird."
And thus knives and forks had done what teaching them English had never quite managed; to make them interested in another country.
It`s great, learning about another culture. But I need to remember to take my own with me sometimes too.
"What are you doing?" a table of nine year olds asked me at lunch today. They had been staring at my right hand for at least three minutes, and this was a final outburst of indignation and confusion.
I looked at my hand.
"Is it wrong?" I said.
"Yes," they told me emphatically, and then tried to do what many people have tried to do over the last year: get me to hold chopsticks correctly.
I couldn`t do it. Whatever way I have trained myself to use chopsticks might be wrong, but it`s the only way I can pick up anything at all. Once I`ve finally got the right grip on it I can`t do anything at all with them; worse, I get cramp and have to keep putting it down.
"Like this," they told me, holding their hands out.
I did what they were doing.
"No, like this."
I re-did what they were still doing.
"No, like this."
And then they laughed because my little finger kept popping up, all perky, and did exactly what it does when I`m drinking tea too: makes me look extremely ridiculous and unintentionally posh (it`s actually a tendon thing, and not a class thing, incidentally).
"It`s hard," I exclaimed eventually, and they looked at me with total bewilderment.
"Why?"
"Because we don`t have chopsticks in England."
Silence. And then, eventually:
"None?"
"No." (I omitted eating in a Chinese restaurant or Japanese restaurant: that does not count.)
"What do you eat with, then?"
"A knife and fork."
"Ehhhh?" They looked at each other. "A knife and fork?"
"And spoon," I told them. "Here, here and here." I showed them where they would be on the table.
"Eeeeehhhhhhhh?" they said again. "How do you pick things up?"
"You cut them with a knife and use a fork to pick them up. And you don`t take bites from something too big, you cut it up first, and you don`t pick your plates up to eat, or drink out of the bowls."
There was astonishment, and then one of the boys bent down and stuck his face in his soup.
"Like this?"
I laughed. "Not quite. You use a spoon."
"Ehhhhhh?"
"And there`s usually one plate of food, not lots."
"But where does the rice go?"
"On the plate with the meat."
"On the same plate?" they all said at the same time. "What about vegetables?"
"Same plate. One plate. With a knife and a fork and a spoon."
I took so much pleasure from their faces that I almost continued and told them that we often left food on our plates too, but didn`t want to shock them irretrievably.
"England is weird," one boy announced finally, and the little girl sitting next to him slapped him.
"That`s rude," she told him sternly. "Holly Sensei is English."
"Well she`s weird too, then," he said, and got slapped again for his indiscretion.
I`ve spent the last year struggling with chopsticks and different plates and slurping loudly enough and picking things up with my hands and eating every single last rice grain, and yet it never occurred to me that it would be a shock to Japanese children if they realised it was any different elsewhere. A shock, I think, that they probably needed.
"I want to go to England," the little girl announced suddenly as I stood up to go and brush my teeth (another Japanese custom ingrained in me as normal, now).
"Me too," another one said.
"Me too."
"Me too, even if it`s weird."
And thus knives and forks had done what teaching them English had never quite managed; to make them interested in another country.
It`s great, learning about another culture. But I need to remember to take my own with me sometimes too.
Tuesday, 6 July 2010
By bike
Next to my house is a road that runs in between the sea and the mountains. In a car, it is beautiful; by foot it is calming.
By bike it is bloody hard work.
With messy relationships - particularly those that begin messily, and then continue messily, and then end very, very messily - the mess doesn’t necessarily limit itself to one room: it gets carried far and wide, and it’s only later - when you can’t get it out of the carpet - you realise how long it is going to take to really clean up properly. And that the explosion was just the beginning.
On Saturday, I went with my closest friend to the hairdressers. It was my idea, but she ended up dragging me: I decided at the last minute that I didn’t want to go (and went as far as offering to pay her to cancel it).
“No; you’re coming,” she told me. “You’re going to sit there and you’re going to get your hair cut nicely, whether you like it or not.”
“I don’t like it,” I told her.
“I don’t care,” she replied briskly.
Ten minutes into getting my hair cut, I was bright red and my chin was wobbling. As the hairdresser chatted in Japanese and I tried to reply, I realised that I couldn’t meet her eye in the mirror: worse, that I couldn’t meet my own, either. And - as I stared at the table and the ceiling light and my hairdressers’ apron - I realised that I hadn’t looked at myself in a mirror for nearly a year. To wash my face, to brush my hair, to clean my teeth: yes. But I had not looked: not at myself, not making real eye contact, not liking what I saw there or who I saw there. I had avoided it completely. And now that I was being forced to, it was making me want to cry.
I spent the remaining twenty minutes staring at my lap and speaking in a smaller and smaller and wobblier and wobblier voice.
The minute I came out of the hairdressers, I got a hair band out with a sensation of panic and tied my hair back again.
“What the hell are you doing?” my friend demanded. “Why are you tying it up?”
“I just want to,” I mumbled.
“But it looks great!”
“It doesn’t,” I mumbled again. “I just… I want it out of my face that’s all.”
My friend stopped walking and grabbed my arm.
“Let it down again,” she said. “This minute.”
“I can’t. I just can’t, ok?”
“Why not?”
“Just…. Just let it be, okay?” I snapped, my cheeks getting hotter and hotter.
“Why?”
“Just leave me alone,” I said as politely as I could, and tried to carry on walking.
My friend grabbed my arm again, and this time her chin was wobbling too.
“Oh, God, Holly. Look at you. I didn’t realise how much of a mess you still are; I didn't realise what all this has done to you. You don’t have any confidence at all, do you.”
And - confronted with confirmation of what I thought I had managed to hide so well - I abruptly burst into tears and sat down on the kerb.
The Boy has been in contact again: is doing very well, apparently, and healing nicely. I, however, am not: the mess exploded too far and too wide, and got into all of my carpets. I no longer believe I am worth anything: I can no longer meet my own eyes in the mirror. And admitting that I have started to hate myself is one of the hardest things I have ever done.
I don’t really know what to do; I don’t know how to get myself back. I don't know how to get back to being somebody who can sit in a hairdressers chair for an hour, chatting to a hairdresser, and look us both in the eye when I'm talking; to get back the girl who walks out believing she looks good. I don't know how to get back the girl who thought she was worth loving, or talking to, or being with. Because, right now, I don't at all. Not at all.
“Start running,” my friend said when I had eventually stopped crying. “Do sport. It makes me feel better immediately.” And I laughed, because “sport” seemed a ridiculous way to solve the problem: what was wrong was on the inside of me, and having nicely toned limbs wouldn't change a thing.
When I had stopped laughing - and realised I still felt the same, and neither getting my hair cut nor crying on the kerb had fixed anything - I decided I didn’t have a lot to lose by trying it.
Today, I went for a bike ride on the road that runs in between the sea and the mountains. The road that I normally take by car, and occasionally by foot. The road that is normally beautiful, and calming, but that is all. On a particularly hard hill, I fought the incredibly strong urge to just stop cycling and walk: swore and cursed my way up until my legs were burning and sweat was in my eyes. And then, when I got the top, the pain abruptly stopped and I sailed down the other side: in between the mountains and the sea, with the sun in my face, crying for a reason I couldn’t understand. Crying, perhaps, because it had stopped hurting. And because coming down was so amazing that it had made it all worth it.
The climb at the moment is so incredibly hard; the climb to believe in who I am again, and what I am, and who I can become. It seems, at the moment, impossible; and it's getting harder with time, not easier: the hill is wearing me out. But it’s a journey I can't take my car, or by foot: I can't take the easy route. I have to take the road by bike: the hard way, and the way that hurts, and the way that means something. The way that makes my body stronger, in the hope that it will make my mind stronger too.
And maybe when I've cycled far enough, and I'm strong enough, it will stop hurting, and the bit on the other side will make it all worth while.
By bike it is bloody hard work.
With messy relationships - particularly those that begin messily, and then continue messily, and then end very, very messily - the mess doesn’t necessarily limit itself to one room: it gets carried far and wide, and it’s only later - when you can’t get it out of the carpet - you realise how long it is going to take to really clean up properly. And that the explosion was just the beginning.
On Saturday, I went with my closest friend to the hairdressers. It was my idea, but she ended up dragging me: I decided at the last minute that I didn’t want to go (and went as far as offering to pay her to cancel it).
“No; you’re coming,” she told me. “You’re going to sit there and you’re going to get your hair cut nicely, whether you like it or not.”
“I don’t like it,” I told her.
“I don’t care,” she replied briskly.
Ten minutes into getting my hair cut, I was bright red and my chin was wobbling. As the hairdresser chatted in Japanese and I tried to reply, I realised that I couldn’t meet her eye in the mirror: worse, that I couldn’t meet my own, either. And - as I stared at the table and the ceiling light and my hairdressers’ apron - I realised that I hadn’t looked at myself in a mirror for nearly a year. To wash my face, to brush my hair, to clean my teeth: yes. But I had not looked: not at myself, not making real eye contact, not liking what I saw there or who I saw there. I had avoided it completely. And now that I was being forced to, it was making me want to cry.
I spent the remaining twenty minutes staring at my lap and speaking in a smaller and smaller and wobblier and wobblier voice.
The minute I came out of the hairdressers, I got a hair band out with a sensation of panic and tied my hair back again.
“What the hell are you doing?” my friend demanded. “Why are you tying it up?”
“I just want to,” I mumbled.
“But it looks great!”
“It doesn’t,” I mumbled again. “I just… I want it out of my face that’s all.”
My friend stopped walking and grabbed my arm.
“Let it down again,” she said. “This minute.”
“I can’t. I just can’t, ok?”
“Why not?”
“Just…. Just let it be, okay?” I snapped, my cheeks getting hotter and hotter.
“Why?”
“Just leave me alone,” I said as politely as I could, and tried to carry on walking.
My friend grabbed my arm again, and this time her chin was wobbling too.
“Oh, God, Holly. Look at you. I didn’t realise how much of a mess you still are; I didn't realise what all this has done to you. You don’t have any confidence at all, do you.”
And - confronted with confirmation of what I thought I had managed to hide so well - I abruptly burst into tears and sat down on the kerb.
The Boy has been in contact again: is doing very well, apparently, and healing nicely. I, however, am not: the mess exploded too far and too wide, and got into all of my carpets. I no longer believe I am worth anything: I can no longer meet my own eyes in the mirror. And admitting that I have started to hate myself is one of the hardest things I have ever done.
I don’t really know what to do; I don’t know how to get myself back. I don't know how to get back to being somebody who can sit in a hairdressers chair for an hour, chatting to a hairdresser, and look us both in the eye when I'm talking; to get back the girl who walks out believing she looks good. I don't know how to get back the girl who thought she was worth loving, or talking to, or being with. Because, right now, I don't at all. Not at all.
“Start running,” my friend said when I had eventually stopped crying. “Do sport. It makes me feel better immediately.” And I laughed, because “sport” seemed a ridiculous way to solve the problem: what was wrong was on the inside of me, and having nicely toned limbs wouldn't change a thing.
When I had stopped laughing - and realised I still felt the same, and neither getting my hair cut nor crying on the kerb had fixed anything - I decided I didn’t have a lot to lose by trying it.
Today, I went for a bike ride on the road that runs in between the sea and the mountains. The road that I normally take by car, and occasionally by foot. The road that is normally beautiful, and calming, but that is all. On a particularly hard hill, I fought the incredibly strong urge to just stop cycling and walk: swore and cursed my way up until my legs were burning and sweat was in my eyes. And then, when I got the top, the pain abruptly stopped and I sailed down the other side: in between the mountains and the sea, with the sun in my face, crying for a reason I couldn’t understand. Crying, perhaps, because it had stopped hurting. And because coming down was so amazing that it had made it all worth it.
The climb at the moment is so incredibly hard; the climb to believe in who I am again, and what I am, and who I can become. It seems, at the moment, impossible; and it's getting harder with time, not easier: the hill is wearing me out. But it’s a journey I can't take my car, or by foot: I can't take the easy route. I have to take the road by bike: the hard way, and the way that hurts, and the way that means something. The way that makes my body stronger, in the hope that it will make my mind stronger too.
And maybe when I've cycled far enough, and I'm strong enough, it will stop hurting, and the bit on the other side will make it all worth while.
Games
"All women become like their mothers. That`s their tragedy. No man does. That`s his."
- Oscar Wilde
I`ve been very busy, over the past twenty eight years, turning into my father; as much as one can be busy turning into somebody they were already like in the first place.
If we have children to see another version of ourselves - which some people think we do - then my dad did a good and thorough job of it. I have his hot temper, his mood swings, his sense of humour, his impulsiveness, his generosity; I have his hair, his legs and his nose (even if it`s "not quite as pretty", as my mum points out regularly). We get angry at the same things, hurt at the same things and laugh at the same things; if something happens to our family, we almost always react in the same way. As a child we used to have battles that were worryingly even: I would stomp, he would stomp, we would both shout and huff and puff like little dragons, and then be firm friends again within ten minutes and forget all about it. He is the original version of me, and I am just the little mini carbon copy: the compressed, smaller, female version of somebody better. Which makes it very difficult to write about my dad: just as it is hard to see myself objectively, it is also hard to clearly see my father.
I`ve been so very busy being him, however, that I didn`t notice that at some stage along the way I had turned into my mum as well.
Yesterday I taught a class of 37 nine year olds; and by teach, I mean that I did my best to stand at the front and entertain them like a clown while attempting to shovel new knowledge in while they weren`t looking (I am far more performer than I am a teacher, and would ride a unicycle into class and beep a rubber horn if I could only learn how to, as long as it got them to listen to me).
Attempting to get them to remember the names for body parts not included in "Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes", I stuck features all over the blackboard, divided the class into teams and got them to race to the board and smack whatever body part I chose with a fly swat, earning points for their team. Which they did, with great enthusiasm, except that the classroom shape meant that one team was at a distinct disadvantage: they couldn`t get to the board as fast, and so fell significantly behind. In an attempt to even it back out again, I announced that the last two rounds would be double points: a rule that meant the under-dog team tried extremely hard, and ended up winning.
Amid the screams of sheer jubilation (I gave them all Disney stickers, and nobody can over-state the impact of stickers on Japanese children), however, there were other sounds: moanings, groanings, outright shouts of indignation and quite a few tears. Everyone else in the class, in fact, had kicked off, and there was outright mutiny.
"It`s not faaaaiiiirrrr," they whined as loudly as they could, sitting with their little arms crossed firmly and their bottom lips stuck as far out as they could get them. One losing child slammed his pencil case on the floor and stomped off to sit behind a cupboard at the back of the room with a face like a screwed up crisp packet; another burst into tears and started tugging at her own ponytail in a worrying display of self-abuse.
As the roars of anger and indignation got louder and the tears became more pronounced, the winners looked more and more shamefaced, and I watched the chaos in guilt and dismay: regretting the day I had purchased Winnie the Pooh merchandise in the first place. Which I continued to do, until - finally, after the umpteenth indignant little roar - something inside me snapped.
"Right!" I screamed in fury. "Sit down. All of you, sit down immediately!"
And they did exactly that in terror, because I am normally the teacher they plait the hair of and try and climb up the legs of during break times, not the one who goes purple and bangs her stick on the board (which is what I was doing at this stage).
"I will not have this, do you understand?!" I shouted. "This is an absolute disgrace and I am ashamed of all of you! If you are going to play a game, you will do it properly, do you hear me? You will lose with dignity and you will win with dignity or you will not play. If you cannot be happy for the people who win and take your own losses with good grace and with a good attitude, then I will not allow you to play games at all, do I make myself clear? I will not have bad losers!"
And they all stared at me with round eyes.
"Do I make myself clear?" I yelled.
"Hai," they all said in unison.
And then - because I had shouted in English and none of them had any idea what I was talking about - I turned to my colleague.
"Translate, please," I ordered.
"Umm," he said, clearing his throat and looking anxious. "I`ll try."
Later, as the children filed out of the class, I turned to him.
"I`m not having it," I told him angrily. "I`m not having it, Harai. That was absolutely not acceptable."
"Maybe we can play games with no winners?" he suggested. "Children get very upset if they lose."
"I don`t care," I snapped at him. "School is more than just about learning maths and history. It`s about learning to be a good person, and to win and lose with grace. They are never too young to start learning that, and it`s about time they started."
And then I suddenly fell silent.
"It`s not faaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrr," a five year old Holly Smale screamed in my head, throwing a board of Snakes and Ladders on the floor and declaring that she hated the universe and everyone and everything in it.
"Pick it up," my mum said angrily.
"No, it`s not faaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiirr."
"Pick it up and go straight to your bedroom, young lady," my mum shouted in a fury that she rarely ever shows; in a family of people with hot tempers, my mum is the noteable exception and remains calm and gentle at all times.
"I haaaaaaaaattttttttttttttte yooooooooouuuuuuu," I yelled at her, and got taken up to my bedroom bodily and thrown on my bed, still kicking and screaming.
"I will not have this, do you understand?" she told me, and then gave me exactly the same speech I had just given my nine year olds.
It`s only the beginning, I know: my mum is going to start coming out of me more and more as the years go on and I have children of my own that I have to try and stop being little monsters. But Wilde was wrong: becoming my mother is not a tragedy at all.
Life is full of many, many games we are forced into playing; both those inside the classroom, and those outside of it.
And it was my mum that taught me the importance of knowing how to lose them.
- Oscar Wilde
I`ve been very busy, over the past twenty eight years, turning into my father; as much as one can be busy turning into somebody they were already like in the first place.
If we have children to see another version of ourselves - which some people think we do - then my dad did a good and thorough job of it. I have his hot temper, his mood swings, his sense of humour, his impulsiveness, his generosity; I have his hair, his legs and his nose (even if it`s "not quite as pretty", as my mum points out regularly). We get angry at the same things, hurt at the same things and laugh at the same things; if something happens to our family, we almost always react in the same way. As a child we used to have battles that were worryingly even: I would stomp, he would stomp, we would both shout and huff and puff like little dragons, and then be firm friends again within ten minutes and forget all about it. He is the original version of me, and I am just the little mini carbon copy: the compressed, smaller, female version of somebody better. Which makes it very difficult to write about my dad: just as it is hard to see myself objectively, it is also hard to clearly see my father.
I`ve been so very busy being him, however, that I didn`t notice that at some stage along the way I had turned into my mum as well.
Yesterday I taught a class of 37 nine year olds; and by teach, I mean that I did my best to stand at the front and entertain them like a clown while attempting to shovel new knowledge in while they weren`t looking (I am far more performer than I am a teacher, and would ride a unicycle into class and beep a rubber horn if I could only learn how to, as long as it got them to listen to me).
Attempting to get them to remember the names for body parts not included in "Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes", I stuck features all over the blackboard, divided the class into teams and got them to race to the board and smack whatever body part I chose with a fly swat, earning points for their team. Which they did, with great enthusiasm, except that the classroom shape meant that one team was at a distinct disadvantage: they couldn`t get to the board as fast, and so fell significantly behind. In an attempt to even it back out again, I announced that the last two rounds would be double points: a rule that meant the under-dog team tried extremely hard, and ended up winning.
Amid the screams of sheer jubilation (I gave them all Disney stickers, and nobody can over-state the impact of stickers on Japanese children), however, there were other sounds: moanings, groanings, outright shouts of indignation and quite a few tears. Everyone else in the class, in fact, had kicked off, and there was outright mutiny.
"It`s not faaaaiiiirrrr," they whined as loudly as they could, sitting with their little arms crossed firmly and their bottom lips stuck as far out as they could get them. One losing child slammed his pencil case on the floor and stomped off to sit behind a cupboard at the back of the room with a face like a screwed up crisp packet; another burst into tears and started tugging at her own ponytail in a worrying display of self-abuse.
As the roars of anger and indignation got louder and the tears became more pronounced, the winners looked more and more shamefaced, and I watched the chaos in guilt and dismay: regretting the day I had purchased Winnie the Pooh merchandise in the first place. Which I continued to do, until - finally, after the umpteenth indignant little roar - something inside me snapped.
"Right!" I screamed in fury. "Sit down. All of you, sit down immediately!"
And they did exactly that in terror, because I am normally the teacher they plait the hair of and try and climb up the legs of during break times, not the one who goes purple and bangs her stick on the board (which is what I was doing at this stage).
"I will not have this, do you understand?!" I shouted. "This is an absolute disgrace and I am ashamed of all of you! If you are going to play a game, you will do it properly, do you hear me? You will lose with dignity and you will win with dignity or you will not play. If you cannot be happy for the people who win and take your own losses with good grace and with a good attitude, then I will not allow you to play games at all, do I make myself clear? I will not have bad losers!"
And they all stared at me with round eyes.
"Do I make myself clear?" I yelled.
"Hai," they all said in unison.
And then - because I had shouted in English and none of them had any idea what I was talking about - I turned to my colleague.
"Translate, please," I ordered.
"Umm," he said, clearing his throat and looking anxious. "I`ll try."
Later, as the children filed out of the class, I turned to him.
"I`m not having it," I told him angrily. "I`m not having it, Harai. That was absolutely not acceptable."
"Maybe we can play games with no winners?" he suggested. "Children get very upset if they lose."
"I don`t care," I snapped at him. "School is more than just about learning maths and history. It`s about learning to be a good person, and to win and lose with grace. They are never too young to start learning that, and it`s about time they started."
And then I suddenly fell silent.
"It`s not faaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrr," a five year old Holly Smale screamed in my head, throwing a board of Snakes and Ladders on the floor and declaring that she hated the universe and everyone and everything in it.
"Pick it up," my mum said angrily.
"No, it`s not faaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiirr."
"Pick it up and go straight to your bedroom, young lady," my mum shouted in a fury that she rarely ever shows; in a family of people with hot tempers, my mum is the noteable exception and remains calm and gentle at all times.
"I haaaaaaaaattttttttttttttte yooooooooouuuuuuu," I yelled at her, and got taken up to my bedroom bodily and thrown on my bed, still kicking and screaming.
"I will not have this, do you understand?" she told me, and then gave me exactly the same speech I had just given my nine year olds.
It`s only the beginning, I know: my mum is going to start coming out of me more and more as the years go on and I have children of my own that I have to try and stop being little monsters. But Wilde was wrong: becoming my mother is not a tragedy at all.
Life is full of many, many games we are forced into playing; both those inside the classroom, and those outside of it.
And it was my mum that taught me the importance of knowing how to lose them.
Monday, 5 July 2010
Balls
Gender is a funny thing. It is often less about what`s inside your trousers than the fact that you are wearing them.
This weekend, a group of roughly 20 of us piled into a log cabin in the middle of nearby mountains for a final hurrah: the majority of the teachers here are packing their bags in two weeks and going home to wherever it is they came from (America and Ireland, although the Irish girl is in fact going to Hawaii instead and I`ll leave you to work out what that says about Great Britain).
The party was as most parties are: fuelled with drink and music and food and a rather large homemade beer bong and people being sick in the toilet (although not nearly as much as five years ago, which is the key benefit of getting older: knowing when to stop). For the majority of the evening, girls and boys were much of a muchness; the beer bong was enjoyed by both, dancing was done by both, food was cooked and eaten by both, and drink was certainly consumed by both.
At midnight, however - perhaps because Cinderella is ingrained into all of us - the girls all promptly declared that they were tired, put themselves into their pyjamas, took off their makeup and started brushing their teeth. The boys, on the other hand, took a ball outside and started playing touch rugby in the rain.
I went with them, and was the only girl to do so. I was not tired, I was not ready to end the evening, and - as much as I obviously enjoy brushing my teeth and wearing pyjamas - there is a time and a place for touch rugby, and 1am in the pouring rain in the middle of the mountains is absolutely both, as far as I`m concerned. The response, however, was mixed: the seven boys gave me a good natured thumbs up, and most of the remaining girls brushed their teeth on the front steps for five minutes before they went to bed, looking at me with quite readable unreadable expressions (namely that of confusion, disgust and a vague suspicion that it was obviously some kind of desperate and unsubtle flirting effort on my part).
It was probably the best fun I`ve had in Japan; some of the best fun I`ve had ever, actually. We roared, we slipped over, we ended up covered in mud and grass and dripping from head to foot. The lawn was ruined, our clothes were ruined, and if I had make-up on at the beginning of the evening it was in entirely different parts of my face by the end of it. Nobody broke anything, but it was extremely close: there were at least three group tackles that ended up with somebody at the bottom, shrieking about one limb or another.
I played like a girl, obviously. To get the ball I often slapped them; once I had the ball I picked up the edges of my sopping skirt, screamed and ran the wrong way. The boys didn`t tackle me with nearly as much violence as they tackled each other - I was the only person on the pitch not to get headbutted - and when they did run full pelt towards me I frequently put the ball down, lay down in the mud voluntarily and shrieked "I`m down! I`m down! Don`t hurt me!" (And they tackled me anyway.)
When we were worn out, we went down to the pitch black, freezing cold river.
"You know," my friend said as I sat in the water and started scrubbing mud out of my hair, "you`re officially a man now, right?"
"Mmm," I said dubiously, looking at the remaining six boys: all of whom were standing in a line on the bank of the river, rubbing their arms and muttering darkly about how cold it was, and how dangerous, and how they knew a friend of a friend of a friend who had died, once, bathing in a shallow river at night and they weren`t stupid (before putting a toe in, whimpering and pulling it back out again).
Femininity can be lost in more ways than one, however. The same friend has been setting me up as a private English tutor with a slightly older Japanese lady, with whom I had an introductory consulation last week. At the end of the meeting she told me the price she currently pays for English lessons - minimum wage - and asked if I was happy with the same. Embarrassed, I nodded politely and ran away, muttering to myself.
"Ask for more," my friend told me.
"How can I ask for more?" I whimpered. "I`ve already said yes, and that`s what she pays an American at the moment: it would be so presumptious."
"She might say yes."
"But she might be offended! And what is it saying? I`m worth more than the American man who teaches her right now? How can I say that? How can I price myself above another teacher in the same city?"
"You are worth what you tell her you are worth."
"I can`t do it," I muttered. "I`ll just do it for minimum wage and hope that she hates my lessons."
When I had finally got the mud out of my hair yesterday, I got as much courage as I could find and sent her a polite message:
I`m so sorry, but I should not have agreed to tutor you for that fee. I am a good teacher, I have a Masters degree in English and I think I could really help you. It would be wrong of me to ask for less than I am worth.
And then I tripled the fee we had agreed on.
"Nice work," my friend rang ten minutes later to tell me. "She wanted me to ring you . She likes you even more now: she thinks you`ve got spunk. She says she`ll pay whatever you want her to pay."
"Really? Three times what she pays her other teacher?"
"Yes. She says you`re worth it."
"Really?" I said, shocked.
"Yes. Told you."
"Awesome."
"And I have to say," he added, "this is the second time this weekend you`ve impressed me with the size of your massive balls."
Femininity is a precious commodity: valued highly, lost easily and rarely very genuine. It is also, apparently, maintained by being very careful about the kind of fun you have, and having no courage, and no belief in yourself or what you are worth. Which makes it, as far as I`m concerned, a commodity I`m not particularly interested in keeping.
When the boys leave in two weeks, they are being replaced by four girls; girls from Australia, Canada and America. I don`t know what kind of girls they are, or what they like doing, or what they like talking about. I don`t know whether they`ll like the same things I do: if they`ll like South Park, or surfing, or Withnail and I, or touch rugby in the middle of the night. I don`t know if we`ll get on at all.
But I know one thing.
I am keeping my fingers crossed that they all have absolutely gigantic balls.
This weekend, a group of roughly 20 of us piled into a log cabin in the middle of nearby mountains for a final hurrah: the majority of the teachers here are packing their bags in two weeks and going home to wherever it is they came from (America and Ireland, although the Irish girl is in fact going to Hawaii instead and I`ll leave you to work out what that says about Great Britain).
The party was as most parties are: fuelled with drink and music and food and a rather large homemade beer bong and people being sick in the toilet (although not nearly as much as five years ago, which is the key benefit of getting older: knowing when to stop). For the majority of the evening, girls and boys were much of a muchness; the beer bong was enjoyed by both, dancing was done by both, food was cooked and eaten by both, and drink was certainly consumed by both.
At midnight, however - perhaps because Cinderella is ingrained into all of us - the girls all promptly declared that they were tired, put themselves into their pyjamas, took off their makeup and started brushing their teeth. The boys, on the other hand, took a ball outside and started playing touch rugby in the rain.
I went with them, and was the only girl to do so. I was not tired, I was not ready to end the evening, and - as much as I obviously enjoy brushing my teeth and wearing pyjamas - there is a time and a place for touch rugby, and 1am in the pouring rain in the middle of the mountains is absolutely both, as far as I`m concerned. The response, however, was mixed: the seven boys gave me a good natured thumbs up, and most of the remaining girls brushed their teeth on the front steps for five minutes before they went to bed, looking at me with quite readable unreadable expressions (namely that of confusion, disgust and a vague suspicion that it was obviously some kind of desperate and unsubtle flirting effort on my part).
It was probably the best fun I`ve had in Japan; some of the best fun I`ve had ever, actually. We roared, we slipped over, we ended up covered in mud and grass and dripping from head to foot. The lawn was ruined, our clothes were ruined, and if I had make-up on at the beginning of the evening it was in entirely different parts of my face by the end of it. Nobody broke anything, but it was extremely close: there were at least three group tackles that ended up with somebody at the bottom, shrieking about one limb or another.
I played like a girl, obviously. To get the ball I often slapped them; once I had the ball I picked up the edges of my sopping skirt, screamed and ran the wrong way. The boys didn`t tackle me with nearly as much violence as they tackled each other - I was the only person on the pitch not to get headbutted - and when they did run full pelt towards me I frequently put the ball down, lay down in the mud voluntarily and shrieked "I`m down! I`m down! Don`t hurt me!" (And they tackled me anyway.)
When we were worn out, we went down to the pitch black, freezing cold river.
"You know," my friend said as I sat in the water and started scrubbing mud out of my hair, "you`re officially a man now, right?"
"Mmm," I said dubiously, looking at the remaining six boys: all of whom were standing in a line on the bank of the river, rubbing their arms and muttering darkly about how cold it was, and how dangerous, and how they knew a friend of a friend of a friend who had died, once, bathing in a shallow river at night and they weren`t stupid (before putting a toe in, whimpering and pulling it back out again).
Femininity can be lost in more ways than one, however. The same friend has been setting me up as a private English tutor with a slightly older Japanese lady, with whom I had an introductory consulation last week. At the end of the meeting she told me the price she currently pays for English lessons - minimum wage - and asked if I was happy with the same. Embarrassed, I nodded politely and ran away, muttering to myself.
"Ask for more," my friend told me.
"How can I ask for more?" I whimpered. "I`ve already said yes, and that`s what she pays an American at the moment: it would be so presumptious."
"She might say yes."
"But she might be offended! And what is it saying? I`m worth more than the American man who teaches her right now? How can I say that? How can I price myself above another teacher in the same city?"
"You are worth what you tell her you are worth."
"I can`t do it," I muttered. "I`ll just do it for minimum wage and hope that she hates my lessons."
When I had finally got the mud out of my hair yesterday, I got as much courage as I could find and sent her a polite message:
I`m so sorry, but I should not have agreed to tutor you for that fee. I am a good teacher, I have a Masters degree in English and I think I could really help you. It would be wrong of me to ask for less than I am worth.
And then I tripled the fee we had agreed on.
"Nice work," my friend rang ten minutes later to tell me. "She wanted me to ring you . She likes you even more now: she thinks you`ve got spunk. She says she`ll pay whatever you want her to pay."
"Really? Three times what she pays her other teacher?"
"Yes. She says you`re worth it."
"Really?" I said, shocked.
"Yes. Told you."
"Awesome."
"And I have to say," he added, "this is the second time this weekend you`ve impressed me with the size of your massive balls."
Femininity is a precious commodity: valued highly, lost easily and rarely very genuine. It is also, apparently, maintained by being very careful about the kind of fun you have, and having no courage, and no belief in yourself or what you are worth. Which makes it, as far as I`m concerned, a commodity I`m not particularly interested in keeping.
When the boys leave in two weeks, they are being replaced by four girls; girls from Australia, Canada and America. I don`t know what kind of girls they are, or what they like doing, or what they like talking about. I don`t know whether they`ll like the same things I do: if they`ll like South Park, or surfing, or Withnail and I, or touch rugby in the middle of the night. I don`t know if we`ll get on at all.
But I know one thing.
I am keeping my fingers crossed that they all have absolutely gigantic balls.
Saturday, 3 July 2010
Mirrors
Not long ago, I had a rather large fight with my mum.
Mum, incidentally, always calls The Boy 'That Man' because - as she points out - "he is a fully grown, 31 year old adult, and not a child who cannot be held responsible for how he behaves, Holly, which is clearly how you are trying to depict him". A fact that is not without some truth, obviously, because she's my mum and they are actually usually right even though we often resent them for it.
"Don't tell me what to write about, mum," I replied angrily.
"There's no need to write about love, that's all I'm saying. Write about other things instead."
"Mum! I'll write about what I want to write about! It's my bloody blog!"
"He has done enough harm already, Holly. Don't let him damage your writing too. Your writing is so much better without him in it. We want to read about other stuff instead."
At which point, I thoroughly lost my temper.
"I'm not a fictional character, serialised for public amusement, mum. I don't tailor my thoughts and feelings to cultivate some kind of invisible audience. I'm a real person, with real thoughts, and real feelings, and if I want to write about my bloody ex-boyfriend every single day of the week and alienate everyone in the entire world, then I will sodding do so, okay?"
"I'll stop reading," she threatened.
"Then stop sodding reading!" I shouted at her. "I don't care!"
"I'm just saying," she said, trying to appease me, "that it's time to let go, baby. He is not worth your thoughts, or your time, or your emotions. He never was, and he never will be. That soulless little prick doesn't know what he has lost, and he is worth nothing. And he is especially not worth your writing."
Which shut me up immediately, because - unlike me - my mum never swears unless extremely provoked; and extremely provoked she clearly was.
Of course, on some level - a level I dislike admitting but will anyway - she's absolutely right. There are distinct and set limits to how much you can talk about an ex-boyfriend, or a boyfriend, or a potential boyfriend, or a wannabe boyfriend - whether publicly or privately: whether on a blog or in a pub - without sounding bonkers, sad, obsessed and like a girl, as my dad would put it. Women all over the world spend their time discussing, analysing and thinking about the opposite sex and the harms done to them, or the potential for harm that could be done to them, or the prospect of harm that will be done to them in the future; time that could be put to a lot of other good uses, and could create a lot of things that would last a lot longer than bitterness, hope or lust. My dad only has to say the words Liz Jones to abruptly shut me up about anything male at all; nobody wants to be an enraged, crazy old cat woman who writes for The Daily Mail. Not even - I would imagine - Liz Jones herself. She seems to want to be somebody else entirely.
It is therefore true: my writing is better without him, just as my sanity is better without him and my life is probably vastly improved, if considerably emptier.
The problem I have, though, is that if writing doesn't tell the truth, it doesn't really say anything at all. If art is a mirror held up to life, then it is the responsibility of that mirror to be accurate, and to be brave, and to show what is there: not what looks better, or what sounds better, or makes everybody else feel better and a little less uncomfortable. It is too easy to preserve face at the expense of emotional honesty: too cheap to flatten experience into something that makes the writer look good. Simply: if writers cannot write with honesty - with a candid view of the human heart - then what the hell is the point of them writing at all? They're just putting together words that sound pretty and they're communicating nothing. Infinitely worse, they are deceiving the world by showing it a reflection that is not. Something that - with enough writers, and enough mirrors - could be believed, eventually, as truth. And - with enough readers, and enough conviction - could become exactly that.
Nobody needs all of the truth, all of the time. Fiction is fiction because it is life: tailored, cut up and sewn together as it may or may not have happened, and so much the better for it. Thus this blog is therefore also part fiction: much is done, and felt, and seen, without being recorded here, for - done properly - privacy and dignity can always be maintained, no matter the circumstances. But - and this is the one and only rule of writing: the only rule that can never be broken - you cannot touch the human heart without writing the human heart. You cannot say something if the thing you are saying is not true, in one shape or another. Because the heart is the one thing that never changes: the one thing that remains the same, and that draws humanity together, when everything else pulls it apart. Flawed, erratic, embarrassing; irregular, crude and contradictory. And wonderfully, wonderfully real.
There is a time for comedy, there is a time for tragedy: there are times for as many types of writing as there are readers to read them. But if writers shy away from honesty and truth in any of these, then they are simply making marks on paper: if they cannot try to shine a new light on the world as is - at the same time as creating a new one - then they are writing for a world that is not this one. If the emotions of the heart, both romantic and otherwise - love, loyalty, hate, revenge, bitterness, confusion, insecurity, jealousy, obsession, pain, hurt - are swept under the carpet by writers as being unworthy of writing about, or of embarrassing the writer, then the writer becomes more important than the writing and the writing is lost. If Shakespeare or Eliot or Dickens or Hardy had been less honest with the human heart in all of its guises, their books and plays would have died with them. For it is the human heart in them that has lasted; not the context they are written in.
It is true that it is time to put The Boy behind me, but it is also true that I am finding it very hard: that I am still hurting, and missing, and loving, even if quietly and deeply and behind the scenes. And - while it is important that I move on with my writing as I move on with my life, which I am doing as best I can - it is also true that if I totally ignore what my heart is doing in my writing for the sake of embarrassment, I am being dishonest to myself, I am being dishonest to my readers, and I am being dishonest to our hearts: all of them. Because I am saying what is not true: that the heart understands embarrassment, and knows timing, and lets go when it should and holds on when it can. That it is consistent, and knowable, and vaguely controllable. And if I pretend that the heart is something other than it is, then I am not doing justice to it - mine, or yours - and I am not doing justice to the power of the mirror I can attempt to hold up.
I will not spend my life talking about either a man or a boy. I will not spend all of my time writing about love, or hurt, or any of the other things that happen to all of us, whether we like it or not. There are many things in life to talk about, to think about and to occupy ourselves with: things that are of equal importance and relevance. But I will also not pretend that these things do not exist, or that I feel something that I do not, and don't feel something that I do. That the heart behaves as you want it to: respectably, and with decorum.
Because if I want to write much, much better - and I do, and always will - then I need to put myself second to my writing, and hold up the clearest, brightest, most honest mirror I can find.
Even - dare I say it - if it upsets my mum.
It is true that it is time to put The Boy behind me, but it is also true that I am finding it very hard: that I am still hurting, and missing, and loving, even if quietly and deeply and behind the scenes. And - while it is important that I move on with my writing as I move on with my life, which I am doing as best I can - it is also true that if I totally ignore what my heart is doing in my writing for the sake of embarrassment, I am being dishonest to myself, I am being dishonest to my readers, and I am being dishonest to our hearts: all of them. Because I am saying what is not true: that the heart understands embarrassment, and knows timing, and lets go when it should and holds on when it can. That it is consistent, and knowable, and vaguely controllable. And if I pretend that the heart is something other than it is, then I am not doing justice to it - mine, or yours - and I am not doing justice to the power of the mirror I can attempt to hold up.
I will not spend my life talking about either a man or a boy. I will not spend all of my time writing about love, or hurt, or any of the other things that happen to all of us, whether we like it or not. There are many things in life to talk about, to think about and to occupy ourselves with: things that are of equal importance and relevance. But I will also not pretend that these things do not exist, or that I feel something that I do not, and don't feel something that I do. That the heart behaves as you want it to: respectably, and with decorum.
Because if I want to write much, much better - and I do, and always will - then I need to put myself second to my writing, and hold up the clearest, brightest, most honest mirror I can find.
Even - dare I say it - if it upsets my mum.
Friday, 2 July 2010
Trap
I don't want to be too critical, but I think there might be a fatal flaw in my cockroach trap.
It's a box, with a sticky floor and poison inside it, and next to the entry holes with little fake curtains and a few flowers are - in very large letters - the English words:
It's a box, with a sticky floor and poison inside it, and next to the entry holes with little fake curtains and a few flowers are - in very large letters - the English words:
Welcome! Welcome!
Twice. Which, I think, might put suspicion in the mind of the most trusting of cockroaches. I made it clear with all my screaming that I wasn't that keen on him. He may now be a little perturbed at my abrupt change in tone.
The fatal flaw, however, runs a little deeper than that. If my cockroach can, in fact, read well enough to know which holes to enter the trap through - and is drawn in by this subtle marketing strategy (perhaps, even, warmed by the enthusiasm with which he has been greeted) - he may well be slightly alarmed by the words just three inches higher, on the roof of the box:
Welcome to The Cockroach Death Trap!
I've put the box on the floor anyway, obviously. In fact, I've put down six, because he's entitled to make an informed decision about where exactly he is going to meet his maker. And they all have different coloured curtains.
I've just got to sit and pray, now, that my cockroach isn't very tall. Or that he pays as much attention in English reading class as my 14 year old boys do.
Monsters
I should have listened more carefully to the last words of my mosquito. I wasn`t really paying attention, you see: I just wanted him dead. In hindsight, it was probably a mistake.
"More..." he whimpered as he died, unsticking himself from the back of my hand. "More.....more.... more...."
"You want more?" I said, and slapped him again.
"More... coming....," he whispered: "there are more...coming," and then he made an "eeeeuuuurgghh" sound and went to a place where the streams are made of blood and the buildings are made of human arms and he can suck himself into a stupor every single day.
"Like hell they are," I said crossly, and went straight out and bought a mosquito repellant for every room in my house.
What I didn`t realise, though, was that he didn`t mean more of him.
The mould came first. Five weeks of rain, and everything I own is growing: my pyjamas, my towels, the insides of my cupboards, my shampoo bottles. Even my Hello Kitty car keyring has been fatally wounded. I`m cleaning like a crazy, mould-obsessed tyrant - scrubbing and spraying and vacuuming when I should really be lying lazily on my bed, reading a book and eating chocolate - but I can`t get rid of it: until the rain stops - which it is showing no sign whatsoever of doing - the mould is just going to keep growing.
The mould, at least, is fairly stationary, and that I can handle. What I can`t handle is what came second, in quick succession: ants. I don`t have a clue where they`re coming from, and I don`t have a clue where they`re going, but coming and going they most certainly are: doing gymnastics that I didn`t think ants were capable of (up and down my curtains, for instance, without any kind of rope). These worry me greatly, because if they`re not actually climbing up my legs and my arms - which they often are - I think they`re climbing up my legs and my arms, and anything that threatens my very unstable grip on the distinction between reality and fiction is extremely dangerous for my mental health.
Third was the dragonflies. Not pretty dragonflies - not the shiny blue and green kind we get in England that everybody treats like butterflies - but dragon dragon flies: scaly and wiry and hundreds of them, whirring through the air with massive, four-wing propelled force into windows and lights and each other (where they make the most of it by quickly mating). These were followed by flies - and nobody likes flies - and spiders: spiders that jump.
"What is it doing?" I shouted to my colleague as one started bouncing around my desk and tried to hide under my work laptop.
"Jumping," he said.
"Why is it jumping?" I cried indignantly.
"Spiders like jumping," he told me.
"British spiders don`t," I told him, rolling my chair to the other side of the room. "They sit perfectly still in their webs and wait for things to come to them."
"They are lazy," my colleague informed me, and caught the efficient and productive spider carefully before smashing him in with the bottom of his mug (I was not happy about this either: I wanted him away, not dead).
Like any good attack, however, the mould, the ants, the flies - both dragon and otherwise - and the spiders were all just wearing me down for the one who would finish me off.
"Jesus - - - - Christ!" I screamed as I was taking my makeup off last night (except I didn`t scream that: I inserted four or five profanities in between the two blasphemies). And then I bolted out of my bathroom quicker than I`ve ever bolted out of anything, shut the door, shut another door, and sat on my bed rubbing my arms and rocking backwards and forwards.
Because - on my ceiling, walking slowly and maliciously and pausing now and then to look at me and wave his long, flexible, arm-like antennas as a kind of warning - was the biggest cockroach I have ever seen in my entire life.
The other monsters I could handle. Mould, ants, flies: you name it, and I can fight it. I don`t like killing things - and I won`t if I can help it - but I`ll do it in self defence (and that is what it is: they`re in my house, on my land, invading my territory). This bastard, however, makes me want to cry and cast aside every bit of independence and femininist pride I have and scream for a big man to come and fight it for me. Quite aside from being massive and shiny and black - nine centremetres without counting his nasty, creepy antennas - he has the air of an indestructible alien: as if he`s in no hurry, and is just surveying his domain with a view to populating it and building some kind of cockroach city. And it is his domain. I haven`t been in that part of my bathroom since.
"There`s a Japanese saying," a colleague said when I informed her of my monster this morning. "If you see one cockroach, it means there are thirty."
"I don`t want to know," I said, shuddering.
"Oh, don`t worry," she told me. "You won`t."
My mosquito`s final warning was his last act of love, I think. That, or a threat of vengeance. Tonight, I will not be fighting imaginary tigers and gremlins. With a entire basket full of poison and insecticide, I am going to take on a house full of monsters, and I`m not going to stop fighting until every single one of them is dead. And - let me tell you - I am not looking forward to it in the slightest.
I`m used to fighting monsters. Big monsters, little monsters, scary monsters, friendly monsters. Dream monsters, internal monsters, past monsters, future monsters.
I`m just not used to fighting real ones.
"More..." he whimpered as he died, unsticking himself from the back of my hand. "More.....more.... more...."
"You want more?" I said, and slapped him again.
"More... coming....," he whispered: "there are more...coming," and then he made an "eeeeuuuurgghh" sound and went to a place where the streams are made of blood and the buildings are made of human arms and he can suck himself into a stupor every single day.
"Like hell they are," I said crossly, and went straight out and bought a mosquito repellant for every room in my house.
What I didn`t realise, though, was that he didn`t mean more of him.
The mould came first. Five weeks of rain, and everything I own is growing: my pyjamas, my towels, the insides of my cupboards, my shampoo bottles. Even my Hello Kitty car keyring has been fatally wounded. I`m cleaning like a crazy, mould-obsessed tyrant - scrubbing and spraying and vacuuming when I should really be lying lazily on my bed, reading a book and eating chocolate - but I can`t get rid of it: until the rain stops - which it is showing no sign whatsoever of doing - the mould is just going to keep growing.
The mould, at least, is fairly stationary, and that I can handle. What I can`t handle is what came second, in quick succession: ants. I don`t have a clue where they`re coming from, and I don`t have a clue where they`re going, but coming and going they most certainly are: doing gymnastics that I didn`t think ants were capable of (up and down my curtains, for instance, without any kind of rope). These worry me greatly, because if they`re not actually climbing up my legs and my arms - which they often are - I think they`re climbing up my legs and my arms, and anything that threatens my very unstable grip on the distinction between reality and fiction is extremely dangerous for my mental health.
Third was the dragonflies. Not pretty dragonflies - not the shiny blue and green kind we get in England that everybody treats like butterflies - but dragon dragon flies: scaly and wiry and hundreds of them, whirring through the air with massive, four-wing propelled force into windows and lights and each other (where they make the most of it by quickly mating). These were followed by flies - and nobody likes flies - and spiders: spiders that jump.
"What is it doing?" I shouted to my colleague as one started bouncing around my desk and tried to hide under my work laptop.
"Jumping," he said.
"Why is it jumping?" I cried indignantly.
"Spiders like jumping," he told me.
"British spiders don`t," I told him, rolling my chair to the other side of the room. "They sit perfectly still in their webs and wait for things to come to them."
"They are lazy," my colleague informed me, and caught the efficient and productive spider carefully before smashing him in with the bottom of his mug (I was not happy about this either: I wanted him away, not dead).
Like any good attack, however, the mould, the ants, the flies - both dragon and otherwise - and the spiders were all just wearing me down for the one who would finish me off.
"Jesus - - - - Christ!" I screamed as I was taking my makeup off last night (except I didn`t scream that: I inserted four or five profanities in between the two blasphemies). And then I bolted out of my bathroom quicker than I`ve ever bolted out of anything, shut the door, shut another door, and sat on my bed rubbing my arms and rocking backwards and forwards.
Because - on my ceiling, walking slowly and maliciously and pausing now and then to look at me and wave his long, flexible, arm-like antennas as a kind of warning - was the biggest cockroach I have ever seen in my entire life.
The other monsters I could handle. Mould, ants, flies: you name it, and I can fight it. I don`t like killing things - and I won`t if I can help it - but I`ll do it in self defence (and that is what it is: they`re in my house, on my land, invading my territory). This bastard, however, makes me want to cry and cast aside every bit of independence and femininist pride I have and scream for a big man to come and fight it for me. Quite aside from being massive and shiny and black - nine centremetres without counting his nasty, creepy antennas - he has the air of an indestructible alien: as if he`s in no hurry, and is just surveying his domain with a view to populating it and building some kind of cockroach city. And it is his domain. I haven`t been in that part of my bathroom since.
"There`s a Japanese saying," a colleague said when I informed her of my monster this morning. "If you see one cockroach, it means there are thirty."
"I don`t want to know," I said, shuddering.
"Oh, don`t worry," she told me. "You won`t."
My mosquito`s final warning was his last act of love, I think. That, or a threat of vengeance. Tonight, I will not be fighting imaginary tigers and gremlins. With a entire basket full of poison and insecticide, I am going to take on a house full of monsters, and I`m not going to stop fighting until every single one of them is dead. And - let me tell you - I am not looking forward to it in the slightest.
I`m used to fighting monsters. Big monsters, little monsters, scary monsters, friendly monsters. Dream monsters, internal monsters, past monsters, future monsters.
I`m just not used to fighting real ones.
Thursday, 1 July 2010
Topsy Turvy
I am more famous than Brad Pitt.
I`m not more famous than Michael Jackson or David Beckham, but I`m much more famous than Cameron Diaz, Anne Hathaway, Leo DiCaprio and Lady Gaga. I`m less famous than the old version of Madonna, but the new version with the big muscles and the plastic face? I`m more famous than her. I`m less famous than Hermione Granger, but I`m more famous than the actress that plays her and I`m much more famous than the woman who created her in the first place. I haven`t got a hope against the cast of High School Musical - whoever they are - or Johnny Depp, but anyone from Friends or The Simpsons can lick my boots.
I`ve come to this conclusion after thorough and intensive research: consisting, largely, of holding up photos to 200 children of the 6-11 year old age group and asking "who is this?" 3 points if they can give me their name, 2 points if they can tell me what they do for a living, and 1 point if they can tell me where they recognise them from.
Thanks to embarrassing advertising campaigns that have been kept a secret from the Western world via heavy law suits (I may get sued for this, in fact), the results are as follows:
Leonardo DiCaprio: 1 point for "the man who sells tyres."
Brad Pitt: 1 point for "the phone man."
Cameron Diaz: 1 point for "the phone girl."
Tommy Lee Jones: "man who drinks coffee" - 1 point.
Tom Cruise: no points (one kid started singing the Mission Impossible theme tune, but he was an abnormally Westernised child so I decided he didn`t count).
Michael Jackson: 5 points, including a few snippets of Thriller thrown in for good measure.
Harry Potter: 4,000 points for actions, quotes and energy spent jumping up and down high-fiving each other.
Johnny Depp: 30 points for knowing who he is, where he`s from and every single film he has ever been in.
JK Rowling: no points.
Lady Gaga: identified as "Madonna": no actual points, but about 11 hypothetical points for clarity of observation.
Madonna: no points until about 2 inches away and squinting.
David Cameron: no points (but I strongly suspect he`d get the same mark in England as well, and not just from children).
Tony Blair: no points.
David Beckham: 2 points, because all the boys knew who he was and none of the girls did.
Gwen Stefani: ditto, except the other way round.
The Queen of England, without her crown on: no points.
The Queen of England, with her crown on: 2 points for knowing her job title but no idea what her name might be.
I, on the other hand, am doing quite well. They all knew who I was and what I do for a living (which is more than I know, incidentally), plus they`re pretty sure where they recognise me from (the staffroom, looking at Google). I`ve signed autographs, I get high fived when I walk past in the corridor, and they can all tell you what tattoo I have and precisely where it is. Children play Rock Scissors Paper with great vigour to see who can sit next to me at lunchtime, and without fail every single one of them knows that I hate egg and love strawberries and cheese.
It even extends beyond the children I`m employed to teach. Last weekend, a man sitting next to me in a bar - a man I`ve never met before - told me he`d seen me "three times, now: once in the supermarket and once in the 100yen shop." Small children gape at me in shops with their mouths wide open. Old men do the same. Yesterday, two fully grown men stalked me around a shop for 35 minutes with absolutely nothing in their shopping baskets. This morning a cluster of 15 school girls I have never seen before and certainly don`t teach giggled insanely when I stopped at the lights next to them, and spent three minutes waving and squealing loudly every time I waved back.
In short: in Nichinan, they know who they am. And they couldn`t pick Brad Pitt out of a line up.
It`s topsy turvy, living in rural Japan: the whole world as a Westerner knows it turns upside down. Tans are ugly, and the quest for paleness is paramount; sunshine is annoying, and cold weather is something to look forward to. Standing out is less preferable to blending in; school children are polite and grateful, food tastes of something and clothes are created to hide the body, rather than expose as much of it as possible. Opinions and preferences are deemed vulgar; manners are rife; women are seen as being less attractive for having strong characters, and not more so (this is international, secretly, but in the West we still pretend otherwise because it defines us as modern). Travelling within Japan is seen as strange; travelling outside of Japan is seen as absolutely bonkers.
For a Brit, living in Japan is like falling down a rabbit hole and coming out the other side to find everything inside out and upside down. To a world where what we know means nothing and what we don`t understand means everything.
One day, however, one of two things will happen: I will either climb desperately back out of the rabbit hole - seeking normality - or this world will straighten up for me, the one I used to know will turn upside down, and the concept of what is normal and what is not will change completely. And - when that inevitably happens - it will be time for me to head to another kind of Wonderland. One that does or does not know Brad Pitt. One that does or does not see me as anything out of the ordinary. One that does or does not know that I hate egg, or love strawberries.
It really doesn`t matter to me what that new world is. As long as it is one that can turn me upside down all over again.
I`m not more famous than Michael Jackson or David Beckham, but I`m much more famous than Cameron Diaz, Anne Hathaway, Leo DiCaprio and Lady Gaga. I`m less famous than the old version of Madonna, but the new version with the big muscles and the plastic face? I`m more famous than her. I`m less famous than Hermione Granger, but I`m more famous than the actress that plays her and I`m much more famous than the woman who created her in the first place. I haven`t got a hope against the cast of High School Musical - whoever they are - or Johnny Depp, but anyone from Friends or The Simpsons can lick my boots.
I`ve come to this conclusion after thorough and intensive research: consisting, largely, of holding up photos to 200 children of the 6-11 year old age group and asking "who is this?" 3 points if they can give me their name, 2 points if they can tell me what they do for a living, and 1 point if they can tell me where they recognise them from.
Thanks to embarrassing advertising campaigns that have been kept a secret from the Western world via heavy law suits (I may get sued for this, in fact), the results are as follows:
Leonardo DiCaprio: 1 point for "the man who sells tyres."
Brad Pitt: 1 point for "the phone man."
Cameron Diaz: 1 point for "the phone girl."
Tommy Lee Jones: "man who drinks coffee" - 1 point.
Tom Cruise: no points (one kid started singing the Mission Impossible theme tune, but he was an abnormally Westernised child so I decided he didn`t count).
Michael Jackson: 5 points, including a few snippets of Thriller thrown in for good measure.
Harry Potter: 4,000 points for actions, quotes and energy spent jumping up and down high-fiving each other.
Johnny Depp: 30 points for knowing who he is, where he`s from and every single film he has ever been in.
JK Rowling: no points.
Lady Gaga: identified as "Madonna": no actual points, but about 11 hypothetical points for clarity of observation.
Madonna: no points until about 2 inches away and squinting.
David Cameron: no points (but I strongly suspect he`d get the same mark in England as well, and not just from children).
Tony Blair: no points.
David Beckham: 2 points, because all the boys knew who he was and none of the girls did.
Gwen Stefani: ditto, except the other way round.
The Queen of England, without her crown on: no points.
The Queen of England, with her crown on: 2 points for knowing her job title but no idea what her name might be.
I, on the other hand, am doing quite well. They all knew who I was and what I do for a living (which is more than I know, incidentally), plus they`re pretty sure where they recognise me from (the staffroom, looking at Google). I`ve signed autographs, I get high fived when I walk past in the corridor, and they can all tell you what tattoo I have and precisely where it is. Children play Rock Scissors Paper with great vigour to see who can sit next to me at lunchtime, and without fail every single one of them knows that I hate egg and love strawberries and cheese.
It even extends beyond the children I`m employed to teach. Last weekend, a man sitting next to me in a bar - a man I`ve never met before - told me he`d seen me "three times, now: once in the supermarket and once in the 100yen shop." Small children gape at me in shops with their mouths wide open. Old men do the same. Yesterday, two fully grown men stalked me around a shop for 35 minutes with absolutely nothing in their shopping baskets. This morning a cluster of 15 school girls I have never seen before and certainly don`t teach giggled insanely when I stopped at the lights next to them, and spent three minutes waving and squealing loudly every time I waved back.
In short: in Nichinan, they know who they am. And they couldn`t pick Brad Pitt out of a line up.
It`s topsy turvy, living in rural Japan: the whole world as a Westerner knows it turns upside down. Tans are ugly, and the quest for paleness is paramount; sunshine is annoying, and cold weather is something to look forward to. Standing out is less preferable to blending in; school children are polite and grateful, food tastes of something and clothes are created to hide the body, rather than expose as much of it as possible. Opinions and preferences are deemed vulgar; manners are rife; women are seen as being less attractive for having strong characters, and not more so (this is international, secretly, but in the West we still pretend otherwise because it defines us as modern). Travelling within Japan is seen as strange; travelling outside of Japan is seen as absolutely bonkers.
For a Brit, living in Japan is like falling down a rabbit hole and coming out the other side to find everything inside out and upside down. To a world where what we know means nothing and what we don`t understand means everything.
One day, however, one of two things will happen: I will either climb desperately back out of the rabbit hole - seeking normality - or this world will straighten up for me, the one I used to know will turn upside down, and the concept of what is normal and what is not will change completely. And - when that inevitably happens - it will be time for me to head to another kind of Wonderland. One that does or does not know Brad Pitt. One that does or does not see me as anything out of the ordinary. One that does or does not know that I hate egg, or love strawberries.
It really doesn`t matter to me what that new world is. As long as it is one that can turn me upside down all over again.
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