Difficult Moments

Difficult Moments in Life

How alive I feel!. The risk, the danger, the moment of reckoning... cheated so that I may be left with this resounding sense of how precious it all is, how in a moment all certainty can be whipped away. Followed then by the thrill of escape, of recovery and jubilation at the simple gift of life itself. Yes, tonight I fly high, for I have cheated danger once more and confronted my own vulnerability...

...I survived my first powercut. 

Then I survived a second.
A third
Until I lost count. You see, my washing machine managed to short the entire flat every time I put it on, and because this happened a good month ago, and because my landlord is pretty damn slow off the mark, I am languishing in a mountain of dirty laundry, a palace of slept-in sheets, with nowt to do but while away my copious spare time hand washing EVERYTHING.

Sorry, that is not remotely interesting to you. I just bored myself. But it was good to know I could deal with that, and then just a few days later, the most ridiculously huge spider in my living room.
Well, I say 'deal' with it, but my reactions were as follows:

Powercut:

1. Minor disgruntlement and fear of MI5 attack
2. Lights candles and has some dinner, which is sort of luke warm from the now defunct microwave
3. Tells EVERYONE on Facebook about the powercut. Everyone is very supportive.
4. Remembers where fuse box is, flips many switches, gets power back on.
5. Is about to tell EVERYONE on Facebook when the power goes off again
6. Calls Daddy
7. At his suggestion, wanders around flat isolating the many, many electrical items that have come to life since stepped in door 15 minutes ago.
8. Then isolates washing machine. Switches it off. Switches flips (or the other way round)
9. Has power. Continues with evening, appreciating electricity lots more

Spider:

1. Identifies large, large (MASSIVE) arachnid on curtain (see image)
2. Feels alarmed

Pictured: Fear Itself

3. Freaks out
4. Finds a glass. A glass is much too small. Finds a large vase. Still probably too small.
5. Concocts mental plan whereby arachnid falls from curtain, races towards victim and is enclosed in upturned vase at the precise moment before it leaps towards victim's face.
6. Tells EVERYONE on Facebook about the spider in photo and video format
7. Contacts key stakeholders in survival i.e. boyfriend, mother
8. Brushes off offers of help, and in a moment of creative procrastination, decides to make a short film about the process.
9. Once scene is set and camera rolling, throws a cushion at the spider. Nothing happens.
10. The telephone rings. News travels fast. Three people have offered to travel for 20 mins / 45 mins / 1 hour, to assist. Nice people.
11. Brushes off offers of help, yet more reluctantly.
12. 1.5 hours later, the phone rings. Follow up call from Mother. Regrettably informs her that has failed as yet in the task.
13. 30 minutes on phone to mother. Very intense. Cameras are NOT rolling. Much panicked breathing, a long stick, exclamation, a tennis ball, tears, a flip-flop and the Sports section of the newspaper (because nobody reads it)
14. Guilt. Mega guilt.

18 Miles of London

Running is an inspiration to me. It's the time I have to work through thoughts and feelings, to become bored, and from boredom, become creative. It's the time I take to dream, to plan, to feel things, all within the general context of progress and moving forward. No wonder this is the thing so many people find a key part of a good mental health regime.

But forcing yourself to run 18 miles as the snow flies horizontally in icy shards is not easy. In fact, I only managed this today by engineering a situation whereby I know I could trick my mind into compliance.

I don't fancy running 18 miles in this, I whined.

My boyfriend's email pinged back.

Basically, he said don't then.

That's all I needed to get my but into gear. That, and the prospect of squeezing myself into a 1940s figure-hugging Casablanca costume after a week of solid chocolate-based overeating.

And what a run it turned out to be… for 18 miles can take you through the most varied scenery here in the UK, but in London, it is even more casually spectacular. The weather had kept away vast majority of dawdling tourists, leaving the city's streets a blasted playground for a lone runner and her muff-like headphones.

Beginning in Sydenham, and dusting over Honor Oak Park, I climbed One Tree Hill to see the most spectacular Church perched atop it in the snow. St. Augustine's perhaps?

Peckham Rye offered me insight into a road I never want to live on (see first pic), as did Peckham High street, but I discovered an old-canal behind Peckham, and saw this bridge from 1870 under repair. I'd previously run over it in complete ignorance.

The Old Kent Road always fails to charm me, but today, as a particularly heavy flurry combined with The Manic Street Preachers, Autumnsong in my headphones, I indulged in a pretty spectacular influx of emotion, which lasted all the way up to Tower Bridge, where the wind off the Thames was so sharp and the snow so cold, I had to shield my face and dodge the baffled-looking tourists.

The route from Algate, along Bishopsgate, Leadenhall Market and St Pauls can be so deserted at the weekends, depending on which roads you pick. It's so much fun to see the beautiful buildings and remnants of the city walls in this baffled, deserted weekday metropolis.

There is nothing so heartening at the odd red-brick missionary buildings you come across in this city. From Holborn up to Greys Inn Road I marvelled at the cheerful elegance in the snow. I passed, with nostalgia, the old haunts of an old boyfriend, and scooted quickly on to Russell Square - deserted and dull in it's nobility, along to Euston.

I went a little slower past the Wellcome collection, remembering the lovely library and the membership card I've had stolen. I ought to get round to replacing that. Inexplicably, a man gave me such a lovely smile. He was all bundled up in snow boots and an anorak. He seemed pretty pleased about the snow, or something.

Then Great Portland Street was my next landmark, the site of many a fantasy for me in my teenage years. I never DID work at the BBC. Not yet anyway. My friend and I used to divide up the houses in Park Crescent and say she'd own one half, I'd own the other.

Regents Park was trance-like. It was like being in some sort of computer game. The Fountain along the Royal Walk and the bright spring flowers were so humbly elegant, all pasted over with this endless drop of big flakes.

Running North through the park, the snow was horizontal. It was such a joy to get around the corner and loop back round the outer circle, past some sort of gun-toting guarded American embassy, the mosque, and onto Baker Street, where the foreigners lined up faithfully outside 221B like sad dogs.

I took Baker Street all the way down, crossed Oxford Street, then ended up in Grosvenor Square (when the American Civilian Something or other was also guarded by some gunmen). From here, I made my way to Hyde Park, skipping down park lane like some tramp, staring it at the Ballrooms, fancy lunchers and upmarket car-dealerships. Then, of course, Green Park, deserted, opened it's familiar paths to me, as did St. James's. I passed Buckingham Palace without much through, for the flakes had grown bigger and the snow heavier. Scooting down Birdcage Walk, my final challenge was to dance around the Commuters on Westminster Bridge, gawking at Big Ben, at the river, at each other, and then to struggle through the South Bank crowd, past the Aquarium, the New Dungeons, the London Eye, South Bank Centre, IMAX to end up at Waterloo East Station.

What a training ground.

Making it in Radio, The New London, The Happy Neverending

How to Stuff up Successfully: AKA Making it in Radio

It's not exactly been a doddle, living all over the place and far from home, quitting a lovely relationship, flaking on friends and working strange hours to get ahead in this business. Moreover, it's been less of a doddle for the friends and family that have stuck inexplicably by me. After them though, my second best friends in building a radio career have been a little intuition, coupled with simple hard work and common sense.

There are some very smart people in radio. There are talented ones. But there are a lot of average people with bog-standard intellects that can go a long way too... and a willingness to do other people's work for them never hurts.

Someone pointed out today just how much spoon feeding I do for other colleagues, who don't appreciate it, but expect it. More fool me for doing it, I thought. But another thought quickly followed, and it was one my peers are quite prone to experience too... if you don't do it yourself, someone else will do it. And they will fuck it up.

Because for all the average people that exist in radio, that have a good work ethic, take pride in their work, and arrive pre-9am with a measured level of sentience intact, there will always be others whose eye is not on the ball. That's probably something you can say for most workplaces isn't it. Suddenly, the people who care a little too much make themselves indispensable, simply by being the only ones prepared to do the crap that others think can wait until tomorrow. 

In radio, this is an opportunity. For in what other organisation is self-flagellation, martyrdom and sheer underdog-championing as universally accepted as virtue? None, I answer. Because Radio is the underdog medium. Take the Sony awards for example. When did a well-funded, heavily staffed and commercially successful show or station last get the big hoo-ha prize? Can't remember, can you.

At any rate, I waffle on here in general terms. With regards to London itself, I should think this is meant to feel like the pinnacle, or at least, some sort of achievement. Here I am, fortunate enough to be working for several national brands in the heart of the city, in a turns of events that would have made my younger radio fan swoon, and yet my lifestyle is poles apart from the sophisticated dream I had envisaged.

The New London Baby

Instead, here is the new twenty-something London lifestyle. I race through the week like a rabid dog, forced on in a blur of adrenalin and caffeine and stuff that gets dropped on the floor and left there. I scramble through Monday to Friday, throwing cash at obstacles, such as the need to eat, socialise, date, feel fulfilled, paying not the slightest bit of attention to the moment. When Saturday comes, more often than not I am empty and overcome with exhaustion. This feeling in turn, must still do battle with the guilty obligation to make amends, do the cleaning, the washing, the shopping, some DIY, a good, long-run, see friends, have a health kick and.... sleep itself, which has suddenly become not so much a desire as a time-consuming task.

I've come to the conclusion that a certain style of London life, particurlarly the whirlwindy media sort of life, just wastes you, spoils you, and leaves you unable to appreciate the real satisfaction of it's most wonderful moments. That is, unhurried company, good honest savings, a cinema trip maybe, a frugal bit of shopping. The worth of things is exploded all week long, and at the weekend, doing the sums, one must repair and repent, replan and reignite. All these things I generally fail to do. Because I'm so BLOODY KNACKERED.

But it will all be OK.

It a rare moment of optimism, strolling in the cold winter sunlight across St. Martin's the other day, I had a sudden sense of goodwill.

It was a passing, and as yet not repeated, suspicion that although things were really quite deeply sad and regularly in the ball park of shit right now, that a corner would be turned, a sequence would be triggered, and things would be.... OK again.

Maybe it was a wise spirit dropping by for an epiphany. Perhaps I'd just walked through someone's good aura. Maybe I'd stepped on a magical paving stone. At any rate, for a moment I felt a flash of everything I needed to know: my big sister will be OK, that her husband is at rest, and that life will go on, richer for their shaping of it's course and pattern.

She's going to get through the sadness and one day she will tell her children all about her husband, and we'll all remember him with the same fondness and love we felt every day of his life.

I so want her to be happy again. 
I want that more than anything.

I'm beginning to realise she will be.

Isn't it remarkable how your world can break, and yet everything, everyone keeps moving, dragging each other along like a sea of incessant reformation. Funnily enough, our attachments, our entanglements with other people, with things mundane, the things that rescue us from the atrophy that their loss brings.

Against Humanity We Unite

The snow. To city commuters it is the enemy, and it unites us, momentarily in a common cause. To get to work. To defy the blasted weather.

"Excuse me... sorry" wheedled a voice on the Overground this morning. All eyes snapped on the disturber of the peace. A mousy young woman, pawing at the lady next to her. "I couldn't possibly ask you for a napkin, could I? I've forgotten mine..."

Her interlocutor paused with boggle-eyed suspicion, and yet within moments had kindled enough humanity to share the smug pack of tissues with the panicking, drip-nosed stranger. It was touching, as they shared the packet, and the mousey woman de-snotted humbly, blushing gratefully.

I shifted from one foot to the other, my laptop bearing down on the opposite side of my lower back.

"Bit squashed, isn't it" a soft voice remarked.

To my surprise, the woman next to me had decided it was OK to talk too. I couldn't hide the lingering lack of computation on my bleary face, but recovered some sort of hearty, affirmative chuckle as quickly as I could.

The other morning, on a similarly packed train, somebody had SNEEZED.

"Bless you" my boyfriend had genially called. 

It was remarkable just for that fact. Nobody speaks to each other like normal human beings at that time of day. He had revealed himself as a work-from-homer in just a moment, and suddenly, suspicions were raised all round. An outsider, the hush seemed to cry.

For as commuters, we are not comrades but bloodthirsty, lone wolves, prowling for commodity - for space, a Metro, adequate seating... maybe even an audacious takeaway coffee. Here there is no loyalty, there are no alliances, only calculating syndicates. Gathering in groups at the top of escalators, at the tube doors, or along the 'in the know' sections of the platform, we crowd with intent or dark, private planning, macs flapping in a sea of identical coats, a colony of insular drives.

So much so that when someone reveals their outsider status as a non-commuter, a human being that thinks they're above the accepted form, they are instantly regarded with the highest contempt and unified mistrust.

Well, that and extreme weather.

But it least it sort of unites us.

Boys in Moods

The boy was in a bit of a slump today I think. I said I'd buy him lunch to cheer him up but he thanked me and graciously turned it down. Maybe it's Spring hormones. Maybe he just wants to be alone without my invading and seeing him in a funk. It's not like he came racing back from the weekend with the family desperate to see me though.

All in all, the signs aren't good. It's obvious to me that I'm in love, but I'm not sure he is. Who would be in love with me though, all I do is garble rubbish about work and be knackered. I'm wondering if I ought to just say it to him, make it easy and end it now? At least that way he won't have to do it a few years down the line like I did to my ex, and totally do a fuck on us both.

Not sure what's bringing him down. I guess I'm still getting to know him, obviously, and it's hard to scratch the surface when he's always so impeccably polite. I worry that he genuinely feels polite about me, as opposed to passionately restrained. Ha! He seems to have these weird black moods from time to time and just disappears off the face of the earth. I don't think he thinks a lot of himself, but I think a lot of him. He's great.

He's a writer too, and it got me thinking, that he's a bit cut off from people, what with having jacked in his business to focus on writing. Perhaps all that time for introspection has created a little self-doubt induced alienation? The worst thing about writing can be thinking that you need to nuture that set of strange, dark feelings. I caught myself wondering if he was looking at his life and me, his girl, and thinking 'christ, is this the best it comes to?' I hate to think that he might be disappointed with me. He said he broke up with his ex because they had different life priorities. For all I know she could be some wildchild tearaway he passionate loves but can never tame to marriage. I, on the other hand, am pretty smashed and want to fold his underpants. Well, maybe that's going too far. But I'd have his babies at least.

Anyway, seriously, dark feelings, writing, alienation, necessary? I don't think that's the case. I printed my manuscript today. It felt great to walk out at lunchtime in the Spring sunshine and pick it up, bound, and walk along the Strand with my creation in my hands.

It's not a good novel, but I enjoyed doing it and so what if it never sees the light of day. It helped me realise this one thing, which seemed poignant today as I was wondering what would be bringing him down, in spite of the sunshine and having some idiot be in love with him...

I have realised that a writer doesn't live by the feelings that makes them individual, but by those that make us universal. In other words, there's far more to be said from getting out and living in the world than sitting on the sidelines, watching it and feeling.... different. Although a bit of both can be helpful, I'm sure.

It also made me think about self-doubt, and how it's always going to be there. It doesn't have to be an obstacle, because it's just another entity, and one whose relevance we have a say in. It's no coincidence that self-doubt is strongest when getting up and getting on with things seems hardest, for whatever reason. When your world goes all shit, then so does your self-view, doesn't it.

Just got to keep on chipping. It's a lesson you have to learn again and again, isn't it, and it's not one you can teach someone. I want to tell him 'go on, get up, run! go and make something of yourself!'

He's got so many talents, but the days pass by and I think he's a little more afraid of everything and a little less inclined to spread his ample wings. If I had his time and talents, I think I'd be laughing, but I don't. Perhaps I am wrong in seeing him this way, and I'm sure he'd be aware of it if that was the whole issue, but I have learned this year that the cleverest men can be so very foolish. They need people to pick them up, jog them along, don't they? They all need mothering a bit, taking care of, the fragile, silly things.

Hope he cheers up soon. What can I do?

I JUST WANT TO MAKE FUCKING RADIO JINGLES

I took a lunch break today.

Everything was under control! I took half an hour and I went for a walk in the sun. I bought some cranberry juice and some iron tablets and some tampons, because my body is confused and my period came a week early. Fabulous. Fine. Whatever.

Then I bumped into someone in reception and we had an impromptu meeting. It was great.

I went back to my emails and had to go through a string of stuff to figure out exactly what was required. It was one of those FW: FW: FW: RE:RE: FW: situations.

Then my boss was on a shitting rampage because her boss is the boss of everything is was kicking the crap out of her. So she had a go at me. I fixed whatever it was, once I'd read a few more FW: FW: RE: RE emails and we had a meeting. She flung a load of pressure on to demo up some audio for this huge sponsorship and get an answer from a couple of her peers, both who want different things from it.

The client isn't even sure about the thing we're debating.

Anyway, today seemed OK for a minute, then I realised my old boss had left, my closest colleague had a WHOLE day off, seeing as she's fucking exhausted and I felt pretty lonely, pretty vulnerable. So it came my way in the end I guess. My hands physically shake. I can't breathe properly. It's like there's a bubble of FUCK around my head. I can't even write sensibly because I'm dealing with one pile of shit whilst another appears, then I fix it, work on another, make it to a meeting, but the first thing I fixed has gone wrong by the time I get back and NOTHING, NOTHING IS WORKING.

I ran home, calmed down. But then got back on the emails. The audio I was being pressed for hadn't gone over to the client because the sales person didn't understand it. I couldn't edit it from home. I've got to do it first thing in the morning. I will get up at 6am now. I should probably get up sooner because I WAS GOING TO GET UP AT THAT TIME ANYWAY BECAUSE I HAVE OTHER SHIT TO TAKE CARE OF BEFORE EVERYONE ELSE GETS IN AND STARTS HASSLING ME WITH THEIR SHIT.

I don't trust the guys reporting into me to write a script without my looking over it, because if it goes to air and it isn't perfect, my boss will kick the shit out of me, because her boss will kick the shit out of her, and I don't want to kick the shit out of my guys.

I don't feel like I'm making radio. I feel like every day I am just holding my breath, waiting for SOMETHING TO GO WRONG.

ARRRRGGGHHHH!

I JUST WANT TO MAKE FUCKING RADIO JINGLES FOR FUCK'S SAKE!

ARRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Running. Feeling. Instinct.

This blog is far from a place to divulge my every passing thought, for they are many, and for the most part, pretty retarded.

However, it does seem to catch the big, continuous themes, and provides a relieving solution to the obstacle of experiencing feelings I am unable to process internally. Whatever it is about writing, whether it's a conversation with someone else, or in this case, just with yourself, I can only think of one better way to process and understand your own thoughts and motivations without involving anyone else.

I don't know what I'd do without running. It began towards the end of my last long-term relationship, where I found it an escape from the feelings of guilt and limitation I was feeling as we realised it wasn't quite going to work long-term. Then, when I ended the relationship and the guilt continued, I ran through that. I ran so much I lost a lot of weight and didn't have periods for a year and a half. Then I started eating again, and took to binge eating whenever I felt sad. I still struggle with this a little now, but it's getting better. I run to counterbalance the odd slip-up. I shall continue to run to counterbalance the odd overindulgence. I run to escape the stresses of work, to feel proof of the simple power of my own person, to be calm. I run for joy, when the weather is good and I want to celebrate. But the overall sentiment of running in any of these circumstances has been because it is how I deal with emotion. Sometimes writing it down isn't enough.

When my sister was diagnosed with Breast Cancer this time last year, when she went through her treatment, realised she and her husband might not be able to have children, when her husband's liver began to pack up and he died of a heart attack, the shock was unspeakable.

I have said before, that there were never two people less deserving of such horrendous misfortune. For their young marriage and infinite future to be halted so suddenly and shockingly, then dragged out in this nightmarish sequence has cast all this world in a different light forever. I adored them together, and looked to their solidity, love and happiness as a role model for my own life. I am still struggling to conceive how meaningless this all is, and how strong my sister is.

But I don't think I would have been able to make sense of my own feelings at all without running. It is the only time I truly let my thoughts wander and thus the only time my emotions creep up on me, and wash over me like a sudden wave.

Granted, what with yesterday's admission of my tearful breakdown at work, it was hardly surprising today when, just at the thought of my poor brother-in-law, and how maybe if, just a year ago today, I had seen the signs, if one of us had seen the signs, we might have stopped it all happening, I was overcome with tears when running. This doesn't happen an awful lot, but when it does, I can't breathe, I just keep moving my legs and sobbing, and it eventually gets out, whatever it's been.

It's spring, the sun is warm and the earth is filled with shoots. People are behaving differently, frivolously, happily. But I am dwelling a little on this guilt. Was it my place, as an outsider to my sister's marriage, to be able to see something, or say something?

I guess we felt it coming. It is like Spring hasn't been in two years, because last year there was something heavy weighing on the back of my mind. My mother confessed she felt the same, that she wanted to hold onto my sister's things, or have her near. I felt something ominous. Of course, even when my sister told us about the cancer, we didn't connect that instinct. It was only with hindsight this occurred.

Then, why couldn't I learn that the same grim feelings, those awful signs were prescience to my brother-in-law's struggle. The last time I saw him, I had to climb on the sofa and give him an awkward hug. It was just what instinct told me to do. That was a Friday, and on the Monday he died. It was too late then, but perhaps something might have been done? I will always have this guilt.

At the risk of this becoming maudlin, I return to the simple point of what I'm saying. I wasn't able to see this, to do anything to stop the bad things happening, but the instinct was there. The instinct is there when I run and when I take time to let emotion run it's course. I think perhaps if people trusted their emotional leanings a little more, made time for them to evolve outside the distractions of everyday busy lives, perhaps we could learn a lot from ourselves and not miss the things that are really, most important.

It doesn't seem to be a process we can perform logically, or even design. We can understand our feelings with CBT or sensible therapies, but if we don't allow ourselves time to feel them in the first place, what is the chance of being happy?

Running is the only place I feel safe to do that, because like most other people, my emotions are the most powerful part of who I am. I need my own safe space to feel them, and motion helps me work them through.