scrumptiousalpacadeer

[scrumptiousalpacadeer]

If you want to relive our Saturday Kon Tiki night...simply play this loud and dance in the dark next to a wall with a green lit fire exit! xxxxx 

love Christine 

[scrumptiousalpacadeer]

Hope Begins!.. Kon-Tiki Joe’s Party in the (Car) Park

‘There’s something happening somewhere, I just know there is, You can’t start a fire, you can’t start a fire without a spark, This guns for hire; Even if we’re just dancin in the dark...’  Bruce Springsteen - Dancing In The Dark 

And so dear readers, it happened... On Sunday morning I awoke with glorious sore knees and achy legs and a most unfamiliar feeling that I’d partaken in some vigorous exercise the night before... Foggy headed and thirsty, the joyful remembrance ebbed into my mind;  six months of isolation, lockdown, anxiety, loneliness and confusion were at an end...or, it was the beginning of the end, because, dear reader, on Saturday night I PARTIED HARD!!!... Oh I partied long and hard; I danced and danced, and never had I felt such joy and relief at the feeling of human flesh dancing near me...and to feel the beat...and to drink elderflower gin with lemonade... - 

My dear friend, Phil, free, wild, brilliant Phil, texted me on Saturday to inform me he’d set up a pop up Nightclub called Kon-Tiki Joe’s Bamboo Bar with surround sound speakers at his place. Phil’s place isn’t your ordinary place; he lives,  writes, and works his magic in a van which at this particular time is parked next to Forest Row Fire Station. He manoeuvred the van for party purposes; aligning it exactly one metre from a low wall, and two metres from a facing wall. The green lights above the exit door of the facing building served as funky neon lights. 

He fashioned a ceiling with bamboo sticks stretched from the van roof to the wall and black tarpaulin. He wrote huge name tags in Sharpie for the ten friends invited - upon arrival I was given my name and a laundry peg to attach it to my person. Two large speakers were placed outside; tea lights were lit... The party was to begin at 9 pm.. 

I arrived not without a great deal of trepidation; in fact I was a mixture of heady excitement and terror. I mean, I hadn’t socialised for half a year - I mean, I’d had an illegal tea on my friend’s porch, but a ‘party’ - this was too much...how do you do it? Surely I’d make a proper nob of myself -..

Phil had given instruction to ‘BYO Playlist’ and so I bolstered myself with a last minute composition of a 80s dance/funk/house/soul playlist... Fingers crossed it would be to everyone’s taste..but surely kicking off with California Soul wouldn’t fail?...I cuddled my cats goodbye, checked myself in the mirror... I was ridiculous, but I would do. I would step into the new world. I would go to the party.. 

As I parked behind Phil’s van in the dark I heard the comforting sounds of his Scottish cussing - there was no life or light around; only the night approaching. The stars weren’t yet out. 

I offered up my Playlist, my home-made cheese-cake, and my bottle of lemonade and was given a plastic glass of gin and lemonade. I sat on the wall, a raw sixteen year old, next to Simon, a grand musician in a cap; he’d grown a beard since I last saw him. It was so good to see him - alive. Who would arrive? Would they turn up?...Who would I share this 3m square concrete space with?

It’s a funny thing; it happed very quickly... A glorious blond beauty arrived; Stephanie. We shook hands and sat together on the wall. And then another glorious lady arrived; a woman who didn’t stop smiling all night; Kelly... And then a man dressed in a very smart black shirt and trousers arrived; a Frenchman called Michelle who grew up around the flea markets of MontMartre. 

I started the playlist. And o the hunger to dance and be free!...For within 5 minutes we were all dancing; we jumped all the small-talk and just got to it...Humans need to get together and get rhythmic and clearly we six were thirsty. And so we grooved, we grooved in that small dark beautiful space, and, well, we didn’t really stop for 5 hours.. I think it was with Kid Creole’s ‘Annie, I’m Not Your Daddy’ that the joy really kicked in.. 

But I think the full music adrenalin rush came in with Jaydee’s Plastic Dreams..a haunting massive sound from early 90s. Somehow we all rose up with that..the space opened up and the stars began to emerge above our heads. 

There’s something very gorgeous about watching people dance - I could have watched Kelly and Stephanie dance all night; at one point I sat on the steps of Phil’s van and just took it all in -...this was a night, at times, I didn’t think would ever happen - in the most claustrophobic of these cocooned times I could fantasise about Summer air and funky grooves and my fellow man. But this was actually happening; Stephanie, with her golden hair flowing and flashing, funking out like there was no tomorrow, and Kelly in her black puffer jacket, shaking her thang in the most ever-fluid elegant style. It was like watching something completely effortless and complete.. And we knew nothing of each other; we all came to Phil’s mobile nightclub alone, un-coupled, with our different stories....but none of that. All that mattered was that we were human and we had one singular purpose; to get down; to herald in the new free epoch in our own small way. 

There were antics; Phil did some impossible comical turns with a stool - at one point levitating mid-air and then stacking it on the concrete floor; he did the moon walk on the low wall and got his foot stuck in the tissue box (kindly provided for our toileting needs....). At one point Michelle did an impressive ‘climb the wall’ dance - reminding me, dressed all in black as he was, of the Bond-style Milk Tray Man. At one point two bamboo sticks fell on my head, precipitating the full collapse of the ceiling. It was frickin’ hilarious. It was all frickin’ hilarious. I haven’t laughed so much or so hard in such a long long time. 

Michelle requested ‘French Kiss’ by Lil’ Louis - us girls watched the men act up as the orgasm kicks in...and I wonder now, had anyone been walking past our little nightclub on Saturday night, they would no doubt have raised an eyebrow at that point and probably been very jealous..

Later on, Phil made us tea - hot typhoo with caster sugar. And then, somehow, we knew in that way you know, that the party was over, for now.... We said our goodbyes, and what a pleasure it had been...and bid farewell to our dancing partners. 

Many people are asking what the ‘new world’ will look like; feel like. I hope it feels a lot like Kon Tiki Bob’s Pop Up; where people are welcomed with a huge name tag and a beverage; where there are no masks; where there is much music and people move and shake however they are inclined; where we speak little of the C word or what has passed, where we only offer ourselves up with out bodies to a new future; and where the stars come out to join us whilst bamboo sticks fall on our heads... 

Dear Readers, thank you for reading and I wish you many joyful Party in the Parks! xx 

And thankyou Phil - this one’s for you! 

[scrumptiousalpacadeer]

My Easter - Removing The Mask

Easter 2020 will forever remain in my memory as the one that hit me like a truck; an invitation I answered body and soul; the Easter where I fully allowed myself to ‘go there’, to pass through the impossible threshold of the crucifixtion and come out the other side. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this happened at the heart of the Covid-19 lockdown; Easter-time this year felt like a glaring luminous invitation to journey inwards. Besides, what else was there to do?! I couldn’t meet with friends, go to cafes or pubs. I was forbidden even to drive to the woods and romp in the leaves. All of sudden the world had stopped, there was no running away this time. I was called, finally, to confront myself with eyes wide open. It’s Holy Week, and I’m being given some very clear marching orders: “its safe to come out now. Its time to remove the mask.”

I can’t recall which particular day it was; perhaps Palm Sunday or Holy Monday, but I received a very clear instruction to write a full, unfiltered confession to myself of the real conditions of my life so far. Somehow it felt entirely correct that I would undertake this task whilst journeying with Christ through his betrayal and crucifixion, for I knew that in order to do this I would be visiting the blackest times of my life; times of pounding lovelessness and cruelty, impossible violence and running blood. I knew that I would need to visit the desolate landscape of my youth, to pull off the grim mask of civilization I’d worn all these years and fully encounter the betrayals by those who were supposed to love me. Hardest of all, I knew at the core of my confession was a fully sighted look at the violent, disconnected person those early losses had turned me into; I would have to gaze up at the sky-scraping height of the walls of defense I’d built around myself; wall that had at times fully eclipsed the sun. I would need to meet all the gentle souls I’d hurt betrayed since that time, believing so wholeheartedly that I was full of stinking rot and no consequence on this earth. 

Somehow I knew I wasn’t alone. The deal seemed to be that if I fully surrendered to this, as much as my consciousness would allow, that I would be fully met and held every step of the way. ‘Don’t worry’ a voice said, a deep silent voice inside, ‘it’s safe. I’m here. I won’t leave you..even when it might feel like I have, when things get sticky, I haven’t. I’m always here.’

I was being invited to set myself free and even though there was some trepidation, as with all big journeys into the unknown, there was also a deep excitement, for I knew that if I could come thorugh this portal, there would be a whole new world waiting; a new beginning.

So I jumped out of the plane without a parachute.  Upon guidance from The Christian Comunity Church I set up a small shrine on a chest of drawers in my bedroom. It consists of an alabaster statue of Mother Mary cradling a baby Jesus, three candle holders and a clay heart, un-painted and hastily sculptured by my daughter. This was a pilgrimage man must undertake alone; but the world was allowing me a luxurious amount of personal space – the only visitors would be delivery men (!) and my daughter was staying with her father just down the road. I didn’t know at the beginning that my confessions would take nine days, or that some days the words would come in such a torrent. My writing life has always been a response to a physical impulse, a ‘pull’ for something to come out, but never before had I been tugged like this, a fish on a hook. Some days I typed four or five hours straight.  

Each morning I breakfasted and went to my little church, dead on ten o’clock. I followed the service advised by the church. I turned off my phone, lit seven candles, read the Gospel aloud, attempted to clear my mind, and said the Lords Prayer – the first time, in forty five years living on this earth, that the words resonated within me with meaning. Every time I said ‘Thy will be done’ I was reminded that this was a task of surrendering to something far bigger than me, not something to ‘push ahead with’ in my head. Those days of intellectual figuring out were no help here. Often on those Easter mornings I asked for strength to keep going. I asked for my faith to be renewed when I felt lost. At the moment of Consecration, in my imagination I feasted hungrily on the bread and drank thirstily from the cup, in fact, it’s more truthful to say I gulped on the life force of Christ. I needed His strength for the day ahead; I needed to be lit up with his light.

Nights I slept in my daughter’s bedroom, waking up each morning of Holy Week to her glorious pictures of elves and sprites; her display of animals photos torn from magazines; a penguin she’d adorned with a speech bubble with the words ‘I’m cold’ scribbled in biro and a baby seal, that she’d adorned with a bow on its head. I woke up to her letter from Santa Claus tacked to the wall and her kitten calendar.  It gave me great comfort to sleep in an eight year old’s world, for I knew that my journey required me to be as vulnerable and awe-struck as a child; to recall what it was like to reveal my heart without any thought or consequence.   

My appetite lessened; I ate a lot of toast and drank gallons of tea. I typed sitting on the floor with my computer on an upturned crate. Often I wouldn’t dress until late afternoon. After writing I would reward myself with a walk out into the lanes and woodland tracks of Ashurst Wood. 

It seemed hugely significant that although I would be plummeting to my death, in the background there was an abundance of fuzzy life; Laura, our tortoise-shell cat had given birth to six kittens on  April 4th. They were still limp and blind, but fattening with each second in a cardboard den. As I typed in my daughter’s room, a dark beginning of life resounded silently from the kitten corner. 

I gave my confession the title Turning Point. One of the central themes of my Easter 2020 undertaking, if not its core, was letting my sister, Sally Ann, die. But to do this, to grant her her final wish, I knew I needed to tell her story as honestly as I could; to bear witness to her suffering and reveal it to the world; to not conjoin with the world we’d both been born into and ‘cover her up’. Only then would she rest in heaven; only then could I live on earth in freedom. Sally, my dark mysterious sister, ahead of me in the world by three years, committed suicide at our family home in January 1990. She was nineteen years old and I was sixteen at the time. 

Somehow I knew that journeying back to the hell of that that time, almost thirty years ago, back to her trimester of suffering when each day felt like a crucifixtion, would lead me into heaven. At some point during these days I experienced a powerful shift in my thinking; a revelation. I realised that for thirty years I’d been living with a fundamental ‘untruth’ - a lie that had at times proved almost fatal. This lie was two-fold and lay at the core of my heart, and in lifting the lid on it, I experienced such a physical release that I was able to kneel down and weep at my little church. I could begin to let go. 

The first lie was that I’d thought that I’d had to stop loving my sister because she was no longer here; because of the shame that society places on suicide; because there was no adequate help in the suburbs of Bedfordshire in the early 90s for such an act of self-murder in a three bed semi, because our relationship had been so difficult; because nothing I did seemed to make her happy; because it had all been so hopeless; because my father had told me to buck up two weeks after her death - ‘life goes on Christine’ - all of that meant that I’d detached myself from all the love I felt for my sister, I’d erased it all; I’d cut myself off from my history in shame, forgotten all the nights we’d shared sleeping in the same room; all the good times and laughter we shared,  despite her cruelty, despite the confusion. This Easter I was given the gift of remembering myself as a loving child; I recalled; I felt viscerally, in my body, that despite everything, I had loved her. Now wasn’t that something? Wasn’t that a miracle? And then the impossible happened; she took herself out of the game and left me here on earth in devastation. This Easter I needed to reclaimed my heart somehow. ‘It’s ok’ the voice said, ‘speak out. You have nothing to be ashamed of’. 

The second lie that I began to put to bed was that somehow my heart was ‘malformed’ or ‘useless’ in some way, because the love I sent forth hadn’t been able to save Sally. For the two months leading up to her suicide, every day when I returned from school, she only got worse, not better.  Somehow, and somehow I could offer this up this Easter, I had thought myself a ‘murderer’.

And underneath the civilized mask I wore, the truth was that I’d treated myself often as one would treat a murderous child; I’d kept her locked away, persecuted myself, let people and things I adored fall by the wayside, abandoning myself and my fellow man over and over. 

Somehow the grim violence of Christ’s death, the humiliation, the heart-breaking conversation he has with God before-hand ‘isn’t there another way we can do this?!’ rang out to me this year. I finally accepted the devastation of his death. I had to allowed the tsunami of grief and I sat at his feet through-out; I sat at the feet of my dying self in full compassion for her helplessness Only in opening myself to my full vulnerability would I get to the green pasture on the other side. Only by allowing the truth of the world of violence I’d been born into would I undergo the glorious transformations of those violences. Christ’s death reversed a big lie I’d been imprisoned by; that our shadow life is best kept quiet – ‘oh no, don’t you understand?’ he says, ‘the blackness is the very place from which light is born; the point where everything can change; the place where you’ll learn to love. But – and I know this is a bummer - you have to die first.’ If I truly wanted to continue living in my body then it needed to be with wounds revealed. It was so wholly, genetically, biologically different in every way to the life of appearance I’d been forging ahead with. 

On the evening of Easter Saturday I drank a small measure of gin for courage and sent Turning Point out into the atmosphere, emailing to my dear friend and writing partner Matilda Leyser. I hung in the balance, waiting for the world to change – daring to believe the unbelievable. Then things got weird; at almost exactly the same time of clicking send and removing my armour, I got attacked. I received a long email, aggressive in tone, from my neighbour informing me that my tom-cat, George, had got in to her house and urinated on her bed. “Please be a responsible pet owner”, she said. “and keep your cats locked in your house from now on.” Isn’t the world like that? I thought. We take the ultimate leap to freedom, and someone, someone you least expect, will swipe you with a long diatribe about cat wee. 

But I knew that this was a good sign; a sign that just in me trying to be real, the world had shifted. Wasn’t it time for me to confront the possibility that a good life was waiting for me? Wasn’t it time to forgive my neighbour her trespasses and move on -  to a place where I could play the piano without being told to shush? Wasn’t it time to stop communing with misery and take responsibility for my happiness? Doesn’t the resurrection tell us that there’s a chance; that we’re meant to live in abundance? 

Easter Monday I thought I’d be overwhelmed with joy but that came later – in fact, in took a couple of weeks of disorientation and yet more grief before I could begin to grasp the sheer revolutionary, upturning power of Jesus’s resurrected body. I read St Luke 24: 39 over and over; “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; hand me, and see;” He was back, wounds and all. He was eating with his friends and rejoicing. Their hearts were singing. The old dark world was gone and things could only get better. 

A week after Easter my daughter returned home and reclaimed her room. Like every human being on the earth at this time, we have no idea what is going to happen next. 

* * * **

A couple of days ago I watched the Billy Wilder classic The Apartment. It’s a simple tale of love and redemption in 50s New York,  but there’s a darkness at the centre of the film that surprised me. Fran Kubelik, a central character and love interest played (Shirley MacClaine) is ‘brought back to life’ after attempting suicide on Christmas Eve by the man who loves her, Bud Baxter (Jack Lemmon) and a doctor. and his neighbour. It’s a disturbing scene because she doesn’t want to revive; she’s injected, slapped, given smelling salts, extra strong coffee and finally walked up and down the apartment by the two men like a rag doll to keep her awake. Bud cares for her over the next forty eight hours, hiding his shaving razors for fear she’ll try again; just as my parents hid dangerous implements in high cupboards as my sister’s death wish intensified. 

She recovers, and in the glorious ending of the film, Fran has a sudden epiphany. Sitting in the restaurant with her cruel lover, she sits bolt upright, the camera focuses on her widening eyes: she realises that she’s in love with Mr Baxter, the kind man who saved her life. Perhaps she realises that she’s loved him all along. Choosing love, she leaves her old life behind, and sprints through the streets of New York to Bud’s apartment. Her high heels clack up the stairs to his apartment like rapid gun fire.  He’s packing up his apartment;  he wants something better than loaning out his home as a glorified knocking shop to his bosses and their mistresses. “What are you doing?” Fran asks him.

“I don’t know, …….I just gotta get out of this place’. 

They sit with glasses of champagne and prepare to play Gin Rummy: 

‘I love you Ms Kubelik. Did you hear what I said? I absolutely adore you.’ 

“Shut up and deal.’ 

And so, upon reflection I would say that my Easter has been a bit like those final scenes of The Apartment.  I’ve heard love calling, I’ve got up from the table and am running towards it. I’m moving quickly, with the chance at being human, allowing the wounds and scars of the old world to propel me into the new; coming alive from the inside.

I’m ready to drink champagne with friends and play with a whole new hand. 

In gratitude to Luke and the priests at the CCC for the milk and honey they provided this Easter: their correspondence, insights and guidance through this Easter-time.

May 2020                                                                  Copyright Christine Rose

[scrumptiousalpacadeer]

Prologue to Removing The Mask

Life’s funny. I used to think I wanted a villa in San Tropez; a cottage in Notting Hill, a massive thatched cottage with outbuildings in Wiltshire for my sprawling social network; my own live in PA, my own live in cook, my own live in nanny; a funky brick work apartment in Manhattan, cocktail parties every night, a walk in wardrobe, an established career, unprecedented fame and adoration, unlimited respect from all my peers, a fleet of Dalmatians, a designer handbag for every day of the week....etc etc. And sometimes I think it would be rather pleasant to have those things...but somehow it’s finally hit home that without a pure and glad heart, all of that would be wholly pointless. It’s a pretty scary thought. 

I’m reminded of that bit in Rocketman, the fabulous Elton John bio-pic, when - in the middle of the archetypal glamorous party at his LA mansion, he sits alone and despairing in his bedroom before taking a near fatal over-dose and diving into his swimming pool, announcing to the hundreds of party goers - ‘and now for my next trick!’. Elton goes on to die and resurrect many times over until, finally, in re-hab he must confront the little boy inside himself that he’s neglected so long, a shy sweet boy who was ferociously unloved by his parents, and learn to love him.. Its time for a change: ‘I’ve been a cunt since 1975′ he confesses in a group session. 

 ‘Upon re-entering the world he ditches his extremely nasty boyfriend, releases ‘I’m Still Standing’ and his new life begins. (dear reader, forgive; I tend to wax on about films...but it’s a great story)  

If someone had told me three years ago that in May 2020 the world would come to a stop and that during this global pause, a priest would commission me to write a piece about ‘what Easter meant to me’, I would have laughed this someone fully out of town, or done what I did a lot of back then, cover my surprise with a subtle put-down or some clever cynical remark. Anything to control the very notion that things would ever get so out of hand.. 

But life is a thing of great magic and impossibly mystery - I guess I always knew that somewhere, and certainly where I came from I should have learned that anything can happen at any time; be ready; always be ready.. Because that is exactly what happened. Because in the heart of Lockdown, at Easter, here in my mid-terrace cottage in rural Sussex, I set about setting myself free - and ‘My Easter - Removing The Mask’  is an account of my journey inwards. 

I must confess that this pandemic has been a blessing for me; I couldn’t bare to return to the world as it was - I mean, so much of it wasn’t working; we’ve got a chance to start something new now. Removing The Mask is about how, in order to begin a new life, we have to let go of the dead. We have to somehow make space inside ourselves - there is so much grief involved, so much humbling; so much acknowledgement of our own powerlessness. I knew I couldn’t do it alone - so I reached out to a man who, if eye-witness accounts are to be believed, knew something of humiliation, persistent cruelty, loneliness - but who came out the other side. And so this Easter, with two cats for company, with a make-shift shrine and mostly in pyjamas, I reached out to the infinite mystery - to let me let go of a girl I loved with all my heart, and lost,  a long long time ago; my blood-sister Sally Ann Wood, who committed suicide when I was sweet sixteen, an A grade student and faithful smoker of Marlboro Reds, obsessed with my ear-pierced Art teacher and high on the endless possibilities of life. 

Removing The Mask is about recalling and remembering love; about re-living the beauty of innocence and the boundless affection of a child; about re-claiming the right to grieve, and how tumbling in love and grief - an experience Western culture is so ill equipped for, with its neurotic allegiance to logic, quantification and intellectual mastery - can serve as a portal to something utterly astonishing. Its about an attempt to return to a ‘feeling life’ and what a treacherous path this seems to be - with all the pain that accompanies such a returning. Its about, perhaps, a decision to live life, here on earth (and we must all decide how we will live now) as a real person - as much as I can. As a woman with wounds; scars; experiences that perhaps mark me out, but perhaps, in the telling, connect me evermore to other women, other humans, people I used to dismiss, trees, animals, the ground I walk on...

The irony isn’t lost that I publish this just as we as a culture are being asked to wear our masks again. Just this morning I’m having acupuncture treatment courtesy of my friend and we’re both there chatting with a make-shift paper muzzle on so she doesn’t get sued for malpractice. But then, after a few minutes, I didn’t really notice she was wearing a mask. I just heard her gorgeous voice, spontaneous laughter, noticed the expression in her brown eyes - because of course its the invisible world - the meaning behind everything - that we need to start connecting with. It’s the masks and walls inside us that are the hardest to pull down; that can reveal endless blue skies and birth new stars. 

Happy Saturday reader

Love Christine x 

[scrumptiousalpacadeer]

A Note on the ‘F’ Word - Freedom is Shooting Hoops up John Pears Playing Fields..

Good morning dear readers....well it’s a drizzly Wednesday morning here in deepest green Sussex. The birds are chirping; the lawn is drinking in all the rain from last night. There’s the very occasional mild whoosh of a car driving down the lane our cottage sits on. You’d never know the world had been frozen for four months and was just starting to spin again....that freedom was in the air... 

I don’t know about you, but this bit feels really hard. It’s like, for so long I’ve been yearning for pubs and cafes to thrust their doors open...and now it’s allowed; but not really. Going to a pub sounds about as much fun as visiting a friend in the slammer - 

It was kind of easier in the good old days; those early insane lockdown weeks when we all knew that we were completely trapped, incarcerated within our ow homes with one stroll allowed; there was a certain liberation in knowing that we had to stay in and make the best of it - when the best we could hope for was a wave with a truck-driver or road-worker from afar, or that smile from a complete stranger walking their dog down the lane that I sometimes got....the smile that said ‘this is crazy, right - but it’s ok. I can still walk my dog. We can still smile at each other.’ (I did that a lot...its gets lonely out here in the sticks...!). 

There was a certain Halcyon bliss to those April days with Boo spent watching Fawlty Towers and howling in laughter all morning; and then doing real weird stuff like acting out a play together with costume changes and everything...I mean, it was nuts, and it was scary, but boy we were imaginative. Boo had me drinking Brandy as a stressed out Queen, then quick costume change to become a humble male servant... She had me acting out that frickin’ play four times some days...but somehow by having to dive inside coz there was no-where else to go it felt like the sky was the limit. There was a certain liberation to seeing my neighbour Pete across the fence and knowing deep down in the kernel of my heart that I wanted to hug him, because I wasn’t allowed to; a certain glowing awakening in feeling my love for Pete - all the hotter for the restriction 

Didn’t we dream of the world opening up again, of noisy pub gardens; festivals; reclining with large groups of homo sapiens on picnic rugs. Didn’t we dream hugging our friends...Didn’t we dream of the end of fear?

 And now the borders are opening again...so why do I feel like a toddler who’s been told she can run like the wind only to feel the reigns tugging and pulling me down.. 

It really is a W.O.P.E. (whole other post entirely) as to why the Powers have given the go ahead to pubs, cinemas and churches but not to theatres and other arts spaces. It’s too depressing and hypocritical to write about right now and it’s raining besides.. Maybe the rain will just keep on coming and England will sink; just have a nice long bath, a good long think, drown all the Parliamentary dandruff and come again with a beating heart in Westminster. But in the meantime...

I’m gonna tell you the story of my Sunday afternoon in the local park and why, perhaps, Freedom Is Shooting Hoops up John Pears Playing Fields with a Kick-Ass  Extended Indonesian Family Basketball Team.

So I meet David and Boo up John Pears - its basically a large field, a kids play ground and a small basketball court with two hoops just up the road. I’ve been shooting hoops lately; a re-call to my sporty youth when, as a skinny twelve year old, just budding breasts and entirely un-cool, I tried to rectify the situation by  playing for my local basketball team back in the Bedfordshire suburbs. Apparently I wasn’t too bad; I could be quite aggressive, charging down the court and leaping the lay-ups. 

So anyway, I’ve been hooking up with David and Boo with my basketball. And what do you know, I’ve still got it. I can still get it in the net BAM! I’m twelve again, and it feels good. 

However, this Sunday, we have competition. The court is FULL; and these cats look serious. By some strange and wonderful miracle, this particular basketball court in a rural playing field in southern England, has been filled with between 10 and 15 very accomplished Indonesian basket-ball players. This is a thing of wonder; from whence did these visitors come, with their urgent tongue, joyful laughter, luminescent orange trainers and, frankly, some seriously good hoop skills? They range in ages - young men to an elder  ‘grandfather’ figure - and three boy kids runn with no tops on and lopping the ball to the puffy white clouds above. They’d set up camp next the court - women sit on camping chairs tapping their phones; there are babies; music; at some point pizza arrives.. 

Boo sulked that the court had been taken over, but we were all transfixed by this wonderful happening before us; this serious playfulness. How a large extended Indonesian group of family and friends - over 20 in total - came to this white out-post of England on a sunny Sunday afternoon for basket-ball battle, is a glorious mystery. 

But it signalled a wonderful freedom to us...this beautiful over-riding of the ‘State rules’; of taking a Sunday afternoon for one’s own, to be spent with loved ones in play and rambunctious competition; melting away any rigid boundaries of age or court lines or government stipulation with dizzying speed. Its ironic and comical and also vastly insane that the children’s playground right next to the court has a huge padlock on its gate. 

At one point a distinguished looking white-haired lady approached with her dog; ball catcher in hand. My cynical head predicted war: she was gonna call the cops; or at least have a word with these imposters... But standing near the court, instead a steady smile spread across her face, and she stood awhile, taking in all the joy and laughing along with the players when the ball fell short of the hoop...sharing their happy disappointment. This was a blessing; a lesson that we all needed and she soaked it up in abundance. Perhaps her younger self would have jumped on the court and taught the guys a thing or too. 

In the end Boo plucked up courage to ask if we could share the court - and so we did. Two nations; two tongues; two races; two families - our small, trembling triangle of three, alongside a much larger model, but nonetheless just shooting hoops on a Sunday in full respect of each other. Though with our considerably deficient hoop skills their respect was all the more generous.  No-one was being hurt; no-one endangered; no-one threatened with slow death; we gave each other appropriate space without any need for rude-ness or stand-off. We clapped at each other’s successes and commiserated the failures. 

This, surely, could be the Summer ahead of us. 

It struck me that maybe this is a bit was this weird post Lock-down transition wobbly faze has to look like. We need to take things outdoors; taking full possession of our freedoms; safely; kindly, in our own way, playing and hooping.... We need to set up our own games; our own pleasures; under blue skies; sharing these paces with loved ones and setting an example of...well, how to have a good time.. Coz it sure beats going to the pub right now. 

Have a wonderful Wednesday - love from Christine x      

[scrumptiousalpacadeer]

A Note on the ‘F’ Word - (Forgiveness is Willy Wonka)

I’ve come to think that forgiveness is a bit like the scene in the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film where Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory is opened to the public after years of secrecy. In this classic scene, the crowds are gathered at the entrance of this most magical of places - a place that grandparents told their grandchildren of at bedtime in hushed tones; a place of flowing nectar-chocolate and sweets that burns like heaven in our hero Charlie’s imagination; a place they had never truly dared to believe in but dreamed of many times; a place run apparently run by some weirdo eccentric that the cynical masses had given up on long ago. 

That is until five Golden Tickets are sent out into the world...Willy Wonka is opening his factory again.

In the scene, Gene Wilder approaches the eager crowd, leaning and limping heavily with his cane along a red carpet; a look of grim severity on his face. The whole falls silent; all that is heard are the regular steps of Wonka and the taps of his cane. What the hell? This is not what anyone is expecting; this God-like man of mystery and invention  a miserable invalid? The opening of the Chocolate Factory is meant to be an epic event; the whole world is watching.. 

Wilder suddenly stops walking right next to his baffled fans and the world stops, holds its breath; locked in Wonka’s charismatic spell. Then something very weird happens; he begins to topple forward away from his cane - as if he’s had a stroke, or has suddenly died or fainted.... the crowd gasp, utterly horrified. Its the end of everything and it was meant to be the beginning. 

And then....well, Willy Wonka does a perfect forward roll and springs up beaming from ear to ear: it was all a façade of ill-health; a silly joke. The crowd goes wild with relief and joy and the factory’s golden gates open for the day, signalling a new era. 

 The other day I had a phone call out of the blue from an old friend; a friend I hadn’t seen or heard from for eight years. Rahul; my party hard philosopher; he who introduced me to the basics of meditation in my student digs 1996, whom I’d shared hundreds of fags with and laughed and danced hard with at house/techno nights ‘down the Student Union in my final year at London University, 1997. Rahul who I’d watched Sideways with and had half a lager with when I was seven months pregnant. Rahul who often got so insanely drunk and gobby at a party that no-one knew what to do with him. Rahul, wild man of peace; loose canon. Rahul who years became a Maths teacher as I became an English teacher. 

I very nearly didn’t answer the phone because I didn’t recognise the number, but I was in a care-free mood, listening to Radio 3 in the kitchen (how times have changed since 1997), so I picked up. 

One of the first words I said to him was ‘sorry’. ‘Sorry, Rahul!’ - It was weird because I’d been thinking of getting in touch with him for a while to ask his forgiveness. I hoped for an opportunity to say sorry to him for being such a crap friend; for taking him for granted; for being a selfish shit-bag; for not answering his calls, for the years of silence; for draining his resources then abandoning him when I found new pastures. I needed to say thankyou to him for being there for me at times in need; times I’d been hollow in spirit and he’d stepped in, but I hadn’t grasped it at the time. 

“What do you mean? You’ve got nothing to be sorry for, “ he said. “this is how it works with you. Years go by.” That's the thing with forgiveness; it hurts. It pained me that he forgave me without a second’s thought when I knew full well I hadn’t played fair. One time, in our mid-twenties, Rahul had bought me a ticket to go and join him in Atlanta America where he was working in I.T. His generosity was always off the scale.

Since our last meeting Rahul had lost half of his family and was now an orphan. His younger sister had died from a ‘cancer thing’ he told me; his mother crossed the threshold in April this year after contracting Covid in hospital. Her death was a relief, he said. “She was so happy to get the virus; all she wanted was to join her two children.” Apparently there had been a cot death. Rahul was the only one left alive now. He was talking to me from his flat in Hounslow, looking out over the town. 

I had to steady myself on the windowsill as he told me how his world had imploded. I felt the disappearance of his world in my stomach; and a sudden revelation of the nature of our connection. I hadn’t realised it before, but Rahul and I were conjoined by our exiled status. He, more visibly - a boy of high Indian descent inhabiting a West London life of hedonism, doing the drugs and the booze but also somehow accepting an arranged marriage foretold in his stars - a marriage that ended in disaster...Me; a girl from a house of shame and smutty lies and buried criminality, trying to climb the ladder and be so gleaming white and impressive... We both knew how hard it was to play the game in this world; feeling all the time we could only exist outside it.  Perhaps that's why, back in the 1990s, filled with the possibilities of our lives - born out of joint as we were - , we could feel the beat so keenly and dance so crazily together. Rahul and I knew the art of getting wasted and causing trouble.

I enforced the point that I’d been a real bitch and I told him how and why and that he deserved better. I told him of my stark memory of his mother singing sweetly to my baby daughter in Summer 2012, distracting her, so that we could sit and chat in his garden.  I told him I lived in the country now; that so much had changed. “Are you comforted?” he asked. “Are you still Chrissy Woo?” It was always his nick-name for me - a nick-name I didn’t mind. “I don’t think I am,”  I said. “I couldn’t go on like that.” 

Did he know that my father had died...that I was an orphan too? Rahul and my father had met many times so I didn’t inform him of my father’s subtly racist jibe after he’d come over for fish and chips one time. I didn’t tell Rahul about my revelation that my father was, on one level, arguably, as far as I was concerned, often, a ball-less sack of shit (that’s a W.O.P.E. Whole Other Post Entirely - very much related to the ‘F’ word) Out mutual disappointment of our hopeless fathers was the subject of a much longer conversation.  

I think the thing that’s so frickin’ scary about forgiveness as I am just as the very beginnings of understanding it, is the sheer unknowability of the space that comes after it. For my part, all the resentments, angers, prejudices, judgements, pulsing hatreds at times, these were very loyal friends that I woke up with each day without even having the faintest idea I was doing so. Sure, they were ugly and they caused merry hell enough, but, well, at least I knew where I was. At least I was livin, and sometimes that's really hard to do. They were the furniture I manoeuvred around; the reliable chairs I sat in for comfort when I was never good enough; when I just couldn’t keep my head above water. What happens if I let that all go? What will I hold onto? If I know longer want to stab my father with a screw-driver in the manner I meant to stab the lawn today as a form of irrigation for my new grass seed (see previous post and the WOPE I referred to earlier is coming soon) what the fuck happens then? I will have absolutely no idea who I am. Everything has the potential to start looking like Wonka’s Oompa Loompa Land with giant toadstools and chocolate rivers and that’s just too much happiness for anyone, surely, to stomach. I will know that I don’t know anything, and I’ve spent my whole life pretending to know everything. Surely the space will swallow me up, won’t it? How on earth do you start something entirely new? 

There’s that terrifying moment of suspension before something new comes in - like Willy Wonka topping over his cane. There’s those seconds when, learning a new guitar chord, our fingers hover in space over the fret; the new contortions our fingers must make to strike a new sound feels so awkward; so wrong; the muscles tearing into a new shape.. There’s that burning second that we leap out in the dark, blind, towards the possibility of a new tune, we take a mad punt and see where our clumsy fingers land, risk making a new sound... Chances are first few times around we’re gonna fuck it up. It’s agony. Forgiveness feels to me, when it comes in, like a hard grounding grief, a thunderstorm of reluctantly received understanding that wipes out the old and invites me to the chocolate factory. And some days it leaves me entirely and I feel like I’m back in the dumb days again. 

But, and I’m riffing here, I think the answer partly has to do with a belief in change and a steady embracing of transformation; or at least a basic faint belief that it might just be possible. Cynics and miseries say ‘people don’t change,’ ‘things don’t change’, but this is of course undiluted horse-shit. People  transform utterly on a daily basis, all the time...One of the tricks, I’ve learnt, is to spend as large a proportion of time as possible with people who also believe in change and progress - a bit like stocking up on sunlight for those dark hours that must be spent with angel eaters - ( translation: rampant materialists/misery guts who refuse to believe in magic of any sort).

But oh the rewards; oh the sheer mad silly fun of Wonka’s gates opening and guzzling on that chocolate.. The ecstasy of hearing a G major chord sung from your own fair hand. 

I hope to meet up with Rahul this Summer - to see him in the flesh. No doubt it will be somewhat awkward; he’s forgiven me - in fact; he doesn’t see what the problem is. I’m a different person; I’ve had some chunks taken out and they’ve been filled in with wholly different colours. He’s a different person too; I made him promise me on the phone that he would look after himself - so he’ll be made of different colours too. How will we talk to each other? What words will we use? How will we navigate such unknown waters? How do you build something new with someone who looks the same, but is wholly other?..

I have no idea. I think we might just have to chuffing well make it up as we go along; trying to forgive ourselves for all the mistakes we make along the way. 

                                                    *    *   *   *   *

As a random and seemingly unrelated end-note - I went out for a walk down the lane to catch some air mid-blog. What with it being a Saturday night and me being a party fiend, I thought I would ‘pick up some litter’ for fun. I picked up a can of cider and a paper plate. Two cars zoomed past. It struck me that had the drivers of these vehicles happened to take a passing interest in the woman in a camel coat walking alone along the side of the road with an unsteady gate (wellington boots rub my right heel real bad!) and an empty can of cider in her hand they would surely been able to draw only one conclusion: PISS-HEAD!.. OLD SOAK! lonely Saturday night Sussex forty something alcoholic staggering along the lanes with empty cans of cider for company... 

Ah the deception of appearance...

And so, dear reader; Happy Saturday and judgeth not a lady who walketh with a can of cider down a country lane. She might just be a blogger on a break.

I hope you enter the chocolate factory of your choosing some time soon or are already there sampling the delights....

Love from Christine x

[scrumptiousalpacadeer]

Paul Thomas Anderson’s THE MASTER and what it may teach us about  mind-control vs freedom Post-Covid

So last night I watched The Master. It was a most pleasing way to spend a Saturday evening; alone, with two cats draped on the sofa and windowsill respectively, and it rounded off a pretty pedestrian Saturday mostly spent mowing and raking the lawn and scattering grass seed whilst *Boo finished reading Jacqueline Wilson’s Rose Rivers whilst occasionally appearing at the back door to yell; ‘mama, you’re driving me nuts with your gardening!’ Somehow I’d been looking forward to scattering my grass seed all week - the promise of moist new green growth on our dusty brown patches. Thing is - and there is a lesson in here somewhere - the grass seed box said it covered 10m square - I guess I got a bit carried away and basically I ran out after one corner. So one corner of my lawn will look like Eden, and the rest will continue to look like some deserted Sicilian scrubland... That’s life, baby, I guess. 

So anyway, The Master....dear God. There are many ways I could go with this...Firstly undiluted, scope, wonder, singular sensitivity, impossible mastery, extreme importance and sheer exalting, agonising beauty of Paul Thomas Anderson’s films is the subject of another post. (I’m still on a high from the explosive visceral experience of watching Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood and that was, what, 5 years ago? 10 years ago?) Then The Master came out in 2012 and P.T.A. raised his game even more. 

I could, and will another time, talk about the astonishing gift Joaquin Phoenix afforded the world with his embodiment of his character, Freddie Quell. (I say ‘embodiment’; ‘performance’ always strikes me as an incorrect way of describing an actors full immersion in an imagined character’s inner life.) To my mind, Freddie is one of the most affecting, heart-breaking, occasionally funny and downright truthful portrayals of a ‘broken’ man; an exiled, psychologically damaged, wild and lonely spirit who roams the world, desperate for love and acceptance, clearly one of the great ‘un-belonging’ of the post-war world in America. In one the open scenes he simulates fucking an over-sized figure of woman carved in sand on a hot beach, for the amusement of his army pals. In the final scene of the film, after his long long incredible journey , we see him caressing this sand woman again, resting his next to a large sandy breast. Oh poor dear Freddy Quell; my tears ran with him last night; knowing myself in this second viewing of the film, to be so like him. Perhaps one day I will be able to shake Joaquin Phoenix’s hand and say ‘thankyou so much for Freddie.....’ I often feel like that with actors work that resonates through the bones. 

I could also talk about how Philip Seymour Hoffman was possibly the greatest screen actor of his time, and how crazy it was that the world didn’t seem to mourn his tragic early death. Was it perhaps because he died of an accidental heroine overdose? - and this, well, didn’t sit very well with Hollywood. His embodiment here of Lancaster Dodd, charismatic leader of philosophical cult movement The Cause, is breath-taking. But then all his performances were breath-taking. I had a dream about him once (whole other post entitled CELEBRITY DREAMS coming your way); we were kind of friends even though I knew he was dead and his face kept appearing on billboards all over London. If, when; I meet him in the spirit world, I’d like to shake his hand and thank him for Lancaster Dodd and Brandt in The Big Lebowski, and Truman Capote, and also for providing me with one of the most pivotal theatre experiences of my life. August 2001, Edinburgh Festival, I witnessed his production of Jesus Hopped The A Train at The Gilded Balloon; this was running gold theatre. Within half a second of the play ending the entire full house erupted to it’s feet like we’d all been tasered from the floor. Thank you Philip...you gave me faith then that theatre is important; that art comes from dark places and revives...

I could talk about the astonishing crashing score composed by Radiohead’s guitarist Jonny Greenwood.

I could also talk about Amy Adam’s terrifying portrayal of Lancaster’s icy wife Peggy and her utterly brilliant final put-down to Freddie: “you either do this for a billion years, or not at all...” (she’s referencing Freddie’s abandonment of the cult she’s set up with her husband, but this line, I feel, could apply to motherhood...….)

                                                  * * * * * * * * * *

 It usually takes me two viewings for a films deeper meaning to seep in, and last night I was struck by what I see as the heart of the film. The core of the film is relationship between Freddie Quell and Lancaster Dodd; it’s an uncompromising study of male vulnerability and the cosmic search for ‘a father figure’...  On a bigger scale, its about how those in positions of assumed power and influence ( Dodd) rely on the adoration and worship of those whom society deem ‘worthless’ (Quell). It’s about the fragility and corruption of a society whereby a man promises freedom and empowerment to his followers (Dodd devises a system of ‘processing’ whereby he takes initiates back to past traumas through a curious mixture of interrogation and hypnosis and ‘cures’ them; he posits that his vision can cure leukaemia and will bring about world peace) and how those ‘disadvantaged’, the great ‘unloved’ can be absorbed into such an attractive lifestyle. In one painful scene, Freddie is taken to a party at a mansion, filled with monied people and luxurious things. Freddie is dressed smartly for the occasion; but is sweating with nerves and orders a scotch at the earliest opportunity, before hiding away in a side room and stealing an ornament. It took me back to my own exile, when, at the age of 17 I landed at Brentwood Boys School in Essex, and cut off from my parents, shattered from my sister’s suicide and a lifetime of confusion, I nonetheless attended many a glorious party; a perfect size 10 and top of the class, I knew how to say all the right things. But, like Freddie, I knew I didn’t and wouldn’t ever fit it. Like him, I would often sneak off to the side rooms, get off my head drunk to hide my shame and hopeless, and cause some fight..

In the end, despite himself, Freddie starts to see through Lancaster’s bullshit and returns to his life on the road. Though The Cause had given him a home, suits and ties, friendship, respect and a certain ‘standing’ that he could only have dreamed of, as he confesses to Peggy at the end, before returning to his own brand of personal lonely freedom; ‘it’s just not how I look’.  

                                                        * * * * * * * 

“Don’t you know, They’re talking about a revolution it sounds like a whisper Don’t you know you’d better run run run run run run run run.....” Tracey Chapman 

Talkin’ About A Revolution

What I find heartening and deeply exciting about these early post-Covid times, as the first chinks of sunlight pour in through windows that have separated us from friends, lovers, fellow man for so long, is that people are choosing freedom. In small ways, perhaps, but I get the overall sense that for many people, fear has had its day. As my dear friend said over tea the other day; ‘people are thinking fuck this, fuck it, we wanna fuck’....well, exactly. 

It was this dear friend I met up with in her wood a few weeks ago; we hugged each other day, and it was such a joyous relief to see her I told her that if I got the virus and killed me, oh fuck it, it would be worth it, just to sit next to her by a river on a sunny day...

I’ve had two other conversations lately to support my little theory; a particularly cheerful friend of mine turned up with her daughter unannounced on my doorstep couple of weeks back  - they had a bag of clothes; would Boo like them? Initially we did the ‘2 m’ thing, paying homage to THE RULES as dictated by the blessed government of this land; I hovered on the threshold of my kitchen - she stood outside by the flower-pots. Then I broke the rules; ‘look, do you wanna come in?’ - That was it. The ice was broken - and she stood, blond, beaming and glorious with her big sunglasses on, in my little kitchen - along with her daughter and mine, and I could literally have feasted forever on the sheer joyous fleshiness of having three other living homo sapiens near me. That sunny day in early June, two women in a small village in Sussex chose freedom. ‘I’ve just had enough of all this virus stuff’ she said ‘I’m even dreaming about it! I’ve just had enough’. 

Then last week a friend came over with her three glorious girl children and told me how her youngest, a endlessly sweet six yr old, had ‘hidden behind a tree with her friend so that they could have a hug’. Lets think about that for a moment; six years olds hiding behind trees to have a hug. Its pretty damn sad. And weird. This friend had been on full on paranoid lockdown due to one of the children’s potential serious health issues - but she’d reached breaking point. ‘I’ve had enough’ she said. And that day her girls and my daughter raced up and down the stairs and around the garden in glorious flagrance of any state prescribed social distancing rules. 

                                                * * * * * * * * * * * 

In the end, Freddie breaks free from his master’s and The Cause’s control and continues - we assume -  his lonely drift around the world. In their final agonising meeting, Lancaster reveals the smashed ungenerous ego of a despot thwarted by his adoring lover: ‘if I meet you in a future life I will show you no mercy, you will be my sworn enemy’. Freddie, emaciated, tearful and ever desperate to belong, asks Lancaster to reveal to him how and where they’d met in a previous life... He knows it’s bullshit, in the way I knew my father was incapable of loving me, but when you’ve got a Krakatoa sized hole in your heart, you just can’t stop hoping somehow...pledging allegiance to a resplendent asshole is somehow better than our greatest fear; the abyss of loneliness and isolation. Lets face it; freedom is pretty terrifying after such a long stretch of captivity. 

That’s the thing in these Covid times; we always have a choice. We have a choice now, whether to be continue to be afraid or whether to choose freedom. Whether to cut loose and go racing into the desert on a motorbike back to his first love, like Freddie does, following his own destiny, not succumbing to control forces that on the surface entice him into a richer more glamorous life. 

And I’m not talking about being an complete idiot and denying there’s a serious virus still on the loose, or hugging scared people in the street to prove a point, and I’m not denying  that many people are extremely vulnerable - I’m talking about something entirely different; that deep inner decision that calls in all of us - whether to choose the uncharted waters of freedom, or rest in an all-too familiar fear zone. 

To conclude, my dear friend Matilda sent me this book ‘Big Magic - Creative Living By Fear’ by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love (I’ve just watched the film its rather good I think...) Anyway, there’s this great chapter called Fear Is Boring which rang through me, growing up as I did drenched in the anxiety of a Munchausen Syndrome-by-proxy mother (WHOLE other post...) - but here’s what she says about the time, age fifteen, she ‘wised up’ to fear and chose another way: 

“I noticed that my fear never changed, never delighted, never offered a surprise twist or an unexpected ending. My fear was a song with only one note - only one word, actually - and that word was “STOP!” 

Dear reader, I’m shitting myself with the best of them, but I’ve had enough of fear. I’m not stopping. I’m going. What do you say?..... xxxx 

Big love from Christine 

[scrumptiousalpacadeer]

Corrections and Thankyous to friends with sparkly eyes...

Good morning dear readers... 

Firstly, I realised that just three posts in and I’ve broken my rule; to be honest with my readers - there were some clunking factual errors in my previous post on Frida Cagnolino and how I came to procure this art piece: so allow me to correct them here  - 

a) The year was 2016 NOT 2017 as stated, 

b) the reason I was in a wheelchair at the time was NOT due to blood infections but a nasty case of pneumonia. 

c) I was NOT living in a basement flat in Richmond at this time, but a large flat in MORTLAKE with a six hob cooker (can we say Barnes?...) due to my being RICH BEYOND MY WILDEST DREAMS at the time.

I apologise for these errors - the London years can be a bit of a blur... ! 

Today I’d like to say some thankyous - I’d like to say thank you more Post-Covid, to allow the gratefulness in, and communicate it to my fellow man - even though there is a risk of embarrassment and a certain English fluster...

But it strikes me that no woman ever dives into a space without some encouragement; without a friend saying ‘go on. Do it. Give it a go. Why not?’...

And so it is with this blog. I’d like to thank three dear souls: 

Firstly, my friend Eve.* Eve has the bluest sparkliest of eyes. Last Winter I was sitting on a bench at Clapham Junction Station eating crisps and all of a sudden I felt a head resting on my shoulder. I was weirded out by this personal space disruption, until I turned I saw Emily blue-eyes with a mischievous grin - and we both cracked up! During a conversation on the train she said; ‘have you thought about starting a blog?’. She’d read some of my outpourings, but this seed she planted of putting it ‘out there’ was, well, really cool. 

Secondly, my dear friend Marilyn.* She came round for chocolate cake a few months ago and in between playing with kittens and eating cake she told me how she’d started her amazing blog, and she told me about Tumblr and lots of other very encouraging exciting stuff besides. So, she sort of watered the seed. It doesn’t take much to water each other’s seeds, I guess. Often we do it without realising we’ve done so much - that's the thing with kindness. It ripples out...

I’d also like to thank a really cool New York artist & blogger called Emily who send me the most generous of emails about stepping into the on-line world; a generous outpouring of golden information from far across the Atlantic; and thankyou to Marilyn for introducing us...  

Great thanks to these friends. xxxxx 

Have a wondrous day in the sun.

[scrumptiousalpacadeer]

Post Covid joyfulness; vole death; and why I love my Frida Cagnolino

Good morning dear reader(s),!.. indifferent universe, loving universe...

I hope you are very well this Tuesday. Things have been rather eventful since my opening post; yesterday I staked my row of snapdragons; planting sticks like crutches for them to lean on so they could bloom to their full potential, on Sunday I went to my FIRST OPEN AIR CAFE FOR THREE MONTHS!!! (that's a whole other story)  

This morning my daughter very nearly saved a vole’s life; she shook our murderous cat Laura down by the swing until she released the vole from its jaws before yelling at me through the kitchen door that she needed a Tupperware container IMMEDIATELY. We both kind of knew the vole wasn’t gonna make it; it was in full shock, quivering in the corner of the container, in that way that humans do after a car crash or some terrible news... the last energies go into the death shake - the ‘crossing over’ between life and death. However, vole didn’t give up without a final adventure - it escaped the container and dashed to the bathroom for one last foray in this world. Minutes later my daughter said; ‘I was wrong mama. He died. One minute I looked up and he was alive. And the next minute I looked up and he was dead.’ I resisted the temptation to say, ‘well, that's just life, kid!’ and instead told her she’d given him the best death a vole could ever ask for; passing away in a girls den along side her collection of Jacqueline Wilson books; if it hadn’t been for her interception he would have been de-bowelled; torn limb from limb, departing this earth is a chaos of blood and terror. ‘Can I bury him?’ she said. 

Vole is buried along with two of his brethren and a few mice down by the Camelia tree.   

However, the strangest thing that has happened since last waxing is that according to my daughter I said the words ‘Spicy Man’ in my sleep last night.....! Now that's funny. ‘Spicy Man’....!??????? Sometimes words fail. This is one of those times.                                                                                That's the gap where words fail. 

OK, so I promised you the story behind my background picture. Here it is in all its glory; it’s called ‘Frida Cagnolino’ - oil on Gesso - and was created by a lady called Kate Milson in 2015. 

I purchased it at the Battersea Affordable Arts Fair in April 2017. As with any creation there is the story of its creation and the story of its procurement; how it passes from the creator out into the world and lands, lovingly, into the hands of its receiver. And the story of how I came to buy a collage of the Virgin Mary with an owl on her head is quite something. 

First off, this original piece of art cost £1500. I want to be less of a twat about money Post Covid - there’s too much weirdness and shame attached to coins and notes - so there it is. I paid £1500 for this work - much more than I pay in a month’s rent now; far more than I could ever afford to pay for anything right now - but back then, in this other life, I was RICH BEYOND MY WILDEST DREAMS... I had come into a very large amount of money, having been furnished with half the assets of the sale of my father’s house following his death. In short; it was ‘sad money’; ‘dad’s money’ - and the story of ‘how I sp**ked my father’s inheritance up the wall on facials in exactly the same way he sp**ked his life away on a bullshit suburban life that he never believed in for one second’ is a whole other BLog post entirely. 

So anyway, at the Battersea Art Fair 2017 I have money to spend and I’m giddy on the freedom of it. That day I spend £2500 on three pieces of art. What’s interesting and highly significant is that I was also in a wheelchair that day; my beloved *David are *Boo are wheeling me around the various collections at Battersea Evolution Venue,  because, at that time, I was pretty much immobile due to having contracted six blood infections courtesy of some rank and highly illegal black mould in our basement Richmond flat. I was helpless; powerless; hopeless; but I had money to spend and it felt so damn good. I knew deep down that that I’d been corrupted entirely by my father’s fat wad; that I should be shelving it responsibly for my daughter’s college fund or some such; but screw that - I was gonna blow it on art.  And I could pretend I was an arts aficionado. I might not be able to walk 100m straight but I could converse with artists’ agents and immerse myself in astonishing beauty.   

And then it happened. I’m wheeling past a collection, about to turn down the next aisle, and all of a sudden Mother Mary catches my eye. I am drawn like electricity to this burst of read crazy colour, and a blue cloaked magnetic woman just looking at me... I instruct *David to put the brakes on and move towards this glorious work, basking in it for a while. I think I knew I was going to buy this thing from the very first second I laid eyes on it. I felt like Mona Lisa was looking into my soul but at the same time reminding me that life was a gas. 

Its largely a mystery as to why we’re drawn to particular objects. Why do I love this piece of art so? Let me count the ways. Well, it manages at once to be subversive, heretical, beautiful, chaotic, surprising, highly weird, spontaneous, and deeply joyful all at the same time. I love the singularity of ‘her’ - this figure; and I realise now that she represents this beautific mother figure - with infinite love, understanding and kindness - that I’ve been searching for my whole life. Even now as I look at the picture, hanging on the wall to the left of my bed, it’s her blue blue eyes I must meet first. I love her wild and free relationship to animals;  she has an owl on her head but manages to not only retain her dignity, but somehow embrace and be in partnership with this wild gesture. She’s composed, wholly and entirely a woman, but entirely humble and at one with nature and her environment. Somehow, even though she has inherent grace and a natural regality, she doesn’t stand on ceremony. This woman is all knowing; entirely free; a true punk. And I get to hang out with her every day.  

I love the unspoken bond between her and her beloved dog (a Bichon Frise?). ‘Cagnolino’ means ‘lapdog’ in Italian. They both challenge the viewer, inviting us to the party. I like to think the Post-Covid world we’re being asked to form is something akin to this; we have a chance now to choose punk joy and reverence to wild nature over stifling rules and dank conformity.

I love the fact that its a collage - bit and pieces from here and there brought together in one woman’s determined imagination.

 I love the way the brightest yellow surfinia bursts out of  pure blue sky of the most gentle hue, and how this sky in turn bursts out of the blood red streets of Venice; I love the way butterflies flitter all over the place. Perhaps most of all, I adore the purple crown sitting atop the dogs head - and how he wears it so well. 

I love the violent effrontery growingness of it. I love its revolutionary impulse. I love how it reminds me to be free and brave and enjoy the moment; and that when things get really hairy and scary, as they are prone to do from time to time, that there will always and forever be butterflies and surfinias throbbing into life, and if you’re really lucky, you might just get an owl landing on your head, bestowing upon you a scratchy blessing with its razor claws.  And I love the fact that I am the only person in the whole world who has this treasure.   

The artist Kate Milson wrote to me most generously days after I’d settled her art in my house. This piece, she told me,  was largely a collation of images from a bundle of old art magazines bought from a second hand book shop in Venice some years previous. The name Frida is a nod to Frida Kahlo - a woman who created art from a state of paralysis - having survived a near fatal bus accident in her youth. I like this nod to a woman who despite physical confinements, drenched herself in colour and beauty. 

She wrote that she recalled surfinia plants  in her garden when she was a child; how they ‘seemed tough, but once picked die almost immediately’ - and how there seemed to be ‘this combination of strength and fragility to everything in the natural world’. 

I like being reminded of this each morning; that being strong can come directly out of fragility - that they’re intertwined. 

So...there we have it. That’s how Frida came into my life, and actually, even though she felt very ‘costly’ at the time, and I was kind of basking in a wealth I knew couldn’t last, it is of great comfort that this piece will last through my lifetime and maybe beyond. And actually, considering all the hours that went into her making, considering that I may have, in my small way, contributed to an independent artist continuing her craft; and considering all the hours I’ve spent with Frida Cagnolino’s loving gaze  on me, well......she was worth every penny and much much more. 

[scrumptiousalpacadeer]

Erm….hello. Dweller on the Threshold

“I’m a Dweller on the Threshold. I don’t want to wait no more...’ Van Morrison

OK, here goes, I’m going in. I’m starting a blog. I’ve been a dweller on the threshold of blog fun and I ain’t waiting no more. I’m crossing over. Whoooosh. This is big; very big. Huge. It might not be for you, dear reader, wherever and whoever you may be, but I’m a resolute technophobe; my natural inclination is for the good old ink pen and foolscap....but the thing is, its time for a change. Its time to loosen up a little - throw caution to the wind. Screw it. The poisonous clogged bowels of Covid lockdown are beginning to loosen, and we can’t stop what’s coming. There’s no going back; the old world has died and it’s time to ring in the new one...whatever form that takes.

This feels weird - but then writing always does I suppose...I’m writing and I don’t know where this will go, who will read it, if anyone will read it, where it will land...but then, isn’t this time just like that?....the worlds cogs are creaking again, the wheel is turning, and I don’t know if its just me, but each day now feels a little like a jump in the dark. Will my friend want to hug me? Do I ask for a hug or just jump in, risking acute humiliation? Was this all just a weird dream? Have I become agoraphobic? Have I become claustrophobic? Have I forgotten how to drive on A roads? Will I ever trust my fellow man fully again? WHEN can I go to live gig?!! 

QUICK STORY: BEGINNING the other day I met my massage therapist outside our local store (I realise I have deliberately said ‘my massage therapist’ there to try and impress you, dear reader, so that you think I’m a sort of really well established lady of a certain ilk, well heeled, monied, established, so I can say things like ‘my massage therapist’ as if I own a long line of therapists that are at my beck and call. TRUTH ALERT: I am none of the above. I am usually extremely scruffy; often wear pyjamas till 3pm; haven’t brushed my hair for five years and...ok I might as well get this out the way now...I was born and raised in a shitty concrete offshoot of Luton - get the picture?.... To continue, this amazing woman (I shall call her Geraldine) gives me the most astonishing massage once a month. She has done this for two years pretty much, since my dear sister in law got me a massage gift voucher. She does therapeutic massage and her hands are made of magic - after her massages I generally sleep for 10 hours solid -...So I’ve been REALLY missing her massages, my poor body is so tense and lopsided after three months sans massage, I swear I’ve got a gait like the hunchback of Notredame; - anyway, anyway. 

So I meet Geraldine outside the Store and after a lovely chat I jump in... ‘so, erm’ are you up for a hug?’....’Erm, no’ she said. I felt a bit silly, but then she said, ‘you’re going to make me cry now, because that's the thing I miss most’. The thing is, she explained, she has to be careful because her daughter-in-law is very vulnerable...so no hugging was cool. And it kind of felt like a hug because in our hearts we wanted to. She’s really astonishing, is Geraldine. MY massage therapist daaaaarling. I can’t wait for her to get her gorgeous hands on me again - only two weeks to go before she lays me out and corrects my messed up hypermobile stretchy little forty five year old body. END OF QUICK STORY. 

I’m starting a blog and my intention is to fill it, when I can, as inspiration comes in, with stories, observations, monologues, maybe the odd poem - who knows; whatever comes in... for your delight, pleasure, annoyance at times, and I would hope, occasional astonishment and revelation. There will be many references to music and film no doubt...I would like to make the following Blog pledges: I promise to always be truthful. I promise to write from the heart, as much as I can; I promise to love and respect my readers as best I can (assuming I have any)…  

I don’t know how long a Blog post is meant to be - but I think I’ll sign off now. To my fellow Dwellers on the Threshold of the new world...thank you so much for listening. I think tomorrow I will tell you about the story behind the background picture (The Virgin Mary with the Owl on her head and the significance of this image and how I came to buy this picture) and also my Avatar image Hawkgirl and how I believe she wreaked havoc on my landladies. 

Love and Punk Skylark blessings From Christine xxx