barefoot in the belly

It makes me think of religion, the truths of life hidden in archaic expressions. How does it go? Avenging the deeds of the fathers  … how does it go? I need to google. This is one aspect where one really notices I am not native English speaking; my Bible quotes are dreadful, even the ones that I can do with some fluency in Finnish ("isien pahat teot kolmanteen ja neljänteen polveen" – I just know you were dying to know).

 Ach so. Here we are: "I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me" (Exodus 20:5 – and as for why the font sometimes goes funny when you cut and paste and sometimes doesn't, well, he moves in mysterious ways, does he not, dear Reader?). So yes, the whole reproductivity thing makes me think God and the Bible and, you know, Stuff. Although I'm not absolutely certain about the sins of the male parents and the vengeance taken upon the sons, I have learned that you "are what your Grandma ate", at least going down the matrilinear line. For verily, lo, when your mama were just a wee foetus within your Granma's womb, she already had the egg cells from whence you would spring forth, one day. And so she (and her egg cells, and you yourself in the bargain) was built up by what your Granma ate. Isn't that mind-blowingly weird? I think it is.

And as if that wasn't enough – the whole thing is weird. Here I am, forty-five honourable or dishonourable years old, mother of two grown-ups sons, certainly not going to have any more offspring in this life, with this body – does this old body care? Does it take the blindest bit of notice? No-sirree, nope it doesn't. It carries on, a faithful little organic clockwork of flesh and blood and nerve and tissue and sinew and hormone and whatnot, like it has for over thirty years, making it possible for me to conceive yet again, and again, and again, and again…

…it not only fills me with this is peculiar sense of wonder, but also saddens me. Oh the animal that is my body, how pure you are, how uncorrupted by reason, honour or dishonour, sense, decision-making, thought. Oh the poor animal of my body, you are blind to the future, as you are to the now, in which I race or hobble towards the future of being a crone, in which every moment curls me up more so that one day I will be a dried leaf of a human woman, a dried little leaf and I will come loose from the tree and that'll be it; yet the poor little pure animal that is my body, it doesn't know, it just goes on, being a body. 

Properly weird, no? 

Yes.

Imagined conversation with someone interested

(Bear with me please, and there will be a reward for you at the end.)

(General hubbub of conversations around, say, a table at a bar or a pub. A voice is heard over the hubbub, asking a direct question aimed particularly at someone. In fact, at the "I" of this story:)

So, you know, Anna, how come you're like on your own, are you like, you know, a bit of a man-hater or something [jokingly, but maybe with a hint of seriousness]?

me: NO. I would've thought you'd see that I'm not? Deary me. No, you see, the real reason lies within myself. The fact is I don't know how to fall in love with someone who would actually have me.

Aww but no, come on, surely not, it's just that you haven't met the Right Person, … blah … and so on… [obviously, the imagined party doesn't say "blah and so on", okay? "Blah and so on" is shorthand for the bland things people say, the sort of things people very often say, even if they're nice and intelligent people, just because us people we have - it seems - a need to tell a person who seems to be hurting or, I don't know, something, that "it isn't as bad as all that", thinking that this will make them feel better. It doesn't, of course. It should, however, be noted, that the "I" of this story replies with absolutely no aggression or hostility - for although the matter is one that brings an amount of sadness, it just is the way of things, and sadness shouldn't be mixed up with bitterness or anger or whatever.]

me: Oh p-lease, don't get all fortune-cookie soppy-wisdommy on me, give me a bit more credit. I have given this some real thought, you know, and obviously, I've had a few relationships in my time, and I have seen and realised and identified my pattern, and it's just a fact. I know a thousand and one ways of being in a relationship which isn't a relationship [again, please - "a thousand and one" should not be taken literally here, okay? No need to think the speaker is a total slag, it's a figure of speech]. Which never will be a relationship. I have empirical evidence that spans three decades. Every time, it is someone who will never, ever have me, although the ways of them not having me are (usually, thankfully) different. And you know, during these three decades, there may well have been one or two people who actually would have had me, but then I just really didn't want to know. Or it freaked me out and put me off them. Or I went for it and then went off the whole thing.

Ummm. Hmmm. Ahemm. Hrrmmm [uncomfortable].

me: Oh it's okay, please don't start feeling sorry for me or you know, get all worried that I'm going to cry or something. I don't even need your sympathy, but I would love some understanding. Yes it is often lonely, but it really isn't the worst thing in the world at all, being alone. It's way worse being caught in a violent or loveless or just plain unworking relationship. You just have to be able to get along by yourself, that's all.

(Lo, herewith reward: a Portrait of the Artist as a Tourist. Photo courtesy of Mark Maher, artist and a truly fine travel companion.)

Love in the time of caldera

I dreamt about you last night, you rare person with the power to hurt me. It was not a nice dream, I fear, and I apologise for dreaming you into someone who uses my love to cause me pain. Me with my head held high, yes, in the dream too, but you told me to look up, too, so you could see inside me through my eyes. What you saw made you smile. You have such a lovely smile, but in my dream (I apologise!) it was no such thing.

My life written in the lines on my face, I am not doing terribly for my age, I guess, if I behaved more like a graceful sort it could maybe even be said I was doing alright, but the two poles insist I have to, from time to time and for a time, walk the clown, nice-legs-shame-about-the-face. It is good for me to make myself thus ridiculous. Don't ask why. Try guessing. Extrapolate.

I think of some people, and the altruist I wish to be is clearly eroded. I compare them so unfavourably to myself my pettiness is all too evident. What suffering? Please. At twenty-eight, I was a mother of two, desperate to keep alive in a violently unhappy relationship. The old flame I used to support my way out of it caused me more pain of a sort I will not discuss; but I bump into him from time to time and see I haven't, at the end of the day, fared badly. He was hit by a train, he tells me, surprising he is alive, apparently many things inside his chest ruined beyond repair, including his vocal chords. He was a singer; he can still speak. I don't know the details of his substance use nor wish to. Likewise with his accident. His anything. May he go his own way in our jointly-human pursuit of happiness, may our paths not cross to remind me how much I have needed support - any support. Long ago.

Theatre, from time to time, filling the emptiness nothing else can reach, the emptiness I can almost forget and cover over during the spaces between theatre. Did I ever write about that thing I read many years ago, about how the vulvas of old women can apparently grow shut - heal over, as it were? A startling, terrifying read, I remember feeling at the time.

I don't write a great deal these days.