Having a go

In response to

No More Mr Nice Guy by Mark Waldron

This then,

what you actually witness here, before your very eyelids, is an actual blooming waste of time, in action,

in real time. I squid you not, certain shall we say ‘people’ with a certain shall we say ‘cheek’ have had a go at me about punctuality & punctuation, specifically the use

or otherwise of ampersands & obscenities and rubbish and whatnot. As well as my peculiar drinking and poking fun at people with or without disabilities and so on.

marvellously wretched & frightened and broken and hidden. I’m going to do exactly as I blinking well please, which is to be Well from now on, from the very next thing I do onwards,

I’m going to do exactly as I blinking well please, which is to be

marvellously wretched & frightened and broken and hidden.

I don’t want anyone to have a go at me today. I feel vaguely wretched and a little bit broken up. Neither hidden, nor frightened especially but mildly wretched and appropriately broken. With no interest in mending, necessarily. The brokenness allows the light in. I see a pile of ceramic pieces and small green glass softened by the sea, the broken pieces ready to build a mosaic. Tesserae. Patterns will arise without each part knowing its place at the outset, even. Peculiarly perfect. Perfection placed in particular patterns. P, P, P, P for my grandmother’s name. Whose papers and diaries I arranged in piles yesterday. Reading her letters, then my letters, her pieces then my pieces, wondering what any of it meant, how we keep and then we throw away. And when we cleared my mother’s attic, my sister and I pieced together our mother’s life from unfinished novels and notes on places, and tickets and bills and cards and letters to and letters from. But as I am tempted to edit mine for my children, so she must have edited hers for us? Surely! We none of us do anything that has not been done before. I’m not having a go at anyone for editing the truth, it just makes me wonder whether the proof is in the live performance, not the gathered ideas on the page.

The poet speaks the truth, without facts and dates or diaries. The poet places each word for our pleasure (or anguish), places each piece of the mosaic in a particular way. Or does she? Is the poet’s pattern not bidden; is it in place already, only needing to fall into the arms of the poet in that peculiar, particular way.

When I was a young girl, my Dad took me to the fair. He hated fairs. I could tell. He tried really hard to appear to be enjoying himself, but everything about it offended his nice sensibilities. He was, in the late fifties, quite forward-looking – a CND member, environmental campaigner, ban-the-bomb demonstrator; almost vegetarian. Mother wouldn’t approve of that, so he ate meat when he had to. So the reckless waste of electricity in all the lights, the noise of the machinery and the blaring contemporary music competing with the screams of people supposedly enjoying themselves on scary-thrilling rides; the firing range – especially the firing range – and the candy-floss, were all anathema to him. Yet he loved me and wanted me to enjoy myself. He’d watched, shivering with cold, as I rode on the tame roundabouts and he drove me, somewhat crazily, on the dodgems, and then I asked if we could go on the big wheel.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Dad, ‘it’s a bit high up.’

‘Well,’ said I, ‘you go walking high up mountains.’

‘This is different,’ he said. ‘Mountains are solid.’

We went on the big wheel.

I held on for dear life, not sure if I liked it or not, with my pale, terrified father beside me.

He turned a nasty shade of green and was almost sick.

‘Never again,’ he said, but we laughed about it all as we drove home in his battered old VW Beetle.

Having a go at life. That's all I ever wanted to do. I remember being 16, already knowing I would flee my home country. I talked about moving to London, but no one took me seriously. No one had moved from a small town to a big city successfully! I might as well have been talking about travelling to the moon.

But I had to have a go. What's the point of life without aspirations? And we can't have aspirations without being able to have a go, without being able to accept the chance of falling flat, failing. I know I may regret it, but I'll have a go.

It's a strange concept for someone who was always terrified of appearing ridiculous, or standing out. For a long time I was frightened, broken and hidden, not wanting to attract attention. But I could have a go in private. Have a go at loving my father, loving myself, being more of an extrovert; have a go at speaking instead of writing, being a mother, imparting knowledge.

Any knowledge is good knowledge, however pointless it seems. I found that out through being a parent. There's a wisdom that comes from teaching children how to be people, teaching them from scratch. I take the task very seriously. Because who wants to be responsible for more uncaring, selfish, entitled idiots in the world? There's enough of them already. Idiots who don't care about anyone but themselves, who don't care about living creatures, nature, family, the elderly; people with no empathy or sense of right and wrong. Although, I guess that what seems right to me might seem wrong to the next person. It's all relative. A matter of perspective.

Having a go. It’s my turn. Waiting on the sidelines, watching the roundabout. Your leg extending, trailing the ground, poised to kick if need be, kick me away, defend your territory. My go when you say so. When you’ve made yourself sick with revolution. You stumble off, even then resenting my ascent onto the shallow platform, my foot on the ground pushing myself off. Not fast. Not yet. A gentle motion of push and rotate, foot on the ground, contact, propel, momentum, holding on at arm’s length, leaning back into the wind, hair flaring out into space, a laugh breaks fee and enters the atmosphere, kissing the very air with joy. Round and round I go. Faster now, streaming, streaming air, streaming hair, streaming joy, streaming in the stream of all things. Swimming, swimming with my feet on the ground? I don’t want to write this bit. It feels strange, uncertain. Where will it go? Away from the joy? Swimming with my feet on the ground is not swimming, just going through the motions. So long trying to be grounded, anchor myself in reality. Yet anchors weigh me down, keep me still. And I am ready to move again. I don’t know how, in what way. Is it a soaring up into the air – seems so ungrounded – yet the eagles manage it; I just need a wide enough wingspan, strong enough fibres, and the knowledge of touching down, for sustenance, for rest. Or is it a round and round, feet off the ground but just a little, always within reach if I don’t mind a scuffed shoe. Do I? I want to say I don’t, of course I don’t. I like my robustness, my casualness with things, my carefreeness. But I have new shoes – 3 pairs – and I am not ready yet for them to be scuffed. Not…