The turning of the wheel...

Firstly I want to wish someone well. I wish them peace and healing from the anger and pain they hold inside them. I hope and wish that they are able to find peace in their lives, I hope and wish that they are able to find a balance, to find peace before the anger pushes away everyone who cares about them.  More than anything I hope that doesn't happen, because this person is desperately in need of support and love.

It has been an interesting week to say the least. I have lost a friend whom I have known for six years now, someone I met through the Open University and the wonderful community of disabled and chronically ill students there. I was extremely shocked and hurt by something this person said and I responded in a way that, in another time, I may not have. 

But in all honesty I have not been in the greatest frame of mind; one of my mom's best friends passed away on Christmas eve, a lady I have known my whole life. Although we knew she was extremely poorly it was still a shock. Thinking about her had lead me to thinking about my gran, who passed away a few months back, my nan whose birthday it was the day that Jan passed away, my father in law, the multiple terminally ill people I have tutored who are no longer with us and so on. I was also thinking about not being able to have children. In short I was feeling rather low and a little sorry for myself. 

Still, I had been discussing population with other friends. I had been doing some research and was quite startled to see just how high the population density was in Birmingham in 2011. To me 4000 people per square kilometre is just mind blowing. How on earth can that be sustainable? How on earth can we grow sufficient food for population figures like that to be sustainable long term? Another friend put that into context by telling me that the figures for Kazakhstan is 4 per square kilometre. Wow. Now that is one heck of a difference!

Someone then mentioned the current world-wide population figure of 7 billion and the projected figure of 10 billion by 2050. I responded with shock to that "Wow. We are so fucked. We need to slow the breeding down..." (went on to mention finite resources). The response I received hurt me more than any online response to a discussion that I can remember:

"So which of my children do you want me to get rid of, or is the one that someone else killed enough for now?"
 
I did not think I deserved that. I still don't think I deserved that. I understand that the person is still hurting these many years after losing a child, that is something that I would imagine is always going to remain with them. I cannot imagine anything worse happening to a parent than losing a child. But...it is not fair to lash out at other people in that fashion, particularly when a completely non-personal conversation is taking place. To suggest to someone that they want people's children to be murdered? Particularly someone who cannot have children and is trying to come to terms with the fact that they never will, someone who has just lost someone; not a child, but someone who has featured throughout a lifetime. It isn't the same, of course it isn't. How could anything ever possibly be like that? But that was neither a fair nor acceptable thing to say. 

In response I replied that I had not, nor would I ever say such a despicable thing. That I felt awful about what had happened to their own family. 

I did however go on to say that I still feel - unrelated to the person's own family - that the rate that the world's population was increasing at was a problem. That with finite resources available it was unsustainable. We have so many people starving in the world as it is and this is only going to get worse.

The response I received was another angry, hurtful comment. I think that I probably would have simply ignored it, even feeling as low - and now hurt and angry - as I did, but for one particular sentence: 

"I don't appreciate being blamed for all the ills in the world because I have a large family."

Um, I don't remember saying that. In fact, I had specifically pointed out that the discussion was unrelated to personal circumstances, that it was talking about population growth - not existing population and certainly not someone's personal situation. 

As I say, on another day I may not have lost my temper at that point. Then again, I might. I'm still quite angry and very, very hurt by someone suggesting that I wanted their children killed or that I would be pleased that one had been. 

I do have a copy of what I said and, if you remove the swear words, it was perfectly polite up to part way through. The swear words make it less so. I acknowledged that the person was/is hurting, again said that it was an awful thing that happened. However I pointed out that I had not deserved to be attacked in such a way, that I had not said anything to this person to prompt such a response, that I was having a discussion with someone else over the planetary population figures and that surely I was entitled to say what the fuck I wanted on my fucking wall without being accused of wanting to fucking well murder people's children. I said that while it was different (isn't it for everyone?) other people were grieving too at this time of year, myself included. 

The person promptly 'un-friended' me after 6 years. Another time I would not have reacted how I did. I shouldn't have - what I should have done is remove the offensive post and sent a message explaining why I had removed it - in fact I did do this afterwards reiterating yet again how terrible the situation is and how much I feel for this person. That I have supported, backed, listened to this person time after time over the years; that I had considered them a good friend and still did. I haven't had a response and doubt that I will. This person did post a rather angry - and inaccurate - post as to why they had un-friended me on their wall - someone very generously sent me a copy via email...

This person has a tendency to react in a very angry and often negative way to posts that are not aimed at them. They have blocked people in the past, frequently make remarks about others aiming posts at them (when they aren't) and generally over-react to inconsequential things. 

I am sad. I am. But - right now my biggest emotion is one of pity. I feel so sorry for this person. There is such a lot of anger, pain and fear that just spills out so often. I genuinely believe that this person is in trouble psychologically speaking, stuck in that terrible, terrible moment and unable to move past it. I cannot imagine how awful it was (and is) and I am worried for them. I can only hope that they find some balance in the future and wish them well.

Childhood imaginings

I have just been reading Stephen King's 'On Writing' where he talks about his earliest writing attempts as a child and the imaginary worlds he created in his head. Reading this got me thinking about my own childhood and some of my earliest memories involving imagination.

I must have either read or listened to someone read Jill Murphy's 'The Worst Witch' because a school where young witches learned how to do spells was the theme for my imaginary world. It was not just me living in this world, but my then best-friend Sarah was also there. We would see each other during the day, then say "Bye, see you tonight at Witch School".

At night, in my dreams and imagination, we would both leave our homes and ride off on broomsticks to our 'other' school. Here we would meet up with our schoolmates and study spells, potions, transformations and how to fly. We had adventure after adventure, sometimes there were incidents in class where someone would mess up a spell and end up turning themselves into something unpleasant by mistake. Tricks were played on teachers, familiars were misplaced and friendships changed over time.

The part that I find most fascinating as I look back is that when Sarah and I would meet the next day, we would talk to each other about what had happened the night before at Witch School. When we discussed the night before we would have the same stories, when one of us started talking about "so-and-so doing this" the other would say "Yes, and then she did this". It was fun and incredibly entertaining.

All that fun and imagination seems to disappear as we get older. Although if I am being honest, I do still fly away to different places and worlds

My name is Becky and I abuse grammar

It has been quite a while since I wrote in my blog, a few months in fact. Part of that was because we spent some time in Wales, where - believe it or not - I actually improved. When we came back home I very quickly deteriorated and found myself back where I started. That was kind of depressing to be honest. My inner tendency towards negative thoughts took over and I have spent the past three weeks or so being kind of bleurgh.

I have consoled myself with trying to write some fiction. It was actually something I had started writing before, but then had a dramatic moment and completely changed it. The basics were still there, but I did feel as though I had improved the telling of the tale. Admittedly at the point I asked if any friends would mind reading it and critiquing it for me I had only written fourteen pages. In the almost-week since some friends very, very kindly agreed to have a read I have decided that, although it is incredibly kind of them, I really do not need them to give me an opinion or ideas on how to improve because it is - quite clearly - crap. I am sure that you know what it is like when you have decided that you just completely suck at something - and I do not mean that comment in any kind of 'Carry-On' way! On the other hand, I will be incredibly grateful to read any advice they give me on improving my writing. I do know however that I cannot write fiction, not even when large chunks of it are based on reality.

 Plus, and I am sure you know this part, I suck at grammar. I cringe every time one of my friends admits to being a grammar-nazi, because I know - I just absolutely know - that I abuse the poor, innocent comma. It really does not deserve what I do to it. I am sure the comma never asked to be stuck in places that it has no reason to be in, but I cannot help it. My brain just keeps insisting that they be inserted. I do need help in stopping my terrible addiction to grammar abuse.

Exercise with FM

What do you class as 'exercise'?

I imagine that the term 'exercise' has a hugely different meaning for me than it does for most of my friends. When I was a child, it meant practising gymnastics, going horse riding, running round with my friends or whatever else I could come up with at the time. As a teenager that did change a little, although I kept up the gymnastics until my mid-teens as well as adding in scuba diving - although I will admit that part of the attraction there was the club bar where they were happy to serve me despite my age. As a healthy adult I was happy to go walking, but refused point blank to run as it was something that I had always hated.

Now exercise can mean as little as sitting on a chair with my feet flat on the floor and simply straightening my leg several times. Like the majority of my friends with either disabilities or disabling illnesses I have to be careful not to get carried away and do too much. I did that back in 2008 when I was apparently improving a little; I got excited that I could walk - without sticks - for up to half a mile. I pushed it too hard, got carried away and ended up spending months in bed; almost back to where I started out.

Because I spend a ridiculous amount of time unable to get out of bed I have had to alter my expectations of what exercise is and try to be realistic about what I can and cannot do. It is hard not to get carried away; I have a tendency to get excited and think that I can do far more than I can. I forget about the consequences of my actions and put myself in a position where I risk exercise having a seriously detrimental effect on my health.

I am trying to be good however. I am starting out with quite literally a couple of repetitions of movement and very, very slowly building on it with the hope that I will get some improvement, however small that may be.

Phobias and how my worst phobia began

My big confession: I once left a country because of a spider; or, strictly speaking, a principality.

I have one of the most common phobias around; arachnophobia. Even just thinking about spiders makes me shiver and my flesh crawl as though hundreds of little eight-legged creatures are running all over my body. Believe it or not I actually have an even bigger fear, one that really came about while I was in High School; Crane Flies. I am actually more scared of crane flies, also known as daddy long-legs here in Britain, than I am of spiders and believe me that takes some doing.

I had actually thought that I was getting a little better with spiders, however when one approximately half the size of the palm of my hand ran across the living room floor two nights ago I screamed loud enough to wake the dead. Because the spider ran under the sofa and Pete was unable to catch him, I insisted on being taken into the bedroom and refused to come back in. Even now, two days later, I still keep on checking my legs to make sure that nothing is crawling on me.

I know without doubt though that I will never get any better with daddy long-legs. September is a hellish time of year for me, as it always spawns hundreds of them and they all seem to try and fly straight at my face. I said that this particular fear came about while I was at High School and I was being honest. For anyone that remembers what the layout was like at Crestwood School during the late Eighties and early Nineties, picture the grey mobile classroom building around the back of the school; I think it was near the domestic science classrooms. Come September the entire end of that particular mobile would be absolutely covered with daddy long-legs. When I say covered, I do mean covered. Quite literally heaving with them, barely a millimetre between each of those that were settled on the building, while others crawled over them to try and find a place in the sun.

For a period of time that mobile was my form room and I had to go into that building every single day. Later on I had lessons there one day a week, in the afternoon immediately after lunch. Anyone who remembers that particular lesson will remember me begging people to hold open the doors while I built up my courage to run from the side of the main building past the crawling end of the mobile, up the steps and through the door. Since then I have viewed them with all the fear attached to spiders, with the additional horror that they fly....

At one point my phobias were so bad that they were having a detrimental effect on my life. I worked hard to try and get over them, but only managed to get so far. I simply cannot get past this point and the reaction I had to the spider from two days ago (the reaction I am still having) has shown me that I do actually need to try and find a way to at least reduce the level of fear that I feel. So, if anyone out there knows a good method of dealing with phobias I would love to hear about it.

Photographs and memories of the farm

I have just spent a couple of hours looking through old photographs that I have stored on the computer and various online photograph sties - flickr and photobox are the two sites that I have uploaded to most often. I think flickr has almost three thousand of my photographs on there. My desktop computer has thousands more photographs on that I have not yet got around to uploading.

Recently someone commented to me that they felt that while digital cameras are a fantastic development and allow everyone to see their photographs instantly, we are missing part of what photography means; printed photographs, held in albums that we can look at, hold and take our time over. As I have flicked my way through hundreds of photographs today I think I have decided that I agree.

The photographs I took when I was a child were on film, I had a limited number of photographs that I could take - mostly because mom and dad were not going to pay for an infinite number of films to be developed. Because of that I took more care to only photograph the things I really wanted to. I am not saying my photographs when I was a child were perfect - in fact, far from it. But I think that maybe now we - or I - take so many photographs we fail to look at them. Maybe photographs that remain entirely digital just do not seem to mean as much as the physical photographs.

I do wish that I had taken more photographs on the farm (Llandre Egremont) when I was little. Up until I was around 12 or so the church, St Michaels, was still standing in the same field as the caravans. The graveyard was fairly intact and safe; several of the stones were raised, horizontal stones covering the grave. I suppose many adults would express horror at the thought of four young children making a tree house in a huge Beech tree on the edge of the graveyard and having mini-picnics sitting on the raised stones. We meant no disrespect, in fact we used to talk to the people in the graveyard in that wonderful, innocent way that we lose as we get older.

I have a photograph somewhere of the remains of the church the year we came back after the winter break and found it and the graveyard vastly reduced in size. I was horrified at the time - and to be honest I still am to a degree. The photograph shows my brother on a rope swing that we had hung from the beech in mid swing, one hand on the rope the other out to the side with a huge grin on his face. The church and graveyard with its newly bare earth sit in the background.

That tree was the centre of so many childhood fantasies and games; we would see how high we could climb up the tree, who would dare to jump from the tree on the rope swing - now that was seriously terrifying - and so on. I remember my brother and younger cousin building another tree house in a tree the other side of the field - I think it's another beech - this time with a huge wooden platform crossing several branches and a rope to help you climb up.

I must admit that my cousins did get up earlier than we did at the farm. While they managed to be up in time to collect the eggs from the chickens every day, my brother and I were absent half the time. I was always up to feed the calves though; there was no way I was missing that! Feeding the calves used to consist of mixing up the milk from a dry powder and popping it into a bucket. Persuading the calves to come to the gate and drink the milk was not always easy. Often you had to call some of them until they came closer, dip your fingers into the milk and into the calves mouth, slowly leading them down to the bucket of milk. The new calves were always so lovely and I am glad we were on a farm where they were looked after well, with plenty of room to move around.

As soon as the calves were old enough they went out into the fields. All the cattle were free-range, living in large fields where they were free to roam around. Now and again we would help the farm bring the cattle down from a particular field to be checked over by the farmer or a vet. Of course, it is a beef farm and they are not there just to look pretty. They do end up going to market and from there to slaughter. We went along to the cattle market a couple of times and I have to say that I enjoyed it. I always fully understood the purpose of it, even when I was little. I think we all did. I saw chickens killed, plucked, gutted and prepared for the oven. I fished in the river with my dad, or my mom, caught fish and saw them either thrown back or killed and prepared for the table.

I loved being on the farm and I wish that I could do now what I did in my childhood.

Memory, distortion and a fantastic childhood experience...

Pete and I were talking about memories last night and how our perceptions of events can change over time. We have a couple of very obvious examples where extended family members tell people that they did something that they could not possibly have done, due to age or other factors. I am sure that a lot of other people can think of similar examples too, either friends or family members that tell the world that they did something selfless or had a worse upbringing than they did and so on and so forth. 

I did a course a while back, called Understanding Global Heritage, through Open University where memory and the effects of time were discussed as part of one of the units. I found the concept of memory distortion (article on memory distortion) particularly interesting, especially as it is something I have witnessed first hand. I have kept a diary  - on and off - for years and tend to make quite long, detailed entries for significant events. One particular conversation with an individual was something I had found extremely distressing at the time and so had written down everything the person had told me. In great detail. Several years later we were discussing the events in general terms and I raised the particulars that the person had told me. They insisted that they had never told me, that these events had, in fact, never happened and that I was obviously making this up. At the time I was both shocked and confused. I started to doubt my own recollection of the conversation, until I re-read my diary. Now, no doubt I had my own perceptions of the conversation at the time and these formed part of the diary entry, but the conversation and events in question did most definitely happen. I was actually quite worried about the person in question until I read through the module unit and did some research of my own into the subject. I still worry a little because of the actual events, but a lot less than I did initially. 

It also made me think about the events that have taken place in my own life, things that I remember (or how I remember them) and stories that I have been told by people who are no longer around. I do not want those stories to be lost; I want there to be a record of them somewhere real, not just online but something tangible. I have decided that I am going to buy a nice, good quality, attractive note book and start writing down all those events that I can remember, all the stories I have been told, so that there is a record of them. Even if the only person who ever reads it is me, at least I will remember the events the way that I remember them now and not further distorted by time and place. 

One of the greatest sets of childhood memories that I have is of growing up spending almost all of every school holiday in Wales on a farm in Pembrokeshire - or Dyfed as it was when I was very little. To have grown up being able to collect eggs every morning, to help feed the calves buckets of milk, help herd the cattle, go to the cattle market with the farmer and his wife, pick fruit and veg, ride on a tractor and oh, so much more! I had the greatest time imaginable when I was a kid and I have to say that I am so glad that I had the opportunities that I did. I would not have traded my time on the farm, which I still go to by the way, for anything. While friends would maybe go off for two weeks in over-crowded Spain, with 'organised fun' (I cannot think of anything worse) I got to explore a fantastic farm and have a truly amazing childhood. I want each of those memories to stay as fresh and true as I can make them. Although I wish I had written some of them down sooner, I think that I am going to have a great deal of fun remembering and getting them down on paper now.