Grandma

My Grandma would have been 100 yesterday, August 1st 2010.

When she died, aged 96, people were staggered to find out how old she was. Embarrassed of her great age when she married at 30 (Shock! Horror!) back in 1941, she'd been routinely taking off 10 years "for the war" for as long as anyone could remember.

Grandma was an inspiration to more than just our family. Broad Scots, under 5 foot and bright as a button she was an amazing woman. She worked in some way or other (from secretarial work to running her own antiques store) from the day she left school at 15 until her even the temp agency couldn't pass her for 65 - at about the age of 80.

She saw so much in her life. As a child she lived in Glasgow, London and Brighton and was even 'farmed' out to a family in the Highlands for a period as very small child when her parents divorced. She lived through 2 worlds wars, a scarlet fever epidemic that claimed the life of her older sister, and a near catastrophic engine failure on a flight from Hong Kong (They landed in Beijing, where the airline had them all sleep in a big room. She awoke to see everyone had been covered up in white blankets, and for a full minute she though she was in the morgue!). She was around when telephones, radios, cars, TVs and then computers went from being a luxury to being necessary. She traveled the world and never ceased to be interested in everything. Everything.

There are so many little things that made up who she was. She loved music, literature, cinema, theatre and handed on to me her love of poetry. She was sweet, fun, incredibly warm, and completely incapable of telling jokes (which, of course, made them all the funnier). She gave wonderful hugs, and always smelt divine - a strange mixture of Estee Lauder's Youth Dew and toast & marmalade. She could break the bones in your hand with the strength in her thumb.

I remember distinctly the collection of necklaces she wore at the same time; their chains would get tangled into knots that I could sit and unravel for hours. She taught me how to coat fresh fish in breadcrumbs, and made the best Yorkshire puddings in the world. The only thing she could play on the piano were some arpeggios, and she'd play them at speed every time she passed an instrument. She could remember every one of my childhood friends.

I grieve that she never met my husband or my step-children, and never knew the happiness I've found here in the States. She would have loved Nashville.

I miss her every day.

Happy Birthday Grandma! 21 again? ("yes dear..." *hand-breaking-thumb-squeeze*)

Letter To My Younger Self

Letter To My Younger Self

I’m sorry that it’s taken me
so long to think of us as we,
to own the person that you were
as part of me, not just as her

I’m sorry that I still might cringe
when thinking of that eager, ginger,
loud and frantic little girl
so hungry to embrace the world

if only to squeeze out a friend,
a kind word and a happy ending
full of talent, life and spark,
making all she looked at art;

the view from up the cherry tree,
the ever-present scarry knees,
the constant choosing different names,
the romance trapped in dancing flames.

I’d tell you that your teeth get straight,
Your boobs arrive (they’re worth the wait).
That you’ll get kissed by someone who’s
been dreaming just as much of you

But most of all I want to praise
you for the hope that fills your days.
Your dreams and spirit were the key
that unlocked the me I’m proud to be.

Wanting > Shoulding

I've been challenged to live with some new language.

As a world-class procrastinator I 'should' all over myself all day, every day. "I should clean the bathroom", "I should tidy the kids' room... make the beds, repack their drawers... you know, I should make it nice.", "I really should be reading every day.". Or, alternatively, "I need to work out where the social security office is so I can get my card tomorrow morning.", "I need to get my office sorted before I can sit down properly.".

By changing need and should to want, it puts everything in a different light.

I want to write today. Actually, I want to write everyday, and this makes it liberating, instead of crushing. There is no guilt in leaving the bathroom a little grimey, the kids clothes a little spewed, or a pile of papers either side of my laptop. I will find out where the Social is later... but first I'll write.

Oh, wait. I just did.

Finding the way

Life as a newly-wed step-mom is both gloriously and overwhelmingly schizophrenic.

Two-thirds of the time my love and I are newly-weds: The giggling romance of never wanting to be apart, the clumsy problem solving, learning each other's moods and patterns, the glorious moments of waking up to smiles of recognition "it's another day being married to you".

The other third of the time I am a mother to 2 wonderful children: #1 is a 10 year old boy; funny, kind, sensitive, creative, and alive to the possibilities of the world. #2 is a 7 year old girl; bright, sweet, artistic, snuggly and as stubborn as an ox.

Time with them is as magical and difficult as all parents have led me to believe. The smiles on their faces when they run to me outside school, the questions about life during quiet moments, the sneaking of a little hand inside mine (from either one of them) when I least expect it, the glorying in new routines that belong to 'our family'... all these are way more precious than gold. The bickering and whining, the poking and blaming, these all come with the territory, what's hardest is trying to overcome the feelings that I have to have everything sorted. Now.

I continue to be surprised at how exhausting all these new ways of being are. Then I raise my eyes at myself, ruffle my own hair, and remind myself "of course..."

Predictability

So I go and see a film of a book of a blog of a book, about women finding their loves of words and men and food... a brilliantly written screenplay to boot... and come home inspired to write.

"I am a writer" says Amy Adams/Julie at the end of the film.

I feel like I've wasted this year, in terms of writing. Yes I've done bits - a few things for magazines and studies, but I've lost the art of just putting my thoughts into words. And, when I go back and read old blogs - as I did when I opened the laptop this evening - I realise that I AM good at it.

I am a writer.

I need to throw off the fear. Throw off the procrastination. Throw of the inertial caused by the many and heavy stresses life seems to throw me, and write.

So I promise myself. This blog will live. The other, my older and more public one, may morph a little, but this will be my home. And on it will grow my words.

New Year

So one of the main byproducts of moving to a foreign land was the complete desertion of my muse.  It just upped and left without so much as a by or leave.  Rude, frankly.

Well the new year has seen it creeping back slowly.  My heart seems to be less restless and my mind waking me with thoughts of writing.

Who knows... this blog might yet become something worthwhile.

Here/One Month In

Today marks the one month mark since I arrived in the USA. All my good intentions of blogging daily in the run up to leaving, and in my first days here went the way of all things.

But here I am in my new home, in my new city. And it's good. And it's strange. It's what I thought it would be, but also totally different... if that makes any sense. Maybe I didn't know what to expect.

I am now determined to be a good blogger. I'm feeling the absence of my time spent with my therapist, safely back in the Old Country, and the ability to spend a block of time concentrating on how I'm feeling. Here's a just a couple of the things that have made me think 'I want to blog this' over the last few weeks.

12 days in, I had left my first visitor at the airport after her wonderful stay. I was driving away from the airport in the muggy dark of early morning, when it hit me: I live here. It's not me who leaves anymore, it's other people. I was overcome with emotion and cried all the way back to town.

The house I'm living in is at the top of a hill. The area is wonderfully green, covered with tall, beautiful trees. Below us, on one of the main street out of the city, is a large commercial bakery. As I walk up to my back door (pictured above) I am wooed by the smell of freshly made bread. And as I lie in bed, or sit at my desk I can hear the mournful sound of the trains that trundle through the city with their heavy freight. It's an achingly beautiful sound that fills me with joy and longing in equal measure.