A darkness on the edge of town

"You can talk with someone for years, everyday, and still, it won't mean as much as what you can have when you sit in front of someone, not saying a word .... connections are made with the heart, not the tongue." 
(C. Joybell)

 

It's certainly true that you never know how much you rely upon something, accept and expect, even cherish something, until it's not there. At the end of June, three Vodafone masts somewhere out on the South Downs spluttered and fell silent. I'm aware that some parts of Brighton and it's suburbs were without Vodafone mobile coverage for three weeks. There was a palpable darkness at the edge of the town. My own little mobile was silent for a week, but these eerily quiet days over-lapped with my beleaguered BT landline finally admitting defeat, which also rendered my broadband speechless and my laptop comatose.
I live in a small street that's usually disproportionately noisy and which forms a horse-shoe in and out of a busy, in-yer-face main road. There's an exuberant little primary school across the street, with the playground leaning onto the road. There's usually some manner of building works banging away somewhere nearby. My next-door neighbours, with three new babies as part of the extended clan, are from Liverpool: I love them dearly, but they would be the first to admit that the Liverbird larynx comes with integral speakers! And speaking of birds, my beloved seagulls are the running commentary to this city; at worst, like a particularly overwrought Jeremy Kyle audience. In short, you actually have to retreat to find silence or to experience real loneliness in this area.
Although I live on my own and still don't really "know" many folk in this area, I'm far from reclusive. I think I'm a friendly soul. I'm interested in people and expect most to respond warmly or at least civilly. Yet for several days, the enforced lack of communication behind my closed door felt isolating and frankly worrying. With no access to even emergency calls, it may have been natural to fret about fire or footsteps on the stairs at night. Facebook was sullenly closed to me for a few days and I even found myself totting up how many of my daily free online bingo tokens were lost. I couldn't update this little blog and am still trying to catch up on posts I wanted to add; I worry that I've lost phrases and even thoughts I'd been unable to commit to screen. Can you ever actually lose a thought? Surely my own conscience is the most precious hard-drive ever created.
What left me feeling bereft was loss of contact from those who've become part of my daily routine. Most of my closest friends live in London or beyond, but even my neighbour here will text me to say "Cuppa?", expecting me to respond with "Five mins". Technology has expedited and streamlined our communications with "free talk minutes", "txt spk" and character regulated "tweets". Even personal emails promote abridged friendliness and abbreviated emotions, with "LOLs" and "smiley faces" rendering exclamations of joy unnecessary and rather embarrassing.
The Yorkshire novelist, playwright and broadcaster J. B. Priestley was a man who knew how to work and play with words, becoming a Doctor of Letters in his later years. He once noted that the more elaborate our means of communication become, the less we actually communicate. My own shelves of words often make me wistful for the worlds of Austen and the Brontes, with rounds of perfumed letters preserved in initialled trunks under the bed and earnest, totally unseasonally attired lovers riding across sodden moors, collapsing in a consumptive heap on the threshold. Usually choosing to walk around Brighton, I often arrive back at my own front door seriously bedraggled after a trip to Aldis. I actually have a couple of vintage trunks under my bed but the only secrets they store are stockings, hot water bottles and spare bedding. There's a man who walks his rather snooty dog "Heathcliff", often stopping to let him poop by my roses (the dog, not the owner). But I digress: even the largely emotionally sterile, character-economic, technical truncations of the internet won't stop a digressor.
 

 

I'm the first to admit that I usually have something to say and can talk. A lot. I like the art and science of words: these seemed fine reasons to start a blog, over a year ago now, when I was unemployed. But I also appreciate silence and always find myself looking for what's left unsaid when the conversation has ended. There's a precious silence in the closest relationships; an emotional recognition and communion negating words. Yet sometimes things must be said, the surety of feelings needs to be voiced to uncertain hearts. Sometimes words won't flow, stemmed by too much self-doubt or fear of offending, too much anger or pain, even too much love.
Doubt is the natural enemy of love. The unspoken may provide poignant memories but regrets are too dried and crumbly to rest prettily in a purple ribbon. For every pair of star-crossed lovers confounded by fortune, there will be dozens of chances choked upon and broken bridges languishing by a bank of missing planks. God gave us the security of silence but also a wealth of words and the luxury of language. Talk to each other, listen; you really can't successfully do either one without the other.
The word "communication" comes from the Latin for "sharing". Open communication lends itself to community; harmonised interests, values and intimacy. And yet it seems that enhanced routes and almost time-travelling speeds in modern communication have led to inappropriate over-familiarity, contempt and apathy. And when those routes fail, we feel almost socially excluded. We assume the landline, mobile, email or social network will be there tomorrow: the idea, opportunity, emotion or even the person may not be. If our connections were reduced to one letter a month and a steed galloping up-country instead of current upload speeds, we would surely say more in that letter. My Mum and Dad never let the sun set on a problem in case one of them might not be there to see the sunrise. Not a sentiment shared by BT and Vodafone it seems.
Two prisoners in adjoining cells will talk to each other by knocking on the wall. The barrier between them becomes their route of communication; their separation becomes a link between them. Knock knock?

  

"Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true."
(Charles Dickens)

"Man is a creature who lives not upon bread alone, but primarily by catchwords."
(Robert Louis Stevenson)

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
 (George Bernard Shaw)

"If the darkening sky could lift
more than one hour from this day
there are words I would never have said
nor have heard you say."
(Carol Ann Duffy)

 

"Darkness On The Edge Of Town"  Bruce Springsteen)

 

  "Everybody's got a secret, sonny,
Something that they just can't face,
Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it,
They carry it with them every step they take.
Till some day they just cut loose;
Cut it loose or let it drag them down;
Where no one asks any questions
Or looks too long in your face,
In the darkness on the edge of town."
(B. Springsteen)

 

 

The man and the supermoon

"Everyone is a moon, and has a darker side which he never shows to anybody." 

(Mark Twain)

"Man and the Moon", by Tina Palmer

"Moon River" 

(Johnny Mercer) 

Moon river wider than a mile,

I'm crossing you in style someday. 

You dream-maker, you heart-breaker, 

Wherever you're going I'm going your way. 

Two drifters off to see the world; 

There's such a lot of world to see. 

We're after the same rainbow's end, 

Waiting round the bend: 

My huckleberry friend, 

Moon river and me.

"Moon River" Audrey Hepburn ("Breakfast at Tiffany's")

Having finished work very late at the beginning of the week, I wandered off down the High Street in the wee hours, looking for the moon. It seems there are a lot of folk meandering up and down the Lewes Road at 1.30 in the morning, searching for the moon and other things. The moon, perhaps sensibly, was hiding behind a blanket of mist. From my own little street, this larger and brighter than usual moon was barely evident. I live in a low part of Brighton - probably in more ways than one - with steep banks of housing and buildings on either side. A full perigee moon always appears much lower on the horizon: it took three days until the June "supermoon" was on the wane before I could get a photo of it actually over the rooftops in my road.
Some stunning photos from across the world have been taken of the supermoon. I've posted some of them here; the last two are from Brighton; the final and by far the least impressive one is from my doorstep. I was determined to capture a bit of the supermoon: coinciding with the summer solstice and the full moon of St John's night, it seemed like a hopeful beacon. When I was little, my Dad of course told me there was a man in the moon who would know if I wasn't sleeping. Years later, I learned that The Man in the Moon is actually a traditional phenomenon as well as being a sentimental childhood essential.
I hadn't realised that for centuries across the northern hemisphere, the dark areas of the moon, the seas, in contrast to the lighter highlands have been perceived as human features. Maybe we need the moon to show a friendly face: earth's closest neighbour in space, it's comparatively large for a natural satellite orbiting a planet of this size. The moon is the brightest sight in our heavens after the sun, although in fact it's surface is dark, like coal and with a similar reflectance.
Old European tradition tells of a man being banished to the moon for some misdemeanor: Christian folklore depicts him as the man caught gathering sticks for firewood on the sabbath. Another Christian legend depicts him as Cain, doomed to circle the earth in exile, as depicted in Dante's "Inferno". In Norse mythology, the moon was a man in a horse drawn carriage, passing across the sky to escape a great wolf; in the Germanic and Roman cultures, he was also a thief of various descriptions, stealing away over the earth before daybreak.
In some eastern cultures, and particularly in Chinese tradition, the inhabitant of the moon was sometimes thought to be a stranded goddess, with only "moon rabbits" for company. Even today, Chinese children are shown how the features of the moon may represent the moon rabbit, rather than a man's face.
A prominent feature in our night skies and with a regularity of phases, the moon has gained a comforting familiarity since ancient times. The moon's orbit and gravity draw the ocean tides and the length of our days. Scientists believe the moon was formed shortly after the earth, from the fallout of debris and matter after we collided with something the size of Mars. The moon remains the only other celestial body that man has set foot on. Since the United States' Apollo 17 mission in 1972, only unmanned crafts have visited the moon, some confirming the discovery of lunar water ice - the moon's surface can't support liquid water. The Outer Space Treaty declares the moon to be free to all nations to explore for peaceful purposes; a sentiment that perhaps isn't honoured here on earth.
The moon has had a huge influence on folklore, language and the arts. Initially pushed into learning to play the piano when I was little, the first piece of "proper" piano music I grew to love was Claude Debussy's "Clair de Lune". As a fan of Mark Twain, I love the imagery of the song "Moon River" with even a "huckleberry friend". The song features in one of my favourite films, "Breakfast at Tiffany's", with Audrey Hepburn at her most adorable: half Irish and half Belgian and a bit kooky; what's not to like? I love the innocence of Hepburn's film version of the song, although Andy William's velvety voice was a perfect match to the poem and the melody. (I'd recommend looking up the film if you're not familiar with it, or have forgotten how magical it is).
The regular and distinct phases of the moon have made it a convenient and fascinating timepiece throughout history. The waxing and waning of the moon formed the basis of many of the most ancient calendars. The lunar cycle is approximately thirty days long and the English word for "month" and it's cognates in other Germanic languages originate from "the moon"; Germanic cultures relied on lunar calendars before any solar one. The oldest depiction of the moon is thought to be a rock carving at Knowth in Ireland, some five thousand years old.In some ancient cultures, the moon was personified as a deity or supernatural entity. It has a long association with hopefulness and luck but also with emotions, irrationality and even insanity. The word "lunacy" obviously derives from the Latin name for the moon; even Aristotle, who wasn't short on marbles himself, believed the water component of the human brain must be affected by the moon's tidal power. Today, it's understood that the moon's gravity is too slight to affect an individual's brain function. Tales of increased accidents, homicides, suicides and psychiatric admissions at full moon persist but with little or no consistently supportied evidence. Certainly the euphoria and despair ill-met by moonlight on the Lewes Road most nights owe more to the influences and addictions of this world than the orbit of any satellite.
The full moon has always been emotive for me because it is simply beautiful, as distant and mysterious as it is predictable and symmetrical. My mother used to have me make a wish on the full moon, always starting "Dear God"; wishes, prayers all headed in the same direction. She also told me to turn coins over in my pocket at the new moon for prosperity. Walking down the main road in the first hours of the new day, I couldn't see the big moon for clouds and houses, but I did find the baby moon of a ten pence piece twinkling on the damp pavement.
The moon is a benign companion, to children, drunks, dreamers and doers. It's constancy and luminosity assuage childhood nightmares and adult loneliness. The magic of the night is part romance and part uncertainty and moonlight and moon-shadow will paint pictures that the day cannot sustain. As with everything serenely beautiful, it has an inexorable power, enough to pull the oceans from one shore to another. James Joyce spoke of the moon's "inscrutable tranquility". The same moon that appears to keep pace with me on my walks home at night along the Level will be lingering along with lovers by the Seine or guiding a lost backpacker somewhere unpronounceable. Even when we see the moon wane, it's size and shape remain perfectly the same. Every night, the moon is, generally, where we left it, just like our dreams.

"Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth." 

(Buddha)

Starlings across the full moon at Brighton pier...

... and my own less spectacular photo of the this week's supermoon over my street. 

"Clair de Lune" ("Moonlight")  Claude Debussy

"Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light. The moon understands what it means to be human.

Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections." 

(Tahereh Mafi)

Each time you blink

 

 "While every refugee's story is different and their anguish personal, they all share a common thread of uncommon courage: the courage not only to survive, but to persevere and rebuild their shattered lives."

( Antonio Guterres, United Nations Refugee Agency)

Yesterday was World Refugee Day; very tellingly, I forgot about it, as many did. It took the often stunning but exhausting Russell Brand on last night's Question Time panel to remind me, and the audience. So often in these economically depressed times, the word is "Refugee" and yet we hear "Immigration"; and we feel the boundary.
A United Nations report issued this week confirms starkly that that we’re experiencing the worst refugee crisis in nearly two decades. Nearly 50 million are currently displaced from their homes due to conflict or violence. This is the highest number since 1994, when millions of people fled "ethnic cleansing" and genocide in former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
The majority of today's refugees are originally from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan and Syria. Beyond any scaremonger sloganeering from any political corner or hole, it may surprise many in the U.K. that the countries that historically have most opened their borders to refugees remain constant: Pakistan, wracked by its own crises; followed by Iran, Germany and Kenya. Turkey has joined the "top ten" list after giving refuge to an influx of Syrians, displaced by or fleeing the civil war.
The United Nations estimates that the war in Syria, now in it's third year, has forced 1.6 million Syrians into neighbouring Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. They flee from a conflict which has so far killed nearly 100,000 people, crushed their homes, schools and businesses and denied their identity. They do not leave by any choice other than the will to survive and to see their children live. It's the same spirit which gets you and I out of bed in the morning, scratching and groaning, to grab breakfast and get the bus to work; minus the job, the bus, the breakfast and the home: insert fear and hunger instead. Later this year, the number of refugees from Syria alone will reach 3 million. For those of you who don't find the Bible believable or relevant to modern living, there are situations of epic displacement, persecution and exodus across the world right now.
As this summer solstice dawned, as with each new day, another 23,000 people began their own search for safety or refuge from persecution. Few borders are geographical rather than manmade; worldwide problems don't stop at checkpoints. Charity certainly should begin at home but the outside world which essentially houses all of us, does not begin or end at your own doorstep. Our world has a newly internally displaced person every four seconds. As Antonio Guterres, chief of the U.N.'s Refugee Agency says: "Each time you blink, another person is forced to flee,"

 

"On World Refugee Day, I call on the international community to intensify efforts to prevent and resolve conflicts, and to help achieve peace and security so that families can be reunited and refugees can return home."
(Ban Ki-moon, U.N. Secretary-General)

 "In my experience, going home is the deepest wish of most refugees."
(Angelina Jolie, U.N. Envoy)

 

www.unhcr.org/World-Refugee-Day

 

 

"Seven Seconds" Youssou N'dour with Neneh Cherry 

Postcards from the edge

"A person without a sense of humour is like a wagon without springs. It's jolted by every pebble on the road." 

(Henry Ward Beecher)

Due to medical treatment, work and IT problems (never anything by halves, the GigiOnSea motto), I've really fallen behind with posts on this little blog! I seem to have several posts in the pipeline but none of them have made their way out into the sporadic sunlight; a bit like most of my bright ideas, hopes and wishes. Pleasant diversions are so often a downfall; but there's always much to be gained from a smile which costs nothing. Various friends have sent me "seaside" saucy-postcard humour over the past few weeks and I thought I would feature some of them as a personal encouragement to British summertime.
British publishers were first granted Royal Mail permission to manufacture picture postcards in 1894. The earliest cards featured famous landmarks and picturesque views or photographs and drawings of celebrities of the times. However, as travel by steam locomotives proved increasingly popular and affordable, British seaside destinations generated their own souvenir industry; the "Wish You Were Here" picture postcard became a staple product. 

In the 1930s, saucy postcards were at the peak of their popularity, selling around 16 million a year. The cartoons traditionally relied on innuendo and double entendres; stereotypical characters such as vicars, nudists, hen-pecked husbands and larger ladies featured heavily (no pun intended). I've inherited my love of what I'd call "Carry On" humour from my Dad. It's probably why I'm so taken by Brighton's own Max Miller. Yes, a lot of the humour centres around the human body, it's functions and frailties and our related sensitivities; but it's a naughtiness rather than obscenity. There's a simplicity and infectiousness in laughter that is ever-ready. I think naivete in humour, as in affection and even in faith, can be a delightful and humbling quality.

In the 1950s, the Conservative government of the day was concerned with an apparent deterioration of British morals: it decided to crackdown on saucy postcards.... A decade later, in the more liberal and seemingly swinging 1960s, the cartoon postcard was revived and even gained a new reputation as an art form. A further demise has occurred in more recent years as the artistry itself and certainly the humour has deteriorated. There's certainly a finely drawn line between bawdy and obvious bad taste; seaside humour was intended to nudge all, not wound some to tickle a few. Many original saucy postcards are now collected as works of art or kitsch, but they also document social and economic history as well as fluctuating values.
High on the Conservatives' moral hitlist in the 1950s was London artist Donald McGill, known as the King of the Saucy Postcard. He was educated in Blackheath in south London, close to my convent school. He married the daughter of the owner of the local music hall in Greenwich and spent most of his life in Blackheath; a Blue Plaque now commemorates his previous home there in Bennett Park. He was originally a naval draughtsman, whose hand-drawn greetings cards for his family gained wider acclaim. 

In 1954, then in his late seventies, McGill was targeted by the censors and tried under the 1857 Obscene Publications Act. He was found guilty and fined; it devastated the burgeoning saucy postcard industry. Many cards were destroyed and several companies were bankrupted. When he was in his eighties, McGill would give evidence before the House Select Committee which was set up to amend the 1857 Act.
One of his designs, featuring a bookish young man and the caption: "Do you like Kipling?" still holds the world record for marketed postcard designs, selling over 6 million. He produced tens of thousands of designs; many are now auctioned as works of beauty and historical commentary. Yet Donald McGill earned no royalties from his work; when he died in 1962, his estate was valued at just £735. He's buried in an unmarked grave in Streatham Park Cemetery, south London.
There's a wonderful quote about humour from American psychologist and writer William James, brother of novelist Henry James. He likens the sense of humour to common sense in dancing mode. I think this really applies to the earthiness of saucy postcards. Personally, I've never bought the idea of God as a detached, sombre old man. Creation itself is filed with God's humour: He constantly does the impossible in unexpected ways and with the unlikeliest people. He created sex as a natural urge for pleasure and procreation; sex may well make fools of many, but I'd rather it was a source of mirth, not misery.

"Common sense and a sense of humour are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humour is just common sense, dancing."

(William James)

 

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"I have never understood why it should be considered derogatory to the Creator to suppose that he has a sense of humour."

(William Ralph Inge)

"She Moves In Her Own Way" The Kooks (Brighton's finest seaside skifflers!)

Book Club

We each have a story through this life. I firmly believe that people, events and places come into our lives for a reason: they are part of our story and we are part of theirs. This past week, my story has seemed quite disjointed, as though it's carrying on regardless of me, thinking I was a central player; taking curves and making cuts that I was not anticipating.
I now know that the word "history" originates from the Greek "historia", meaning the inquiry into and acquiring of knowledge; therefore, really encompassing the past and anything that evolves from it. When I was a little girl, I remember enchanting a teacher called Mr Snewin by explaining to him that history itself was really God's book - His Story. As a heady adult now, I still like the sound of that. 
As a Catholic, I believe my story has been created by God and presented to me as a gift, almost like a boxed set of something wonderful. What I take from the unfolding of it, what I learn and how I grow with that knowledge could be my gift of gratitude in return to the Author of the Universe.
I'm in the middle of statutory Jury Service and although I was a reluctant juror thrust into a very uncomfortable case, it now feels like part of my story for another tale to be known to me and for me to play an unexpected part. Most of the other jurors look very familiar to me, although we've never obviously encountered each other before: indeed, we are all very different and yet we seem to gel. Anyone who already knows me will appreciate what a Gigi-like statement that is. 
When people and elements of your own life seem to let you down at every turn, it's important to keep faith with what feels true to you; your story. We shouldn't try to live other people's lives for them or write their lines, any more than we should seek to pass that responsibility on to others.
I've learned to look out for those in life who are meant to be part of my story and to see how I can best serve or colour theirs. This is a short post, because I am weary from court, because I have an injured hand; because I feel just a few fleeting words could wing their way to those I call Friends, whose own pages might also seem smudged or faint at the moment. 
A quote from an uncredited source seems to hang in the room around me at the moment: "It's hard to wait around for something you know might never happen, but it's even harder to give up when it's everything you ever wanted." My own blinking and twittering little emotional SatNav tells me not to mess with the route if I can't better it. Sometimes, chapters close suddenly and new ones open in unimagined scenery and unforeseen circumstances. Your story will still be there: look for the surprisingly warm smile, the name or place that rings a bell, the something that you always wanted to do. Trust that God may appear to change what He wants for or from you, but that the only agenda is your fulfillment  Read between your own lines, take comfort in your own essential smallness in the greatest story that will ever be told.

"People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it's the other way around." 

(Terry Pratchett)

"Wayfaring Stranger"  Ed Sheeran (version)

"I have my own story, and I love my story, but I know I can't tell it alone, not now. Because stories have centres, but they don't have edges. No boundaries." 

(Andrew Clements)

No ashes without fire...

"There is confidence everywhere in Ash Wednesday, yet that does not mean unmixed and untroubled security. The confidence of the Christian is always a confidence in spite of darkness and risk, in the presence of peril, with every evidence of possible disaster…

Once again, Lent is not just a time for squaring conscious accounts: but for realising what we had perhaps not seen before. The light of Lent is given us to help us with this realisation."

(From "Ash Wednesday", Thomas Merton)

Ash Wednesday finds us early this year. The first day of Lent, it seems ironic to point ourselves down the forty day rocky road towards Easter, the day before the supermarket choc-fest of St Valentine's Day. I know that Ash Wednesday ushers in a time of reflection and repentance, but I find it quite a hopeful day; I like having my forehead crossed and I like seeing other folk, away from the church, going about their daily business with their own crosses still in place. Beyond the Biblical symbolism of humility and mortality, we simply do all have our crosses to bear. There's even a kind of solidarity in it. 

I'm old enough now to realise that the greatest part of repentance isn't all in the acknowledgement of what I've done wrong or failed to do at all; it's in the willingness to put behind and to put right. Just as "Lent" derives from the Anglo Saxon "lencten", for springtime, meaningful repentance has to enfold hopefulness and renewal. For the first time in years, I really "get" that Ash Wednesday's crosses aren't just a more viable echo of the sackcloth and ashes of the Old Testament. I can more easily appreciate the mark on my forehead as a reminder of baptism: perhaps I'm growing up after all.
Certainly, I feel I know myself better than to go through the motions of "giving up" chocolate for Lent yet again: I only eat it as a treat and have just as much of a savoury tooth as a sweet one. And I know I'll invariably reach for a bar of dark chili chocolate after Easter; it would only be a temporary, niggling hardship. My sister always says it'll be "a lifetime on the hips" as I reach for a third biscuit, but untended regrets can do far more damage elsewhere. Aristotle noticed that:"Bad men are full of repentance." I think he knew a thing or two about the great untended elsewheres.

So maybe I should give up some deeper comfort zone: some situations and people can make me very uncomfortable and I retreat behind friends, excuses or naturally occurring delays and barriers. I so often allow myself to be thwarted by criticism, disdain or indifference. This Lent, I should give up giving up so easily. More tricky but far more rewarding for me personally than simply steering past the KitKats and Crunchies in Salisbury's. Although navigating past a bay of bargain treacle tarts might require assistance from in-store security.

"Distant Sun" might seem an odd choice of music for an Ash Wednesday post: if you're looking a traditional sombreness, you might well dismiss it as pop music, playing at being precious. And indeed if you want pop-rock in pure Beatles style then look no further than Crowded House, or Oasis. But I digress: this remains one of my favourite songs, pop or otherwise, because Neil Finn's lyrics seem to be about redeeming and renewing oneself; the possibility of changing and moving forward without forever casting an eye back to excuse or justify.
Have a soothing Ash Wednesday and a hopeful Lent.

"You're still so young to travel so far, 

Old enough to know who you are: 

Wise enough to carry the scars 

Without any blame; there's no one to blame"

"Distant Sun"  Crowded House

"A man who fails well is greater than one who succeeds badly."

(Thomas Merton)

...as though no-one is watching

Photo: Gigi, album

Visitors to my fally-down house in Brighton are greeted by an assortment of eccentricities, even as they proceed down my little hallway. Among these is a small woodcut that serves as a mission statement from the householder. It's an adaptation of a much-loved verse: often accredited to Mark Twain, one of my favourite authors, it's also been credited to Father Alfred de Souza and William W. Purkey.

A couple of days ago, my friend Coral's angelic but totally precocious four year old daughter Ronnie was pirouetting around in an empty room, only pausing to curtsey to her unseen public. She didn't miss a beat when I asked her why she was dancing: "Because Nobody's watching, Gigi!"
When I was slightly older than Ronnie, I would frequently embarrass my parents by singing all the way along the aisles in Safeway supermarket - for some reason, "Puppet on a String" was a huge favourite - and by shouting "Ding ding! All 'board!" at every stop on the old number 94 buses through Lewisham. Nowadays of course, I wouldn't dream of bursting into a Eurovision classic in the middle of Aldis: but is that really progress?
I'm often told that various aspects of me, from my voice to my clothes to my sense of humour, are childlike and therefore un-befitting someone of my actual years. Until quite recently, I used to be insulted, but now I understand it as something rather precious. I love Mark Twain's verse because it perfectly sums up how I hoped to live my life: not in selfish hedonism or at the expense of others, but with a lack of vanity and an essential feeling of joy and optimism. After another year of whingeing about myself and most people around me, I realise I've fallen far short of that goal again. We generally tend to disregard others' opinions until we question how they're regarding us. I've promised Ronnie that I'll go dancing with her out on The Level park when the weather is warmer, something she'll hold me to with the fluffy tenacity of a four year old. My other resolution for the New Year should surely be to pay more attention to the writings on my own wall.
Lee Ann Womack's song "I Hope You Dance" is a country favourite of mine and a regular number to warble in the shower, only witnessed by Ginger the-cat-from-next-door and God. Apart from that, Nobody. Why does Ginger the cat insist on sitting at my bathroom door when I have a shower? Well, he's a Brighton cat. Maybe he's read Mark Twain.

"I hope you Dance"  Lee Ann Womack (ft. her daughters)

"I hope you never lose your sense of wonder, 

You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger; 

May you never take one single breath for granted, 

God forbid love ever leave you empty handed. 

I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean; 

Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens. 

Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance 

And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance, 

I hope you dance" 

The smile is wide

Yesterday morning, my bouncy and efficient postman asked me why I wasn't smiling "so big" as usual, as he handed me not one but two letters from the bank, as the rain battered my porch. In fact, it probably hurt somewhat to smile due to my suddenly broken molar: not yet registered with a dentist here, the search for someone to sort me an emergency filing on the NHS is not proving fruitful, Later yesterday, my friend Lin told me that the wee blog had reached 12,000 page views and I smiled so wide that it felt like my jaw had dislocated. 12,000 page visits may not seem like much in the scheme of blogs, but I didn't really know that anyone other than a couple of friends might ever read this; some of my friends have found the blog "too Catholic" or even "too personal", which has made me bristle that this is my blog after all.
An anonymous social commentator said blogging is the unedited version of oneself; and I'm frequently told by some who care about me that I'm often too open and too "unedited".  I always counter that it seems important to me that folk are presented with the real deal, warts (and molars) and all, without any pretence: where some might see obligatory boundaries, I see unnecessary barriers. I've always had a big mouth and often feel I have to "say something" in situations where it would be more comfortable for me and everyone else if I kept quiet; my Mum and Dad both suffered from an excess of opinion and a banging sense of injustice. But blogs frequently and naturally become a catalogue of the minutiae of the blogger's life, and I know this has happened with "The Water is Wide".  
I admit that having to re-invent myself professionally and redefine myself personally after the loss of people, places and familiar things inspired me to witter and write this blog; I also found I had an exhausting amount of time on my hands, on my own in a new home. A few months on, I have far less downtime, but I feel I may still carry on with the wee blog. Maybe blogging is yet another form of vanity; and I can't deny that I've found a great deal of support in recapturing lost opportunities to show how much I appreciate my parents and things dear to me. Much as I'm aware that some people may find that mawkish, particularly some who've stumbled here looking for Brighton tea-shops or folk music discographies, I hope that someone somewhere will take a look at this blog and rekindle or re-cherish their own memories and stories. All we can ever truly be are our own stories, continually updated and re-worked. This blog is my story: I would encourage anyone to tell theirs.
There are many lovely versions of the folk song that lends it's name to this blog and I want to share as many as possible of them. Included here is a rousing version by long-standing Celtic folk and rock band Runrig. Also included is one of my favourite poems by W.B. Yeats, "A Crazed Girl", which feels very apt for me and my blog, particularly when accompanied by my poorly molar.

"A Crazed Girl"

"That crazed girl improvising her music.

Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,

Her soul in division from itself, 

Climbing, falling she knew not where, 

Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship, 

Her knee-cap broken, that girl I declare 

A beautiful lofty thing, or a thing 

Heroically lost, heroically found.

No matter what disaster occurred 

She stood in desperate music wound, 

Wound, wound, and she made in her triumph 

Where the bales and the baskets lay

No common intelligible sound 

But sang, 'O sea-starved, hungry sea.' "

(W.B. Yeats)

"The Water is Wide"  Runrig

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