What will it take to make you see?
I feel you just want sex, you don't want me.
A hand reaches out across the bed.
Can't you feel me shrink, roll over, pretend to sleep?
Can't you see that demanding more makes me want it less?
Sleazy gifts of satin and lace? Naughty toys? They're just for boys, they leave me cold.
What does it take to turn me on?
Well.....................
When was the last time you made me smile?
When was the last time you smiled at me?
When was the last time you lingered in a room, just because I was in it?
When was the last time you touched me for no reason at all?
To be greeted with 'Your dinner is ready' rather than 'When will dinner be ready?' would make my day. To be greeted at all even.
When I make lunch, I make yours too. When you make lunch it's just for you.
You live your life, I live mine. In the hurly burly of babies and boys, schoolwork, work-work, homework, housework, there's you and there's me. What happened to we?
Just be nice. How hard could it be? A hug that's just a hug. Not foreplay.
Just be there once in a while. To chat, to pass me a clothes peg or a knife. To listen to a snippet from the paper, gossip about the neighbours, laugh at crap on TV. To tease the boys, tell them how we met, what fun we had when we were young, the places we've been, the things we've seen.
Come out of that office, that retreat. Come live in our world with your boys and me. Let me see you laugh and see you smile, the colour of your eyes, the smell of your skin. The way you slouch in blue jeans. Wear blue jeans, not those old man trousers you've started to wear. Put on some music, play it loud, let me dance.
Stop worrying about the sex. The sex is fine. It's the rest that's wrong.
Why can't you see what it's like to be me?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, that just poured itself onto the page one Sunday afternoon but then I got to thinking- always a bad idea where I'm concerned.
What is it like to be you then? what's it like being married to a bad tempered, grumpy old woman who's always 'too tired'; always making excuses? Do you wish things were different? My friends think I'm mad when I groan about the incessant demands but I can't help thinking that it's not me you want, I'm just convenient, available (Haha, you wish). Or. Maybe it's the only way you can think of to show me you love me?
Yeah, Right.
Friday, 20 November 2009
Sunday, 1 November 2009
Mother in law
She adores my children, they adore her, their Grandma. She is unstinting of her time; babysitting, child minding, housework, gardening, never forgets a birthday or Christmas. Our debt of gratitude is huge.
She is also the most bigotted racist person I have ever had to give house room to.
They came over today to help in the garden, despite all my efforts to put them off. Thick skinned doesn't begin the cover the way she can ignore my efforts to turn down her generous offers of assistance.
She brought us a home baked cake apologising that it had sunk a little. I suggested that the flour might be to blame - I sometimes have trouble with bread flour not rising and had read that low gluten content in winter wheat could cause bread to flop. She wondered where the flour came from - bound to be 'foreign' flour that was rubbish. I suggested that most flour was imported - England is not exactly awash in wheat fields after all. She actually looked appalled and then relieved when I said I thought most of our flour came from Canada. "Oh, Canada? That's alright. It couldn't be China or India could it?. I couldn't eat it if it came from there".
Speechless.
She has in the past actually said that she couldn't eat indian or chinese food because 'those people' will have have touched it.
Invited themselves to lunch and Grandad (sweetie) was browsing through a library book on 20th century Britain. He read out a snippet about concentration camps set up in Africa by the British during the Boer war - thousands of women and children died of malnutrition and disease. Without the slightest hint of irony she said "and now we're overrun with immigrants coming over here". And a nice little comment about Muslims / terrorists - interchangeable terms in her view.
Speechless again.
She isn't even ashamed or embarrassed about saying these things. It hasn't even crossed her mind that I disagree with her views let alone find them extremely offensive.
I've told her many times that my family are Irish immigrants - I was born in Dublin but she doesn't even see the connection - I'm white after all so that's different.
I've pointed out that the British occupied India for 300 years before we (we? nothing to do with me, I'm Irish and have plenty to be guilty about without this) graciously allowed them to have their own country back. That's different and no excuse for 'them' coming over here and taking all our jobs. Like. What jobs exactly? All our ambitions to become taxi drivers, work 18 hour days in corner shops or textile sweat shops or open restaurants where we can be abused and insulted by drunken (english) louts til 4am in the morning thwarted by this tide of immigrants 'overrunning' the country?? Give me strength!
Her own niece is married to an African Caribbean man - how can she say these things and get away with it? Why don't I have the guts to tell her that I do not share her views and find them offensive? That would be because of my complete inability to deal with confrontation (of which more another time) and her utter bone deep stupidity and inability to begin to understand what I'm talking about. She simply cannot see it.
She has no books in her house. They gather dust and make a mess. Her husband, a quiet, intelligent, gentle soul, cannot have books except for one or two at a time from the library. Her highest accolade about a hotel / house / country is that it is very clean -"Oooh you'ld like Italy J___, it's ever so clean, I wasn't expecting it (unspoken - a country full of not very white foreigners) to be so clean".
After they had left I had some cake. Her dark brown chocolate cake. I'm a bad person. Bad.
She is also the most bigotted racist person I have ever had to give house room to.
They came over today to help in the garden, despite all my efforts to put them off. Thick skinned doesn't begin the cover the way she can ignore my efforts to turn down her generous offers of assistance.
She brought us a home baked cake apologising that it had sunk a little. I suggested that the flour might be to blame - I sometimes have trouble with bread flour not rising and had read that low gluten content in winter wheat could cause bread to flop. She wondered where the flour came from - bound to be 'foreign' flour that was rubbish. I suggested that most flour was imported - England is not exactly awash in wheat fields after all. She actually looked appalled and then relieved when I said I thought most of our flour came from Canada. "Oh, Canada? That's alright. It couldn't be China or India could it?. I couldn't eat it if it came from there".
Speechless.
She has in the past actually said that she couldn't eat indian or chinese food because 'those people' will have have touched it.
Invited themselves to lunch and Grandad (sweetie) was browsing through a library book on 20th century Britain. He read out a snippet about concentration camps set up in Africa by the British during the Boer war - thousands of women and children died of malnutrition and disease. Without the slightest hint of irony she said "and now we're overrun with immigrants coming over here". And a nice little comment about Muslims / terrorists - interchangeable terms in her view.
Speechless again.
She isn't even ashamed or embarrassed about saying these things. It hasn't even crossed her mind that I disagree with her views let alone find them extremely offensive.
I've told her many times that my family are Irish immigrants - I was born in Dublin but she doesn't even see the connection - I'm white after all so that's different.
I've pointed out that the British occupied India for 300 years before we (we? nothing to do with me, I'm Irish and have plenty to be guilty about without this) graciously allowed them to have their own country back. That's different and no excuse for 'them' coming over here and taking all our jobs. Like. What jobs exactly? All our ambitions to become taxi drivers, work 18 hour days in corner shops or textile sweat shops or open restaurants where we can be abused and insulted by drunken (english) louts til 4am in the morning thwarted by this tide of immigrants 'overrunning' the country?? Give me strength!
Her own niece is married to an African Caribbean man - how can she say these things and get away with it? Why don't I have the guts to tell her that I do not share her views and find them offensive? That would be because of my complete inability to deal with confrontation (of which more another time) and her utter bone deep stupidity and inability to begin to understand what I'm talking about. She simply cannot see it.
She has no books in her house. They gather dust and make a mess. Her husband, a quiet, intelligent, gentle soul, cannot have books except for one or two at a time from the library. Her highest accolade about a hotel / house / country is that it is very clean -"Oooh you'ld like Italy J___, it's ever so clean, I wasn't expecting it (unspoken - a country full of not very white foreigners) to be so clean".
After they had left I had some cake. Her dark brown chocolate cake. I'm a bad person. Bad.
Saturday, 10 October 2009
13 minutes
13 minutes while the bread rolls are in the oven. 13 minutes peace and quiet - no-one looking over my shoulder. 13 minutes privacy to think my own thoughts. My mother told my sister that she never really bonded with me when I was a baby. A few months ago this was but I still think about it frequently. I feel hurt, shocked. But also a feeling of 'well that explains a lot'. I mean, I was fairly sure she loved me as much as she loves any of us -when you have so many children, it can't be that easy. But I thought she loved us all the same - lightly, distantly, concientiously if not over affectionately. But perhaps she loves the others more than me. Perhaps she has a favorite. A special one, one who makes her eyes light up, her heart sing, brings a smile to her face when she thinks of him or her. Probably her, there are more hers than hims in our family. I remember having a day out with her, just the two of us. That was very rare, obviously when you have such a large family. It must have been a Sunday or I was off school for some reason for there just to be the two of us. We went on the bus to Elland. I was about 11 or 12. There was some kind of fair or fete going on. I don't know how she even knew about it, she was pretty well trapped at home most of the time. I especially remember there was a raffle for a doll in a crib, dressed in christening clothes. I fell in love with it though I was never much into dolls and we bought a ticket. We didn't win it though but I still remember that feeling of intense longing, of wanting it so much. She made my clothes - well, she made most of all our clothes, we were that poor. But she was a really good dressmaker, we had some really nice stuff. I simply don't remember her treating me any differently to any of the others, which is why I'm so...so what? I can't describe it - it's a bit like being embarrassed or humiliated - the feeling you get when you assume you'll be invited to a party all your friends are going to and then find out you're not - crushed - that would do it. I'm crushed. I just took for granted that my mother loved me and maybe she didn't and I feel bereft. And I don't know what I've missed - or if I'm less of a person because I haven't had that complete unconditional love of another person. The way I love my sons, that I would lay down my life for without a seconds hesitation. I'd better make sure they never have to doubt that for a single second. Time's up.
Thursday, 1 October 2009
How hard can it be?
How hard can it be, honestly? Sausage and mash is not a complicated dish but for someone who can rebuild a computer with his bare hands, you don't half make a meal of it. First put sausages in oven; then start peeling potatoes, then put water on to boil and then put potatoes in. Sausages now ready; 15 minutes left for potatoes. When potatoes almost done, start thinking about veg. Put water on to boil...well, no need to go on. For gods sake, 20 seconds forethought would have told you that linear meal preparation is not a very effective way of getting dinner on the table.
Sunday, 6 September 2009
The first day
This is just for me. Not expecting anyone to read it. Feel I need a private space for my private thoughts. Have, over the years kept diaries, notebooks and so on but would be appalled if anyone found and read them. Mainly because they are juvenile, ranting, ephemeral and not meant to be read. It helps sometimes just to write verything down to get things in perspective.
I'm a middle aged woman, living in England. I'm married, 2 children both boys. Since I turned 50 I've noticed that I'm practically invisible to people on the street. Young people don't make way for me when they see me coming - I have to step off the kerb or deviate from my path to get round them. I say something in a meeting and it's as if I haven't spoken. I find it very annoying.
I'm a middle aged woman, living in England. I'm married, 2 children both boys. Since I turned 50 I've noticed that I'm practically invisible to people on the street. Young people don't make way for me when they see me coming - I have to step off the kerb or deviate from my path to get round them. I say something in a meeting and it's as if I haven't spoken. I find it very annoying.
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