tears dry on their own

There is a massive scar on my knee.  Three neat golden lines above my kneecap; stripes standing out against my brown skin backdrop.

As all scars do, mine have their own story. A tale that transports me back to my London childhood on a sunny day in a West London school playground.

There I was. Two neat Afro plaits on my seven year old head. A 1970s sun smiling on primary kids running through lunch-break, as primary kids are wont to do.

My endless running was momentarily paused to discuss a game of run-outs. Could lunch-time get any better? Only if the teacher let me ring the massive school bell in about half an hour, but until then no, run-outs meant playtime perfection.  

A decision to take a short-cut round the back of the rose bushes in front of our classrooms, a push from behind and there I am - rose thorn in my leg. Clamped tight like wall anchor screws. Nothing but nothing was gonna get these thorns out.

Turn away if you're squeamish. I saw flesh. I bled profusely. I was mesmerized, until the pain kicked in and the tears began. Friends scurried to find dinner-lady help whilst another wrapped her arms around me in best-friend protection mode.

"Well" the dinner lady said as her shadow loomed across me; a cloud in my understanding of humanity "You shouldn't have been running around by the rose bushes should you, you silly girl?"

I limped to medical room by myself. 

My golden scars; testament to a little girl who learned to read faces and moods and attitudes and think 'Oh right, that's who you are is it?'

This post was inspired by The Photographer's Gallery: familyphotographynow.net:Childhood Tears

me, myself and i

The writing prompt...

I want to be more...

Oh dear, I thought, where do I begin. I want to be more of everything, anything, something.

Fingers on the keyboard I start to enlist the words of Skee-Lo : I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I was a baller, I wish I had girl who looked good, I would call her...

I've got distracted. Start again.

I want to be more organized, more successful, more educated.

Nope I'm putting a downer on myself and actually I'm working on those things so you know - half a tick.

Back to the drawing board.

I want to be more creative, more brave, more smiley, more of a friend. 

Mmmm this isn't healthy and I'm negating the lovely people in my life who tell me I am all of those things. 

I want to be a more exciting and inspirational mother, I want to be a more patient wife, I want to be a more caring sister and daughter, I want to be more, more, more...

I'm reaching for the thesaurus to find more adjectives and adverbs to indicate how much I need to improve myself.

And then I stop typing to really have a think.

It took me 'til my forties to start really listening to people around me, to hear their guidance, to accept their help. It took me five years after that to realize that I cannot always be the me that people want me to be; I can only be the me that I can be. 

This doesn't stop me wanting to be more of a risk taker and become the adventurous hippy, jump into a bright red camper-van and drive my family around the world type earth mother I thought I was going to be.

But for now. I want to be more me.

Let's see how that goes for now eh?

This post is in response to a #Post40Bloggers #writingprompt no58: I want to be more...

busy doing nothing

I'm a procrastinator.

There. I said it. I admit it.

Why get that one important, it's been sitting there for ever needing sorting, thing out when I can do all those not-really-necessary-but-will-fill-that-gap-of-time-when-i-should-be-doing-something-else thing.

You know, like taking the day to paint a shed when I should be booking my car into the garage to investigate that clanging noise. This is because I hate making phone calls. To strangers. I can chat all day to people I know well.

Or hanging a shelf when the words of my novel are still floating in my head rather than lying seductively on a page. I've never hung a shelf before but lo and behold, there's a great big wonky pink one next to my desk complete with sliding books that were quite happily languishing on the floor.

What's it all about then? All this procrastination? Laziness? Boredom? Confidence? Fear?

Fear! Yes let's look at that one. The absolute fear of getting it wrong, of being rejected, of ...cue cliffhanger pause...failure.

Procrastination enables me to get some inane task all bright, shiny and correct (bar the shelf clearly but you know I tried, right?) whilst leaving the seriously challenging ones for another time slot. This is quite a dangerous trait to develop whilst working alone at home all day although interestingly, not one I recognised when I was in my old day job.

The difference? There were others who relied on me. I would struggle the day long so as not to be tardy, ill prepared or lacking when I was in teacher mode...or mum mode, to be honest.

The supportive words of wonderful friends soon become frustrated imperatives as I, once again, doubt my experience and ability.

And there it is. What I'm avoiding is being the me I want to be.

This post is inspired by Post40Bloggers writing prompt no31: I'm avoiding...

family business (things i have learnt about holiday-me part4)

Saying goodbye to aged grandparents that I've barely met in my 44 years was one of the most heartbreaking things I've ever had to do.

In the blistering sun, dressed in comfy airplane attire, I hugged my Caribbean grandma and grandad and (in my best West Indian vernacular) me bawl. My three children were agog at the dribbling mess that sat between them on the taxi ride to the airport; this certainly was a waterproof mascara day.

This is an unsual experience for me as my grandparents have lived for the majority of my life in Grenada so apart from the baby years, a couple of childhood visits abroad and taking a quick trip over during my three maternity leaves, I've never considered that I had much of a relationship with them. How could I? They were three thousand miles away and technology arrived too late for us to establish a true connection.

Life moves on doesn't it? We plough the seeds and scatter and all that.

Yet in researching the Caribbean journey from home to the UK, I found myself with more questions than answers. My grandparents came were post-Windrush generation and not from Jamaica so the footage and documentation regarding their experience was always sparse. I wanted to know what it was like on the boat on the way over, what it was like to arrive, live and work in the 1960's, what made them return home when those around them were putting down roots?

A memory lane trip around Shepherds Bush with my dad, who arrived in the UK at 16, was incredibly useful in painting a picture for the life I needed to create for the character of Gracie in my novel:a young mother who follows her husband from Grenada to London.  But I needed the first hand tales of my grandparents to understand how it felt to be in Britain at that time.

Having the opportunity to visit my grandparents and listening to grand-uncles and aunts regale stories of years past, I felt blessed that I was able to hear them first hand. Afternoons spent sifting through faded photo albums led to volumes of anecdotes that transformed my grandparents from the elderly people I saw before me to the young, spirited, hard-working people they used to be; people from a time that their children and grandchildren would never know.

So much is already gone and forgotten with a generation who left snippets of history from their own lives and I realise with sorrow the conversations missed with people I have not taken the time to value.  The simple fact is that everyone takes  a piece of their life-stories with them one day and I fear that in this selfie-life we are too preoccupied with the us and now; we are disregarding our past and losing pieces of our history puzzles.

Writing my novel led me to explore my family history which, amongst hurrah-inducing finds and foot stomping frustrating dead-ends, led me to question the who, whats, wheres and whens that contributed to little old me. Desperately trying to keep up with she who married Mr So-and-So's brother from down the hill who is also our family you know was a daily challenge and a daily reality as I was introduced to yet another cousin. But these revelations also opened up branches of a family tree I never knew existed; pieces of my missing jigsaw.

Although the goodbyes were painful I am overjoyed that I got some time with my grandparents because the bare-face truth is that I am unlikely to afford a return trip any year soon. But the time spent with four generations together have made life long memories and certainly reminded me of the importance of listening to those who came before because one day we will want our stories to be heard by those who will follow after.

legal alien (things i have learnt about holiday-me part3)

Identity, something we all seem to crave and understand throughout our lives. Some are clear about theirs and probably don't even consider it too much whilst others are on a perpetual quest for what theirs might be.

As a kid I just was who I was. When I started to venture into other lives and other families, only then did I discover what made me different from others.

Apparently not everyone listened to reggae with their Sunday lunch. Amongst my friends, I was clearly the only child having my washed hair pulled in every which way to create the perfect plaits that would last me until the next weekend.

Over time I grew to appreciate the journey my family had taken that resulted in my English birth. Heading out of my teens and into young adulthood I found camaraderie with other British born/Caribbean heritage about our hair issues, the way our parents would slip in and out of West Indian accents depending on who they were talking to, how we never left the house creaming our skin. We shared the sorrows of other people's negativity thrust into our life paths and the joys of coming together at family do's.

This was...is my identity.

Yet this has been a strange summer. In a year where my Britishness has been called into question, I spent some time in the Caribbean island my father calls home and began to re-consider where did I really belong?

You see I grew up with kids and strangers on the street telling me to go home. Comedians of my ethnicity and generation will now joke about responding to 'home' as round the corner, just off the high street...but we all knew what they really meant. Back to where we 'should' have been from, to where our parents were born. But you know if your parents are born in two different Caribbean islands or your feet have only ever holidayed outside your birth place, the conundrum remains...where exactly do you go?

On the occasions I have visited I think I'll blend in. I am no longer a minority so until I speak how would you know I'm not a local, right? Wrong. Dad says it's easy to spot. I'm gutted; is there nowhere that I can just fit in, disappear, be inconspicuous?

What gives me away? Is it the sweat pool I've filled with my body weight whilst just strolling down the road - I say 'strolling'...

Is it the British walking pace I still subconsciously maintain in this heat?

Is it the way I've had to learn to smile with my teeth and offer a pleasant greeting at closed inquisitive faces which then break into a kind welcome? I'm a Londoner, I don't do smiling at strangers so this is a massive learning curve.

Is it the way I bathe myself in factor 50 sun cream as soon as the morning sun rises in the mountains then shower myself in insect repellent as it sets into the evening sea.

Is it the way I bounce from one hot foot to another tetchy one if the wait in the shop or restaurant is a little long whilst those around me wait patiently?

Is it in the way my 3G dare to answer me back in the local supermarket (summer hols seem to have vanquished the power of the mum stare at the moment)?

Is it the way in which I can't seem to let my tense London shoulders sink to bask in the warmth of my surroundings.

One half of my ancestors may have planted, nurtured and grown roots here but from my view on this branch of the family tree, this beautiful island is not my home. And whilst it welcomes me, I simply do not belong; in spite of my recently fruitful and exciting family research my feet have walked in similarly green yet contrasting colder pastures.

Which, methinks, is one darn shame.

I wish I was being welcomed home by immigration staff like my travelling aunt passing through before me. I'd love to feel the spirit of the strong women of my patriarchal line as I discover more about them. How marvellous it would be to walk up the road to my house to find it adorned with colourfully painted stones, walls and roofs.

And I'd relish the scene of my neighbours sitting on their walls to lime and jig a foot or jump up 'til the early hours...at weekends anyway, I still find it hard to jig my foot midweek.

So for now I will embrace my foreigness and go full tourist.

backstabbers

72 hours have passed since THAT result.  4 days since I cast my opinion. My feeds and timeline are full of people saying we should calm down. A clear head has me thinking that we just have to skip to the fifth and final stage of recovery; acceptance. The morning has not awoken to find us literally adrift heading to get a better view of the Northern Lights.

And then. 

I'm walking around my local supermarket and someone holds my gaze as we do the shoppers shuffle past the sliced loaves and I find myself thinking what what did you vote? I spot one of those glances from one person to the hijab-ed lady in the milk aisle and I am reminded of the twitter stories of immigrant (I'll come back to this in a mo) people being venomously told they need to book their flights home and journalists faced with the gleeful spewing of the man in the street who is glad that there won't be any immigrants allowed in anymore and his wife who is proud of her country intimating that this means no other should share in it with her. 

And then we hear of the leave voters who have resurfaced with the groggy head of the night's revelry now discover the handsome promises they cuddled up to turns out to have cut and run in the middle of the night, leaving them dazed, confused and pale with the shame of being used.  

Is this what we must expect from now on?

Has the belly of this country been sliced to allow the festering maggots, that have been feeding quietly on themselves, to slither to the surface and infect the wounds that many of us are desperate to nurse and heal?

It could be just my paranoia. But I come from the land of the 1980s where my innocent stroll to school could be littered with racist taunts and people would openly boycott the corner shop because the new owners were Pakistanis (yes this happened and there was much rejoicing when they left). So my ears, eyes and sensitivities are on high alert when I hear that the country that I was born and raised in, educated me, nursed me, enjoyed the working benefits of me, my grandparents and parents, thrust me into the path of an Englishman, saw the birth of my children; that this country doesn't want people like me.

Because I am the child of migrants. I have taught the children of migrants who like me know nothing of their parent's country so this country is their home - this is all we know. The metamorphosis of one generation's culture, language, life in one nation to another experienced by their children has happened in Britain for centuries.

Do people really expect that to change? Overnight? (By the way I am well aware of the plethora of other reasons people voted leave, I'm choosing to focus on this one as it has arisen in my real life timeline.)

Is this the ugliness that we have to raise our kids with now (on top of all the ugliness of scary millennial living that's already out there)?

And anyway, you tell me, how do you spot an immigrant? 

Having already been in denial that this really, really happened and that one day my kid's kids will be studying this week in their history lessons, I am retreating to step two and four : anger and depression.  

Allow it.

 

i am the one and only (things i have learnt about holiday-me part 2)

Things I have learnt about holiday-me: part 2: I used to think it was just in middle England that I felt my colour but not so, dear readers, not so

I will not bore you with the trials and tribulations of my flying fear, it has been perused far too many times before.  I am witheringly aware that the dimensions of my fear are such that I played no part in the organising of this particular holiday; a control I struggle to forsake.  I didn’t acknowledge the holiday ergo the flight did not exist. To which end I only retained the information of who (good friends we normally share tents with), what (a villa near the beach apparently), when (half term) and why (said friends and GeordieLad had enough of the tents in June).  I left where (I knew it was in Spain but that was all) and how (I knew we weren’t driving that was enough for me and my fear).

So I said I wasn’t going to write about the fear and look, a whole paragraph has passed on it.  Curse you flying tin contraption.

My childhood was not made of European holidays.  We did two trips to visit my grandparents in the Caribbean – ten years apart – and apart from that it was self-catering cottages in various counties across England’s green and pleasant land.  They were good fun and we were well aware that mum and dad had saved ridiculously hard for a week in a British coastal town.

Once past the motorway madness, country lane discombobulation, paused travelling for mum to have her cream tea in a quaint pub, we arrived at the jigsaw puzzle country house ready for adventure into forests and seaside towns unknown.  Hazy summer days on busy beaches would skim over us like smooth pebbles bouncing on a peaceful shore.

Then you notice the double-takes, the looks, a child may stare for just that little bit too long.

And there it is.  Glance left and right to the nether regions of the coastal line and we were the brownest bodies on the beach, by a country mile. I don’t know if it ever bothered mum and dad; if it did they never showed it or talked about it within their children’s earshot.  I’m sure they did notice and chose to plough on enjoying their holiday, I’m sure they saw a lot more – this was the 80’s after all – but we never stopped our adventures through the counties of England.

A life in the capital has led me to forget my status in the 4% of ethnic minorities, I have become accustomed to a city where – in the words of Depeche Mode – people are people.  But once out of London, be it a county outside the sounds of the M25 or a popular beach on the Costa del Sunny or in a busy hypermarket, I see the question mark glances.  I feel it and like a cat’s arched back raising its hair on end, I turn on my guard. 

Once I was told it’s my paranoia.  By a white person.  I would that it were.

But when writing this, I am in a different country with family and friends.  A blue sky with a pulsating sun in its belly wakes us up every morning.  I sit and write by a pool with the echoes of a Spanish gardener singing across the road.  And I am learning to walk (or sunbathe) with the air of someone who doesn’t give a hoot. 

Look upon my afro, my brown face and despair.

(read: things i have learnt about holiday-me part1)

can you see the real me?

The writing prompt - something I wanted as a child  really made me look back on childhood birthdays and Christmases to see if any disappointment had ever been registered, but I couldn't. I think the fact that we had been taught to appreciate any gifts or should I say be damn grateful for what we got, that  I can't recall any crestfallen moments upon discarding the wrapping papers twice a year.

So what then?

Well, for a while, I would say between the ages of 12 and 18, I deeply wanted something that I knew would never be attained, could never be given, was not in my power and more importantly...I never voiced. Ever. Until now.

I wanted to be white.

Whilst I store my shame about this statement in a drawer marked 'what I shouldn't say out loud', it struck me when thinking about this writing prompt that this unspoken feeling overshadowed an immense part of my formative years.

There were never any thoughts of trying to bleach or scraping off my skin - occurrences which I have read about some severely unhappy black children experiencing - no, because on the whole my homelife was a secure and supportive environment. But up until the age of 9 I was submerged in a London life where we were all just people, just kids, running around in flares and tank tops.

Moving from London to Essex in the 80s was a decision my parents didn't take lightly but I don't think anything could have prepared me for the shift of social identity.  For the first time I felt my colour - now some people may not understand what this comment means. In London I had just been nine year old me then suddenly I was nine year BLACK me - of course I knew what my face looked like but it had never reflected as a negative or highlighted fact about me. I was just ME!

Initially it wasn't really about the wanting a white face thing but as the new kid on the block I just wanted to fit in with all the other kids - who all happened to be all white kids. And at school I was experiencing regular interactions like these with other kids:

Is your skin the same colour as your face under your clothes?

Is your bum black? (This one was called through the toilet door when a bunch of us went to the loo, as girlies do)

At my party we'll play a game where we have to guess who's hands belong to the person under the blanket but you won't be able to play.

Why are you black?

You've got rubber lips.

Bemused I batted these comments away with jokes; I became a comedian thereby I made friends.

Secondary school hit hard. The comments thrown my way were not so funny. Verbal and physical abuse ensued. But you know my parents, teachers and friends supported me and so I really did enjoy school.

But something lay deep; the need to belong as I gradually became aware that I was different to my peer group and according to the world I was in, not in a good way either. I started to dislike what I saw in the mirror; my nose, my lips, my bottom, my plaited hair - no swinging wash and blow-dry for me (Saturday nights were lost to un-plaiting, untangling and re-plaiting again).  And despite the ambitious efforts of my parents to promote black role models, my TV, film and music influences were mainly white and the in-crowd girls getting all the attention in my playground were white. Things became clear when the most popular girl told me that the most popular boy in the school liked me but would never go out with me simply because I was black. Not that I was really interested in boys at this time but I guess then it suddenly hit me that my skin colour was a problem.

When I went to university and later into the working world, the underlying desire was somewhat achieved by relaxing my hair, dying it blond and wearing blue contact lenses. You must understand this was never a conscious decision to make myself white; this was a look that I believed made me attractive and accepted. For a short while anyway. Thankfully I matured into myself my life and soon discovered that I didn't recognize this version of  Me looking back in the mirror so over time these additions were removed.

I'm shutting the draw firmly back now because I do feel incredibly sad that I used to wish my beautiful childhood face away and maybe the next time I'm asked this question, I'll say a Chopper bike, that's what I wanted when I was a kid, a bright red Chopper bike.

This post was inspired by #post40bloggers #writingprompt82 : something I wanted as a child