Writing comes easily, it always has. I was raised to worship the word as written, as God. Writing was the road to salvation. It was the ultimate form of expression, of transmission. It was the means by which we could find our way through to the heart of darkness. I was taught to form symbols and meaning from the strokes of black on white.  My father showed me how to form the necessary symbols; my mother encouraged me to inform.

I was blessed with a fertile mind, an active mind. A blessing that meant I had plenty of material from which to form my words. My mind never shut off, there was always something there, something forming, reforming, leaping and sweeping, demanding space to move. This blessing soon become a curse, as I too quickly fell behind. My hand could not keep pace with that which moved it.  By the time I was six, the backlog had begun. Words unformed festered in my head, becoming mishappen and mashed together, they soon formed an amorphous seething black mass.

I tried my best to ease the beast inside. I scribbled and scrawled, doodled and drafted, and yet I never rid myself of that backlog. The seething mass just kept getting bigger and darker and more demanding. I tried, and the more I tried the more I seemed to fail. All I managed were moments of temporary relief through an expulsion of built up vocabulary onto the page in front of me.

What I saw there only disheartened me more. My words made no sense.  Their mutant shape while  recognisable to me, were alien to any others who saw them.  They were not pretty, they emerged from me squashed and pummelled. I had no time it seemed to nurture and nourish them after their birth, for there were always so many others, mangled and maimed, yearning to be set free.

For so many years I have lived in this agony. A narrow neck, a choked canal.

 So why do it?

Because it is what I am meant to do. I realise that now. It is not about making sense. It is not about finding an audience. It is not about anything other than this, simply this. Writing words is what I’m meant to be doing.

Some people are talkers, others have a healing touch, others still are affectionate and demonstrative in their love. I am all these things in part, yet none of these things come as naturally or as easily as the recording of my mind.

And I need to keep practising. I need to keep sitting in front of the page and writing what I am. For when I am not, I am distracted by the voices in my head. I am distracted through attachment and investment. When I am not writing I am caring; caring about whether I make sense, caring about whether I am making a good impression, caring about whether I am fully in this moment or not, and what the next one might be.

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

A moment of recognition. Once I was so afraid of these. Now I sit calmly and write in my father’s hand. He guides me, steadies my desire to make haste.

patience is a virtue…

action speaks louder than words

Thanks dad. You don’t get enough credit methinks. I am your gentle giant. Thank you for the love so consistent, the attention that never waivered. I never questioned your love – and now as a father myself, I praise you. You showed me the way, and mum, well she …

… was a gypsy

a wild moment, uncontrollable, unrestrained, a crazy shot in the dark, a lightening bolt.

I am discovering her once again. A sister. A step-daughter. This is the mum I came to this country to find. And now as I sit in this northern town, what about you? Is there someone to find? Is there somewhere to go?

Not yet. Now I sit calmly and write – and wonder how can we be too busy in our lives to stop and care for our parents as they lie dying? I was too busy when you died. Sorry dad. Now all these years later I realise there is something else I wished I had said to you as I sat beside you.

I wanted to tell you that it’s all OK. I wanted to look into your eyes and tell you there is nothing to fear. That is what I didn’t say.

I was too busy. Too afraid of life myself to be able to reassure you of the wonder and glory and grace of death.

And the thing is, you knew my fear, and it was you who looked it my eyes, you who squeezed my hand, and told me.

Thank you. Thank you for all the time you spent with me. Thank you for the vigour with which you lived. And now all these years later, thank you for the dignity with which you died.

You showed me the way. One final act of parental guidance – you let me know that dying is ok.

And maybe it was also your love for mum that gave you the courage to choose to die. In your dying you changed me – into the man who loved your wife. Into the man who stood by her, who sat by her as she lay dying and looked into her eyes and reassured her than it was all ok.

I think you knew what you were doing.

as i write this

my father is with me

a northerner

i feel him

he is in this mark

upon the page

he is quiet

as the bell tolls

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

It’s a roundabout journey, and I’ll start at the end. My dad, Sid and his love of tools. He had lots and lots of tools and things, Many of them still in the garage when I left the family home about a year ago – and dad died 25 years ago. Dad was more often outside than in the house, building or demolishing something. Mum would call him for coffee and then get annoyed as it went cold as he lingered over his latest project. He was not a great tradesman or artisan: he just loved it. Working with concrete, knocking down or building something out of wood, tinkering with the car or the lawnmower.

One of the television adverts I remember most vividly from my early childhood days was one for Sidchrome spanners. The catchline was ‘you canna hand a man a grander spanner’, and I think because of the name of the spanner (Sidchrome) I always associated the advert with my dad (Sid). Anyway, while dad was no great shakes (there’s a weird English term, deriving I understand from someone who couldn’t toss winning dice) at the manly pursuits of mechanical engineering, joinery or carpentry, his desires and dreams were realised in my brother, Steve who is a gifted chippie (unlike myself who has virtually no construction ability whatsoever!).

What caused me to think of spanners, and recall the Sidchrome advert was the term ‘a spanner in the works’, (another strange English idiom – which must be quite a difficult one to grasp for those of us for whom English is a second language). Well someone put a spanner in my works a couple of days ago.

It was only the day before that I was staggering and stumbling on my way to Frank’s in the late afternoon – and wondering why? Why am I not striding along as usual? It didn’t take me long to realise the answer – because I was shattered. Over-exercising and under-eating had left me weary and bone-tired. Under-eating because Cari had gone to visit her daughter in Manchester a few days before and I was not bothering to look after myself, and over-exercising because that week had seen an increase in my clientelle at work from one to three.

Now it’s not that I get a lot of exercise caring for older men in their own homes. Usually a lot of meal making, dish washing, bathing and general housekeeping. The exercise comes from getting from one place to the next.  And as the number of men has increased so has the need to get around a little quicker, and once again, Cari has come to my rescue.

I started using Cari’s mountain bike to get from one client to the next. It’s probably been about 20 years since I rode a pushbike in any serious fashion, and as I staggered along to Frank’s I realised that for the last two days I had been riding about 15 miles each morning – and walking another 3 – 5 miles in the afternoon. No wonder I was feeling a little weary (and maybe that’s why my bum’s so sore?). And I could have (easily) in that moment thought how hard, how tiring, how ridiculous all this is – riding 15 miles to visit three men; spending 4 hours away from home for £10 in pay. However I did not. I remembered where this particular journey had begun.

It began that morning, as I rode from visiting Roger towards Frank, and the sun had come up, and the sky was clear. I had time to stop somewhere so I rode into a small park at the back of Sutton. Rested my bike upon the back of a park-bench, I stretched, feeling the effects of the ride in my muscles. The sun was at my back, casting shadows across the green expanse in front of me, and in that moment I felt glorious. I felt truly grateful to be alive. Life is GOOD, life is wonderful. I spoke out loud “I feel great”.

So that’s the end of this story – at the beginning. Oh, I didn’t tell you about the spanner in the works after all that. That’s what comes from trying to recount a journey backwards, from end to beginning. Anyway what is a spanner in the works when the world is such a wonderful place?

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

It’s Friday afternoon. I want to just stop for a moment and acknowledge the week that has been. It was a huge week for me. Now looking back I can see that I have been tireless this week.

The Glanville Trust is winding up. It will be no more in a few more days. It was set up some 6 years or so ago, so that mum could be cared for, so that she could die peacefully, in her own home, surrounded by people who loved her. She did. God bless her.

My financial situation is changing dramatically. As the Trust winds up it rewards me financially. Thank you mum. This is my inheritance. Thank you for all the gifts you bestowed upon me over those 88 wonderful years. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

My employment situation has changed. I now have an agent who organises and arranges any work for me. And I pick and choose as to when I want to work and what I want to do. I am a ‘free agent’ so to speak. This is a massive transformation.

The delicious ambiguity has receded. The mist has cleared for a time. I now know where I stand. I recognise and stand strong in my turangawaewae. Kia kaha, kia toa, kia manawanui. 

I have in the last week produced a huge amount of writing, on here, and in emails, on postcards. More than that I have realised a dream. My dream of being a writer. That is what I am. That is what I have become.

All this has happened this week. Today is October 31st. It is my father’s birthday. Today I also realise that dad has been absent from this site. He has been in the shadows. Behind the scenes, behind me. Always. Always there. He is, he always was, he always will be – a rock. My rock.

Dad died some 25 years ago. Dad, it is time for you to come to the front of the stage. Into the spotlight.

Dad, thanks so much for being so different.

Never before have I appreciated it so much.

I am my own man, a man like you

because of you

I love who I am

 I love who you were

x godbless x

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

wow – where have I been and where I have been!! Places faraway, places deep inside, superficial places, well known places, routes walked along many times over, well worn, rutted even. Anyway, nevermind, I am here now, and there is much I wish to do and say. First, a memory…

I remember walking out of the house on a hot summer’s day, wanting to be with my father, wanting to spend some time with him as he pottered outside, in this moment spreading soap suds over the bonnet of the family car. Saundering over, a little afraid to disturb him perhaps, a little nervous,

“hi dad, what are you doing?’

“I’m baking a cake, what does it look like I’m doing”

I was raised not to say inane things. It was a big thing in my family, and I think I have taught my sons the same as well. The thing is this made it hard for me to speak. What were the meaningful non-inane words that I should have spouted at 15, when the girlfriend of one of the spunkiest 5th formers ever, tells me that her girlfriend really fancies me, and she’s waiting for me in the next room.

I have only learnt those words in the last few years. 34 years after I needed them! Although they do come in handy even now, which is wonderful in itself!

However what I did learn a lot younger than a lot of other kids my age was that I really doesn’t matter what I am being told - I learnt to trust that I knew for myself what’s going on. Use your senses – look, touch, smell, taste, listen, feel – you tell me what is going on.

It did not take me long to learn to think before I spoke. I learnt to interpret what I could see and hear and smell and taste and touch and feel and analyse it and reach a conclusion and then…. well it would be utterly inane to ask after it, or even comment directly on it.

 WE KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON – WE KNOW- TRUST OUR INTUITION, TRUST OUR KNOWING

Yehaaaa, I’m back – home again home again jiggety jog – I remember those words coming to me through the surrounding dark, and the pool of light from the front door – to light the way from the car to my bed, snuggled in my father’s arms, wrapped up in my mother’s love – home again, home again, safe and sound. Thanks mum and dad – ha – thanks so much for creating such a safe haven for me.   Home again…

Ah yes, grasshopper, travelling through places unknown reminds us to be mindful of where we step, and which way we turn. It is this mindfulness that is often lost amongst that which is most familiar.