Saturday, December 31, 2011

Happy New Year



This has been the worst Christmas since Pam died. Last night I cried until my bones ached then I went to bed and dreamed that the world was ending and Pam and I were trying to find a place to be for the final end.

This is proving to be an awful time of year for me. Last night I came to the conclusion that perhaps the best thing would be not to do it anymore. Just try to shut Christmas and New Year out. It's too painful. Pam was my family. This is a family time. Let's all gather and be that happy family that we are supposed to be. Let's make it all nice. Let's make the table nice, the food nice, let's put glitter on everything and make it nice. Cover it with gloss. Now all that gloss makes me feel even worse. I've looked at blogs with photos of happy, shiny families all about to tuck into hills of tasty looking food. Gifts wrapped creatively and cosy scenes of bliss. Everyone getting what they want. I wish someone would put some photos up of the after effects. The bloated bellies and screaming rows. No this whole Christmas business only makes me feel the loss even more acutely. When the pain hits like this I feel like I've been thrown into a void. Like I don't belong anywhere. Like I've lost my place in the world.

Right now I feel like I'm going to end up in a home a lonely old woman who no one gives a shit about.

What I wouldn't give right now to be in a cafe with my sister having a good old chin wag and laughing our heads off.

Yes you are damn right I'm feeling sorry for myself.

Perhaps I'll delete this soon... sorry.

Friday, December 16, 2011

Duino Elegies

























  • But listen to the voice of the wind and the ceaseless message that forms itself out of silence.
  • It is murmuring toward you now from those who died young.
  • Didn’t their fate, whenever you stepped into a church in Naples or Rome,
  • quietly come to address you?
  • Or high up, some eulogy entrusted you with a mission,
  • as, last year, on the plaque in Santa Maria Formosa.
  • What they want of me is that I gently remove the appearance of injustice about their death—
  • which at times slightly hinders their souls from proceeding onward.
  • Of course, it is strange to inhabit the earth no longer,
  • to give up customs one barely had time to learn,
  • not to see roses and other promising Things in terms of a human future;
  • no longer to be what one was in infinitely anxious hands;
  • to leave even one’s own first name behind,
  • forgetting it as easily as a child abandons a broken toy.
  • Strange to no longer desire one’s desires.
  • Strange to see meanings that clung together once, floating away in every direction.
  • And being dead is hard work and full of retrieval before one can gradually feel a trace of eternity.
  • Though the living are wrong to believe in the too-sharp distinctions which
  • they themselves have created.
  • Angels (they say) don’t know whether it is the living they are moving among, or the dead.

Monday, December 12, 2011

What a Giddy Kipper! As Pam would say..


Tonight I am performing 15 minutes of my one woman play with 5 others at a venue in Santa Fe. This play has been in the works for many moons and Pam was very much in the mix. I would call her at all hours and read the things I'd written and as always she would be a huge support. Well I hope I can embody the phrase Pam invented and be a true Giddy Kipper tonight in her honour. I'm doing the full play here in March.

I thought I'd share a few photos of the family members I'll be playing tonight, the 'stars of the show' as per usual!

Star No. 1 Nana. The big dresser upper..here she is as Madonna..


And Boy George!


 Star No. 2 Mum. In the Mikado


Mum and Dad on their way to be audience members of The Good Old Days TV show..


Star No. 3 Dad. Being daft with friend Diane..


Here he is behind his bar which is mentioned in the show..


Sitting in the bath just now, where we get all our best ideas, I thought of doing this post. League of Gentlemen also came to mind. This is an English TV show that Pam and I watched together one summer at her Inn in Newport. We bloody loved it for its similarity, be it a rather dark, twisted version to our family and to people from the north of England. The clip below reminds me of all the times I went to audition for commercials in the UK. Zany, Giddy Kipper humour..and she's called Pamela!




Friday, December 2, 2011

Jimmy, Pete and an Ugly Duckling..



Mum, Pam, me and some guinea pigs Jimmy and Pete. Dad had a way with these guinea pigs. He would shout,'come one Pete, woo woo woo' making loud guinea pig sounds and they, Pete in particular, would run and jump in the air from one end of the cage to the other. Like a bucking bronco. I don't know if this is common practice. Pete's the one on the right, no surprise there.

Well one fine Clayton day(and there weren't many of those)a mad local dog broke into the cage and killed them. The police said we weren't the only ones in the neighborhood. Dad actually caught the dog with it's head in the cage and chased it with Jimmy in it's mouth. He saved Jimmy, who was mine, but then the bastard dog came back another day and killed him.

Dad reported Jimmy's murder and a policeman came to our house and wanted to talk to me, Jimmy's owner. When dad called me and I saw the policeman I noticed myself adopt a very theatrical gait as I walked towards him, my head down, my pace slow, sighing deeply so as to show him that I was in mourning. This was the first time the thought struck me that the stage might be a good destination for me..

Notice, I'm sure you already have, that I am deeply into my ugly duckling phase in this photo. I think the smile on my face is a large indicator that I was well aware of this fact. Love mum's 70's eyebrows. And as for Pam, all I can say is I do hope those guinea pigs have already been to the toilet!

photo c/o cousin Sally, thanks Sal!