May 3rd – Sundays are usually sad days
The law of attraction is strong in my world today. After hearing Mike Dooley and his message (and, seeing how they are accepting submissions from bloggers and other law of attraction writers, oh yes I will submit thank you) things began to show me my power. The universe was poking me in the ribs saying, here you go.
I feel excited for this book. The future feels brighter than I think it has ever felt before. I can see how my writing career is really beginning to take off and I feel like I should keep at it (well, I can’t stop it anyway, let’s be honest). Visions of me being interviewed are in my mind and answering questions on podcasts. I can see and more importantly, feel, this coming together now. After it being my dream forever.
Working out in my bedroom after a 5k walk, I was so happy. I decided to increase that energy a little more. I took my iphone and lifted it to erase the black screen, and chose to play some music. I chose Wham!
I had shown my son a picture disc yesterday of Club Tropicana so perhaps that was still on my mind, in the grey matter somewhere. I picked up the brown record box with an unsuccessfully half removed sticker on it of Nick Rhodes from Duran Duran, containing my 7” singles. My son, who was born in the era of CDs asked,
‘are they mini vinyls?’ and I couldn’t help but chuckle. Not at him, just at the language and the fact I was 30 years older than him even though we all seemed like friends in my house. I explained the 33 and 45rpm situation and the extra piece of record player you sometimes had to add in the middle if a bigger hole was cut away from the vinyl. I never did understand why they did that. Removing ‘Planet Earth import from China’ from its plastic cover with the most careful use of my fingers, my son watched as if he was learning something intricate and important. I also explained how finger marks were not allowed and nor were scratches, so care and fragile handling was always needed.
But today, it was digital music on my phone and the Edge of Heaven would surely add to my workout on my little piece of bedroom floor.
I was trying to recall the PT who was entering my living room via Zoom on Wednesday, and picturing the type of push ups which are effective on the triceps, when the music automatically clicked on to the next track. Even though it was an extended version, that first few bars of deep and slow double bass playing made me sit up, stop my work out and an audible ‘ohh’ left my mouth. I sat back on the heels of my feet and stared at the wall paper opposite.
‘oh God.’
‘A different corner’ by George Michael transported me. I instantly knew the track and felt my mood become sad and introverted. I went back there. I could see the flicker of a pretty, small oil lamp as the only light in my small bedroom. Five feet wide and seven feet long. Just big enough for a single bed, small wardrobe and a carefully placed second hand black glass table at the side of my bed. I could still walk up and down the room. My childhood bedroom. I recall laying on my bed and stretching my feet over to the wall opposite. I was the same height then as I am now. Five foot three and three quarters; just long enough to reach the other side. The lilac gloss paint always felt cold on my bare feet but I liked that, especially through the night. I’m not sure why we used gloss, maybe that’s what we had left over, maybe Dad just liked gloss.
The table at the side of the wardrobe housed the oil lamp and my mono record player. Stereo kind of happened in this room anyway as the sound bounced off the walls and Steve always got the new stuff, so he had the stereo and I had his old mono. Did it matter? Of course not, I could play my beloved vinyls on them. They were in their neat boxes underneath the table and my orange Bontempi keyboard stacked on top of those. See, it did all work In this room, it just needed a little care.
Dad brought home ‘computer paper’ from work which had holes all the way down both sides, was perforated between each sheet, folded consontina style and had green stipes right the way across. I could write nice and neatly with my pen across those green lines, so long as I was sat on the floor and used my bed as a desk. Writing, playing music and trying to teach myself the keyboard in my little room were the parts of my childhood which I remember as happier memories. The keyboard didn’t have enough octaves to hit the one high note when I played the Blue Danube. It was only one note.
Why had I spent most of my childhood sad when there wasn’t really anything particularly wrong with it? As a woman of my age now, trying to ‘work out’ to the same music which I used to fall asleep to every night, sometimes with tears leaving my eyes, I can clearly see what was wrong then. Sometimes, I still do that, but the songs have changed, just like the reason for the tears.
Where was the depth? Probably in the same place as the void conversations, the lack of teaching me about life, encouraging me to read books, to do homework, revise, play outside with my friends, open my arms to receive a hug, be patted on the head and told I was a good girl. I was a sad girl. I needed love and I didn’t even know that’s what I needed. So instead of expecting that I just did what felt better, I closed my little bedroom door, wrote, played keyboard badly with one finger and chose the next mini vinyl to play on my mono record player.
An excerpt from the forthcoming book, No Rain No flowers
