Rain, interminable rain...

Away from home, deep in the green of the Devon countryside, all is quiet. Or so I thought. First night, children scrunched up in their beds, and there, suddenly, by the television, nature intruded on me. Eyes, round and black as slate, ears, rounded like pink radar dishes, and a noise that twitched in equal shock. Field mouse and I watched each other warily. It was beautiful, a soft wheaty brown colour, in an alien green carpet. What must it have made of the squeaky noises coming from its black plastic shelter?

I couldn't confront. How could I, the product of Dumbo, of Ice Age, possibly turn around and find the mouse trap? Jerry always escaped, but somehow I know that real life isn't like cartoons.

I opened the outside door, closed the inside one and scurried up to bed.

In the morning, he wasn't there. I imagine him scampering through the barley field, climbing through the dew-dropped mounds of earth boasting to his friends of the time he confronted a giant and won. And I? I shall always remember the connection, the fear, the joint shock of two animals from different food branches meeting.

Minerva

I have been lonely,

but never been on my own. I have always sought the comfort of another's arms to take away my pain, the sweet softness of another's lips to salve my hurt. Maybe it is time now, time to face my wrinkles in the mirror and look at myself as I really am. Do I really have to take refuge in another's harbour? Is my boat so weathered by storms, that I cannot paint its splintered boards, sew its scraps of mainsail or hammer its rusty nails myself? Is it always necessary to sail into new seas to escape the leaks when all they do is follow me spilling their sadness wherever I go?

Maybe it is time. Time to set my own course, select my own star rather than the apparent glamour of another's. Maybe it is time to scrape the rust off the anchor myself, and tend to it with sandpaper and iron, to forge a new, deeper, link. It will be painful, I know. Hard work inevitably is, especially when dealing with such a neglected ship, a ship of dusty corners and cabins which have been untended for years, that swim with sharks of yesterday, but maybe, just maybe, I shall find a brilliant shoal of multicoloured angel fish, that shall ripple into my waters, or a sail ruffling wind that shall take me to shallow reefs where my newly sharpened anchor shall find soft sand and an easy tide in which to lie.

A voyage of discovery awaits. Hoist the mainsail and put up anchor. We sail...

Minerva

We are at the point

where to go on is hard, just as hard as moving back. We have everything to gain, and everything to lose and we are scared. 6 months has flown by, and our children, our friends and our 'normal' lives are hammering at the door, demanding to be let in like a wailing coterie of toddlers. Are we getting lost here?

When I am with you, the stars are in their places, the planets align perfectly, and even the air smiles with pleasure and comfort. Being with you, is like being in an old, comfortable, warm armchair that enfolds me. The love of music and words has bound us together, closer than any wedding ring, and the sheer ease of being in your company massages away the stresses and cares. And the excitement, the passion - when I look into your eyes, I get the same fluster, the same rise of passion as I did when we first met.

So what is going wrong? We are off the road we wanted to travel. We have somehow come off the smooth tarmac onto the gravel filled hard shoulder and the chips of asphalt keep biting our faces and chipping our windscreen. All is not right; there is a rattle under the bonnet, a distinctly slowing engine and our tyres aren't as airy as they used to be. Our windscreen wipers leave smears where they should be clearing and even the radio seems to crackle.

Where have we gone wrong? What signpost did we miss? When did our two car race become a car and a caravan?

More importantly, do we need a mechanic or the scrap yard?

Minerva

Today love burns

in my house and flows, like light, out of the windows. Today the stairs bounce with constant footsteps and and the walls glow with the stickiness of hands, just caught pilfering the biscuit tin or the fridge again. Today, lights burn everywhere, momentarily forgotten as the siren call of another game, another toy, another corner to explore catches the young by the neck and drags them over. Toys, games, pencils, shoes lie strewn around the floorboards, untended, like odd flowers scattered in a garden.

In two weeks, I shall be roaming the house like a dustbin truck, loading, gathering and throwing away the detritus, but today? Today I rejoice in having my gorgeous, noisy, demanding children home again for the holidays. I revel in their warmth, their hugs and affection like a warm duvet on a winter's night, and I snuggle into their easy abandon and innocence like a scarf which I shall wrap around me ready for the colder days.

The colder days when only one pale light shines in my study, when the house rests in darkness and abandoned quiet, when only one breath disturbs the lurking air.

But not today.

Minerva

I need to say thank you.

Thank you to Cherry at Web Divas for giving this Woman such a wonderful new look. Sleek, elegant, sophisticated, it is everything I wanted to be and nothing I hated. Thank you so much Cherry, particularly at a time when so much else was going on. I really appreciate it and am thinking of you with all your personal travails. Thank you.

Thank you to each and every marvellous reader of this blog. You are my backbone, my support and the reason I write. I am sensitive, I do need approbation, I am human and I am so grateful that in this corner of the blogosphere I am lucky enough to get that empathy and support.

Thank you, thank you so very much.

Minerva

Interlude.

I know it shouldn't bother me, I know I should ignore it. I know that I am being over-sensitive and I know that putting myself up here, as a writer, is inviting both positive and negative criticism. I know all that, so why does the fact that someone rated me on one of the top blog sites as a 1 (ie rubbish) upset me? Pathetic, I keep saying to myself. Someone obviously tried reading, found it hard to get into and decided to rate you low as a consequence. My head knows all that...but my pride is bruised and my confidence is hit. I mean, please, I am completely open to criticism. I am going to get nowhere as a writer if I don't accept that, but there are ways of giving it, aren't there? I am sure that if he/she/it *grin* had left a comment giving me some tips, it would have been so much more helpful, but instead, they just rated my blog a 1....

*sigh*


Minerva

Another beautiful day

in London. The wind streamed through my windows and fluttered my hair, just as it flapped the trees and made the leaves shimmer in the late afternoon sun. Even the sound of sirens down the dusty streets couldn't dampen my mood of hopeful optimism. London can be so dull, never worse than on a slushy winter day, a day after the pristine snow covers the dirt and the rubbish on the streets.

Today, though, was not a day for looking back but, instead, a day for relentless optimism: for striving to climb Everest on a bicycle; to launch oneself from the top of a hill supported only by cardboard wings; to skip down the street like a seven year old in pigtails playing hopscotch. A day to twirl like a ballet dancer in a chiffon skirt, a day to skip stones across the rumpled waves of the Thames, a day to blow kisses at the taxi-drivers that let one into the long queues of traffic, a day to laugh at the sheer, utter exuberance of it all.

A day for living.


Minerva

I have finally taken the plunge

and started writing a book. I am doing it all the wrong way as I am currently writing Chapter One and seeing where it twists and turns my mind. I have no path ahead of me, no signposts guiding me through the various crossroads, but just a character and the way she acts.

I am scared; this is a big step for me. As I am sure all writers hope that there is a book inside them somewhere. Believe me, I had to look below my toenails, (horrid at the best of times...) to find my inspiration and last night, I just sat and wrote. So why is it such a big step? Because this is it. Having always longed to write a book, I am finally taking the plunge, finally diving into the lake having been queen of a small puddle and if, I fail, then there is one less dream that keeps me going, one less hope for my eternity.

And if I should succeed?

We will see if I get there...

Minerva

Despite being a woman

I find girls en masse terrifying. When I see them in pubs, giggling over their glasses of white wine sharing the latest shopping story or explicit facts about blokes (because girls are SO much more explicit about blokes, believe me), I just want to turn right out the door, and deny my own gender.

I mean how many manicures can one have in a lifetime? I had two, one on my wedding day and one whilst I was in hospital with twins, both blissful bonding, I am sure you will agree; yes, it was nice to look at my shiny nails and feel that I was 'well groomed' until, of course, I did the typical Minerva thing and decided to raise paving stones, or change a tyre and my nails then looked like something out of The Shining and I decided to raze them down to their stumps...Never AGAIN!!

What else terrifies me about women? Their ability to put on a 'face' first thing in the morning. I hardly ever ever wear make-up unless I am going out in the evening and then a tip of foundation and mascara - that is IT.... How do women, wonderful, lovely, self-confident women find the time to get up so early and construct an entirely different persona out of their faces? The amount of products they put on is amazing, and yet, they don't feel dressed without it? I mean, PLEASE!! NO makeup a disaster? I don't think so.... In fact, if your chosen one doesn't love you first thing in the morning with your hair all over the sheets, mascara bags down your cheeks, then frankly, he/she/it (so tolerant here) isn't worth the sheet you have just slept on...

Shoe fetishes scare me too... I have exactly fourteen pairs of shoes and yes, that does include wellies, riding boots, and gardening shoes. How do women get so obsessed about shoes? I mean, we all joke about Imelda Marcos, and for those of you too young to remember, she was discovered with HUNDREDS of shoes in her wardrobe but the slavering over Jimmy Choo just makes me feel ill.... They look more like lingerie than shoes, and what on earth is the point of spending so much money on something that you can't wear all the time?



Minerva

I want never gets.

I want love in my life. I am tired of being alone, of waking up alone and going to bed alone. I feel so ready to give; to give unparalleled, unstinting adoration, to share, to give, to take, to love. But every time I do, it disappears. Men who are ready to throw cloaks over puddles for me, disappear by the time 6 months are in. Their work, their children, their own lives become paramount again, and I am left, feeling unwanted, untended, unloved, with weeds thrusting through the beautifully kept grass.

I feel like a seed in the ground. So full of emotions, just longing for the sunshine of warmth and love, the refreshing succour of attention which will make me thrust my roots down into the accomodating earth, and bring my stem up, up into the warm air of a relationship, beginning that long journey to become a huge, shadow filled, heavy branched oak where the leafy canopy sways in the wind's caresses, birds are drawn to its strengh and children frolic in its shade.

Am I asking too much? Has hope become my enemy istead of my friend? Are my high expectations unrealistic? Is compromise really the only way forward? Or is there someone out there who really is for me, who will give as much as I do?

The way of love always starts as a grassy, flower-strewn path and ends with rocks, with insurmountable boulders. The gradient seems to climb from the flat, effortless, lower plains to steep, narrow cross-roads where the path dips and sways as other priorities intervene from our climbs.

I have no signposts showing me the way, I have no footprints showing me my path, only hope which even now ebbs like a dying tide.

I am finally coming to realise that I will grow old alone.

Minerva

Today has been the culmination of my life so far...

Today I have finally passed the exams which mean I am qualified. Today, a year and a half's work has meant that I have done it, I have escaped the past, and the new me can look to the future.

When I was a teenager, life was agonising. I was a very overweight, clever, sensitive girl who was bullied at school and only wanted to be one of the crowd. Being a grandaughter of a renowned model, my ugliness was only a source of pain and I felt almost apologetic for my existence in a family of beautiful, clever, sparky, sassy women.

At university, I went mad. I drank, I explored, I experimented and swung between cliffs and troughs depending on who I was seeing, what I was writing and where I was at the time.

After university, work. I met my husband to be and we were married very quickly, within 9 months of meeting. We moved abroad and I was unable to work. I felt emasculated and needy, got pregnant, moved again to Paris where I had three children in two years closely followed in each case by deep post-natal depression which paralysed my mind and stripped away my confidence as a mother, a wife and a friend.

I am now divorced, living on my own in London, 38, and the most confident I have ever been. Gone are the insecurities of living with a man, the insecurities of weight, beauty or constant comparison; I am who I am. Whilst I didn't realise it at the time, divorce was the best thing that ever happened to me. I scraped myself off the psychiatric floor, moved countries, found a home for myself and my children, retrained for my current job and found a job without even an hour's experience in this country. I would never have believed that I could do that in my previous, married, neutered days.

Part of this, of course, is not just acknowledging one's strengths but also, recognising one's limitations. I will never be prime minister now nor will I ever win the Booker prize or be particularly remembered outside a small but select band of people. However, I have, in my own small way, given more than I have taken and what better epitaph, really, is there?

Minerva

I so admire the commitment of the religious....

And I deliberately phrased it that way despite it being longer and less snappy than committed Christians as it is something that I admire across all faiths... I admire their sense of where they are, the absolute conviction that they are right and every other religion has got it wrong. That their way of life will earn them eternal bliss in the hereafter....I, personally, couldn't do it though. I am one of those people who are always too curious about other people and their religions to truly believe in one path. Yes, I do believe in God, an eternal, semi-pantheistic God: to me, God is the goodness that I see in the world and in other people, but am I right?

I have no idea: there are aspects of all religions that I find incredibly attractive. Catholicism is tempting because of its certainty, its pageantry and clarity of teaching. Islam is tempting as it is a very tolerant religion despite its media distorted reputation and the five pillars are very demanding tests of faith. Bhuddism makes sense in a pantheistic sense with its meditational peace and tranquility. The Jehovah's witnesses who knock on my door every Sunday are so inspirational in their knowledge of the bible and their interesting and fascinating views on the great book all of which add to that internal debate. And I could so easily continue...

All religions, though, by their very nature are exclusive. And I think that is my problem. I cannot understand how a God of any nature, could preach a message of exclusion. I think that God and goodness, presuming that they are one and the same equate to tolerance and compassion for one's fellow man or woman whether rich or poor, open or bigoted, black or white, healthy or sick, straight or gay. I believe that that is the nature of goodness to me and I think that is why I remain a committed 'Godist' but reject all forms of organised religion.......

Minerva

Tonight

I need to write. I have nothing to talk about. No significant events have occurred in my life today, no relatives, long-lost, have announced themselves, no lottery tickets have been won, no one's lives have been saved by my presence, but still, I need to write. I need to write, in the same way a smoker needs to smoke, a caffeine addict to sniff that first coffee of the morning or a child to immediately burst into life. It is me, it is my soul, it is my essence.

Without this white page, without this daily catharsis, without this daily communion, my day is not complete. My thirsty mind does not feel quenched until these words scrawl themselves across the page in untidy abandon, like weeds in my garden, untended, unkempt, unorchestrated. These words flow, flow like a beer into a glass, until the glass tips as it reaches the rim to show that there has been enough. So the bottom of this tiny window rises to meet me, like a landing strip, to show me, that for today, enough has been said.

The last word.

Minerva

A Near Sonnet.....

In love there is always a leaver and a left
One who takes and one who gives
Yet in emotion, we are both bereft
And that makes mock of he that lives
In love no roles should play a part
But heart should speak to quaking heart
And trembling hand and fluttering lip
Should first gently, intently slip
Through dance where step by aching step
We lovers shadow the others move
And by that dance, no mirror prove
I do not see for tears my eyes disguise
From your soft hands, lips, and cold cold eyes.

Yesterday

London went back to work. The tube, apart from a few trains, was running as were the buses. As I walked, the streets were muted. Faces stern but resolute. A few maniacs were not going to get in our way, our way of living, our way of running our own lives. As the train swept into the station, I exchanged a silent look of empathy with the driver. Thank you, my eyes said, thank you, for braving your own fears, for deciding to work today in the same place where horror, destruction and terror were ravaged yesterday. Thank you for your thankless work every day, for showing that we, londoners, are fearless, a mere 24 hours after a monster had tried to slow our city.

There is no doubt that there was fear yesterday. Every time we stopped in the darkness of a tunnel, a restless wave swept down the carriage, immediately alleviated by a voice over the tannoy assuring us that we were only waiting for a train, not smoke, light and the devastation of an explosion. No one chatted, no one laughed but lovers shared their arms of reassurance, friends kept their voices low in deference to those who also shared our tunnels, whose bodies remain on those rail lines, whose voices, just like ours, had been heard in those carriages.

I personally thanked four policemen yesterday. A drop in the ocean, perhaps, but all over London, we, the innocent general public, thanked our envoys. What must it have been like to receive the call? What must it have been like to be the first to arrive at the shattered bus? How can one person, or even a group of people cope with the bloody fall out of a shattered, twisted, amputated tube train?

To those who went into work today, unbowed, we salute you.
To those who helped those on the scene of the explosions, we salute you.
To those who cared for our wounded, our stricken, our hurt, we salute you.
To London, and to Londoners, we salute you.

Minerva

Joy has turned to

despair. Scenes of rejoicing, of ecstatic happiness, of pride have been eclipsed by screaming sirens, tears of despair and sorrow. London, our proud and beautiful city has been torn apart by violence, by destruction and by callous cruelty. Tonight as I walked home along streets, either nose to tail with cars, or eerily empty, every stranger I saw matched their eyes in mine. I saw their empathy, their shock and their horror as reflections of mine. How can mothers, fathers, sons, daughters do this to their own?

London is a city of colour, a city of beauty, a city of refuge, but today, today, we are a place of refugees, streaming from our city on foot, a city of ugliness, a city of danger. Today, the monster of terrorism has raged at our door, has torn apart our trains and buses, has struck at the very heart of our country.

Why don't they learn?

Britain has been under seige before. London has been bombed before and we, the new Britain, will come out fighting. Enjoy your moment of glory, monstrous terrorist, before we cut you down, before we show the world that London is a glorious, beautiful city that will survive, that will recover, that will go to work tomorrow morning, and that will, goddamnit, put on the best Olympic Games the world has ever seen. A moment of savagery will never daunt our spirit, and the spirit of our city.

But not tonight. Tonight we think of those who set off for work today not knowing they wouldn't return. Tonight we think of those who argued with their families, not knowing they would never have a chance to make up, to say goodbye, to see their children grow up and their grandchildren play. Tonight we think of those whose children wait for them to come home, whose wife or husband, boyfriend or girlfriend waits for the phone to ring, of those who wait and always will. Tonight belongs to those who wait while their hearts sink at every passing silent minute, as every hour can only confirm the news they dread.

Tonight, we think of you.

Minerva

Love came into my life

like sunshine, curling its fingered rays round the curtains, creeping through the cracks in the window frame, lighting up the long dark corners of my heart's room. It came as a draught under the door, as dust that magically appears in the city, as quietly and stealthily as a cat stalking a bird. I didn't notice it build up, I didn't see the footprints it made padding across my heart. I didn't hear its soft, seductive, sensual whispers in my ears, its silken caresses across my skin.

It wheedled its tune like a violin; it whined like a petulant toddler, it stuck to me like a burr in the grass - unnoticed, unheard, unseen.

Now, only in its absence do I hear its scream, only in its absence do I feel its pain, only in its absence do I see its brilliance.

Minerva

Love trailed out of my life

like a train snaking out of the station or water swirling down the plug hole. I never noticed the surge, but day by day, it trickled out of our hands and slipped through the floorboards. Every hand not touched, every look not gazed, every word not said added to the deluge and slowly, inexorably, the dam bulged with the pressure.

We, caught up in the flood of everyday events, didn't notice that trickle. We only knew when we woke up one day and looked into the face, the eyes, the lips of a stranger, someone we had loved, lived and known, and then, suddenly, not. Like returning to a place, once known and loved, now repainted, and re-homed, no longer familiar but estranged, no longer home but a house, no longer a family but two people.

The dam broke.

Minerva

Loneliness is not a state of being,

but a state of mind. I have been on my own and been desperately lonely. I have also been surrounded by people, married, with children, in the heart of friends, and still been lonely. Loneliness is not being on one's own. Sometimes, on the contrary, that is the release, the sanctum, from it.

Loneliness is not something to be feared either... It seems to loom in my psyche like the proverbial bearded monster under my bed, waiting, lurking, breathing heavily in the dark rooms of my mind. Now, its claws no longer scare me, its breath no longer tells me of long evenings and nights on my own, its eyes do not show me my pillows only dented on one side of the bed.

Now, I embrace it, hug it and drag it into the sunshine, and I see that its threats are like smoke that blow away on the wind, its eyes are glass and non seeing, and that its teeth are daggers created in my mind, and not in its own nature...

The monster of loneliness has been transformed into the friendly tongue hanging cocker spaniel, a constant but welcome companion. A desired and welcomed grassy path as opposed to a desperate walled up alley.

Come, let us walk a while....

Minerva

Love or delusion?

It is late and the same snail
Crosses the same square of marble
It crossed last night. Does it, like us
Fool itself that each new station
Is another home? That each new mouth
We kiss whispers new countries to explore
That breathy anticipation speaks of kings not born?

I am a perfectionist...

I believe that someone is waiting with arms outstretched, just for me. I believe that I am worth flowers and affectionate words. I believe that I am worthy of being adored and adoring, in my turn. I believe that I am a prize worth having. I believe that I am worthy of trust. I believe that I am intelligent enough to keep up with you. I believe that I can write. I believe that I am good at the job I do, and an inspiring, loving mother as well. I believe that I know my faults and my strengths. I believe that I am a good friend. I believe that I am worthy of both love, and loving. I believe that I am worthy of true and full fidelity....

So why don't you?

Minerva