Eventually

Eventually you realise
the creature in the woods
doesn't want to kill you.

When Two is Not Enough

This morning I feel afraid.

I feel afraid of someone I haven't seen for a long, long time, who is no threat to me any more.
Maybe I'm not afraid of the person so much as the fact that I tried and failed to get that person to respect my wishes and not hurt me.

I have two strategies with difficult people: a simple strategy and a subtle strategy.

The simple strategy is that I say "please don't do that, I don't like it", as kindly and as clearly as I can, and if that doesn't get a result, I withdraw. I mean I leave the room, and only come back when I'm ready.

The subtle strategy doesn't work.

Today I'm just not happy with having the two options of the simple strategy. I don't know why. There are problem of you out there who recognise the dilemma. I have no name for it, I'm unable to let go of it, and though I feel completely safe, I am afraid.

Laughter and Love

Laughter and love are everywhere. The cathedrals, built in the ages that loved God, are full of blasphemous grotesques. The mother laughs continually at the child, the lover laughs continually at the lover, the wife at the husband, the friend at the friend.

"The Napoleon of Notting Hill"
GK Chesterton

The Seven Ages of Gordie - # 3

My Age:

What Happened:














How I Coped:

7

Writing. Fame. Death.

I loved books. Then somebody told me I could write. And suddenly, I discovered myself. I wrote stories,I wrote poems, and within a year, I was a published author, with my picture in the paper.

That same year, people around me started dying. A boy in my class, who got cancer. And my Uncle Ken, who just expired one day, and I don't remember being told why.

I think the first funeral I went to would have been Robert's. The little boy coffin, and then a while later, a different church and an adult coffin.

Uncle Ken was a painter, and my Auntie said he'd gone to paint houses in Heaven. I hope he did a good job. I hope they paid him properly.

I'm still not sure how I dealt with all of that. I'd found something that made me powerful, and something that no power could overcome. I think I began to split in two, inside. I began to think about what was and wasn't acceptable about me, and who I could safely share it with. Yes, dear reader, I became an editor.

The Seven Ages Of Gordie - #2

My Age:

What Happened:




How I Coped:

3

Learned to read and walk.
Reading was brilliant. Walking was crap. Discovered that falling over and cutting myself used to really upset my mother.

My father told me not to upset my mother. So I didn't.I decided to stay indoors. Discovered a world in which I felt much more at home. Warmer, too...