Nimue Brown's Blog, page 120

Music to die for

When the pandemic started, my greatest anxiety was that a bad choice on my part could kill someone. My decisions during lockdown and my willingness not only to follow rules, but often to go further than required, has been entirely based on the determination not to harm others. 

At the same time, I’ve had a lot of opportunity to think about what makes life worth living. A life without time spent in person with people I care about is hard to bear. A life without free access to the countryside is grim. I’m not convinced that a life without live music is worth living. The last thing I did before I went into lockdown (ahead of actual lockdown) was to go to a small, local gig.

There are important questions to ask about what we live for, and what gives joy and meaning to our lives. What value do we find in simply existing? What is it worth risking your life for? Lockdown has given us the chance to find out what really is essential. It’s raised questions about what we’re willing to put ahead of our own health, what we’re willing to risk other people’s lives over, what we can’t do without. For many, this has also been a time of finding out how a person’s economic worth relates to their social usefulness. It turns out it’s the lowest paid workers who are doing the most essential things.

With gigs cancelled, musicians struggled financially. So did all the people whose work depends on venues being open. I watched our government shaft the entire sector. 

At the weekend, I went to a gig. I reckon the venue capacity was about 250 people, and the space was well ventilated, so it wasn’t especially risky. I’m double jabbed, and like a lot of people there, I was wearing a mask. It seemed like a decent risk to take. There were a lot of older people in the audience who were taking a bigger risk than me in being there. As the music started, I wondered whether this was worth dying for. 

Yes. Yes it was. 

A life without the things that make life worth living is not a life worth living. It might be reasonable to endure that over a few months as a temporary safety measure. It’s not possible to live there. Music is essential to me, but there’s a huge difference between listening to a recording and being in a space where people are making music. Much as I love the internet, being online is not the same for me as physically being in the same space with people.

If music helped you in lockdown, please note that most musicians had a really hard time of it. Streaming music doesn’t result in musicians being paid much. If you have any resources to spare, buy a track, or an album, leave something in a tip jar or on Patreon. If we want music, we have to keep our composers and performers economically viable.

Victorian Children with Stephen Palmer

A guest blog.

For reasons too complicated to go into here, when I lived in Wem I didn’t have a washing machine. So I checked out the local laundry, and then, seeing its worth and not wanting to burden the Earth with unnecessary white goods, began using it regularly. The man who ran it was a charming Turkish chap, with whom I became friends. One of the things which was made apparent to me during our various conversations was the difference in attitude to children between the Turks and the British.

In Turkey, children are cherished. In my opinion, in Britain – speaking in general of course – cherished is not the right word to use. What is, then? Tolerated? Managed? Directed? Ignored? I’m aware that this is controversial territory, so I’m going to repeat: I’m talking generalities here. But when I considered the Victorian attitude to children, my case was clearer. In my new Conjuror Girl trilogy therefore I wanted to work with this historical attitude to children.

My first child creation for the novels was the League Of Ignored Children. In Victorian times children without families could be looked after by orphanages, or by ragged schools, institutions for destitute children which were charitable organisations. Such schools were usually in working class districts. Another alternative was the workhouse: children of poor families lived there. In all cases, life was harsh. Conditions were sometimes appalling. In my novels however I wanted to create an institution run by children for their own benefit. The League Of Ignored Children exists in a part-demolished building next to a foundry, which keeps them warm in the cold months (they refer to it as their “Winter Palace”). However, children being children, and in particular boys being boys, there is a hierarchical structure with leaders, just as in the adult world. This allowed me to explore my chosen theme of selfishness and its relation to male culture and society in general.

The League Of Ignored Children for me epitomises the exigencies of Victorian societies. Alas, I think some of those exigencies still exist. You only have to watch the news to see that in Britain, and in other nations too. We fail children so often.

I researched the darker side of childhood with the aid of Sarah Seaton’s Childhood & Death In Victorian England. Monique – the main character of the trilogy – is a keen reader of the local newspaper, and she relates some of the tragedies: Poor Ruth Sampson, killed by her father, who smashed her against the hearthstone. But he was not guilty, because drink sent him insane. Emily Holland, murdered by a mechanic up north. And only five years ago, Florence Albery, killed in a river by her own mother. Well, at least she had a mother, but what good did it do her? When all men can do is accumulate for their own benefit, no wonder the small and the weak are victims. And: This land doesn’t like children. It doesn’t see our value, it doesn’t see our potential. It’s irritated by us. It would rather we didn’t exist so it could get along with more important business. We are ignored. We’re all ignored children… What are we except a nuisance? People are too busy with their own lives to have a thought for ours. And all the time they ruin us, by leaving us on the streets, by exploiting us, by restricting us…

I suppose this is a rather depressing view. Many children have marvellous childhoods, and grow up to be stable, sane adults. But when others do not because of the corruption and blindness of the modern state – ruled by men, not women – it is perhaps no surprise that tragedies continue to happen.

How different the British attitude to children would be if women were in charge, not men.

Find out more about Stephen’s work on his website http://www.stephenpalmer.co.uk/

Never too weird

One of the things we always end up doing at steampunk events is trying to come up with pithy explanations for what steampunk is. There are always curious people with questions. And for every steampunk there’s a different answer – much as there’s a lot of diversity when Pagans try to explain what Paganism is.

It struck me that one of the things steampunk is, is a space where no one will ever judge you for being too weird. I didn’t look especially Victorian when this occurred to me – I was wearing a hand made waistcoat inspired by Japanese boro and sashiko, some knickerbocker type trousers and some devil horns. These days I mostly go to steampunk events wearing my clothes, rather than having specific steampunk attire. It seems to work.

I’m used to being too weird. It’s come up a lot during my life. I’m too emotional, too intense and also too emotionally unavailable (good, isn’t it?). I’ve spent a lot of time finding round holes in which to be an awkward square peg. I’ve been told off for giving too much, caring too much, trying too hard. I’ve been told how I hug is weird. There’s very little about me that hasn’t faced serious criticism at some point, and it does make me socially anxious. 

Steampunk gatherings are spaces where I don’t feel socially anxious. Part of that is having the confidence that no one is going to accuse me of being too-anything or have a problem with me on those terms. I would be prepared to bet that being too-something is an issue I have in common with a lot of steampunks. For everyone else, the desire to be polite and inclusive will incline them to be less judgy anyway. 

I’m seeing ever more memes online that suggest if people demand that you be smaller, you tell them to find someone else for that. It’s a new thought for me. Perhaps I don’t owe it to anyone to turn up as a small, comfortable thing for their benefit. There are spaces where I don’t have to be small to fit in. There are people who are neither offended nor intimidated by enthusiasm, passion, delight, silliness or anything else I might happen to have going on. There is charm in being around people who are at least as bonkers as I am.

I’ve spent a long time carrying all of this as a failing in myself. I was fourteen when my first boyfriend told me that I was too serious and too much and he turned out to be the first of many. I’ve been trying to tuck parts of myself in, to be tidier and more acceptable ever since – but I’m not very good at it. I’m used to thinking of how I am as being likely to cause offence, that I am inherently flawed and difficult to put up with. But not for everyone. In recent years I’ve started to figure out who my people are. I don’t hang around so much for the ones who might grudgingly accept me and I no longer feel grateful to the people who manage that grudging acceptance.

In steampunk spaces, people do not judge each other for being too weird, and that’s wonderful and liberating and I’m very glad of it. Good things happen when we make more space for each other. Especially when we make room for delight and enthusiasm that doesn’t show up in the ways we’re used to. I’m tired of joylessness, of cynicism and apathy being benchmarks for being a proper grownup.

What does a Druid do?

This is a question to keep asking, and for which there can be no final or absolute answer. What does a Druid do in any given context? What does a Druid do right now?

One answer for me at the moment, is that we can try to model more sustainable living. To honour nature, we have to be working to avert climate disaster and to make human life on Earth more sustainable and viable. There are many ways of doing that. One powerful thing we can do is share our choices and actions with other people.

I think there are a couple of key issues around doing this. Being heavy handed and preachy can put people off – we’ve all seen how this happens around veganism. Engaging people with more responsible and sustainable food choices is a really good idea. Shaming people for what they currently do doesn’t tend to encourage change. Talking about what we’re doing and why we’re doing it tends to be much more effective than lecturing people about what we think they should be doing. Leading by example is more powerful. This is true in all aspects of our lives.

If people feel like they have to suffer and be martyrs for sustainability, most of them won’t want to know. One of our jobs is to figure out how to live well while living sustainably, and then to put that out there where other people can see it. I’m seeing a lot of Pagans playing with fabric in sustainable ways and sharing that – it’s really attractive.

Sustainable living will need to be creative and innovative. We need to do things we feel good about and are excited about if we’re going to maintain it. Sharing things that we’re enjoying and feeling good about is an excellent way to engage other people. The festive period offers us lots of opportunities to do this and to put it where other people can see it – it’s a great time to engage our wider families a bit and to model what happiness looks like without rabid consumerism and waste in the mix.

The myth of normality

Many humans are very attached to the ideas that ‘normal people’ exist and that they personally count as normal people. It’s why so many people get upset and angry when faced with any language that defines them as other than normal. The very existence of language to define people who are other than normal can seem threatening to some, and they tend to push back against it and demand to know why we need all these terms.

The short answer is that if the language is normal/abnormal that means a lot of us are labeled as being wrong. The idea that there are normal people and other people is toxic in so many ways. It enables bullying, promotes misconceptions, reduces compassion… and so we need language that addresses this more effectively.

At the same time, I think the idea of normal – and the assumed attractiveness of it – could use some scrutiny.

Diversity is a good evolutionary strategy. The more samey a species is, the less resilient it’s going to be to change. One of the things that has got humans to where we are now is that we are varied and adaptable. Our diversity is a strength and it’s about time we started treating it as such. Variety creates interest and opportunity. If we were all ‘normal’ we’d be much more predictable and would soon be bored witless by each other. Difference feeds creativity and innovation, it opens us to different perspectives and ideas.

There are some rewards for fitting in neatly, being a good little cog in the machine and not attracting attention in any way. There are advantages to having people who just want to live how they are told to live, want to do what they are told to do and for whom conformity is comfortable. The desire to be normal is painfully easy to exploit. The people who exploit it are the ones who consider themselves to be better and entitled to more than average. One of the things our traditional ideas of normality supports is the idea that there are a small number of people – be they kings or billionaires – who deserve more than normal people get, and who should be allowed to control the lives of the normal people.

The idea of normality plugs us neatly into feudal systems and capitalism alike. The desire to be normal can have us suppressing parts of who we are, or afraid about the aspects of ourselves that might make us different. Clinging to normality, we can feel threatened by anything that undermines the idea that normal exists and naturally dominates. All those genders and different ways of thinking and being… must be wrong if normality is normal.

It seems to me that what we mean by normal is often bland, unoriginal, unthinking, uncreative, easily led and increasingly persuaded to fear and hate others. It’s a construct, more often than not, and one designed to control us. When we have room for diversity and difference, we don’t have to be afraid of ourselves and we’re not so readily persuaded to be afraid of other people. Ideas of normality can feed unkindness and don’t reliably bring out the best in people. We’re kinder when we’re not so hung up on what’s normal and what isn’t. We’re kinder to each other, and kinder to ourselves.

Fictional Pagans

Over the years I’ve read all sorts of Pagan fiction – including material sent for consideration to publishers. One of the things I find curious is how popular the wheel of eight festivals often are in Pagan novels. In all kinds of different scenarios, historical, fantastical and futuristic, I’ve seen fictional people default to a kind of Paganism that has these eight festivals, and no others.

My understanding of Pagan history (patchy, I grant you) is that the eight festivals are a 20th century thing, and that there’s no real evidence of people anywhere celebrating all eight in the past. The eight are by no means all of the Pagan festivals available – every people, every pantheon has celebrations in addition to this. If you’re keen, you can celebrate a Pagan festival pretty much every day. There’s an incredible wealth of celebration out there to draw on.

Then there’s the local festivals for local people. Those aren’t always ritualistic exactly, but I can’t see cheese rolling without thinking of the sacrifice of human ankles… Local rituals mark significant local seasonal events, local history and provide celebration of your specific community. Not only are they a great way to add colour to the lives of your fictional Pagans, but they’re an excellent way of slipping in some elegant world building without having to give us a history lesson. For actual, living Pagans, local events and customs should be part of the wheel of the year because they ground you in your landscape and connect you to your ancestors of place.

One thing that can be said with confidence of Pagans historical and contemporary, is that we like to celebrate. We’re the people of the wine and the mead and the beer and the cider…. Feasting is part of our culture. We’re earthly, fleshy creatures and having a good time is intrinsic to who we are and what we do. This is not a spirituality based on the idea that life is full of temptations we have to resist. Paganism is joyful, life embracing and convivial. Think about how much we actually celebrate as the wheel of the year turns – cultural festivals, personal festivals, other people’s festivals… why would fictional Pagans be any different?

Inclusion and Commitment

Many people who suffer illness – including mental illness – and disability find that their lives are unpredictable. What we can do this week is not what we can do next week, but we don’t know the details right now. It makes commitment difficult.

One of the easiest ways to exclude ill and disabled people is to require high levels of commitment. This is often an issue around closed working groups, but it can be an issue in all sorts of organisations, even social gatherings. It can impact on who you chose as a speaker for your event, as well.

There’s also a question around how much humiliation a person may have to endure around this. How much personal information is a person going to have to hand over to be cut the slack they need to participate? How much detail are you going to demand about their health issues and the possible implications? Making someone justify why they need adjustments so they can participate can be a really humiliating process and not everyone is keen to go through that, oddly enough.

What’s the humiliation toll going to be if a person has to drop out at short notice? Will you treat them kindly? Or will you get angry with them? That happened to me earlier this year, when I was suddenly extremely ill and had to drop out of an online event. It’s as well I was too ill to be online, because I didn’t see the nasty messages until after an apology had also been sent. I’ve also had some experience of being publicly treated as useless and flakey because my health issues create limitations. Oddly, that was around work that I had done well and on demand. It takes a particularly toxic sort of person to want to publicly humiliate someone for the fact that they have some mental and physical illness to contend with.

Disabled people experience bullying and abuse in all sorts of contexts. Often this is underpinned by an actual belief that the person is lazy, faking it, getting something for nothing, making a fuss or seeking attention. Our media are greatly to blame for creating a culture where this happens, but we all have individual responsibility. I would rather indulge a few lazy people and thus protect the emotional wellbeing of disabled people. I would rather choose kindness where possible, and seek to accommodate, include and enable as many people as possible. Starting from the assumption that people may have genuine issues and no desire to tell you the details is a good first move in this regard.

When we create inclusive environments, we create kinder, gentler spaces for everyone. When we work in ways that support all kinds of participation, we don’t support a culture of martyrdom and burnout – that capitalist approach to life that has us buying, not living. Making a deliberate attempt not to humiliate people is a great way of being more inclusive. People have all kinds of limiting problems, and when we are able to treat that kindly, the world is simply a better place.

The outcomes may not always be ideal. But, given the choice, I’d rather sacrifice an event and save a person than destroy a person’s health for the sake of an event.

Autumn ghost

The last of the autumn colour, torn down by storms. Green amidst the turning tones, because autumn was late this year.

A bright, sharp, wintery day with the sky an intense blue.

I tried taking a selfie, but I look so tired, my eyes shadowed, my nose red from the cold air. Sometimes I am ok with myself as a scruffy goblin, sometimes my face makes me sad. The day I took this photo was a sad-face day. My shadow makes me look as though I am wearing a long, fabulous dress under my bulky winter coat. I wasn’t, but the illusion is charming.

The cursed boyfriend jumper

I first ran into the notion of the cursed boyfriend jumper via a Talis Kimberly song. It’s a rather fascinating bit of modern folklore from the knitting community, and it goes like this: Making your boyfriend a jumper will doom your relationship. Boyfriend jumpers are cursed.

I had a bit of a poke about in this – it’s easy to find information online. Most of what’s out there ponders the practical and psychological reasons why jumper making may not be good for relationships. But, it’s more fun to talk about it as a folkloric curse and so of course that’s what people end up doing.

Having made a massive snuggly jumper for myself, I wanted to make jumpers for my household, which is what got more exploring the cursed boyfriend jumper. It’s a decidedly different thing to be knitting a jumper for someone who wants a jumper and normally wears jumpers – and there’s nothing weird, invasive or unsettling about making clothes for someone you live with. So we picked out the wool together and looked at stitches together and the result is something Tom likes. Imposing a surprise jumper on someone you don’t know well clearly has implications.

I learned a lot making this one. I need to stop assuming I’m bigger than everyone else because it turns out Tom’s chest is bigger than mine and I had to add some little inserts. I shall fettle my pattern accordingly for next time. I confirmed some ideas I’d had about how better to do collars, following on from my first jumper. The stitch is based on fisherman’s rib, but I think I was doing it wrong, technically! I really like the effect though, so, not a problem.

It turns out that the idea of a row by row, stitch by stitch set of knitting instructions terrifies me. But, a few broad theories of jumper and I’m happy to crack on with it. There are practical implications to this as well. Much of the body of this jumper was knitted at the Gloucester Steampunk Winter Convivial, while the sleeves were knitted the following weekend at Steampunks in Space. I’m finding that crafting at events helps me stay calm in face of what can otherwise be sensory overload, but there is no way I could manage a stall while following a detailed pattern.

Notes on the pandemic

I’ve not talked much about covid since the beginning of the pandemic. I’m into science not conspiracy theories, and from the beginning I’ve been watching for the best information I could get in the hopes of both staying safe and not spreading infection to others. I consider myself fortunate to be double-jabbed even though I had strong adverse reactions both times.

I wear a mask as much as I can when indoors with unfamiliar people. I’m claustrophobic, I get panic attacks anyway and I find I have a small window of time before the mask becomes panic inducing. Longer distance journeys in a mask mean hours of fighting the panic. I can however usually get in and out of a shop before it all kicks off. Most of my strategy has been to stay away from crowded indoor spaces, to meet friends outside or in private spaces, and to ventilate spaces. When I’ve done events involving people, I’ve been home for days afterwards so as to be unlikely to pose a risk. So far, so good.

In the beginning I was deeply afraid of both the virus and the lockdown. I followed the rules, and I found them really hard. I did not do so out of blind obedience to the government, but out of a desire not to make anyone I care about sick. I have considerable rage where the government is concerned. By winter last year there was plenty of evidence that the virus doesn’t spread much outdoors. We should have been supported and encouraged in moving our lives outside as far as possible. The benefits to people’s livelihoods, and mental health, would have been huge. Instead we spent last winter being told we could only meet outside in pairs if we weren’t in our households.

I’m also furious about the lack of investment in education. Countless uninformed and half-arsed theories circulate out there. Where has been the counter message to explain what vaccines are and how they work? So much of the misunderstanding, and wilful misunderstanding comes from not getting how science works in the first place. Cautious language is normal for science. Theories change as more data comes in – that’s not science failing, it’s science working and yet this is being used to undermine confidence in the research being done. Nothing is a hundred percent. Masks, vaccines, ventilation, social distancing – nothing is one hundred percent guaranteed, but that doesn’t make it useless. 

I grieve the deeper divisions in an already divided country. I grieve the way even more people are being pushed deeper into poverty. I grieve the loss of freedom and the loss of life – we’re an island, if our government had reacted swiftly the suffering could have been greatly reduced. I grieve the culture of selfishness that seems to be growing and festering here. I rail against the double standards where regular people have been harassed by the police when they weren’t even breaking rules, and those in power have dramatically flouted the rules and got away with it. We deserved better and we should feel some moral obligation to do better.