Fran Macilvey's Blog, page 65

Progress

I suspect I know what enlightenment is. It consists in living in the present, aware that the past has not reality and the future never arrives. To do this, we are supposed to surrender all ideas about what we think, believe, know, understand, judge, consider, and so on.

There are many excellent reasons for surrendering what we think we know or believe. Not only do our thoughts about a thing tie us down to a past, or make us worry about the future, but also the reality of life is so huge that what we think, believe, agree, dispute etc, cannot accurately reflect what is really happening,  or explain what anything really means.

From where we are standing, we have opinions, certainly, and these are worth having, because they galvanise our activity and give us something to talk about. However, perhaps it is freeing for us to accept that there will never come a time when we see the bigger picture as it is. Therefore, we would be better to drop all the baggage we carry around, which seems to dictate to us, even before we breathe our first breath of the morning, how we should view every situation….

As soon as we drop our baggage, a whole fresh world is revealed, which allows us to release ourselves too, and laugh, instead of crying. If we can release our opinions about everything else, we can release ourselves too, and suddenly, it doesn’t matter what we did last night, last week or even five minutes ago. Tomorrow is unreal, and therefore not something that I need to concern myself with for even five minutes.

Now, my whole focus shifts to what I choose, right at this minute. I choose…to go out for a walk, to go swimming, to laugh, to smile at my mistakes. I choose to see things differently.

Brian 2 (conclusion)

I’m a mild man, really, but I’ve had to learn the hard way, that none of us is immune. We all make mistakes and I’ve paid for mine, I’ve paid with my whole life. My wife left me, took the kids, I lost the house, the car, everything gone so fast. All taken, and me with just the clothes I stood up in – all the fancy jackets and shoes were gone, too. I hit the skids hard and spent the next few years waking up in doorways and wishing I was dead. Really, I wanted to check out of here, but I knew that if I did that, people would remember me as that shit who drank his life away.

I have a daughter who lives south. We keep in touch, that is what I use my mobile for, mostly, and she comes to see me when she can. It is about twenty-four hours on the bus each way, so on a long weekend she has two days on the bus and two days with me. I’m proud of my daughter and pleased she wants to keep in touch, and that keeps me sober. That keeps me off the drink and the drugs. I never want to go back there, and God help me, I never will, I swear. I never touch drugs now, nor drink. I am dry and completely stone cold sober. And thin and cold. I’ve started wondering when I will get myself sorted. There’s a woman who comes and talks to me some days, and I like to think we get on okay, but it is easy for her, she can get off and drive away in her car. She asks me stupid questions, like, what would I do if I had a thousand pounds. I look at her as if she is crazy and nod, well, I’d rather have fifty quid a week, if it’s all the same to you. But I might have to wait a while for that, and I’ve become a patient man, but some days I hardly make the price of a cup of tea. Then the mood can descend out of no-where, the darkness, the hatred.

Thank God I have my dog to look after. I take Gazza to the park if it’s dry, or if I’m having a bad day, I’ll just leave and go somewhere else for a while. It’s me and him and we walk everywhere. I get through a pair of shoes in about six weeks. Walking from Midlothian to Edinburgh and back every day is okay in summer, but not so fine in the cold, the sleet and the rain.

One day, I’ll get a Council flat mebbe, and enough cash together to pay for rent, gas and the rest. I’m needing somewhere warmer to sleep at night and I really would love a bathroom with a proper bath, with water that heats up easily. The thing is, once you have the place to stay and the bills all payable monthly, the rest is easier, but getting settled, you need a bit of a hand up to get started. That is when it’s harder to get out of this place. Looking at me, I have all the clothes I need, the food I need and the rest, but when something goes wrong, like my mobile falls out of my pocket, or my jacket gets torn, or my shoes fall apart, that costs extra, and suddenly I have to make it up with the day’s takings. So there are times when I just smoke instead of eating, but what can I do about that?

I’m just like you, really, and I would give a lot to have a normal, straightforward life. Here I am, still young, and waiting on street corners for a miracle. Maybe it will come for me soon. I hope so. I don’t want to get old and die here. What would my daughter think of me?

Two weeks ago, Brian came to the Meeting House. I wasn’t there, so he left a message that he was going to London, then on to Paris. I miss him, but I’m pleased about his decision.

Brian 2 (part 2)

I wis a good kid. In primary I did well and enjoyed bein’ at school, but at the end of second year in the high school, I got bored. There was too much banter in class, disrespect and not what I was used tae, so I just left. Started bunking off a couple of days a week, but I would amuse myself, you know, go to the museums and that. I used to read all about everything, and I remembered a lot o’ it. That was interesting, not like being in class where the teacher threatened you all the time and the boys never sat still. Which was worse than doing nothing, really. I got used to making do for myself, and though I have no exams and that, I did well, learning to cook. It was just something I could do easily, after watching my ma cook for eleven of us all those years. It came naturally to me, and I enjoyed thinking what I could do with food. So I got a great job in one of the big hotels, really good money, got all the stuff, you know. I had the wife, the kids, the flash car and the great house. I used to think nothing of going for a drive with ma wife on my weekends off, somewhere to a nice restaurant for lunch, maybe. She would look at me as if I was mad, said she could easily cook us up something, but I liked treating her special when I got the chance. I always told her the money wasnae a problem and it wasn’t, not while I was working and bringing in maybe hundreds of pounds a week, especially with overtime and bonuses and all that. It was going well for me, and I was still young. When you’re young you feel like nothing can get to you.

The job was stressful. I recon I was sweating maybe ten hours a day, making meals over and over, and you just get to feel strong, a bit like a machine. Just plug it in and on we go. So when one of the lads started larking about with the white stuff, I took a hit and thought nothing of it. I could control what I was doing and anyway, that first time was a Saturday, after my shift. I remember it so clearly, now, that I didn’t even really think. I never had that feeling of, “What are you doing here, do you want to do this?” Nah, I just took what I was given and said, “Ta, mate” and “I’ll see you right” and all the things you say, when you think someone has done you a favour.

I got on with my life, with going home to the family and getting into work, but now I had two secrets. I had the drink, which was creeping up on me, and I had the new drug, which I didn’t take often, but then, you don’t need to, do you? It is never the same as the first time, though, and you have to keep taking more to get the same high. Just tiny bits more and more, so you hardly notice. No-one said anything to me, and my wife just thought it was the booze. A couple of times her face swam in and out of focus when I was driving, so she took the wheel, but she just let me cool off after. It crept up that slowly, by the time she noticed, I was far gone and didn’t care about anything much except earning enough to keep my habit going. As far as I knew, I was earning, so that was alright, and so long as I could do that, no-one could complain, could they?

Until the boss found me weaving about the kitchen, sweating and swearing and brandishing knives. Paranoia is not good in any kitchen. Straight away he knew what it was, and he warned me, said he would be within his rights to fire me on the spot. Can’t have chefs threatening to slice open the waiters, can we? But he gave me one more chance and, of course, I blew it. I was all mixed up, completely out of control most of the time. Charging around like a demented dog, it is no wonder I was run out of there very quickly after he found me threatening to slice a delivery man into pieces. That would have done nothing for the reputation of his hotel, would it? I can smile now, but actually, I feel ashamed that people have given me such good chances and I’ve let them down.

Brian (2)

“Oy! Watch where you’re going, won’t ya?!” Suddenly, there was this woman yelling at me to keep out of her way, rolling forward on the balls of her feet and standing over me, the bulk of her body blocking out the draining light of a late afternoon in August. She had a fag in her fingers and the smell was drifting unpleasantly up my nostrils, but you know, the burnt heat of it sort of woke me up. Dozing on my patch where I always sit, she had just walked up and almost past me, about to kick me and then thinking better of it. “Gerra life, ya lazy bag of shite…” she mumbled, suddenly aware of her mistake and that I was alert and not actually a dope-head. I pulled on Gazza’s chain and just waited.  Maybe she hadn’t seen him tucked under the blanket at my side, or maybe she felt caught out, but she mumbled, hocked and spat just next to me, and then moved on, taking her shopping bag, her dripping fag and her bad attitude away with her.

I am getting used to it, but after more than twelve years on the streets, and being settled here where most people know me and respect my patch – I leave theirs well alone, too – angry outbursts from stupid people are getting a bit predictable, you know? Like, I have a brain in my head, I have good eyesight, and I know all the best places to get a warm bed or a meal for under a fiver. I can spot trouble at forty paces so I’m quite savvy enough. It’s a wonder to me, that people see me sitting peacefully here, just minding my own business, but they think I’m out of it, a fuck-head, witless, away with the fairies. I’m not, as it happens, and what happened to me could happen to any of youse, too.

I was the youngest of nine children. Me mum was always after me to tidy my side of the room, to brush my hair or my teeth, wash my face, make myself neat. Though her pestering annoyed me, something must have stayed, because I find myself becoming more house-proud as the years pass, which is daft. My house is currently a static caravan looking out onto a field in Midlothian. I’m renting it, courtesy of a friend of my da’s who has two of them, and lets me have that one for me and my dog.  It looks out onto a big field at the back. And I have my pitch here, just next to the bank and down from the High Street. It is a good place to sit, though I would not call it comfortable being on my arse for hours at a time. I’m thin under my padded jacket, I know, and I don’t much like it when well fed people point that out to me, either. It’s not as if I don’t know about food, after all.

People sometimes don’t see me, like when it’s crowded, like just at this time of year when the streets are mobbed and nobody’s looking where they’re goin’. They really don’t notice me down here and I get kicked in the shins. My dog, he gets stepped on, which isnae fair on him. People throw things too, bottles, cartons of half-finished food, they just throw them down and expect the Council to collect them up and take them away. Or they leave half-finished bottles of alcohol on the sill next to my head and the smell sends me back a few years.

I was a drinker, but it wasnae that did for me. Not really. Yes, I was mixing my drinks, drinking at work, but it was the coke that finally got tae me. One mistake. Really, that’s all it was, because with some drugs, ye just cannae dae it the once and expect tae leave it. It comes efter ye like a cloud of promises that make your mouth dry and your body sweat and your eyes see things that areney there. That’s the worst, the not feeling right and not knowing how long it will tak tae feel solid again.

Brian

I’m just sitting on the window ledge – smooth, warm marble, generous deep recesses and near the ground so I can comfortably rest – having a chat with my pal. I think his name’s Brian. I’m around most Thursdays and Sundays and now that summer is slowly coming out of her shell I like to sit here with my face tilted up to the sun. I can see why Brian likes it too – it’s is a great spot for being warm. When I reluctantly rise to go, I leave a few coins or a five and then I’m on my way. On the return leg I try to remember to turn back and wave goodbye, but with the thinking going on in my head, sometimes I forget.

It was his dog that I first saw, a barrel-chested black Staffie with a great big grin and a tail that wags so hard, he skites all over the place when he comes to say hello. I’ve always liked Staffordshire Bull Terriers. My mother had one, Susie, who was so excitable that Mum got rid of her. Anyway, I like this fella, who does the same dance with his back end when he is pleased. Took me ages to realise it was a boy, not a girl. But that is me. Always slow to know these things.

Brian is about my age, I guess. Just something about the flecks of grey in his hair which, despite being so badly cut, is thick and shiny when it has just been washed. The sun catches it, and it’s good to see him looking like himself. He looks better with his hoodie off his face, less caught up inside his poor clothes.

Anyway, one morning we were sitting just having a chat, and two young men came up, abruptly stopped and stood opposite us. They were moaning something unintelligible about getting together, being pals and doing stuff. Not looking at me, just at Brian and waving their hands about. From his spot on the ground he quietly looked up at them and said little. Nodded, agreed, doing nothing to aggravate them. He looked so vulnerable sitting on the ground, but if he was anxious, he hid it well. Maybe the dog concealed under the blanket at his side helped with that. I said after they left, “Pissed, you think?” and he said, “A bit of the other….”

How vulnerable the homeless are to being abused. Almost every encounter is with someone standing over them, in front of them, above them. I am glad I was sitting near him that morning, watching the strange interview.

After that, the whole story came out. How he’d had a great life, the fancy car, the big house, a wife and kids and a great job as a chef with a top hotel making obscene amounts of money. He had it all, and I asked if it was a slide into booze…Naw, though he was drinking, it was one mistake with drugs. Cocaine. Just the word terrifies me. Not a great idea being a chef in a kitchen with sharp knives when the paranoia starts to bite either, he said. It didn’t take long to lose the job, the car, the wife and the kids, though his daughter still comes up from South to see him when she can. It takes her twenty-four hours travelling on the bus. She stays the weekend and then she’s off again on another long bus ride home. I said she must love him very much.

I caught myself tearful later on that week, wondering what I might do to help. Would he prefer a large sum, or a smaller weekly amount, I asked? He is realistic, and said that he would prefer the small weekly amount, or it would all just get spent very quickly. So it’s harder to leave the street then. But maybe he would not want a job with a pay-packet. He gets bored easily and he likes being at his pitch, meeting his regulars and having his independence. He can take his dog for a walk in the middle of a sunny day whenever he likes. What will it be like for him when he gets older, though? I wonder about that as I get to the car and drive home.

The Welfare State

The Welfare State was conceived as a cushion to protect those affected by disability, poverty and misfortune. It is not coincidental that it was introduced in the aftermath of World War II, as it became recognised that disability and illness as a result of the war effort were not necessarily anyone’s particular “fault”; and to compensate returning servicemen and women for disadvantage in the job market.

That compassionate understanding has been gradually eroded and lost as the old world of privilege and opinionated politics has reasserted itself. The wealthy have always punished the poor, justifying in harsh policies and political rhetoric the belief that poverty is punishment for fecklessness, feeble character or moral defectiveness. And so we see a move towards increasingly punitive and divisive assessments in terms of which its claimants are required to justify their claims – and highlight their suffering – rather than having their needs assessed objectively according to enlightened benchmarks that signal poverty or incapacity. The old-world view in which the rich punish the poor and reward themselves is being reasserted.

A retrogressive tax system is revealed. The bedroom tax is cruel and falls most sharply upon the poor and disabled; PIP introduces tests for mobility and personal care that are almost meaningless; and yet, our MP’s can claim the most exorbitant “expenses” and take umbrage when legitimate public scrutiny suggests their self-awarded compensation schemes are excessive or dishonest.

Different rules now apply in dishonesty. If you wish to be excused, make dishonesty glaring. If you want to get caught, filch fish fingers for the kids’ tea. Righteous indignation sounds loudest from those upstanding members of the establishment who themselves enjoy the most lavish privileges and exemptions. That was the state of play that Welfare reforms were intended to mitigate. Instead, we have a situation in which the most abject poverty is not only tolerated but, in a deliberate policy to divide and conquer, is now blamed on those who live in substandard housing and eke out a living on the minimum wage.

Waiting

She sat and waited, trying to draw interest from the usual chic lit plot, in a fat book that drooped into her lap as she slept, and woke with a start, desperately hoping for something to happen. These situations always brought out the worst in her, she reflected: her books that were going to be delivered, but had not yet arrived. Should she stay in for them, forfeiting whole days of sunshine for the slim chance that a burly chap with a large box would arrive to signal the end of this latest, small obsession? Or the email that would signal a trip to a studio – which could be anywhere – and some recording time that she felt, would have filled last month in nicely.

These situations brought out the worst, the very worst of her fears, her impatience. Others, seeming to hold her life in abeyance, appeared heedless of her silent endurance. They were so busy, while she waited for them, and suffered, as she felt she had suffered in many previous lifetimes, crucified, just waiting for something to happen.

The answer to powerlessness, she recalled, was not to react like a scared rabbit frozen in the headlights. It was to ask, “What would a powerful person do, now?” What indeed. Go out, and not wait for others to come. Finish the countless stories waiting for an ending. Prepare, rest, write and pray: she knew that the Universe was constantly conspiring to work things out in her favour. Now all she had to do was believe it.

Cats and Dogs

When we enter an arrangement intending intimate cohabitation (I was going to say “marry”, but that is a bit passé and unfair), our contract with a significant other is often supposed to last for many years. It is a testament to the courage and optimism of youth that we feel equal to the challenge of lifelong commitment, often at an age when we are relatively inexperienced in the ways of the world. We may exchange vows to love, respect and cherish one another, little knowing what we will discover as the veneer of novelty and polite manners wears thin. If we are lucky – as I count myself to be – we grow through some rocky times together, towards understanding.

I have often wondered what tastes Eddie and I share: it seems that he adores war museums, difficult books, and visiting windy, cold places; I like light, fluffy reading, hot climes and foreign films, through which he has a tendency to sleep. It was when I was experiencing some new, quietly held bafflement at something my husband said or did, that I received a very vivid impression which explained so much, though it flashed through my thoughts and was gone in an instant. Perhaps it was a dream, or perhaps my awareness was interrupted as I was clearing away the supper dishes.

A dog leaping up to bark joyfully; a cat quietly waiting. There is no point in wishing that the dog would become a cat, and why would we want that? The dog enlivens and enriches our lives with cheerfulness, with extrovert energy and vigour. A cat reflects quietly, ponders the future and hopes for the best. Both aspects can find room in the same place, but there is nothing to be gained from wishing, “I wish s/he would understand me” and far more to be gained from, “I release all my expectations of you and accept you as you are. In acceptance, I see new beauty and possibility.”

Happiness

This morning, a thought flitted across my field of vision: ‘I haven’t missed sugar…because we have just had such wonderful holiday.’

While Seline was on her half-term break, we too enjoyed a lovely change from our usual routines. We played outside, mostly on beaches, looking for shells and admiring the wind and waves, and gratefully breathing fresh air. We skittered in the mud at a nature reserve tucked out of the way beneath a hill, a muddy wetland around which we skidded and slipped and fell, then went home laughing, to don clean clothes.  We had lunch in a different place each day, and I sampled a few treats, as well as enjoying one touching invitation to afternoon tea, just myself, as part of a ‘hen weekend’. While I watched Eddie and Seline, and many others, enjoying ice-cream and the occasional cake, my usual sense of being deprived and singular was curiously absent. Finally, perhaps I have found a way to unhook these tired sentiments from my usual repertoire.

It’s only six weeks until the Easter vacation. Meantime, it is back to laundry, and a spookily quiet house. The return of routine makes me realise how much I have been used to leaning on food to invest my life with flavour: crisps, biscuits, even peanut butter sandwiches.

I see clearly, as if for the first time, a connection between unhappiness and a sugar lift. Needing the boost is a coping strategy I puzzle over. Has my life been so sad, so empty, that I have needed a stream of sweet props to jazz it up? Oh, no, that is not how I want to see my choices unfolding. I would choose to go out more often and seize the day, making laughter an everyday treat that does away with the impulse towards consolations. Sweets seem to lose their flavour, when the sap of my life is on the rise.

What to wear?

I am not your usual girlie shopper. I dread spending all day at the shops, browsing, though there is nothing I like more than yummy clothes and shoes. Because my days seem to pass so quickly, I find that I go clothes shopping about once every two years, so getting time for that is a big deal.

Yet on my day out being daring, nothing I try on is the right size, shape or colour. I seem to have missed the more generous, subtle mulberries and rich, dark blues that were the hallmarks of last season, according to a sales assistant who looks young enough to be my daughter and who struggles to be heard above the sound system. I lose myself in the chaos of a noisy disco, where all the latest trends are eye-wateringly pink or purple, and several sizes too small or too large. I have discovered – why me? – I am a size thirteen; or a size fifteen, which are nice and easy, in-the-middle nothing quite fits sizes. Ladies march confidently past with armfuls of delicious dresses, trousers and tops, while I content myself with a six pack of undies and a new jumper from the menswear section.

I do have my favourite shops which stock my favourite styles, where the chances of success are much higher, though my visits to them have to be carefully planned for when I have some real cash to spend. For a spontaneous day out “doing” the shops, I am most definitely not your girl. The odds are that I will find nothing that fits, “give” five pounds to a threatening, “Big Issue” seller who “forgets” to give me change and then have to pay for a taxi to take me home empty-handed because, after three hours of conspicuous non-expenditure I am simply too sore, tired and dispirited to wait forty minutes for the next bus. I’ve just seen one pulling away from the kerb about ten yards away, but there’s no chance of my running to catch it.

For a trip to one of the out-of-town shopping centres, we spend forty minutes in the car negotiating heavy traffic, with our daughter in the back seat asking, “Are we there yet” every minute or so; we cannot work out which cul-de-sac on this industrial estate will lead us to the one way system where there may be a junction that takes you to M & S….When we arrive, I remember I am wearing my reading glasses. I have to watch out for Seline – who moves as fast as a whippet through the crowds of coat hangers and slippery off-the-shoulder evening gowns and racks of clothes that cover the vast expanse of shop floor. My chance to acquire a new top or dress whizzes past me so fast that, before I have checked which isle I’m in, it has vanished. The world looks fuzzy and is moving too fast. Did someone turn up the speed of life and forget to tell me?