Jaye Marie's Blog, page 1911

Best Wishes for the New Year!

Star Gazing…

I finished reading ‘Star Gazing’ by Linda Gillard this week. Someone recommended it to me as one of ‘the best books ever written’ and not sure about that claim, but I did enjoy it. It was all about the life and loves of a blind woman, particularly apt for me now, as I am having problems with my own eyesight.

My optician can do no more to help me to see any better, but recommends that I take frequent breaks from books and the computer. When I asked how frequent, he thought that after every twenty minutes I should rest my eyes for ten minutes.

As you can imagine, this upset me a great deal as everything I love to do involves wearing my glasses. Refusing to co-operate is not really an option, for if I forget, I get the most awful giddiness and nausea.

So, was reading a book about blindness a good idea?

In a way it was, for far from being a sad book, I was introduced to a very different world, one full of the importance of touching, and noises, smells and emotions. The way someone can describe what the rest of us see, in such a way that a blind person can ‘see’ it too.

For example, ‘ice’ was described as ‘frozen music’.

What made me think was the power our memories have, and how somebody who has no memories can manage to create some, even if they cannot see.

I have been told that that is a dangerous thing to do at my age, (thinking that is) it is possibly a dangerous thing to do at any age, if you think about it, for who knows where it may lead?

But I quite like thinking, and all the things that trigger it off. Like books and pictures for instance. What I could do with is some method of retaining said thoughts, as they usually evaporate like so much smoke, never to be seen again. I make notes on everything in a vain hope of remembering all the good stuff, and it works some of the time.

Then I am told ‘what do you expect, at your age?’

But this is the difficult part. My mind does not feel old, even though it seems to have more holes in it than Emmental cheese, and when I see or read something that stirs my imagination, I am back in my prime, having a sneaky feeling that this is not all there is for me.

Some of the time I must admit that I really don’t want any more, I am too tired to even consider the possibility. But then there are the other days … days when you forget just how old, and stiff you are. That you have a job just going to the shops and back.

Days when you choose to ignore the sands of time slipping through your fingers and find yourself considering the most amazing possibilities.

Of course, this may be what happens as you approach old age. I don’t know, I have no experience or knowledge of it, not having done it before. But if you can think, you can dream. And if you can dream I believe you can do anything… at any age!

Do You Ever Listen to the voices in your head?

My first book, The Ninth Life came into being mainly because I became intrigued by the notion that most of us hear voices in our heads at one time or another.

From Pinocchio to Joan of Arc, sometimes a little voice can change history, and not always for the best.

Kate Devereau, the aging artist in my book The Ninth Life, has been hearing a voice all her life. Never sure if this is good or evil, she makes a point of ignoring everything it says. Would her life have turned out differently if she hadn’t?

Some people call this the voice of our conscience, a bit like Jiminy Cricket, but how many of us really listen or even obey its commands?

I personally don’t hear any voices, but sometimes I just know I should have done things differently, and have suffered the consequences…

When I researched this topic, I was amazed by just how many famous people have heard voices, going back as far as Moses. Some of these people were convinced they were hearing the voice of God; some thought a heavenly host had visited them. Whereas, on the other side of the scale, if these voices talked you into committing a crime, they usually locked you up and threw away the key.

So although the voice in my book, The Ninth Life, didn’t exactly help my heroine, I have the feeling she may pay more attention to it in the sequel, which I am writing now.

Me personally, I like the idea of a wise voice, advising and helping us with life’s problems. But would we dare trust it?

The Ninth Life is now on Amazon and you can find it here…

Notice to Quit…

Found myself nearly at the end of my tether this week. Depression had taken a holiday, but now it was back with a vengeance.

My back seems to have finally forgiven me but my knee still has an axe to grind, but that should not account for my frequent impersonation of a blubbering wreck. I have the unshakeable feeling that just one more disaster will break someone’s back, probably mine.

Then, just as I was doing my best to pull myself together, disaster struck. I was eating a biscuit and my partial denture snapped in two pieces. I knew from past experience that the repair would take at least a week, which meant I was condemned to eating soup and porridge for the duration, not to mention keeping a straight face for fear of scaring the natives.

My teeth are supposed to be back on Friday, but I am not holding my breath. Last time they were sent away they ended up going half way around Hampshire, and took two days to track them down.

Didn’t think the week could get any worse and was not prepared for it getting any better, but the following day it did. I was woken up at four o’clock in the morning by the characters from my book banging on and on in my head about needing another chance to sort their lives out. To be fair, they were coming up with some good ideas as to how this could be managed. Significantly, the only one who wasn’t nagging me, was the annoying voice that only Kate can hear. And before you could blink, I was building the storyline and plotting my head off.

Apparently, they want a new playmate and are being very insistent. I cannot argue with them, as they have more than proved their lead. And they should get the credit, for most of the time all I did was follow their orders!

I never realised how much fun writing a book could be, and I am more than delighted that the sequel to The Ninth Life is in such good hands.

I still don’t understand why is it that some mornings you wake up feeling as though you spent the night with Doom and Gloom, and others have you springing out of bed full of optimism?

All I can say is that I am grateful for it, as life is proving to be so very short without it…

Damages…

This week I have not been at my best. My knee still hurts from my nasty fall from grace a few weeks ago, and it is more than possible I have damaged the kneecap.

So what did I do, the very first day when it didn’t feel so bad? I decided to reinstall the huge (and very heavy) glass panel that serves as the only double-glazing in our living room. We have to put it up every year at this time, and then take it down in the spring so we can open a window. Stupid idea, but we have to do it. We keep being promised new windows, but there’s no sign of them yet.

I do know better than to carry this panel by myself, but the last time I removed it, the metal edging came off in my hand. This proved difficult to put back, so my thinking was, that one person (me) would keep it all together.

The muscles in my back complained a bit, but the following morning they were screaming their heads off. Three days on and I am still in agony, something I am not enjoying, mainly because it brings back nightmares memories of the surgery I had nearly forty years ago, to remove two shattered discs.

For more than ten years, I had suffered the most excruciating pain, only to be sent away by the medical profession and told to rest it. When I was almost on the verge of serious paralysis, they decided to do a dye test. This was injected into my spinal fluid and ex rayed. To be fair, they were very surprised by the results of this test. Our spinal cords are supposed to be perfectly straight; mine was doing a colossal u-bend and needed urgent surgery before I lost the use of my legs.

When I woke up after the operation, I couldn’t move and felt as though I had been nailed to the bed. The surgeon explained how he had removed all the broken bits and glued everything else together and that I had a scar down my back that looked like a zipper. Sounded weird, but if it stopped the pain, I was all in favour.

First, I had to learn how to walk again and it took a while, but I got better and my back has been fine ever since.

Until this week, that is.

Maybe the glue has degraded or something, I thought and had visions of being unable to walk. But I decided this was rubbish, it would be fine.

One good thing about all of this. I have been excused boots on the housework front and I can sit at the computer all day!

********************************

I have been discovering interesting things that I should be doing on this blog, a proper book landing page, for one. And I think the category is all wrong, so more research is needed.

Just when I thought I could concentrate on the sequel to Nine Lives, it seems there is more to do.

The White Azalea…

As someone who loves bonsai, my favourite treat is to visit Heron’s Bonsai in Surrey. It is an amazing place with beautiful bonsai in every conceivable shape, size and price. From small starter trees for just a few pounds, to large mature specimens, some of them hundreds of years old and costing a small fortune.

I could walk around Herons for hours, and usually do, for Peter Chan, the owner has his own personal collection there. Peter has won many ‘gold’s’ at Chelsea and teaches the art of bonsai. This is how I met him. He was the guest speaker at our local bonsai club in London, and by the time he had finished pruning and training an ordinary garden centre shrub into an impressive bonsai, I was well and truly hooked.

My own collection is pretty eclectic. I have some wonderful specimens; some have been presents from my family, and some I have grown from seed. Others I have trained, as Peter showed me, from bushes I have found in my travels.

Going to Heron’s is potentially a very dangerous thing for me to do, for there will always be something I cannot live without.

These days, I am governed by the space I have available, so I tell myself I will just ‘window shop’.

Doesn’t always work, of course.

Six years ago, on such a visit, I had been content to settle for some potting compost and was about to leave, when on the floor near the checkout, I saw a rather shabby looking plant with straggly branches and wilting leaves. It was about six inches tall and unrecognisable, and didn’t look as though it would live to see tomorrow.

As I picked it up, Peter looked over at me, eyebrows raised. I must have had a question written all over my face, for he just smiled and said I could have it. He must have thought the poor thing was beyond hope.

As I have always been a champion of dying houseplants, I took it home and began to cherish it. Turned out it was an azalea, and for several months there was no sign of improvement. A few new leaves and some that fell off. Not very encouraging.

Then just before Christmas, something strange started to happen. White buds appeared. In no time at all, the pathetic little branches were covered in beautiful, double white flowers. Unusual for an azalea, I discovered, they usually had single flowers and they never bloom at Christmas time.

All the next year I tended it with care, mindful of the display that might come again. I repotted it, carefully fertilised and watered it, but nothing I did seemed to make any difference. It just didn’t grow. I had heard of slow growing plants, but this was ridiculous!

But another Christmas loomed and more white buds appeared.

I was puzzled. How could such a spindly specimen bloom so abundantly in the middle of winter?

So, in my bonsai collection, among all the healthy, vigorously growing trees, in pride of place is the white azalea. Six years have passed and it hasn’t grown at all. The leaves look healthier though, so it isn’t dying.

Just a little magic tree, that every year, gives me a beautiful gift when everything else is asleep…

A peek inside Nine Lives…

I have been thinking about my debut novel, Nine Lives, quite a bit lately. Mainly because I want to start on the second one in the series, but also the way the whole concept seemed to change once I started writing it.

Originally, it was going to be a mysterious love story, but when the main character’s bullying and sadistic ex-husband turned up, he changed everything.

As you can see from this excerpt, he is not a man to argue with, not if you have any sense, and I should warn you, he gets worse!

~~~

The daylight was beginning to fade, although Jack hadn’t noticed. He wasn’t aware of anything, locked as he was in his own private world of pain and anger. Not even the pain from his fingers as he chewed them unmercifully in his frustration.

Darkness was gathering in pools all around him as he sat at the kitchen table, Kate’s carton of cigarettes in front of him. He wasn’t seeing them anymore, her face occupied his mind again and no matter how he tried to distort her image with every ounce of hatred he possessed, he failed miserably as usual.

He had never understood the power she had over him, the way just looking at her made him feel unworthy. Kate was not beautiful in the classic sense, her nose was a little too big, her mouth lopsided, but a light seemed to glow inside her and the more you looked the more you were compelled to.

If he didn’t know any better, he would describe the aura that emanated from her as saint like, for he could almost hear the soft chords of a church organ and in her presence he felt touched by something divine.

Anger sparked and flared again as he remembered the day she had vanished, throwing his love away and all he had given her. He reached out and grasped the box in front of him, gripping it so hard his fingers shook and began to bleed. She probably thought she had succeeded, even now.

He relaxed his grip and slowly stroked the packet, spreading a smear of blood and imagining her fingers touching the paper, fingers that should be touching him.

White-hot anger seared through his brain and he ripped the carton open, destroying the contents in a frenzied rage that seemed unending.

Sometime later, when the rage had abated, he stared at the rubbish in front of him. Of all the things to steal from her, he thought, why these? Because he knew she would miss them the most. She always seemed to need a cigarette much more than him and that had always infuriated him and driven him mad.

He ignored his own sarcasm, shaking his head as if to dislodge it, knowing as he did it was true. Had he really been reduced to petty theft?

He had taken other things from her over the years; most went unnoticed to his constant annoyance. It would appear she went about in a dream most of the time, completely unaware of her surroundings.

This was one of the things that attracted him in the beginning. The way she had of removing herself from reality. Almost as a child would, lost in a fairy-tale world of her own making. He discovered quite early in their relationship she didn’t like the real world at all and wanted no part of it. Rejecting the pain and torment, the dirt and humiliation all living things had to endure and of which she had had her share. She had found a way to live, which reduced all the hostile friction to a minimum.

But the fact he wasn’t included in her state of mind was what started to create his anger. Little by little, he resented her way of generating the calm she obviously needed more than him, until he found himself trying to destroy everything she held dear.

Most of his resentment was directed at Mr Perfect, his nickname for Michael Barratt, the so-called love of her life and father of her son David. She never mentioned it but he knew she still loved him and while that love existed, there was no room for him.

When Jack was trying desperately to find her all those years ago, he visited all the places he could think of, questioning anyone who might have a clue as to her whereabouts. He even tried to talk to Mr Perfect’s father, John Barratt, something he didn’t enjoy for the man seemed hell-bent on keeping the fact he knew her a well-kept secret. It wasn’t until later, when his temper had been satisfied he saw the old man’s stubbornness for what it really was. He had loved her and was jealously guarding her memory from all comers.

Kate had run away from him too and the old man seemed to blame his son with a barely concealed hatred that matched Jack’s own.

At least he wouldn’t have to worry about that anymore, he thought; remembering the way the old man’s eyes had gradually closed as he squeezed the life out of him. It was almost as though he welcomed death as the end of his suffering.

Did the suffering really end when you died, he wondered? Or did you take it with you into the afterlife? He hoped it was the latter, for in a complicated way he enjoyed the pain. There were just so many ways you could enjoy it…

~~~

See what I mean?

But I enjoyed watching him in action, nonetheless…

Mermaids Tears…

The greatest magic on this earth is to be found in water. Any kind of water, whether it is the powerful oceans or the peacefully slow moving rivers.

I have found magic in mighty waterfalls and simple rock pools, and love nothing better than being close to it. I have spent many happy hours beachcombing, looking for shells and driftwood, and the occasional piece of sea glass.

Sea glass, or mermaids tears, as it is sometimes called, is just ordinary pieces of glass, chemically weathered and tumbled beneath the waves to produce beautifully smooth frosted pebbles.

This process takes a long time, and each piece contains its own mystery of where it came from and how it ended up in the sea. It could be from a shipwreck or a message in a bottle, the possibilities are endless. It can be almost any colour, but black is supposed to be the rarest, although it must be hard to spot among the pebbles on a beach.

Sea glass has been called a reverse gem, for most of the gem stones that we recognise have been made by nature and refined by man. Sea glass is the opposite, but I suspect it is a lot more complicated than that.

One thing has always puzzled me. Why isn’t there more to be found? I have searched for most of my life and only found a few pieces, probably because I am looking in all the wrong places.

Whatever the truth of it all, I think it is magical and I treasure my collection.

Maybe it is because I too am flotsam, thrown up on life’s beach. Waiting to be found and treasured by a fool like me…

History repeating itself…

Nearly November, but the weather was pleasantly warm. We were walking around Southampton enjoying the late sunshine.

Our mood was reasonably high, having just had a very positive ‘meet and greet’ with a publisher who was interested in Anita’s books. We had lunch in the open air and were trying to remember which car park we had used, several hours before.

My feet were killing me, wearing new shoes on such a day was a crazy idea, but I was grinning and bearing the pain like a trooper. We walked past an ancient looking wall that was faced with what looked like slices of flint, and I was rooting around in my bag for my camera as I loved the image.

I don’t really know what happened next, whether my foot slipped or I stumbled, but before I knew what was happening, I was flying through the air and landed on the ground. Pain hit me like a sledgehammer, as my hands, face and knee took the full force of my considerable weight, grinding them into the rough surface of the walkway.

For several minutes I couldn’t move. The pain was excruciating and there was a distinct possibility that I might faint, my head was swimming as Anita and her son rushed to help me. As I lay there in an inelegant heap, trying to pull myself together, I noticed my hands. There was some blood, but no apparent reason for it, (I found out later that it came from my face) my hands were studded with gravel and were screaming with the pain. As I stared at them, I was transported back to a time when this had happened before, sixty years ago.

I was nine or ten, and it was winter. The school playground was icy, with piles of dirty snow shovelled here and there. It was playtime and I was under the shelter that ran along the side wall, swinging on the iron bars. It was a game we played, linking our arms around the bars and lifting our feet off the ground. Like today, what happened next was fast and my hands and face hit the icy ground first.

The school nurse took one look at my face, bloody and pitted with gravel and promptly sent me home to my mother. I remember the look on her face as she studied mine, the way she cried as she tried to remove the gravel as gently as she could. It wasn’t easy and it hurt a lot, but she kept at it until it was done.

I had looked at my hands that day, as I did now, wondering why fate had decided to repeat itself, today of all days.

Trust me to spoil what was a momentous occasion, a day that promised to be the start of something really great…

Water…

How can an innocent glass of water start to look menacing? Almost as if something demonic was swimming around in it. Something we cannot see.

The quality of our drinking water has not improved much since we complained about it last week. Most of the time it’s as if you’re drinking bleach.

After our complaints and queries to the water company, they duly came out and checked our water, which resulted in a written report about the safety levels of all the chemicals used to clean up the water.

It made scary reading, for we had no idea just how many processes were involved, but when you think that the water we drink has been drunk and recycled for centuries and has probably being through (so to speak) hundreds if not thousands of people.

This formal document, which at first glance was just a load of statistics, appeared to be practically meaningless to the average person. Near the end of the page however, something caught my eye. Almost everything you could find coming out of your tap, had regulated and approved levels. Personally, I don’t think any level of pollution is acceptable and I don’t know why we have to be subjected to what is, let’s face it, an unpleasant fact of life.

But, and this was a big but, I found that the amount of chlorine (bleach) that they used to kill the bacteria, had no appreciable level. They can, apparently, use any amount they see fit.

This doesn’t seem right somehow, and I would switch to bottled water, but most of them don’t taste any good either.

All of which reminds me of something that happened when I was a child and we lived in the heart of the countryside, miles from anywhere. We were not connected to the main water supply so we had a well. It was a lovely peaceful place and I enjoyed my time there. No other houses for miles around, we were surrounded by fields and woods and the occasional stream.

School was a few miles down the road and buses were infrequent.

One day a strange man in overalls came around to test the water in the well, as my mother had noticed a funny taste. Turned out a hedgehog had fallen into the well and drowned, the rotting carcass flung on the grass for us to dispose of. The thought of it quite ruined my summer and nobody wanted to drink the water.

Could be worse, I hear you say; in some countries you cannot drink the water unless you boil it first. I tried that last week and it still tasted bad…