Hippie in the City

HOME AMONG THE TREES — HOME-COMING DOOM — FEAR SELLS

Just a few short weeks ago my dear friend could have died in a car accident with his baby daughter in the back.

Ok, so this is probably not the intro you were expecting given the title of today’s instalment from the Land of Crazy.

I took a deep breath and sat at the pc, having finally decided I might be ready to return to the world of Facebook and the people inside my computer. At the top of my newsfeed appears a long post by my friend. It read that he was driving with his baby daughter in the back, trying to get her off to sleep, when he saw a car racing up behind them. He expected that it would overtake soon and also be picked up by the speed cameras for doing 80mph. I would probably have uttered an expletive at this point but I’ve no reason to believe my friend did so. The drug-fuelled driver did not pass them. It hit full-on causing my friend to wrestle to keep control, futile. His car span, turned nose over end, crashed through the metal barrier which pierced the car and came to a stop only when it hit the bridge. His baby girl’s cry brought him back to reality and gave him the surge of adrenaline he needed to get to her and escape the car before something else crashed into them. When the emergency services arrived they noted the crash site and simply expected corpses, not a man standing on the side of the road cradling his daughter, relatively unscathed. A doctor later asked him if he believed in God, people just don’t walk away from accidents like that.

Reading his account I was convinced it would end with “and then I woke up, what a horrible dream” but it didn’t. I nearly lost my friends. I thought of when we first met and instantly knew our families would be close friends. I thought of when each of their children were in utero and then born and how excited I was, it was just like getting new family members. I felt my new found confidence at returning to my online presence slip and fall into the abyss. Terrified to stay on the pc, as though that could trigger more bad news, I logged off and I sobbed. Despite them escaping and knowing they were okay I just couldn’t shake this feeling of loss. It made me realise how much I love and value them, how much I love and value all of my friends, how solid a piece of my heart they hold. It frightened me to think how badly I might have coped had it been me in the car. It shook me to my core to think how it would be to lose my family or them to lose me. It made me fear the future, how would my autistic son cope when my husband and I are long gone? I am his safety, ‘Mum’ is his word for sanctuary, for calm, for love. I understand him like nobody else does. My body used this panic and fear and made me sick, I sunk down low, to the bottom of my pit, surrounded by darkness and I sobbed and prayed to a God I do not believe in. Then a little hand appeared in front of me and touched my cheek “it’s ok Mummy, you will be ok”. I love my children so much, they glow.

Fear is a powerful thing. Fear keeps us in our place. Our own bodies use it to protect us from dangers, we use it to force ourselves into action when the need is greatest or sometimes it paralyzes us and we lose our senses all together. Then of course, fear sells, fear is a huge industry, it is worth an ugly amount of money. Cosmetic companies sell you the fear of being fat without their product, the fear of blemishes, the fear of wrinkles, the fear of ageing, fear, fear, fear. Last year I saw a couple of adverts, one for ‘boob deodorant’ and another for ‘vaginal bleach’. So now ladies, as well as being too fat, smelly, too old and the wrong shape, your boobs are too sweaty and your vagina is too brown! Mental, everything is mental. I think I have gone bat shit crazy and then I see things like that. Maybe the world is crazy and it’s not me after all. Fear sells, how sad, if only people said “no”.

I fear death, most of us do whether we admit it or not, how would they sell life insurance otherwise? It’s not irrational.

We recently went for a short woodland break to Norfolk, a place we love so much. A favourite place, a home among the trees, it feels ‘real’ and ‘true’ when the world seems to feel in chaos, it is grounding. But, I feared my Mum’s partner would succumb to the cancer that is killing a part of us all, I feared we would lose him whilst we were away and I wouldn’t be there, we didn’t, we get to keep him a bit longer, which is both a blessing a and a curse when you watch somebody you love dying, somebody that is ready to let go. I feared my old boy cat would die whilst we were away, that it wouldn’t be in my ready arms as it should be. He didn’t and he snubbed me for leaving him when we returned, as all good cats do. I feared I would die during the three hour journey to our house, I didn’t but I’m still frightened.

Our time in the woods was as wonderful as I knew it would be, like returning home to your loved ones, like the overwhelming sense that you belong. We ate our breakfast among the squirrels and deer and rabbits and birds and I felt completely at ease, my wounds slowly healing. They didn’t demand a thing from me beyond a handful of peanuts or fruit, no pressure, no expectations, no judgement. They ask nothing but my company. Elliot named our regular squirelly visitor Jimmy Junior (Aquabats fans will get this and be ready for a fist bump), he was a scruffy little thing and we loved him. Jimmy Junior scratched at our door each morning for his peanuts. Elliot said he loved him and Jimmy Junior was his son and so he was. We are all children of nature after all, it is where we came from and where we shall return. Unless of course the Big Man in the sky turns out to be more than a fairytale.

My Phoebe always says that Ray and I are penguins because they mate for life but I like to remind her that I am still waiting for my bloody pebble! Well, this shall henceforth be known as ‘The Year of the Pebble’ because this year I got it! Not just one in fact but two! One that looked like it had a Triforce on it and another that looked like a Queen Alien embryo, that is true love.

Elliot and I share a love of the stony beach at Weybourne, we both love the colour of the stones and the way they change when the tide washes over them. We love the smell and the cliffs and the driftwood and the gulls. We love the sound of the water. We watch the gulls gather in the surf, we hunt for fossils, we love the freedom to just exist and just ‘be’. Ever notice how you can breathe easier when you sit by the sea?

On one long afternoon after going to the wrong place and scrambling to find something else nearby so the day wasn’t an entire waste, we ended up at Baconsthorpe Castle. Though I fear ‘castle’ was a little optimistic of the describer for the ruins that remained. It once belonged to a very wealthy family who made their fortune through the law profession and later from wool production. Having amassed enormous debt they began dismantling some of the walls and selling them for building materials. How funny human beings are. Instead of selling up and down-sizing they would grip onto their pride and sell off their walls instead. The fear of being seen as less wealthy all too stark an option. Imagine if they had to visit food banks today…….

I sat each evening playing my uke under the stars, looking out to the woods…… well, not whilst I was playing because I am still a beginner and have to keep my eyes on the strings and where I am placing my fingers but you get my drift! I sat playing, each note doing its best to suppress the fear that we would soon be leaving all of this behind. No more deer on the front porch, no rabbits under the windowsills, back to the ominous concrete creation of our home town.

When the morning came to leave I wasn’t ready, I never would be. I loved it here and I didn’t want to say goodbye. I felt entirely bereft at the thought we would be going, against my will, against the logic of my soul. I loved the woods, I felt rooted in them. When I stretched my arms wide around the body of each tree they became the bark, our lifeblood as one. I became a part of their history and they of mine. The trees etched their names into my chest with their penknife limbs, leaving them would pull the life from me. Their names burned deep, the longing to stay burned and it was a promise to return.

We bundled into the car and I sobbed as I watched the place I love disappear into memory. I wasn’t ready to leave, my wounds opened and burned. I didn’t feel I was going home, I felt I was being forced from it, pushed back into a world I didn’t understand that didn’t understand me.

We were all quiet for the longest time, they felt it too. Well, maybe not Elliot who was joyous at the thought of his own bed and his Transformers, the faces of Megatron and Optimus Prime ready to welcome him home.

Music. Music always helps, even if it means taking turns with cds in the car, meaning our soundtrack ran like this; Spice Girls, Rhiannon Giddens, Hot Chip, Spice Girls, Tracy Chapman, Pearl Jam. Which was mostly ok with me. We sang through most of the journey, as we often do to keep our spirits lifted and we love to giggle at the glances of fellow drivers that are unfortunate enough to have stopped alongside us for a time, perplexed at the cacophony radiating from our battered little car and its array of occupants. I was smiling at the time and then suddenly, there it was. Looming, depicting my doom, maybe even laughing down at me. An arrow pointing ‘in’ as though saying I’ll never leave, the first sign to say ‘Basildon’. It wasn’t right, it didn’t sit well with any of us, save for Elliot who relished exploding through the door to find his friends waiting steadfastly on his bed, exactly where he had left them.

We pull up outside, my fingers itching to remember the tough of bark, not the cold, hard plastic of the car door. We step out and as though a trigger is flipped inside my head I remember that I have lost the plot, I grab the kids and make a mad dash for the door and so it is done, we are back and life will go on for us and I am sad but thankful that it will.

I am certain I sound like a brat, an ungrateful brat but I’m not. I am thankful each and every day for everyone and everything I have in our lives. I never forget for a second just how lucky I am and how many are less fortunate. That doesn’t stop my yearning for a solace that only the woods seem to offer, a thirst for nature and peace that this town cannot quench, yet I am at its mercy.

And so we continue. I was going to write about the meltdown that came in the form of a party invite for the kids to a soft play centre, funny how kids can look like Titans about to descend when you are frightened. I was going to tell you all about my nervous anguish to do every bit of washing up as soon as it appears so I will be a good enough wife. Instead I shall sign off today with this; love with all of your heart, visit the woods to walk often, be grateful for everyone and everything you have, sit by the sea and breathe and it never hurts to keep an Optimus Prime at home so somebody is always there to greet you.