Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness

It's my birthday today. I was born exactly 25 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, which anniversary is now marked every year as Holocaust Memorial Day. Today we remember the six million Jews who were murdered by the Nazis, and all the other people that regime set about systematically annihilating because they were gay or Roma or mentally 'defective' or Communist or or or. We also remember those who died in subsequent genocides, in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur. Et al.

HMD was first marked in the UK in 2001. Until then, I had no idea of the date's significance. Initially, I was pretty pissed off that it was on my birthday. But I've been coming round.

This is me and my grandma in 1988, when I spent three months in Israel during my year off. She was born in 1920, and left Germany for Palestine, with her father and siblings, in 1928.

So she survived. My dad got born - during the war, when Auschwitz was still in full swing. Some years later, I got born too.

Today, I missed my mum a bit, had a lovely lunch with M and my dad, had a brief love-in with Otto the dachshund, bought some chicken noodle soup in Booths, and came home to do an hour or so's work. I could have gone to the HMD event in Lancaster, where one of Anish Kapoor's 70 candles for 70 years was being lit. But I went to yoga instead, and did my remembering there.

Check our matching noses. Keep the memory alive.

joella

Grief is the word

In the month or so after her death, I had some very vivid dreams about my mum. In my favourite, she was in the bath, and she asked me to scrub her back. This was a thing that actually happened a lot -- I don't know anyone who saw their mum naked more often than I saw mine. She never got self-conscious, even in her last year, when her body changed so much, from the vibrant and healthy thing I'd seen a changing-but-the-same version of all my life, to something tiny, punctured, and randomly (or so it seemed a lot of the time) unreliable.

In my dream, she had her old body, the one that worked... with the strong, broad back, the hair in a headband, the freckly white skin that was so smooth but reddened so easily. She always liked a proper back scrub, though, so that's what I did, and then she looked up at me, stood up in the water, and gave me a proper big hug. I woke up feeling that I'd said the proper physical goodbye that I never managed in real life. I used to hug her a lot, but by the time we knew she was dying, she was too frail and too encumbered for anything more than holding of hand and stroking of head. So I thank my subconscious for bringing me that hug.

And generally, I am sleeping better since she died than I did during her last months. There's nothing I can do for her now, and however mind-gapingly awful her illness was, it's over. I feel huge - at times overwhelming - sadness much of the time, but I also know that, at least while she was ill, I did my best. That was something I learnt from Trish herself -- if you've done your best, you have nothing to feel guilty about. You may wish you were a better person or that circumstances had been different, but you can't do much about that and there's no point wasting energy on it.

There are (fairly obviously, I guess) some teenage moments I wish I could revisit, and many years of self-absorption where a bit of "it's not all about you, love" might have helped, but for much of my 30s, and my early 40s, we both worked to find a space where we could do things together that we both enjoyed, and we managed that. I'd (fairly obviously, I guess) have made more effort if I'd known she wouldn't live forever, but shit, she was the strongest person I knew. You just don't believe someone with her resilience will go and fucking die on you. She didn't believe it either. One of the last things she did was order a new bathroom. By the time they came to fit it, she was in the hospice. One of the others was to plant a monkey puzzle tree in the front garden. By the time that's grown up, we'll all be ashes.

Every day, there is a moment where I remember that my mum's dead. Sometimes it's like being hit with a blunt instrument somewhere deep inside, other days it rips my surface, like trying to crawl out of a bramble patch in your pants. Many days, whether raw or deep, it's nothing worse than sadness, which, at this point, feels like an achievement. I shed some tears on a bus, or in the supermarket, or when I catch a certain smell or hear a certain song. But sometimes it just stops me in my tracks, and for a few hours, there's quite literally nothing I can do.

I never read self-help books just like I never weigh myself. But you don't get to be 43 without absorbing some common wisdom about grief, if only by emotional osmosis. I know about the stages-that-aren't-really-stages. I know it's different-for-everyone. I know that losing a parent is massively significant, whether you got on with them or you didn't. That constant, that given, whether a presence or an absence, a source of pleasure or pain, now gone. If you're an adult, it knocks you forward into another phase of your life, closer to the centre of your family web if you have children of your own, more aware of your genetic cul-de-sac if you don't. I think I was prepared for that, to some extent, given that I had some notice. And my mother was one of the good guys. Our differences were non-toxic, our disagreements benign. I thought I had nothing really to fear but the sadness. I thought that I was probably at the lucky end of the people-whose-mothers-are-dying spectrum, however shitty a spectrum it may be. And that may indeed be so. But there are two facets of this beast called grief that I wasn't expecting.

One of them began to crystallise at her funeral, when my dad spoke about their life together and said, of its last phase, after they moved back to Lytham in 1997, "she really loved her life here". And she did. She really did. She was part of the fabric of that small town for more than half her life, she loved the house she lived in and the people she knew, and she loved her job and her family and my dad and the comfort that came from the rewards of their long years of careful sifting and saving. My mother was the very model of economy, but she loved to be generous, including to herself. Such balance I will always envy, and it will take me a long time to reconcile myself to the fundamental unfairness that a woman who overcame so many obstacles, and displayed such tenacity and grit, never got to spend that much time in the (figurative - remembering the white skin and the freckles) sun, and spent a year dying horribly before she was even 70. There are millions of people who can't see the point of life, and millions more who build their lives and their livelihoods on the exploitation of others. Why do some of them get to live out their old age when my mum, who wanted to be alive and spent her life (working and otherwise) looking after other people, doesn't? Huh? Where's the justice in that?

(I do know that there ain't no justice, before anyone sends me a book about it).

The other facet is harder to articulate, because it's the one I *really* didn't expect. I knew I was going to lose my mum. What I didn't fully appreciate was that she was the family's UN-Security-Council-cum-ACAS. Not that we're a family at war. More that I suddenly realise there was someone gently representing everyone's interests to everyone else, and negotiating settlements without anyone else involved (or at least me) really knowing there were issues to be settled. I just lost my best defender and I never even knew I needed defending. I have a bunch of relationships to renegotiate now, not with my dad, fortunately, as that has always been relatively unmediated, but from there on out, I'm like a wheel without a centre. There are times I think 'why didn't you *say* anything?' ... but then I think, hey, that was the secret of her success. Why would I expect her to change the habits of a lifetime on her deathbed? She took a bunch of our secrets and lies with her, and she absolutely had that right.

I fucking miss her though.

joella

Resolve

I'm always quite relieved to get to Twelfth Night, having been at the humbug end of the Christmas spectrum for the past 20 years or so. Oh, but it's lovely for children, people say. Yeah, but I'm not one and haven't got any, I reply. For me it's just a lot of random expense, long journeys at the most inhospitable time of the year, inane music, even more inane television, more stuff that I don't need, and way too much Organised Fun. I'd rather stay in on my own for the duration with some posh gin and Inspector Morse, honest to god, but a) nobody believes me and b) even if they do I'm not allowed.

This year was different, of course (what do you buy the woman who's busy getting rid of things? I could tell you, but you might cry). Gin and Morse was not an option. But, while it was hard for me to tell, because it's a while since I've spent Christmas at the parental home so all the rituals were slightly unfamiliar, I think it went off pretty well. We had a splendid dinner, cooked by my sister's friend O and his boyfriend, who, it turned out, is a chef - poor guy had already done about 1200 Christmas dinners, but we were all very appreciative of his final eight. Cranberry-topped nut roast FTW. We also did quite a bit of Walking the Dog, and Drinking the Wine, and Watching the Queen. It was all as it should be, except not. What else can you do?

Boxing Day was at my aunt's -- and in many ways even more familiar and even stranger. The lasagne, the egg mayonnaise, the tuna pasta salad, the quiche, the rolled up slices of smoked salmon, the lemon meringue pie... all the food and the people and the animals who should have been there (with the exception of my cousin P, who lives in Hong Kong), the men talking about the latest gadget (G's Raspberry Pi), the women sitting round the kitchen table, various people keen to ask me if I really have started eating meat (of which more later). This is what we've always done, but it was a little bit like watching it through a video camera, or from down a long corridor. It was most peculiar. I expect there's a word for it. I wouldn't have been anywhere else, but at the same time, I can't completely say I was there.

New Year was entirely different, and if anything even odder. There was a revue then a ceilidh planned in the Common House, and I am mildly to severely allergic to both of these things. They're not compulsory, of course, just as I am not contractually obliged to eat Mung Bean Surprise, but it's surprisingly difficult to assert your right to, you know, stay in with posh gin and Inspector Morse.

In the end, I had a lovely evening. E came to drink sherry with me and let me be a bit sad for a while, then two people asked if they could come and watch Morse too, which was perfect gentle company. Several others dropped in and out around midnight, and I was finally tempted down the street once I was assured all remaining fun was distinctly disorganised. It does get a bit fuzzy after that point but I remember skidding down the floor to Praise You, and pogoing to Reward till I nearly-fell-over-but-didn't. I didn't feel very shiny the next day (in fact I didn't get dressed) but there in the background was the little glow of knowing that I'm not on my own with the strangeness (or the sadness). I have comrades, and I'm lucky.

In between the two Big Ones we had a delightful visit from Mr B, who came bearing wine, gifts from Turkey and an electric cigarette, which I had a go on after we'd drunk some of the wine (verdict: enjoyable, but probably best avoided unless the alternative is real cigarettes). He'd texted ahead to say he wanted to eat communal lentils, which was not quite possible, but we improvised and sat round our old table with our new friends and ate Greek lentil soup adapted from the recipe of my Significant Ex's best friend from school's mum. It was a good collision of worlds. I do miss Mr B.

But all in all, various things notwithstanding, I was pretty glad to get shot of 2012. We've still got most of the winter to get through, but I find there's something calming and palate cleansing about the tinsel-free bleakness of early January, at least as long as I don't have to go very far and have a decent stack of library books.

So, to resolutions. I have three this year.

1. Blog at least once a week.
2. Sober January. Well, sober most of January, as we are heading to East London to celebrate my birthday and I don't see that happening without a Negroni or two. I might make the days up in February. It's going ok so far, in the sort of extended hangover feat. scary dreams fashion I remember from previous detoxes.
3. Eat meat at least once a month. That's high quality meat of known and ethical provenance, preferably local. So far (not all this year) I have had lambs liver for dinner twice, once from Abel & Cole, once from our local butcher, and half a free range Lancastrian pork pie. I think this may be like discovering classical music after a lifetime of alt-folk. It's a whole new thing. And deserves further expounding, when I've worked out what the hell it is I think I'm doing.

Onwards.

joella

Moving and shaking

Well, it's nearly the end of November* and I couldn't let a fifth (nearly sixth) month pass without a blog post... actually, I could, but I didn't want to, as Joella first put nicotine-stained fingers to red-wine-stained keyboard ten years ago this month, and I felt the occasion should be marked.

And it's not that there hasn't been stuff going on, quite the reverse. If I had to sum up the last six months in less than, say, 140 characters, it would be something along the lines of TOO MUCH STUFF ALREADY. NOW LEAVE ME ALONE.

In the early days of the blogosphere, I used to write pithy and/or incoherent and/or cryptic posts even when things were kind of weird. We have Facebook and Twitter for that these days, and in many ways I think they do a better job. But (as I've said before, and I'm not the only one) something that could have stood a paragraph or two, a bit of reflection or expansion, become a little self-contained note about life in the 21st century, can, when condensed to a tweet or a status update, just disappear into the stream that flows past us all, all the time.

So I regret my blogular silence, not least because this exercise has always been as much for my own benefit as anyone else's. These months have not been easy, but they have been significant. I would like to get back to blogging, it's a medium I'm fond of. Writing is still one of the things I like doing best of all. It's early for a New Year's Resolution, but I have a good experience to build on: this year's was to refuse to visit the Daily Mail website, however chain-yanking the link-bait, and I have kept the faith. So in 2013, which I fully expect will not be an easy year either, I resolve to blog at least once a week.

A tweet or two from each week since I last blogged... for the sake of the record: 

June:

• Project Interim Hair Colour is moving into phase 2: goodbye Dirty Blonde, hello Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlights.
  
• Shit is relative, as Freud almost said.
• Pint of Isis Pale Ale in between a Hinksey swim and spaghetti carbonara (v). Happy end to a weekend of heated long distance debate.
• We argue while boarding the 35. M: 'you just wanted to say "hegemony" on the bus, didn't you?'. Me: 'yeah, a bit'.
  

July

• Drinking spicy Turkish turnip juice in East London.     http://t.co/QLnTqQkT
• We had the Cohousing Conversation About Meat. Nobody died.
  
• The horses in the field next to our temporary Lancs home trot over every time we walk down our long drive. Horses are GREAT. I'd forgotten.
• History of the toilet programme on BBC4 right now making this sociologist-plumber very happy.
  
• So that was odd, but mostly in a good way. Like us, I guess. Yay. And an extra yay for the Saudi women. In black, at the back, but here.

August

• Home alone with an End of an Era hangover. Nothing in the house but plums and Parmesan heels. Time for a bath with Georgette Heyer.
  
• If the Spice Girls are the 'originators of girl power' I want a fucking refund. Off to bed.
• Coffee at Restore after pre-Cambodia jabs at East Oxford Health Centre. Hurty arm. Quite a stressy month, all told.
  
• On our way To The North. http://t.co/BXLMLCiM
• Woke up, thought what's that noise, it's like living on a building site. Oh. But VIEW!  http://t.co/bMgZ02tw
  
• Like Guinness in Ireland, Singha only tastes right in Thailand. BKK airport just about counts, specially on 'WTF is the time?' time.
• It appears I am now a "Crazy Goat".  http://t.co/9dMG1H3c
  

September

• I just dropped a litre of Tanqueray in the middle of Abu Dhabi airport. The staff were amazing. The man who got gin on his ankles, less so.
• Oppressed by boxes in multiple different ways. Oppressed by lack of internet in the Glorious Eco Home. But feeling resilient, mostly.
  
• I feel like a pendulum swinging between 'unstoppable force' and 'immovable object'. Both have their merits, but it's not very zen.
• Finding some calm at the end of a hectic not-over-yet week with a Lune-inspired playlist... Rivery http://t.co/FA2mrOIa #Spotify
  
• Discovered today that we live about three miles (maybe four via bike down towpath) from this: http://t.co/L9p2clkw

October

• Going off-grid* for a few days.  *leaving town with only one internet-enabled device
  
• Thanks to my lovely boyfriend for support through one of the hardest weeks of my life. And for eating THREE meals with gherkins in today XX
• #justthewomen - I despair.
• Feeling a little mutinous. And possibly a little carnivorous. Could be ominous. Could be fun.
  
• THREE MONTHS since we placed a BT landline order and they still won't give us a date. Well, they've given us many dates, but no landline.

November

• "Because of you, I doubted my own sanity." Go Carrie! Stick it to the man. #homeland
  
• Our old table in its new home: fish pie & champagne in the Common House with some of our lovely cohousing neighbours http://t.co/xwlsBAIF
• Day 87 in the house with no landline. Putting finishing touches to my 1700-word letter of complaint to BT.
  
• Hot Ribena and hot Vimto at the Crook O'Lune http://t.co/eCbqK1f7
• After 11 years cohabiting, we are merging our book collections. Our Bodies Ourselves now lives next to Mathematical Puzzlements.
  

What all that means is...

1. On 19 August we left our Interim Bungalow for the long journey north. It was good to us, was the Interim Bungalow, and I very much enjoyed living next door to ex-housemate S, her Young Man, Tungsten and Particle for the best part of a year, but if I had my time again I'd do it differently. We'd have stayed there for a few months, through the winter, and then made a clean break and rented a house in Lancaster till the Passivhaus was ready. That way I'd have done the shift to remote working, got to know a new city, said the big goodbyes to Oxford, all while the days were lengthening and while the shops were in walking distance. Instead we did a halfway thing, and sublet a couple of rooms off another cohousing couple who had rented a big house (so big it was immediately nicknamed the Massivhaus) near the site as their own interim base. The idea was we'd live there some of the time and in the Interim Bungalow some of the time. But that didn't work out... it was never a space we felt at home in, and it was never a space we even felt that warm in. It was a long way from town, up a hill, right next to the M6. A good setting for a novel, but not a good start to our life in Lancaster. We liked the horses in the field next door. We liked the view over the hills as we walked to the bus stop. We liked the wild garlic and the bluebells in the spring. But really, when we were there, we always wanted to be in Oxford, where we could eat what we wanted and watch TV in our pants if we wanted. These things happen, and it seemed like a good idea at the time, but ... it made the leaving harder. 

2. When we arrived, we were the first people to move in. On the upside, it was a celebratory weekend -- both before we left, when we had a lovely Isis-and-curry night on the Friday, and a big Flowing Well meal on the Saturday with the ex-housemate S massive plus C, who drove a van down from Lancaster to pick us and our stuff up -- and when we arrived, when there were loads of people waiting to welcome us and help us unload the van. We hadn't been in our house, or any of the houses, before we took possession of the keys, and the whole thing was both surreal and overwhelming. I think only four properties were released that week, and we were the only ones who were moving any distance, so everyone else moved in gradually, while we got the big bang. And it was pretty weird. A brand new house has no coat hooks, no towel rails, no lampshades, no clues as to how you should occupy its space. This one also had an awful lot of new things to get our heads round -- MVHR, district heating, an induction hob, a water-efficient bathroom -- plus a whole bunch of stuff that simply wasn't finished or in place yet... no communal indoor or outdoor space, no laundry room, no car pool, no phones or internet, a postcode so new that for delivery purposes, we just didn't exist. Where do we do our washing? How do I do my job? Where's the post box? How do I go shopping? What the hell am I doing here? 

3. Less than a week later, I flew to Cambodia for NGO X's annual Global IT Summit. As a non-IT person, I felt it was a significant invitation and not one I should turn down -- indeed it was one of the best such events I've ever attended, it has given my work new energy and was a great place to forge and renew the relationships without which my job is almost impossible. And there were good reasons for it being in Cambodia -- it's the first NGO X 'model office', where staff of multiple affiliates share resources and services and deliver a shared programme [oversimplification, but that's a whole other post], and part of the remit of the summit was to evaluate the approach taken. Professionally, it was a great trip. Personally, it was tough, I was pretty wiped out emotionally by the move, and also trying to come to terms with the fact that my good friend W, who I met in my first year at Cambridge, was dying of cancer. There's nothing you can do, but that's almost the worst part. One night we were all on our way to a traditional dance production put on by an NGO which cares for orphans... I know, I know, we really do this stuff. I was feeling a little disconnected and was looking out the window of the minibus, and I saw a guy lying in the road, head caved in, blood everywhere, just been killed by a motorbike. I was a long, long way from home and I didn't even know what home was. I had a bad night with too much minibar Scotch, called M and sobbed for 20 minutes at £X per minute (couldn't Skype, plenty of internet in Phnom Penh, but none in Lancashire), woke up next morning with puffy eyes and an 'oh shit' feeling. There was a bright side... NGO X is stuffed full of people who turn out to be way more than colleagues, if you find yourself in a situation where that's what you need, and I had some properly bolstering conversations over the next 24 hours. I am still feeling the warmth. 

4. And thank whoever for that, because it turns out I never needed it more. Flew back into Manchester, accidentally smashing two litres of gin in two continents en route, and arrived home to find still no landline, still no internet, still no washing machine, but lots of jetlag. We had our first Oxford visitor the morning I came home, wild-swimming H, a fellow native Lancastrian, on her way back from visiting her parents. That was the sanest moment of my week... the next day I naively / optimistically climbed the hill to the Massivhaus with my laptop (to use the broadband) and a suitcase full of laundry (to use the washing machine) to find ourselves ... I don't really know how to put this diplomatically, not very welcome. Kind of fair enough, as we were no longer paying rent, though we had paid half-occupancy rent for nine months of one-fifth occupancy, so I had anticipated a bit of leeway. It was made very clear that our room full of boxes was also no longer welcome, despite explicit previous assurances to the contrary. There is obviously a parallel narrative here, but hey, that's for someone else to blog about. Let's just say that from my perspective it was the last thing I needed. We made alternative arrangements as soon as we could -- we rented some temporary office space in town, and eventually started shelling out stupid money for mobile broadband, which does just good enough a job to allow you to function, while being just flaky enough to keep you on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Don't believe the EE hype, people. You have to reboot at least three times a day, and they block Skype while lying about it. 1998 ADSL never looked so good. 

5. So there we are, struggling to 'work from home', with BT acting like a new build development three miles from Lancaster is equivalent to establishing a new nation state on a Pacific coral reef when it comes to giving us landlines and broadband. It's still going on, over three months later, but I do now get regular phone calls from Alison in the High Level Complaints team. You take your pleasures where you can. Especially when your mother, who has been as fit as a butcher's dog and as strong as an ox for your ENTIRE LIFE, apart from that time she had to go to hospital after your sister was born, and that other time they took her toenail off, and that other other time when she was in hospital for a week having a hysterectomy and we ate out of tins and off paper bags to save on washing up, but that was like 1979 and she hasn't been ill since then, especially when she tells you that she's not feeling well but she doesn't want to worry you because you've got enough on your plate. Which you have, but then you get the call on your mobile, which starts 'isn't your landline working yet?' and no, no it's not, but it does ring and ring and ring, and that's what she did first, losing some minutes of breath that she doesn't have, because what she's ringing to tell you is that she can't breathe and the ambulance is on its way. 

6. So then my most excellent and indefatigable mother, who was surely going to outlive us all, and was planning to do my wallpapering and walk some Lake District hills with me, among other things, is in hospital for three weeks, and leaves (after experiencing some brutality but also much humanity) with a diagnosis of terminal adenocarcinoma. Having googled 'pleural effusion' (which is what sent her into hospital) I knew that was a strong possibility, but when you're waiting for that kind of diagnosis, you live in a Schroedinger place -- until they say that's what it is, it isn't anything. She was in hospital in Blackpool -- maybe 45 minutes by car, but we don't have one, and we didn't have access to one... so we we went by bus, or by train to Lytham and then with my dad in his car. I spent a lot of time at the parental home during those weeks -- it seemed important to keep up standards, and to make sure everyone was eating properly. Not saying we managed it, they were dark weeks. And in the middle of them, in fact while were were on the bus from Blackpool back to Lancaster, we got a call to say that (despite re-negotiated agreements around boxes and having already taken half of them away) we needed to come and get the rest of them, like, now. In a couple of years, when all is calm, I might get over that request being made at that time, parallel narrative, yadda yadda, but I don't have a lot of spare empathy right now, so fuck it. We complied -- well, technically, M complied, with the strength of the furious, while I moved boxes round to make space for more boxes, while swigging whisky and crying. And it meant we could draw a line under something. 

7. But it left a bad taste, and so did the food wars, which coincidentally -- or maybe not -- largely consisted of us (representing omnivorous diversity) arguing with one of them (representing hardline veganism) about our competing interpretations of the Food Policy. Those are hours of my life I'll never get back. In the end, the whole group hammered out a starting position, which in parts still felt way too extreme for me (if you want to eat a fish finger in the Common House on one of the days it is permitted, you have to cook it elsewhere [fair enough] but also bring your own plate and knife and fork to eat it with and take them home afterwards to wash up [completely mental]), but does at least allow for the existence of cheese and wine. In theory anyway -- in practice the initial food ordering seemed to take a look at everything in a hardline vegan kitchen and buy 25kg of it. We will not run out of pearl barley or soya milk for decades. There are some people who are ignoring all this and getting on with producing delightful food from stuff they've bought at Sainsbury's, but somehow, because I was so bruised by the process, I can't. But I'm not so sure I like communal meals anyway. They make me feel a bit panicky and weird. Safer to stay home and eat exactly what I want, at least at the moment. Which might include liver and pork pies: I've realised I am SO NOT A VEGAN that I'm probably a meat eater, though I haven't actually done a very good job of eating meat yet.  

So yeah, it's been a "journey". Writing about it all in one go I'm amazed that I haven't fallen over. A couple of weeks ago I did spend the whole weekend in bed reading novels and ignoring the doorbell, but I have days like that at the best of times. It's also safe to say I am not sticking within the government's alcohol guidance at the moment, but when did I ever? 

And I am still struggling to keep firing on all cylinders, but it's gradually getting easier. The house is delightful, a space I loved immediately. It's been home since the day we set foot in it, despite the boxes and the fact that it was in the middle of a building site. There are about 20 homes occupied now, and we have a car club, a laundry room, guest rooms and a common house with a wood burner. And of course neighbours, many of whom I like a great deal and some of whom I already think of as my friends. The site is muddy but beautiful... we regularly walk through the woods to the Crook O'Lune and have a hot Vimto at Woodies. The cycle track over the river takes us to Caton in 15 minutes, where we can shop at the Co-op or have dinner at the Ship, or to Lancaster in 25 minutes, where I am gradually discovering new places and getting less lost. We are four miles from the sea, and have spent time exploring the delights of Hest Bank and Morecambe. Further afield, but not much, are Arnside & Silverdale, and we've also been to Ambleside, Bowness and Windermere, thanks to the splendid 555 bus. This is a beautiful part of the world, and I am glad we moved here. I just wish it hadn't been so hard. I feel like we're plants that have been uprooted and lost nearly all their topsoil in the process. Luckily our roots are tangled up together, I think without M, I would probably have just given up for a while and let everything go dark. He's been a brick. Or is it a rock. Something of both. 

My mum's still got cancer though. Not a hell of a lot I can do about that. She is having chemotherapy in the New Year but it's not about curing it, that's not going to happen**. I hope to find some midwinter space to retreat and regroup, because next year I am going to need to be a big brave girl. Watch this space. 

joella

* now December, but I wrote most of this in November, so I'm giving it a November date. Because I can. 

** I don't want to write a cancer blog. At least not yet. But her initial diagnosis was Cancer of Unknown Primary, which has a pretty bleak prognosis. 

The tectonic plates, they are a shifting: part 1 of ?

Today, the youngest of M's children (whom I still occasionally refer to as his chilblains) turned 28, which is the age that I was when I started going out with him. It's one of those days, essentially insignificant -- just another day, after all -- that give pause for thought, like the day I realised I was the same age that my mother was when she had me, or the day I realised I had been split from my Significant Ex for longer than we were together, or the day I realised that I'd been menstruating for more than half my life. (Shortly to be two thirds, and no sign of let-up yet. Marvellous.)

So I paused for thought. It's a difficult age, 28, and these are difficult times. I feel for her. But more importantly, I'm glad to know her well enough to be able to feel for her, as for a long time I didn't think that would happen. She (and her older siblings) are much better placed now to imagine what it might have been like for me, especially in the early days, and I think to some extent they have all done some of that imagining, Which can't have been easy, and I appreciate it. Equally, I have got much better at working out which boundaries need to be clearly defined, and which need to be porous. And at getting over stuff that essentially isn't personal.

I maintain some central reservations, but these are the things which differentiate me, to paraphrase Rebecca West, from a doormat. I have yet to find a woman who finds stepmotherhood a straightforward or 100% positive experience -- but a surprising number of us end up doing it, and I have had some excellent cathartic and/or hilarious conversations about it over the last 12 years. 

At the same time, M is about the same age my parents were when we got together, and I can see more clearly now how they might have found the prospect of their daughter going out with a not-yet-divorced man with three teenage children a bit of a challenge. 

The long game. A lot of it is about the long game. Vive la long game! 

joella

Between the Lines

There are two things I often want to blog about and don't.

1. Work. As previously mentioned, NGO X has a blogging policy. This means I can't say anything BAD about the place, or anything MEAN about anyone who works there. So if, say, I felt that there were some DUMB things happening, I would have to keep them under my virtual hat. I'm not saying that, of course. I'm just saying that there's a box of wine in the fridge.

2. The challenges of stepmotherhood, which come and go in a way I cannot anticipate, especially at this most fraught time of year. I *thought* we'd made it perfectly clear that there were no obligations, no strings, see you whenever, but an unwelcome third-party analysis suggests otherwise. I'm not saying it's not hard for them. I'm just saying there's a box of wine in the fridge.

joella

Me, my dad, and Lytham windmill

Me and my dad
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

We were on our way to the second hand bookshop. The wind was like icy knives, the fighter planes were roaring over on their practice runs from Warton, and we were talking about the demise of Preston docks.

And then the sun came out. Sometimes I wonder, why would I want to be anywhere else?

joella