This Week, Then

So, on the negative side, I pulled press desk duty the day after three violent incidents happened on the same day. I had to deal with two sets of unexpected cock-ups with three big projects, and I failed to pick up my prescription for the happy pills. Joy of joys, the prescription is now sitting inside a pharmacy that is closed until Monday and I ran out on Wednesday, meaning that I'm spending the weekend chemically impaired and not reliably able to judge where the floor is. (Yes, misfortunes caused my your own incompetence are the worst.)

On the plus side, I finally managed to do this....

... so at least I have a free cappuchino to console my woes.

I am not entirely sure that the universe is playing fair.

Unbiblical Thoughts, 2

Still continuing my reading of Psalms for Lent. Still finding it challenging. Perhaps the hardest thing to grasp is that the Old Testament was written in an age where the individual was less important than the tribe, and women and children less important than men. What mattered was not who you were. It was who you belonged to. I believe it's a testament to all the world's major religions that we can understand their essential truths, though those truths were written in an age when human ways of thinking about the world were utterly different.

I was recently reading Ursula Vernon's story about Susan Pevensie from the Narnia Chronicles, "Elegant and Fine", in which she comments "half my short stories turn up as 'Point of view of the woman in this otherwise well-known story'". I was recently rereading (taking a break from Psalms) one of the Bible's more familiar tales, which also has a lion in it; the book of Daniel.

I'd forgotten how the ending to the tale of Daniel in the lion's den was not that Daniel lived after the lions refused to eat him. It was that the king threw into the lion pit the advisors who told him to put Daniel in there.

Along with their wives and children.

The Metaphorical Mantelpiece

I recently realised that my mantlepiece is a metaphor for the confusion of my brain.

Front and centre, the Unitarian chalice. At the back, a souvenir from the Lit and Phil Society. To the right of the chalice, the Mesopotamian Goddess of Beer.

I'm not sure what this says about me. Other than that I like Unitarianism. And beer.

Possibly the creepiest photo I've ever taken (Jersey)

This is a baby (doll, thank God) in a gas crib (the infant equivalent of a gas mask) in the Jersey war tunnels, where I spent some time a few weeks ago. I was there for a happy occasion - a cousin's christening - but the day after the christening was an odd day. I was meant to dive but couldn't, due to the weather.

Instead, I went to the Jersey War Tunnels. Jersey was the only part of the British Isles to have been occupied by the Nazis during World War Two. The tunnels were built by the Nazis as an underground hospital, and the site is now a museum dedicated to the occupation.

This was the same day that I knew all of my friends at work were getting their results from the redundancy process at work. I knew mine, as my boss had let me know just before I headed off to Jersey, which was nice of him. (Well, it was nice, since I'd kept my job. Had it been bad news, I might have taken a different view.)

I wandered round the memorial garden, trying not to think about what was going on on in my office, at that moment, and feeling vaguely guilty that my sense of perspective was off.

Spent the rest of the afternoon watching "Gone Girl", as the news slowly trickled in by text about who was in, and who was out. As movie choices go, it seemed appropriate.

Depressing Realisations, 1

When you are listening to music as a soundtrack for preparing for the fourth time to interview to keep your own job (I'm rapidly reaching the point where I think, I can't do this again, this is the last time), put Pulp's "Common People" on as a soundtrack for revising tackling inequality, and thinking, this song came out when I was 13.

It would be nice to think that in twenty years' time we'd moved on enough as a society that it was a historical curiosity, instead of the grim reality that it's more relevant than ever.

On the other hand, I have identified the song that will be my personal manifesto if I get booted (if you're in a hurry, skip to: 1.55)

What to call this post?

The original title of this post was "Time to Depart?", but when you suffer from depression and your friends know it, you should probably not create posts with names like that, nor go on Facebook and post enigmatic-sounding depressed posts which cause people to run around worrying, texting you and leaving messages of support and pleas to know if you're alright.

The inspiration for it was the uniquely nasty experience of sitting in The Big Meeting About The Future Of The Team, AKA The Redundancies, reading the proposal for the team you work in and thinking "Actually, this doesn't sound too bad, I could get on board with this" and finding, hidden away in the middle, the sentence which indicates that the thing you do, the particular thing you've spent ten years doing and studied hard to learn how to do? Your team won't be doing that any more.

That doesn't mean I'm fired. There will be jobs, and I could probably apply for one and get it, or at least stand as good a chance as anyone else of getting it. The question for me, as for everyone else, is whether I actually want to do it. There's not really an easy answer to that one.

When you're depressed, you have the little voice whispering in your head youareastupiduselessuglycunt or Thereisnohopenotformenotforyounotforanyone. Sometimes there's another voice, suggesting something like Did you ever want to take a hammer to your life, smash it up, throw the pieces in the air and see what pattern they made when they landed? If you went somewhere else, somewhere without all the scars of the past places where you've let people down, failed and disappointed them, somewhere no-one knew you or had any expectations of you, would you be happier?

The truth is, I have no idea, and now is a bad time to decide. So I will do what needs doing, I will complete what I have committed to between now and September, and the decision will form itself in my head. I'll still be here.

The Tales We Keep Telling, 8: Conversation in my Home Town

Much as I love my family, there's a reason I don't live in my home town. (I usually joke that it's because I didn't want to get pregnant, become a hairdresser or work in a shop. I respect people who undertake any or all of those options, but that was never going to be me, and in the 2000s my home town didn't have a whole lot else to offer me. It's got better since, but still...)

A conversation I had there when I returned a few years ago sticks in my mind. I was visiting my family, and called in at Costa Coffee. Behind the counter was someone I'd done my GCSEs with. We did the hi-nice-to-see-you conversation, and she asked "So what are you doing these days?"

My reply: "I moved to Newcastle, got a research job there, I go scuba diving on a weekend, thinking of buying a flat... how about you?"

Her reply: "I'm serving you a coffee."

What followed was one of those rare moments of telepathic silence, when two minds are thinking the same thought in unison.

Specifically: "Yep, there's really nowhere else this conversation can go from here."

Not Much To Report

I missed a blog post last week. Trouble is, there's not anything very exciting going on. I mean, there's stuff going on. But does anyone other than me really care about management assignments and fixing the boiler thermostat? (I'm not even sure I care about the first one.)

So, I'll keep going, and there will be more detailed blog posts when I'm doing something more interesting, like drinking or falling off my bike or chasing seals or something.

Onward!

Around and Around and Around and Around We Go

I just wrote my annual round robin newsletter to my friends and family. These are most commonly written at Christmas, and indeed mine usually are. In 2013, it's taken until April to get to a point when the dust from the selection process, the house-buying, and everything I had to put on hold and then pick up again has settled.

Or, as I put it at the start of the letter:

Hello again, and welcome to the very delayed letter for 2012. Why the delay? Let me start by saying that I nearly began this letter by copying and pasting from last year’s, which began:


“And yet again it is time for my annual letter to friends and family. This one has been somewhat delayed, since I normally write this letter during my leave between Christmas and New Year, when I can look back over the year just gone and pick out the highlights. However, this year, I spent that time preparing for an interview on January 9th 2012. For my own job. Those of you who have spoken to me recently may well be thinking “What, again?” Because, yes, I did have to do that earlier last year. It has been a year of great change.

I’ll start by saying that yes, I was successful earlier this year, so I’m still employed by Newcastle City Council, hopefully for the foreseeable future. I say “hopefully” because although I have a permanent contract with the Council, like anyone else, I can be made redundant, which unfortunately has happened to several of my colleagues in 2011…”

Were I to change the interview date to “18 January 2013” and the year at the end of the last paragraph to “2012”, this would be a good description of the start of this year.

Still, let's not be negative. I spent most of the letter extolling the joys of having my own place, and holidaying in Scotland (cycling), Malta, Crete, and Oban in Scotland (diving). This year, I'll be off to Glastonbury. So here's to the future!

Valar Doheris

 Really not much to say this week, except I'm feeling happier that in earlier weeks. Sometimes the best thing to do when you're utterly tired of a situation is to remove yourself from it with speed. Which I have done, and now things are better.

Hopefully I'll be back in the water soon. Spring is springing, the daffodils are poking their heads up, and I'm back on my bike.

I'll also soon be back at work, but hopefully the break and the chance to have some fun (see photo!) has given me back the resilience to go there and do what I have to do.

Onwards.

Motivational Thoughts

I was recently online on a discussion forum for professionals in my field. (As one does. In my defense, I do have a life, most of the time, and having to interview for your own job twice in ten months will tend to make you take a keen interest in your career.)
One of the discussions was "What motivational sayings do you use?" Mine were:
"Onward and upward". (Works in any given situation.)
"Stay calm, stay cool and stay focussed." (Works especially well in stressful situations.)
"It will all be the same a hundred years hence." (When perspective is needed.)
"At least you're not tidying wallpaper for a living." (This was my Saturday job, aged 16.)

Unitarian Cupcakes

Something not a lot of people know about me is that I'm a Unitarian. I'll post more about what that involves in the future. The name comes from our belief in one God (as compared to the "Holy Trinity" view of God in most other Christian churches), often described as the "Divine Mystery". Once I began to attend a Unitarian church I found a people whose beliefs were mine. It was a very happy moment.

More about Unitarianism here: Unitarianism

One belief we all share is the importance of a drink and a biscuit after the service. Recently we received these rather beautiful cupcakes from a relative of a member of the congregation, who is setting up a baking business. Aren't they lovely?



(The Unitarian religious symbol is the lit candle, not the cross.)

One of Life's Little Reminders

I normally abhor triteness, even when it happens in real life. I do not believe in fate for the same reason that I do not believe that God sits up there magically plotting a destiny for all of us, so that our only response to misfortune can be "God must have a reason". (Aged 15, a song that made a great impression on me was Chris Rea's "Tell Me There's A Heaven", and if you know my family's history, you'll know why his line "That every painful crack of bone, is a step along the way..." still makes me wince 15 years later.)

Wow, this post took a heavier turn that I expected. It began as follows. I was making my way home atop my trusty two-wheeled steed after a remarkably awful day at work. No amount of thinking "It could be worse" made an impact.

Until I saw the man dressed as an enormous pair of testicles (I swear I am not making this up) outside the Newcastle Centre for Sport, promoting the importance of men checking their bits for testicular cancer.

Like I said, I don't believe in cosmic coincidences. But I do believe you can take a lesson from your life's experiences.

Even if the lesson is just that no matter how bad your job is, it's still better than being dressed as a giant pair of testicles.

Spring Beneath the Waves, Part 2

...This is, perhaps, the aspect of diving most difficult to convey to those who do not dive. Not only do we enter another world, we gain new abilities within it. We float weightlessly, our bodies hovering within the water, drifting elegantly past rocks and reefs with steady kicks of our reefs. Whereas when we swim or snorkel on the surface, we can only very temporarily experience what a fish experiences before the need to breathe draws us back to the air world, a diver swims among our fellow creatures as one of them.

Perhaps the only comparable sensation to the weightlessness a diver experiences when submerged is that experienced by astronauts who have left Earth’s gravity field, but the underwater world is very much of this Earth. The other question people ask British divers (the first one being “Don’t you get cold?”) is “Can you see anything down there?”

They would, I think, be very surprised to learn that when we return to the sea in the spring, the underwater world is teeming with colour and life. Beneath us, tiny hermit crabs in brown shells scuttle about on their orange and white legs. Their bigger relatives, the green velvet swimming crab and orange edible crab, walk quickly across the pale sea floor, or wave their claws at the curious faces peering in at their rocky homes in the reef. Dark purple and orange kelp forests cover the rocks, providing homes for small silver and green fish to dart in and out of.

A diver armed with a torch may even find one of our most striking creatures, the common lobster, hiding in a hole in the rocks. An impressive sight, with their navy blue armour and bright red antennae, they are rarely as pleased to see us as we are to see them. Perhaps most unexpectedly of all, pink and purple are colours often seen beneath the waves. Vivid pink rocks litter the seabed, purple and orange sponges grow across them, and an observant diver will often spot an elegant purple starfish clinging to the rocks!

Spring beneath the waves is a time of renewal. We re-enter our other world with joy, greeting again the familiar sights of crabs scuttling beneath the waves, kelp swaying in the back-and-forth of the tides, and small starfish making their homes upon the rocks. At this stage in the year, most animals are smaller than the size they will eventually reach in the warmer waters of summer, and we have yet to see the familiar summer sight of a large lion’s mane or purple jellyfish drifting in the current with its passengers of small silver fish. Elsewhere in the sea the seal pups born the previous autumn will be adult seals now, playing among the rocks and wrecks of the Farne Islands.

Eventually, of course, we must return to our own world. Even the large volume of air compressed into the steel bottle on my back will only last for so long. We did not evolve to live here, but we are very privileged to become a part of this world. I once heard of a diver who dived because, he said, it was the only place he became convinced of the existence of a Creator. Perhaps for him, as for me, the encounter with another world helped him shed the old habits of mind we acquire through long familiarity with our world, and look again at the miraculous complexity and beauty of life.

Spring Beneath the Waves, Part 1

(Written for my church's "Spring Miscellany" service.)

“A school of fingerling trout hangs motionless above a meadow of freshwater grass. We could pick them like apples if we cared to. They’re sleeping out the winter, drunk with cold.”

So said the American diver, Andrew Todhunter, diving beneath the surface of a frozen lake in the High Sierras in California in the middle of winter.

I myself, however, have never seen this. Although it is possible to scuba dive in winter in Britain, it requires a warmer diving suit, known as a drysuit, which I have yet to purchase. In addition to this, as Todhunter says, little moves beneath the waves, or beneath the surface of our lakes and quarries, in the depths of winter. The cold-blooded creatures of the water slow down and, like many of their land-based counterparts, hibernate throughout the coldest time of the year.

So, like many British scuba divers, I eagerly await the arrival of spring. There is no official start date to the diving season, since it depends upon local conditions and individual divers’ toleration of different temperatures, but March is usually the earliest many divers will venture back into our seas. Before this, short hours of daylight, rough seas, cold water, and bad weather on the surface make sea diving an unattractive proposition. And, as I’ve said, there is relatively little moving down there to see!

The first dive of the season is always an exciting and slightly anxious time, as we venture back into the habitat we have been away from for so long, and strap ourselves back into our equipment. Though humans evolved to be excellent swimmers on the surface of the water, to return to the world sixty feet below the surface is to venture into an environment we are not naturally adapted to be part of. So, to return to the water we must instead use that great product of evolution, the human brain.

Human ingenuity has designed equipment to compensate for all our physical shortcomings beneath the waves. As I prepare to enter the water, I carry on my back enough air to fill the interior of a large wardrobe at normal atmospheric pressure; compressed to 232 times atmospheric pressure, it fits into a bottle I can carry on my back. A thick wetsuit compensates for our human lack of insulation in the cold water. Lacking flippers or a tail, plastic fins on my feet enable me to propel myself through the water, and a plastic mask holds air in front of my face, so that eyes that evolved to survive on land can see clearly 60 feet beneath the surface of the North Sea.

We climb down across the rocky beach, and cross the rocks to the shoreline with care. Pausing to check that our equipment is working, we fit our masks and fins, put air into our inflatable jackets, and waddle slowly out into the waves. Like seals, divers are not graceful upon the land.

As we enter the water, the cold seeps slowly through our suits. Despite what many people think about diving in Britain, though, it does not stay cold. The thick wetsuits we wear soon trap the water next to our bodies, allowing it to heat to body temperature and keeping the diver warm and comfortable during the dive. People do not believe me when I say that diving in the North Sea does not make you cold, but with the proper gear it’s quite possible to stay comfortable!

Most importantly, as we swim out from the shore to the point at which the water becomes deep enough to submerge, we turn onto our fronts and dip our faces into the water. With our masks on, we can see beneath us into the world we will soon be entering.

The concept of the doorway into another world is a long and ancient one. There can surely be few human cultures that have not developed the concept of human beings being able to pass from the day-to-day world we all inhabit into another world where the normal rules of existence do not apply; whether it be Alice going through the Looking Glass, or the ancient Romans worshipping Janus, god of doorways and gates. Typically, the person going through the doorway must prepare themselves in some way to do so, and, whilst in the other world, may find that they have acquired new abilities, or will face new challenges...

Wearing My Dragons, Part 1 (My Chemical Romance)

To wear the dragons, or not to wear the dragons? I pondered the question as I wandered slowly home via Warwick Street.

I have owned my dragon pants for ten years, making them one of the oldest items of clothing I have in my wardrobe. They were purchased from a stall in a mall in Toronto when I went there to visit my cousins on a gap year. (I am somewhat proud that, if anything, they fit better now than when I was 19.) They are somewhat hard to describe, which is why I’m including a photo of them here. They came with a matching top, and ever since then I’ve wished I had bought it, but I hadn’t really got the money even for the dragon pants themselves, so it wasn’t going to happen.

They are probably the most unique item of clothing I own. When I was at Uni I used to hang around with some vaguely Gothy friends, largely because I went to Durham University and after the first week’s shock at being surrounded by posh public school kids wore off, those of us who were in any way “different” swiftly banded together for support. We used to go to Krash rock / alternative club in Newcastle, as it was then, and jump up and down to “Jump Around” whilst swigging vile alcopops. It was the sort of place where people danced so madly you had to wear Doc Martins if you wanted to return with all your toes intact, and I was vaguely unnerved the first time I went in, but the magic dragons worked their spell. Krash had UV lights, and the dragons glow purple underneath it. I would have Goth chicks with layers of make-up that could double as armour and piercings in places I hadn’t known piercings could be (I had a sheltered upbringing) coming up to me and going “Awesome dragons!”.

In short, they are fantastic. However, they can only be worn on days when I’m feeling really confident and kick-ass, since it is impossible to wear them and not be noticed. Did a trip to see My Chemical Romance merit the dragons, I wondered? I wanted to wear them, but I would be going in on the bus… on my own. I knew no-one else who liked My Chemical Romance, and frankly I’d rather not see a band I really love than see them in the company of someone who’s sitting there hoping things will all soon be over. What’s the point? Perhaps I’m over-sensitive to other people’s feelings, but this was my present to myself.

Presented to myself with not a little trepidation, since the last time MCR played at the arena (in 2007) it didn’t go so well, with the crowd not being as enthusiastic as the band would have liked, and Gerard Way screeching at them to get up and jump. I’ll admit, I was somewhat put off by this. On the one hand, I guess that there are few things more frustrating than giving it your all in front of a crowd who can’t be bothered (and if you’re a rock star, bad days at the office happen in front of thousands of people). On the other, there will have been people in that audience for whom that gig will have been a big, big, deal (MCR attract that sort of fan) and who will have been jumping up and down with all their might, and having their favourite band’s frontman cursing them out won’t have been much fun for them. In the end, I decided that I’d kick myself for the rest of the year if I missed the chance to see them live, and I was going to take the chance. If it turned out they were awful, then so be it; I’ve been disappointed before.

In the end, and in a similar vein, I decided it, it, I’m wearing my dragons, ate tea, and caught the bus to Central Station, where I blended in with the stream of people wearing some variation on black. Pleasingly, I was not the only person over the age of 15 there; there were certainly a few teenies, but also quite a few who, like me, fit into the “old enough to know better, young enough not to care” bracket. The steward on the road block shouted “Nice dragons!” at me, and I acknowledged him with a grin. I wandered into the arena and peered in at the stage. Skinny men with guitars were making a racket, but since it was 8pm it was the support act (Blackout) and I wasn’t that bothered (sorry, Blackout fans).

I wandered around the merchandise stalls vaguely wondering whether to buy stuff or get a drink and go inside and have a listen, and contemplated that well-known question: When the hell did my life get so boring? This was the first time in months I’d done something purely for myself, and if you think that makes me sound selfish, then I thought that too – and realised that I don’t care. Why shouldn’t I throw all of my energies into making my own life better? What I’ve been doing so far hasn’t secured me any of the things that I want for my life. I’m nearly 30 and my apologising for myself, thinking of others, trying to be a better, more considerate person, seems to have got me absolutely nowhere. Why shouldn’t I have more fun and do more things based on what’s best for me?

My musings upon the meaning of life were interrupted by a thousand-to-one encounter with a friend, who, like me, had not told anyone where he was. We had the following exchange:

“You told anyone you’re here?”

“Nope. You told anyone you’re here?”

“Are you kidding?”

We drank our pints, swapped tales of graphic novels and gigs, and dislikeable colleagues, and wandered in for just before 9.