The Happy Cartographer 1990


Ah, the poverty idyll! This is the next snapshot from my diary. Life is simple, I’m grateful for the assistance with rent and food, there’s a beach and being tired is almost irrelevant. And I still have my dream. Of course I’m not worried about the plates!


‘September 1990
The house.
We’ve got a house now. We’ve got Housing Benefit and Pauper’s Allowance. I don’t care what they call it, it feeds us, I’m grateful. I stay at home with my daughter and every time the sun shines I take her to the beach. The house is out of town so I do a lot of walking and pram pushing and carrying the shopping and the washing. We’re getting a replacement washing machine soon. I overloaded the old one but it shouldn’t have blown up like that. I’m still a sleepless mother. I’m twenty years old but too tired to feel anything about it. I get to daydream though, I still think about that big family home I want. To get in the spirit we’ve invited some of the family round for Christmas this year; just the fourteen of us; and I’ve got a recipe for a traditional cake. I haven’t got enough plates but: never mind. I’ve borrowed a cake tin.’

I think we ate in shifts, rinsing plates between servings. I don’t remember what the cake was like. The washing machine going bang was a bad thing; I’d been so looking forward to being able to do washing in my own home, but somehow (also not recalled) it was replaced and that was definitely like a miracle to me. I thought 20 was a grown up age, which is why is I thought I should have an opinion about having reached that venerable point of existence. And I did go to the beach a lot, and not missing opportunities is a cracking way to keep a smile on your face.
It wasn’t really called Pauper’s Allowance, that’s a flippant reference to the social stigma of being in receipt of benefits. Flippancy is a defence mechanism, but being grateful shows some  humility. On the surface, deflection, underneath, reflection. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Contact Pants Conundrum

Image
There is weather today, I do note it: take a few moments to reckon the size of a cloud (big) and the frequency of rain (sporadic.) Centre of my interest though is a stack of magazines. Not the fashion kind. This is martial arts research. I'm not even sure what it is I'm looking for, but intuition calls loud. A range of old adverts skew some amusement. Contact pants, for example. Pants are not trousers where I come from. They are underwear. Professional contact pants: improved smirk value. But why would a person be likely to purchase a grappling hook and a lock pick set? For specialists and hobbyists only, the blurb assures. Guidance on the pheromone spray that attracts women against their better judgement? I doubt it works any more proficiently than the mysterious potion that defines your muscles while you sleep. But, then: I wonder is some sprayed on this paper? What was my intuition thinking, making this ghastly shout… Tea break time. There's a lot of words
Read more

E, That Was Funny

Image
Expostulate v (foll. by with) reason (with) esp to dissuade. This word has an old fashioned flavour. I feel it would be best used whilst sporting a monocle. It brings a nostalgia for the days when I would pack my children into my rickety car and commence on road trips visiting old country estates. We would swan the aged hallways and pretend, of course, that this was our home, and we really must chivvy the gardener as the roses have been too straggly this year. Our trip to Castle Drogo was, most memorably, on the same day that I forgot to put the shield on the hair clippers and quite balded my son. He was rather little and pale then: the effect was a post-chemo chic that caused people all day to usher us to the front of every queue. And we were too embarrassed to expostulate with them.
Read more

A Candle Lit

Image
We live by the light of those we love, whether they are here or gone. That light is inextinguishable. To have the light and not the company is an adjustment process we call grief. Loss is a shadow, equal to the light. We adjust not to lose the shadow but to see both. Hard to bear - yet without darkness, light cannot show its full wonder. Let us look after each other, then, and value our days, our company, and live to leave vast shadows, and understand that pain is a strange gift, a tender, haunting, purposed gift. And if you are grieving: let your tears flow, let your anger shout, let yourself plead and deny and feel terrible: it is not an easy process.  Know that other people know grief.  Know that other people are hurt to see you grieve.  Know that love is a fundamental response. There is no time limit to this adjustment process. No right or wrong way to feel. One day you will stand back and see that the shadow is proof to the strength of the light, a
Read more