Books

Time to Talk day, Hirameki fun and a partly coloured doodleedoo.

Angela Porter2 Comments

Time to Talk 2017

Yesterday was Time to Talk day; a day with the focus on encouraging people to talk, especially about mental health in order to help to end the stigma and discrimination that people with mental illness experience.  Many celebrities and organisations supported this day, which is brilliant!

I’m a champion for Time to Change Wales.  This means I volunteer to go to events, businesses and organisations to encourage people to talk about mental health, as well as to tell my story of my mental health problems and the stigma and discrimination I’ve faced, as well as the help and understanding I’ve been given and the little things that employers did that helped me to remain in teaching for as long as I did.

It was quite appropriate that the first time I went to tell my story was on Time to Talk day!  I went to Remploy in Pontypridd and talked to both the employees and some of their service users.  Bev from Time to Change Wales was there to support me the first time I did this.

Getting the powerpoint presentation sorted was a major job for me and showed me how much my concentration has been affected by my extended bouts of anxiety/depression in the past few years.  It took me forever to add just five slides to the presentation!

Telling my story was easy, yet at the same time it was difficult.  It opened up some sores, brought back things I thought I’d left behind when I left teaching, and had me in tears at some points, which resulted in me making some self-stigmatising statments such as ‘sorry, I’m being stupid with these tears’ and then saying that was self-stigmatising.

I got through it.  Bev, the longest serving champion who’s done over 100 anti-stigma talks, said I did well.  People thanked me for sharing my story.

It was a good thing to do.

I came home emotionally drained and well out of sorts though.  I’m feeling a bit more me today, but still drained.  It was still worth it, still a good thing to do, especially if it gave one person what they needed to get the help or to talk about mental health themselves.

Arty goings on

One of the things I do to help re-balance me when I’ve been drained/overly emotional/triggered as I was yesterday is to have a nap.  The other thing is to do art.

Art has been my great source of solace and peace for me during my worst times, and it continues to be so.

I partly coloured in a doodle-type drawing, using my Copic markers this time.

After the talk yesterday, I had a wander to Churchill’s stationery in Pontypridd to pick up some art supplies.  There, I found a little book called Hirameki:Draw what you see by Peng and Hu.

“In the beginning was the blot.

A flash of inspiration, a light bulb moment, a stroke of genius…

With just a few strokes of the pen and a dash of your imagination hirameki gives a sublime and unexpected sense of satisfaction and delights the hand, eye and mind.  The little blot will reveal its true self.

Hirameki: pleasure from the smallest things.”

From ‘Hirameki: Draw What You See’ by Peng and Hu.

So, I had to have a go at this!  Here’s my first go at it…

I had a lot of fun, both making the blobs of colour and then trying to let my imagination run free.  I found out, however, that my imagination isn’t what I thought it was, or that it is rusty and out of use.  I will persevere, however, as there are some characters/objects there that I can make use of in my doodly style of art!  They’ll be added to my visual vocabulary/library in my zibaldone.

A clowder of cats and a kindle of kittens

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Some Memories from Primary School

Yesterday, while looking for a particular book, I stumbled upon a copy of “A First Aid in English, Revised Edition”.  I’d forgotten that I’d bought this book several years ago simply because I stumbled upon it on Amazon and it brought back warm memories of primary school.  I remember with fondness enjoying working through it, working neatly in my English book, while left to my own devices while everyone else in my class was practising for the competitions for the Urdd Eisteddfod.  I wasn’t with them as I wasn’t deemed good enough for any of the competitions; my accent was too English, I was too clumsy and uncoordinated to dance or act, and was told I couldn’t sing either.  So, I was left with maths and English work to do in the classroom by myself.

Fond memories of being left by myself?  Yes, that is the case.  I have always enjoyed learning, working, and producing beautifully written notes/work.  I guess this was something I could excel at when everyone else thought I couldn’t excel at anything else.  Also, I had and continue to have a love of words and phrases, and the First Aid in English fed that love.

Other fond memories crop up, such as being able to choose a photograph from a huge, numbered collection to use to inspire story writing.  This could be done once the set work was completed and while others will still working on that.  I’ve occasionally remembered about this activity and thought I could use it now as a source of inspiration for creative writing.

Anyway, once I found the book, I had to sit with pen and paper and work through some of the exercises, and found great pleasure and comfort in doing so.  I realised how much I’d forgotten, and how much the book seemed to have been cut down compared to the one I used when I was in school, but that may just be the warping effect of time on the memory.

I know, it’s sad, but it’s also true!

Similes

And this is where the title of this post comes in!  Clowder is apparently derived from clutter, which would describe a pile of cats all together, very much like a furry cloud!

Kindle is more obscure, coming from Old Norse ‘kynda’ which meant ‘to kindle’.  Maybe it’s just a cute sounding word to describe a pile of cute cuddly kittens making apt use of alliteration.

Lazy days…

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So tired

This has been another weekend of sheer laziness.  All I’ve done, mostly, is sleep or read or just potter and potch around the place.  All I can say is I must need this quiet time for whatever reason.  I’m most probably emotionally exhausted after a long term and a long year at school, as well as from such a busy fortnight with things happening in the evening.  No, not partying, but various classes and workshops and talks.  It all tires one out.  Perhaps this quiet time will mean that I recover sooner in the summer hols so that I can enjoy more of them.

Part of me is being hard on me for not using the time more productively, for not being busy, busy, busy.  Part of me is patting myself on the back for listening to myself and taking time out.  I wouldn’t sleep if I wasn’t tired or didn’t need it.  I’d have the inspiration to create if I was fully charged.  And if I catch up somewhat with myself I’ll have time in the summer hols to find the inspiration and lose myself in things that bring me pleasure.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2

I went to see this on Friday afternoon.  It was good, but somehow anticlimactic.  I can’t put my finger on it, perhaps it’s simply because the book had so much more in it, or my imagination is so much more vivid.  Or maybe it’s because it’s come to an end, for now.  I have a feeling we’ll be hearing more of the wizarding world in the future; I don’t think J K Rowling can keep away from it for much longer!

Fallen Books

I’ve been reading these books by Lauren Kate.  It took a while to get into Fallen, but since I have done so I’ve been engrossed by them (hence the weekend of reading!).  I read Fallen in three or four days, Torment took just two days, and I’m stuck into Passion now.  All I can say is I’d never thought I’d be reading and enjoying books that had angels in them!  Wizards, witches, sorcerors, orcs, elves, fairies, nac-mac-feegles, and others yes, but angels?  I’d recommend the books as a lovely escape with exciting and heart-wrenching moments, as well as moments of that perfect, romantic, sensual love that can only exist in dreams (I think – though if anyone can offer me hard proof that such a love exists, then please tell me; I’ve never experienced it!).

Arty stuff.

My artistic endeavours this week have centred around my latest sketchbook which has pages being filled with work inspired by a photograph of a leaf skeleton.  I’m working with different media, developing shapes and patterns and colours and so on with the aim of producing some textile work.  All I know is that I’m enjoying the time I get to spend on it, which isn’t enough really.  It’s not long, though, until the long holidays…not long to go.  I just need to remember to borrow back my books of inspiration, particularly “Drawn to Stitch” by Gwen Hedley.

I’ve been asked to create a piece of textile art similar to this one for someone at school.  That’s a summer holiday project I’m sure!  Other projects will come from my sketchbook work, I think.  I’d also like to spend time trying to work out how to do landscapes…my way.

Weight loss…

I’m considering joining Slimming World to kickstart myself into eating healthily, taking care of my body via the food I eat, and losing weight.  Over the past couple of years my weight has steadily increased and I’m now where I was the summer after I finished with the long ago ex, which was some 13 years ago now.  I’ll have to be incredibly brave and firm with myself to actually go to a meeting, and then incredibly strong and firm with myself afterwards … and forgiving should I lapse momentarily too.  Believing I deserve to look after myself, treat myself well, be kind to myself is still a huge stumbling block for me.

I’m hoping that the work that has been done with me over the past three years or so will have done the equivalent of ctrl-alt-del and restarted the programs that are ‘me’ as they should run, well most of them; kind of like having the viruses removed, or at least the ones that have been identified.

Words and Art Combined

Angela Porter4 Comments

Earth

Earth © Angela Porter 2011

Watercolours, pen and ink on cartridge paper.  24cm x 18cm.

I completed this picture as a kind of experiment.  A dear friend of mine suggested that instead of filling the curlicues of my current very spiral art with more curlicues and spirals that I should add words instead.  I have lots of ideas of what to do with this, perhaps, eventually.  But this was the first of it’s kind.

I wanted to put together a painting that had words and symbols and images that go with the esoteric element of earth, but the words I chose haven’t quite worked out.  However, I am pleased with the apple/wheat/leaf border and the ivy border too.  I’m also pleased that I left empty space, not because I got fed up of this, but because I felt it was all finished and balanced.

This will be an idea I come back to, that of the four elements I mean.  Words have been important in creating my latest pieces of art.

PF Summer Camp, Late May Bank Holiday Weekend 2011

PF Summer Camp 2011 © Angela Porter 2011Watercolours, metallic watercolours, Zig Art and Graphic pens, Rotring pens with black ink on watercolour paper.  9cm x 18cm.

Last weekend, I gave a talk entitled ‘Death and disposal in the Bronze Age’.  In the talk, I concentrated, it turned out, on how the landscape in which the monuments are set can and other factors such as time of day, season or weather have an effect upon how people experience the site.  I drew on the work of archaeologists such as George Nash and Ann Woodward’s book ‘British Barrows‘ who discuss such things.  I have found it a fascinating, if a little brief study by myself, but I already have books on order for when I have the time to dig deeper into such matters.

I mention this because it may be that the barrows could have acted as ‘mnemonics’ for reciting the history of the clan who were the barrow-wrights.  Terry Pratchett and Jacqueline Simpson, in ‘The Folklore of Discworld’ write:

“The landscape is full of stories.”

What I set out to do in this particular painting was to put words in that act as memories of the weekend, especially the ‘bardic circle round the camp fire’ in the evening, where there were songs and stories and friendly banter and chatter.  This is something I have never done, the camp fire thing that is.  I loved it and want to take part in one again.  I may even be able to take my flute and play something, or tell a story; I think the informal and non-judgemental nature of such a gathering would allow me to do this.

I wander off topic here.  The colours and shapes I chose to represent the flow of ideas, talk, music as well as an opening of the mind and an igniting of certain things for me.  I am really quite pleased with how it has turned out, and it was another experiment as I used Zig Art and Graphic Pens to draw the design with; they are water soluble and bled into the watercolour paints.  It has turned out to be a happy accident, as I’m pleased with the colours in places which give an aged feel to the work, kind of like an old, hand coloured etching.  This is how a lot of my work tends to be, but I really want more vibrant colours so that black doesn’t swamp them.

Time

Time 1 © Angela Porter 2011Watercolour, Zig pens and Rotring pens with black ink on cartridge paper.  7.5cm x 15cm.

This was an experiment, again.  I started it last week and left it for a few days to ponder what to do with it.  The colours I had used seemed quite insipid and I wasn’t at all sure where it was going.  The purchase and subsequent playing with the Zig pens a couple of days ago gave me another technique to use in my art, and in this case it’s worked out well, I think.  Things aren’t as irritatingly perfect as my work has been in the past, but I think that adds something to the work.  I like the way the Zig pens add depth and intensity of colour, while being able to be washed out with a damp to wet brush to very subtle shades.  I feel I’m going to love using them in this way!

The adage ‘Time heals all wounds’ is, of course, not entirely true.  There are some wounds that never heal, unless it’s the final journey to whatever awaits us after this earthly existence.  I do think the words are particularly pertinent to me at this point in my personal progress.  I have been having counselling for a number of years now to help me heal the emotional wounds of the past and the damage it has done to my self-image.  It’s a long, slow process it seems.  I often feel guilty for talking so long, to be going round and round in circles, and there have been moments when we almost believed it was time for me to cut loose, then something happens to knock me back a few steps.  As I’ve been told, you can’t heal the damage done over 40-something years overnight, it takes time to undo the learned concepts and to replace them with new ones.  I am getting there, though, even though some days, or weeks, I feel I’m back to where I was.   Art helps me to relax, de-stress to bring joy into my life, and it’s a great re-balancer for me.  I am so grateful I have discovered this gift, and that I have people who encourage me to explore new ways, as I’m still not able to be self-motivating or to find the inspiration that sometimes I lack.

Crystals and other things

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The return to work … and stress…

Well, it’s just over a fortnight into the month and me being back and work and juggling everything else that goes on in my life such as taking and going to meditation classes, meetings, workshops, talks has meant that the time I have spent at home has been almost total ‘down time’.  Chilling with mugs of tea and a DVD or several is about all I’ve been able to do.  It may be a good sign that I am taking that time out and not filling my time up with busy-ness.

Stress hit a high on Friday with a confrontation with a pupil … and the fear that I may have done something wrong, that I will end up being told off for it, and yet common sense tells me that I did nothing wrong (apart from shout a little loudly). I was annoyed and angry with myself for letting my temper ooze out, though I regained control very quickly, and gained a stress-headache as a result of keeping things in.  There was no chance to let the temper out as I was on the roller-coaster of lessons yet again.  I wish I could have a ‘get out of lessons free card’ like some of the pupils, just for a few mins to gather myself back together.  I now have another set of negative automatic thoughts and reactions that now need de-programming, or perhaps that need revisiting in the light of some further insight.

Having said that, this was a lesson I had to take as soon as I got to work after a counselling session that ended just half an hour or so before the lesson.  It was an emotional session, with me trying to face up to my emotional eating, self-image, self-confidence, self-esteem and weight issues … sometimes I think I should just phone in ill.  I have leave of absence for these sessions simply because I give up my non-contact time in the week to attend them so that I have no classes to be covered.

Any suggestions for a career change for me?

I think this may be the only way out of what seems to be constant source of stress in my life, and with the way attitudes towards education have changed, both among parents and pupils and the low value placed on education and the lack of respect for teachers from parents, pupils, government and the wider society it’s not going to change, is it?  A way out, but I have no idea what else I would like to do or could do (bearing in mind I do need a certain income to pay the bills …).

Crystals

Thinking about stress, I’m always trying to find ways that work for me to relieve stress in my life and so stop me becoming totally drained and heading towards a dark place.

Meditation certainly helps no end, but that takes a fair amount of time, time I don’t have in the normal school day.  Morning and night not a problem, but during the school day … not even at lunchtime do I have time that is mine.  So, I do look at other things.  Square breathing that can be done ‘on the fly’ to regain control of some part of myself and my emotions, for instance.

Crystals may be another way of helping myself … though I’m not always convinced about such things.  I also have mixed views about the rape of our planet, our home in the Universe, for it’s precious resources that cannot be replaced, well not in our life-time at any rate.

I did have an interesting experience with a tumbled piece of sodalite that I purchased after a particularly emotionally harrowing counselling session a year and a half ago.  I was fondling it while having a make-over in the Body Shop.  There was a cracking sound and a piece of the sodalite had broken off and crumbled.  Now, I’m not strong enough to do that, there were no obvious flaws that I could see in the mineral, and it would most likely have broken into two pieces if that were the case, but to crumble into what looked like blue sand …

Crystal therapists and ‘experts’ I’ve related this tale to tell me that was a sign that some powerful healing had happened, and that such breakages are not uncommon.

The scientist in me is very sceptical about anything like this, even though I know that I did end up feeling better sooner than I thought.  There was a sudden easing of my emotional distress, whether that was due to the crystal or the make-over or just a little bit of time and space I don”t know – too many variables to say which one it was!  Or maybe it was just a combination of them all.

Sodalite

Sodalite from www.exquisiteearth.co.uk
Sodalite from http://www.exquisiteearth.co.uk

Sodalite unites logic with intuition and opens spiritual perception, bringing information from the higher mind down to the physical level.  When used in meditation, the mind can be used to understand the circumstances you find yourself in.  This stone instills a drive for truth and an urge towards idealism, making it possible to remain true to yourself and stand up for your beliefs.

Sodalite eliminates mental confusion and intellectual bondage.  It encourages rational thought, objectivity, truth and intuitive perception along with the verbalisation of feelings.  As it calms the mind it allows new information to be received.  Sodalite stimulates the release of old mental conditioning and rigid mind-sets, creating space to put new insights into practice.

Psychologically, this stone brings about emotional balance and calms panic attacks.  It can transform a defensive or oversensitive personality, releasing the core fears, phobias, guilt and control mechanisms that hold you back from being who you truly are.  It enhances self-esteem, self-acceptance and self-trust.

Sodalite aids, among other things, the throat, vocal cords and larynx and is helpful for hoarseness and digestive disorders.  From The Crystal Bible, Judy Hall.

Well, that most probably covers all I’ve mentioned in my experience of sodalite, as well as issues I’m working on.  I do remember just finding myself attracted to the sodalite in the display of crystals in the shop, which was Exquisite Earth in Merthyr Tydfil.  I also remember the owner telling me to look up the crystal in a copy of ‘The Crystal Bible’ by Judy Hall and at the time it perfectly suited the situation I found myself in, and still do.  However, I am working my way through to the other side, and I am certainly a lot, lot better than I was back then!

Art

Art has taken a bit of a back seat to life in general lately.  I am hoping to lose myself in some art in the very near future – such as as soon as I’ve finished this blog entry and got a mug of tea!  I don’t have a lot of time this afternoon as I have a talk to do tonight.

Currently reading …

My reading list is really odd at the moment :

‘I can make you thin’ by Paul McKenna

‘The Spook’s Battle’ by Joseph Delaney

‘After Death Communication’ by Emma Heathcote-James

‘The Physicists’ View of Nature, Part 2: The Quantum Revolution’ by Amit Goswani

So, you can go figure!

Holly

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English Holly (Ilex aquifolium)

Holly © Angela Porter 19 Dec 2010

Etymology

The word holly comes from the Old English ‘holegn‘ which became the Middle English ‘holin‘, which Tolkien fans will recognise – Hollin was the name among men for the land of Elves that thrived to the west of the Mines of Moria, known as Eregion, and it was famous for its holly trees.

In Welsh holly is called celyn.  In Terry Pratchett’s ‘Soul Music’, Imp Y Celyn is the lead singer of The Band With Rocks In

Folk names for holly hulver bush, holm, hulm, holme chase, holy tree and Christ’s thorn.

Holly decorations

Holly is one of the most striking objects in the winter woodland with its glossy leaves and clusters of brilliant scarlet berries. It is very much connected with Christmas in many Western cultures. From very early days, it was gathered in great quantities for Yuletide decorations, both of the church and the home. The old Christmas Carols are full of references to holly.

Christmas decorations are said to derive from a Roman custom that involved sending gifts to their friends during the festival of Saturnalia which occurred in mid-December. Strenae, twigs of holly or laurel with sweets fastened to them, were a popular gift. Boughs of holly and other evergreens were also used as decorations. Evergreens are symbolic, of course, of enduring and renewed life as well as a way to encourage the return of vegetation at the end of Winter.

The Christians were quick to adopt holly for their own celebrations, with the holly representing the crown of thorns that Jesus wore, the berries symbolising drops of blood. A medieval legend asserts that the holly sprang up from the places where Christ walked, hence the name Christ’s Thorn.

Old church calendars have Christmas Eve marked ‘templa exornantur‘ (churches are decked), and the custom is as deeply rooted in modern times, whether you celebrate Christmas, Yule, the Unconquered Sun, or the return of the light, as it was in either pagan or early Christian days.

Childhood memories of ‘trimming up’.

As a small child, I can remember going to bed on Christmas Eve to an ordinary home.  Generally, we were in bed early –  6pm on a school night, 7pm any other night.  On Christmas Eve, my parents used to keep us up until gone 7pm just to try to get us all to sleep through the night – I am one of six children, the second oldest.  I’d be blamed for everything, including the indecently early hour of waking on Christmas morning.  We’d make our way downstairs, bags of gifts in hand, and we’d be amazed!  The stairwell was lit by twinkling fairy lights.  The front room was sparkly with shimmering tinsel, metallic versions of fancy paper-chains, and the lights, baubles, lametta and tinsel on the tree.

As a child this was magic!  It was, in many ways, the best part of the day.  We were always told that the the fairies that lived in the central heating did the work of decorating, but as we grew up, we took our places to help the ‘rents decorate, as well as taking part in the toast at 10pm to members of the family past and present.  Even when we were all young adults, the house was never decorated before Christmas Eve, and even when we all had moved away to our own homes we still returned on Christmas Eve to decorate for the ‘rents.  I still believe the rest of the family do so now.

Holly superstitions

It is said to be unlucky to cut a branch from a holly tree; it should be pulled off instead.

Old stories advise people to take holly into their homes to act as a shelter for elves and fairies who could join mortals at this time without causing them harm. However, it must be entirely removed before Imbolc Eve (31st January) as just one leaf left within the house would result in bad luck.

In Somerset, it was considered unlucky for holly to be brought into the house before Christmas Eve, and then only brought in by a man.

In Herefordshire and Worcestershire, a small piece of holly which had adorned a church at Christmas time was regarded as very lucky to hang up in your home, even though the domestic decorations had to be burned as usual.

Pliny tells us that if holly is planted near a house or a farm it would repel poison, deflect lighting and protect from witchcraft.

Pythagoras noted that the flowers would cause water to freeze and if the wood, if thrown at any animal, would cause the animal to return and lie down by the wood, even if the wood did not touch the animal.

A good crop of berries on holly is still said to be a sign that a hard winter is on the way.

Holly uses

Holly wood is heavy, hard and white-ish and it was used for the white chess pieces, ebony being used for the black.

In the 1800s, weaving looms had holly wood spinning rods; holly was less likely to snag the threads being woven as it is a very dense wood and can be sanded very smooth.

Peter Carl Faberge used holly cases for his famous Easter Eggs, as well as small objects such as hand seals.

Holly is also used for veneering.

  1. www.wikipedia.com
  2. www.botanical.com
  3. homepage.ntlworld.com/blackbirdhollins/articles/Holly%20tree.htm
  4. “English Folklore” J Simpson and S Roud

Folklore, a Fall and Storytelling

Angela Porter1 Comment

Yesterday evening, I travelled by train to Merthyr Tydfil where I was giving a talk.  My lil Smartiepants is still poorly; I’m awaiting a call back from my mechanic to get her fixed.  Anyways, on the way out I grabbed ‘The Folklore of Discworld’ by Terry Pratchett and Jacqueline Simpson and thoroughly enjoyed reading it again during my journey there and back again to Merthyr.

‘Some of the things in this book may well be familiar, and you will say ‘but everybody knows this’.  But the Discworld series, which on many occasions borrows from folklore and mythology, twisting and tangling it on the way …’

And that is what I love about Mr. P – the way the familiar is just twisted enough to fit into somewhere else, with humour and a sense of ridiculousness, and often with quite a deep perception of how things work on our world, and plenty of chuckles along the way.

‘…there are some things we shouldn’t forget, and mostly they add up to where we came from and how we got here and the stories we told ourselves on the way.  But folklore isn’t only about the past.  It grows, flowers and seeds every day, because of our innate desire to control our world by means of satisfying narratives.’

And don’t we live, or re-live, our lives by stories, by narratives?  When we relate to others what we have done, what we have experienced, what ‘they’ said, or share our thoughts and memories we are relating a story.  I know in my day job I often teach in a story-telling kind of way, and I try to tell enjoyable and memorable stories.  I love to hear other peoples’ stories too.  Stories about us will be passed down through the generations, changing subtly with each re-telling, just as folklore always has done.

And folklore and stories have power, more so than the mundane reality of the truth.

‘But there is the truth, and, then again, there is The Truth, in the face of which truth can only shrug and grin.’

People prefer, generally, to believe the fantastic, and to add mystery to something that is ordinary.  And I can relate an example of this in action.

A few years ago, while walking across the old Severn crossing, I fell and hit my temple on the ground.  A silly accident, I was bending over my bicycle to see if I could sort out the gears that had stuck in one place, next thing I know my face had made intimate contact with the tarmac of the path.  This old bridge is bouncy, especially when heavy lorries shudder their way across, and I think two must have crossed near me at the same time and set up an extra big bounce that unsettled my balance.  Once I’d recovered my composure, I could feel my eye swelling and I decided to ride my bike back to my car, load it in and then get home asap, which I did safely..

That afternoon I ended up in A&E having a head x-ray as my eye had swollen shut, I had a wonderful black eye beginning to develop, but the emergency phone advice service insisted I go get my head checked out in case I’d managed to crack my skull.  I hadn’t, but by the next morning I had a black eye that was really black and the bruising extended from my eyebrow to below my cheekbone!  It was an absolute corker!

Monday morning came, no pain, but the eye was even more spectacularly black than the day before.  I had to go to school, and on my arrival the headteacher, chair of governors and other staff were concerned that I shouldn’t be there.  I explained that it looked a LOT worse than it was, that there was only a little bit of pain if I touched my temple ‘just there’ and I had had x-rays and was fine.

When I went to my class to do registration, they were shocked with my appearance and asked what was happened.  I told them the truth – the fall, the trip to A&E.

Did they want to believe it?  No.  One 16 year old lad was convinced I’d been out ‘clubbing’ in Cardiff and had got involved in a fight (me? fighting? no way!!! I’m way to gentle and kind for that … I’m very peace-loving).  I said, no, I don’t ‘do’ night clubs, nor do I fight.  He wouldn’t have it, so I went along with him, making up answers to his questions.

“Who hit you?  A man or a woman?  Did you know them?” he asked.

“A man, over six foot tall and built like a brick out-house, and I didn’t know him,” I replied.

“What did you do?  ”

“I hit him back.  I knocked him out.”

“You knocked him out? Really?  What happened to him.”

“Yes. Really.  He’s still in hospital I think.”

“Wow.  Were the police there?”

“Yes, they were.”

“Did they arrest you?”

“No, they saw that he hit me first and I just pushed back in self-defence.  They let me go.  And he’s not pressing charges as he doesn’t want it known he got knocked out by a woman”.

“Wow.”

By the end of the week, there were all kinds of stories circulating about how I got my black eye.  I’d been ambushed by a pack of ninjas who I’d fought off but one got a lucky kick in at my eye.  I’d got shot by an arrow as I was taking part in a medieval battle re-enactment.  A Viking had caught me in his head as I was axe-fighting with him.

I had told each and every pupil the truth, that I’d fallen and hit my head.  But not one of them wanted to believe the mundane truth.  The wanted The Truth – a story with excitement, mystery, amazing powers or luck or magic.

The first lad accused me, on his last day of secondary school, of lying to him.  I said I never had, wondering what he was on about.  He said I’d never had a fight in a club (duh!).  I reminded him that I had told him the truth, but it was too ordinary for him to want it to believe it to be true.  He’d helped make up The Truth and preferred to believe that.  He accepted that!

So, there lies the power of narrative, or stories, of words … it can be used for entertainment, for fun, for good things.  However, it is used by others for manipulation, deception, to gain power over others and to do bad things.  And it can change, and be changed, depending on the point of view of the storyteller, their cultural background, their own beliefs and morals … and we can change our own stories too, which is an entirely different set of ideas!

We may not be able to change the events of our lives, but we can change how we view them, how they affect us, how we feel about them and our reactions to them.  In doing so we can change our reactions to similar circumstances that we come across now and in the future, so changing our ‘story’.  It’s not easy, it takes a lot of effort and a lot of courage to face these situations, to face our reactions to them, and then to view things in a different way, something I’m learning about in counselling.  It’s not easy as the inertia of The Truth as it applies to such situations is great, and the truth may not be apparent as all we have our our memories, emotional responses that memories can trigger in present/future experiences so that we are no longer bound by our old, negative, automatic thoughts and responses.  It’s not about making everything in the past lovey-dove, it’s about finding a way to deal with life without automatically blaming ourselves for other peoples attitudes, responses, actions.