wendy house

Riding the 6.45pm First Great Western fast commuter train, peak time, from London Paddington to some exotic location in the west. Standing room only, though some people are sat on the floor in the isles. I choose a place where fresh air can shift the almost rank stench of warm and stale sweat.

I lean against the toilet door.

Surrounded by besuited men with unimaginative ties and gently bulging stomachs. They all wear identically styled black leather shoes that are only differentiated by the size and degree of wear. I run my gaze up their bodies, risking eye-contact. No, not risking eye-contact because they are all immersed in their phones, silently thumbing their importance to others.

No fear of eye-contact, even though I’m the only woman present and dressed in bright-blue with flat shoes conforming to neither girliness, motherliness, nor business attire. I am invisible.

The new factory workers are crammed onto this train like chickens in a battery coup. I thank an undefined diety or two that I am not, and may never be, a conformist – no matter how painful noncomformity can be.

[censored]*

* please use twitter to investigate the unpublishable contents of this scribble:

• @WendyHouse
• #superinjunction

Matrix

Rest In Peace

She had a perky, chirpy, well travelled life from the back streets of Southsea through to the suburbs of Seattle and back to the UK. We spent 15 years together. She will be missed by Sampo and I.

There will be a 7 day blog posting silence in respect of the silence your absence brings into the wendy house.

wendy: i think I must be lonely

mary: rubbish, you are the least lonely person that I know, you just spend a lot of your time on your own

We met several months before.  We both started a ‘mountain glacier hiking’ course.  At 60 Mary was the oldest person on the course. She had not signed up as part of a couple nor was she treating the course as a mate-finding opportunity.   How refreshing. I soon started to seek-out Mary’s company while hiking and during the rest breaks.  I quickly tired of the chattering from other hikers, normally affluent couples considering what gear to purchase, what restaurant to recommend. 

At 60 Mary’s love for her terminally-ill bed-ridden husband was not stated, but it beamed stronger than a lighthouse.  She recorded our hiking sessions, the beautiful scenery and laughter,  for him with her new digital camera.  He could feel part of an active interesting life because she sought this life out and carefully bought it back to his bedside with love. What a fabulously generous heart. 

I fell in love with Mary. Not the love that hungers for sexual validation. Not a love that needed to be returned.  There was deep peace in her company. Knowing this I invited myself to her home in the foothills of Mount Ranier. The home she had built with her husband before his death so noticibly stepped towards him.

wendy: can I help you gather the leaves from your garden?

Mary: yes. they  will fall as fast as you’ll be able to gather them

After a morning gardening, mostly in silence, we went inside and Mary finished the home made french onion soup.  She talked while she stirred. Talked of how her father raped her and how the authorities didnt believe her story. Talked of how her sister committed suicide. How she left her bilogical family and built her own new family.  How she worked to help abused children and beaten wives. Clearly she has known and seen more loneliness than I could feel.

 The cedar dappled autumn sun played on her face.  No tears, no frown lines. 

It seems we have both found some form of peace amidst life, in the silences

After the party, lights turned off,  John played a favourite Moody Blues album, closed his eyes and audibly sank into the large armchair.   On the floor, resting my head on the seat of his chair, I  listened to the lyrics as the spinning in my head gently wound down.    

I  never understood you and the prop, he didnt seem like your sort of guy

 I didn’t like him

I wondered whether this loud understatement would silence John’s curiosity.

The Moody Blues sang nights in white satin

chatty person: I’m waiting to start talk therapy. I’m not sure if they’ll want to talk with me

wendy:  [silence]

They said:

46 yr, self-employed, parent:       where did you get that top?          
19 yr, university student, child: Primark      

They meant

parent: are you spending your  scarce supply of  money on clothes that you don’t need?   You have plenty of clothes.   You are so bad at managing your finances you really should not spend money on how you look.   When you started the course 2 months ago you  had a full student loan and money from us for your rent and text books.   Now you have nothing in your bank account, are in debt to your new  college friends  and to top it all you don’t have any text books at all.    For heavens sake, you are not stupid, pull yourself together, get your priorities right and start studying.

child: Just leave me alone. I have enough to worry about without you being on my back aswell,   there’s nothing good in my life,   I’m crap at college, I’m fat, I can’t cook, I’m being bullied and just for a moment I felt good, in a new top that didn’t cost much but for a moment it made me feel special, worthwhile.   Then you have to go and spoil that fragile moment by telling me that I can’t manage my money well.   Thanks.    Even my parents make me feel like shit.

.

Caller: are you real or one of the voices in my head?

Answerer: I’m real

Caller: are you the lady that I called on the phone?   Are you on the other end of the phone?

Answerer: yes, you called me, I’m on the other end of the phone

Caller: (silence)

Caller: was that you or someone else?   is there anyone with you?

Answerer: I didn’t say anything, there is noone with me

Caller: it’s very noisey with all the people talking in my head, I can’t tell which one’s are in my head and which ones are real.   Are you real?

Answerer: yes, I’m real, you called me on the phone

Caller: yes,   you’re on the phone

(silence)

Sometimes I’ll drive the hour commute home from work without noticing that the radio is off.   The conversations in my mind are so fast and rich they more than fill the silences left by the lack of radio programmes.

subtitles are silent

Yazoo sang Nobody’s diary

Quaker weddings.   Highly recommended.

The couple marry each other.  No third party symbolic proxy as a represenative  of a god.   No-one gives the bride away.   The couple make a public commitment to each other in a way that suits their own personal relationship with their god.   Everyone shares meditative silence, interspersed with thoughts, poems  and music as the spirit provides,  followed by tea and cake.      Then  all the guests sign a wedding certificate for the couple to keep.

There is a fabulous peacefulness, equality and equanimity about the occassion.

 The couple used a classic VW camper van to take them from the ceremony to the field that hosted the reception.   The same camper van  provided the bride and groom with a place to spend their wedding  night.

In the reception field,   a marquee tent hosted a blue grass band,   bands with brass sections, inflatable chairs,   and oodles of wedding guests.   The field also hosted the guests tents,   fireworks, fire and pathways of candles carved through the grass.  During the fireworks I snuck off to keep warm by a fire where I was leant a  much needed  pair of long,   black, thermal leg warmers.   All around excellentness.

Lunching with an hearing impaired friend (HIF) who uses spoken words rarely, with good effect:

[silence]

HIF: you are the only person I know who talks less than I do

Wendy: is that good?

HIF: yes (laughs)

Wendy: (laughs)

[silence]

In a small Siena courtyard the walls mimic windows,

forgetting to mimic shutters or reflections.  

Silence and darkness within the windowless rooms.

Protecting the people within from too much colour,   too much light,   noises from neighbours and the street,   from the prying eyes of passersby.  

In the silent darkness occupants can float on siestas unseen, unknown.

Freedom to dream of the luxuries of everything  and nothing

currently catless

In Spains Catholic religious capital Cathedral, Toledo, the burial places of Cardinals are marked by their hats being suspecnded from the ceiling above.   The hats hang until they decompose.   They add an eerie feeling to the cathedral as they gently swing in the silence.

Wendy:   How-do-you-do (handshake)  my name’s Wendy

My  self-introduction to a boy who could prove a useful work contact.  

Wendy:   Blah-di-blah-di blah, blah, blah…….does that sound reasonable to you?

I pause to let him reply.   Silence.

He’s still actually holding my hand and just gazing into my eyes.   This behaviour is not unusual amongst US boys when they first hear me speak.     I slowly removed my hand and decide to let him recover speech on his own time.

Wendy: I’ll arrange for us to meet for 30 mins or so to work-out the details of blah-di-blah-di-blah,   does that sound ok?

Sometimes people snap-out of it when they realise I’m  going.   He smiled and nodded,   I smiled then  pranced out of the room….

was their compulsive  chatter too cheerful to swallow?  

it drowned the silences in someone’s life  

that someone,  using a  taut silk scarf,   stopped the air to their songs  

now their silences float in, riding the morning tide

note:   inspired by the theme of a night-long converation with a drunken suicidal anarchist circa 1988.    My dawn chorus is loud and clear every morning in my inbox