Posted on by authorialintentions

Mistaken Identities

I thought that by the time these things started happening, the circumstances would be different to what they are at this point.

I always knew she would grow up and leave at some point, obviously, but I didn’t expect it to be yet, or under these circumstances. I didn’t expect it to feel so shitty, that’s for sure, or for her tunnel vision to be quite as narrow as it appears. I didn’t expect her to stay out most nights at another family home with a boyfriend I’ve never met. I didn’t expect her leaving and changing to feel like someone ripped my heart out, or like she has entirely denounced me.

This is not about self-pity. Well, maybe the act of writing about it here is, but everything behind it has nothing little to do with it.

We all have hopes and wishes for our children. We want them to have better lives, or similar lives to our own. People compare her to me and my life at her age and I dismiss the comparison. I refuse it. The circumstances that surrounded me are entirely different to those that surround her. Yes, I had a child at her age. Yes, I had a home at her age. Yes, I had a job at her age but that means nothing. It doesn’t mean that as long as what she does doesn’t fall below the level I was at at a certain age, then anything above it is ok. I want better for her. She should want better for her. I don’t want her struggling or missing out on anything. I want her to love her life, to be able to experience things and places, to feel free, to stay young and vibrant because she has avoided a hard life. I want her stable and secure in an unstable world. Stability, comfort, and peace has to be strived for, for most of us anyway. The possibility for experiences comes from funding those experiences.

I am not saying that there are set things that she should have, save for a good job and a nice home. I don’t think she would be failing if she didn’t marry and have children, for example. I think she should have tattoos and piercings, and crazy hair if she wants it. I do want her to see beautiful places, and to do brave things. I want her to be successful – but then, i know we all measure success differently.

I guess I just wanted a good life for her, that’s all. A free and safe life and a strong and prosperous place in the world.

But here’s where I think I went wrong. Well, one of the ways in which I went very wrong…

I made her feel like she was my biggest mistake.

I wasn’t hard about anything else other than boys, sex, and education. My greatest fear for her was that she would sacrifice experience and the chance of education, freedom and stability by making the same mistakes I did. I would tell her that I wanted a better life for her than I had, that I wanted more for her than I had. What I didn’t realise, while I was trying to steer her in the right direction, was that I was deeming her my mistake – the biggest mistake a person could make, the biggest mistake that I had made.

That is, the mistake that caused me to miss out on education, travelling, a social life, a career, financial stability. One that prevented my own success. One that hindered me at every potential avenue to the extent that my life, the one that she was at the centre of and was the priority of, was insufferable.

I didn’t mean to do that.
That isn’t the message I meant to give her.

I meant to empower her, not make her feel worthless. I wanted a good life for her, not to make her feel like she made my life bad.

The only things she had ever defied me over are boys and education. The presence of too much of the former, and not enough of the latter, we’re all I was focused on. She didn’t ever do anything else wrong that made me a mad parent, not really. Those are the areas of her life where she has found her right to assert herself in immediate defiance to the lines I etched; those that were my greatest fears for her.

I never meant to make her feel like she was the greatest mistake I made. She was probably, looking back as I often do, one of the best decisions I ever made. Maybe one day she’ll realise that she has brought me the greatest amount of happiness. It’s always been me and her. She has been my priority since I was a child myself, my best company, and loveliest friend and now, she misunderstands so deeply that the gap between us feels wider each day.

I did not mean for that to happen.

Posted on by authorialintentions

A Mixed Bag

A woman comes into a coffee shop…

She is greeted by the door by a tall, male barista. She is greeted again at the till by another who asks what she would like. The barista at the grills is asked if they have any teacakes. This one doesn’t know, so she says she’ll check. Another barista finishes wiping the back bar and turns and apologises to the woman, they are all out of teacakes.

The woman orders a flat white, and salted caramel muffin. She seems a little grumpy at the lack of teacake, but appeased by her server’s assurance that the caramel muffins are amazing.

Another barista enters the bar carrying a tray of clean crockery, smiles at the woman who is in the middle of paying, and moves around the bar with intent, efficiently putting things away then, looking at the till, gets to work, extracting a 3-shot, while the previously apologetic one is texturing milk. The one at the grill swipes up tongs and a plate and selects a muffin and places it on the tray that the serving barista has plated up.

The woman watches as her drink is made, professionally, and with care and hope that this one will be a good ‘un.  Flat whites are serious business in the barista world.

The woman thanks the barista, takes her tray, is careful not to disrupt the latte art on her drink, and makes a beeline for a window seat, away from the group of mothers and their babies that are discussing their mother-in-laws. She doesn’t give the 5 people that have just served her another thought, and not unusually so. She is a satisfied customer so far, and why would she give anymore thought? She was a served customer, the trade took place; that is that.

I’m not saying she should give another thought but in this one visit she encountered 5 members of a team of 10, that’s half of what makes the shop possible.

Here’s what she doesn’t know or realise..

The team are incredible young people.

The one that made her milk is beautifully loyal. He is tired though as he has had only 4 hours sleep. This is because he has a second unpaid job, a sister that he takes to school, a mum that he has been looking after following an operation, and a long-term girlfriend that finds it hard to share him him other commitments. He makes music at this other job that keeps him working through the night. He mixes, produces, creates. He has an ear for it and a dream that he is chasing and supporting by making coffee. He is very funny, softly spoken, and pretty damn patient. He makes the rest of the team laugh a lot with funny voices and accents. He is 20 tomorrow. He is dependable, thoroughly decent, responsible, and he can eat 4 toasties in one sitting.

The girl that served the woman is on a personal mission. For her, it’s all about growth and development. She has a sweet and innocent but crisp and feminine sounding voice. She is just beginning to feel confident and comfortable as a member of the team. She has shown a slowly emerging sassiness that has taken everyone by surprised. She feels pressure from various directions, to be certain things and to act certain ways and be there for those that should be setting her free. She is unbelievably capable but hasn’t quite realised her potential yet, she doesn’t know exactly who she is yet but she’s almost there. She’s getting ready to leave home and go to uni. And my god is her mind sharp. When this girl finds her feet and the direction that feels right, she will be an almighty force to be reckoned with. She is meticulous, logical, and couldn’t be anymore of a help.

The one that smiled a Cheshire – cat smile, and let out a loud and friendly greeting to the woman, wants his own coffee shop. He is a hopeless romantic that recently proposed to his girlfriend. He is a toyboy, but a besotted one that is ferociously loyal. He is a season ticket holder for his favourite footy team, which sits just under his fiance when it comes to his priorities. This fiance is a rival coffee shop store manager. He lacks confidence sometimes in his abilities, and is often easily distracted but his customer service is second to none. He is hilarious, has the weakest filter but gets away with saying so much. Strong women scare him but he is energetic and cheeky. He is 20 and learning to think ahead so as to avoid pissing off strong women. He deeply cares what others think if him, he can dance incredibly for such a tall person… and has a sense of humour that forces its recipients to tears.

The girl at the grills is just 17 and she is really tired; her busy brain just won’t turn off at night. It’s full of determination, history, politics, and calm, mature enthusiasm for her future. She never raises her voice and swears she has never really lost her temper. She is placid and so kind natured to all those around her. It has been known that she can almost fit a whole chocolate twist pastry in her mouth, when dared. She is the kind of girl that jumps to help immediately with no hints or requests required. Her interests are varied, she wants to enter the big bad world of politics and has fallen in love with her chosen uni. She is reliable, has a high – pitched laugh that is infectious. She isn’t scared of a challenge and filled her time admirably. For example, she is the kind of girl that will do a 3 hour shift before sixth – form because she knows her manager is tired, and then she comes back to close the store. Her work ethic is incredible. She is crucial but tired out; overloaded with pressure from every angle, mostly herself. But what customers don’t see if her working alongside her best friend – both girls self-less in their considerations for each other. Others may see just a fluid interaction of 2 team members but the team see two best friends, mostly rota-ed together, finding that work feels less like work when you work with friends.

The girl that came with the tray is also 17 and has hair that her manager is jealous of! She too is calm, but by no means sluggish. She sings as she works; sometimes quietly, sometimes loudly when the store is closed and she’s mopping the floor. When she sings as she works she probably doesn’t realise how much her team listens to her. She’s brave on stage but sometimes shy and she too, is chasing her dreams. By day she is learning how to best use her talent and at weekends and after college, she if found with her team, being attacked in Guard spray play-fights, and five minute gossip sessions on the sofas. Her cooler skills are awesome, and she always has a smile even when she’s sad. She hates to let people down, worries a little too much, and keeps sad things private. She too is crucial, perceptive, utterly reliable, with a work ethic to be admired. There is no doubt she will succeed, is the best friend of the girl at the grills and together, as with most of the rest of the team, they work seamlessly.

This little team in a reasonably sized shop in a small and odd town is full of dreams and ambition. There is creativeness, talent, and drive. There are really young people with direction and purpose and all of that is present in the store, in the service, and channelled into the products they produce through the processes they are taught. The processes that, much like education, present a clear path from A to B. That if you do this, you will achieve this. They all must understand this as they are all doing A in order to reach B. They are all forging identity and growing in confidence day by day. They are learning patience, efficiency, quick thinking, planning, responsiveness to people, reading those people and learning so much about themselves as they go.

It’s awesome to see and be a part of. These are exciting, dynamic, and talented people that are finding their own way. There is passion and commitment, vivacity and ideas.. and all of this behind a flat white – the drink that baristas strive to perfect, the most difficult to get down, with its various processes. Yet they will practice over and over, they will be hard on themselves over it, feel frustrated at the journey from A to B in this particular process. The same elements apply: instructions, passion, practice, and success.

The lady with the flat white doesn’t see any of this. And why would she?  She is just reasonably happy with her drink, the price, the service. She’s forgotten about the lack of teacakes, that didn’t get ordered because the tall guy was a bundle of nerves the day before he proposed to his fiance.. she only briefly contemplates returning to the counter to say that her coffee could do with being a little hotter, because the barista was so careful as to not burn the milk. She can’t see the essay that is being mentally planned by the girl at the grills who’s dream won’t turn to reality unless she gets an almighty AAB combination. She can’t hear the singing of the shy girl with the tray as she rehearses for a performance with a knotted tummy but a beaming smile. She doesn’t know that the phrase ‘two ships passing in the night’ is being scrutinised by the girl that took her money.

There’s no way she could know, and no reason she should…

But these people, in this place, sharing this time, are not just about ‘coffee and pastry’ as a barista/scientist once asserted. All of the above made that flat white with so much more to it, and in it, than the woman that drinks it could possibly perceive.

Posted on by authorialintentions

Literature, done.

So in two days time, it will be graduation. I will be dragging my kids along to something that they don’t want to go to, I will be taking along a friend in the hope that the ceremony will encourage her to take the plunge and realise she should go, I will be meeting my aunt and uncle in Winchester, and probably falling up the steps of Winchester cathedral in a catastrophic fashion. I have visions of this. It will probably happen.. I have accepted this. Things like this happen. Like the time I stood up in a full lecture hall in year 1. Everyone was settling down, I stood up to wave at a friend that had come in late. It didn’t occur to me that the seat would retract and that I couldn’t sit back down on it unless I pulled it back down first. And like the time I snorted whilst trying to suppress laughter from the not so inconspicuous back row, also because of the same friend, and also year 1. I should have known she was trouble back then.

Anyway, the point is, I will probably fall. My aunt will probably cry. My son will probably be naughty and inappropriate and my daughter will probably sit there with an expression that screams that she wishes she was anywhere else in the world but there.

I wasn’t going to go. The only reason I am going is because of the trouble – maker friend. I have to finish this chapter with her.

It’s kind of like my lack of need for a grave to visit, or my lack of desire for an elaborate wedding, or even a wedding at all. I don’t see much point in ceremony. I mean, I understand what these mean to others, but I don’t need that to mark the moment, I don’t that kind of process to take stock of the the achievement, I don’t want fleeting and obligatory recognition through traditional and pointless ceremony, I don’t need the piece of paper that reduces the whole experience.

And I really, really don’t want my picture taken.

And I really don’t want to consider that my parents aren’t there. Those that have been better than my parents will be there, and that is enough, and for their presence I am grateful. It’s just that the occasion marks the lack, their deaths (literal and figurative), and all that comes with it – much like a wedding would, I suppose.

I also don’t want to see the experience closed and finalised. I don’t like the idea that my involvement with literature is done. The thought of it being over has haunted me since long before it was over. I no longer have a reason to read, other than the desire that I have always had but now that desire is superceded by other priorities, other things that have to be done. Obligations. Things that I can no longer ignore because I HAVE to meet a deadline, or I HAVE to read this. I am no longer submerged in what I love. I am no longer growing in the way that makes me happy. I no longer get to think and evolve with someone I love. I can no longer do what I am pretty damn good at. My circumstances and the obligations that go along with them will not allow it. There is no space for personal growth in the direction that I would like by the method I am good at. I can no logger justify my submersion.

These do not feel like things to celebrate, or mark by a ceremony. It has been hard enough to let go of what made me happy, what validated me to myself, and adjusting to the absence of my frirnd as it is without a definitive finalising marker screams ‘it’s over’.

I do realise the pessimism here. If I could change the way my brain works so that I didn’t think or feel this way, or other bleak ways, so that I could feel positive and excited about graduation, would I? I’m not sure that I would. I’m not going to buy into what I should think or feel just because that’s what’s expected. That’s not my reality. I can’t lie to myself about how I feel – I have tried, it doesn’t work. And here we arrive back at the fact that I don’t really want to go. I am going for two reasons only. One is  out of respect for a friendship and journey that began four years ago, in autumnal Winchester, that has evolved into so much more. And the other, is for the sake of those coming. It will probably be the only graduation my auntie gets to attend, and it might do some good for my children to see that hard work is recognised… even if it is through pointless ceremony.

So in two days time, I will be collecting a piece of paper that means nothing, and everything, all at once. It’s a piece of paper that I want to simultaneously burn and frame. A sheet that represents a journey that I wish had never happened so that i could start it all over again. It signifies something I always wanted to do and now, it’s over. What I love doing and what i do passionately is inaccessible to me, there is no career to be had in literary criticism for me. Now I must simply make enough money to support my home and family – that is now all there is to do.

The space I allowed for myself to fall further in love with thinking, writing, and reading is no longer there.

and i am supposed to celebrate that that’s that, literature, done? I don’t think so.

Posted on by authorialintentions

Today I made coffee

 

 

Blah blah blah coffee blah blah blah single bean…

I don’t actually mean ‘blah’. I do care. In fact, I care too much. I care about the beans, and the day dots, and whether or not the bloody thermometers are calibrated properly. But, really? All these tiny things that are slowly slurping the life out of me. I forget why I wanted to be there in the first place. I forget the personal mission, and instead of feeding off of it as I intended, I allow it to feed on me. Forget espresso extractions, we’re talking soul extractions here. And that’s not what I came for…

So here’s the deal..

I love the store. I don’t love the smelly ex-heroin addicts that sometimes dribble and slur incoherently at me, or the coughing woman that smells like death that I want to tell to leave and never come back because I can’t stand the sight or thought of their sad, capped, painful and miserably addicted existence.

I don’t love the smarmy types that genuinely think they are presenting their obviously stupid barista with the most complex of challenges when they order the quirkiest drink combination they can possibly muster. I kid you not, they chuckle to themselves as they give their order and roll their eyes at their friends as if to say…

‘I know, I’m so complicated and wonderful, and such an exquisitely complex and therefore, interesting person. I’m so difficult but you know what? Being difficult is my perogative, and I’m sure as hell going to embrace that right!’

I don’t love that in these instances I repeat the order back as though they had just simply asked for tea for one. My obvious (and purposeful) refusal to be blown away by their complicated order irritates them. They look genuinely disgruntled that I have not reaffirmed their personal complexity.

‘Haha, I’m sorry, I’m so difficult!’

Lady, you have no idea. Your drink is not difficult. It’s easy. It may have taken you near on a millenia to get it out while you are holding up a queue with your self-congratulatory giggles to your friend and speaking so slowly to me, as if I am either a) a child or b) stupid, however, what is difficult, is the reality of how painfully transparent you are.

I don’t love counting ketchup sachets. In fact, counting anything gives me the hump. I hate that whilst counting ketchup sachets, the barely audible counting becomes increasingly aggressive as I contemplate my first class degree.

Or removing a sanitary towel from the sink in the bathroom. I could get on of my staff to remove this – but that’s never going to happen, I won’t ask. I won’t ask them to do something so demeaning.. They will then think as I do. I want them empowered, not saturated to the point of drowning, by the roles they take under my watch. I want them happy and productive in their work, not thinking…

Fuck. This.
I’m better than this.
I’m wasted here.

Like I do.

But, in rare moments of clarity, I remember. I remember why I’m there.

When the extracting of my soul, self-worth, energy, and patience ceases for long enough, I remember that this is a place full of people and full of stories. It is a place where people make plans, where decisions are made, where relationships are forged and severed, where realisations are met, and progress is made over cups and glasses of self – professed simplicity or complexity.

I remember that I wanted to be amongst this. That I wanted to observe and absorb the stories of everyday people. I wanted to eaves – drop on the snippets of life that reverberate around the room amid the grinding and blending. I wanted to learn who? Why? What for? How did they come to this? Where are they going? I wanted habits and reality.

I wanted people.
I wanted stories.