The tears in her eyes, these tears that she cries. The tears that in fact she doesn’t cry. The tears in her eyes that she hides, away - these tears are forbidden, She tries to disguise these tears in her eyes, the tears that won’t be forgiven.
These tears are held back, it’s a long mastered knack – keeping, holding, controlling. Control it when gravity threatens to pull at these tears on the brink of rolling. They quiver and brim but yet are held in, as they teeter the vision is glazed. Vibrating, obstructing the view in the room. As always, the details erased. Focus hard and concentrate, do all you can to conceal them; make your feelings go away, pull back, retreat, don’t feel them. They ebb, she’s relieved, a social reprieve. Today, these tears weren’t cried.
The tears on her cheek, these tears can speak. They say to a world that she’s broken. No longer a choice these tears have a voice, it’s seen where they’ve been, they have spoken. They make her feel weak, the tears on her cheek, inviting - to those who would care. Inviting the sensitive to approach, inviting the stranger to stare. Maybe nobody notices, maybe nobody cares, maybe everyone’s busy but the tears all the same, are there.
Tears in her ears, they’re night time tears. Since tears run down it’s no surprise, that earlobes fill with tears, with the ears below the eyes. Little rivulets of tears gather in little pools, comfortingly warm at first, until the wetness cools. The earlobes now feel soggy, a symptom of the fact, of crying undeniable: its physical impact.
Tears in her mouth. Are salty, as they travel across her tongue, tears that are tasted and swallowed, the sadnesses unsung. Tears that travelled all this way and haven’t yet been wiped away. With feelings uncontainable, and tears no longer tameable, it was a flood, a thunderstorm that brought her to this place, with all pretence abandoned as they journey down her face.
Copyright Phyllida Alexander 14th September 2021
A tribute to the teddy bears that spend their lives in plastic bags, with little tags still attached to their ears. Safely stowed in cupboards where they’re safe from little hands – hands that are sandy or dirty, or sticky with marmalade or jam. Safe from the dust and the light and wet, they’ve never yet encountered the washing machine. Treated like a pedigree, above a teddy’s destiny of balding seams and patchy fur and stitches where his eyes once were. Ears sucked and chewed and sometimes strewed in places where they’re later found, somewhere on the ground. These bears are too good for neglectful harm - the loss of an arm or leg or an ear, for fear of the toll taken -being loved by a child
A blessing for the dinner plate too good for everyday that will stay unblemished, perfect in every way. Not cut out for the microwave or dishwasher or table, not likely to be eaten from or have removed its label – ‘made in Japan’. Too posh to meet with knives or forks, encounter steaks or vegetable stalks. Chicken wings or fish or goose, or pudding, messy cake or moose. No forbid the daily abuse of the smooth and shiny chip free china. A blessing for the fine cut glasses watching from cupboards and shelves while their inferior cousins do the work and they wonder about themselves. Why are they kept from every culinary delight? Why shielded from domestic life and hidden out of sight? Is there something wrong with them? Are they not up to the task? Listen carefully - you'll hear them – ‘what's the point?’ they ask
A toast to the little white coat that hung unworn in the closet. The coat that was quite impeccably white. New, and pristine and spotless and bright. Protected from the grubby sleeve and cuff that never washed enough. Kept away from the mud and puddle, the playing field and the shivering huddle of bodies out in the cold. From the fold of coats and totes and hats. From soggy dogs and scratchy cats. From splashy streams and tea and juice. A splattered coat would be no use. To the coat reserved for Sunday best, for looking good, to greet the guest . At the end of the day a coat, unimpressed, at waiting forever to find it has been grown out of.
Here’s to the computer or the cordless telephone that’s always worn its skin of plastic wrap. Never shed the outer jacket loaned it by the store (intended to last only as far, as the customers front door). Here’s to every gadget, every sparkly new screen, whose full pixelated glory has never yet been seen. Whose clarity and vision has remained a tad opaque, like looking through a cataract or glasses smeared with cake. But that's just it – it’s fear of cake or other messy things that keep it duly shielded like a suit of armour wielded - just in case. In case of what? Well, from fingerprints and scratches and nicks, from cracks and dents and drops and kicks. Shielded lest they should begin to look as though they're not new and have been used!
Comfort the piano in its pretty zebra coat. Contrasting stripes in black and white, marking out each note. Lid open, ready, poised. Inviting with its ivories, all the potential melodies; and possible combinations of hammer and string; ready to train anyone who would come and make it sing. It doesn't even mind much about a tonal clash, the unintended fingerings or the corresponding crash. But to some this joyous noise that symbolises learning, is simply quite devoid of poise, entirely undiscerning. It isn't beauty to behold - it symbolises harm; injuring the keyboard and shattering the calm. What’s not seen is the synapses, just springing into being, the linking of the left and right, the hearing with the seeing. The entrainment with the rhythm and attunement with the sound; the wiring and the firing of the messages whizzing round. And round, and in and out - a neural explosion in the debutante’s head. Instead, of celebration is nostalgia for the calm. And so, the piano returns to waiting – lid open, ready, poised.
An encouragement, for the child who daily hears these words "be very careful, leave things as you find them, don't disturb. Don’t leave sticky fingerprints, or make a mark or mess. Don’t add, subtract or change anything, don’t make it more, or less. Beware of any impact that you’ve made before you go. Stick within the rules and leave it all just so. Clear everything up behind you and keep it nice and clean. Leave behind no signs to anybody that you’ve been. Consider those around you, don’t waste and don’t deface. Don’t scratch or spill or break it or leave it out of place. If it hasn't already been done before, by others bigger than you, then it's very unlikely to be improved by anything you can do".
A warning. Don't become the teddy bear, in the plastic bag, or the plate. That remains forever pristine, who's cupboard is its fate. Don't be the coat that children never get to wear. Or tear, or run around in, as though it wasn't there. Don't be the piano that nobody ever played - make sure your keys are bashed and crashed; make sure a sound is made. Don't be the computer that wears an anorak, unbreathable and stuffy lest it should be taken back. Don't become the teddy bear, don't wait just there in a cupboard. Don't fear the bumps and bruises that come with being used. With time and life, your battered shabby looks will be excused.
Copyright Phyllida Alexander 14th September 2021
Fare thee well, self consciousness, oh consciousness of self
Farewell to furtive glances, and mean self scrutiny
Bid goodbye to worry, be appearance or be wealth
And bid goodbye to all things that ne’er were true to thee
Take thy leave of caring what the world should think of thee
Take thy leave of wearing the appropriate expression
No more following of persons and seeing what they see
And no more submission to emotional repression
Dead and buried is the hiding, and the staying out of sight
Exhausted by the riding, of inadequacy
No more time abiding, in obscurity of night
Gone is all the living, so inconsequentially
Until never shalt thou see it, the sense of the imposter
The sense that thou wilt never quite belong
Never more again shalt thou ever seek to foster
A 'fitting in' demeanour, nor shalt sing a gloomy song
Copyright Phyllida Alexander 14th September 2021
I’m almost scared to touch it, to take it out of its box. Unblemished, shiny perfect, free from nicks and knocks. I lay it down and look at it as you might a puppy or kitten. Or a newborn baby, just arrived home, just wriggling and kicking. I open it – it sits there, awaiting first instructions, its factory settings status, no viruses or ructions. And then I steel myself, I get to work, press its clicky buttons. Glide my fingers over the keys, barely stroke its spacebar and the gaps appear with ease. I download all the programmes that I know I’ll need to use, make lots of tidy folders to peruse, later at my leisure. I drag them into line. And I think they look just perfect on this new device of mine.
And best of all its touchscreen. I can scribble pictures, signatures, arrows and graphics. Flow charts, brainstorms, cartoons, all just a tiny touch away, I can now do things in no time that would otherwise take all day. Just a little matter of a stylus pen with tip, my great big clumsy finger usually makes a mess of it. I pull it out of its packet, the moment of truth has come – I scrawl my name with the pleasure I’d feel were I carving it in sand, I look for the letters to arrive but nothing, by my hand. I try again, it’s maybe just that I did something wrong, forgot to slide a dial, and it was working all along.
I curse the silly pen, that doesn’t do its job. Not one single pen mark, not a tiny blob. Pen cast aside, I carry on, get on with other stuff. I’ll get another one soon, that’s sensitive enough, to whisper to the sensors, call the pixels out to play, there’s time enough for screen and pen to talk another day.
The next day dawns quite sunny, I move the screen around, to make just right the amount of light, so I can see, I tilt the screen, just upward from the ground. Wait! what’s that? Not possible. I see a little scratch. I look a little closer… there’s a whirly swirly batch. Of scratches. They spell out my name, I think a moment – oh the shame! I made those scratches with the silly pen, it didn’t work yet I tried again. I failed to see the damage that I carelessly inflicted, the computer didn’t yell or cry and yet I feel convicted. The scribbles on the surface to forever be depicted, forever staring back at me – just faintly, not so strong. But permanent letters none the less, and ones that don’t belong.
They’re not always visible – in some lights barely there, but I know the damage that I caused and for that I really care. Maybe I could get it fixed – a lengthy surgery. Costly and intrusive and needless but for me. They don’t really have much impact – it functions still the same, but if screens were legs or ankles, my computer would be lame.
Copyright Phyllida Alexander 14th September 2021
Your mind is quick. From one thought to another, you jump easily - like one hopping, sure footed, around a rockpool. You land firmly on the rock every time, barely even noticing the tiny rivulets running beneath you between the rocks. Not noticing the gaps where the dialogue continued unspoken. The land is secure – you don’t notice the bumps or dips; the twists, or cambers or sudden jaggy lips. And you wonder why I sometimes trip. And fall. And how my feet get wet. You know where you’re going and your route is crystal clear – while I, like a goalie at his post, can’t always second guess it, must sometimes just commit, take a chance, go left or right – get it wrong and make the best of it. Unless you speak it out, and spell out where to go, I’m forever prone to slipping, and I always seem slow.
But I follow to catch up with the sinews of your mind. My wee cerebral cogs clunking clumsily like dogs, running round in circles at their masters’ graceful side. While your cogs are big and powerful oiled to efficient perfection. "I marked thy footsteps, in them I trod, and tried to do it boldly, and so it was that knowledge came and, so froze my blood less coldly”.
Every rocky outcrop, island in the sea, must face the tide and therefore a certain guarantee that at a given time of day, the landscape will get wetter. The water level rises, and not always for the better. What was this morning prominent, standing tall and dominant, now sinks a little lower. The water stretches wider between each peak. The jumps between them becoming longer, and more precarious. At least, to those who would follow.
The route becomes intuitive, internal, implied. Still there, but not obviously expressed; not articulated verbally, to family, or guest. It’s there below the surface, the bit below the tip, of the iceberg, that usually spells out the rest of it. It’s a bit harder to follow. Requires anticipation and mental calculation, and finally juxtaposition of context, assumption and fact. You are still jumping, lightfooted, unaware of my extra mental effort.
The tide keeps rising and finally even the rocky peaks become slippery. Words fall off them and land with a splash in the puddles growing around us. You retrieve them and shove them back hastily where they came from. But like a filing system compromised, they are no longer where they should be and are harder to find next time. Like your waterlogged and soggy socks, phrases are heavy and slow, with holes gradually emerging where the stiches used to go. You start to understand how it was that long ago, I so easily lost my footing in this rockpool. Or maybe you don’t remember.
And me? Sometimes I’m still standing there on the rock, with you. Sometimes I still walk the path, as I used to do. But more often I am swimming from one peak to another. From one idea explained and named, to the next one successfully (verbally) framed. Captured, communicated, pinned down with words; hammered in and grounded so it can’t flee, like the birds. I miss the running freely, dryly, on the land but still, while in the water I can come and take your hand. When you slip and fall in and feel as lost as me, when you look for a way that you realise you can’t see, when you’re overcome with fear or maybe even shame - not knowing where you’re going or from whence you came. When the water’s indistinguishable from the tears we cry, when you’re tempted to turn away or not even try. When the land is disconnected, fragmented in the sea; when jumping is no longer a possibility. I promise to keep swimming.
Copyright Phyllida Alexander 14th September 2021