Tomorrow, to be, and not having a clue....

Everyone at some point has been asked the question - Primary School teachers love it, Grannies too and the dreadful UCAS (sorry) ladies used it almost every month in the year running up to A-Levels - What do you want to be when you grow-up?

TO BE. 

I once retorted that I already "am" a person - I just needed to figure out how to make money to live decently. That went down rather like the proverbial lead balloon. It threw me into a state of massive confusion - what to be? Nobody ever asked about the who.

The who is always there, and for me it was the "who" that mattered, not the what. Who am I now, who was I, and who am I going to be later on? And THAT,  dear reader, is the crux of the whimsical joy of our time of this earth. 

Looking back on cancer and the utter crap-show that it was, I remember very clearly that nobody in the hospital ever asked me what I did for a "living" - it was irrelevant - we were all trying to just live. Walking into the ward a week later to see empty beds and oppressively starched sheets that marked a permanent change of the Guards to the other side made us all cut out the mundane. We simply didn't care.

The comfortable and the uncomfortable - these are things that we can choose, most of the time - to choose the well trodden path, or to go down a road less travelled. I thought I was comfortable, but my insides were screaming for a change that I couldn't quite put my finger on, or maybe the timing was off, or was I just telling myself that so I didn't push out the corners that were framing my life? Who knows - my therapist probably does, but I'm still trying to figure it out.

What I do know is this: feeling uncomfortable, lost, out of a fluffy zone, out of my depth and looking at a massive question mark that is my future - is the most terrifying and liberating feeling I've ever experienced. It's not the same question mark that came up at my first doctor's appointment 10 years ago when I asked will I die? No, this is a different question that for once, I have some control over. And that, Dear Reader, is what I want to be - this is the place I want to be in. 

The future is bright x

Take care

Saturn Returns.... Late

 

Saturn Returns.... Late.

Nobody talked about this ten years ago... bugger all was spoken - not a word written and Emma Watson certainly hadn't voiced her own personal planet spin (she would've been 23, hardly out of Harry Potter) until just recently thanks to the omnipresent voice that is Instagram. 

But lo... apparently the planets are whimsical beings that don't always align after 30 turns around the sun - sometimes they just wait it out a bit and decide to slam into one when it's least expected. 

Welcome to 40.

Skipping past 2014... I feel that 2023, my 40th year (and now my 41st) has been both the very best and the very worst. Actually, let's not skip past 2014 because I have a hunch that a great deal of this train wreck stems from there. Why? Because repressed feelings and resent will always, always, come and bite you on the arse if they are not nipped in the bud at first bloom. Yes, dear reader, suppress your niggling thoughts at your peril, for they will become a jungle of Japanese knotweed and we all know that's a disaster waiting to happen.... and no, I was not the world's greatest gardener. I let my knotweed run riot and now I am paying the consequences of not using the weedkiller of the soul. 

Yet I won't start on a downer, the highlights of 40 have been plentiful and promising (which may have contributed to the direct opposite, funny isn't it?): The beginning of 2022 saw me bursting out of unemployed doom to joining a fabulous production company in Roma, as well as being called upon to be the assistant director of a major festival in Italy, turn it around, and make it all happen in less than 6 months - jetting off to Cannes, Paris, Venice and the like - not bad eh? Not bad at all after a pandemic that left the world in tatters... suddenly I was BACK. I was off. The world was my proverbial and I grabbed it and ran as hard as I could towards a goal that had been denied me for so many years, for so many reasons. I was totally high on life, on LIFE! On being alive and finally doing what I had put aside for ages to make space for other peoples careers, for other peoples needs, for other peoples plans - and the bitch that is cancer and the grey matter that is still hovering around children with autism. I felt like I'd been given a chance and by God did I take it. And yes, it was amazing. However. Amazing comes at a price and I'll try and explain this as best as I can.

Do you remember those videos we all saw on YouTube or Blue Peter about rescue Polar Bears taking their first steps on fresh snow? Or children getting an implant and hearing for the first time? Brilliant aren't they? Well that's how I felt. 

But the more I was out in the world, the more another world began to slowly crumble and I had no idea, or maybe I did but I made like an Ostrich. Over the months, a shared bed turned into one on the computer, and one on the sofa - mumbles of goodnights turned into "I'm off now" and mumbles of "ok" followed. The mumbles stayed mumbles and never fledged into a conversation - we were too busy. I was too busy.  Mumbles turned to resent, and resent lead to a monumental fuck-up of unfathomable proportions - and the plug was pulled, the truth vomited onto the carpet of our home - and it was "ours" no longer. Just like that. 

I was unarmed, dear reader. Suddenly all that amazing success that I was so hungry for, felt like the most futile thing in the world. Suddenly, yet again, I had to question everything that I am, everything that I have done, everything I've wanted to do but didn't (couldn't) and everything that is now open to me. It's fucking terrifying. I used to think I could face anything after cancer, now I'm looking into another black hole and the scary truth is, I'm the only one who can cure me. I have become my own doctor, nurse, therapist and agony aunt - it's exhausting.

I want to go back, turn back the sodding hands of the mystery that is TIME. But that's not an option.

So, Ladies and Gents - before wishing you all a jolly good 2024 - I'm going to ask you NOT ONLY to check your physical health - but check in with your heart, your mind and your soul - are they present? Are they happy? Because one must, must, do this - it's just as important.

Have the conversation, have the hard talks, ask the hard questions and remember, as the Bard quite rightly said: To thine own self be true

With Love x

Rachel

to the man who followed me home...

 

I didn't engage much in #metoo.  Don't get me wrong, I totally supported it and still do so, but on a personal level I didn't. Not really. Maybe not much until now.

The news in the UK, London, a place I called home has shaken me. The recent (but not surprising) statistic that 97% of women have been sexually harassed in their lifetime made me remember things I'd rather not remember, long before social media and hashtags were a thing. 

We were a very normal family. Looking back, I guess we really were NOT normal, but for a kid growing up in the 80's, I thought we were. My Dad was in the military, we moved a lot and so my Mum worked where she could, eventually getting a job where she was able to work from home, revolutionary at the time but then again, her Boss was a revolutionary man. Rare. They always said, no matter what, I had to tell them if I felt anything strange or if I felt weird in any situation. They didn't tell me why. I guess they wanted to warn us off without going into details..

My parents always worked. They never went on mini-breaks without us; my sister and I. Going to a restaurant was a twice year treat, the treats that one would get dressed up for. This was the UK in the 80's, I guess we were standard. The one thing we looked forward to more than anything else was our almost annual holiday camping trip to France. It's the only time I've ever seen my Dad have a bit too much vino, Mum read during the day, a time when we as children observed our parents as actual "humans" who needed to rest, eat out, laugh, play cards, swim, eat pizza and relax. It was special. 

I was about 8 or 9, I can't really remember now, when we were on holiday in our favorite place for swimming, high up in the mountains in the Ardèche. We loved to snorkel. I was a competent swimmer and I'd often dive off and nose around the rocks. After lunch, when my parents were resting and my sister wanted to read, I was impatient to get back in the water so they sent me off alone. Alone, I was only about 8 meters from them, snorkeling, when under the water, a young man (about 19? 20?) pulled down his swimwear. Repeat: I was 8, maybe 9. I remember his face. 

I didn't know what to do. I swam back and told my Dad that I saw someone do something weird underwater but I didn't really know what to say. My Dad guessed and asked me if I could see the person on the shore. Everybody looked the same! How could I know? From that moment, I never swam alone. Dad didn't let me.

That was my first, but not my last experience with flashing. The next time was when I was 15, walking home in a small village in Surrey after going to the library. A nice looking guy in his 30's stopped me and asked if I knew where a certain street was. Normal question before smart phones, but I didn't know the answer. He walked off and I walked towards home. Two minutes later he was back and said: "Hi again, it's ok if you don't know the address, I'll just follow you until I cum".. I looked down and he was touching himself whilst walking next to me. I don't know how or where it came from but I GOT ANGRY. I turned on him and screamed so much abuse at the top of my voice on a small road full of houses that he ran off. I ran home. I told Mum and she called the Police. Thank god, they took me seriously. As an artist, I even drew his face. It's still on my mind. They said they would keep my drawing in the police station. I sometimes wonder if they really did? If my drawing helped at all. Why did that man do it? Did he do anything after, or before, was I lucky? I never walked home alone after that. I still think of him now. 

But years go by and we forget. So I moved to London. It was a different time, year 2002, hopeful and cool and just so, LONDON! I lived in Camden with by boyfriend and flatmates and I'd commute to Uni and work. I always felt safe walking back from the tube, it was so routine that it became normal to chat on the phone and not pay any attention to what was happening around me.  Usually I'd be walking home when the restaurant crowd would be falling into the pubs, everyone had their own agenda and I was just one girl amongst the mass, walking home. But there were shadows. Our flatmate had a bad experience on the tube and came home in bits. Someone went missing near to our house. The alarm went off at 3 am.  I came out of the bubble a few days later.

Camden Road is a busy, well lit street. It was my walk home. I got off the tube and I just felt odd. A guy had been staring at me since Charing Cross. He never got off. He got off with me at Camden. Something felt very wrong so I didn't cross the road past the pub, I stayed on the other side where the big Sainsbury's was and pretended to make a call. He also made a call. 

I crossed the road. So did he. I lit a cigarette and put my key between my fingers. I walked faster. I stayed in as much street light as possible but I knew I had to turn into the darker roads at some point. I crossed the road AGAIN. So did he. And that made my pulse race. I was being followed and I didn't know what to do. My mouth was dry and somehow frozen. I picked up my phone and turned a corner and bumped into a policeman and woman on patrol. I could have hugged them.

"You alright miss?"

"yes, can I just stay with you a minute? I need to get home and it's just round the corner but I'm a bit scared".

"We'll take you no problem"

I didn't tell them that someone was following me. He vanished into the night. I was just glad to see them and get home. I trusted them. But I didn't say I was being followed. Nearly 20 years later, I regret that. I regret I didn't point that man out. Who was he? Why did he follow me? What if... what if I hadn't seen the Police? Why didn't I say anything? What if he moved onto someone else...

I didn't say anything because I knew I was safe. ME. At that moment I only thought about ME. But when I was 15, I thought about others. Why was it different? Maybe because what happened to me at 15 was in broad daylight 2 minutes from home, where Mum was, and what happened when I was 18 was on a lonely street in London in the dark..? Who knows. And I think about him, the man who followed me home, more and more every day now. The irony, maybe the man who followed me home was an ok guy, and the policeman I turned to could've been the bad apple? This is the message from the case of Sarah Everard which has rocked London, and the UK,  and the very people there to protect the walkers home. The Police. The Protectors.

It haunts me now that I didn't tell them who was following me home. It chills me that a Policeman is involved in the case of Sarah. It spurs me to think about my past, which is uncomfortable. I'm not alone here. We must raise our voice even when it feels futile. We MUST rise up, men and women against violence. We MUST. For our own sakes, for our children, friends and family and for the unknowns who could benefit from our voice. And RAGE against it all. As I rage against you: the man who followed me home.

The Time Will Come...

The time will come when we’ll hug, sing and kiss,

And do all the other things that we miss.

The time will come when we’ll all be together,

To dance and walk whatever the weather.

The time will come when we’ll go to the movies,

And laugh at films and crowd around for selfies.

The time will come when we’ll do the school run,

Take our kids to the gym or to the park in the sun.

The time will come when we’ll see our friends,

For picnics and banter and joy 'till the day ends.

The time will come when we’ll embrace our loves,

The people we care for, and they care for us.

The time will come when the NHS,

Is seen as a gift and that we are blessed.

The time will come when people who vote,

Will look for humanity and care and hope.

The time will come when people will see,

That jobs which are essential, also come without a degree.

The time will come when every Nation,

Will understand the value of Education.

The time will come when no man is valued,

By race or creed, orientation or values.

The time will come when Nature is our interest,

As she is our Mother and we are her guest.

The time will come when those who have gone,

Can be remembered together and not be buried alone.

The time will come when the World will learn as one,

That this Earth is a gift, a whisper, a Home.

love, life and death in a time of Covid-19

Love, life and death in a time of Covid-19

I have waited a long time to write this blog. I have waited to see what the impact would bring, what the world would tell me and to contemplate the devastation.

Because, dear reader, this is all devastating.

To be honest, I didn’t feel worthy of putting such magnitude into words. Words which, maybe, could be compared to my grandparents talking about The Second World War and yet even then, I was hungry for their knowledge because it all seemed so foreign and far removed from my life that it bordered on the exotic, the fantasy, my own imagination.

Yet this is a war. A war against an enemy that has no boundaries or discrimination. I was angered by many things, by the Italian Government, by Boris Johnson telling the UK to prepare to lose loved ones, by president Trump dismissing the virus as a Chinese disorder that will be over by Easter, by world wide denial when WE in Italy are in the eye of the storm. But anger does nothing. Anger only fuels a state of anxiety that I haven’t felt for a long time. And I suppose I had good reason to feel anxious about myself with stage three cancer and THAT IS THE THING.

When I was sick: I had me. I was worried about me but I was in control of my own bubble and emotions. They spread to my immediate family and friends and that was it. The world moved on. Oblivious. And that was actually OK. I remember very clearly planning my own funeral: everyone would be there, I would have friends reading about how I was in school, my parents would read and my sister would cook for it. I wanted to be cremated in my wedding dress and have half of my ashes in the UK, in Pirbright which I loved and half of my ashes in Umbria, under my father in laws vines, so that every time they harvested the wine, they could think of me. My funeral was going to be a happy gathering with all the people I had known, loved and laughed with. Nothing grand but nothing taken for granted.

As I write, over 960 people in Italy have died in the last 24 hours. We have lost a generation of “Nonni” and brilliant medical minds which is unfathomable. I weep for this country that I now call Home. I had the ability to plan my own funeral yet had I been planning it now, I’d have nothing. There are no funerals, no last rites, no ceremony, no goodbyes, no services, no flowers, no graves. The Army in the north have been called to carry away truck loads of coffins to be cremated to be, literally, rid of the dead. Men and Women who are dying alone with only over worked and understaffed nurses to witness their final moments. And it is something I never thought I’d ever see in my lifetime and I hope I’ll never see again.

break, we will be too x

On the positive side, even if I will surely be unemployed at the end of this, I am spending time AT HOME. Please, stay ay home and enjoy your children. Take time to breathe. Do some yoga but don’t feel guilty for not doing all-the-things-I –said-I –would-do… because this is a weird time for the world.

LOVE. Love each other as much as you can. Check on your friends and family, be creative. I have, once again, found myself challenged by restriction and it is possible to do so much with so little. I respect the health service and also people who are providing services like working in supermarkets. BE KIND. Help each other. And I know that once this is over we will be a better species. A better world. Nature is already thankful for the pause as pollution levels fall and that's what we really have to do. STOP.

The Right Questions

What are the right questions?

It's a well known fact that hindsight is 20/20.

Whilst growing up, we were never really taught how to question things, it just wasn’t done. We never questioned Teachers, Professionals, Doctors, Parents…if you did, you were "precocious". Or just a little shite in the eyes of authority.

Things just happened, and we just did what we had to do. No questions asked.

And it may sound silly but this way of life, deep down, continued into my young adulthood. You just didn’t ask questions! Or rather, the RIGHT questions; of course we questioned Human Rights, Wars, World Famine but never anything that directly involved one’s own self. You just trusted the Pros. And believe me, I trusted the Pros. Am I alone here?

Now, many years later I want to question the system. And maybe you should too.  I’ve always tried to write with honesty and candour but there are things that I realise I haven’t said.  Not because I didn’t want to, but maybe because my “hindsight” has become more in-tuned with my age (FUUUCCKKKKK) yep. Dare I say wisdom? No, but looking back, I could’ve/should’ve asked more, demanded more, dared more. This is/was MY body, my mind, my soul, why didn’t I ask more about it? Why didn’t anyone let me? Ahhhh… because they were “The Pros”. Well bugger that for a game of tennis.

The fact is, dear reader (and I hope you do more than I did) is that we don’t ask enough. Looking back on my blog, I realise that I have spoken about the actual MOMENT that I was sick, and not about the years leading up to it.  The MASSIVE alarm bells that were there. The utter CONFUSION, COSTS (mentally, physically and economically) the FEAR. The FEAR of not being taken seriously, of being the Drama Queen (that’s still there though, some things never change). Of losing control. I’ve spoken before about mental health in all this yet I’ve had to really force myself to examine those early years and it has hit me like a horse in full gallop.  I feel duped by my own non-awareness and now the veil has been lifted and I’m astounded that I was so naïve. Moi!

And looking back on it all, even after my treatment for Cancer, I didn’t ask enough.  Now don’t get me wrong, I love my doctors and I owe them the luxury of being able to write this today but damn it, damn it I didn’t ask enough and damn it they didn’t tell me. I wasn’t prepared for the AFTER. I wasn’t prepared for these feelings. But I thought I was. I wish that some little chap had taken me to one-side and whispered “ok, Rach, great news, treatment is over, now, I need to give you a heads-up on the total mind and body fuck that is going to happen over the next few years…”

The struggle is real but it can be helped.

And I’ll be back soon with the how, the why and the everything.

I just need to find that little chap……

The Battle of the Birds...

As many of you know, I live in Italy, in a small little town called Orvieto half-way between Rome and Florence.

I love the place. I love it’s nature and beauty and there are a few small things that make my heart leap every single year (that make me love it even more):

1)    Spotting the first lizard

2)    My bright green little fig leaves that bursting out like neon butterflies

3)    My cherry blossoms

4)    The first daffodils

5)    The first hum of bees around my wild plum tree

6)    Planting my tomatoes

To name a few…

But nothing, NOTHING, compares to sitting out in early April and spying with utter joy the first House Martin Swallows returning to nest.

This, for me, is the ultimate sign of Spring. The ultimate mystery that these little, but mighty birds, year after year fly thousands of miles back to their same nests. Without fail.

The amazing thing is that during the winter the other common Italian Birds use them too as their homes when it’s cold, clean them up, and clear out just before the swallows come back. It’s incredible how these little mud homes give so much to them all.

Sitting out on the bench with a cool beer in the evening watching the swallows dive is my favourite time of day. My moment to sit and be still. I love them very much and I’ve grown terribly attached to them.

And this is why I am writing.

This year it’s different.

This year it won’t happen.

Want to know why?

The nests. All 23 of them. Have been destroyed.

What what? By bad weather? By the terrible rain? Wind? No. By the hands of my terribly ignorant and selfish neighbours who took it upon themselves to ACTUALLY BUY AN INSTRUMENT to hack them all down.

Not only is this tragic and shows the very stupidity of humans but it is also AGAINST THE LAW.

Italian Law clearly states that no nests are to be destroyed FOR ANY REASON. Even if one has to do work on the roof and take away the nests one is then OBBLIGED BY LAW to replace them with artificial ones.

I am distraught and angry.

The way it works is that the elder swallows are the first ones to return. Their job is to make sure the nests are ready for the younger ones to come and lay their eggs. Now they have started to return and are circling confused over head. Most will die of exhaustion as they have no home left. There is already a 20% decline in the population thanks to these UTTER DICKS taking down their nests. Can you imagine? Flying miles and miles to get back "home" and finding nothing?

The reason? They are “dirty”. Well who is the one scrubbing the patio all summer??? ME!!! And that’s fine!! It’s a tiny price to pay for their beauty. A TINY price to pay for all the mosquitoes they happily gobble all day!

So this is war. I will not let this one go. I will NOT take this lying down. Everyone thinks I’m crazy. Everyone is saying “Mah che ti frega??” (what do you care in Italian) BUT I DO BLOODY WELL CARE.

I can’t save the world. I can’t guarantee a future for my son with the rate we are killing this planet. But I damn well can fight a small battle for my Birds.

Because you know what? If we can’t be arsed to fight a small battle, then God help us for the bigger picture.

I’ll keep you posted.