Rocking Chair

Call me a softy if you like, ‘The Woman in Black’ is the scariest film I’ve ever tried to watch. I’ve had a few attempts. One was at the cinema with my daughter. I think she begged me to take her, only to discover how fearful it is.

 “Tell me when it’s gone,” she whispered.

“I can’t, I’m not looking.” I had no idea what ‘it’ was.

There’s a particularly creepy scene concerning a room full of clockwork monkeys playing musical instruments and an empty rocking chair, rocking. Too spooky and reminds me of something chilling my son said when he was little.

I have my grandfather’s rocking chair, I’ve probably mentioned it before because it is special item and means a lot to me. I remember him with fondness, gently rocking as he read the paper or his book, often sharing an orange with me when I was a child. After he died, the chair was untouched in the house he’d shared with my aunt since he was widowed. My sister had children before me and I think our aunt gave her the rocking chair to nurse her first baby. When I bought my house, the chair came to me and for a while, it was the only furniture I had to sit on. It moved with me when I got married and had a special place in the back room. I don’t know if our son, a young child at the time, was teasing when he told me that he’d seen the rocking chair rocking on its own. The thought of it gave me shivers. I felt sure I would be aware if there was anything odd. Over the years, the chair began to look tatty. Covering it with a throw and a cushion wasn’t enough. I had it repaired and recovered, and moved it into my bedroom.

As for ‘The Woman in Black’, I’m told by a friend that the stage play is more scary than the film. I can’t imagine that, but I’ll accept the opinion without the need to see for myself.

Robert Service had the right idea,

My Rocking-chair

When I am old and worse for wear
I want to buy a rocking-chair,
And set it on a porch where shine
The stars of morning-glory vine;
With just beyond, a gleam of grass,
A shady street where people pass;
And some who come with time to spare,
To yarn beside my rocking-chair.
Then I will light my corn-cob pipe
And dose and dream and rarely gripe.
My morning paper on my knee
I won't allow to worry me.
For if I know the latest news
Is bad,-to read it I'll refuse,
Since I have always tried to see
The side of life that clicks with glee.

And looking back with days nigh done,
I feel I've had a heap of fun.
Of course I guess that more or less
It's you yourself make happiness
And if your needs are small and few,
Like me you may be happy too:
And end up with a hope, a prayer,
A chuckle in a rocking-chair.

Robert Service

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Roll of the Dice - Take a Chance

I was completely out of my comfort zone in the casino. I’ve got an almost zero gambling ethic – I do the lottery, that’s all – and the clientele around the roulette tables were nothing like I’d seen in the James Bond films, disappointingly.  The ‘let’s do something different for our Christmas night out’ had fallen a bit flat with some colleagues leaving soon after the meal. The food was delicious. All three courses cooked to perfection, presented well and plenty of it. Afterwards, a few of us milled around various games, being shown how to play and maybe having a go. We had complimentary chips to use. One of us won herself a small fortune and had real money to take home, not me. I dabbled with pontoon and something else to do with cards, watched someone rolling dice and quietly sipped my drink, biding time until I could leave. I was aware of someone playing the same slot machine hours on end and it bothered me. It was certainly not my business and I wouldn’t dream of interfering. They might have all the money in the world to lose, but I don’t want to be in that place. I remember wishing I was at home with Gogglebox and my knitting, where I would have been if I hadn’t volunteered to drive a few of us. And I didn’t want to be thought of as boring.

I think I’ve always leaned towards ‘cautious’ rather than ‘risky’ which makes me wonder what would have happened had I taken the less safe choice. Our lives are built on decisions and choices over one path or another and doing what it right for us at a particular time. How daring it might be to do the exact opposite. And, ‘To thine own self be true’, might surprise others, but you’ve got to go for it.

When I was younger, I thought nothing of taking off in my car, belting down motorways into unknown places for no special reason. Looking back, I think it was daring – old car, before mobile phones, no RAC cover, the list is endless – an empty, dark M6, so that dates it nearly fifty years ago, feeling scared listening to Pink Floyd’s Meddle and turning the cassette off in fear. My fear should have been the possibility of car failure and being alone. I wouldn’t chance anything like that now. I only drive if I have to and I keep off motorways.

Our five year old grandson likes to play Snakes and Ladders. He’s just about stopped throwing himself down on the floor with a whingy whine if the big snake gets him. He is teaching himself various methods of rolling the dice, usually from a shaker, to determine what number he gets. It’s useless, of course, he can’t program the dice, but I have caught him flicking it over, the little monkey.

Roll the Dice

If you're going to try, go all the way

otherwise, don't even start.

If you're going to try, go all the way,

this could mean losing girlfriends,

wives, relatives, jobs and

maybe your mind.

Go all the way

it could mean not eating for 3 or 4 days.

it could mean freezing on a 

park bench.

it could mean jail,

it could mean derision,

mockery.

isolation.

Isolation is the gift,

all the others are a test of your

endurance, of

how much you really want to

do it

and you'll do it

despite rejection and the worst odds

and it will be better than

anything else

you can imagine.

If you're going to try

go all the way

there is no other feeling like

that

you will be alone with the gods

and the nights will flame with

fire

do it, do it, do it,

do it

all the way

all the way

you will ride life straight to

perfect laughter, it's

the only good fight

there is

Charles Bukowski  1920 - 1994

Thanks for reading, keep safe, Pam x

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Paper - Examination

I chose a place next to the wall. I could lean my bare arm on the tiles for some cooling respite from the heat of the afternoon. The scuffed, well-worn desk reminded me of school. I put two spare pens, facing the same way, in the groove next to the empty ink-well. The hinged lid lifted easily. Well, I couldn’t resist. Who would, faced with such nostalgia? It was empty, as expected. Inside, it smelt of a classroom freshly cleansed with that disinfected brown sawdust sometimes used on floors. Eric Wright, form 3 alpha had this desk in 1959, according to the neatly scratched detail on the underside of the lid. Initials in a heart shape had been obliterated with red ink, or paint. Identity lost forever.

It was almost time. The room had filled up. A couple of desks at the front remained empty. I read and re-read the exam rules on the blackboard. Papers were given out and we had reading time. I was relieved to see the question I had hoped for. My answer to that question covered everything and amounted to two and a half sides of A4 and earned me top marks in a mock exam. I knew it word for word, including a four line quote. Apprehension began to melt as I allowed myself a tiny hint of confidence.

Time to begin. I held my favourite Parker pen with a new, fine-point refill, poised to start with my well-versed question, only I couldn’t. The answer had gone, almost every part of it, like something had erased it from my memory, paragraph by careful paragraph. I couldn’t remember the quote beyond the first word. Some self-counselling, deep breaths, don’t panic, answer something else and come back to it, this is an exam paper, not the end of the world.

I muddled through the exam. I managed other parts of it and returned to ‘my question’ praying for my brain to bring my memory back. It didn’t. I answered it in the best way I could, which proved to be enough as I passed with a good grade.

That was more than forty years ago. I still can’t remember that ‘perfect’ answer or the quote. I still have my mock exam papers showing the marking of 100%, but even now I can’t bring myself to refresh my memory. The blip didn’t hold me back.

 

Here’s something from Simon Armitage,

Paper Aeroplane

The man sitting next to me on the flight

     was reading a blank book, keen eyes
     panning left to right across empty leaves, fingers
     turning from one white space to the next.

Sometimes he’d nod agreeably or shake his head,

     or painstakingly underline some invisible text
     with red ink, or decorate the margin
     with an exclamation mark or asterisk.

It was a hefty-looking tome, hand-stitched

     but wordless front and back and down the spine.
    Coming in to land he laid the silver ribbon-marker
     between two bare pages to save his place.

I was wearing noise-cancelling headphones

     listening to fine-mist, when he leaned across
     and shouted, ‘Forgive the intrusion, but
     would you sign this for me? I think it’s your best.’

Simon Armitage.

 

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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