Imprinting - Twilight

I was unfamiliar with the term ‘imprinting’ when I read the Twilight series of novels by Stephenie Meyer. I understood it to be a strong infatuation, but it was more than that in the story setting of a supernatural fantasy world. I wanted to know what the teenaged and young adults were reading and raving about. This was a long time ago, when my daughter was fourteen or fifteen years old. The film versions quickly hit the cinema and helped to raise the profile of lead actor, Robert Pattinson. He was an attractive vampire.

Quoting from online information,

“In Twilight, imprinting is a supernatural, involuntary soulmate bond that occurs exclusively among the Quileute shape-shifters. Where a wolf first phases, they may instantly imprint on someone, completely overriding their own free will and severing previous attachments.”

Character Jacob, a wolf, attempts to explain imprinting to character, Bella, wife of vampire. He has previously been in love with Bella, but now is imprinting on her new born daughter, Renesmee,

“It’s not like love at first sight, really it’s more like…gravity moves…suddenly. It’s not the earth holding you here anymore. She does. You become whatever she needs you to be, whether that’s a protector, or a lover, or a friend.”

 The books gave me an insight into what some impressionable teenagers were reading and watching. As usual with me, I preferred the novels to the films. Imprinting, up to now, isn’t a word in my regular use.

I thought of imprinting as being a family likeness, the way we take after our parents in looks and traits. I met a little girl years ago when I first worked in a school. She was four or five years old and an absolute carbon copy of a girl I had known when I was a child in another town. Many years passed and the little girl was grown up when I discovered that her mother was the girl from my childhood.

I found this poem,

 Imprinting Stare

I sit upon the earthen floor,
Staring up at my first vision.
My true emotion revealed.
But as I imprint,
I am torn away
My delicate eyes burnt beyond the
Purpose of pain.

I am the butterfly,
Waiting to pervade the shell of my cocoon.
I am the spider,
Waiting with omnipotent patience,
To drink my fill.
I am the serpent,
Cursed with the destiny to slide among
The lowest beings.

But most of all,
I am Human,
Blessed with emotion, Cursed with Heartache,
I learn, live and love.
I am Man.
And I shall arise again.

Stuart Logan.

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Wonderland - My Happy Place

I’m privileged to be in my happy place in this season of Winter Wonderland and witness again the splendour of the Dumfries and Galloway countryside. An ice-cream in August by the Solway Firth seems like a million moons ago to me now. Lush green has given way to shades of copper and rust in hedgerows and woodland and every view is simply stunning. It is nature at its best.

I was nine years old when my family and I moved into our pub on south promenade. During that first summer of settling in and exploring, we went to the Pleasure Beach. Candyfloss, rock, hot-dogs, fried onions, burgers and seafood. Imagine all these strong scents mingled together and this is the all-round smell I grew up with, including beer and tobacco closer to home, but this was my first impression of the Pleasure Beach. I remember going on the Alice in Wonderland ride and being scared. It was the falling down the rabbit hole bit. Very effective nearly sixty years ago and I can’t say if any changes have been made as I haven’t returned. In those days, there was no charge to walk round the Pleasure Beach and no such thing as wristbands. Rides were paid for individually. The current way of doing things and the costs prevent me from taking my grandchildren any time soon.

Snug in a cosy lodge, outside white with frost, I’ll make the most of the rest of our stay. I’ll top up the bird-feeders every day and enjoy watching them being emptied. Red kites are fascinating and entertaining, gracefully circling, looking for prey. This unspoilt simple life is my chosen wonderland.

My Haiku

Surrounded by trees,
A cosy and peaceful lodge
Is my wonderland.

Beyond evergreens,
Rhododendrons, firs and pines,
Acres of farmland

Glisten in the frost
Of early winter morning,
Waiting for the sun

To rise above hills.
Gentle clouds streak a blue sky.
Beautiful daybreak.

Admiring red kites,
Gracefully soaring above,
A roost of hundreds

Watching and waiting
Whistling their high pitched shrill call,
Then swooping to feed.

A short drive away,
The quiet of the forest
Brings tranquillity.

PMW 2023

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Harlequin - A Knitted Memory

From Wikipedia – ‘The oldest versions of the word harlequin – the Middle Dutch hellekijn and the Old French hellequin, reference hell and a mean kind of demon. In the translation from French to English, the harlequin lost his demonic quality and became a clown.’

My maternal grandmother was college educated, bright and well-informed. I would doubt that she was aware of the above, but I would love it if she had been when she knitted my grandfather a slip-over in the harlequin pattern. The subtle sentiment would have suited her. She was an exemplary knitter. The colour changes of grey, bottle green, navy and maroon were perfectly matched and blended, the end result better than any shop-bought machine-made knitwear. My grandfather wore it nearly every day.

By the time I was on the scene and taking notice, Nanna had worked as a secretary, left to marry Grandad and raised a family. By now they were running a pub and later helping my aunt to run hers. They bickered constantly, only being polite to each other when they were downstairs in the bar. There was never an obvious cause for a fall-out, not to me anyway. They had an active social life as a couple, they went away on holiday or on trips and the usual things that people do. They took me to Butlin’s a few times when I was a child, often with my aunt’s extended family from Ireland. We were a close family. I remember Nanna having the upper hand and Grandad conceding in their everyday spats.

When I was older, I learnt from my aunt that Grandad had given Nanna the run around on more than one occasion during their marriage and she held him on all sorts of ultimatums. They were married for fifty-three years. Up to now, I have been unable to prove any of the misdemeanours. Everyone has passed away, so no one to ask and only me who is interested enough to have another search occasionally. Truth or fiction, it hardly matters really.

What does matter is that I adored them and I knew they loved me, and of course, my sister, too. Nanna taught me to knit, something I do all the time. I mastered crochet after she’d died, though could never do it when she tried to teach me, with more patience than she ever had for anyone else. I’ve tried harlequin pattern and I can do it, but it’s fiddly, time consuming and better off left with the lady who turned it into a work of art.

Nanna was a strong minded woman, northern grit.  She’d survived two world wars, an errant husband, the death of a three year old daughter and the death of a thirty-five year old daughter (my mum) and somehow kept going. I’ve said many times that I wish I had a fraction of her strength, and that of my great grandmother.

I have my grandfather’s rocking chair. It’s a shame that I don’t have his slip-over.

My Haiku poem,

Grandad’s rocking chair
Now lives upstairs in our house
Recovered to match,

But not re-varnished,
So my hands rest on the arms
Same as his once did,

While he read his book
Or scanned the morning paper,
Keeping to himself.

My nanna was cross,
I’d heard her berating him.
It was just their way.

I’m sure she still cared.
She knitted his slip-over
And kept tabs on him.

She kept her tongue sharp
Behind Golden Wedding smiles.
Hiding the heartbreak.

PMW 2022

(As I typed the year, I realised it is 100 years since they got married, bless them.)

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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False Memory - The Way It Should Have Been

One of my nephews had a birthday last weekend. He is my sister’s eldest and was the first baby to be welcomed into the immediate family since she herself was born and the anticipated event had filled us with excitement for months. I found myself remembering his birth, which was thirty-six years ago and with pangs of sadness, discovered my false memory.

A Wednesday afternoon and I was at work. All was quiet, just three of us on the premises. The shop was shut, retail staff still observing half day closing. It didn’t affect office staff so we were busily working – actually, the work would have been completed already and we were probably taking it easy and having a laugh until we could lock up and leave. When my sister phoned to say things were happening, baby on the move, help wanted, my colleagues sent me on my way.

I drove to her house, a short distance from where I was on Dickson Road to where she was near Stanley Park. My false memory tells me that I packed her into my dark blue Austin Maxi, but I didn’t have that car anymore. I had a light blue metallic and rust Datsun Violet. I was sent on a quick errand on foot to a nearby shop for camera film – those were the days – and returning to my car, thought my sister was about to give birth there and then as for some reason, the passenger seat was flat. Luckily, I delivered her to the hospital before any other delivery happened and waited with her until her husband arrived from his place of work out of town. I went home.

This is where my recollection of events all goes funny, such a strong memory yet so false. By now it is early evening. I’m sat on the settee in the lounge, knitting a chunky-knit cardigan with thick needles. I’m doing a sleeve which is growing quickly and I’m thinking if I finish this piece before the baby comes, it’s a girl, if not, it’s a boy. I don’t think we had gender reveals at that time. My dad is sitting in his usual armchair, reading every word in the Gazette, sharing a few adverts in the classified section, items for sale, usually cars, and drawing a ring round them with his Parker biro. He’s wearing a denim-blue sweater that I made for him. He checks his yellow tea-cup, disappointed to find it empty. The phone rings in the hall and he goes to answer it. Of course, it was the happy news of the safe arrival of a perfect baby boy.

This is how I remember it. Or is it how I wish to remember it?

 My father had been ecstatic to learn he was going to be a grandfather and shared his news with anyone who would listen. A boy would be lovely after raising daughters, but of course a granddaughter would be loved and cherished just the same. Arthritis plagued my father. He blamed it on rolling barrels and lifting cases of bottles in the pubs. He relied on pain relief and some days he was better than others. Out of the blue, he suffered a heart attack. It was serious, but he rallied and after a couple of weeks in hospital, he was well enough to be discharged. The experience had scared him and he would need time to recover. He felt mentally shot and physically weak and told me how he hoped he would be strong enough to hold the baby when it arrived.

He didn’t get the chance. Another heart attack took his life nearly two months before my nephew was born. He was 62.

False Memory

Blue knitted jumper, nice
Subtly fragrant Old Spice.
Another pot of tea?
Empty cup.
I was sure he was there
In his usual chair
With an open Gazette
Close to hand.
On the table, his pen,
Should he need it again,
Circling classified ads,
Things for sale.
I thought he got the phone
But he’d already gone.
My mind playing cruel tricks.
Death’s torment.

PMW 2022

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Family - Ties That Bind Us

I am fortunate to have been born into a medium-sized, close-knit family. My early childhood was filled with love and joy. For seven years I was the only grandchild to two sets of doting grandparents and my great-grandmother. I wasn’t spoilt in a materialistic way but I knew I was wanted, always welcome everywhere and people had time for me. By seven or eight, I had been taught how to knit, how to sew on buttons and sew a line of neat, tiny stitches. I wasn’t allowed near the dangers of a hot, steamy kitchen but I could prick my fingers to death with a sharp needle – not too many times before I got the hang of it. I gave everyone’s coal fire a wide berth, too. It is basic, the security of a loving family. I hope I’ve provided the same for my children and grandchildren.

I would like to nurture the same close relationship with my grandchildren as I had with my grandparents and I hope I’m doing it right. I have been home-schooling my eldest grandson a couple of afternoons a week since lockdown rules eased enough for me to see him. Home-schooling sounds very grand, but he only started school last September, just getting into the swing of it, which he loves, then along came ‘the germs’ and shut down. We play games, do lots of painting, drawing, colouring – this includes chalk, wax crayon, pencils, felt tips and anything else I can lay my hands on. I’ve recently introduced him to ‘The Cat in the Hat’ and ‘Green Eggs and Ham’, excellent for practising phonics. He’s quite happy doing number work, he doesn’t like writing much but we do a little bit. He enjoys being here, having me and Grandad all to himself with no distractions from his siblings. It helps my daughter out, as well. Families help each other, as it always was with our lot.

Now and again I dip into my family history. I’ve been doing my ‘tree’ for years. It can be hard work sometimes, going round in circles or literally barking up the wrong tree. So many generations with the same first name passed down. Children named after a dead older sibling. I’d never do that, but it was quite common in the mid-eighteen hundreds. People had lots of children, but so many of them died in infancy. Such losses in my ancestry have saddened me. My grandparents were made of strong stuff. They lost a child at three years old, before my mother was born. I was full of my own heartache when they lost another daughter, my mother. Our family clung to each other and tried to weather the storm.

It was hard when my mother died so young. It got harder still when my father remarried to the point of being impossible, but I had a close relationship with my maternal grandmother until she passed away, and my god-mother, who is my rock to this day.

I lost a lot of people over a period of about ten years. It is said that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I’ve made it, so far. I suppose I'm the matriarch of my family now, with hidden strength and non-judgemental advice when required.

                                                                           My babes

My poem,  Family

There's cooking and cleaning and

The sound of children at play.

Infants having a squabble,

It's an ordinary day.

The strength of our family

Continues here, in our home,

A warm hub of love and care

Where everyone is welcome.

Everyone is important,

All are equal in our throng.

We look after each other,

Fam'ly is where we belong.

Somewhere to share a problem,

Always a listening ear

And a few words of wisdom

Help the worries disappear.

Family ties that bind us

Are stronger than any twine.

United in trust we stand,

I'm proud this fam'ly is mine.

PMW 2020

Thanks for reading, stay safe, Pam x

                                              

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