Love from Grandma

When I look back on my life, I judge it in stories that I can tell my grandkids. I don't know why but for a long time it's been the way in which I can judge whether I'm doing alright!

I grew up in a family where story time was of paramount importance. We would all crowd round the bed as mum read us stories together. When we went to people's houses we would make them up together - once getting sent to bed early and having story time cut short because we made one up that included poo in the storyline! Our nan would tell us stories of Bill and Ben the flowerpot men in the bath and as a Valentine's Day present to my *boyfriend* in year three, I wrote a story about us being stranded on a desert island together.

Stories are my life, and they always have been.

One of the things I love about visiting family now, is hearing all those special stories. Not just the ones that you hear countless times and become classics, but the ones that you were always too young to hear.

It's so exciting to be denied certain information and then reach a special age and be able to talk freely of scandals and weird occurrences.

So as all my elders have had stories saved up to tell us, I judge my life by the stories that I can pass on and the ones that will circulate through my grandchildrens' friendship groups at school.

I was speaking to one of my friends at work about this and she threw me the question:

"Ok, so what is your main story that you would tell them?"

I didn't know how to answer in the moment. I've had so many quick stories and snippets of information that I would tell my grandchildren. I had never really thought about what would be the best one. The be-all-and-end-all. They one that would make them feel proud to have a gran like me!

So I thought. The best one??

It may come as no surprise that I am incredibly forgetful. A customer asks me for a gift receipt and the next second I've forgotten to print it. Or I start one job and find that I've forgotten what I was doing before. 

I say that "it may come as no surprise" because I catch myself in the mirror and think: yeah, she comes across as a bit of a didtzy one. It's either that or 'quirky'. 

So when the time comes for my grandchildren to ask me: "grandma, what happened when ..." I will, in all likelihood have forgotten, if not from Alzheimer's or amnesia, from the simple fact of being myself. 

So I thought that it might be an idea to write down a few - I hope this blog will last as long as the Internet does - for my grandchildren, from Grandma. 

Here are a few things that I should tell them: 

 Hey kids, when I was your age ... 

...I Wasn't talking to my friends over the Internet. I was talking to myself. 

Yes, I always was and am still a bit of a loner. I crave time on my own, like a "chick-o-land" after a night out, and as a result - to keep the vocal chords in check - I end up talking to myself. 

One of THE most embarrassing moments of my childhood was when I was talking to one if my teddies about an Amethyst ring that I had. I was about 10. Sensing a presence behind me, I turned around to see my mum rocking in my chair and chuckling. 

I immediately covered myself by asking her what type of ring it was. But I wasn't fooling anybody.   

As a child, speaking to myself was a regular thing. But it wasn't always that I spoke to myself but sometimes just to something. 

Even now, something that I do that I've always done is say goodbye to my room when I leave. It's totally stupid but when I left my room at Uni, I whispered: "thank you." --- there it is, another weird old secret live on the Internet!! 

...I had my first job. Stopping children from drowning and fishing poo out of a swimming pool. 

Yep, as gross as it sounds! It was my first job, but my eyes couldn't be clouded with the prospect of all the money I *wasn't* earning. 

Luckily, it wasn't actually me who had to fish out the poo when a kid let rip in the pool, but it was my shift, and I was right there watching a floater squirm away from a buoyancy aid. 

I did, however, on a regular basis, end up  dodging clumps of hair, plasters and waterproof fluff as the pumps blew it around my feet.

...I appeared on TV ... speaking French. 

Just let me tell you, it was a brilliant moment (... Of comedy genius!) 

So there was me, hair all over my face, the shiest girl there ever was, taken away from the buffet behind me straight into the spotlight. 

"Jeh m'appelle Laurrraaagghhhh," I said, putting on my best French accent, which involved a lot of phlegm, I presume. (Sorry for that!)

ITV, come and get me! 

...I didn't even really know what a computer was until I was 7 and I had my first laptop 10 years later.

I remember the day we got our first computer like your wedding day. 

It was so exciting. Watching mum and dad slip in a thick cream box and screen into a cleared space in our dining room. 

It's sometimes hard to imagine that my grandchildren won't even be able to grasp the concept of a technology free world. I can barely remember those times myself! 

* 

This was a pretty hard post to write. There are so many points in my life when I think:

Ah, I must tell my grandkids this!  

But they're simple things like: I started a blog and that I've lived abroad. But these ones are stories that nevertheless will crop up one day or another, for your and my grandchildren's ears only. With love from Grandma xxx

The pieces of Picoult

Jodi Picoult is one of my favourite authors. When I pick up her books I know I'm in for a read destined to please. I admire her for her insightfulness; the amount of times she surprises me and makes me go; "Ah! Yeah! That's right. Why didn't I ever think of that?" 

She has a way with words that I only aspire to. A manner of stringing together ideas with a multitude of characters that just seems to work. 

Needless to say, I thought I'd share a slither of that intoxicating allure of the book of hers that I'm currently reading; Nineteen minutes. 

She talks about bad things being like a chain. An evolution of real life Chinese whispers. That one person, in a world of good, did one bad thing which sparked others to attack them for revenge and so continued the trail of bad. Everything we do in spite could be in reaction to a fight over 2 goats a thousand years ago. But what made me think most was when she said that 'bad' was only a way of making us remember what 'good' looked like. 

What would the world look like without a notion of bad. Of people doing wrong. I'm not talking about the implications of an absence of crime on the police and judiciary but generally with no concept of bad. 

I still think the world wouldn't work. 

Sure, everyone would be good - perhaps weird and a tad annoying. But whilst one person would be 'good', another person might be an even better version of good. There would be varying degrees of righteousness and so, whilst there would be no malicious intent in the world, no one would be as perfect as the most good person in a race of good people. Certainly, the whole notion of good would topple. People who weren't good enough would struggle for perfection through losing their good spirit and embracing 'bad'. 

Maybe the world was once like this. Whether your religiously Christian, Eve eating the apple might have been the bridging factor. It whether your not, a man with a herd if dying goats looking to his neighbour with a plentiful stock and finding that stealing might guarantee his happiness. 

Because that's another thing; being good is not synonymous with being happy. What's good for you doesn't always make you happy. A hungry vagrant avoiding stealing from a shop owner and refraining from taking the money he's gained from begging might not make him happy; may not even keep him alive. But he would still have been a good person. 

And whilst I can't stand crime, feel threatened by thugs and constantly have self-evaluation sessions with myself in order to ascertain whether I'm "still on the right track", I don't think I could stand being in a world of goody-too-shoes! 

The Riddler

Every story is biased. Perspective on narrative can make you live one tale, one life, a thousand times over. Our human need and desperation to tell stories in our day to day life is impulsive.

Yes, it's day one at Uni and, despite being late to the first 9am lecture, this is what I've learned. Pretty inspiring stuff! In fact, I was very motivated by this. My lecturer for my Narrative and Cultural Identity in the Hispanic World module has linked, unknowingly, to purpose of his introductory lecture very nicely with my own slogan of this blog.

Turning old pages, reading new words (the name of my blog) has a couple of conceptual meanings. Basically, what I'm getting at is that we all live life. Fact. But how you live your life is different to how I live mine and not simply because we are living different lives with different goals. If I put myself in your life and you put yourself in mine, you still wouldn't live the my life. You would, physically, live mine, but spiritually you wouldn't. Your take on things would be completely different. Whether you met a cloudy day with apprehension and anxiety or whether you met it with thick coats and wellies would determine how differently that one day would take form. Perspective can make you live your life a thousand times over. 

History is a classic take on the modern story. I absolutely love reading and writing. History employs the same skills. Those who dictate history have formulated the way in which it was told. Take the Titanic. Would history be different if a polar bear had told that story? If human were polar bears? Because, essentially, through global warming we are killing polar bears like humans off the Titanic. Granted; it was a horrible tragedy, there's no denying it. But, would it have been as shocking, as detrimental, as spirit changing if it had been 1,500 polar bears that had drowned off a floating breeze block of ice that had melted due to climate change induced by humans? Maybe. Would we have know about it? And if we hadn't, would we still be hanging on to the old cliche of 'just the tip of the iceberg'? Every story is biased. 

dailymail.co.uk

If I told you about me in a verbal diarrhea form of biography, there would be things I wouldn't tell you because I wouldn't want you to know. There are things I would forget to tell you, because I wouldn't think that you needed you to know. And there would be things I would make better. Those would be the type of things I would want you to remember. And, whether you're willing to accept it or not, you would do the same. But whatever I did or didn't tell you, if asked, I would reel of some sort of cabaret.
"It's not that interesting but..." Storytelling is as much an impulse as those functions we can't control. 

And like that above, this whole post is an impulse. I needed to write, to share something pointless but hopefully enjoyable to tame the genuine inspiration I've been feeling today. If all my seminars are like this, bring on the next four years!

The Writing Block

As you might have gleaned from my sparse blogger profile or the fact that I have 4 blogs, am currently completing 3 novels and have a very active account on the fiction website; movellas (find me at movellas.com under the name Loomweaver32), I absolutely LOVE writing. I'm not complete if I haven't got a book in my bag, pen in my hand or within easy reach of paper. 

I'm 18 but if you ever had to search my bag on a trip clothes shopping you'd find all three of the above.  

I remember the very first days back at junior school after Christmas, Easter, summer breaks or half terms and the feeling of handling a pen for the first time in weeks. I would mould my fingers around it struggling to remember just how I used to grip the thing. Then I would make the first letter. 

My first English class of year 3 after the Christmas holidays is a clear memory. I was sat at the back on an aisle holding this chewed and peeling HB pencil. I began writing: today and saw how the word that I wrote was nothing like English script but far closer to Chinese. I started to cry and leaned across the aisle to my friend, Francesca. 

"I've forgotten how to write," I whispered. 

"Me too," she replied. "How do I hold this?" 

In that respect I've always been pernickety about how my hand writing looks. Even now as I go to University I fret over the height of my letters and the loops of the writing. I swear by Bic Medium pens and practice writing near on every day so that the first weeks back at college aren't spent re-writing the alphabet in uppercase and lower. 

I've always been writing stories. The first that I can clearly remember was in year 3 ( it seems like that was the year that everything was happening!) My first 'boyfriend' was a boy called Ian - though this was a different concept of love. My romantic little eight-year old self decided that for valentine's day I'd write a story as a present. It was written and coloured by yours truly on 4 pieces of folded A4 paper. I remember details of it only vaguely but it was some cliché about him and I sailing a boat to a remote island. Nevertheless for an 8 year old it showed dedication to please and in light of the first attempt, I'm very proud to say that I have gotten better. 

I've tried my hand at various types of fiction. In my early teens I was hooked on love stories and foster care having poured through the entire Jacqueline Wilson collection. 

This was something else that spurred me on. I was about nine when I went to my first book signing to meet Jacqueline Wilson. I queued for 3 hours outside but the excitement made every hour dissipate rather quickly. Arriving at the table where Jacqueline Wilson was, I shook the hand of the assistant beside her rather than handing her my books and then eagerly asked Ms Wilson the question that had been bubbling on my lips for the entire day; Will there be another Tracy Beaker book? She told me no. 

"I think we'll just have to stick to watching it on TV." 

But low and behold, the next year, she had written Starring Me (the third instalment of the Tracy Beaker 'trilogy') and I can only hope that it was me who persuaded Jacqueline Wilson to do so. 

Since those days of abandoned islands and cushy love stories, I've written other forms of fiction. 

Year 12; our English coursework was to write a chapter of a dystopian novel. Settling into writing easily and stumbling on many of the finer details, I earned 100%. This was where my creative writing was rekindled. 

I've always had a crisis of faith in myself. I don't know how many times I've cried when I've told myself that I wasn't any good at anything. It was hard growing up in a very talented family. 

My brothers beat me at most things. I was the oldest so I always set the bar - a level they constantly seemed to override. I was the best at drawing until my oldest brother was better. I was always the trampolining champ of our household until my youngest brother was accepted into the trampoline squad - a team I was too old for. (He was soon doing graceful front somersaults and byranis at national competition level every other weekend.) 

I always wanted to be a pop star - as I think everyone does - but when my mum howled at me when I showed off my supposed talent that dream went out the window. Besides we already had a singer in the extended family. Both her and her sister (my cousins) had been amazing tennis players too, challenging a current Wimbledon commentator. Sports was not on the cards for me. Nothing was. I reckon this is why I'm so in love with religion. The church is one of the first places that I felt worthy in. One of the only places I knew I didn't have to be somebody. I just had to  be Laura. 

Finally, when I had managed full marks in my coursework and people where taking time to read my work and praise me for it, I felt that this was it. 

"This is what I'm good at." 

And the best thing was that I could just let my mind run. I didn't have to conform to anything, be anyone, do anything the way it HAD to be done because nothing needed to be done that way. The world needs people who can break the constraints. Who can provide different perspectives and I was thrilled that I was one of them. In hindsight, I've always thought I was special that way. I, generally, have never felt my age. Always a lot younger. I've never been overtly girly or fashionable and spent AGES talking to my teddies right up until I was 13. Even nowadays, I still talk to someone. I don't know who they are but I find myself talking aloud and flash back to reality thinking, 

"Who am I actually talking to?!"

I've always blamed that eccentricity on falling down a full flight of stairs when I was young but it seems to have done me good in some ways!

I went on this year to achieve in the 90% quartile for my English coursework on a chosen subject for fiction; Autism. 

So now I've begun my first children's fiction novel. It's only something little and not entirely extravagant but I need that to begin with. Then I can attempt to build up to the splendour of Harry Potter. (That is hoping I have that much creative reserve).

The story is called 'Marbles' and can be found at movellas.com under my username Loomweaver32 by looking in My Movellas. It a story about two boys, one rich and the other poor, and a few competitions that they have in the search of what each other wants. 

I don't think I'm really selling it that all that well but maybe check it out for yourself and let me know what you think. Create an account with movellas to publish a comment or to get involved or simply comment at the bottom of this post to share your thoughts. 

Thanks for reading and happy writing! :D