I was at a pub in Sussex last week and while waiting for my companion to return with drinks, overheard the guys behind me saying ...
" Yes, but obviously ... you don't marry a stripper! "
This caught my attention and I leant back to listen in. One of them went on to confess that he missed the screaming rows with his volatile ex. I don't know if she was a stripper, but it sure sounded like that was the way the subject was leaning.
However his voice softened when he mentioned the motherly nature of his latest girlfriend and the fact that this worked in his favour. She was looking after him. He was obviously caught in the middle of a big decision. Passion, fire and fury or kindness and stability?
I had to smile as I sat with my back to them and my eyes to the hills. How we use our free will and the power of choice is the greatest gift we have been given. Free will. An incredible privilege and honour bestowed upon us. I have my own history of trying to make the right choices. A million moments wrestling with my inner wild child.
As C S Lewis once said when looking inside himself, he found
" a zoo of lusts, a bedlam of ambitions, a nursery of fears, a harem of fondled hatreds."
The conversation moved on to electric cars and how quiet our world is becoming. The boys were already beginning to miss the roar of the petrol engine. The gutsy surge of power accompanied with raw sound ...
(Me too. There is nothing sexy about a silent car. Except maybe in the quiet predatory nature of it's stealthy unheard approach. Actually change that thought. Maybe that is quite sexy.)
... And as they so rightly pointed out. The cars may be cleaner but the electricity still has to come from somewhere.
There was talk of not knowing where we stand anymore. Not being allowed to say anything offensive. A castration of the wild warrior child.
The final subject I overheard was about the motorbike one of them had recently purchased. He bought it for its status. Big, fast & strong. But was devastated when his friend's father said it was SENSIBLE to have an upright handlebar. He wasn't aiming for sensible! He was aiming for risk, danger and excessive measures of testosterone. This conundrum put him in such a tizz that that he nearly immediately resold it.
The thrust of each of these conversations seemed to be about missing passion, missing danger, missing noise, missing swearing and feeling bored with our safe and restrained society. In short, a rant against political correctness.
Where had the days gone when you could smoke at your desk, sleep with a stripper, swear at your boss and punch your enemy?
I turned to my friend who was now approaching across the pub lawn. Storing their words in my head I moved on to my own conversation while making a mental note that although what I had just overheard was just an everyday conversation. Nothing sensational. Just a little insight into someone else's life. I knew that I wouldn't forget it or let it go before I had chewed it over and mined it for gold.
Digging for gold. That is what I do. I tell stories. I am a writer. I notice the details and hold on to them. I pay attention. I pick up fragments of conversation and ponder on them in my journal. Little pieces of gold that will be woven into something I am writing at some point in the future.
When I write I am in my element. Like a fish in water. As Eric Liddell, the Scottish Olympic athlete and missionary once said ( Chariots of fire )
... “ God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure. " - Eric Liddell
I write because it is that one thing in life that is not an effort for me. It is a joy and second nature. When I write I feel His pleasure.
I write to explore the truth of what life is really like. To verbalise some of the frustrations. To explore my own faults and flaws. Writing is basically therapy for me.
Don't rush me to make decisions or give you my opinion. To begin with I am like a sluggish freight train, slowly chugging uphill against the gradient. I might be slow in getting started but once I have picked up speed and am surging down my chosen path, there is no stopping me and I pack a heavy punch.
I'm reading Anne Lamott - 'bird by bird' at the moment. Here is her thinking on the subject ...
" Writing can be a pretty desperate endeavour, because it is about some of our deepest needs: our need to be visible, to be heard, our need to make sense of our lives, to wake up and grow and belong. "
Thinking back to the boys at the pub and their multiple subjects for conversation, I feel that I can summarise what they were wrestling with, with these themes -
Freedom versus responsibility
Submission versus rebellion
Power versus restraint
Political correctness versus honesty.
On the drive home from the pub, crossing over the border from Sussex into Surrey, we put on a CD of music from the 1980's. I sang loudly and happily, loosened up by my one solitary beer. Smiling up at the clouds I was pleasantly surprised to realise that I had the privilege of growing up in the days before political correctness and restraint. I'd forgotten how much fun we really were having in the 80's and only with hindsight can I see it. The background tunes to my life were from bands like AHA - Hunting high & low. Depeche Mode, Bronski Beat, Howard Jones, Bananarama, Thompson Twins, Frankie goes to Hollywood. Culture Club.
And hence it was at dusk, on an unusually hot Tuesday in February, as we barrelled down country lanes sing shouting to Duran Duran, a memory returned that was put away a long time ago in a dusty old drawer -
In the late 80's I was navigating the hormonal jungle of teenage years, making my own way in the world, studying A levels and choosing Jesus at every opportunity given.
I remember a summer afternoon walking along the corridor in the 6th form block at my secondary school. As usual, in my own little world, wafting along in a floral Laura Ashley dress & denim jacket, head in the clouds. Outside a limpid summer afternoon. I slowed down to inspect a butterfly silently bashing itself against the paned glass window while trying to escape to the dancing light outside. I would have let it out but this was not a window that opened. Destined to die in a desperate bid for freedom, I tried to catch it in my hands to take outside but it was scared and flew up and away from me, taking refuge in the corner of the ceiling. At this moment my rescue effort was abruptly disturbed by noise coming from the 6th form common room.
A door slamming shut. The escaped waft of music from the radio. Hungry like a wolf. Duran Duran ... From somewhere behind me came the sound of running feet rapidly approaching down the corridor. I thought I was about to get run over so stepped aside just as a masculine arm swung across my shoulders from behind and pulled me aside. Nailed against the wall with liquid brown eyes and luxurious dark hair too close for comfort, a magazine was thrust into my hands and instructions were whispered into my ear to hide it fast inside my denim jacket. Being the people pleaser I am, I submitted.
Mission accomplished, Ben, cool as a cucumber, walked into the classroom and turned to wink at me as he shut the door behind him.
A second later Tom came running round the corner looking panicked and angry. I smiled. He ran straight past. I moved on to my next lesson and only when I was in the safety of my own classroom did I retrieve the magazine and take a look at what I had been hiding. And yes, it was a slight shock for me, naive and sweet and innocent, which is exactly why Ben had picked on me.
( Destined forever to torment each other. The bad boy & the good girl. He was entertaining & handsome. Dangerous combination. That thing he did to my ear ! Don't ask. He was always trying to shock me out of my purity. )
Oh the 1980's. How I miss you. Which brings me to another individual who was constantly trying to liven up my teenage life and shake up my world. My mother.
Mother was always telling me that I needed to flirt more. I was offended. Flirtation is a manipulation which good girls don't indulge in. Mum had it down to a fine art. Fluttering her eyelashes and flashing her legs at every opportunity. Mum would have liked nothing more than if life had been a constant swirl of cocktail parties. For a sensitive teenager, watching her mother navigate a room packed with men was embarrassing and toe curlingly awkward .
Which brings me to my own embarrassing moment.
On the subject of the 1980's and political incorrectness. Who is the British doyen of the faux pas? I can think of one outstanding person who was and still is an expert at it.
Prince Philip.
Here is a little story about my interaction with him when it was I, not him, who came away with the red face!
Mum had nursed a gentleman who if I remember correctly was part of the Mountbatten clan and god father to Prince Charles. When he passed on, Mum was invited with a guest to his memorial service in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral. Dad was working and not willing to take time off for such a triviality so Mum persuaded me to accompany her to the service. I know that people tend to wear sombre colours for funerals and memorial services but I was seriously lacking in black dresses. I had some navy blue pieces but Mum recommended I wear a bright red number which she had taken a liking to. I resisted but she insisted.
As it was a memorial service, I relented, thinking it wouldn't matter if I wasn't in black. Trusting my mother to know what she was talking about I foolishly agreed to wear the red dress.
Well, you know what's coming. There I am seated beside my mother. I have endured the hymns, the poem, the dedications, the memories and liturgy. Tears have been shed. Heads lowered in respect. The service ends and we all stand as Prince Philip exits the building. The congregation is a sea of muted dark colours with one lonely red dress standing out half way down the chapel on the left hand side! As Prince Philip made his way down the central aisle and toward the back door my flaming scarlet dress couldn't help but catch his attention. He slowed down as he passed our pew, looked across at me & grinned ( Mum says he winked but she exaggerates ) and continued on his journey towards the rear door.
And I know, and Mum knows, and probably the whole gathered assembly could fathom a guess at what he might have been thinking ...
" What the heck, a hooker at the memorial service. I never knew Robert had it in him ! "
I was mortified. Mother was delighted.