What’s so funny about mental illness? Shake that tree Ruby Wax!!

Two up Two down

I remember the rooms of the little cottage vividly. Two up two down not complicated to recall.  Opening the front door I smell the food cooking and the warmth of the living room fire on my cold winter skin. I ascend the dark mahogany stair case, slowly placing my feet upon the well-worn carpet remembering my relatives who like me had helped to wear the crimson threads. I stand silently allowing unfolding of sensory memory.

Cold now meets my face and I see my breath, billowing clouds of white, steaming the freezing window panes where I would write my name.  Lavender wax polish floods my nostrils, applied to maintain the shine and appearance of the heavy oak table and bed head. In my visualization I turn to notice the little walnut dressing table just to the right under the window. The street light illuminates the glass container holding Nanny’s shiny brooches she wore on her pressed linen blouses, each glass jewel transforming the light into multitudes of dancing white beings in the blackness.

Returning downstairs and into another time frame I am sitting curled into my grandmothers generous breasts as the soft skin of her arms  encircle me. No one else is out of bed it is early morning, our special time. I smell the faint aroma of soap and talcum powder and her long white plait hangs over her shoulder reflecting the dancing crackling flames like threads of sliver skein. Her face is soft and the lines fold gently into ample crevices. I remember running my child hands gently around the geography of her cheeks exploring the curiosity of aging in the warmth of the morning firelight.

Going forward, when the fire was cold so were her cheeks as she lay in her coffin. Stroking my fingers over her waxy smooth skin her face now appeared small. My tears and love stayed with her as she went to join my grandfather and her son. She took part of me and gave me her memory to hold and lovingly craft, an alchemical gift of generational connection.

When is a mobile phone not a mobile phone?

Hey you wonderful things out there (hope someone is listening or maybe that’s my ego speaking!). Just thought I’d share this little story. The picture posted was the front page story of the Teifi Side a weekly newspaper in West Wales. The star who of course is ten year old moi, just in case you hadn’t guessed. I had just been parted from my appendix. But this my pretties is not the reason for the photographs inclusion. It was the first mobile phone to be used in the hospital EVER. “A mobile phone?” I hear you ask “Were the Welsh that advanced in technology that long ago…Well they do produce Dr Who and he did have a travelling police box! But I digress. The only thing mobile about this phone are the wheels. That’s why it was mobile duhhh. Fit that one in your handbag!

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Rock Chick!

Lead singer of a band called Zipcode during the 1970’s in The Midlands UK. A legend in my own lunch box!