Tag Archives: Family

Constraints and Claustrophobia

Posted on by
Reply

Constraints and Claustrophobia

It’s nearly 3.30 and I’m not sleeping again.

It’s not that I’m not sleeping because of anything in particular. I was asleep and sleeping well. But, then I needed to go to the bathroom and, I guess, I was sleeping so well that I needed a nightmare to wake myself up. I really hate that. The problem with your head giving you a nightmare to wake up is that the nightmare stays with you. This wasn’t such a bad nightmare. More odd, really. So I got back into bed and F seemed to have moved so that he was diagonally across the bed meaning that my feet had no room. And I’d tucked the sheet in well so that my feet have about two inches of space. Which is obviously not enough. So, I’m constricted. And this nightmare (or the end of it) won’t leave me and I can’t figure it all out for it makes no sense and it’s kind of hot so my arm is out of the bed and then I hear the faint buzz of a mosquito so I bring my arm and shoulder inside the covers even if it’s too hot and that’s when I realise that I have that itch on the bit of my hand that forms the sort of web between my thumb and the forefinger which, of course, means that the bastard mosquito I heard flying was actually flying away, stomach full of blood, to find some water and give birth to more bastard mosquitoes.

And, then I realised that the whole thing was all about constriction and claustrophobia – the nightmare, that is – and that I didn’t feel good about that but that it was also unreasonable (of me) since no one was truly “forcing me” and yet I felt this way. F being diagonally across the bed so that I had no room to move my legs was just the final straw. And, so as not to wake F because he hasn’t been sleeping well recently – and far worse than me – I got up and decided to write about my dream and revelation.

So, first to the nightmare.

We have the flat and yet, at various points in the dream it is and isn’t ours. This flat is big and comfortable. There is even a kind of sub-flat. Anyway, someone comes to stay. As a result, we shall not sleep in our bed but in the spare room – this kind of sub-flat. Except, like the cellar for the new flat, for some reason, I’ve never been there. F tells me, by the way, that the cellar s very big – but I don’t see it – I mean I don’t really believe it to be big. We had one, V and I, and there was just about enough room to store stuff. There again, maybe that IS big for cellars here and so F, thinking of other cellars, may be right. Anyway, I digress. So, I’ve never been to this part of the flat. Our flat is in an old building (much older than the real flat but that’s how dreams work, isn’t it?) and we have stairs. So we go up the stairs and instead of turning left to our bedroom, F, leading the way, turns right.

We go along a rather dingy corridor and through a door into a lounge. The lounge is small. I mean quite tiny. And yet there is a sofa there and cabinets and the furniture is old but not like mine, more Victorian in style, big and brooding and elaborate for no good reason. It could, in fact, be old Italian furniture, excessive amounts of wood and imposing and curvy and just too much. It fills the walls and seems to bear down on you. There is a rug covering the floor and heavy curtains and yet no window. It gave a sense of wanting to smother you. Or it could have been like a dolls house. Where the furniture is just too big for the room and everything is out of proportion.

But we don’t stay here as we’re off to bed. I say to F, “Is this OK for you?” to which he replies that yes, it’s OK, after all it’s just for a night. But then it seems that this is his place or the new place. For he’s been here before. He knows where he’s going. It’s as if it was his flat. So, we enter the lounge and immediately opposite is another door. It takes about one stride to reach the other door, the lounge opening out to the right as we pass. I say open out when, in fact, there are just the furnishings in a room that’s a stride wide.

We then start to ascend some stairs. The walls are smooth, white plastered walls. But the stairs are narrow, just wider than my shoulders and the impression (although not the fact) is that they get narrower. F leads the way although at one point F changes to be my youngest brother, T, and then back to F. He soon disappears for the stairs curve as they seem to get narrower. I turn to try and convince Piero to come. He has his doubts. The reason is the stairs themselves. They are wooden but with no riser. Like step ladders but with some intricate wooden structure holding up the next stair. Still, Piero doesn’t really like it. I don’t blame him, I’m beginning to dislike it too. The stairs are lit by something but not by windows and not by a light, yet they seem bright but there are shadows (which makes no sense at all).

I hear F above. He has reached the bedroom and I hear him go down the stairs (short stairs) to the bathroom. I hear him in the bathroom. I carry on up the curve of the stairs. It has only been a few seconds but, as I reach the bedroom, I see F is out of the bathroom. I query with him, “Have you finished?” “Yes,” he replies. And that doesn’t make sense at all. he hasn’t been there for long enough. It’s been about 2 minutes since we started up the stairs and yet he’s got up here and been to the bathroom and is already getting into bed.

And then I notice the bedroom. It is round. The roof is like the inside of the old Chinese hats – the ones they used to use in the paddy fields. It is simple white plaster. The windows are open but they are not really windows but grills, intricate, white-painted, metal grills with glass beyond. The glass is open. The reason for the grills is simple. The room, aside from being round and having the inversely-pointed ceiling is, at most, two feet high and the “windows” are the whole wall, i.e. from the floor to the ceiling. They look pretty but ……

F is not standing. He can’t. At it’s highest point, the room is, maybe, four and a half feet high. The bedding is arranged around the walls (the bits where the windows aren’t). His is one “side” and mine the other. The window is in between. I look for the stairs down to the bathroom but can’t see them. The “doorway” into the bedroom has become less of a doorway and more of a hatch. I will have to pull myself into the bedroom. The width of the doorway is such that it will be a tight squeeze. The only way out is back through this doorway. I don’t actually want to go in any more. I feel claustrophobic just looking into this room. I don’t think I can do it. Before my eyes, it seems to get even smaller. It seems like we have climbed inside a small tower yet that cannot be. And yet it is. I really don’t think I can sleep here and telling F is going to be difficult.

I wake up.

So, there you are. My feeling of claustrophobia and constraining.

I’m sure it will pass.

I haven’t really explained the brother thing that appeared and disappeared. But I can’t right now. Trust me, it’s the same feeling of constraint and claustrophobia and, for different reasons, they can be the same person – which was why they were the same person for a second.

Then, of course, getting back into bed and having my legs trapped in that corner of the bed, made the constraint real for a moment and clarified the dream.

And now it’s a quarter past four and I get up in less than two hours. Once again, for a different reason each time, I shall start the week feeling like I need a weekend to recover. Bugger!

p.s. I may edit this tomorrow if it doesn’t really make sense.

Enough already.

Posted on by
6

The sudden flurry of activity was shocking.

I wrote a couple of posts that will, undoubtedly, stay in draft. One a letter to someone who commented who I haven’t seen for a long, long time and one to the commenter who, apparently, doesn’t care what I think and, yet, reads the blog.

However, enough is enough. The proof of duplicity stands as it is. Previous actions indeed speak so much louder than words. I have no wish to further engage with such a person.

However, the blog is what it is – my blog full of my personal thoughts and feelings. So I will continue to write what I want, when I want and, I’m sure, from time to time, that person will look. Oh well, this is the Internet and the 21st century and this is the way it is.

I still wonder why? There was obviously one or more conversations – probably both before and after. But I wonder why on earth they would bother with that? Occasionally, I write snippets from my past, not to discuss my family but more to help to explain me and why I’m the way I am. Why I’m so pro some things and anti other things. I don’t honestly know if they give any insights to anyone else. Possibly not as you get the results of my musings rather than the thought processes.

So, I still wonder why? I have no connection to the UK aside from my friends there. There is no real reason to go back. Nor do I particularly desire it. I have, more or less, managed to exclude my family from my daily life, only occasionally turning to the Internet to learn something when something happens that makes me think of them.

Of course, I always wondered if, at some time in the future, someone not directly connected to my time there would try and “discover” me. But, in my view, that was unlikely.

Whilst the second commenter made me laugh with her standard double-standard thinking, I don’t feel the need to continue the dialogue with her. My own stupidity was to trust her in the first place. Ah, well, you live and learn, as they say. I don’t want or need such negativity or duplicity in my life, thanks all the same.

So, now, after that little “episode”, enough already.

I wonder why? For at least a few minutes.

Posted on by
9

I’ll bet you’ve done it, haven’t you?

I’m sure that the majority of people have. I certainly have. Also, given my situation, I’ve searched for my siblings and my parents. It’s how I know that my father is dead and why I know certain things about the female members of my family.

It’s why I wonder, now, if there wasn’t some sort of “set up” being done in the years before. I’m almost certain there was. The one I thought was trustworthy, most probably wasn’t and, in fact, I now think she could have been the cause of the end of that chapter.

But, I hold no grudge. If it hadn’t been for that, I wouldn’t be here now, in this place and with this person and having such a wonderful life. So, instead, I’m grateful. Doesn’t make her a nice person though – but then, how could I ever have thought she was? And, from a comment she made some time ago on Twitter, I now realise that she was jealous as well!

Well, the money you have now won’t make that better, dear. You were always striving for something that you would never, ever have. Love of yourself.

Anyway, I digress.

I have a program to log the visitors to this site. I can tell when Lola (have you seen her new blog? – look on the right) and Gail visit. I recognise my regular visitors (like the one from Ireland and Germany) and it’s “nice” to see them visit. And, of course, it means certain friends can “keep up to date” on major happenings in my life (*waves to N in San Francisco*).

I get many people who are looking for the address of Primark in Milan, or looking for details of Felicity Lowde (maybe for her connection with Rachel North) or Serge Bodulovic (who’s just a scum-bag). Even if, now, Google usually encrypts the search words used, you can tell, more or less, what they’ve been looking for by the first page they land on.

But, yesterday, I had a visitor who was on the site for several hours. The person came from the Bristol area. They spent a lot of time on the site (several hours). Among the terms they used to search whilst they were on this site were “mother”, “father”, “family”, “brother” and “sister”. From the first page they got to, they were almost certainly searching for me.

Of course, I say little about my blood relatives. I haven’t seen them for many, many years. Not all of them are bad people (I like to believe) but. for certain, some of them are. It’s better that I don’t get involved. But I wondered who it was, specifically, who was looking and why? Why now, after all these years?

Of course, I shall never know. They’re hardly likely to make any comment and, for them too, it’s probably better to leave things lie.

So, for a few moments, it made me wonder. And then I move on and back to living my life now for which I am eternally grateful.

Update: and now I’m pretty sure I know who it was. Still looking for that loving feeling of yourself, eh? LOL

I get a surprise!

Posted on by
8

“You know my family know, don’t you?” He means that they know we are moving in together.

Well, yes, of course. I didn’t really think it was a secret since his cousin had posted something to some pictures added to Facebook.

“What, everyone?” I ask.

“I’m sure,” he replies. “B (his sister) telephoned me.”

“I saw that E (his cousin) had made a comment,” I said.

“Yes, and she will have told everyone.”

I wonder, since he and I are, where not exactly a secret couple, shall we say, a couple of really, really good friends, even though, of course, everyone knows, what his parents think then, assuming they have been told that we will be moving together.

“We can invite them up,” he says, “maybe for Christmas.”

Now – “invite them up” is all the family? Surely not!

“Who?” I ask.

“My Mum and Dad,” adding, “I can go and pick them up but we would have to sleep on the sofa.”

I have no idea what to say to this. Inside, I know this is the “final” acceptance. This means that he is so relaxed about “us” that he can now invite his Mum and Dad up to stay into our flat and that, as they would see we only had the one bedroom with a double bed, there couldn’t really be any doubt – even though, of course, he would never, ever tell them. But that’s OK for me. I don’t need for everything to be explicitly said. Not any more.

“What a lovely idea!” I exclaim.

Of course, I can’t add all the feelings I really have inside – but I am really very happy about this surprise announcement.

“Maybe, not for Christmas but for a weekend, anyway.”

OK, as you want, I think and, probably, say. He goes on to say that his Mum has only ever been to Milan once before and his Dad never, despite him living here for well over 20 years! They don’t have this need or desire to travel. Even in Italy! I mean to say, I’ve seen a honeymoon picture which, I think, was taken in Rome but I’ve never heard tales of any travel.

Of course, I realise this may never happen, this trip to Milan but that’s not really the point. The fact that he’s thinking about it means so much in so many ways. Every time I think about it brings a new insight into the fact that he’s so very happy we’re together. Happy and more and more relaxed about it.

Which is more than can be said about the actual “moving” thing. For that he is exceedingly stressed. But it will settle down once he’s moved his stuff over – which is happening right now.

But that’s for another post.

Someone’s Day

Posted on by
2

It’s always someone’s day and today it’s Mother’s Day (in the UK).

Today is the day when you think of your mother or remember your mother or give her a call or a card or a present or all these things.

A mother gives birth to you and then brings you up, sacrificing many things for you. Loving you beyond reason. Looking after you; being there when you need someone and everyone else has let you down or worse. Someone who loved you whatever. She would be so proud of your successes. Would support you when there were failures. Would just “be there”.

I read about them. Mothers. How there is some special bond between them and their children. How people miss them when they’re gone. How much they love them when they are alive.

I always wanted a mother.

I mean, physically, I had one, obviously. And I lived with that woman for the first eighteen years of my life. I understand other people’s relationship to their mothers. To a point. But, of course, without that, one can’t fully understand and so I understand and, yet, don’t understand. I see it but I see it from outside – like a kid looking in the window of a sweet shop but who can’t get in. You understand the sweets are nice and, well, sweet but, having never tasted one, how can you really know the sensation of eating one?

Of course, I could ring V’s mum – who always treated me like her son and would tell everyone that I was – even if that was impossible. But I won’t since that seems too presumptive and intrusive. After all, she didn’t give birth to me and didn’t raise me for the first eighteen years of my life. She met me when I was 30. And, in spite of the fact that she was always sweet and lovely to me, we don’t have that special bond that can only be with a mother. I always thought she was just saying that, to make me feel better. Which it did as I realised the niceness of it.

So, I won’t be phoning the woman who would be known as my mother. She’s quite vindictive and hateful. For most of my life, she hasn’t been there. She’s a shadowy figure best forgotten.

And some of you will think that’s sad. But that’s because you have a mother that isn’t/wasn’t like that. You had someone you loved deeply and who loved you back. Therefore your feeling of sadness comes from the fact that you didn’t have the a mother like I did. And, for that you should be grateful. And there may be those of you who never knew your mother. And perhaps you feel that I should be more conciliatory. But, then, you never knew the woman who gave birth to me. We can never really walk in someone else’s shoes. Never experience their experiences for we are all unique. And all mothers are unique, even if you never knew them.

So, I say happy Mother’s Day to all mothers who are/were truly mothers. But for one, I can’t say that.

It WAS all damned lies, as I thought

Posted on by
4

I don’t know how I feel.

I mean, the feelings are all a little mixed up.

There’s a feeling of anger but it’s not so strong.

There’s a feeling of sadness. Not for anything that was “missed”, since it wasn’t. For the people involved, I suppose.

There’s a feeling of relief. After all, there’s now no way that I will be found, nor even looked for. And there’s a kind of finality, an ending, a closing off. A closure.

And, there’s a feeling of hate, of course, for certain of those people involved. Hate is not a good feeling but it’s not something I can stop. But, to be honest, I expected nothing better from the females.

It would have been better, of course, if, as I had expected, my name was not even mentioned. But it was and that was to be specifically excluded. Other people who, perhaps, should have been mentioned and who I expected to be mentioned, weren’t. That was unexpected. But, still, they weren’t specifically excluded. But I was. Well, of course, it was my fault for even wanting to see it, I suppose.

Well, there’s nothing I can do about it now and I wouldn’t have done anything about it even if I had known it would make a difference. Not that I expect that it would have made any difference. Then or before.

But, I suppose what gets me the most is the lies. The lies from all those years ago and from the time when I gave someone a chance – but who was lying all the time. Still, that’s sales people for you. It’s what they do. Lie.

And, yes, it smarts a little. But not really a lot.

After all, it’s reciprocal.

And all these feelings will pass and I’ll be back to the same and at least now I know and it’s exactly, more or less, as I thought. Except for one thing. There is no future (for this thing). There’ll be no surprising call or message asking for a last meeting or anything. Something that had been worrying me a bit since I couldn’t work out what my response would be. Well, now I know.

And, I also know there was no feeling for me and that’s OK. In fact, that’s better for there was none from me either.

But, still, the hand-written addition, excluding only me. Their final message to me. But, at least it’s final and done now.

And time to get on with my life.

I don’t really belong

Posted on by
3

I don’t think I’ll ever be something other than a foreigner in a foreign land.

I mean, I’ll never be totally relaxed. I came to this realisation whilst driving the dogs to the pineta on Sunday morning. I reached the traffic lights and, as I sat there, waiting for the lights to turn green, it struck me again that it’s not the place I am “from”. To the right is a place that looks a little like a timber yard – except that it sells marble. To the left is what look like a run-down workshop – except that it is a place where marble is carved into headstones and statues. The weather is warm and there is not a cloud in the sky and yet it’s towards the end of September and I am dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. This is not deepest Herefordshire.

It’s not such a bad thing – it’s just that it is, in a way, a little bit frightening. I don’t know that you will understand that and I’m not sure that I do either. Still, there it is.

The night before I had been with the family. This was the close family. This was F’s Mum’s birthday dinner. So F’s Mum and Dad, his sister (with husband and niece), twin brother (and girlfriend) and him (with me). There’s no strangeness from his family towards me at all. I am accepted completely and surrounded by his family and, in some way, feel part of it.

We went to Ristorante Venanzio in the small town of Colonnata, near Carrara which is situated deep in the mountains and surrounded by the marble quarries, famous for their white marble. It’s also famous for it’s Lardo di Colonnato, which I love.

Normally, when we go to Carrara for the weekend, we arrive sometime on Friday night and, usually, we drop the dogs at home and then go to Bati Bati for a pizza. I always have the pizza with Lardo, asparagus and aubergine (egg plant to Americans). It is one of the very best pizzas I’ve ever had. And, even now, writing about it, my mouth is salivating (really)!

However, at Venanzio, we had Lardo as antipasto (along with a load of other, very nice, things) which was “to die for”. So tasty. F’s brother told me that they have a special source for it and you won’t find it for sale anywhere else, even in the small village of Colonnata. We had a selection of pasta dishes (my favourite being Lasagnetta with sausage sauce) and then, I had lamb. Unfortunately, like most of Italy, the lamb was only so-so. Not a replacement for La Brace. However, I tasted F’s rabbit with lardo. It was slices of a rolled rabbit joint with lardo and herbs filling it. It was incredible.

Service was excellent (but we were the first there). Sweet was a cake (as it was F’s Mum’s birthday) which was very nice.

It wasn’t so expensive – about €40 each, including wine (4 bottles), a glass of sweet desert wine with the cake and a digestivo. Would definitely go again, the only downside being getting there (or, rather, getting back). The only way is via a narrow switchback road from Carrara – so you really MUST NOT drink and drive!

Anyway, you should go there for the Lardo!

Sunday was a day on the beach and it was one of the best days on the beach. Now, being the end of the season, half the umbrellas have been taken away so there’s much more room and, of course, a lot less people. Now, at this time in September, you can sit in the sun all day without becoming too hot – the breeze is cooling, the sun not so fierce. And so we do.

F talks about coming down next weekend, if the weather is good. It will be the last weekend – the beach closes at the end of September, the café is doing some sort of buffet spread on the Sunday. F suggests we might take a few hours off on Monday so we can stay down Sunday night. Let’s see how the weather is.

But, even here, on the beach, I have the same kind of feeling as I had in the car. It’s not really my place. Even if I feel relaxed and read (I finished “Bring Up The Bodies” – Hilary Mantel, which was great, btw), I almost don’t really belong.

This weekend

Posted on by
2

I’ve spent the last three weekends in Carrara – enjoying the sunshine on the beach, eating at F’s parents or the sagra, taking the (very excited) dogs to the pineta, relaxing.

But this coming weekend is different. This coming weekend, we are going together. F will be there too. And the difference is immeasurable and, for the first time, I am really excited about going down.

We may have breakfast at the café in Marina di Carrara where the cakes (fro breakfast) are particularly nice. Certainly we shall share the dog walking. Then there will be someone to talk to on the beach (not that I don’t talk to anyone – but almost everyone speaks only Italian so the conversations are much shorter.) And we shall be together, which I really enjoy.

The only downside is that, after working so very hard for so many weeks it is likely that F will get some ailment – which often happens the moment that he stops working. Ah well. At least he will be relaxing a bit.

So, for the first time this year, we shall be going down to Carrara together. The car will be clean (obviously), the dogs are brushed and we will leave, more or less, at 5 p.m. on Friday – which also means pizza with asparagus and lardo (for me). Yay!

Escape ………….. or maybe not?

Posted on by
6

It’s all over the UK news. This teacher has, apparently, disappeared to France with one of his 15-year-old pupils.

And, it brought to mind the time my sister disappeared with some guy.

I don’t, unfortunately, remember the details. I think she was about 15 or 16. The guy was older – maybe in his 20s.

They went off together and were away for several days (or was it a week, or maybe longer?).

I’m sure the police were involved.

I remember my parents being out of their minds.

And I remember thinking that:

a) she knew what she was doing,
b) that my parents, for the way they treated her, deserved it (to some extent) and
c) that she had finally ‘got away’.

Except that, in reality, she hadn’t. She was back soon.

I guess the same will happen with this story too.

Mother of My Children – Apply now!

Posted on by
2

“Family are important”

He wanted me to blog that I had said that since he found it strange or funny or both. Not the sentiment, you understand, just that I had said it.

But, to understand the statement, you need to understand the background.

He has a girlfriend. Or a might-be girlfriend. Or a maybe girlfriend. In any case, they’ve spent some time together.

“Have you met her parents yet?,” I ask.

Of course not. Relationships, for some people, go at snails pace. I know that, but I like to ask these things. Like I liked to ask “Have you kissed her yet?”

Please note that I didn’t ask for intimate details. I really don’t want to know about others’ sex life. A) it’s not my business and B) it is better not to be put into a position of imagining it all. I really don’t want to know. But, on the basis that, once, I was told about a girl with whom he had ‘had lunch’ several times and who was a ‘serious contender’ for the title of ‘Mother of my children’ – but who, with further questioning turned out to not know she was in the running for ‘mother of my children’ title and, in fact, had absolutely no idea that he was even interested in her, I like to ask questions to try to determine the ‘real’ state of things.

For your interest, the answers were 1. No and 2. Yes.

The ‘No’ was because ‘it’s complicated’. Complicated by the fact that the mother is a friend of a cousin and, therefore, word would spread and then ‘Mother’ would be involved and he doesn’t want interference.

I can only imagine.

But I justified my question by stating that ‘Family is important’.

After all, if she is to win the competition for ‘Mother of my children’, you need to know that a) you LIKE the family and b) that the family LIKE you.

He did make a valid point of the fact that this would be impossible for a partner of mine.

But to counter that I would say that, even if I could have children with my partner, my family would never know, let alone be involved. And, in any event, my family wouldn’t like my partner on the basis that he would be a man.

So the correct statement should be that ‘Family are important – as long as it’s not mine’.

Anyway, it seems like the competition for ‘Mother of my children’ is moving forward.

Of course, to me, every new one is a winner. That’s because I only get the barest of information about them and I only get that after asking A LOT of questions, since information is NOT forthcoming. It would, indeed, be easier to get blood from a stone.

And, sometimes I get a bit frustrated. Hence the question ‘Have you kissed her yet?’ And, anyway, asking a question like that gets a real response – at least non-verbal, which can sometimes say more than a verbal response.

I guess I’m quite wicked sometimes :-)