Making It Up

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Unheard cheerleaders.

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Yesterday in the car on the way to a friend’s house, I asked Big some more about the swimming gala. To be precise, I asked if she could hear ppl shouting for her when she was in the water. The gist of her answer was no – she was aware that there were some members of her team at the end of her lane waving her on, but she didn’t hear the shouts from the audience. She didn’t hear me. She didn’t know that through my tears (no, I don’t know why I was crying, it’s just something I do when I can’t control emotions any further) I was cheering her on, shouting her name, willing her to find that extra strength, that extra turn of speed, that extra centimetre of reach.

And it occurred to me that this is my place in her life. I am destined to be that unheard cheerleader, stuck in my place on the sidelines, making all the right noises at all the right times, but almost completely soundlessly as far as she is concerned.

She’d probably notice if I wasn’t there. She said it was great knowing that L and I were sat there, just for her. And she stopped on her way back to her seat with the team after her race, and asked why I was crying, so she knew that I’d been like that. “You don’t have to cry” she said, and L said “yes, she does.” Wisdom beyond her years that one.

I didn’t know this was part of the job description when I had children. I wonder if any of us would launch into it if we really knew what it entailed. How complex, terrifying, wonderful, liberating, frustrating, constricting, exhausting and exhilirating our lives become once a child is born.

And most of all, I wonder where my cheerleading role will take me. And whether I’ll ever be heard.

Desiderata of blogging

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with apologies to Max Ehrmann.

Go placidly amid the blogs and the tweets, and remember what peace there may be in going offline.

As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Write your posts honestly and clearly, and read others, even the dull and the ignorant, they too need to blog. But don’t feed the trolls.

If you compare your stats with others, you may become big headed or depressed, for there will always be those with more page views and visitors or less than you. Enjoy your archives and your drafts, and love your blog, backing it up regularly, even if you are the only reader. It’s your blog after all.

Exercise caution in paid and review postings for these are transient and commercial. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many bloggers strive for high ideals, and everywhere words can change the world.

Be yourself. Especially do not linkbait. Neither be cynical about friendship and love, for even on the internet with all the spammers and trolls, it is as perennial as the grass.

Listen to those who have been kicking around for years, and give up the ways of the newbie. Be strong when there are comment spats and blogwars and stop looking at ranking lists. Many fears are born of too much comparison online.

Beyond a wholesome discipline to post, be gentle with yourself and your blog. You are a child of the internet, no less than google and facebook; your site has a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the internet is linking as it should.

Therefore be at peace with teh internets, whatever you perceive that to be. And whatever your efforts and inspirations, in the noisy confusion of twitter, keep peace in your soul.

With all its spam, drudgery, and broken links, it is still a beautiful worldwideweb.

Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Where I'm from

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I am from the cul de sac, from Black Jacks and paper bags of penny sweets.

I am from the ordinary semi that grew and grew to fit in the biggest family on the street, and all the neighbourhood children in the back garden on swings and a slide with a paddling pool in the summer.

I am from the nettles along the roadside, the heather and grass along the catch on the edge of the moors. I am from lazy summer days with my friends and my dog walking the moors and splashing in the water.

I am from the eldest girl of a family of girls and I am the eldest girl in a family of girls, from a broken home way way back in my past, from a broken father with his own damaged past. I’m from never speaking of the breaks. I’m from not knowing that I had an uncle and cousins until my grandmother died and they showed up at the funeral. I’m from the assisted place at the private school, that helped me to be the first in my family to go to university, where I drank and fought and learnt that alone doesn’t have to be lonely.

I am from the eternal making ends meet and always moving on. Never quite sure where to settle or what settling was.

From ‘I want never gets’ and ‘J is the clever one, her sister is the pretty one’.

I am from an unforgiving church that could offer no solace for a friend who took her own life. From the wilderness of back turned on religion, with the lingering sneaking suspicion there is more to the world than we can see or know.

I’m from a mining town in county Durham, the only place that’s ever really been home, from cottage cheese salads and fish and chips.

From the long hot summer that was my childhood, where my brown haired, brown eyed sister caught too much sun and was sick all down the hallway, the caravan parks in Wales where we spent our summer holidays, and the farm in the Peak District where I learnt to milk cows and herd sheep, when we went with grandparents and cousins while my mother convalesced.

I am from pictures stuffed into envelopes, in a bottom drawer of a bookcase, from dusty boxes in the garage from a five years ago move, from pictures that start over again with the birth of my daughter, that flash up on my screen every time I leave the keyboard for a minute.

HT: Brewcrew

The original instructions have disappeared (we found them on fragments from floyd) – but I found an article about the poem and the poet, which I think gives some clues, and a link to a lesson plan you could use to join in?

ETA other blogs with this meme: Sarah at tworedboots, Merry