Personal Responsibility

I'd been meaning to catch him all day. We'd taken a break for lunch and I'd spent a while trying to negotiate my way around the dining hall towards him, watching the other students hover around him like wasps on a jam sandwich. He was a older man who had presence, and was well known within the Spiritualist circles. He had demonstrated his mediumship abilities and taught healing to students for years. At that time, I'd only been practising mediumship a couple of years, sitting in my local Spiritualist Church every Tuesday night, trying to see colours and 'feel' other people's energies. I was twenty years old.

Closing the door behind me, I stepped into the green of the small courtyard gardens, taking some fresh air and a deserved break from the heady workshop. Among the flowers and carefully slabbed paving stones, he was sat on one of the stone benches. For the first time that day, I saw that he had nobody around him.

"Sorry to interrupt, but do you have a second?" I asked, a little nervously, edging towards him.

"Of course." He said, smiling warmly at me. "Are you enjoying the course?" He shifted up on the stone bench to let me sit down.

"Yes, it's great. I had a question I wanted to ask you, though." I paused, thinking about how to put the question without sounding too crazy. "Well, in the last year I've been starting to see energies much more clearly, and I feel that it's all coming quite naturally to me, if you know what I mean. Sometimes, I feel them about me quite strongly, it's almost like I'm buzzing. I find it hard to just switch off from being that way, y'know? I'm often lying in bed, trying to sleep, and all I can see when I close my eyes are colours and faces that pop in and out of my mind, a bit like a flicker book. Don't get me wrong, it's intriguing, it's just not great when I want to fall asleep."

I quickly scanned his face, looking for signs of disinterest or amusement. But he was listening, so I went ahead and asked the question, leaning in a little as if I was telling a secret.

"I just wondered... Well, my question was, how do you turn it off?"

He took a deep breath, and exhaled, in a manner that suggested I was asking possibly one of the most complex questions to answer in the whole wide world. Then he said something that surprised me, and made me feel uneasy.

"You are very open to energy, especially for someone so young. And because you're young, you still need to learn control. You see, at your age, you need to be focusing on other more..."

He paused and crossed his arms pointedly, seemingly trying to fish the right word from a very large pool of wrong ones. His face contorted into slightly grotesque shapes as he moved his lips expressively, lengthening each syllable.

"more...important things, like getting married and having children. My suggestion is, we shut you down completely, and then in twenty years or so, after you've done everything you should be doing when you're young, you can open up again and practise your mediumship. You know, it's an ability that never goes away, you'll just be far more controlled when you're older."

He sniffed. He seemed satisfied with his response.

I stared at him, my mouth open and my cheeks flushing pink. I thanked him politely for his advice and turned and walked swiftly from the garden. His words etched deeply into my thoughts as I began to trace them over and over. 

Married and children... Shut me down?... Completely?... What was I, some sort of computer? 

Whilst that young, free and indignant side of me shunned his dusty opinion, in that brief conversation, I felt my confidence shatter slightly, which only nudged my sense of right and wrong into clearer view.

----

A while back, a friend of mine opened her new shop in Richmond called Inside Out Retreats. Inside Out Retreats is an urban retreat centre promoting good health and harmony of spirit and I decided to take a trip there just before Christmas. Which is how I found myself sat in a warm, beautiful space, with a cup of peppermint tea and the opportunity to talk with like-minded people on a Saturday afternoon. All kinds of people were chatting and as I walked through the rooms and drifted in and out of conversations about super foods, creative expression and empowerment techniques, I felt a long way from the hustle of Richmond's bustling Christmas shoppers. I took a sip of my tea and swirled the teabag around in my mug, enjoying the lovely atmosphere, when I noticed a lady sit down opposite me. I smiled at her and nodded.

"Hello!" She said brightly. We chatted for a moment, before she leant forward and asked me a question. The one question that always gets me slightly hot under the collar on how to answer it.

"And what do you do?"

I hesitated, reluctant as always to label myself with my job. But given we were in a place promoting harmony of spirit I was doubtful that she had much interest in me being a receptionist. I decided at once that the question leant more to 'what are you into?' (of the spiritual variety), but it hardly calmed me any more than the last question had. Over the years I'd come to realise that there was a definite art to working out who I could admit my interest in mediumship to, as in the past I had discovered that not everyone agrees with mediumship and some just plain don't accept it.

'Tarot cards, psychics and mediums are all of the occult.' My Religious Studies teacher from secondary school had warned me, after I'd sought out her opinion as someone who I knew was a good, Church-going Christian.

'So, if I was interested in finding out more, I'd be going against the Bible?' I'd asked cautiously, rather hoping not to be.

'I'm afraid so.' She had replied. I remember worrying about that for a very long time.

Elizabeth thinks she can talk to ghosts - the report had stated, in hard, printed letters. It continued: I therefore put into question how stable she is mentally. Also I wonder what kind of influence she might be on my other children. 

I swallowed, hardly daring to believe what my own father had written about me to Social Services. I wondered if it was what he truly believed about me, or whether it was a new low in the seemingly endless acrimonious divorce battle against my mother.

"Is he joking, Mum?" I asked my mother who leant silently against the kitchen table. She looked tired and fraught, as anyone who had had their parenting ability unfairly questioned might look. He wasn't joking, and neither was I- after spending an hour and a half on the telephone, justifying both my beliefs and how I was in fact very normal to a rather sceptical social worker.

It seemed that whilst I was proud of the abilities I'd developed over the years through the many books on the subject I'd read, the workshops and courses I'd attended and the evenings spent in group meditation, I'd also developed a bit of a fear about admitting it to anyone. A fear that niggled inside me, whispering cruelly that I was too young and inexperienced to be a medium. It liked to remind me that people might be horrified if I told them, or worse, they might use the fact that I believe, against me. 

Remembering suddenly that I had been asked a question, I pushed my fear deep down, straightened my back and hoped that my eyes hadn't been staring at the fairy lights decorating the bookcase too long. I looked at the lady sitting opposite me on the sofa, only deciding at the very last second what I was going to say. She had a kind face.

"I do mediumship. I know I look quite young, but I've done it for almost seven years now." I laughed, nervously. 

"You don't need to apologise! That's great." She said, smiling at me.

The bell on the front door rang as I left the warm, open space of Inside Out Retreats. The lady I'd spoken to hadn't seemed remotely shocked that I was a twenty-six year old medium. In fact, quite the opposite; she had asked me for my business card.

I walked slowly, but with purpose towards the station. Around me, Saturday shoppers darted in and out of the crowd, distracted by bright lights and the ever looming closing time. Little did they know that the girl they were dodging in the grey duffel coat and converse trainers, was having an epiphany.

Age means nothing at all... Nobody can tell anything about you based upon just your age. It's a number, not an explanation. Your thoughts and personal experience shape you into being exactly who you were meant to be.

I thought about the eight-year-olds I have met who have the sense and maturity of eighty years spent on this planet, and similarly recalled a few eighty year olds who I'd seen stomp their foot and throw a tantrum as if they were eight years old. I concluded, quite pleased with myself, that only I can decide what I can possibly be and it is my responsibility to prove it to the rest of the world.

cited

Halcyon Days

The little white bungalow lay a short way down a narrow residential road on the same side of the road as the sea. If you were in the car, you had to drive 5mph so as not to hit the large rocks that had been placed every metre or so along the grass and lined beautifully manicured lawns, which led up to pretty seaside bungalows painted in off-whites, pale pinks and soft yellows. If you were walking down the road, you’d keep ever so close to the edge of the lawns, but taking care to not walk on the grass, mind – curtains twitched when you did that.

I always enjoyed the creeping 5mph drive as we arrived; it gave me a chance to see what had changed in the village. There were always the usual haunts that I’d hold my breath for, hoping that they hadn’t changed management - or worse - closed down in the year since I’d visited them last. First we passed the 'Olde Fish and Chip Shoppe' that made our usual Friday night suppers, next we'd pass the newsagents which had the best choice in pick-and mix sweets ever laid out, then finally the pitch and putt Crazy Golf just off the beach near the bright red phone box that looked as if it hadn't moved since the 1930s. It was only once I'd seen them all looking just as I'd left them a year ago, could I breathe a sigh of relief. Once I’d checked the really important things hadn’t changed, it was only funny when things turned out to be different. Just like when the Jewish family across the road bought new gnomes for their garden; along with some large, plastic red and white spotted fairy toadstools. At the time I thought they were just absolutely fantastic, and wondered why Mum couldn’t let us get some for back home.

The silver Volvo indicated right out of politeness, perhaps in case the neighbours were watching, then slowed to a stop just before the driveway. I jumped out quick from the back seat, before anyone else could, and raced up to the cast iron gates to open them. Their white paint had peeled slightly, and bits flaked off as I picked up the bolt. Shuffling awkwardly with my bottom sticking out, I pulled each gate back until both halves were flat against the hedges on each side of the drive. The Volvo swooped in and I stepped back, minding the snails that had left silky silver trails all up the path and loving the way the car tyres crunched the driveway as they rolled over the flints.

It always took ages for them to get out of the car. The three hour journey from back home meant their old legs had gotten all stiff.
“Right. Let's put the kettle on.” My Dad used to say, sighing heavily, and fumbling in his pockets for the house keys. But rather than waiting for him to open the front door (which would always take ages), I was racing my brother around the side of the house, past the bright red and yellow geraniums and purple pansies in beautiful rows along the front lawn, past the high privet hedge that separated us from next door and cast a cool shade on the side of the house, into the back garden with it’s perfectly mown lawns and those bright pink fuchsia plants lined up against the back door. We ran until we reached the very end of the garden, treading carefully amongst the roses and dodging the windfalls under the apple tree until we came to the garden swing. It was the most amazing thing about the garden. We didn’t see it’s slightly rusty frame, or notice the way the fabric smelt a bit musty, but climbed on carefully, and as we kicked off from the concrete below, we felt the breeze whoosh past our faces as we swung back and forth in the shade.

Before long, my Mum was loading each of her children with sleeping bags and pillows stacked in bundles so high that they couldn’t really see to dodge the snails who had ventured onto the stepping stones of the path that led to the front door. Praying there was no snail juice under my jellies, I pushed down the silver handle with difficulty and opened the mottled glass front door. The heat of the long porch always hit you, and that smell of musty deck chair covers that have been left to fade in the sun too long hung about for a couple of seconds until you got used to it. Delicate net curtains were pinned in place like bunting, but it didn’t stop the sun frazzling the seashells and dried flowers that lined the windowsills along the porch.
I scurried across the bamboo mats, and used my memory to guess where to place my feet as I stumbled up the few stairs into the livingroom, dumping the sleeping bags and running like a lunatic before someone else claimed my room.

My room was tiny, with pink trimmings and very narrow. The old metal bunk beds took up most of the space. Climbing up to the top bunk, the rungs would hurt the bottom of my feet so I'd hop up them quickly as if they were red hot, and jump onto the top bunk where the mattress would always sigh as I climbed onboard. Only someone as small as me could sleep in here as grown-up's shoulders brushed both the old wooden wardrobe on the right and the bunkbeds on your left as they walked in the door. It was the same little room my Mum had used to sleep in when she'd come to stay at Auntie Mary's bungalow, and the very same old bunkbeds too; though I should have imagined they were less rickety back then.
I liked to imagine Mum lying there, like I had in the early evenings; the bedroom door only slightly open so a slither of light could shine through from the hall. I loved to hear my parents pottering about the kitchen. I felt safe listening to sounds of the kettle boiling, the cups clattering and the biscuit wrapper being twirled tightly. Pulling my sleeping bag up to my chin, I'd lie on the top bunk in that dark room, my face lit up only by the slither of light, and listen. I'd fall asleep each night to the comforting murmur of the television on low in the living room, my mind full of the light laughter and applause of the studio audience.

Just down the road from the little white bungalow, only about a two minute walk, there was the sea. I spent hours playing on the long, pebbly beaches that stretched out for miles with absolutely no one to be seen, there was just the seagulls hovering overhead and the huge rockpiles that lay a little way out to sea, that became the ultimate place to catch crabs in shallow rock pools when the tide was out. Whenever the sun shone, we'd grab our buckets and go in search for 'sparklies', our name for those quartz-ridden pebbles that glittered like diamonds in the sunlight. We were miners, working until our backs ached from turning stone after stone, staying out late on the beach until the sun went down and the sparklies suddenly disappeared. A little way down the beach, a small broken jetty ran out to sea and when the tide was in, the twins loved to run along the slippery wooden slats, and with an almighty shriek launch themselves off the end into the sea, their arms clasped around their legs to see who'd splash the furthest. They'd strip off their costumes and run along the beach with wild abandon, picking up slimy bits of brown seaweed, draping it across their sandy bodies and race across the pebbles flinging bits at me, laughing when a seaweed slapped me on the backs of my legs.

"Come on, Lizzie! Don't be such a chicken!" My Mum would say, poking her head up from her book, before laying it down carefully on the tartan rug that had been spread across the pebbles in a vain attempt to make it comfy. I was stood rigid, poised at the very edge of the sea, as frothy waves lapped up and kissed the very tips of my toes. I had been watching my Dad and the twins in our new blow-up yellow dinghy out the corner of my eye for at least five minutes. My hand was placed firmly on my hips and with my right eyebrow raised as I stared, horrified at the metre or two of thick, black seaweed that I had to wade through before I could reach them.
It was only knee deep water, but I hated the way the seaweed clasped around your ankles, like it was going to catch you and drag you under, swelling around your legs so you couldn't see your feet - or even worse, what you might be treading on.
"There's just so much seaweed, I can't see!" I yelled back to her, digging my heels deep into the pebbles, and getting cross that everyone was now watching. "There might be crabs!"
The only way I ever reached the yellow dinghy was if my Dad carried me across, clinging like a limpet to his body, assured only slightly by a firm promise he would not drop me.

As years passed, the little white bungalow and everything connected with it stayed relatively the same as it always had. I of course, changed. The last time I sat on those high banks of pebbles looking out across the sea with my wooly jumper tucked over my nose, and the bottom of it pulled tight over my knees, I was sixteen years old. Absent-mindedly I had turned a couple of pebbles that lay by my feet, and there was a distant hope that I might see them sparkle, even though the sun was hiding that day. The sky was moody and the wind was strong, having built up momentum from chopping up waves and whipping across the sea. It sliced right through the loop holes of my knit-one-purl-one and reached into the far corners of every little part of me. I wrinkled my nose tightly and allowed the wind to lift me; hold all my memories, thoughts and dreams and take them away to be scattered all across the sea. I remember thinking it amazing how the wind caught my tears before they fell and whistled so loudly in my ears that as I cried, I couldn't even hear a whisper of it. 

Being normal

Sometimes you'll hear it calling quietly. But you've got pretty good at ignoring it now. You know, that thing. The thing you've masked cleverly with ordinary life such as trips to the supermarket, paying your rent on time and remembering your Mum's birthday. But you can't ignore it all the time. Sometimes it's cleverer than you. You'll be going about your ordinary life, perhaps washing up, watching your favourite television programme or having a cup of coffee with friends, when something reminds you... bam! The world around you slows down, people's voices sound distorted until all you can hear is a hum, because suddenly, like a slap in the face you are brought up close and personal with that thing that hurt you the most. You pause for a moment staring it in the face, pretending you're brave and willing it to go back down. There's that dry, hot taste of nausea in your mouth. You're paralysed, torn between waiting for something to happen and a useless attempt to suppress it. But it's too late. A flash of pictures play out like an old fashioned film reel, flickering in front of your eyes, your heart fluttering in flight or fight palpitations. Here it comes. You get hot around the collar, your throat resists as you push whatever it is that wants to escape you, right back down where it belongs. It's not going away. It's coming to get you. You feel it creeping up your oesophagus like an army of tiny marching ants, determinedly tickling at your control - letting you know for damn sure, that you are not in control of this anymore. You swallow, your bottom lip drops and your forehead knots. They're surely coming, they've stopped their marching, and now all bunching together to create a tactical lump which builds up momentum in your throat. Your throat feels huge. Your stomach drops as if you're falling vertically on a rollercoaster before it surges up again. Don't be silly, you cant stop them now... It's only a matter of time before you explode, showering all those about you with you-just-don't-know-what. You're hanging on the edge, knowing that whatever happens it's going to be released. Those around you might not have a clue, but if they did - they'd hold their breath. This time, it could be those big, fat tears that soak your eyelashes until they stick together, cutting through your face, creating little pools of salty water in the dip above your collar bone. An exhaling breath that feels like your last, pinning your shoulders and making you feel as if you could plummet to the very core of the Earth upon their weight. At the very worst it might be a fit of rage that vibrates every little particle of your being, turning your blood hot and making your hands itch, so you forget just who you are and what you were doing...


 Shudder.


And in just a moment it could be over. And you can go back to being normal; making his tea, flicking over to another channel or talking about what you'll wear to her wedding next Saturday.