A Life in Words

Today I’m Gonna’ Run

~ ChanAtkins ~ 6 Comments

Today I’m gonna’ run.

I’m gonna’ run from the madness and the anger and the fear, I’m gonna’ run from the TV stations, and the radio and the internet. I’m gonna’ run to feel the earth hard and firm beneath my feet, to feel the cold wind against my skin, and in my hair. I’m gonna’ run to feel my heart beating harder and faster inside my chest, to know I am still alive, and that this is still a life, to feel my breath coming short, to feel my legs working, to feel my body getting stronger and leaner and harder.

I’m gonna’ run to exert power and control over me, my body, my life. I’m gonna’ run outside, to be under the sky, and upon the earth, to see sky over my head and dirt under my feet. Today I’m gonna’ run through dark trees and see light and shadows fragmented on the ground, I’m gonna’ run down dusty tracks, and jump over heather and squeeze past gorse. I’m gonna’ run as if I am free, as if I am animal and returned to the wild. I’m gonna’ push and breathe, and go higher, and faster and harder and longer.

Today I’m gonna’ run to remind myself I come from the earth and will return to the earth. That Mother Nature owns and controls us, not the other way around, that for far too long we have used and abused her, that one day surely she will turn on us all.

I’m gonna’ run to pledge my loyalty and love to her above all others. I’m gonna’ run from the small minds and the big fears, and the demons running amok, I’m gonna’ run to remember that they can’t own me and they can’t own nature, and that all things in this life and world are cyclical and that good times will roll around again. I’m gonna’ run to feel better and lighter so that when I return I can look my children in the eye and tell them that better days are coming, that they are the light and the hope, and that the only thing they should listen to is the earth itself.

Guest Post by Author Joel R Dennstedt

~ ChanAtkins ~ 2 Comments

This month’s guest post comes from my good friend and indie author Joel R. Dennstedt. When I asked Joel if he would like to write a guest post for my blog, I told him it could be anything from fiction, to an opinion piece, as long as it was somewhat along the lines of my glorious outsiders theme. If you don’t already know what a glorious outsider is, think about the kind of person who doesn’t fit in and never tried to. Someone who turns their back on the mainstream in order to think for themselves. Someone who speaks their mind and stands up for what they believe in, even if this makes them unpopular or ignored. Joel wrote me this fantastic and emotive piece, and with the US election about to take place, this seemed the perfect time to post it. Note, these are Joel’s opinions from his own experiences in life. I admire him greatly as an author and as a person. Thank you, Joel.

As I write this from my hostel in Rancagua, Chile, the United States is but a fading memory.

I grew up in the States. I was born there. I was an American.

Although my passport says differently, I am no longer a U.S. Citizen.

I claim the world as my place to be; I claim to be a man-at-large within the world.

I have no home.

Everything I own I carry with me in a backpack and a duffel.

How did this situation come to be? Why did it come to be? Why am I to die while traveling across this vast and awesome globe called Earth? Why am I – at sixty-seven – finally a contented man?

In the fall of 2011, my older brother came to me and said, “I am leaving the United States to live in Merida, Mexico.” He was recently retired and not-so-coincidentally divorced. He is a traveler at heart, with the soul of a 19th Century explorer. He was off to see the world. “After Merida,” he said, “I am going everywhere.”

“Take me with you,” I said.

We both worked for a bank. The worst of banks. The one perhaps most responsible for the huge financial meltdown of 2008. The one resulting from the most egregious and criminal corruption I had witnessed in a lifetime.

In the spring of 2012, we left.

More than 4 years later here we sit in Chile, waiting to make our next move – a foray into Argentina. He has made himself into a superb photographer; I have made myself into a writer. We have no intention of returning to the States to live. Ever. That is not a country to make me proud. That is not a country where I can afford to live. That is not a country for an old writer. If you read the news, you know that ignorance and corporate power now rule a country once proud to be most free and democratic. You know that an entire generation is mind-locked to its phones. You know that a national philosophy rests on pre-emptive war-making and virulent anti-immigration. Self-indulgence, self-assertion, and selfies rule the day. My oldest friends have become monsters. Not one person in a thousand could tell you where Merida, Mexico is located; I did not know, until we left to go there. Americans – as they arrogantly call themselves – do not know much about other cultures. They do not know the histories of the world, much less their own. They do not believe they come from genocidal forebears. They live in a fantasy of someone else’s making, which very few resist. Simply, I cannot be with them anymore.

That does not make me a better man than they.

That does, however, make of me a most contented one.

When I was a young child, almost in prophetic foresight of the man I would become, I refused to say the obligatory pledge of allegiance to our flag. I like to believe I felt the country had to earn my allegiance, not demand it. And if I ever had it, I left it far behind. The country has certainly not earned such blind allegiance, if ever it had the right to claim it. And those who now claim to be patriots disguise their lack of insight and discrimination (not the kind they act out) with shallow phrases, mindless affirmations, and aggression as a virtue in itself.

That is not a country meant for me.

And so, tetherless in a world defined by rampant nationalistic pride, where every unit of humanity defines itself by origin and would hope to rid the world of every other, I move about with conscious non-allegiance to anyone but myself – a severely selfish act of vanity and pride; no better than the rest.

Except … the country I am looking for is nowhere special.

A world as witnessed by early humans – the indigenous people.

And maybe by long-term travelers.

And especially by those who read a lot.

Author-Journalist-World Traveler

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Thank you Joel! Don’t forget, The Glorious Outsiders is open to submissions for guest posts! I am looking for anything to do with writing or reading, or opinion/blog style pieces as well as stories/poems etc on the theme of being an outsider!

My Body Battles

~ ChanAtkins ~ 6 Comments

(Warning…not strictly writing related…unless you have read The Mess Of Me or intend to one day…Monday was World Mental Health Day and this post is somewhat inspired by that.)

I feel like I have always been at odds with this flesh covered vehicle of transport I call my body.

I think the only time we’ve been on the same side is when we were trying to push out babies. (Although possibly not during the fourth labour, but that’s not a story anyone wants to hear today!)

I remember how I viewed this casing of skin as a child. I can’t remember ever feeling like it fitted me right. It always felt too big. I can clearly recall being about eight years old and noticing the thin, brown arms of a boy sat close to me in the classroom. They were like little brown matchsticks, and when I looked back at mine they seemed too big in comparison. I couldn’t understand why. They were just too fleshy…just too much.

When I was about ten my body began to develop. I had womanly curves whilst still playing with Lego. I hated it. And I hated all the friendly euphemisms for being a big child as well. ‘You’re a big girl, aren’t you?’ ‘It’s just puppy fat.’ Ugh. I didn’t really want to be a fat puppy, funnily enough.

As I grew I became increasingly aware of my unwanted flesh. I had breasts that jiggled and moved. I had hips and a bum. I had rolls of fat when I bent over or squished up. None of it felt like it belonged to me. It all felt like it needed to be shredded.

The weird thing is, if I look back at old photos of me, I really wasn’t as big as I thought I was at the time. I had a brother and two sisters who were all like stick insects, and I was bigger than them and I looked big for my age, but I wasn’t really fat. I was just developing. Still, it was not the body I wanted or felt I should have, and that feeling has never really gone away.

As a teenager my weight went up and down, and more often than not, I simply loathed the human suit I was forced to wear. I wanted to unzip it and step out, revealing the true me. I would have long, thin, shapely legs. Matchstick arms. A flat, hard belly. A neat, trim waist. Angles on my face. I would shed my skin and emerge looking like the girls I saw on TV and in magazines.

At one point in my teenage years, I submitted to my body and gave in. I hated sports because I felt so fat and slow, so I avoided them like the plague, shut myself away in the imaginary worlds of books and writing, and hence got bigger. I thought I was stuck with this flabby cage forever. I did not want people to see me. I often wished I could cease to exist.

During my later years as a teenager, a full on battle commenced. Much like the one Lou goes through in The Mess Of Me. I went to war with my body. I fought back. I kicked its arse and got control of it. I aimed to change it and remould it, to make it into something I could be proud of. It all started off sensibly enough, but as you can imagine, it soon all got rather messy.

I figured out ways of fighting back and rebelling. I told my body to fuck off. I discovered ways I could eat without getting fat. I figured how easy it was to just not eat at all. I realised that I could run and that once I started, it was hard to stop. So I ran faster and faster and faster, doing all I could to outrun the fat girl, to leave that chubby loser far behind.

During my early twenties, this battle continued. It’s fair to say I treated my body like utter shit. I hated it and felt like it hated me. We would never be friends. I would punish it any chance I got. Away from parental control, my University days were not good for me at all. I became obsessed with feeling hungry. With feeling for ribs and hip bones, with feeling the enthralling darkness of pleasure and fear. At my thinnest, I got more compliments than ever. I got noticed by boys, flirted with, asked out. Things that had never happened much when I was bigger. I loved it when people told me how much weight I had lost. I went to a family wedding and people did not recognise me. The only thing that ever scared me into eating  was each time my periods stopped…and only because I was desperate to be a mother.

I’ve always said having children saved me from myself, and it’s true. The first pregnancy we had ended in a miscarriage and I was devastated and completely blamed myself. I’d still been exercising, still watching what I ate, still waging war with my flesh.

The second pregnancy was a success and in the years that followed I threw myself into being the best mother I could be, and although I worked hard to get my body back, it didn’t occupy my mind in quite the same way as it had. There just wasn’t time. Through pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding I did, at last, learn to feel pride in my body. It wasn’t just a clumsy machine to be hated and abused, it was actually quite amazing. It could grow a baby. I could feed and sustain and nurture a life. Although I am far from happy with my body today, I do feel an element of pride in wobbly bits and stretch marks. They are part of who I am and what I have chosen to do with my life.

I’ve struggled over the years not to return to the old, messed up me. I was lucky enough to receive therapy before I became a mother, and I truly believe that opportunity set me on the correct path of health and fitness and sensible attitudes.

The thing is, you can’t hurt yourself when you have children because you realise that if you did, you would also be hurting them.

And now here we are. Me and my body which is fast approaching it’s fourth decade and still feels to me like it’s not really mine. I can’t say that we’re friends yet. In fact, lately it has been frustrating me more than  ever. It just won’t let me lose weight. I swear it feels like it’s getting revenge for those years of punishment. It’s getting its own back on me. It’s hanging onto the baby weight my two-year-old left behind like there is no tomorrow. He was a large, overdue, ten pounder who has certainly left his mark. There is fat to spare and my body wants to keep it all! It’s not making milk any longer, but it won’t let the post-baby body shrink no matter what I do.

This battle has been ongoing for six months now, and I am starting to take things up a notch out of sheer desperation. I’ve barely touched a drop of alcohol. I am running and skipping almost every day. I don’t make excuses. If I have a cold, tough. If I only have ten of fifteen minutes, tough. My new motto is Do It Anyway!

Is it making a difference? Slowly. Oh, so…slowly.

My body is now a snail, a slug, a tortoise.

It sneers and rolls its eyes and tells me to fuck off.

I jump on the scales every Friday morning and wonder if they are in fact broken.

I get out with the dogs and run faster and further and harder.

I feel my jeans getting looser in the legs and around the waist.

And then the scales say otherwise…

I honestly don’t know what is going on. I mean, maybe it’s just me? Maybe I’m eating more than I realise?? Maybe there is something up with my metabolism!

I only know that I am not going to give up. I am not going to quit and say, okay body you win, I will accept this body wrecked and ruined by childbirth and age. I will take it and be grateful, and I will eat cake and drink wine and never mention it again.

But the problem is the mirror. The old enemy resurfaces. I can’t hold my head up high or look people in the eye when I don’t feel I’m in the right body.

I know it can’t be perfect, and to be honest, perfection was never really the goal. Just feeling happy with it was.

 

Writing Is An Addiction For Which There Is No Cure

~ ChanAtkins ~ 3 Comments

And why would you want one anyway?

But it is this for me; an addiction, an affliction, a certain kind of mental state. Whether you are born with it, or cultivate it, or whether it just gets its claws into you one day out of the blue, the end result is the same.

Once it has you, it has you.

It’s an assault on your mind, an invasion of your inner life, your privacy. A constant influx of voices, people and ideas. You can’t shut it off or drown it out. Everywhere you go you see something or someone to write about.

Like the great man Bob Dylan once said ‘I’ve got a head full of ideas that are driving me insane.’

Never a truer word spoken!

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So, I go out for a walk, I escape the laptop and the notebook, and the home, and this is an instant mistake. Because if I go somewhere quieter, the ideas and the voices just take advantage, and use this as an opportunity for a full scale invasion.

My defences are always too low. I am weak and helpless.

I can’t fight back, I can’t fight them off. In the end I always give in and roll over and let them come.  And they trample each other, they push and elbow their way in. And they never close the damn door behind them.

There is no security here.

I think this constant assault is an exciting privilege, and an exhausting one. Not to mention frustrating, causing panic, because life is only as long as it is, which is short. Very short. And there will never be enough days or hours or minutes to satisfy the constant invasion. Sometimes I want to put up a Closed sign. Be back later.

Anyway, I surrender. I give up. I am open and fully addicted. I am constantly thinking about writing, about the next chance I get to write, and how in many ways, I am always writing. If not with pen, then into my phone, notes for later, or in notebooks, or on scraps of paper, or just in my head. Words. So many words. Not always in the right order, but impatient and scrambling, sometimes hesitant and self-conscious, sometimes awesome and life affirming!

I couldn’t give it up if I tried. I can’t go cold turkey for even one day. I give myself Saturday’s off, but not really. More often than not I sneak onto the laptop anyway, even for a few minutes, or I’m writing in my notebook, jotting down ideas, adding dialogue to conversations, and if not, then it’s all in my head, being laid down bit by bit.

I wouldn’t exist without it. I couldn’t. It’s my oxygen. I need a little fix every day or I don’t feel like me.

Writing has helped me through so many stages of my life. Diaries, poems, songs, stories, novels, blogs, reviews. So many ways to write! So many opportunities to share your thoughts, feelings, and ideas, to offload your outrage and despair, or to channel aggression into something fictional. I find it so exciting, so exhilarating on a daily basis, like a mini adventure every day, not knowing where it will go or what will happen or who will be born or who will die!

Writing is an addiction for me and I wouldn’t have it any way.