A Life in Words

Who Is Richard???

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

Our journey to school is the same every day. Behind the wheel, I drive us, the wheels of the car following the same path smoothly without question…down the hill, up the hill, over the bridge, stop at the lights, over the roundabout, and then the next roundabout, follow the road, see the people, bumper to bumper, yawning, past the garage, over the train tracks, turn right, down to the next lights… I could do it blindfolded. I could do it in my sleep. And we see the same things out of the windows, and we pass the same people, like Richard.

Who is Richard? We don’t know, but we can guess. We make it up to suit ourselves. We see him every day. We think he is called Richard, because apparently he used to come in the off licence for his Stellas. He wears a dark green parka, he walks like Liam Gallagher, he has the hair cut too. Ian Brown. Sometimes with dark glasses on, sometimes without. Always with his headphones on. What is he listening to? We can guess…

So now it gets embarrassing. Because I’m sure he knows that we talk about him. Maybe he sees us too. The same silver car passing him every day, sometimes as he walks over the bridge, over the tracks, sometimes as he passes the traffic lights further down… Maybe he sees the kids pointing, sees their mouths shouting, it’s Richard! Maybe he sees me, this mad woman behind the wheel, grinning at him like a lunatic.

I have to look away now. It’s Richard, yeah Richard! Then look away and pretend to drive. Oh my god if we ever bumped into him in a shop! I just know the kids would let me down. Mum? It’s Richard. How the fuck do you know my name?

But Richard we know you! We see you! Every day, with your hands in your pockets, you swagger down the pavement like you just walked out of the 90’s, and I just know what you’ve got in your ears, The Stone Roses or Oasis? Us too! I get so excited sometimes. We’re rolling past him and I want to roll the window down so he can hear it; Richard! Listen! Charlatans! Whoo hoo!

But he wouldn’t be able to hear because he is always plugged into his..

Richard…I’d say you are a bit over forty. I’d say you were mad fer it. I’d say you know your music and you know that everything since then has been shite. I’d say you probably have kids…Where are you going every day? Off to work? With your bag on your back. You must walk there, you must walk quite far..Wonder where you start? Wonder where you come from.

Sorry Richard. Poor Richard, who might not even be called Richard. But it’s not my fault you caught my eye! In your parka, with your haircut, like a relic from Britpop, you were always going to make me smile! Look at him, I said to the kids, I can tell you right now what music he likes! Not like today. You can’t tell anymore what music someone is in to  by the way they dress, because they all seem to dress the same. But you’ve got it written all over you! It’s a joy to behold.

There goes Richard. Every morning we see Richard. It would be a sad day if we didn’t. And I don’t know why, but for some reason, I want to drive past and wave to him, I want to be playing Slide Away or She Bangs The Drums or North Country Boy at high, high volume, and he’ll hear it over his own tunes, and he’ll turn and see us all smiling and waving and he’ll know that Richard, WE SALUTE YOU!!

Eyes On Friday

~ ChanAtkins ~ 2 Comments

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I said the same thing last week. Thank God it’s Friday. Can’t wait til it’s Friday. I said it last week; it’s been one of those weeks! That was because everything was broken. The oven, the washing machine, the dog. I wanted Friday and a glass of wine.

I’ve been saying it again this week. It’s been one of those weeks I am glad to see the back of. I will be glad when this week is over. Roll on Friday!

Poorly baby, poorly dog, doctor’s appointments, vets appointments. Falling behind in everything I try to do. Scrabbling for time. Existing in exhaustion. Forgotten bills. Forgotten P.E kits. Not enough time for anything.

But it will all be all right once Friday comes. We all do it don’t we? Keep our eyes on Friday, keep it in our sights. We veer around the obstacles, we duck and dive and dodge the shit, we frown, we squint, we don’t want to lose sight of it. Oh Friday, there you are.

When it’s Friday, then you’ve made it. You’ve survived. You’re still alive for one thing. You’re in one piece for another. You didn’t kill anyone. Or yourself. You didn’t lose the plot, not completely. You didn’t lose a child or your mind. Not quite. You close your eyes and the relief is all yours.

Just like everyone else around you, with their shitty jobs and traffic jams. From Monday morning to Friday afternoon, hamsters on the treadmill, spinning, never winning. Running to keep the wheel going. Running to pay the bills, buy the food, pay the rent, buy the shoes, drink the wine.

All grim faced on a Monday morning. Clear the frost from the windscreen. CD player won’t work so you’re forced to listen to Radio 4, and all that disaster and human misery, one nightmare after the other. And look at all the other pale faces hunched up over steering wheels. They are all thinking about Friday.

Why do we do it? Wish the week away…When we know we shouldn’t? When we know there isn’t really much time? That sometimes life feels incredibly long, when you are crawling behind the line of cars, when your calf muscles clench and spasm in second gear and you look in the mirror and see you haven’t even found the time to wipe the crust from your eyes.

It feels long, but we know it isn’t. Just shit things like traffic jams make you think it is. You long for Friday because it means you can breathe again. All week it is like holding your breath while you tread water. You are drowning. Almost. Come Friday you can finally take that breath. Gasp for air. Because you don’t need to make the lunch boxes and you don’t need to set the alarm, and you don’t need to think about tomorrow.

Oh the lovely glory of  Friday night…in or out…it doesn’t matter. Everyone is happy. It’s arrived, it’s here, we did it, now breathe!

That’s what you see on everyone’s faces. That’s how they all feel. And how sad, really. To always be wishing the days away. To hate Monday and feel impatient with Tuesday, to feel excited on Wednesday and curse Thursday for dragging. How silly really. Friday. Just a day like any other. Wish the week away and then try to hold on too tight to one day, one night. Before it all starts again.

Too Like You

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

Memories evoked by music are a bit like dreams sometimes…

You can feel the emotion, there is no avoiding that. That is the thing that hits you over the head, blind sides you and stops you in your tracks. Christ yeah…I forgot about that song…I forgot about that. As well as the emotion there is something visual there, something tapping at the corners of your mind, something stealing into your vision, a bright flash that fades again just as quickly as it came. Like a dream you try to hold onto it, try to hold it still for examination but the more you try to see it and explain it, the more elusive and teasing it becomes. It’s like it does not really want to be caught or defined.

It’s all you can do not to cry, or just sigh. It’s fleeting, like everything in life, here one minute and gone the next, just like the moment itself, when it happened all those years ago. I don’t want to keep getting older and forgetting all of these things.

Money Mark singing Tomorrow Will Be Like Today. That was a new CD you bought over, and it was a small garden, enclosed by tall panel fences. The smell of yesterdays barbeque lingering in the air with cut grass. My knees pulled up onto the plastic garden chair. A crack in one leg playing on my mind. Too Like You. Hand In My Head. Makes me smile and think of you.

Did I become more like you, or did you become more like me?

I used to be the negative one, the worrier, the anti-social, and you used to be the smiler. Sandy haired and loose limbed, you used to say it all of the time; don’t worry. Don’t worry. Don’t ever worry about anything.

But that is not you now. Now I am the one who encourages you to see the light and to smile. Now I am the one who says don’t worry, and you are the one reluctant to go out there and deal with people and time and life.

You rubbed off on me. That was the way it happened. From moments like that, always with a new album playing in the background. So much of our story has a soundtrack. That’s why it happens like that when I hear a song, when it takes me back. Bang and I am young again. Not sat in the car staring solemnly at the rain on the window while you nip into the shop to buy some bread and milk.

How easily we grew up. It’s not really fair the way it happens like that. It takes you by surprise, because you are never paying attention as the years creep up. Then suddenly a decade has passed, and then another. It’s sometimes like we are still back there, existing back in time. We are two lots of people. Them and us. Then and now.

I am too like you now because you got inside my head.

You say that tomorrow will be like today and I say that sometimes you are wrong. I can’t remember what happened to that day. How did it end? Where did we go? What did we talk about and laugh about? I can just remember the feel of the plastic chair under me and the wobble, the give, from the crack in the leg. I can just remember the music, and that it was summer. I can see your face and the way you always smiled about everything and I can see you walking in with CD’s in your hand. I miss us.

Rainy Day Book Shop…

~ ChanAtkins ~ 2 Comments

Half term. Raining of course. Oldest child wants to stay in all day watching Supernatural on dvd. 10 and 7 year old want to keep playing their car game on the landing. I’ve got plenty to keep me busy too. Another load of washing. Floors to clean. Wet dogs to rub dry. A baby to entertain. But it’s half term, no school! We should be doing something together as a family…

So we force them out. Into their coats and into the car and out into the world and the empty wet streets that lead down to a favourite haunt. Every time we go looking for it I worry that it has gone. That we didn’t go often enough, didn’t keep an eye on it and it vanished, faded away when we weren’t paying attention. Good things do that sometimes. You forget they are there, and then when you need them you find out they have moved on.

But not so The Crooked Book. Push open the door and the smell brings a smile to my face, and I am carrying in the baby with the feeling that I am introducing him to a warm and wonderful place. Which it is anyway. On first glance, on first smell, old and musty and reminds me of my Nan’s house when we were growing up. Old things well cared for. Ceramic basins and wooden spoons. 1920’s wardrobes. 1960’s coats. An ancient typewriter or two. I wonder how many words were tapped out on its keys… Tables and chairs, mismatched and eccentric, two men in suits chatting about a business plan. Free wi-fi. Tea, coffee, cake and soup. But those are not the reasons we come.

We make our way slowly to the back. Where the books are. Piled high and higher still, on clumsy shelves and scruffy displays. The familiar face at the till says hello how are you? We are fine, and we move on, carefully, trying not to knock over anything precious or valuable. Like the books, I want all of the things…And the smell…

The smell of books and thoughts and feelings and dreams. The smell of pages thumbed and worn. The smell of cracked spines and cricked necks. It makes me sigh. My shoulders relax. I hug the baby tighter, and feel the urge to show him all of the books. A whole world, I want to tell him. In fact a million, million worlds. A million, million, million words and ideas and tragedies and triumphs.

It feels safe here. Close and comfortable and sheltered. We huddle in the kid’s section while 7 year old laments the fact they never have the Diary Of A Wimpy Kid book he is after. But we find him a Doctor Who annual to keep him smiling. 12 year old as ever has an armful and we have to cajole her down to just two. 10 year old finds a book on dragons and a book on vampires. I’m lost. Or is it found?

I suddenly remember that I want to read Toni Morrison, so me and the baby hunch down and find M on the bottom shelf in the left hand corner and there is Beloved. Something I have wanted to read for years. Happy, but not done. I find a book by Roddy Doyle that I have not read, and a whole selection of Douglas Coupland novels catch my eye. In the end I choose Beloved and Girlfriend In A Coma. At the till husband is in a world of his own with Marx and Engels…

Fifteen pounds worth of books, smiles all around, priceless and a collective urge to get back home. Back into the warm with a coffee and a biscuit. Our books under our arms, we run back to the car, jumping puddles, job well done. We came, we browsed, we conquered. I feel slightly bereft as always for all the books left behind. Goodbye The Crooked Book. Until next time.