Nice-breakers

February 24, 2020 ~ Paula Harmon ~ 4 Comments

How do you feel about ice-breakers?

Only asking because right now, I’m organising a meeting. It’s been in the offing for a while so I should be prepared but I’m not.

I know that ice-breakers can make some people feel exposed and I don’t want to do that to anyone. But I’ve found one which might be useful. It’s based on mindfulness. The idea is that everyone notes down – for themselves alone – their mood, the things that are on their mind right at that moment and then, having recognised them, put them to one side ready to take part in the meeting.

We are a scattered remote-working team of people who don’t meet face to face very often. We have a challenging year ahead, but who knows what mountains people are facing in their personal lives which make work issues seem mere mole-hills.

The reason I’m behind with this is that for me, normal priorities have recently been struggling for precedence. The last two months have felt like two years. All jokes about January aside, the one that’s passed really does seem to have been twice the length of normal and February hasn’t been much better. Good friends have been going through terrible times and for my family, things started to unravel in December when my mother was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. My mother is over eighty but very lively and energetic. She doesn’t however, like to make a fuss, part of which is probably a wartime generation thing and part of which is the way her family was. Perhaps this is why when something didn’t look right, she didn’t mention it to anyone for nearly a year and then only in passing when talking about something else. (If you think something looks (or feels) odd – don’t hesitate to have it checked. Please see links below.)

Thanks to our wonderful National Health Service, Mum had a successful mastectomy in mid January. Then for no reason anyone has yet established and with a speed which shocked everyone, Mum contracted sepsis. My sister and I were told she wouldn’t survive the night. But Mum wasn’t ready to give in just yet and to everyone’s honest surprise, she survived and is back home regaining her strength day by day.

I’m not saying any of this to gain sympathy since, as I say, some of my friends are going through even worse things and I’ve no doubt some readers may be too (other links below too). This is about me trying to rebalance and saying thank you to all those who’ve been there for my family recently.

I’m sure you can appreciate that over the last few weeks, everything but my mother, whether work, home-life or writing took a back seat. As for my vague new year’s resolutions…

I never returned to choir practice after the first meeting because my evening routine has now changed.

I did start learning to crochet which came in handy when sitting in intensive care (but I’ve got to be honest, no-one is getting a blanket any time soon unless they’re the size and robustness of a beetle who doesn’t mind draughts).

And in terms of writing – which in my case this January was supposed to be generally editing something which was already behind – it stalled completely. Whereas when my father was very ill I found an outlet in writing, when Mum was, I simply froze. Perhaps that’s because Mum’s illness was so unexpected, while Dad had been ill for many years. Somehow, this time it was different. All I wrote for three weeks were texts, messages and emails.

During a lot of sitting around in the hospital, I struggled to read a novel, but did manage to read a book on the history of forensics (don’t ask me why this was easier, I’ve no idea), and trawled social media a little. On writers’ groups, I often saw people post that they just couldn’t think of what to write or get on with what they were writing. More often than not, the response was pretty much ‘just do it’. I might have replied in a similar vein: ‘you can do it – just ten words even if they’re nonsense’ but this time I replied ‘you can do it – but maybe not just now. Sometimes ten words is too much. Sometimes you just have to give yourself a break. The right time will come.’

In terms of my spiritual awareness resolution – I feel I might actually have achieved that one. Friends and family of many faiths and none were sending prayers, positive thoughts and lovely messages. My sister and I can’t thank you all enough. We felt completely surrounded by support and love in those dark, awful days when we thought we’d lose our mother. The kindness of friends, the gentle courtesy of strangers in that terrible time were like gold.

Just little things made a difference.

The little chap in the photograph – about whom you may hear more in future – is Quirius The Curious Squirrel. He arrived in the post one day when things looked bleak – made with love by my wonderful friend Liz – just at a time when I was desperate for something to make me smile. Quirius sits by me when I work at home (that is when he’s not dressed up to go undercover… as I say, more in future perhaps) and keeps an eye on me to make sure I’m focussing on the right thing at the right time.

Whether or not I use that mindfulness ice-breaker at the meeting before we go on to something more business focussed, I’ll certainly try it for myself to try and keep myself on track.

This is what is on my mind… This is what’s happening that’s affecting my mood… I acknowledge you but now I’m going to focus on something else for a while.

Perhaps it might help you too.

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Breast Cancer & Sepsis

Know your Lemons – signs of breast cancer to look out for

Breast Cancer Now

Sepsis – what to look for

For anyone feeling overwhelmed just now – some helplines – someone will listen

The Samaritans

Mind UK

Music

December 11, 2017December 13, 2017 ~ Paula Harmon ~ 2 Comments

My husband and I don’t quite see eye to eye on music.

It’s not so much about taste. We like a lot of the same stuff. There’s this theory that if you want to target an advertisement at a particular generation, you pick backing music from when they were 16-18. I think they’re probably right. Anything with music from the 80s will get our interest whether it’s to wallow in nostalgia and memories of slender waists (both of us), white jeans (him), permed hair (me) and that general restlessness and energy of youth is briefly remembered as we slob on the sofa with a glass of wine.

‘I used to dance for hours in shoes like those,’ I’ll say, ‘but I never quite had the nerve to wear the ra-ra skirt and my hair reverted to straight in two minutes.’

We sigh until the kids come in and ask what rubbish we’re watching now.   On the other hand, if advertisers use a song we both love for something stupid (naming no high street banks here) we will both mutter and grumble. Fortunately for the bank, it already has our money. (Well, we put our salaries into it, then the money drains out on mortgage, bills and shopping, but you know what I mean.)

No the difference we have about music is volume and venue. My husband loves to turn up music loud in the house. As loud as he can get it. I can’t bear it. If for any reason, I can’t bear it to the extent that I’ll say so, he puts earphones in and blasts his ears to a volume that I can nevertheless still hear.

If I’m writing, I can’t stand this. I can’t tune into whatever wavelength my creativity plays through if there is music of any description in the background. If there are lyrics, they get into my words, if there is a rhythm, it’ll interfere with the rhythm of what I’m writing. One particularly difficult afternoon, I had not only my husband playing music, but my daughter playing (a totally different) music and my son playing online video games which seems to involve a lot of shouting. My son eventually hooked me up to a natural sounds website and I head-phoned into that, turned up the thunder and rainforest frogs, got back into my writing and became so lost in what I was doing that I kept looking up surprised to see no rain even though my ears could hear a positive downpour.

That’s not to say I don’t like loud music. I do. But I like it in the car when I’m driving to or from work or the station. I tune into a vibe or a memory or a mood and somehow the things that are worrying me lift for the journey. I actually feel a little put out if I have to share my journey to work with someone I actually have to talk to.

But a word to anyone who needs to know: if I make a point of going for a drive with loud music playing when I have no reason to go out, or I have music playing loudly in the house, it’s not a good sign. It’s because I am very very low. I’m still tuning into a vibe or a memory or a mood, but it’s not a good one. If I feel the need to do it at home, which is my safe little nest, there’s something wrong.

The music may be the same in both instances. It’s how I respond which is different. I’m either defiant or defeated. The words (and I love good lyrics, often more than the music itself) either resonate or betray.

My father had been told by a teacher that as he was tone deaf, he’d never appreciate music. He spent the rest of his life building up a taste so eclectic it’s impossible to categorise. I grew up listening to The Goons, Beethoven, Bach, Grieg, Louis Armstrong, Lonnie Donnegan, Val Doonican, musical soundtracks from ‘The Sound of Music’ and ‘Oliver’ etc, Hawkwind and Mike Oldfield. We just never ever listened to whatever was popular at the time and it took me a while to catch up. The first pop song I heard (on a funny little radio a sort of relation had made for me) was ‘It’s a Rich Man’s World’ by Abba, after which I didn’t look back.

But otherwise, what songs am I talking about? OK so this is the divisive part, so sorry if I’ll now make you squirm, but these are the songs which still resonate no matter how many years have passed.

My first boyfriend introduced me to Genesis when I was sixteen. I probably couldn’t have been more square if I’d tried but I loved songs which seemed to have a hidden story in them like ‘Carpet Creepers’, ‘Trick of the Tail’. ‘Abacab’ takes me back to driving across the heathlands of the Gower on summer evenings.

A few years later, single, I sang along to ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ by Bonnie Tyler as clearly ‘the best of all the years had gone by.’ I was twenty. Sigh. It was very real then.

A particularly bad period in my life some twenty years after that, had a soundtrack all of its own. One day I came home from work a little early. I was working part-time and it wasn’t quite time to pick the children up from school. I thought of going home to my chaotic home, the laundry, the housework, the cooking, the trying to get the children to eat something healthy and drove round and round with the CD player blasting at full volume. The songs which at that point seemed to sum up what was going on in my head were:
‘Cappucino Girls’ – Nia ‘Talking Far too loud, laughing with each other, like the days before we were someone else’s mother’
‘Another Place to Fall’ – KT Tunstall (one section of lyrics translated themselves as ‘find yourself another place to fall; bang your head against another brick wall’)
‘Crazy’ – Gnarls Barkley (the title speaks for itself)
I still can’t quite hear any of them without remembering that utter despair at a life which seemed to have run away and left me behind not knowing quite who I was or what I was for.

When my Dad died, he had set down everything he wanted for his funeral except what to play as the coffin was going up the aisle in the crematorium. Asked what to play by the funeral director, my mind went totally blank. All I could hear going through my head was ‘Right Said Fred, Better Get a Move on.’ Dad would probably have appreciated it, but I’m not sure anyone else would have. I left it to the Funeral Director and now couldn’t tell you what was played. I realised two weeks later that I’d wanted ‘You Raise Me Up’ (Secret Garden).

Well time has passed since either of those periods of awful misery. A lot of tears, some heartbreak and a great deal of talking later, I am in a different place. I still love older songs, I find new songs all the time. But here are some of the older ones which make me smile or dream whether I’m high or low.

‘Songbird’ – Fleetwood Mac
‘Fields of Gold’ – (Sting) – sung by Eva Cassidy
‘Fix You’ – Coldplay
‘How Long Will I Love You’ – Ellie Goulding
‘Perfect Day’ – Lou Reed
‘Solsbury Hill’ – Peter Gabriel

And there is a song ‘Ride On’ by Christy Moore which reminds me of sitting in the kitchen with my husband on Sunday afternoons, soon after we were married. It is on an album of Celtic Music and one day, one day, I am going to write the story it sparked in my subconscious. It’s not quite there yet, but it will be.

And finally, at my funeral, I want them to play ‘I Hope You Dance’ by Lee Ann Womack. Read the lyrics – it sums up everything I hope for everyone.

Missingness

July 16, 2017July 17, 2017 ~ Paula Harmon ~ 9 Comments

I didn’t expect to feel this way.

Perhaps it’s because it’s been quite stressful recently.

Perhaps it’s because while I’ve worked for the same organisation for nearly twenty-eight years, I’ve changed teams and job roles three times in two (and twice in eight months). This has been largely by choice because the alternatives were worse. I haven’t worked with a team who are all in the same building or even the same town for the majority of the last eleven years. I’ve yet to get past acquaintanceship with the people in my new team. Three days a week, I work from home or sit in a side office, usually on my own. Twice a week I rattle along in trains full of strangers to meet face to face maybe only one or two members of my team. On those days, I work in a large office in a huge building full of people, the majority of whom I don’t know and am never likely to know. Of the work friends I’ve built over my career, many are, like me, rushing from place to place all the time. It’s hard to meet up.

Perhaps it’s because I’m under the weather. Everything has been overwhelming for ages. I feel as if I’ve been stumbling through undergrowth, step by exhausting step, not sure where the path has gone. Now, despite the fact that it’s July, I have a chest cold and virus.

Or perhaps it’s because my children are growing up. They both sat public exams this year. My eldest is eighteen today. My youngest is less than two years behind. When my son leaves home for university in the autumn, my daughter will be starting sixth form. I have washed my last item of ink stained school uniform. Sixth formers don’t wear uniform. The children can see that adult life doesn’t live up to the hype but are eager for it anyway.

I feel lonely.

I don’t feel alone. I have a lovely husband who’s my best friend. My children, when we’re all disconnected from electronic devices, still hug and chatter. They’re great company. My oldest friends and my wonderful sister, who know me best, live some distance away. But I have fantastic local friends and my mother lives nearby. It’s not the loneliness I suffered at school, alienated by bullying, nor in the first year at university, too shy to talk to anyone. I know I’m not alone.

But I still feel lonely.

Eighteen years ago, my son, my longed-for, long-awaited child was put into my arms. I was so conscious of his dependence on me that although he slept, I couldn’t for fear he’d stop breathing. Now, his dependence on me is nebulous. He can take care of himself if he has to, he definitely has his own opinions and can and does make his own decisions. (Although, somehow it’s still me doing the laundry.) We’ve encouraged his independence always: given him space within boundaries. We’ve tried to prepare him for adulthood. He is a wonderful young man.

My daughter is following right on behind. She is my lovely, lovely girl. But last night, we were looking at possible universities for her. She is flexing her wings ready to fly.

When my son leaves home, my daughter, no matter how much they fight and argue, will miss him. It’ll be just three of us for a while and then before we know it, just two of us.

Life with just my husband will certainly be more peaceful. I am looking forward to it. I am looking forward to welcoming the children when they come home, looking forward to visiting them when they have homes of their own, looking forward to watching them build their own lives and traditions.

But what will my role be? Where perhaps someone else would feel their employment defined them and would be lost without its focus, I don’t think I have ever felt that way. I have my career, but truth to be told, I think the real me is writer, companion and the mother.

I never expected to feel lost when the nest started to empty but I do. I thought we had helped them mature year by year until they were ready to leave and we were ready to let them go. And we are ready. We are. And yet…

We never thought we’d have a child and then, eventually, my son came along. We thought we’d perhaps never have another, but my daughter had other ideas. I remember that after she was born and she was no longer part of me, although I could hold her in my arms, I missed the company of her in my womb. I felt lonely for something that was gone, even though it was replaced by something better. My role to protect and grow a child under my heart was over. I had to learn something new.

So perhaps it’s not loneliness exactly.

There is a word in Welsh ‘hiraeth’ which has no direct English translation. In Cornish, it is ‘hireth’ and in Breton, it is ‘hiraezh’. Welsh, Cornish and Breton are derived from the same ancient British language. The closest English explanation is an intense longing for something lost (usually a home or a person) or for the memory of them, whether real or imagined. Apparently, Portuguese and Galician have a similar word: ‘saudade’. It’s been translated as ‘missingness’.

So I don’t know exactly why I feel the way I do at the moment. Perhaps it’s the weather, perhaps it’s the virus I’m enduring, perhaps it’s work, perhaps it’s my age, but I think, in truth, it’s probably because I feel ‘hiraeth’ for the children who are now young adults and who will soon be leaving home.

One of my friends, whose daughter is the same age as mine, recently said that she felt adrift. And I thought ‘yes, that’s it exactly.’

I too feel adrift, looking back at the fading lands of their receding childhood, wondering where the breeze will take me next.

lonely 2

Honey

July 9, 2017July 9, 2017 ~ Paula Harmon ~ 5 Comments

She climbed a tree and hunched.

We called: ‘please come down,’ but she stared over the rooftops to the wide world as if yearning to fly.

‘What shall we do?’ we whispered.

In the kitchen, we cut a wobbly doorstep from the fresh loaf and poured honey over.

‘It’s your favourite,’ we called, ‘just for you.’

Mummy turned. A moment passed. Then she climbed down and hugged us tight, bread and all.

She smiled a little, but tears mingling with honey, sparkled in her hair.

Under our kisses, her face was sticky and salty.

‘We’ll make it better,’ we said.

honey

From a prompt on Thin Spiral Notebook – check out what others have written

Mooring Up

May 7, 2016May 1, 2017 ~ Paula Harmon ~ Leave a comment

His wife didn’t like sleeping out under the stars. Things might crawl on her, it would be damp and she might wake to find something supernatural nose to nose with her.

So the day the world snapped, he knew he’d go alone.

What he really wanted was to be on a boat, moored a long way from land, never going back to work again. But never going back to work was not an option, the sea was too far away and he could only anchor himself in the garden, adrift of the house he was working to pay for.

Taking a week’s leave he traversed the lawn and swayed in the dappled shallows under the cedar, turning his back on the house. Left against the shore of the back door, a note said “Casting myself away. Don’t rescue me. Yet.”

He couldn’t sleep in the shed which was so decrepit that even the resident bat had gone; but he didn’t have to live in it, just know it was there. The July weather was set fine so he erected a standalone hammock between the tree and the shed and placed a small garden chair alongside, facing into the swell of the scrubbery.

For a few days he was marooned, eating out of tins and washing under the outside tap. He imagined the traffic sounds from the bypass were distant rollers on the edge of his lagoon. In the morning, dew sparkling in his hair and beard, he pretended the pigeons and thrushes were gulls. In the evening, he tried to ignore the wafting smells of tomatoes, garlic and chilli and refused to decode the indistinct sounds of shore: the TV; negotiations between his wife and their teenagers; the rattle of closing curtains. Later, rocking under the stars, he heard the curtains open and knew his wife was risking the supernatural to watch over him. Bathed in her love he fell asleep.

On Thursday evening, he felt a clink against the hammock-stand. Looking down, he found a note in a bottle: “permission to board?” After a moment’s pause, he turned to the house. At the back door stood his wife. He beckoned and she walked across to him, awkwardly dragging a chair and carrying a basket of fresh food and chilled wine.

“Are you running away from me?” She asked.

“No. Just adulthood.” He answered.

“I feel like that as well.” She whispered. “And I miss you.”

“There’s room in the hammock for two.” He offered.

She thought momentarily and nodded.

As the sun set, they lay cuddled in the hammock, rocking over the shallow waves of the lawn and listening to the rollers in the distance.

“No pirates in this ocean.” He reassured her. “But we’ll sail home tomorrow. Only shall we cast adrift again sometime?”

She cuddled into his shoulder, feeling the strength of his arms and the warmth of his body. In the moonlight their faces were transformed, young and carefree again. “Yes.” she said. “We will.”

Harbour Mouth

February 4, 2016April 20, 2017 ~ Paula Harmon ~ 1 Comment

As usual, dinner choked her and she ate barely anything. Sam didn’t notice but poured her more wine. She drunk some white. Then some red. As usual, she went to bed drained, pincers at her temples and took paracetamol and ibruprofen, and valerian because otherwise how would she sleep? Sam was still watching TV. What was on TV tonight? Nothing. She quietly packed a bag and wrote him a note. 4.40am every day and she was wide awake, mind churning churning, options like the doors off one of those unending corridors – is the answer here? or here? What even was the question? When the alarm goes off her body ached, her eyes leaden. One foot in front of the other, shower, wake the kids, make breakfast, put on the face, do the hair, say goodbye to Sam, take the kids to school, late again, tutting stay-at-home mums watching her as they gossip before going for coffee or to walk the dog or clean their clean houses. Go to work. Endless emails, like the fairytale with the self-filling purse only with the opposite effect. The fuller the inbox, the more drained she felt. Rushing to get the task done for the vague thanks she’d get, providing data so that someone else would get the praise. What did it all mean anyway? Who wanted those endless stats? What did I do in work today? Nothing. Rushing to get back for school pick-up. Late again. Angry teacher talking to her as if she was six. Driving home with the kids, “what did you do in school today?” “Nothing – what’s for tea?” At home, the overflowing laundry, the pointless cooking of tea – prodding of broccoli, shovelling of pasta. What did I do at home today? Nothing. She tried to put all this in the note, waiting for the valerian to kick in and took more painkillers. When she left, who would even miss her really? Exemplary employee, caring wife and mother – just functions. They’d miss the functions. How could they miss her? She had been lost a long long time. She tried to put it in the note, but it was hard to put it into words. She wasn’t sure what she was writing. The next day at 4.40am, she slipped out of bed and out of the house. She got to the coast and wondered vaguely if she’d shut the front door. She imagined the house – wide open, wondering where she’d gone – the overflowing laundry, the untidy rooms, the toys crying “organise us!” and the fresh air blowing in whispering “she’s gone, she’s gone” and the children and Sam sleeping on and on until they woke and tried to remember what she looked like and life going on without her. She got to the coast and looked at the harbour bridge shiny in the dawn.She didn’t remember it being so long, the end was barely visible, the other side of the harbour mouth hazy and clean. She didn’t remember it being so narrow, only room for her. Weren’t there buildings on the other side? Where was the traffic? Maybe it was always this quiet at 4.40am. Was it still 4.40am? No it must be later, time for the alarm to go off. Surprising there is no traffic. She starts to walk across the bridge. Why am I walking? Didn’t I bring the car? Never mind. It’s peaceful here but looks even more peaceful there. The buzzing, the humming, the relentless noise of her mind is silent. Nothing can be heard, not the sea, nor the wind, nor the town behind her. Is the town behind her? She doesn’t want to turn and look – the other side of the bridge is more inviting. There is a person coming towards her, as vague as the bridge, it is calling to her. It must be shouting because it’s so far away she can’t tell if it’s male or female, but the voice is like a whisper, she closes her eyes to hear better. “Not yet,” it says, “Go back, go back, here is some strength, go back, go back” and rain starts to fall on her from the clear blue sky, “come back come back” and she opens her eyes and Sam is holding her, his tears falling on her face, and she is in her bed and he is holding her and he has her letter in his hand, crushed against her, and he has her letter in his hand, crushed against her with its scrawled words: “I’m lost. I’m so tired. I want to sleep forever. Find me.” And he is whispering “you didn’t wake when the alarm went off, I didn’t know, I didn’t know” and he pulls her up to himself, crying into her hair and she steps back off the bridge and into his arms.

	Paula Harmon on A Novelty
	Malgorzata Thornton on A Novelty
	Natalina Reis on Murder At Midnight – Out…
	Paula Harmon on Tea and Trophies
	Paula Harmon on Tea and Trophies

Paula Harmon

Writer

#depression