Fight haiku #smallstone 9

 

Fight haiku

 

Anger and shouting

Slamming of doors, storming off

Passion and tears now

The First Mrs. Rochester, reborn

…that’s me.

I reckon the poor lady locked up in an attic in “Jane Eyre” just needed some TLC and maybe some progesterone and she, like me, would have passed for normal.

I nearly blew a gasket this morning in class. I MEANT to deliver a calm oration reminding them that gum was outlawed and so on, but what happened was thankfully mostly internal. I somehow controlled the volcanic eruption that came boiling up like overheated sugar, and all that really showed was me raising my voice above my comfort level and getting a little red in the face. I felt my blood pressure surge as the accumulated anger, ansgt and fury of just about everything decided to have a party in my soul and what should have been a mildly sharp telling-off almost got out of control. In my head, I ran rampage with an axe, hacking bits of students, throwing tables out of windows and chasing my head of department with a Kalashnikov. As I felt the surge of blood, I tried to pull back and I must have done so because the rest of the morning went remarkably well; I didn’t have to yell at them again, and none of them were cowering away from me as I walked round the class, marking work and chatting.

But really, I felt dreadful. I’d spent about half an hour on the phone last night trying to speak to someone at NHS direct because I’d been having such severe chest pains I was really worrying I was about to have a heart attack. NHS direct were too busy to speak to me, because of swine flu, so I gave up and I guess it must all have been hysteria because I woke up at 6.30 this morning, and nothing worse occurred. I’ve still got chest pains but I think it’s just stress now. Walking to work, I would have welcomed a minor run-in with a car; not enough to kill or maim, just enough to not have to go to work and maybe get a sympathy card from work mates.

At break, I discovered my period had just started so some of the madness will subside, now. But the fact was that the students nearly saw me lose it in a big way and really, it wasn’t due to them at all. It felt like all my anger at so many things was just waiting for an opportunity to escape.

I need a holiday, I need something to keep me calm and stop this insane anger. And it’s just not going to happen any time soon. So it’s up to me to try and limit damage until I can figure out a better way to live with who and what I am and how I react to the world. An island of my own would be nice…

The Block

A while ago, I did a guided meditation to the Well of Wyrd, and part of the meditation was receiving a gift.

That gift was a wooden block, a cube of wood.

I mused over this for some time; various people made helpful suggestions and then I forgot about it.

Now I don’t have a terribly sophistocated subconscious. It tends to prefer the obvious, in case, being  a bit thick at times, I might miss the message. I played word association with it and got nowhere.

So for the writer, what is the obvious association of the word, “Block”? Easy. Writer’s block.

I don’t deny I am blocked right now. Writing a blog is easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy; the odd stanza of poetry ripples out from time to time. But the real work, the racing narrative that fills my head and peoples my imagination with real living breathing sweating beings, has gone. I’m dead inside. 

What I really cannot work out, now I understand what the gift actually is, is how on earth a block, a wretched Writer’s Block can be a gift at all. Unless my subconscious is playing games too clever for me(Gift being German for poison, but German being my fourth or fifth language) I simply can’t see how this could be seen to be a gift at all.

Unless the universe or God or whatever is actually a sadistic entity with a rather sick, slick sense of humour, that is.

If I were feeling a tad more chipper, I’d think of a positive metaphor, something about whipping out my Exacto-knife and whittling that block into something more useful. But both a decent metaphor and the enthusiasm to use it are eluding me right now.

So the closest I can think of is to regard that hopeless lump of wood as a doorstop, to wedge open some metaphysical door a little so I can maybe come back and peer through when I’m ready. I’m only hoping the door doesn’t magically become tiny in the meantime. I look enough like an antiquated Alice to worry about that and avoid giant caterpillars smoking dodgy substances. Right now, any caterpillars ought to guard their hookahs with great care….

Button Badge

The card my husband gave me for my birthday this year was a humorous one, and it came complete with a nice little button badge.

The badge reads:

“If you’re not pissed off, you’re not paying attention.”

Says it all really. We ignore so many things we ought to be angry or upset about in life; the big things, like war and famine, and the little things like work and friends and so on. We tune them out, constantly, to keep some sort of equilibrium, or to ensure we don’t turn into raving loonies.

I’m paying attention and boy, am I pissed off. With personal and global things. But because I am a venial and fallible human being, mainly with the personal. I’d like to think it’s because on some level I recognise that I have some chance of affecting the personal with a hope of changing things for the better.

But I SO want to wear my badge to work on Thursday…Is that so very bad of me??