Day 17

I shut my eyes in order to see.

Paul Gauguin

My brain is heavy again today. I am filled with images and sensations. They crowd my mind and my body, burning me. So many new thoughts and experiences, so many new pictures to process. My body shakes slightly at the sheer effort of trying to allow each fragment safe passage into my memory. It is a painful process and my mind presents an endless loop to me, as though the feelings have been branded into me and cannot be erased. I find myself reliving the delicious and surprising coldness of the sand under my feet, noticing the way the foam and water lapping at my toes stood out in sharp relief in the near darkness, like a 3D holographic image. All this beauty is contributing to the sense of overwhelm trembling through every part of me right now. I am glad that I am using a keyboard to write – I do not think I could manage a pen. Much as I love the scraping sound the pen tip makes and the smooth creaminess of the paper, with rows of coloured squiggles appearing incongruously amidst the pristine blankness, today I would not be able to cope. Today the solid, steady keyboard is my friend. I listen to the cheerful clack and clatter it makes as my fingers punctuate a thought. I am trying to distract myself from the persistent images that will not leave me and which make me slightly nauseous. Perhaps, if I focus on the sound of the keys, not thinking too much about what I write, the images will blur and be replaced by something new. It is just exactly as if I am trying to choke down a meal my body is not ready to receive. It continues to stay with me and the after-taste will not go. I want to pull the shades down and inhabit blissful darkness for a little while. But I cannot, because all this painful activity occurs behind my eyes and I have no inner eye to shut. Or perhaps I simply haven’t found it yet. What a wonderful magical tool that would be, the ability to close the mind at will. Hmm. Or would it be? Even as I write that I am not so sure. For now, all I can do is allow the trembling and the pain to be.

One thought among the many that fight for space within me like a pack of squabbling dogs, is a question. Why, when I have allowed myself a full month away from the loathed living-death routine of work, have I continued to follow exactly the same routines, even down to the times of my sleeping and waking? It makes sense that I was scared to allow myself too much freedom the other night, but even so, why did I not allow myself any extra sleep at all, when I so clearly needed it? The only answer I can come up with is that it has become so much my habit to keep regular hours and ignore my preferences in the name of efficiency and productivity that I no longer even recognise what I am doing. I have bound myself by rules I no longer even see, let alone question.

Even now, as I type, I can look down and see specks of accumulated rubbish standing out in stark contrast to the boring, rental-mushroom coloured carpet. I am unreasonably irritated by them. No, “irritated” is the wrong word. “Guilty” is a better one. The tiny bits of detritus on the carpet make me feel guilty for not immediately leaping up to re-vacuum them. I only vacuumed yesterday and it feels somehow like a failure on my part that the space should already be dirty again. As if the dirtiness of the carpet is an indicator of the dirtiness within me, within my own mind. The scraps stare at me accusingly: “Sloppy!” they shout, pointing imaginary fingers and wagging them. I look back a little insolently and try for an “As if I care” approach. Some of those bits no doubt came in off the beach with me this morning, and I admit it. I have very deliberately not wiped or washed the sand from my feet before entering – this, or any morning. Instead I have rejoiced at the residual grittiness, sliding my feet together to still feel the presence of the beach. So it is silly to feel guilty when the carpet protests my actions.

As I look at the carpet, though, a picture forms in my mind. It is long ago – primary school. One of my classmates invited me to her place after school and I was given permission to go. We first spent a little while in her room where I discovered that what I took for granted was not her world at all. Where my room contained a tidy desk and shelves carefully lined with books, dolls and horses, hers had posters of surfers, boy bands and dogs haphazardly adorning the walls, while stuffed toys spilled off her bed and chaotically out of her open cupboard door. It felt quite strange, as though I had just learned that the sky could be pink instead of blue above some houses.

Then she took me next door to play with the neighbours. There I got a shock. The family had several children, the youngest still in nappies. And, even though neither the mother nor the father worked, I have never seen anything like that place, before or since. The first thing to hit me was the smell. Or was it the sheer chaos of laundry everywhere, half visible in the dim rooms that saw little natural daylight through the closely-drawn curtains? Dirty laundry, clean laundry, unironed clothes all jumbled together on the couch, on chairs, on tables, on the floor. I wondered why they even bothered to wash the clothes – clean was so mixed in with dirty, and in such unlikely places, that it seemed hardly worth the effort.

But the worst was the smell. And the sight of faeces – everywhere. Decorating almost every surface it seemed. Finger-painted marks of it across the walls and other surfaces, dirty nappies lying anywhere and everywhere. We passed the toilet and I prayed I would not have to go while we were there. I had not known that anyone lived like this. Could live like this in fact. But I was the only one who seemed to notice. My classmate played happily with the cheerful clutter of children, all rushing in and out in such happy profusion that it was almost hard to tell how many of them there were. It took all the self control I had not to visibly shudder and I had to fight again and again to avoid the retch that would keep rising in my throat. It was an enormous relief to me when someone suggested that we play outside. This was much easier and I fairly gulped in lungfuls of blue sky and freshly-mown grass.

The thing is, all of those children were happy and full of energy. None of them seemed worried by the state of the house at all, nor embarrassed to let me see it. So it absolutely was not my business to worry about it. But it is true that when I was finally able to return home, I felt an appreciation for our neat home that I had never previously had. If I look at my own apartment now, I imagine living in a state of slightly disordered, chaotic and colourful cheerfulness. Nothing too dirty, of course, and always filled with natural light and fresh air, but not the place of rigid neatness that it currently is. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, however, remains the monster of that visit, telling me of the awful consequences of not following the rules. Like a Victorian tale of woe, entering into lurid detail about the terrible fate awaiting anyone who does not follow the straight and narrow path, that day springs forth in my mind. If I let go, this part of my mind informs me, I will not simply become a little less rigid. There is no middle ground. There are only extremes: Order and Chaos. If you excuse yourself from the dictates of order, then you have entered the gates of horror and despair. I have seen Chaos. I have smelled it. In all my life, I think that image has reinforced every rule I was ever taught. Or created for myself.

But I don’t really believe that one unusual experience is responsible for everything I have become. I am curious. It would be fun to list every rule or habit I can think of for myself and see if I can do something different. Just because. Just to interrupt the pattern and prove that there are other ways to be. Maybe I’ll discover that I actually like my habits, but who cares? It can’t hurt to find out, can it? First comes another question. Why do the rules matter? Who is this person who seems so afraid to do anything different or outside the rules? I seem to want to think of this rule-bound self in the third person, as though I were looking at someone else.

She is quite small and she is fingering her very favourite dress. She doesn’t like most of her clothes; they are boring and dull. And very different from what the other children wear. No jeans. Certainly no jeans. Sometimes she thinks that if she could have any wish in the world, it would be to wear jeans to school like everyone else. How proud she would be! And how excited to walk around, rustling in denim. But, even though, like all her other clothes, she didn’t choose it for herself, this one winter dress, the one she is wearing right now, is beautiful. The skivvy underneath is ugly and uncomfortable, but not the dress. It is a very soft faded-rose corduroy pinafore and its colour makes her feel very calm and happy. Even better though, is the way it feels. It is the softest material she has ever touched, or so she tells herself, and wearing it is a bit like wearing a pillow. She likes to sit and stroke and stroke it. This irritates her mother, she notices, so she tries not to do it when her mother is watching.

Her mother comes in before she can hide the fact that she is stroking her dress again. In order to quickly distract her before she can comment, or worse, ban the dress altogether (she has threatened to do so), the girl asks her mother a question.

“Can I get nail polish, like Carrie?”

“No. Why would you want that?”

“Because she has all sorts of pretty colours and she changes them every week.”

“Children shouldn’t wear make up or nail polish. And besides, it’s bad for your nails. It makes them all dull and nasty. And the nail polish chips as soon as you use your hands. It’s impossible to keep your hands neat when you wear it.”

“Oh. Could I still grow my nails?”

“No. You don’t want to grow your nails.”

“Why not?”

“You need short nails for piano.”

“I could give up piano and save money,” the girl smiles hopefully.

“I don’t think so. It’s important to learn music. Anyway, look at my hands. I’ve never grown my nails. And see how shiny they are because I don’t wear nail polish? When you keep your nails short they can’t break and become all ragged. It’s much neater and more comfortable this way. And much easier to look after.”

Much easier to look after. Just like her hair. The girl had asked to grow her hair once, but that also wasn’t a good idea. She had even suggested that if she grew her hair, it could be tied back out of the way and would be much easier to keep neat. But no, a bob was much more pleasing and less fussy than long, tangly hair. Much easier to look after. And it was always parted exactly in the centre. One day, just before it was time to leave for school, while her mother was getting ready for work, the girl carefully parted it on the side instead. It didn’t want to stay in place, she discovered but kept trying to fall back to the position it was used to. Carrie had said that if you train it, it soon learns the new part. So she found a couple of clips and carefully stuck them in.

Her mother, when she saw, made no comment. She simply pulled out the clips and picked up the comb, dragging it carefully (and somewhat painfully) through her hair, returning it to its “proper” parting. She acted as though there was all the time in the world and no one would be late for work or school. Silently she made it seem as though nothing was more important than having a perfect centre part. The girl hadn’t tried it again.

But it wasn’t only what her mother said that made her follow the rules. The girl had already worked out for herself that rules were important. She discovered that on almost the first day of school, when the teachers tried to keep everybody quiet and many of the children wouldn’t listen. Every day, school became a battle ground for dominance, fought between teachers and students. When the teachers won, everything was quiet and peaceful and sunny. When the children won, it was all noise and chaos, and it was hard to concentrate on learning to read or write stories. And nothing was more important than learning. Learning was fun. The funny thing was, the teachers didn’t even seem to mind when the children broke the rules. Most of the time they just laughed good-naturedly and shook their heads when the children came up with some new crazy joke they thought was funny. They didn’t even seem to mind when the children laughed at the girl, poked her and scribbled on her books, picking them up and scrunching them between their fingers, knowing she would get in trouble at home for not looking after her things. The teachers just looked at her coolly, with raised eyebrows, as if to say “Well it’s your own fault for trying to be different from everyone else.”

Then there was the one big time she really did break the rules. The day she ran away with Carrie. It was a glorious day that seemed to last forever. The trouble was, so did the night that followed. When, ultimately, they couldn’t sleep, no matter how much they tried, they finally gave in and went home. Even the librarian wouldn’t speak to her after that.

Mostly she was just scared. Scared of loud, rough, shouting children who hurt her with their hands, their words and their noise. Scared of big, heavy equipment that lumbered around making an enormous racket and looking as if it could run wild at any moment, lurching straight at her. Scared of fights and squabbles breaking out in libraries, which should have been her favourite places. And scared of people in the streets who behaved unpredictably.

She thought that if she could be neat enough, quiet enough, well-behaved enough, maybe everyone would like her (well, the grown-ups anyway). But somehow, the more she tried, the less it worked. Breaking the rules didn’t seem to help either. It was just easier, and safer, to follow the rules and simply try not to be noticed any more than she could help.

Okay, so I think I’ve had enough of this third person, self-pity me. That version of me sounds pretty awful on paper (or screen!), doesn’t she? “She said...” “He wouldn’t let me…” “They made fun of me…” And all little me did was apparently sit around, with her halo neatly shined, just waiting for everyone to notice what a wonderful child she was. Writing about myself that way, I’m not sure I would have liked little me either! Maybe I really was an insufferable little snob. I’m still absolutely no closer to understanding why I feel so afraid every time I consider doing something even a little bit different. It’s not just going out in the dark. It’s doing – anything – other than the “safe” and familiar. It just feels as though absolutely everything depends on my doing things “correctly”. If I do something at all differently, or deviate in any way from what is expected, the world might shatter into a million pieces. Like a really, really big monster that I’ve forgotten all about is waiting to get me if I accidentally open the gate and allow it entry. And I just don’t want to meet that monster!

Except that maybe I do. After all, it’s an awful waste of being a grown-up if I’m still trying to follow the rules! Here I am, 23, having lived independently for two whole years, and yet I don’t feel independent or grown up at all. Another me, a very wicked me who likes to laugh, is jumping up and down, seeking my attention. This me wants to play. “Hmm,” she says, grinning at me and daring me to try to stop her, “What rule shall I break first today?”