Books: The Journals of John Cheever (carries over)
TV: Celebrity Big Brother & Black Mirror
Theatre: The Other Place (National Theatre at Home)
“How clearly I saw the complexity of the ground where it fell; dry leaves, curved leaves, hair moss and partridgeberry.”
—The Journals of John Cheever
T.S. Eliot said that April “is the cruellest month,” but that depends on the year’s turning. It’s the beginning and the brimstone butterfly I usually see in the garden has gone missing. The two cotton-white ones who orbit each other flit past my window once per hour. But my glass-frog green friend has abandoned me for pastures new.
And here I am, on my sick bed, toying with my foundations. My health problems have forged a fissure in my sense of self. Am I but my name? Am I that which puts pen to paper? Maybe I am all and nothing simultaneously. When my bones bleach the earth, my soul will rejoin the stars. Since the dawn of my existence I have craved remembrance; the reason for this eludes me to no end. Naming day is the gun start of a relay race. We are in the tennis court of life, serving our serves and mopping our brows.
The barrage of poetry rejections is making my change-up much easier. My scribbles on the financial yellow culminate in sprawling outlines for short stories and plays. My lap desk is well-loved; tea rings, squeaky legs, and a stack of books (including a notebook). We are attached by something invasive, like the Japanese Knotweed that plagues the garden. I am creating things larger than myself. These dramatic works, poems, stories, etc, will (hopefully) outlive my body.
I remember my first visit to the theatre: the bouquet of popcorn, the opera glasses, and the plush velvet seats. It was a production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at Manchester’s Palace Theatre in 2006. Interspersed with that was every Christmas visit to see a pantomime (a British tradition).
The theatre itself is a place full of magic, intrigue, pomp, and drama; I love drama. I always eyed up the main parts in the school play, intensely preparing to show off my acting skills. When I did Performing Arts as one of my GCSEs, we took trips to see different plays and musicals. Coming up to show week, I was so excited, even in spite of the stress / pressure placed on us. We got a week off from normal school work to rehearse. Even though I loved the theatre, I never saw myself writing for it. This all changed in 2021 when I read Jean-Paul Sartre’s play, No Exit.
Last year, I had my debut as a playwright. I was part of a show comprising five short plays called The Short List at Salford Arts Theatre—home of the Shelagh Delaney Award. We sold out both nights, which is unusual for a bunch of unknowns. Starring in one of the other plays was Mark Beswick, the actor who portrayed Darren Hughes in Waterloo Road; a show I used to watch when I was in high school. Jonathon Carley, the man in charge of everything, recently starred in The Substance as the man on the right in the audition scene.
I acknowledge the moon and stars and they return my somnambulance. We live beneath a glass dome; each point subject to refraction. When I was little, my dad—upon seeing the night sky—would spread out his arms and say, “One day, all of this will be yours”. In his old home office, he had a plastic green alien face on the wall. Space and the cosmos is what first bonded us. A few years ago, my grandfather brought some forgotten things round from our old house, and in them were old sci-fi magazines my dad previously owned.
People often say that parma violets are sweets for the elderly, but I—an almost twenty-eight year old woman—am partial to those lovely lavender discs. Someone must take them away from me, for I can eat tons of the things. That lovely burst of sugar is a balm for the troubled heart. When you could get them from every corner shop, I would buy them after school—the times when penny sweets existed.
I recently read that Geri Halliwell (of Spice Girls fame) wears white because it’s like “a uniform for adults”. This got me thinking about the complex history of uniforms. In school we are told that wearing one makes us part of “a collective”, but that only works if everyone is willing. A uniform strips you of your individuality and the importance of being a unique being isn’t considered nearly enough. While we are all humans (and deserve to be treated as such), our space to be our own people is key to mental stability. We are born and bred to serve others at the expense of our well-being.
I should be able to choose what I wear and how I present myself. My school years were miserable for a number of reasons: one of them being an enforced dress code. Our teachers used to guard the school gates just to strip us of our autonomy. At break time, a child would be told to remove their coat, all the while the teacher is wearing a jacket and nursing a hot cuppa. If I can’t express who I am, my core is rattled. I will suffocate without my freedom.
The birds are moving a symphony, the children are a chorus, and all is bright. I can smell the food from restaurants nearby. Barney turns up with a mouse in his mouth and cobwebs on his cheeks. May is my birthday month; another spent unwell. Every night I yearn for some great being to rid me of these health issues. I long to visit a bookstore again. I crave the autumn leaves beneath my feet. To dwell on a particular is to indulge in one’s own descent into madness.
As Edna St. Vincent Millay said, “April comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.”.
Courtenay's Corner 