The Unforgiving Nature of Ballet, and the Ruthlessness of Readers of The Telegraph
There was an article in the Torygraph on Monday in which the political editor was writing about his daughter's experiences of Ballet. There are several things about this article which shock me. The first is that the sensational headline about 'shaming the world of Ballet' does not correlate to the article. The piece is angry - understandably I think - but at no point does the writer suggest he has brought the world of Ballet to shame. In fact, the writing is temperate and measured bearing in mind that it concerns the wellbeing of a small child. The writer is a well connected man. The headline makes him appear smug and self-important. I see no evidence for this being the case in article which follows. He is a father who cares deeply for his daughter, and is asking an exam board to review their procedures regarding inclusivity. In my experience the ballet world is beyond being put to shame. It would be a Sisyphean task. Here is the story in a nutshell: a small girl loves ballet. Owing to an accident involving a bus when she was a baby, this child has grown up using a prosthesis. She passed her first set of ballet exams, but unlike her friends was not awarded a distinction nor merit. The father finds it incredible that in the twenty-first century, there is no alternative assessment or mitigating circumstances which can be applied when the child is successfully handling a challenging situation. I can see his point. This is clearly a case of discrimination. There is a lack of parity in the experience of a child with a disability compared to those without. This must never be the case. The exam board concerned should be ashamed of themselves for their stubborn refusal to adapt in accordance with the sensibilities of the time. The most shocking element to the story, however, is the message board beneath the article. The lack of compassion for the child, and the attacks on the parent are staggering. I actually suggest that you don't read the comments. You will rage, probably, and this will ruin your day. It seems especially cruel because a child is involved. The people commenting seem to think that an allowance is being sought that will allow her to become a principal at the Royal Ballet. Ridiculous 'chopped logic' is applied with examples of airline pilots and brain surgeons. This is not the case. The only compensation required is that a young child may continue to enjoy dancing on her own terms. The standards of British Ballet are not under threat by a request that a child should be allowed to succeed on her own terms. The comments show Middle England at its most bigoted and narrow-minded. I can nearly not contain my fury. Throughout my career - now a career in suspended animation - I fought for inclusion and diversity. The environment improves for everyone when diversity matters. This for me is a fact of life. I have worked with all kinds of mixed groups, and it has been enriching for everyone. The ballet world has a reputation for being elitist. Regrettably, this reputation is probably deserved. However, there are certain people and organisations within the Ballet world working to rectify this. I know of several schemes and projects - in 'elite' organisations - that encourage widening participation. They are bringing Ballet to a completely new audience. Very small steps (in tiny ballet shoes) are being taken. The saddest part of the story is that the child felt so discouraged that she has now stopped dancing. I find this disappointing, perhaps even heartbreaking. I dare say that I would do the same if it were my child; I'd remove her from an environment which does not offer support and understanding. But, without pioneers nothing nothing new is explored - a big ask for a seven-year-old and her family. While diversity is still a subject under discussion, we still have some way to go in achieving inclusivity.
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Fathers and Sons Part 2
I feel a bit 'Bah Humbug' about Fathers' Day, to be honest. I don't ever recall it happening when I was a child. I don't remember writing my father a card or ever giving him a present. This would imply that it is a more recent invention - a conspiracy of commercialism. Something to get cards and gifts sold, and restaurant tables booked. If the money is staying in the local economy, this is no bad thing, especially in these times of austerity. One of the reasons that I don't remember giving my dad treats on Fathers' Day is perhaps because the man rarely sat still. When I was a child, I never saw him with his feet up reading the paper, or asking to be left alone while he sat around doing nothing. He was restlessly productive from morning until night. I have no memory of him watching television. It has been claimed that we watched Doctor Who together - in the days when you could still follow the plots, and the set wobbled - but I don't actually remember this happening. My memory is of him making wooden toys, or go-karts, or getting his car ready for its MOT with the help of a Haynes Manual. Or, he used to inflict endless DIY and decorating on our desire for a well-ordered environment. It always looked brilliant when he had finished; until the next project commenced. Constructing a few cold frames in the garden was nothing. On one house he built the extension himself. I only know of him going to the cinema twice, and one of those was Star Wars. That doesn't really count. Everyone in 1977 went to see Star Wars. The last thing in the world that he would have wanted on Fathers' Day was insistence that he stop for a few hours while we all gather around him with treats. He'd have just found us irritating. It now seems tragic, rather than ironic that he is no longer able to do any of these things, and, I fear, he may have little recollection of ever having done them. I wonder what memories my own children will have of Fathers' Day. The downside of being so relentlessly dissident and anti-capitalist is that people take you seriously. So, when I said that I didn't want any cards or any of the other trappings of a made-up crappy excuse to get people to part with their cash, I meant it. But, I still got a bit grumpy as I was making lunch. What did I expect? When could the eleven year old have done something? He is incarcerated in Ballet School six days a week and needs his only free 45 minutes a day to keep his head together. Did I really imagine him to be colouring in a picture of a racing car, or a tractor, or a golfer during this precious three-quarters of an hour? And the six year old? She had been advised by her (adult) cousin on the phone the night before to just give me a hug; which she did. That'll do. Any evidence that she isn't a sociopath - our greatest fear in life - is gratefully acknowledged. So, how will they reflect on their dad when they are older? I expect they will say that he watched a lot of TV, and did some writing; that he had a pathological fear of anything practical like gardening or DIY, and they will probably say that the greatest love in his life was ice cream and sweets. They will also probably mention that he was an iconoclast who hated the Tories, and that he only had two modes of operating: merriment - when everything is silly and fun; and martyr - when he lets everyone know how much he suffers ... like on Fathers' Day. Bah Humbug. I hope your Fathers' Day was okay. The Futility of an Education
I have spent some of the weekend helping our daughter to read made-up words. This is because of a phonics test which all children of her age are required to take. Someone in the government - probably Michael Gove at the time - thought it would be a good idea to ask children to read fictional words rather than real ones. English spelling is difficult enough. These fictional words are referred to as pseudo-words. Here are some examples from last year's test: 'flam', 'voisk', 'quigh' 'jorb', 'herks'. These have been quite difficult to type, as my autocorrect insists that they are other words - real ones. There are about twenty-five of these pseudo-words on the test. Our daughter's teacher has explained to me that many children have an inbuilt autocorrect of their own, and so will read a word incorrectly, saying a real word, rather than the pseudo-word. They will read 'job', for example, rather than 'jorb'. I think these children should receive extra marks rather than be penalised. About a year ago, an exercise circulated around Facebook that proved we read the words we expect to read rather than the ones on the page. The document replaced some letters with numbers, and it was still possible to make perfect sense from the writing, and read it at a usual speed. For adults this is an entertaining digression which proves how we rarely read what is actually on the page; for children, trying to make sense of made-up words is infuriating. Understandably, our daughter does not enjoy being tested in this way. We've had a couple of tantrums about going to school. I've been sympathetic. Occasionally, our son expresses his disappointment that the range of subjects he studies at school is not broader. With all the ballet and dance, there is little time for anything other than core subjects. There is no IT, media, or design, The only foreign language he studies is French. I know that he would like to learn Spanish, or German or Latin. However, he has a sound knowledge of Ballet History, and a practical understanding of several European folk dances, including Morris dance, and Hungarian Folk dance. This is how he spends his time when he is not in the Ballet studio or studying the core academic subjects. I went to an academic school. Not only did we learn Latin, but we spent some time looking at The Odyssey - in English translation, it was a state school, after all. Culturally, we seem to view some subjects as having more value than others. In my adult life, I have used very little of the Latin that I learned at school, and even less of the Physics or Chemistry. Yet, these are perceived as worthy subjects - suggesting that my achievement is the result of valuable intellectual rigour. For our son, I imagine that Folk Dance is a useful subject, and History of Ballet certainly implies an intellectual rigour - depending on how it is taught. To suggest that one subject is more important or useful than another is purely subjective - a view founded in intellectual snobbery and cultural habit. My daughter, on the other hand, will never have to read made-up words again, and I hope that I never have to type the vile phrase 'pseudo-words' ever again. The sounding out of random made-up words without context is a complete waste of everyone's time. Another Loss - This Time Weight
This blog carries a parental advisory label. If you are squeamish, sensitive or are in any way repulsed by the exhibitionist tendencies displayed in the last blog, you would be advised to look away, or stop reading now. There is also some very mild swearing. You've been warned ... Mum. I am less of a man than I used to be. This is a literally true. Indirectly, this is a result of our son's involvement in Ballet. Long before he started at the Ballet School, I would often stand and wait for him to come out of class. The teachers would often be out waiting while the children were still in the changing room, and we would stand and chat. Ballet teachers are often young, attractive and thin - this is Fact One. I'm just putting it out there. The parents would also wait. The parents of Ballet Children are often middle age, prosperous and sit at desks all day. This is Fact Two. Between Fact One and Fact Two rests an awkward gap. Delusional as I may be, I considered myself stuck somewhere in this gap. I clearly didn't belong to the Ballet Teachers of Fact One. But, I surely wasn't a member of the parent group of Fact Two. I didn't look like them either ... Or so I thought. Here is Fact Three: The mother of our children describes one of my most endearing qualities as having the sensibilities and preferences of a teenage American girl. Dawson's Creek, My So-Called Life and Hart of Dixie have the same value to me as Hamlet or Othello. Well perhaps this is not quite the case for Hart of Dixie - but I still really enjoy it. Please bear this fact in mind if you continue reading to the point where all three facts converge. This is going to be a long story. It was November 2013 - I remember the event clearly. I was working away and staying in an luxurious hotel. There was a set of scales in the bathroom, and one evening I thought I'd have a little experiment - just for a laugh - and see how much I weigh. The digital number reached 90 Kilos (for stone, just divide by 6). This could not be right. The last time I weighed myself, I had been 75 Kilos. That had been sixteen years ago, when I was twenty-seven. I stood off the scales, and stood back on again. The figure remained the same. I breathed in. I made myself taller. No change. I went to my iPad and looked up the healthy weight for my height. I was firmly into the overweight section and beginning to convincingly approach the fiery red part of the graph - according to the NHS, I was nearly obese. I had never really thought about why I always needed to wear baggy clothes, and my reluctance to wear just a t-shirt in summer. It also explains that whenever I got measured for a suit, or bought a new pair of trousers, I assumed that I had some temporary bloating owing to something I'd eaten, probably oats. I was clearly experiencing severe denial, and this is the point where the three facts converge. I looked nothing like those young healthy ballet teachers; I was definitely one of the parents. I looked at our ballet dancing son, and realised that he is going to grow taller, leaner and stronger, and I was going to become heavier, less active and even more middle aged. Thankfully, there is a Teenage American girl locked away in my heart, so I knew what I had to do. I had to start preserving my youth. It took a year. I made sure that on no day did I exceed two thousand calories, and on some days I carefully only consumed six hundred. I weighed myself every three weeks, and hoped to see a 3 kilo loss each time. I became an expert in nutrition. I know how many calories are in a piece of toast and marmite, and how many are in a baked potato and cottage cheese. I didn't deny myself sweets, but ate fewer and realised that they counted to that day's calorie allowance. On our last family holiday, I ate ice-cream only once. I still avoid pastry, white bread, anything with cream in it, and surprisingly, hummus. I eat salad every day, and make it more exciting by adding jalapeños and hemp seeds. I am wary of sun-dried tomatoes. I researched all I could about fasting and a calorie restricted life-style; and found some reasonably convincing links to Alzheimer's prevention (please see my last blog). I started to swim daily - sometimes twice a day, and now I have again began to run regularly. I'm over twenty kilos lighter than on that day in November 1993. When I look in the mirror, I am surprised by the person looking back. I appear older and more care worn. I don't notice the loss of weight. Oprah once declared her weight loss to be the biggest achievement of her life. With all her wealth and influence, I cannot understand how this is true. I do not consider it an achievement. I find sustaining this healthy life-style irritating. The attention to detail is exhausting. I miss most the permission I used to give myself to be passionate about sweets and ice-cream. Give me a bag of gelatine-free 'Percy Pigs', and I am as happy as a different kind of pig in the proverbial sh*t. I still wouldn't dream of getting on a train without them, or the sour jelly caterpillars that they also sell at M & S. There's an ice-cream place not far from where I live where they know me by name, and I have their number so I can call and pre-order cinnamon flavour if I am going in that day. This is absolutely true, they used to make a batch just for me. I haven't phoned for a while. It feels like we've split up. We just grew apart. I still go in now and again, and I perceive a sadness in their eyes. They miss me. When my belt begins to feel tight, I panic. This never used to be the case. I never noticed - it was always tight, especially after lunch. I'm concerned where this transformation will lead next. Will I be dying my hair to hide the grey? Simon Cowell white teeth? Spray tan? When the metamorphosis is complete will I resemble someone from TOWIE? A couple of months ago, we were getting on the bus. Our son turned to me and said, "Dad, for a man your age, you have the most amazing posture." He's a ballet dancer in training. He knows all there is to know about posture. I ignore the bit about my age, and think about this comment. I imagine I am wearing it like a badge of pride. I'll have a t-shirt made. I'm nearly forty-five. I have "great posture". I'm so happy. "Who wants to live forever? I get untold satisfaction from the pleasures of the feast." - Templeton the Rat in Charlotte's Web. The Imaginary Machete
There will be two blogs this week ... probably. Both will tell a personal story. If this is not your thing, just fast forward to next week, when it will again be about boarding-schools and ballet, and the family left behind. I had a strange realisation this morning as I was doing my usual Monday flirtation with urban rush-hour traffic. He had been dropped off at school, ten minutes later than normal, but still in time for registration. The delay had been caused by a rant. I had been having an enjoyable rant and lost track of time. Then, on the way home I realised something about how I've been behaving over the last few months. I think that I've been acting as if stuck in a strange sort of Limbo - that place where unbaptised souls are sent, as they qualify neither for heaven nor hell. My own personal Limbo is suddenly finding myself to have both a missing father and an absent son; one lost to Alzheimer's and the other astray owing to his service to Classical Ballet (admittedly, he comes home at weekends). To be honest, I would not have chosen this for either of them. It just happened. This synchronicity would only happen in well plotted novels. I realised while driving home that I was presenting a version of myself to the world which fluctuated between joylessness - at its worse - and - at its best - a state of being broken-hearted. Not a great deal of fun for those around me, I imagine. I definitely have a feeling that even if something is not exactly broken, then something is certainly in need of repair. I'm not exhausted; but I am nearly always tired; I'm not depressed, but I am certainly teetering on the abyss of hopelessness. I'm still productive and I am writing a lot; but this is not my usual level of functioning. Although, some of what I'm writing is actually quite good. In my view, there is no happy face to Alzheimer's. Any suggestion to the contrary is deceitful sentimentality. Still Alice gets it about right. We know how the story ends, and our anticipation of this ending overwhelms any present moments of joy. There is little comic potential in someone getting lost, or putting the remote control in the freezer, or forgetting their grandchild's name, or no longer being able to ask when they need to use the bathroom. All I see is fear. All I smell is a lingering loss of dignity. Eventual failure is inevitable. I haven't lived in the same house as my dad for over twenty years, but I am now trying to reconcile the cruelty of his condition every day. Both my father and my son are on my mind all the time. For very different reasons, contacting both of them is difficult. It would perhaps be overdramatic to describe this process as a 'grieving'. Freud suggests that detaching is the primary step in the grieving process. The aim of this process is to return to 'normal functioning'. Detachment is just not an option when you are still required to be someone's dad - even when they do not live with you during the week; and it is certainly not possible when you are someone's son, but you are struggling to remember what he was once like as a father. All my efforts are spent trying to engage with how my dad is now, and I feel a failure. Unlike Heaven, Hell (and Purgatory, if you wish), those who find themselves in Limbo do not deserve to be there. It just happens. They have become cosmically stuck. But, Limbo is a jungle, not a desert. In a desert, effort is futile. Your feet sink in the baking sand - until the energy gradually drains from you, and you are either rescued, which is unlikely, or you die. Jungles require activity. I will thrash and splice with an imaginary machete - relentless and violent. The pathway I clear must be easy to find. I may be treading it again and again. Perhaps others will need to find the pathway also. I will try to move forward in a straight line. An earthly Limbo can't go on forever. Next time ... an unexpected transformation which happens to the Dad when the Son starts doing ballet. Sprinting
Half term is nearly here, and the last few weeks have passed by quickly. Routine seems to have accelerated time, and this somewhat unnatural boarding school procedure is developing into a bit of a habit. One of the reasons that it has gone by so quickly is the ease with which he now returns to school on a Monday - certainly when compared with the emotional effort it took at the beginning of term. He strolls into school on Monday mornings apparently without a care in the world, and his mood remains upbeat for the whole of the car journey. Owing to the bank holidays, he now has had a couple of weeks which consist of only four and a half school days rather than five and a half school. This makes a huge difference. The other terms seem to have dragged on endlessly; this summer term is skipping by with a lightness in its step. The dread and drudgery of the winter term is a distant memory. Those Monday mornings of setting off in the dark on the long solemn drive seem to have existed in a parallel universe. We were men condemned, hoping our short drive would not reach its inevitable end. These days the car journey is full of care-free chatter. We are no longer in a state of shock. It is not that life at school has got easier: the days are still long; he still only gets 45 minutes to himself all day; the ballet has become more demanding now that the expectations on them are higher; he still spends his days away from the support of his family. Nor has the pain become dulled. I am still aware of his absence everyday, and there are times when I wish that a child at boarding school was an just an idea or a suggestion rather than a very present reality. I painfully notice the empty chair at the dinner table. I still miss him, and I imagine that he still misses us, sometimes. The big difference that the summer term offers that none of the other terms afford is a clear overview. This term presents us with five weeks - some shorter than normal - followed by a week off, and then five more weeks culminating in a couple of big performances. The end is in sight and getting there is manageable. This seems like the time for a horse-racing image: we have nearly reached the final furlong, and the last reserves of energy may now be used up in the sprint to the finish. We have promised him two summer months of being 'normal' and only as much reminding of the ballet world as he feel he can deal with. Next academic year will be different. He will be able to manage his expectations with the benefit of hindsight - one week at a time, and the new year sevens will have arrived; he will no longer be the youngest child in the school. We'll all cope with the situation differently. A week ago I woke up - like many others - feeling disillusioned, angry and sick. We enjoy a good election in our house, and this one was no exception. The build-up prompted some healthy discussion, even if we observed that the campaigns might have been driven more by policy rather than personality, and we settled into the twenty-four hour period of voting and counting, analysis and results with hope and anticipation. It seems foolish now to have believed in the Conservative majority decreasing rather than increasing. At best I was expecting a Labour / SNP coalition, at worse I was expecting a hung parliament and another election in eighteen months. I suppose that anyone who has been figuratively or literally hit by a train claims that they didn't see it coming.
Apparently debate was also rife at the ballet school. A speaker had been engaged from the House of Lords - he couldn't remember her name, but it began with 'Baroness'. They had had a mock vote, and despite the hard work of an eleven-year-old fighting for the arts, the Conservative Party had won; an unsurprising result, but apparently, a surprisingly narrow margin. My first thought in the early hours of Friday morning was 'it's a catastrophe beyond imagining'. My second thought was, 'what do I tell our son?' We've brought our children up free from religion, but with a strong moral belief - be kind, and, be inclusive. We have simplified the right / left divide as 'there are those who believe in making individual wealth a priority, and there are those who believe that supporting communities is a priority.' Perhaps we oversimplify the matter. We have also taught them to make up their own minds. They can vote for whichever party they feel supports the epithet: be kind and be inclusive. We've also made it clear that if they vote Tory, they have to find somewhere else to live. (That last one is a joke!) I only get to see him for a day and a half, so I didn't want the political state of the country to impact too heavily on family time. He said he was 'disappointed' and a 'bit upset', and then asked how I was coping. I echoed his sentiments rather than explaining that I was trying to deal with uncontainable rage and the paralysis of sadness. I felt like the dad who encourages his son to support a really crap football team; destined to a life of misery until the deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates buys the club and invests in better players. The fortunes of Manchester City Football Club, are not going to be repeated for the Labour Party. So, I'm left with the remorse of having brought my children up to support a potentially really crap team. It is the realisation that hurts the most - thirty-seven percent of this country do not seem to believe in either inclusivity or kindness. They support a party that advocates twelve billion in welfare cuts while raising the 40% tax threshold for the wealthy, and eliminating inheritance tax for estates under a million. Day-centres will close, provision for the vulnerable will become more scarce, families will lose their homes if they dare to have a spare bedroom. People are being made homeless while businesses are being given 'the most competitive taxes of any major economy'. Against this paradoxical and hypocritical backdrop of austerity, we have a son whose dreams are not to be a banker, lawyer or GP. His vocation is to dance in classical ballet, and his training depends on a huge grant from the Department of Education. 'The time is out of joint. O cursed Spite.' What do we tell him? We explain that nearly thirty-one percent of the electorate believe as we do. (Add an additional five percent of SNP voters, if you wish.) And, next time we will be better organised. Meanwhile, we will fight. We'll fight for the NHS, and the Human Rights Act. We'll give a voice to those who are made to live on society's periphery through no fault of their own. We'll support the arts - theatre, dance, film and music - because we believe it essentially feeds our soul even though it doesn't make money. We won't demonise those whose opinions we disagree with, and even though they are in power, we'll remain respectful and dignified. And as his father, it's my job to reassure him that as he grows up, there are many others who also believe, deep in their hearts, in being inclusive and kind. A New Level of Understanding
I have hardly left the house for four days. It is not flippancy to say that I fear the onset of some kind of agoraphobic state of mind. I've been travelling for work again, and arrived back late last week. I'm prevented by professional constraints from telling you exactly where I was, but I spent five days last week in a very different environment from where I sit, typing. Now, the window is open, the sun is shining and a cool breeze is enabling the flow of thoughts inside my head. I've come back from a place where some of the conditions that we in the West perceive as freedoms are not available: choosing how to dress; who to socialise with; where to socialise; expressing opinions; having a vote. The work had its rewards, and yet I am depleted. I am aware of the reason. For five solid days, I had little or no time to myself. Our hosts were gracious and kind, but perhaps a little worried of the mischief we might cause in such an unfamiliar environment. They filled all our available spare time with a visit or event. I am of course grateful to have been so well looked after, and return with a sense of the warmth of human spirit that can be extended across cultural boundaries. However, I spent a relentless five days with people whom I had no choice but to spend time with. Incidentally, I tried to break free - a forty minute walk, but in the heat, and with no pavements, it meant that I got nowhere. This is not a reflection of the personalities involved, all of whom display a plethora of merits. I am aware that I am not the easiest person to spend time with. Undermining, capricious and sardonic are some of my least attractive qualities. Being glued together for the equivalent of a working week took me through a range of responses which culminated in an extreme sense of restriction: a skull clamping, chest tightening, enervating sensation. I began to question my most basic responses. In nearly all non-work related situations, I began to view myself as a bit of an idiot: trivial, unfunny and banal. If this was my own impression of myself, I can't imagine what it must have been like for those around me. As I sit at home in silence, and my personality again dares to unfurl, I gain a new level of understanding. This is what it is like for our son at ballet school. This is why he comes home at weekends and wishes to spend time at home, or walking no further than the area he grew up in as a small child. There is a need for him to reassert who he is and where he came from. As I have discovered, when private responses are always assessed publicly, it leaves you with nowhere to go and and a profound need to hide. It can sometimes feel like an assault, the only barricade is a fixed false smile. An inner scream concealed by The Joker's grin. There is doubtless great love and care at his school, but this is compensation for having to be the best version of your public self during every waking moment, surrounded at all times by scores of other children. At the weekend, I looked at our son with a new admiration for his strength and determination. I was and warmer father, and gave him more space. Today I have an empty diary and an open window besides which to recover. He is back in the ballet studio, and tonight he'll be sharing a room with eleven other boys. The Price
There is always a price to be paid. This is a lesson which is often not heeded no matter how many times we acknowledge that there is no such thing as a free lunch. I am, of course, not simply referring to the financial. Our son loves Ballet. When asked if there is anything he prefers to do, he resolutely replies that there isn't. In order to pursue this every day, he is has to go to boarding school and survive without the daily parental support that eleven year olds hopefully enjoy. As you know, I hardly worked last week, and we had an idyllic week in which we achieved a balance between activity and rest. I really enjoyed myself. I felt happy and fulfilled. Life was good. But we all knew what was lying ahead. A price would soon have to be paid. But, something unexpected has happened. I was upset when I dropped him off on Monday morning, and there were a few tears as I drove back, but the stabbing pain was surprisingly absent. I would even say that I felt a degree of nostalgia for it. A familiar old friend was missing. Something was amiss, clearly. This is the third term of his first year, and so the third time that I have now left him after a long holiday. I have also now dropped him off after a weekend nearly twenty times. The result of all this practice is that the image in my head has changed. The mental picture of abandoning him to the hardships of a Dickensian workhouse seems less vivid. The image is no longer in painfully sharp high-definition. It is not even that of a black and white television; it has pixilated as if processed with the computing power of a ZX Spectrum. It now feels as if I am taking him to his school: a place where he is now experiencing a sense of belonging. He is beginning to fit in, and this is image of a happiness at school is replacing the old images: queues for gruel, canes, gowns and mortarboards, weeping waifs and austere school masters - none of which are true. He is still missing from my daily life, and I would rather he were here with us; but the sore is no longer so inflamed, nor requiring my constant attention. I feel a great deal less bereft. There are figures of speech that we use to describe being overwhelmed, and the all seem to use the idea of 'keeping'; 'a grip', 'a hold', 'a perspective', 'a sense of proportion', 'it all together'. It is clear to me how much energy this activity cost during the first two terms; focus, resolve and industry were all expended - such was the mental effort required to just 'keep going'. My suspicion is that there will still be a price this term, but it will be different. During the Easter holiday, this blog seemed redundant. While we were all together, I couldn't imagine what I would want to write about. The urge had passed. Now that the term has started, my head is again full of things that I want to say. Writing it again feels like the most natural and obvious way of coping. It is my way of communicating to him, and anyone else who might find it interesting, and it is also my way of mulling over a very personal set of accounts; a way of calculating the price. A luxury afforded
Many schools - the ballet school included - have delayed returning by a week following the Easter break. The five-year old is taking this very badly. We struggle to get her to school in the morning when she knows that her brother has another day off. I sympathise. I decided to make only a few work commitments for this week, so that we would have the rare luxury of time spent together. I acknowledge that this is somewhat indulgent, but it was a relatively straight-forward thing to do; I simply scheduled everything for the following week. From then on, I'm going to be busy. The weather has erratically decided to skip spring and jump straight to summer, so I am now congratulating myself at having a week free of any commitments. I am basking. This week is an attempt to bank up time. From next week, contact with our son will again be restricted to a 15 minute daily Skype conversation, and only a day and a half at the weekends, so it makes sense to spend some time with him now ... while we can. We are mixing up this time with the ordinary and the hedonistic - both that are scarce during term time. I am tempted to feel guilty; this is a luxury that I can hardly afford. However, I have made a commitment, and I am going to follow this through. On the first day of this sunny extra week, we draw the curtains and watch Guardians of the Galaxy: gags and action; or inter-textuality and irony. We laugh a lot. Ballet is a universe away. On another day we eat go out for lunch - Indian Food. On the final day, we shop for Lego; he's been sitting on some Christmas money for a few months. These are all activities that would normally not be possible or pleasurable, but this week we are exploiting the five year old's obligatory attendance at school. We are always back in time to pick her up, and the two of them run around in one of our local playgrounds with me and the dog circling the perimeter fence - the dog whining and wondering why she can't join them on the climbing frame. Over the holidays, our son has read whatever he wants to read, and watched whatever has appealed to him. He has met up with friends from his old primary school. We've visited family and even managed to cram in a bit of a holiday - a weekend of windy beaches and remote woods. This extra week is the proverbial icing on a figurative cake - or an extra curtain-call if we shift to a ballet image. We also work hard to get everything ready. He repacks all the bags himself, and in doing so unearths a whole load of laundry that wasn't located two weeks ago when, with a self-congratulatory smirk, I thought I had finished all the washing on the first day of the holiday. So, in this last week, ballet shoes have been sewn, hair-cuts achieved, shirts have been ironed, and ballet socks counted. This has been a team effort, and we have everything finished easily by early on the final Sunday morning. There will be no last minute panic. We have picked at the preparation consistently over the week, and not let any of it eclipse a single day of fun. This is a new and mindful approach to the dreaded and tedious task which announces his return to term-time absence. We seem to be learning. We seem - collectively - to be growing up. A time will come when, for him, the compensation for a term at boarding school does not involve a week of activities with his parents for company. Adolescence will bring its necessary detachment and awkwardness. And when he no longer wants to do things with us, that will be fine. I'll turn my attention to something else. But for now, this feels right. |
Anonymous
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