Unexpected layers of emotion

Our seventh Ilkley-versary, dropping the middle child off in Cardiff and dad's ninth anniversary. It's been an interesting week or so round these parts. Bring on October.

Seven years of walking on the moor and breathing in (and out) views like this one from behind White Wells Spa across the Ilkley rooftops to north Yorkshire

How are you faring as we slide into October?

It’s not just me is it, but September hasn’t felt like its usual self. It’s felt heavy, intense and more than once I’ve found myself wishing the month away or rather, looking to a time when once one thing or another is done I’ll be able to relax into a gentle rhythm or routine that’s remaining stubbornly elusive.

Knitting, stitching and wrestling the words together

I went to listen to Kate Atkinson at the Ilkley Literature Festival the other week and was nodding along when she talked about writing being a physical act what with all the knitting and stitching of words together, wrestling them into some sort of shape. It’s always heartening to hear another writer, especially one of Atkinson’s pedigree and publishing success, use the same words to describe her writing process as so many of us do.

There’s the mental and emotional act of writing and there’s the physical writing, the picking up that pencil, the sound it makes as you move it across the page and the dent it makes in your finger. Or the bandaged wrist as in Kate Atkinson’s case, the result of years of typing her words into typewriters and now computers.

It feels faintly ridiculous to talk of writing as this physical act but what she said made sense and might do to you if you’re a scribbler too, it’s certainly felt true to me this week.

Forgotten anniversaries and unexpected emotions

The return to Cardiff, where my parents lived for the last 14 years of their lives last weekend to deliver middle child for Fresher’s Week has, if I’m being completely honest, unsettled me in a way that I hadn’t anticipated.

We ended up driving past the hospital where dad died on our way to halls and passed the hospice where mum died when we made our way to my sister and brother in law’s home where we were spending the night.

A few days ago my son was walking through Roath Park and sending me photos along the way. The same lake that dad’s care home overlooked and where Andy and I sat quietly ahead of meeting my siblings and dad before mum’s funeral. This was the park where mum and I would take the children to let off steam during one of our regular visits when we lived in Bath.

He’s walked along the end of their road and taken a photo of the road sign but it looks odd. It’s been nine years since they died and despite sitting here for a few hours knowing that it’s the last day of September, it’s only as I type this that I remember that it’s also dad’s anniversary today.

The date of his death seems to quietly pass me by, much in the same way he’d sit quietly in his armchair facing the TV. Black coffee, the remote and a stack of hardback books and newspapers to the side, while conversation usually led by mum, went on behind him in the kitchen and around the dining table.

What are the feelings that these memories trigger?

I can’t quite explain the feelings that these places trigger. They’re weirdly familiar, sparking a dog-eared photo album of memories but there’s a not-familiar feeling too. I remember theses buildings and streets. I remember their names and can pick them out on Google Maps but I can’t put myself or picture my parents there anymore, even with photos to help me.

Mum and dad no longer exist there and when I do think of them I see them somewhere else and not one place either, but more a collage of different homes, towns, cities and landscapes with a cast of different people depending on what’s triggered thoughts of them. It’s strange.

I haven’t been back to their corner of Cardiff since we cleared their home in December 2015 and I think I’m looking forward to my son imprinting his own footsteps on these pavements. His decision to go to Cardiff wasn’t unconnected with his early childhood memories of the city and there’s the draw of home cooking at my sister and brother-in-law’s home too. Him sending me those photos is also a timely reminder for me that my children have their memories of mum and dad, and feel their absence too.

These were the layers of emotion I hadn’t anticipated when planning the weekend which feels daft. It’s not like I didn’t know we’d be in the area but I guess my focus was elsewhere, and it was nine years ago. Life has moved on without them, and I guess that’s the other thing.

I carry a real sense of frustration and sadness that they’re not here to share all of this. I can picture mum embarrassingly punching the air at middle child choosing to study a creative subject, telling anyone and everyone who’d listen, and dad? Well he’d be all, ‘Oooh, super, well done’ head nodding, hands clasped as if in prayer.

Mum, the queen of tenuous connections and conversation

It’s maybe not surprising that Sunday and Mondays’ shifts at work were harder to get through than I thought they’d be, but by Friday the torrential rain had cleared (albeit temporarily) and my Thursday afternoon of binge watching Nobody Wants This had put me back on more of an even keel.

(A couple of afternoons a week I work in Oliver Bonas, a UK lifestyle shop selling clothes, accessories, jewellery and homeware, it’s the ultimate gift shop).

Enough of an even keel to thoroughly enjoy a conversation-heavy Friday afternoon shift. It isn’t always this way, the mood in the store can shift with the weather but on Friday customers seemed energised by the chill air and bright blue sky outside and I guess end of the month payday didn’t hurt either.

I met a woman buying a dress for her son’s wedding in October. Her third time as mother of the bride, she twirled in the dresses she’d pulled of the rail and to ‘oohs, aahs’ and ‘You look fabulous’ smiled and simply said, ‘Thank you, but let’s be honest no one’s going to be looking at me. I just want to feel comfortable. And I can wear this dress again.’

Then there was the pale woman, all tired eyes who leaning on the counter asked if she could use her Student Beans discount card. She wanted to make the most of it before it ran out having just finished an Open University degree. ‘That’s fantastic, huge congratulations.’ I said and she replied, ‘It’s been shit. I mean yes, it’s great that I’ve finished but never again. Working full-time and doing a degree is hard. I’m exhausted.’

I worried that buying this birthday card might just tip her over the edge and sometimes platitudes and words aren’t needed. A simple nod of understanding is enough. We did agree though that it's ok, in fact it’s more than ok to call things out when they’re crap, even if the thing you’re talking about is a ’good thing’.

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Swapping the notebook for the shopfloor

The conversational dance

Learning to breathe into the quiet moments

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I was also happy to save a woman who was attempting to try on clothes with her toddler in tow who, with my hand poised to pull the curtain across the changing room, yelled, ‘I need a wee’. I think we were all mightily relieved (in every sense) when I said she could use our staff toilets. When a toddler needs to go, they need to go…

I also had the loveliest chat with a woman I spied taking photos of our black shirts. She explained that her daughter needed black clothes for work because she was a conductor. My ears pricked up and it transpired (because I’m nosey) that the daughter is the conductor of an orchestra in Cardiff and also, it transpires, works at the Welsh National Opera where my sister plays the viola in the orchestra.

We had the loveliest of chats, me and this woman I’d never met before, and in a phone call later my sister told me that not only does she know this woman’s daughter but that she’d been chatting to her earlier in the week. What’s that about a small world?

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A shift full of conversations. Tiny moments where people grant us a glimpse into their lives. Brief moments, sometimes unexpectedly revealing and a lot of the time, fun and entertaining. The changing room curtain lends itself to the confessional nature of these exchanges and I love it.

I always think of mum after a shift like this. She really was the queen of conversations. She used to work in a children’s toy shop when she and dad moved to Cardiff and I can well imagine her chatting away in there. Her ability to winkle out the most tenuous of connections and use it to open up a conversation was legendary. I’m still an apprentice, but love that I had such a bloody good teacher for so many years.

Hoping blissful ignorance will see me through

In quiet moments on the shop floor talk has already turned to ‘peak’ season, that period from Black Friday through to the January sales.

I wonder out loud to a colleague if I might be feeling more nervous about  the queues, the sea of faces and barely concealed panic as the weekend’s tick down to Christmas because I’ll know what’s coming.

Last year I didn’t have a clue what I was letting myself in for and figured this blissful ignorance would see me through the eight weeks I’d committed myself to. I’d been taken on as a ‘seasonal worker’ but I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, joking that I was going to just keep coming back even when my contract ended.

When I was offered a permanent role I didn’t miss a beat, ‘Yes please!’ My shifts mostly start at midday and I still love wandering down the hill into town, walking past the sixth formers leaving school for lunch quickening my pace so that I can get into Tesco to pick up snacks for the shift before before the swarms of teens get there.

I love that the team changes with each shift bringing a different energy and conversation too - in a good way. Conversations with my colleagues - different ages, life stages and interests - jolt me out of my world as much as the conversations with the customers. And yes, I’m pretty partial to the products too.

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My words in print

Before I go I’ll just share the link to the London Writers Salon 2024 anthology, the ebook edition and (badly taken) photos of the hardback edition that landed on my doormat this morning. This is the anthology I mentioned last time round, fifty writers from the London Writers Salon community celebrating writing in community. I’m thrilled to have been included.

Next weekend I’ll be in Italy, a long overdue, much anticipated weekend with two friends in a small town just outside Genoa. A weekend of talking, listening, laughing, reading, eating and drinking. And views, lord knows I love a view especially if it involves the sea.

Thanks, as ever, for reading, liking and commenting. It really does make my day!
Harriet

PS Please forgive any typos or editing mishaps, I’ve gone word blind and I’m convinced that I’ll spot a howler as soon as I hit send but wanted to get this out before I lose my nerve