Driving Test

This time last week, I had just completed my first ever driving test... and passed. Which was a complete surprise because the lesson before, I had almost crashed into multiple cars, a bus and gone the wrong way countless times (lets just say I was a little stressed). But here I am. With a license.

My instructor (who is amazing and highly recommend Bill Plant driving school if anyone is interested) calmly asked for me to pull the car aside just before I was about to enter the test gates, where turning back was not possible - unless my manoeuvre was turn in the road - and told me "now, you will be on an adrenaline rush for the first five minutes so just try to relax" etc.

Now, either he was lying to spare my terror, or I am the embodiment of anxiety itself, as for the whole test, my leg was lightly quivering on the cutch and my eyes resembled that of a startled bunny.

Manoeuvres were always mediocre for me: I could do all of them, usually first go, until a couple of weeks before the test, where I had a spell of not being able to do anything. It was as if I had barely driven in a car; even my instructor was a bit bemused. Luckily, the lesson before my test (to get to the area and practice one last time) I managed to do everything well - bay park, reverse around the corner, three-point turn - except my nemesis: the parallel park. One moment too early and you are too far away from the curb; one moment too late and - in my case - have not only gone up the curb but careered into several pedestrians and into the front of some poor old lady's living room in panic. As long as I did not come across that, it would it be fine. Anyway, plenty of my friends had got three-point turns and all chuckled contently that they had never heard of anyone who had got a parallel park...

The examiner asked me to pull over the the left "in a safe area" and then announced I was going to perform a manoeuvre. We were only a couple of minutes into the test and already my pass/fail boundary was shrinking, as if I were walking along it, like a tightrope.

"I would like you to do the parallel park, whenever you are ready."

I almost laughed: well, that's it, may as well step out of the car now, because it is probably all over.

I still don't know how I did it, but I actually did one of the best parallel parks of my life and was so elated, I barely remember the rest of the test (other than trying to go around a wide lorry which had conveniently decided to take up a lane and a half while parking on the road). It was only as I swung around the corner back to the test centre did my already racing heart jolt with the prospect that maybe, just maybe: "you have passed." I literally threw my hand to my chest and breathed for the first time in forty minutes. I had passed. I had actually done it.

So, if you see a slightly wide-eyed driver and a parent with as much shock on their face as an amateur ghost-hunter, hello it is me, and I am on the road!

Watch out everyone - I was born to drive (clearly)

Roses under the Skin

Placing the blade of the knife across my soft palm, I drag the metal along the skin: the tissue parts like peeling freshly-glued papers apart, and then a second later, venetian red roses bloom, swell, overflow. My eyes avert towards the mirror in the hallway and I stride towards it, palm held upwards as the blood dribbles down my wrist.

Staring at myself, I watch my pupils dilate in the new light. My hand is darker in its reflection, now clotting like gritty wine. The skin around my eyes does not wince in defiance against the assault; they cushion inside the dips of cheekbones, asleep. Nothing registers the wound, mending itself peacefully.

Angled under the kitchen windowsill, the serration of the knife highlights the slither of blood straggled in its roughness: an accomplice to the unheard torment.

Beginning to shrivel back into the startled skin, I pinch together the incision with the fingers on my other hand, producing more delicate flowers to expand in mahogany shades. The skin around it is not subtle but worn, as if swiped with sandpaper and left out in the sun. How deceitful the body can be.

I have never taken a knife towards my self: I could not envisage the appeal. Even now, there is no surge in the capillaries, or a twitch under the scalp. The wall under the mirror exhibits a thin stain of what hours ago seeped out of the hand now cupped on my knee: the only affirmation of the act, after the knife cradled into the washing machine rack. An absence of muscle memory, of squinting pain, sharp words firing out of the throat. Now, where could they have got to?

A response to imagining 'a world without pain'.

The Sadness of Youth - poem

‘Live your life

Be light and free

You only live once

Be who you want to be’

Do you understand

The strain, the demand you place?

Between our pained shoulder blades

Pushing, pressing closer to the desk

We pray will get us good grades

How can I experience life

Locked away in a walk-in prison?

A vision of freedom reserved for two months in summer

This ideal, a division between two lives:

For the short term; for the long term

Will it all be worth it

Scuttling past with books and emptiness?

Because of depressive revision and ‘I must be healthy’

To appear petite, amongst the mountain of worry

And tears and anxiety and heart tremors

When will I be free?

Is it all a lie, whispered by those who did not care?

Do I dare to follow them?

Or should I stay in this worn-away chair?

Waiting to live

A poem I wrote, sifting through the hundreds of cue cards of information I have to regurgitate for the exams in two months.

Ballet Problems

I do not profess to be a world-famous ballerina, fit to be on top of a frosted stage, adorned with silken bows and twelve-plus hours of gruelling pain every day just to be there. But, I have been dancing this Italian-rooted art since the age of five and, although it is simply for hobby purposes, I have discovered that it is not all dance: ballet is fraught with (probably basic and easily solvable) problems:

1.  The trend of bodysuits has not crept but flung itself onto the shopping shelves, and this was swiftly followed by the continuous comments of “isn’t it so annoying when you need a wee and you’re wearing a bodysuit?” “Ugh, being drunk in a bodysuit is the WORST!” “BODYSUIT PROBLEMS!” Those of us who have been a ballet participant have struggled with this problem for a lot longer than this imposter trend: needing the bathroom in class was your ultimate fear (unless your teacher was a literal witch, in which case you had two ultimate fears), and when you got to higher grades, it got worse because you didn’t just have the leotard to contend with but tights too. And, we never had the luxury of poppers either, so just about everything had to come off.

2.  While on the subject of leotards, it did not occur to me when arriving to and exiting ballet, wearing a leotard and tights in public is not really acceptable. (Well, not in the town I live in, where old people sip tea in every window of every coffee shop, and clusters of children skip by to a multitude of primary schools.) But, living the lazy life I do, putting something over your leotard is just too much effort. Especially when all you have to do is jump out of the car, take a few steps, and open the door into our ballet rooms. “There are some bad people out there,” I remember one of my teachers warning us, but this usually is not enough for my lazy self not to grab a cardigan that just covers my body from the bannister and twirl out of the door.

3.   From worshipping Angelina Ballerina, I had always assumed that ballet shoes twined all the way up to mid-calf, delicately trailing to the floor, like a silken ribbon of whipped meringue fluff. Well, for a start, I did not get ribboned shoes until I was in Grade 5 and then I learnt that the ribbons tie in a complex foot-supporting wrap just above your ankle bone. When you least expected it, mid pirouette, the ribbon (which your mum would have undoubtedly sewn, trying to stick within the strict guidelines of the tiny shoe manual) would come lose at the seam, your shoe strewn into the corner of the room. And do not even get me started on the fraying…

4.   Ballet buns. Once again, a complete trend and, I understand, they are great for keeping pesky hairs from your eyes (while looking chic – I hope). However, when you have grown up with – and still display – a fringe, the whole process becomes more complicated: ballet now a-days, I let it be free to bop about on my forehead; the teacher in the grades before, however, would expect no such thing. So, into the mountainous box of clips my hand would delve into, until my head resembled a porcupine covered in hairspray (and superglue). Although dancing with your hair up is so much easier, if you have ever experienced any kind of hair layering, you will understand the weekly struggle of trying to perfect this snail shell on your head.

 5.    Pointe pain. We can all agree nothing hurts more than your toes being squashed into a hard brick of glue.

Pointe through the pain

But, twelve years on, and ballet is still one of my favourite hobbies, and the one I have kept up for the longest. So, it is not all bad – unless your teacher is the literal reincarnation of a witch (trust me, most of us have had one) – and the perks of people’s raised eyebrows in interest and amazement is definitely worth any struggles. Except 'assemblés': they need to go.

Shadow - a poem

A sonnet from a shadow who could do nothing to stop life cutting their creator’s into two.

  

Curling fingers around a teddy bear

Peering at the world, all vibrant and new.

Breath cool under skin; twittering coos

Swirl into ears, behind fluffy blonde hair.

Gaily toe-tipping as far as she dares

(Palm-sized feet velcroed into little shoes,

Tutu dress adorned with food-splattered zoos)

Towards the precipice of life’s square.

Clutching talons around a cigarette

The Earth crudely paved over and spun grey.

Inhaling monochrome; heavy and wet

Like concrete, matting clumps of hair like clay.

Lost a first-promising life like a bet

Now just a strand of straw among the hay.

My Obsession

Some people may have a compulsion to drink excessively, or become addicted to tattoos, or hoard milk bottle tops. The obsession I have developed is hidden in an overflowing drawer, its actual extent unbeknownst except for me. And, this was really highlighted when I decided to take action.

I collect funky socks.

In later years of primary school, I noticed my cousin wore the coolest socks, adorned with little characters and squiggly hatchings and vibrant colours. After I had commented on them, I received some for my birthday, then Christmas, then for more birthdays and more Christmases, all the while buying pairs I saw while out shopping myself. Soon, the bottom drawer of my cabinet could not be physically shut, until you pushed all the socks as far back as you could: it was as if they were attempting an escape, trying to be noticed enough to be worn that day, so they could feel the texture of the floor and be laced into shoes.

Most days if I wear trousers to school, someone will comment on my socks (or ask to see them). And, this is in no way an arrogance: it is simply because they are so bright, or swarming with little stitched animals that your eyes cannot help but be hypnotised by them. Bee socks, cow socks, Christmas socks, popcorn pop socks, neon pink socks, little frilly-edged socks, stripy socks, spotty socks. There is no place for boring off-white foot-slugs, accompanied with the little toe poking out. Basically, if you need a pair of socks to match your outfit, I can sort you out like a dodgy dealer with a rainbow of pocket-watches on the inside of their coat.

I have even converted others to never wanting to touch their over-washed black socks again: my Nanny was ecstatic with her (compatibly muted, but still patterned and acceptably funky) socks we bought her last year, and she admitted that selecting a pair for an outfit has never been so fun.

I actually did not realise just how many of these little rays of sunshine I owned until I decided to have a ‘sock purge’ last weekend. (Admittedly, this was because I wanted to buy some more and I was actually struggling to shut the sock drawer at this point.) I pulled them all out into a massive pile and began trawling through those with worn-away patches, bobbly toes and a crispy texture from being washed a little too much.

I managed to discard forty pairs of socks. Forty.

And I still own what most people would describe as too many!

My mum even bought me a drawer divider, so I could organise my ‘keeping pile’ into identifiable categories: no more hunting through a jungle of psychedelic colours and odd socks.

This mild obsession is not dangerous to my health (unless I fell into the drawer and suffocated under the socks’ weight) and, in fact, most of them have been presents: last Christmas, I received eight new pairs from family and friends (you know me too well). However, I have come to the conclusion that I will continue my pursuit to find the funkiest, coolest, loudest socks the shops have to offer: they actually make me feel happier, looking down at the sausage dogs in berets and jumpers, running around plum cotton. Also, they make others smile: one look at the slightly stretched pug face poking out from under my jeans almost always brings about a small commotion of happiness. And because of this, I think we all need a few funky socks in our lives.