Soft Edges

Partly to just get warm I’ve gone back to using a sauna. Age and the fuel crisis makes me purposeful in my reparation at the warm hub of my local swimming pool. For years I was motivated to gym by the unrealised promise of slimness, replaced now by a much more vital reason of staying alive long enough to see my son through school. It no longer feels like a luxury.

Since I can now sleep standing up the second I lay down in a warm box I fell asleep and dreamed a feeling of my teenage years. Despite my dreams going mute since the pandemic, I had a vivid memory of being young and kissing a moody dark haired boy. Fearful. Fireworks. A cameo set on repeat throughout my adult life minus the hopes of saving someone or being gratefully loved. Butterflies replaced by the effects of longterm cortisol highs. The warm dark space of the sauna releasing a ghost sensation of being soft and lovely.

I was going to write a piece for women’s day about inequalities and bullying at work. The kind of dystopia lite you come here for. The sharp edges of my trade that have come into their own as we all feel the disorientation of crisis. But something gets lost in my critique, a part of me that isn’t all elbows and teeth.

One of the paradoxes of the pandemic is how so many women feel they have failed at precisely the time when we are doing things of such immense beauty. Watching the data roll in year after Covid-laden year about women’s job loss combined with widening inequalities and the growth of the allied crafts of victimisation and bullying, my edges have become sharp. I no longer watch satire or love stories because it feels like someone is casually scraping nails down a board. I live the crisis in all its painful detail, no shits or giggles.

At my most self-pitying I wonder at the shame I carry of how ugly I have become in my desperation to survive. It means I no longer feel safe to visit the exquisite-sanctuaries of my past. The jewellery section of Liberty of London or the Burford Garden Centre now feel like I’m a peasant popping over to Versailles with a rock in her pocket. A Tenko moment of looking through the window at a red lipstick I could never afford but then realising when its within one window breaking grasp I’ve lost the point to any beautification.

I guess you could say that it’s a small sign of self-respect that I’ve started to look for my missing parts in an attempt to piece together a recovery. That the act of resting and letting my mind daydream about another more pleasurable state is a sign that I cannot accept the awful waste of right now. The waste of a precious life by missing out on my recovery.

In the gentle words of Michael Rosen in Getting Better

I’m a traveller who reached

the Land of the Dead

I broke the rule that said I had to stay.

I crossed back over the water,

I dodged the guard dog,

I came out

I’ve returned

I wander about

I left some things down there

It took bits of me prisoner;

an ear and an eye.

They’re waiting for me to come back.

The ear is listening.

The eye is the lookout.

So on this women’s day I wanted to celebrate the women who are way ahead on the recovery front line. The women who have not been defeated by busy and are carving a way forward through radical strategies of rest.

For M a working class woman and political activist who very recently had the diagnosis of Long Covid she needed to be told to take six months off work. To get the support she needs to heal rather than getting active on our behalf. I cried when I got her text saying she feels she’s had permission to rest.

To J who always inspires me with her love of the universe, from single parenting to mad studies I delight in knowing you.

To the feminist women who actually help other women at work. For U who with her unrivalled political gut called C, T and me to write something of substance about bullying in the academy. For C, M and R who have created a safe space for progressive work on the menopause and invited me in just to be nice.

My dear J who overcame cancer during a pandemic. Who swims and does yoga gently and with no judgement of her changed body.

My beloved S who has stepped out of a labyrinth and is now guiding her sons into a better model of manhood. Carving through the damage to a future as a re-imagined self-confident mother. To A another mother who never hesitates to pick up the parenting of her adult child, even when it means walking towards their anger. To their sister E who leaps to what can be done on their behalf. Between us we saved someone. It’s now their call.

My comrade C who carries the dystopian load for loads of us who has become tired and is taking a step back.

My precious C who continues to play the game and earn the money needed to keep our show on the road. She was the person my son called to sort out his mother’s day present. Being four he has no hard cash so he called her to ask she send a box with something pink, smells like flowers and covered in glitter. She was genuinely honoured to be charged with the task. She was the first person in my life to understand the need to celebrate things of beauty, including me.

To my M, who quietly defended her daughters at a very high price without the bunting and banners that she deserved. From the bottom of my heart, thank you M. Please rest and spend more time baking banana cake with J.

This women’s day I am gifting to myself the permission to rest. And to re-establish my soft edges.

I wish the same for you.

#womensday #IWD2023