Uncategorized – Falling Awake to Life – Through Story, Myth and Mindfulness

Election Day Fairy Tale – The happy princess

The Happy Princess : A Fairy Tale with a Twist – By Susie Stead

Once upon a time a long time ago, there lived a king and queen of a great kingdom. They had one daughter. Like any parent, they wanted their child to be happy and to protect her from suffering but unlike most parents this couple had the power and the money to achieve their aim.

Their castle, sitting on the crest of long low hill was huge and beautifully crafted. There were rooms for the winter with great fireplaces and walls hung with gorgeous tapestries. The summer rooms were full of light with delicate curtains fluttering in the breeze. The grounds were vast with a fabulous array of gardens: formal and informal, some with mazes, others rippling with pools and delightful bridges. There were spots of woodland and pleasant copses for picnics. Wildlife was carefully monitored and the princess enjoyed the pleasures of a wide array of pets from rabbits, puppies and ponies to more unusual pets that visiting royalty brought as gifts.

The King and Queen had a huge wall built around these grounds and their daughter grew up within this enclosure, surrounded by beauty. Servants and visitors were carefully screened and required to be happy and positive in her presence at all times. Any sickness or death was hidden from her. The word ‘death’ was hidden from her. When a pet became old or ill, it was put in a pretty carriage driven by a coachman in a silk top hat and two frisky ponies at the front. The princess would feed her pet its favourite treat and wave it off, secure in the knowledge that it was being taken to a very special home where all its friends were waiting for it. Another delightful pet would appear in its place.

The Princess was blissfully happy.

As she grew older, inevitably she grew more curious as to what was beyond the wall. That curiosity grew into a somewhat irritable obsession. This was not acceptable to her parents so with strict instructions, she was taken out into the streets in the coach. The coachman tried to keep her within the area that her parents had required but the princess simply stepped out of the coach and ran off laughing. What she found down the lanes of that town stifled her laugh. Skinny smelly children, women holding babies and begging from shop keepers, people wandering about in a strange assortment of old clothes talking nonsense, others with strange lumps and bumps on their bodies or missing limbs altogether. There were people arguing or walking under heavy loads with bitter tiredness on their faces. When they saw her, they stared and then quickly moved off when they saw the coachman running up towards her. The suffering she saw there overwhelmed her and she let the coachman lead her back to the carriage and back to her home.

Once she had time to recover from the shock, the princess knew what she must do. She told her parents she wanted to make it all better, she wanted all those people to be happy. Her parents tried to tell her that these people were used to their way of life, they were mostly lazy or brutalised and would not appreciate her warm and caring heart. However, to please her they gave her a generous allowance which she spent on the poor. The poor were very grateful.

However, there came a day when an arthritic old man refused her gift of a thick warm coat. She’d never been refused before and became quite agitated. She wanted him to be warm and happy, why was he refusing this? As she argued, he stood watching her in silence. An elderly woman passing by muttered, ‘Don’t, it will do no good’ but the old man made a different choice. He decided to tell her the real problem; her parents. It was they who were the main employers in the area. They paid low wages and charged high taxes. They owned all the properties and when people could not pay the rent, they were made homeless. Perhaps if she could speak to her parents, they might make changes that would make a real difference. The princess felt a welling up of feelings that she didn’t recognise. She was angry and upset, hurt and very, very unhappy. She found the coachman and asked him to drive her home.

Once she had time to recover from the shock, the princess knew what she must do. She told her parents about the old man and his accusation. She told them that she didn’t like these terrible feelings that were in her and she wanted them to go away. Her parents promised her that what the old man had said were dreadful lies. He was a wicked and ungrateful man – after all, she in her kindness had offered him a beautiful, warm thick coat and he’d turned it down. Everyone else was grateful. The princess was not to worry and they would make sure everything ended happily. They had the old man brought before the court, tried and summarily executed for treason.

The Princess never left the castle grounds again. She married, had one daughter and lived happily ever after.

Coming back to what matters

About 16 months ago, I and Tim left an entire way of life behind. About 13 months ago a friend of mine, Stephen, left his entire life behind because he died. Within the space of 4 months, three friends of mine died. On the day I was told that Stephen had died, 13th August 2018, I had just spent the morning reflecting & brainstorming, ‘what is my deepest wish?’

In writing down the thoughts, the most repeated phrase was ‘I do not want to be afraid’. It finally formed into the following: My deepest wish is to play – to allow myself to make different patterns in the sand of my life and then allow the tide to wash them away.

As I finished writing , the phone rang and a voice said ‘Are you sitting down? Stephen has died.’

PLAYING LIFE AND LETTING GO

I will play in the sand of my life

because it is sand

And its

Running

Through my fingers

Let us play together,

Let us build strange structures

Dig ditches

and fill with them water.

Let us create

Extraordinary shapes in

the sand and delicate

Patterns with shells and

Stones.

Let us play together

Create together

Argue

Fight

Laugh

Then watch the sea

In leisurely fashion

Erase

Our precious

Designs

And let them go

And let them go.

Over the coming year I played. It was very serious play. I discovered what it was like to be the executor of Stephen’s will, to become a mindfulness teacher, to live in a home that was not public property (ie belonging to the church), to live without a car, and many other things. I also discovered Extinction Rebellion.

What I kept finding was that I’d appreciate something valuable and then get carried away into planning, angsting, plotting or being utterly overwhelmed and then lose touch with the original experience. Meditation would eventually bring me back. That is one of the beauties of mindfulness.

So, with Climate Change and Extinction Rebellion. I feel a deep love for this good earth: my dog’s hairy face, the hundred different shades of green in the garden, the crunch and taste of cox’s apples, the view from a hill I’ve just climbed… Then I get caught up, rushing, worrying about whether to get arrested or not, becoming in turn furious, despairing and weepy over the burning of the rainforests, the destruction of the coral reefs and more. That is not to be avoided but I also need to keep coming back to what matters, to let ‘the soft animal’ of my body love what it loves (see below: Wild Geese, by Mary Oliver).

In April, Tim set up an Extinction Rebellion Meditators Group, a group of meditators who want their action to come out of their meditation, and in keeping with the ethos of Extinction Rebellion, want to respond deeply to this climate crisis, not react by pursuing a narrow ‘solution’ or finding enemies to hate.

It’s quite a challenge! The group helps anchor me and keep me coming back to what matters: connecting with the earth, myself, others, – discovering what contribution we can make, not only in relation to the climate crisis but in relation to what sort of people we want to be, what sort of society we want to live in.

Last year, two weeks before my friend Stephen died, I visited him in the nursing home he was in. He was only 63 years old but by now he was an invalid. He was in a wheel chair but he’d survived so much, it didn’t occur to me that he’d be dying anytime soon. I had to travel 100 miles to visit him and was going to ‘fit in’ a visit to someone else as well but just in time, I recognised that push to ‘efficiency’ and chose deliberately not to do that and therefore not be rushed.

In the event, we sat on the porch outside his nursing home for nearly 3 hours, mostly in silence, as the sun slowly went down. He’d had a lifetime of mental health issues and was struggling with his ‘voices’, I was struggling with the desire to ‘get on’ and with the irritation of having to light his cigarettes every 15/20 minutes by walking over to my car where there was fixed lighter. Yet still, for large chunks of time we sat peaceably together. When the nursing assistant came out to collect him, I said with feeling, ‘Thank you Stephen,’ meaning, thank you for the space to sit in silence together, to watch the sky change colour, to be present, to be here. And Stephen said ‘Thank you for sitting with me’.

That was the last time I saw or spoke to him before he died.

What is your deepest wish? Or wishes.

What is it that matters most deeply to you?

Make time to remember

Wild Geese – by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/calliope/5300846002

WAKE UP TO CLIMATE EMERGENCY – EXTINCTION REBELLION

Its not exactly ‘the ARK’ but it is trying to save us from catastrophe. The Police have removed a boat which has the words “TELL THE TRUTH” on the side of it. Well, isn’t that interesting?

I’ve watched videos of TV interviews with Extinction Rebellion people and the interviewers are not challenging the statement that our planet is going down the pan. The last couple of weeks have felt quite overwhelming as I’ve tried to absorb all the information and at least attempt to read the IPCC report (international panel on climate change) which tells us we have 12 years to make radical changes if we want to stop temperatures rising to catastrophic levels. It has been very helpful to combine the activism with meditation.

I went up to London on Monday with the Oxford Meditators and then camped Tuesday and Wednesday evening. These are some of my reflections on that experience as a part of Extinction Rebellion. I am intending to go back next week. Hope you can come and see for yourselves at some point.

Susie & Tim at Marble Arch, Monday 15th April

Monday @ Extinction Rebellion – a group of us, ‘Oxford Meditators’ went up for the day and it was more like a festival, friendly and easy.

Tuesday @ Extinction Rebellion – In the afternoon I came back with a tent and 2 of us (myself and friend, Sarah) camped at Extinction Rebellion Marble Arch site. That’s a rare opportunity! I recommend the toilets at Hyde Park 😊

Sarah and I went to Waterloo bridge to hear children speak about wanting change. We saw plants and flags, heard music and mixed with a range of people: older, younger, hippies, middle class types like ourselves (!), all sorts.

We then went to Oxford Circus which was more of a party around the pink boat – a very good natured party, where one of the people on the boat gave us an extended argument as to why it was so important that we did not drink alcohol or take drugs while involved here and if we wanted to do that then go somewhere else and if we see people drinking, tell them to go. He explained that drinking and drugs destroys movements and people.

One man started shouting at the police and Sarah walked over to him and insisted that he stop. He took a bit of time to respond but he did stop and over the next 2 days I saw him often and he stayed calm and reasonable.

police vans at Oxford Circus Tuesday evening

Something in the region of 8 to 10 police vans arrived and the police then began to converge on the boat. It was intimidating. Sarah and I watched young people being carried out of the circle around the pink boat by groups of 5 or 6 police officers as volunteer legal advisors walked beside them and the crowd cheered those being arrested. It was as peaceful as something like that can be but I found a heavy pain in settle in my guts.

Wednesday @ Extinction Rebellion – DEMOCRATIC PROCESS- a group of about 30 or 40 people gathered at Marble Arch to discuss the proposed action on the underground. The person who gathered us asked if someone else wanted to chair it, no-one did, after gathering some views, he then asked if there was anyone with a different viewpoint. Everyone listened respectfully. We all agreed we didn’t think this was a good idea and the news was sent back to the main headquarters.

I decided that I was willing to be arrested and I sat with the others at the Pink Boat but it’s not as easy as you think 😊. If I’d stayed a bit longer on Wednesday evening then I may well have had the privilege. While I was there I listened to a young german man tell us how big companies are systematically stripping local farmers of the land in many countries and then they starve. It is our money that is being used for this and it is standard practice.. He said ‘have you watched a person starve to death? I have.’ I wanted to cry.

At midnight, I stood at the barrier at Edgeware Road talking with a lecturer in Economics, a frightened scientist, a retired psychiatrist, and others. Other people I’ve met are women who were at the Greenham common, shop workers, couples and single parents with their kids, people coming up from Devon and down from York, a young man who biked from Cambridge… There are people with mental health issues, physical health issues. There are babies and 80-year olds.

And every day volunteers create dhal curry in the evening, porridge in the morning for hundreds of others. I spent a pleasant hour in the food tent on Wednesday evening cutting up onions, garlic and carrots with others.

There are Volunteers carefully emptying the ‘green’ toilet with its plant pots on the top, volunteers checking that those locked onto the boat have food and water, volunteers acting as de-escalators and keeping the atmosphere as calm as possible, volunteers who’ve done some training to be legal observers, volunteers who are willing to be arrested….. volunteers who stand at the barrier through the night, it goes on.

I am deeply moved.

It is also wonderfully liberating not to react angrily to other people’s anger – simply smiling back at a car driver giving you the finger. A young man told us we were just a bunch of lefties looking for attention and told me to look up the facts. I laughed and told him he needed to check his. We parted on good terms.

the police have been very good and the protestors tend to sing ‘we love you’ to them. Several of them made it clear that they agreed with us but they were just doing their jobs. I feel sorry for the ones who were caught on film dancing at Oxford Circus.

Sarah went home on Wednesday and then I met a very able older woman who was planning to sleep out in just a sleeping bag, so she came and joined me in my tent. She’d volunteered to be a legal advisor and got up for a 6am – 11am shift. It was freezing in the tent although it helped when I put on my waterproof trousers as well!

While we were standing at the Extinction Rebellion Edgeware road barrier at midnight on Wednesday 3 young very bright, british/arab men came and chatted to us and asked us difficult questions – they were all the age of my boys – turned out one of them had done a thesis on climate change so I asked him to email it to me and he has. His report is very clear that the temperature rises are human made but following a survey he did, he concludes that we won’t do anything until it hurts us. We are willing to sacrifice the future generations for our present comfort.

I’ll repeat that. This young man thinks that:

We are willing to sacrifice future generations for our present comfort.

I hope not and thousands of people at Extinction Rebellion are not in agreement with that. Come and see what is happening. Come and join us.

Breaking Free and Shedding a Skin – Part 1

Do you ever get that feeling? You want to break free, move-on but you feel trapped, you don’t know how to make the break, what to do. Four years ago, I was in that place.

In November 2014, I wrote: I wake today and the voices come from all directions in disarray. I should have, why didn’t I, he’s so much better, I feel cramped, I feel trapped, I’m not trapped, I’m fortunate, lucky. I’m stressed but I can’t be stressed, I’m tired but I have no right to be, I’m a failure but I was given all the chances.

In December 2014 I wrote this poem:

ON SHEDDING YOUR SKIN

I was down and low.

My life an untidy room with

No Door.

But inside I’m growing

Like Alice.

The room is getting too small.

Way too small.

It has become an old skin

That has to go.

I shake my head and start to scratch.

[https://wonderopolis.org/wonder/why-do-snakes-shed-their-skin]

I didn’t know how my life was going to change or how I would shed this skin but it dawned on me that I had shed skins before. That last one with all the intricate interplay of lines – the choppy, changing patterns of young motherhood, a stressed partner with his hair cropped short, religious certainties, Duplo bricks, primary school, children’s boots. The smell of my daughter’s breath in her first bed.

My skin.

And now this one. By the end of 2014, my last child had turned 18, my partner had a beard and long hair and was sorting his stress through mindfulness. I’d been creating drama, organising alternative evening services in church, working with kids, chasing teenagers, worrying late at night, chafing at the theology of church, angsting at my age and lack of income.

Youtube videos tell me that to help a snake get started, give it a nice long bath or some E45 to soften the skin.

My preparation had been to practice mindfulness for the previous 3 years. I’d started it because I wanted to ‘fall awake’ to my life (Jon Kabat-Zinn). The thing about ‘falling awake’ is that you wake up both to the good and the bad. Fortunately the non-judgement and compassion of mindfulness softened me enough to allow me to look at what was going on. But where to start?

With snakes the shedding has to begin with the head. They push their heads against any hard-scratchy surface to get some leverage, some motion.

I chose some sessions with a psychotherapist.

Snakes can get vulnerable and aggressive during the process.

Yup.

I’d been brought up in an ex-pat patriarchal setting. There were 2 cardinal rules for a woman:

Other people come first and
Never openly confront or upset people even if they’re screwing you over – its rude.

Becoming a Christian and a vicar’s wife re-enforced these. Jesus said ‘love others as you love yourself’ but the second part of the sentence always got guillotined.

As I became more aware of this, the irritation grew and the skin felt tighter. And tighter.

For several years I’d been angry with the Church’s attitude to women but now I also woke up to the realisation that all talk about God was male. And I’d bought into this for over 30 years.

The shed had begun and it began in my head.

I was waking up.

Midsummer Mindfulness

BEING IN NATURE, BEING OURSELVES, BEING WITH OTHERS

FOREST CHURCH

Continue reading “Midsummer Mindfulness”

Moving House mindfully…. sometimes

3 Weeks ago we moved house. 3 weeks ago my husband stopped being a vicar. 3 weeks ago we walked into our own home, we walked off the edge of our old life… Here are some mindful and not mindful moments …..

GOING HOME
Always going home,
Always planting the seed
Always opening, allowing
The new growing shoot.
Never so sure what it will be
No one
Telling me
Who I am.
Not even me.

MOVING HOUSE – SELLING AND BUYING
I’m fine
Really
It’s just
The others.

The sellers will renege
They’ll use my clumsy words against me.
The buyers of our flat will drop out
Or drop the price.
The estate agent doesn’t like me.
The solicitor doesn’t care.
The neighbour will block me.
The other neighbour
the basement one,
Will throw a wobbly and ruin everything.

All this running through
My nightmare mind.

I sit still and notice
There is a common thread
And underneath I hear a child crying
And I know
That no-one else can comfort her
But me.

I’m fine
Mostly.
And this is life.

NEW HOUSE

In our new pond the tadpoles
Are seething.
My anxieties fix on visions of frog city
So I collect some in an empty yoghurt pot
And throw them on the raised border
But I cannot shake the shame of murder.
I go to buy goldfish to eat them instead
But apparently the goldfish are ‘not ready’
and anyway they don’t eat tadpoles.
Visions of garden frog hell encompass me.

And then I laugh

Is that as bad as my visions of hell can get?

Later I’m told not to worry
The tadpoles will eat one another
If nothing else.

Apparently I do not need
To interfere.
Simply allow life.

Well that’s a thought.

My beautiful virgin year – 2018

Here we are at the gate of the New Year. I wrote the poem below in response to the day ahead but at this moment it also resonates in me for the year.

MY BEAUTIFUL VIRGIN DAY

A vast expanse of sandy beach
Scoured clean by the night tide.

I do not want to step on it.
My beautiful virgin day.

As a child, there’d be no pause.
Rolling, stamping, jumping,
I’d imprint myself, careless, free and thoughtless
Across that swathe of sand.

But I have spoilt too many days
To run at this one.

I take off my shoes. The beauty
burns my feet. I pause.

And bow to all that is to come.

‘EMMI’ Oxford Premier & the future

Having filmed “Emmi” in Oxford it was fabulous to show it at the Ultimate Picture Palace on Cowley Road on Saturday 1st July. It was a particular pleasure to see London-based Natalie Martins who played the teenage Emmi. Look out for her – great actress and lovely person to work with [nataliemartins.co.uk]

Around 50-60 people came to celebrate with us including the oldest and the youngest members of the cast. Barbara Deane turned 90 the week after we filmed Emmi and Isis was 3 months old.

THE FUTURE – As well as showing in festivals we’re also actively looking for ways it could be used with anyone working with teenage girls/families. Please see my film page for more details about the film and get in touch if you have ideas and would like to know more.
Some of the fab team 🙂

THANK YOU to everyone who supported the process of making the film and all those who could come to celebrate with us!

FESTIVAL RESPONSES
We’ve now been selected by 11 film festivals on Film Freeway and had various reviews. Here are some clips from them:

“Emmi’s” strengths lie in its atmosphere — claustrophobic space in apartment corridors, a tense anxiousness relayed by sound design and wordless facial responses.”
Largo Film Festival Reviewer 1

‘Gritty British indie dramas are becoming rarer, having been popular in the early 2000’s and it’s wonderful to see another being produced for the short film circuit …. Stunning acting and writing throughout.’
Largo Film Festival Reviewer 3

Fantastic screenwriting – I love it when a scene tells the audience what they’ll need to know without them feeling like they’ve been hit over the head with the information.
Elliott Smith – Zen Shorts Review

“‘Emmi’ delivers a very simple yet thoroughly suggestive story.”
Film strip international film festival – Romania – review

‘Regardless of being feature length or short films, it’s a rare thing to truly challenge an audience. More so to lay down the gauntlet to its audience and not provide all the answers. ’
Dan Marshall, Cardiff Mini Film Festival

“Writer Susie Stead clearly has the social conscience of a Ken Loach, and her admirably spare screenplay leaves plenty of room for viewers to fill in the blanks…. Carslaw paints his film in muted palette of steely greys, and the overall tone combines social realism with hints of horror. The editing and music score, also by Carslaw, are very well done. Overall Emmi is a fine short and a great calling card.” Simon Dillon
Simon Dillon – https://simondillonbooks.wordpress.com/

TRIP TO A FILM FESTIVAL

On Saturday I went to Cardiff Mini Film Festival: my first experience of a film festival and my first experience of Cardiff. I had in mind big posters everywhere, people queuing up to watch the films, loud music, panache. Cardiff has a great buzz feeling on a summer Saturday afternoon. There was plenty going on – hen parties, homeless people, fun-lovers. There were however no festival posters up despite the fact that there was a lot on offer at 3 different central venues. The “Big Top” where “Emmi” was to be shown, turned out to be the upper room of a pub, beautifully laid out in ‘big top’ style with rows of gilt coloured chairs and a few funky sofas, to accommodate about 50 people. My first hit with reality came when no more than 10 people showed. That included volunteers and the projectionist!

The quality was there if not the audience. Andy (Director) and I spent a fascinating 2 hours watching a range of short films. The ones that remain with me are: a wistful young man disappearing into a childhood photo in order to see his mother one more time, a surreal one with a man swallowing rocks and jumping off cliffs, a carefully shot film with sharply distinguished shapes and colours about an OCD woman, and a ‘super power’ one with young man who discovers when he’s 18 that he’s one of a group who can go back in time – but only once in his lifetime and there are always consequences…

At the end a woman came and thanked me for my film and said it made her cry. Result!

We came back on Sunday for the Film Festival Awards Ceremony at the ‘Tramshed’. There was a decent turn out and a delightful presenter with downplayed humour. One of the people giving out the awards had been chosen to give the evening a ‘weirdness’ twist. Before opening an envelope he’d bellow out things like “Anyone here ever murdered anyone and got away with it?”

Sadly our film did not win. A romantic comedy beat us. However, while the judge was clearly biased and wrong …. We coped. I’m buoyed by an acutely observed wonderful review that Dan Marshall, one of the Cardiff team wrote for our film. I’ve copied it in full below:

EMMI – REVIEW

There’s something deliberately unsettling about the first few moments of Emmi. Graceful piano notes chime as we look up into the sky. “Emmi” the short presents in its first titles, there’s even a little heart to adorn the “I”. While it may not be sudden there’s a gear shift in tone. The music gives way to the dull passing of cars on the duel carriageway. The camera pans to a high rise, the stark monolith towers into the grey sky. Then passed the hum-drum of traffic to the grimy underpass with it’s rusty railings and stained walls. Yet, in spite of it’s visual repugnance, a lone tenant decides to brave it. Just at the point of no return hoodies appear at the other end. It’s anxiety inducing in its familiarity, particularly when you’re already uneasy. However, Emmi plunges further into darkness during its short running time and does so unflinchingly.

Regardless of being feature length or short films, it’s a rare thing to truly challenge an audience. Moreso to lay down the gauntlet to its audience and not provide all the answers. Writer/Director team, Susie Stead and Andrew Carslaw, are careful not to tip their hand as the events unfold and are careful to still offer something of a reward come the credits.

Emmi herself is woefully familiar. A torrent of hostility that keeps those around her at a suitable distance. Then there’s teen-mum, Ally and the soft-hearted tenant from the underpass, Sarah. The archetypes may be something you’ve seen, but there’s something in the atmosphere that has you thinking any of them could 180 at any time. The intrigue filling the stairwells of the high rise they share is almost palpable. You just know that all is not as it seems, but the clever way in which Stead and Carslaw create a tone of unsettling anticipation is enthralling. Even when Emmi reaches its darkest depths, you’ll be hard pushed to avert your gaze.

There’s no denying that the conclusion is provocative and hard hitting, but there’s certainly no shock tactics involved. If the subject itself and final message weren’t challenging enough, how you digest it will be.

Hong Kong – Part 4 – Views from the Peak

Chris and I get off the no 15 bus at the Peak Tower and walk into soggy, heavy fog. So much for the panoramic views; we buy postcards instead.

The fog refuses to clear and it’s drizzling so we take a taxi to my primary school, a mile up the hill and imaginatively named “The Peak School”. It started life in 1911 and moved to this spot in 1954. When I attended it from 1967 to 1973 it was English speaking and private, filled with white privileged ex-pat children of which I was one.

The Peak school sits on a sharp hillside bend and on the corner, in front of some flaky old garages, Pinky, the shoe shiner used to lay out his wares. I have a warm but faded memory of this man and his rippled kind face. My mother and I must have stood there watching as Pinky attended to the shoes, while Ah Fan, our chauffeur, waited in the car. I have no idea why he was called Pinky – he was Chinese, he was old and he certainly didn’t wear pink.

I’m staring at the school gates and Chris tells me to go in – I squirm but she sensibly remarks “what’s the worst they can do? Say they’re busy?” It’s 4pm, the children are gone and the staff are welcoming. As a staff member takes me round the school she asks me who the head teacher was when I was there. I have no idea. Instead I blurt out “I remember that staircase!” A 9 year old ghost runs past.

We walk around the classrooms, gym and hall but although this is the original building nothing prompts a memory except the staircase. I cannot remember a single teacher’s name or any lesson they taught me.

The fog refuses to clear.

Outside, I borrow an umbrella and climb alone up the steps to the big playground. I can see almost nothing but that strange sensation returns, my body remembers. I ‘know’ there are steps on the far side of the playground, steps we used to run up for sports, dressed in little white shorts and T shirts with coloured squares pinned on to them to show which ‘house’ we belonged to.

On one side of the fog is a 9 year old racing around in PE, break or lunch, looking for tadpoles in the ditches or playing kiss chase. On the other side is a 53 year old holding an umbrella in the rain. The 53 year old walks slowly round the perimeter of the playing field, in the footsteps of the 9 year old. Her skin and her heart tingle.

However hard we try, we cannot have a different past. I have been ashamed of mine. As I walk around, like a mother gathering her children into her arms, I gather in that 9 year old that was me – and the 8 year old, the 7 year old, all of them – and I hold them tight.

Together, we walk out of the school gates collecting Chris up as we go. Before we leave, I turn to face those old garages and I bow to the ghost of Pinky.