Let's Get Physical
[Yes, bear bloggers the identity of the bird I invited you to guess in my last post is, of course, that not-to-be-confused-with-a-moorhen, water fowl, the coot.]
COOT
‘I've got a COOT
there is no substitute’
from the poem ‘COOT’
by Liz Darcy Jones (now Lizzie Leigh)
If you’d asked TSM (The Sheep Man) to describe me, he might well have called me a ‘daft coot’, although his wording would be less feathered and rhymed with cat and I would probably have agreed…
But my closest friends would tell you I’m mistress of doing myself down.
Thankfully a coot is making her presence felt in black and white. She is far from daft. She will gift us twice, despite a horrible habit of killing her chicks. So with the patience of cicada and courage of Intrepidina the cricket, coot will help us swim through most difficult of years: 2014. For Chris it meant parting with one of his closest friends.
Although I was scared to admit it, I was terrified of having a real job working for someone, having been self-employed since 2004. Being self-employed made my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome workable as I could adjust my workload according to my energy levels.
But I discovered that the frantic online ‘wording’ I was doing in an effort to stay afloat: blogging, online marketing, website creating (another side hustle) on a screen made CFS an awful lot worse.
When the state of my bank balance reached blood red, I turned to something which took me away from my laptop - the hospitality industry. It was gearing up for its most lucrative season: Christmas.
Without any training to speak of, I was taken on at The Falcon Hotel, Bromyard as Front of House otherwise known as waiting on tables. It also meant washer-upper and doing anything else if no one else was available. Chris was largely engaged in his circus and PR activities so we saw little of each other. He was my transport, my tea poet sponsored car having been returned to the Mayor of Bromyard who had funded its loan. Getting to work and back would be a walk... in the dark.
Commands generally arrived three times in increasing volume on the mistaken premise they hadn’t been heard the first time. And everything was urgent. I learnt this was normal.
But although working at the Falcon was physically grueling, the experience rewarded me in more than cash.
First, my screen time dwindled to on hour or so a day. Bizarrely, my energy levels began to rise. I started sleeping better.
Second, relieved to have survived another shift, I faced a pitch black walk of just under a mile back to my static caravan. As an experiment in honing my senses, I deliberately switched off my torch to train myself in night vision as I walked along the winding narrow lane. It was strangely visceral and yet distilled. A sense of wonder descended as I drank in the cold air beckoning the bare of winter.
The only danger was the speeding cars blinding my eyes and assaulting the silence. I flattened myself against the barbed hedges of hawthorn and bramble. Yet they, too, added to the edginess. I shouted banshee-like obscenities at the four-wheeled monsters before readjusting my eyes and sometimes sang if my nerve threatened to waver, before thanking the starlit skies I was still alive.
The injection of cash into my purse stopped before Christmas.
It was a Tuesday morning. Sitting hidden halfway up the backstairs I heard one of the co-owners slandering me to her daughter. I crept down the stairs, told the other co-owner I was going out.
No drama. Just the delight - for the first time in my life - in leaving a job undone. Lunch service with no server. The other co-owner paid my wages for the rest of the week. Nothing was ever said.
Lasting five weeks was ‘good going’ apparently in the hotel’s swift turnaround of staff...
However, I was penniless again. I projected my income and outgoings for 2014. They showed a shortfall of two hundred pounds a month on the basis I didn’t exceed a twenty-five pound a week living budget.
Even someone with mathematical dyslexia like me knew my financial situation was unsustainable.
#dark #coot #wonder #offline