– BY DAWN M SANDERS
21st June 2015
Yesterday I chose to go up to Nine Ladies instead of the anti-austerity demo down in London – not that I could have gone anyway, held back by my son’s bullshit inflexible support agency constricting my life to rigid time slots…
Having said that, I felt: I’d rather celebrate the season, which is just as important to me as standing up for my democratic rights and protecting all the livelihoods this regime is determine to destroy.
Yet, I also feel so damn jaded after the last 5 years of going to demos, sitting in meetings, being a part of organised resistance, yet pounding our heads against a wall of stoney indifference, coupled with fighting utter disempowerment on a personal level, I decided firmly against the demo.
Even the day up at the stone circle had to be cut short just as the party was heating up, because I managed to stretch being out ‘til 7, but then was late anyway…
The other factor of course, was my PA not wanting to stay the night, due to her two small kids and being put off the druggies and crusty vibe of the last time she was there, all fair enough, but it just meant I was held back by people and circumstances I have to rely on, just to supposedly make life function in the way I want it to.
I can understand the need to be sensible, but it doesn’t mean being there, you have to be a part of the bullshit brigade…
I’m still young enough to party and go mad from time to time, but…
As it stands, summer solstice has blustered in, grey and, although not dropping rain just yet, there was spitting-in-the- wind when I went outside to rescue the sofa throw from the washing line.
So today I’ll get some writing done, do my exercise routine I’ve abandoned all week, have a good long bath, make my Sunday omelette and re-pot the lavender plants I bought the other day, but not necessarily all in that order.
I said to my trusty assistant/friend yesterday, as we walked through the woods on Stanton Moore, I just feel stifled and caged in. It’s been such a bloody horrifically long winter and I feel so hemmed in, held back and constricted.
I want to ‘get out’! I need to be outside, be among nature, clear my head and reclaim my sanity – well I didn’t go as far as saying that, but she completely got it…
So, we drove back to the concrete jungle of Sheffield, back to my cage and sanctuary, where I made a simple dinner for my son and I and sat outside listening to the pigeons on the roof tops, the synthetic ting ting of the next door neighbour’s mobile phone/murmured conversation.
The chimes tinkled in the gentle breeze as I sat in my back garden, but it was a far cry from connecting with an old tree with a network of trunks and branches, or a rhododendron leisurely spread out amongst neighbouring trees, with it’s bright beautiful lilac, flowers in all their magnificence…