Good Friday

And a very tempestuous day it is too. Gale force winds, sleet, snow, and when they let up, driving rain. The seagulls who have decided to pitch camp on the roof opposite my bedroom skylight are looking dispirited. They were beginning to mate and the females was practising sleeping huddled up next to the chimney pot where she will spend a month or so on her eggs. This morning it is all they can do to keep their bony little feet on the surface.

So this is the day when some remember the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus. In the past I have had various reactions to that sacrifice, mostly angry questions about why he should choose to do that therebye landing me with a load of guilt - I didn't ask for him to die for my sins. Come on! Time has mellowed these childish thoughts and these days I tend to the opinion that the historical figure that gave rise to tales of the Risen Lord was probably a political leader of some sort, possibly with a mystical vision of there being Something Beyond. Who knows? And how important is it? Except that the church has squeezed and manipulated people's minds for 2000 years on the basis of his story. The sacrifical aspect really appeals to some psyches. On the Amazon sellers communication board writes a woman who calls herself ''Mommasue.' She has a peculiar talent for irritating me, largely because she began her time posting there with cries of 'There is much darkness here but we can help to dispell that dark by bringing His presence.' and 'He is in the House!' Whilst also shouting loudly about the layabout immigrant population and the government's policy re immigration and posting some truly distasteful 'jokes' about blacks on benefit. At some point she had aroused so much aggression in the bosoms of others that she quit for a while, but now she's back, not with any apology, but wiser and sliding her way around the threads adding little comments, all nicey nicey, with lots of hugs and kisses for her chosen people. This week her contribution to a thread which had segued into a conversation about parenting and the responsibility of parents was to the effect that 'Sacrifical Parenting' (her capitals not mine) is the perfect way to go. Finally I had to respond. 'Oh dear! Your poor children. I imagine they would be happier without THAT load of guilt dumped on them.' She deleted her post (this is her self defense mechanism so no-one else can fire at her) and told me she didn't care enough about me to reply.

I do feel strongly, as any healthy person would, about causing anyone, let alone ones children, feelings of guilt. How can that possbly help them through their lives?

Having said all that I suppose I am reacting less to Mommasue than to Christianity and the Church for whom martyrdom is one sure way to heaven. it isn't only the Muslim extremists who believe that. My mother swallowed its message hook, line and sinker and it made her into an unhappy woman who was too afraid to speak her mind. What she really felt got held inside and festered. She had this terrible cancer inside her long before the physical cancer manifested. I hated her at some points in my life because her misery and guilt and disempowerment caused her to cling to me until she nearly drowned me along with her. Hating her (silently, privately, I could never have been even slightly angry with her outside the confines of my own thoughts) was a way of pulling myself out of that morass. If I had felt then the overwhelming sense of sorrow I have for her now I wouldn't have survived. The person I was then wasn't strong enough herself to know her own mind, her own truth and her own core being.

Well, that's an unexpected paeon for Good Friday.

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I want to direct my energies into writing now. This journal is one of the daily disciplines I set myself to focus on that gaol. It limits me to writing the facts, or the perceived facts, of my daily life. It isn't, usually, the place where I would practise character development or scene setting or any of the other necessary tools of the fiction writer's trade. I do that elsewhere. This morning though it caused me to wonder how it would be to write a book backwards, in the way these blogs read backwards (which I normally find very annoying.) It might be something to experiment with.

By the way Sue - are you out there? Where is YOUR journal girl?! I bought an enormous umbrella at the book fair (this is not OT.) The A.B.A had had them made with their logo, in various colours, and were fed up with them hanging about the office so selling them for £10 each. Irrisistable. In this wind they are so huge even I would do a Mary Poppins to the Post Office. For some reason - maybe you can prompt me here) it reminded me of a recording we made at college when Sue pretended to be at the bottom of Wookey Hole and her little voice echoed up thinly from its cavernous depths... It must have included an umbrella to kick up that memory.

The mind, my mind, is a wondrous thing especially these days. Sheila tells me they are developing cannabis extract to ofset the onset of Alzheimers and she was looking forward to a jolly old age. Sadly Alan is on a cannabis extract programme already for the MS and says the effects are far from pleasant. It arrested the physical symptoms but when he tried to work up to the recommended dose made him paranoid, melancholic (which isn't at all like him) and so abstracted it was difficult for Margaret to get through to him. Trust the NHS to take the fun bit out of it!