Issue #49-September 26th - Ocotber 2ndSister Janice and the Miracle
Say it loud, I'm p!o!p! and proud #1: The Try A Little Sunshine story
A disease of the blood
The Boat
Blue hat for a blue day
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Sister Janice And The MiracleSister Janice is the Friends Of The Heroes agony aunt. She used to be a nun, but after becoming involved in an accident at her convent involving a papal emissary; the mother superior; the convent dog and a bottle of 'citrus fresh' bleach, she decided it was time to find herself a new career. These days she travels through the galaxies in a converted garden shed. Write to Sister Janice Slejj care of Friends of the Heroes. She will answer your problems and questions with the insight unique to a disco-loving alternative-gardening defrocked clergy member and cosmic adventurer... I can still feel it. The warmth in my hand, where it made contact, the wave of energy that rushed through my arm, filling my whole body, my mind at once quieter and more alive than it has ever been. In the darkness, staring at a clear sky and the stars to which I will return, with no-one around for many miles and the wind beating against my skin, I remember everything. An Isley Brothers song plays faintly from the old car stereo behind me, reminding me of a connection to the world, grounding me, keeping me here. Otherwise, I feel as if I would float out, and into space right now, with nothing to shelter me, nothing to hide behind. Nothing to hide. Nothing. Hello my little glimmers of galactic gorgeousness, it has been some time since we spoke. Longer, perhaps, than I can ever explain - but I shall try to explain, because I need to, because, several nights ago, something extraordinary happened, because several nights ago, I think I re-found my faith. Or a faith, at least. It was several hours after the lights had gone out, but, unable to sleep, I was kneeling on my bed, trying to look out of the window of my cell. There were heavy clouds, promising rain, and the stars were hidden. Only the moon managed to peer through, and, in return, I looked back, dreaming of the times I'd floated past, heading for better places, desperate to find excitement, or peace, depending on whether I'd just come from peace, or excitement, still not quite aware that the two could co-exist - but I'm running ahead of myself there, back to the night in question. It had been a difficult week. My attempts to start a course of Retrospective Dance Appreciation Classes at the prison had not proved tremendously popular. The authorities felt that it was 'not of sufficient educational value to warrant funding' and had laughed particularly hard at my (perfectly reasonable) request that I be renumerated in the form of original 1970s 12" records. I, on the other hand, had got into trouble for making derogatory remarks about their parentage and insinuating that they had all the collective soul of a used feminine hygiene product. Which, in retrospect, was a little unfair. But only a little.
Anyway, I was admiring the clouds, and the way the light filtered through them, offering the only glimpse of nature in this dark man-made environment, and I was pondering what the term 'revocation of priveleges' might mean. Did I really have any priveleges left that could be taken from me? I was contemplating that life surely couldn't get any worse than it already was and I stared, hard, at the moon, and I just...
Don't ask me what I wished for, I don't really know. But, just for a moment, everything fell away. The words stopped echoing in my head, the thoughts of injustice and escape were replaced by a vast emptiness, into which I gladly let myself fall. When I came back to myself, I was lying supine on my bunk, the usual night-time noises of the prison had ceased and the only thing I was aware of was the sound of my own breath as it travelled in and out, in and out, pulling life from the darkness around me and in return... Sometimes, you just have to get out. I lay there for what seemed like hours, not wanting to move, or think, not wanting to break the spell and then I felt it. Touching me. Holding my hand. To begin with, I wondered if I was dying. The being before me shone. Not in some namby-pamby glittery sense, I mean it radiated all the energy and light I could ever conceive could come from one physical form, a golden luminescence that rendered everything but the light-source inconsequential and, yet, filled the surroundings with warmth, and life, and energy so that I almost felt I could see the solid objects of my cell moving, and flowing into one another and, from them, a continuum of particles pouring into the air, and into me. I think I would have just stood there and stared but a tug came on my hand and then, a voice I recognised, utterly familiar but at the same time not one I could place, telling me we had to go, that we didn't have much time. Right then, I don't think I cared whether I was dying or not. I knew that wherever we were going would be okay. And I held the hand, and I looked at the ever-changing face and all the fear I'd ever known seemed tiny, and petty and inconsequential. I was dimly aware of the corridors along which we walked, of the doors springing open as we approached them, of the steel around us, radiant with inexplicable fluorescence as our feet fell, soundless, on the steps and we passed into the courtyard and then I was alone. Looking back, that could have been quite a bummer. Being found in the prison courtyard in the middle of the night would have required some explaining that I really don't think I'd have been up to but, right then, I wasn't scared. I knew what to do, and I walked up to the gates, and I walked through the metal. Outside, in the silence, and the wind, a car with its engine running and the radio tuned to an old disco station, one I've never found before or thought of switching off since. I have it running, quietly, even when I sleep. Its as if turning it off would break the spell, wake the dreamer. But, on another level, I know that could never happen. The dreamer is more awake than she's ever been. The hills flow away below me, the nearest light comes from a cottage several miles to the south. In the emptiness, the hooting of an owl carries from one horizon to the other and I am in touch with something greater than I've ever felt before - although it is the same force that was always there. I know how strange this would look to some, a woman (not a nun, my habit is behind me and I wear the clothes I found folded in a neat pile on the back seat of the car) standing on a ledge, a million miles from the normal world, listening to disco music, and laughing as the wind hits her face. Some people would consider this very strange indeed. And perhaps it is, strangely beautiful, as life can be sometimes, when you've found something and realised that, really, you had it all along. I can't believe I had it all along. Here's this week's problem:
dear sister janice,
Dear tortured,
But, right now, I don't think you should. Don't come to my class, for a couple of reasons First, and most importantly, what it means to believe is slowly becoming clear. I spent all those years in a convent playing disco records, and staring at the stars, and I never stopped to listen to what those around me had to say.. to what they meant when they talked about life being incomprehensible, and miraculous, and abundant. I thought it was just something clever people said when they were trying to get in with the Big Religious Cheeses. Perhaps it is, for some. But there's a truth in it, and I don't know yet, but I think the truth is this.. You have to believe in something for something to believe in you. You have to keep hope, and faith in magic and you have to give yourself up sometimes to things that you can't quite understand. If you want to believe in those things, you go ahead and believe in them. It may be that your family haven't experienced them for themselves- that doesn't mean those things don't exist. You might still want to look into the theft of your teeth, though. Especially if you weren't asleep when it happened. Secondly, you can't come to my class because I'm on the run, and I'm not sending you my address. Keep the Faith, my dear. I hope it keeps you. With love, Janice And now, I have questions of my own to answer, but I shall not attempt to answer them myself. I feel as if, eventually, things will come to me. I shall wait here, and I know that soon I will be found by whatever seeks me... perhaps that will be Roger - my travelling companion and...I may as well admit it.. my friend. I'll believe that there's something good to come out of the experiences of the last few weeks, and that one day it might all make sense. Until then, I'll stay here, on the ledge, feeling the cold night air on my face. And, finally, I recognise the voice that guided me from my cell.. familiar, yet un-placeable. I have a feeling that voice was my own. A bat flings itself into the blackness above, guided by something visible only to itself. Another Isley Brothers song comes on the radio. And, like the song says, the breeze feels fine. Be brave, my dears xx +++Back to top+++ Back to current issue+++
Say it loud, I'm p!o!p! and proud #1: The Try A Little Sunshine storyLook - it's hard to explain what pop is, and that's because for me pop is one of those things in life that are surrounded by a metaphysical mist... Don't laugh - how else could I put it? It's one of those things whose value is self-evident, just because they exist, regardless of the circumstances that surround them. One of those things whose presence is enough to transform my world into one of its more magical versions. In other words, I'd say I'm in love. A friend of mine once told me he likes indiepop because it's straightforward and unpretentious - not in these words exactly but that's what I think he meant anyway. Me, I like it because it's bittersweet in the best possible way. It's the only sort of music I've known that seems to believe in happiness - that it exists, that it's possible and, more importantly, that it's worth trying for. I also love its childlike enthusiasm, the way it marvels at everything, the way it finds everything important and treats it all like it's new. Because pop is a mindset more than a musical genre: it's a way of looking at the world made out of good intentions, reflections from the time when everything seemed new (because it was), the sadness produced by living in the 'real world' (which often seems endless, but never is) and sketchy dreams about another, more colourful life. Then, there's also an unconfessed (or half-confessed) faith in something vague... let's say, in that all this is not in vain; that it can make a difference. Make your world a little better if nothing else. I've thought about it a lot and I concluded that this is what what innocence is all about: the feeling that you are new to things and all the enthusiasm and romanticism in approach that this results in. I have also concluded that this is a situation in which you can find yourself forever. There's always something new in your life - or there always could be; something about which you don't know much yet and thus your expectations about it are not fully formed. If innocence is the opposite of something, that would be cynicism. And I think it's this lack of cynicism that makes pop one of the best, the most beautiful and precious things in the world... Do you know what I mean? I'm not sure you do. It's not just that I consider cynicism the worst thing that can happen to you - because all it does is propagate disillusionment, and what good can ever come from thinking the world is ugly? There's something else too... something that has to do with the fact that the day a friend of mine, in a sudden bout of inspiration, gave me 'Try A Little Sunshine' (a compilation of the Greek indiepop scene) and said 'this is better than all the Belle and Sebastian records together!' something wonderful happened to me (even though I didn't believe him for a minute: what could be better of all the Belle and Sebastian records together?) It was an exhaustingly hot afternoon of an exhaustively empty summer and there was nothing that gave out something was about to happen. In fact, it was the sort of time that convinces you nothing can ever happens, and indeed, nothing really did - and yet, every time I look back my thoughts stop on that day, and every time I realise it changed my life. Because along with the cd there came a poster, and it read... This is a compilation about love, fun, cupid, sweetness in chocolate, romance, innocence, lollipops after the pain, melancholy, dreams in the city, happiness, sunsets from the rooftops, water and bubble pistols, southbound excursions, stars in the sky, sky in her eyes, journeys, doo be doo, bicycle rides, dives in the lake, buried treasures, clouds, postcards, ocean rain, lovers, lunatics, giants, suncastles in the shade, moonflowers, lost friends... magic. ...and I thought it was the most beautiful, most touching list of words ever possible, and I was inspired: I put the poster on the wall above my bed, lay down underneath it and dreamed the best dreams I had ever dreamed. I imagined a life lived in a world more like the one described by those words and less like the one I saw around me every day and that thought was enough to make me infinitely happy. I felt like I'd just found something I'd been looking for all my life, something I've always known but had forgotten, and I was just realising how much I had missed it. So amazing was that feeling that when I went out to walk around the city in search of 'something as colourful as these words' (as I put it at the time) I really believed I would find it. I thought that upon turning around some corner I'd bump into a boy with brown hair and blue eyes and from that moment one there would be no going back. Of course this didn't happen (it still hasn't happened) and I didn't find anything else of the sort I was looking for, either. The world looked as grey as it had done on the morning and maybe even a little bit more, and even though I spent the next few days waiting for something to happen, I was feeling let down. But what is important is that, in the end, it didn't matter that I was let down: the feeling that made me wander around the town on an otherwise uninspired and awfully hot evening was so strong that it never let me forget. Even today, it is behind all my dreams of happiness and every gratuitously and theatrically romantic attempt to make them come true. Even the ones that work. It's good to have something to show you the way.
Recommended reading (people who said it better than me):
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A Disease of the BloodAnaemia is a disease of the blood. It is caused by a lack of iron. The symptoms of the disease include tiredness, pallor and apathy. Girls are particularly susceptible to the disease due to losing blood through menstruation every month. I learnt this at school, in biology and home economics. I knew the symptoms to look out for but despite the fact that I like to think I know what’s going on with my own body, I never recognised them in myself. I found out I had anaemia when I went to donate blood. It was my first time and I was a little bit nervous. I had a lucky escape and in the end I didn’t have to go through with it. Instead the nurse told me that my iron levels were too low. It has to be at least 12 to give blood, and mine was 7.2. She seemed shocked that they were so low, which scared me a little bit. She told me that I had anaemia, and I should go to my own doctor to have my blood tested properly. She was acting as if I was really sick, that this was serious and important and I didn’t really think I was sick at all. I was really surprised. When I left the clinic, I went to a bookshop to find out more about what was wrong with me. Standing in the health care section, flicking through books about anaemia, I was shocked at how many of the symptoms I recognised. Tiredness, weakness, shortness of breath, they all sounded familiar. I had started longing for my bed at 10 o’clock. The five-minute walk into college left me breathless and tired. I’d also been having headaches for weeks. I had tried to explain them away – I needed to get my eyes tested, I spent too long in front of the computer, my exams were only a couple of weeks away so they were stress headaches. But when I had a headache by eleven o’clock every morning, I should have realised that something was wrong. I was also getting palpitations sometimes, which I would just dismiss. My heart would seem to be beating too fast. I would notice it, but I didn’t really pay much attention to it. When I was told that I was anaemic I really was surprised. It sounds absurd after I have listed all the symptoms I had been suffering, but it’s true – I didn’t think I was sick. When I started recognising the symptoms and things started making sense I felt relieved to know what was wrong with me. It was nice to know why I was tired all the time and I started looking forward to getting better. There was another symptom that I found on the internet. Something called a ‘pica’ which was a craving for non-food stuff such as ice or dirt. I’ll tell you a secret. I used to eat ice. Not just crunching the bits left at the bottom of my glass, I used to go to the freezer and take out the ice-tray to eat the ice. My family hated it; they thought it was weird and they hated the sound of me crunching ice. I didn’t care - I liked it and it didn’t do me any harm. There were worse habits to have, so why not? I did this for about five years. If that was part of the anaemia, and I think it was because I’ve stopped doing it now, it means that I was sick for a really long time and I didn’t have a clue. When I went to see the doctor at college, she was also shocked that my iron was so low. It seemed that it was a big deal for it to go so low and for me to still be walking about. Since she was making such a fuss about it, it convinced me a little bit that I was actually sick. That made me feel special and that I should be looked after and minded. I had to have blood taken and then go back a couple of days later for the results. The doctor recommended iron tablets and a change in diet. Since it wasn’t too serious, and I was on the road to recovery, I started to enjoy being sick. I used it as an excuse to eat cheeseburgers (lots of iron in red meat and dairy products) and spend more time in bed. At the time I didn’t think there was that much wrong with me, probably because it had all been going on for so long that I had got used to feeling less than 100%. Looking back it seems really obvious that I wasn’t well. I think the anaemia really affected my quality of life and made me so tired and lazy that I never realised it. I was having trouble keeping up in college because I felt tired and headachy. I think I was diagnosed just in time. I started taking the iron tablets and feeling better just two weeks before my final year exams. I needed to feel better to study for my exams because I was very close to not caring if I passed of failed. The tablets did the job and I got better. I stopped feeling tired all the time, and the headaches went away, which was a great relief. I feel very stupid for not realising that there was something wrong with me. I think I was lucky that it was caught when it was and I hope it has made me more aware of things that could be wrong with me. Grainne Lynch
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The BoatYou are twenty five and already two thirds destroyed. You are still trying to make sense of your first gaze, and that day up amongst the hills, peering down at the sketchy banks of the river where your father, himself destroyed, apart, unravelled the tartan blanket and said that “here is where we’ll picnic.” You helped your mother unpack the boot of the car - the sandwiches, the cloudy lemonade, the chicken and the eggs and the hope of a better life, although you weren’t yet old enough to ask if it was the chicken or the egg that came first. By the river you could see a model sailing boat, motionless. Who did it belong to? You? It didn’t look like it belonged to anybody. Maybe all parks and rivers had these boats for children to play with. Your mother, you saw, had rested her head upon your fathers shoulder and you heard him sigh and say “well I don’t know”, but you, the child, his daughter, expected him to know everything. And then there was the sailing boat. You finished your sandwich, turned away from your mother and father, and began the mad descent down the hill, into the valley. You were going to play with the model sailing boat. Suddenly you heard your fathers voice. “Lucy! Stop! Stop right there!” but your legs were moving of their own accord. Your legs were not your legs, and your were going to play with the model sailing boat. Then you heard the thud like distant thunder, the rumble, the weighty gait and heavy breath of your father, catching you up. “Lucy! When I say stop you bloody well stop!” Then you felt a hand, his hand, grab yours, and suddenly you were in the air and your legs had stopped moving. “Don’t ever run away like that again” he said, and when you told him that you only wanted to play with the toy sailing boat down by the river he looked confused. “What boat? What toy boat do you mean?” he said, and you pointed down to the river where the toy boat was and said “that one down there”, and when he looked he began laughing. “You think that boat down there’s a toy?” “Yes.” “Lucy, that boat isn’t a toy. It only looks small. You are twenty five and two thirds destroyed, destroyed that day and ever since by the realisation that life is never what it seems, and will never be what it could be.
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Blue hat for a blue dayI will never make fun of my lovely teacher's hat again 12th October 1993 Dear Diary, I must be the unluckiest kid in the world. I only wanted to make Helen laugh so I gave her that small piece of paper where I had written "look at her stupid hat". But Mrs. Green saw it and now I'm here sitting at my desk trying to write that stupid sentence again and again. Something in my head is trying to make me write "I will never make my love smile again" but it's already 9 o'clock, I haven't even started my homework for tomorrow and now I'm wondering why that stupid teacher wanted me to write 120 times that she's lovely. Then there is another "something in my head" that makes me want to use the words "my love" for Helen even though I'm sure she doesn't even want to be friends with me. I'd better stop writing in my new diary cause I have to do my lines. 13th October 1993 Dear Diary, I swear the only reason I opened her notebook was to see if she had the timetable inside. It wasn't at the first page so I looked at the last one. There was a sentence written by Amelia, the girl that's sitting next to her in the classroom: "He just wanted to make you smile, don't be so stupid". I turned the page and faced Helen's lovely writing "Look at his stupid face. I love Mrs. Green sometimes". Anyway then I tried to calm down but it became more difficult when my teacher informed me that it was her hat that was lovely not her. 24th September 2003 I'm not the laziest man on earth. Well maybe I'm the laziest one in Athens (there are many cities bigger than Athens so I suppose there should be someone even lazier than me somewhere). It is really funny that this diary has only 3 entries: 2 in 1993 and 1 in 2003. You'll soon understand why I spent 3 hours searching my room for that really old diary (yeah I say "really old" as if I had other diaries as well!). You won't believe who I saw in the bus today. That girl Helen, yeah the one I used to like when I was 15. She asked me if I'm friends with anyone from school, then we talked a little bit and she gave me her phone number. I'll call her sometime soon I'm sure. Just like 10 years ago I found out that it was the way I was feeling and the fact that I was in love that were lovely and not her. I'll never stop making fun of myself for not being able to be mean to anyone Oh I bet Mrs Green wouldn't have let me use apostrophes. So here we go again: I will never stop making fun of myself for not being able to be mean to anyone
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