Experimental: Pain and Beauty

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/experimental/

This, an experiment with extremes – for the week just ended has brought them in abundance: Atypical heat for November has resulted in swarms of mosquitoes having a final fling at life, their high-pitched whining a sound I have come to dread, profoundly.

Monday night, after a day of open windows and warmth, the mozzies attacked en masse – and I woke (in so far as I actually slept, which is another story) Tuesday with a swollen left arm and wrist and bites galore (two of which I have captured on camera).

The gorgeousness and unseasonal delaying game (as if Winter were hiding shyly in the forest, refusing to be seen) formed an ironic contrast to the fiery pain and, eventually, course of antibiotics when my arm developed a nasty reaction to the mozzy toxins.

And yet – for such is life – beauty swelled also, a tranquil loveliness of colour and form, a skeletal radiance as sun, season and colour raised truce’s white flag to drape shawls over the death of trees.

As I itched and scratched and waged war upon tiny buzzing insects with ineffective tea-towels and poor aim, a sky of such limpid clarity that planes could be seen in roaring miniature, etched against early-morning blue, bloomed and blossomed and blent its palette with that of the more sombre November shades.

And so my images, both photographic and written, are in every sense experimental, fragments of strong emotions and physical feelings and unusual loveliness, latticed, lyricised and luminated by the calligraphy of bright sun.

Orange: The colour of courage

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/orange/

The word ‘orange’ means courage to me – and it is no coincidence that I started to dye my hair that colour when in great need of bravery, and that this, my most recent blog site, also has the word ‘orange’ in its title.

Two years ago, I went in for the annual Wrington Fun Run – and, although I was nowhere near the front of the pack, I still got a medal…on an orange ribbon!

Orange is a vital part of my Sovereignty and vital force. It has kept me going through the long periods of verbal drought (or silencing, as it is also known) – and has animated me in recent days when something of a resurgence has occurred.

It was, and remains, an assertion of the following thought: ‘I am not going to be reduced to bit-part, drab and mute status just so that you can cloak yourself in stolen chatty brightness and dominate life’s show. We both have equal rights, and you have no need to drain me of my essence because it, in some weird way, threatens you.’

To quote a close friend, ‘You are now the orange-haired delight of an ex-wife!’

This flame of hair and spirit – and, usually tamed, temper – has burned on regardless. Through bullying, fear, anxiety and sorrow, it has maintained its lustrous shade and courage-enhancing properties.

Yes, orange is an integral part of who I am…

Passion and the Water Sprite: A fairy story

Burned by the forge of passion; overwhelmed by the palette of red, orange, yellow and gold used to paint that most elusive, and oft illusory, of emotions, the girl took the cloak of magic and, under a Moon as Full as her craving for love, transformed herself into a Water Fairy.

A new environment, she sought, and an answer to a question so often asked, in tears’ lonely paroxysms, when the transitory and surface shading of hearts-and-flowers-and chocolates gave way to bitter gall and back-turning and sizzling spite.

The question which hovered between the known and the mysterious; which walked beyond the human relationship descriptors and attempted something new and strange and liberating; which looked to the West, to the Lady of the Lake, to water and emotions and depth; which understood, at a level quite apart from words, that the burning away process of the fiery furnace of lust allowed the tempered metal, dipped in cooling water and exposed to the healing gusts of air, to become something quite other.

Dressed in soft colours – gentle lilac, earthen green and cooling turquoise – the girl, in her fairy guise, slipped sweetly beneath the waves. The Moon’s gigantic sphere, distorted and wavering at this depth, gave comfort; the fronds of weed, viridescent as shining emeralds, caused a bubbling stream of child-like laughter, the natural response – away from the cardboard world of long-past-its-sell-by-date courtly gesture and speech destined to part body from clothes – of the trapped child’s spirit.

Tears fell, in this strange underwater world, as shells in shades unknown to man enchanted, and undulating creatures bared their barnacled and barbed undersides  – In warning? As a mating display? At this depth, no human could possibly tell! – and mer-people looked on in astonishment.

Feet wiggling in the sensuous liquid world, the fairy-girl fell ever more speedily through an element as familiar as gestation, yet as alien as the true heart of love. Her tears and little moans of recognition blended with the rhythmic oceanic whispering and whooshing to make a symphony of deep sound. She saw, with utter clarity, how easily she and her kind sloughed off the magical skin of childhood in order to grab the largely superficial and regimented garments of young adulthood’s love games. She saw the dullness and despair, the cramming of the spirit into the metaphorical tight-fitting glass slipper, and the worthlessness of so maiming the self in the pursuit of fool’s gold…

She saw, as the sea water caressed and calmed her, how the relentless chase after passion’s hart, through the forests of flattery and uneasy compromise and sacrifice to a god not worth worshipping, created a brittleness, a fold of hurt within, where the strong and vibrant heart of the child used to thump so wonderfully.

She saw, as seahorses lolloped past and shipwrecks creaked and wailed like the ghosts they undoubtedly held prisoner, that she had flamed and flashed and flurried in the becoming blushed redness of her age and nubility; how she had anointed her pretty mouth with the colours of intense arousal; how her every gesture had reminded the young men of the narrow passage of pleasure waiting to be wedged apart below.

The film of her younger self replayed its pitiless reels: The heat; the flaunting and flirting; the unease hidden behind the gasps of pleasure; the coolness after each fire; the ashes, so grey and sad, as phones failed to ring and texts kept their secrets.

Scorched once too often, she had fled. Told, like a dreadfully predictable mantra, that so-and-so was on fire for her, would be consumed if he could not have her, she sought solace in the cooler shades of the spectrum; looked for a bond, a connection, that went deeper than the flash-fires and their occasional collateral damage.

Fey for a time of her own choosing, her descent continued – until she saw, a little to her left, a tiny light. Beautiful, it was, a pale blue so relaxing and yet moving that the fairy-girl ached to touch it, to meld with it, to become one with its deep radiance. It was the connection without words. It was the reading of another’s skin; the tuning into a vibration unheard by anyone else; it was the intimacy which can happen without bodies touching at all; it was the passion which lies deeply hidden beneath the thrashing about and crying and slippery slap of bodies making love’s more obvious coupling.

She smiled. Reached out. Felt the blue stream of light tickling her palm and then, in a mysterious gliding motion, becoming one with her.

She realised, in that moment of close connection, that love encompasses all the colours of the spectrum (and more besides) and that humans were never bound by any law of nature which said they had to remain with the hot end of that rainbow curve. She realised that, for many people, deep love with its vibrating greens and blues and purples appeared frightening and cold, alien and mysterious…

Passion, she saw, is beautiful and greatly to be cherished; but, as with all things, it needs to be leavened by the contrasting colours of love; that all the elements play their part in this alchemy of love, and that people discard one or more in favour of the brightest and most obvious at their peril…

Smiling, she swam on, her heart expanding, its brittle shards snapping off and melting, like the icicles they had become, fathoms below her.

Timely Re-Oranging of the Browning Barnet!

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/timely/

Timely indeed! With only a few days to go till the Silent Eye weekend, I felt it important to re-orange myself in preparation for my role. That’s my excuse, anyway!

I had a head full of high-falutin’ ideas as I trotted into Natural Roots – and was determined to finish things off with a dizzying display of sparkles to match my ritual costume (dress and cloak!).

Having little sense of sartorial blending, I imagined that green, turquoise, purple and silver would, in some Acid Trip world, enhance my Pre-Raphaelite hair. Fortunately, I passed this weird idea by the lady doing my bonce – and she, flinching slightly, pointed out, most diplomatically, that said maelstrom of colour might be a tad OTT, and that a brief blaze of turquoise and lashings of copper would be far better!

I bowed to her wisdom! Having looked at the colourful sparkles and envisioned them twined round my hair, even I could see that my appearance would be more likely to attract opprobrium, even nausea, rather than the stunned halibut look I was so looking forward to from my nearest and dearest!

Even better, she smoothed in something rather gorgeous designed to tame my curls so that I would end up less Crystal Tips and more Elizabeth Siddal.

So there you have it: A most timely visit to the hairdresser – and a Browning Barnet which is, once again, more riotous sunrise than antediluvian fox.

Morning Glory

Sun woke me, a vast ball of coral-pink, trailed by warm circlets of gold, rolling the world into spectacular morning light. Buttery light drips off trees, leaving a softness to the green leaves. The sky, viewed in geometrically-precise shapes between roofs, has the perfection and consistency of a small child’s palette. Slanting reddish-gold shadows peel bark from trees in perfect dark spirals.

The smoothness of the lawn – cut, by me, yesterday – brings contentment and delight, as does the welcome sight of tiny seeds showing their mysterious heads in my furthest pot. I cannot, you see, remember exactly what I planted! Deliberately, this was done, for the excitement, the surprise, the wish to blend and experiment and play, like a child, in the metaphorical sandpit of colour and texture.

Then my mind wanders. Minds do. Notorious for it, I would say. Perennial travellers, never content to remain on the familiar continent of known mental and emotional countries; always jetting off by synapses’ planes to explore the new, the previously unseen.

Past posts, read early, bring remembered horror back – but a weak echo, if you like, and the knowledge of the distance I have travelled since those dark days. Should I have written of such matters, knowing that a tiny slice of my life’s emotional pie was convinced that I was lying, or delusional?

Yes! Yes, I should! I deal in truth. I may lack the filter of appropriate, to some, ducking, diving and weaving. But, for all that some details cannot be divulged, lying does not come naturally to me.

I have a phone. A landline not now shared with the wool shop, as I once erroneously called it. But I rarely use it. I dislike talking on the phone, except with two or three very specific friends/exceptions. I am uneasy, clumsy and faltering. My fluency comes from the written word, always has. I clam up when I cannot see the person, when the dominance of another’s emotions and superior ability to articulate forces my tongue into virtual silence. We are guided so accurately – in most cases – by a person’s body-language, facial expressions in particular, that this sensual blindness is, for me, a real stumbling block when it comes to telephonic communication.

But, having said this, I do keep in touch with those I love – by email and text mostly, and by suggesting meetings, or responding positively to invitations.

My mind has returned, suitcase labelled with the countries it visited, passport stamped with colourful symbols. As always, it wonders what inspired it to visit the far-flung land of Telephone, or ponder the lost landscape of Autumn 2016.

But at this moment, it gives precedence to the senses. The orchestra of light, now fully tuned up, pours a symphony of pale gold notes into the Living Room, variations and cadenzas delighting the audience, the Baroque Sun melody leaping off the stave in a flurry of deepening rays.

Clipped sideburns of grass cling to the garden’s skull. All is stilled potential, a day barely begun.

Sun woke me – and that molten sphere, light filtered, or so it seemed, through fine pink glass, has energised me for the day ahead, given colour to my mood and, with the bright ribbons now sewn upon my dress, opened the well of creativity once more that I may drink.

My Home: The Feminine Side

I have retreated to this sanctuary, bloodied and bowed by emotional battle. In regaining both strength and autonomy, I have drawn colour into my world as an essential part of the healing process.

Colour is vital to me. The harmony of my home very much depended upon the successful blending of my favourite colours, materials, scents and tastes. During the worst of times back in the autumn, I can remember writing paragraphs of creative hope in the journal – outlining my vision for my new abode.

I wanted it to be a place of light, of soothing colour, of welcome and love. I wanted it to radiate with creativity and warmth. I wanted the energy to be positive, the garden to be fruitful, the rooms to represent feelings and shades, angles and lights of vibrant importance to me.

Colour has been central to all of this. This is, indeed, a light house. Sun bathes the rooms in its generous and shifting rays of gold. At focal points in each room, I have put receptacles of coloured glass to catch and throw further the gift of sunlight.

Surfaces are covered with old scarves, pashminas, colourful tablecloths now decommissioned from their kitchen existence. The main colours throughout the house are shades of blue (especially turquoise), green, purple and pink. The earth and water shades. The colours of so many flowers. This is not to say that the sun colours – reds, oranges and yellows – are absent, for they are not – just that I furnished and decorated the place with a specific, if organic, objective in mind: To use my strong colours to wrap a veil of peace and love and beauty and softness around my home.

Candles and tealights are alight almost constantly. Their various scents have suffused the rooms, their tiny point of light adding a richness to the scene. I am, if you like, growing both a garden and, within the walls, an atmosphere.

Velvet has always been a material I have loved to touch, to stroke, to run my hands down its gorgeous folds. It is expensive, however, so I have bought several cheap and colourful throws made of a kind of faux velvet. They shine, jewel-like, upon beds and are magnificent. Necklaces hang upon some walls – cheap ones which came with my brightly coloured tops – because I love to have diverse materials as decoration, and the coloured beads of glass reflect the light superbly.

I buy low price scented candles in plain jars – and then, once burned down, use the jars to filter the sun and send it out in elegant designs upon the white-painted walls.

It took until this weekend for me to recognise a previously unseen element of this: That my home reflects a part of me I usually deny or keep hidden in deep recesses: My femininity. I have always felt safest in my role as tomboy. But, away from my old life, deep womanly instincts have risen to the subconscious – and now, suddenly, the conscious – and, following their sweet promptings, I have created that other side of my nature, so long starved into silence and submission by my own need to appear as a tough guy: My role as a woman.

 

Choosing Clothes

I like to wear bright colours! Labels do not matter to me, nor do I seek a correlation between beauty and high price. I am not a designer woman at all. If I find a style that I like, and consider flattering, I am likely to buy seven of them, cheaply, in all colours of the rainbow.

Having said all of the above, I rarely buy clothes – find it tedious and frustrating. Once I like a garment, or a type of garb, I will wear it every day (with the odd wash in between, obviously: I may be sartorially unaware, but slattern I am not!) – and one of the many lovely things about moving to Glastonbury is this sense of utter freedom where material appearance is concerned.

I do not feel obliged to dress to any kind of stereotype for my age and location. I have hippyish gear aplenty – and it is probably my most enduring look – but I am equally happy pottering about, on a day-to-dog-walking-day, in grey sweat pants, a blue long-sleeved shirt, my wonderful, toning with the barnet, thick russet jumper and, when I take the hound for a peregrination, green wellies.

How do I dress? Hmm! That sounds ruder than I meant it to be, but I know what I mean so I shall leave it in all its glorious ambiguity! I have no wall mirrors and have, in any case, always been more of a sling-it-on merchant than one who stands before the glass looking at precise angles, how the dress falls and all that, to me yawn-worthy, malarky. I should have been a bloke really! Though I know some men can be every bit as vain as we women are reputed to be!

So, down to specifics: I have a pair of jeans, several long skirts and a trio of brightly-coloured short skirts. These I team up with my rainbow line of long, short-sleeved blouses and my equally vibrant batwing tops. All the above were incredibly cheap – and the variations are almost infinite, meaning I don’t need to agonise over what to wear for more than about two seconds! I have a look that is my own, which cost me very little, which suits me and which requires almost no maintenance. Ideal!

For work, I have to be more formal and tidy – and I did worry about this initially because I don’t do suits and most of my garb from my full-time teaching days had been jettisoned, or had worn out, yonks ago. But I have found a solution: A smart, longish brown skirt, a nice jacket and tights, all of which can be teamed with the three or four well-cut, more formal, blouses I still possess. I also tame my wild hair when teaching – and usually have it tied up in a pony-tail, or held back from my face with slides.

This is a variation on my most-common look!

For too many years, lacking confidence and genuine interest in clothes, I tried to buy items which looked amazing on more conventionally pretty women – and looked ridiculous on me! Modern styles do not, by and large, become me because my looks are, if you like, a couple of centuries out of date! Once I accepted that I was a Pre-Raphaelite chick in the looks department, life became infinitely easier where clothes were concerned and I stopped trying to ape those I felt to be my superiors in the physical appearance line.

The other problem I faced centred around the fact that I have never been slim, though my weight has fluctuated wildly over the decades, and so certain fashions have always been closed to me. This was hell when I was a teenager and a young woman because the emphasis was on sartorial conformity back then.

Now? I don’t give a rat’s arse what anyone else thinks. If I like a certain style, I will wear it no matter what other, more fashionable, types say! Long, flowing, colourful and slightly eccentric will do me fine. I don’t care who made it in the Designer sense. I don’t care whether other women consider it fashionable or not.

I like my clothing choices and that, ultimately, is all that matters!

Health-Related Anxiety: Swelling on Hand

Suffering from Health-Related Anxiety, as I do, can be a real handicap. It means that every symptom, every lump, bump, swelling and ache can be blown out of proportion – and assumptions of serious illness settle upon me with depressing speed.

With me, the feared outcome has always been cancer, I think partly because a friend of mine at primary school developed osteosarcoma  in her early teens and had her right leg amputated on her fourteenth birthday; partly because female cancers are fairly common in my family; but mainly because my mother also suffered from this insidious anxiety and was, thus, unable to give comfort and reassurance.

I have noticed, however, that my fear level ebbs and flows according to the levels of stress in my life: To put it bluntly, I am more likely to over-react to a minor illness when general anxiety is high – and, during the dreadful year of divorce and house-selling, seemed to be in the doctor’s surgery every week.

This latest attack of HRA has coincided with my decision to start supply teaching – and, more specifically, the problems I have experienced in the classroom and the fact that I have had no jobs this week.

Before Christmas, before moving, I was doing a great deal of unaccustomed physical work – cleaning the house, lifting heavy stuff, packing – and, although I do not now recall what happened, at one point I injured the top of my left hand (banged it really hard, I think) and, for a while, it carried a huge bruise, a bruise which covered much of the surface of the skin.

To add insult to injury, the day I moved in here, I stupidly tried to pull the plastic runner, which had been protecting the carpet between front door and kitchen, out from under a tall, heavy IKEA bookcase. The latter fell on top of me. Fortunately, I was not wounded other than bruises, but I may well have received some of the weight on my left hand. Shocked post accident, such minutiae did not register. I had a friend with me at the time, which was very lucky, and he was able to part case from human!

Since then, I have been aware of a soft swelling covering the bottom half of my left hand. Back in mid-January, I went to the local Health Centre, which I am now a member of, and had my hand seen by a doctor. She confessed herself stymied by this soft lump, had no idea what it was (which, of course, made me fear I was incubating an alien or worse) and, a few days later, I found myself in the local hospital having an x-ray to see if there was a tiny fracture or similar.

Nothing showed up skeletally – so my doctor then arranged for me to be seen by the orthopaedic bods, and I have an appointment in three weeks’ time.

The area aches sometimes, but I have osteoarthritis in my left thumb (I suspect) so it might be connected to that. I also use my left hand extensively on here.

Anyway, the point is this: Prior to last week, I was quite calm about this swelling: Accepted that, if it were something serious, the medical system would not have given me an appointment over a month, as it was then, away, and felt that, although slightly less than aesthetically pleasing, this soft bump was not actually impeding me in any way.

Then came a series of traumatic failures (the way I see it) in a succession of classrooms. To be fair, 50% of my teaching experience has been successful. But I am the sort of person to hold failure more closely to my heart, and to let it bother me perhaps more than it should. This week, as stated previously, I have had no contact informing me about supply jobs – and, although logically I know this probably means that local teachers are hale and hearty and absences few, there is a part of me scared that I am being punished for not being good enough, for failing to control all classes, for getting angry and stressed and needing, on two occasions, another teacher to take over.

Over the past three days, my anxiety about my left hand has gone into overdrive once more. I know this is silly. I know it is illogical. I know that it links to the sudden change in my life and the reintroduction of teaching. But this habit of worry is so deeply-ingrained in my soul that I find it very difficult to rationalise. The fact that I appear, at present, to be a bit of a medical mystery doesn’t help.

But, in my new incarnation, my attitude is very much about facing up to long-held fears – which is part of the reason I signed on with an agency and started teaching once more in the first place – and this health-related one is probably the most invidious, and possibly the oldest, one I have got. I do not want to be run by this fear. I do not want the tyranny of dark imagination to inform my every twinge, every lump. Yes, of course we need to be sensibly aware and get things which are of concern checked out by a medical expert. But the level of distress which physical symptoms cause me, and others like me, is far from sensible awareness and right into the heart of intermittent emotional nightmare.

Maybe I am facing too many fears at once! The fear of cooking. The fear of physical DIY tasks. The fear of hosting dinner parties. The fear of other people. The fears for my health (and that of those I hold dear). The fear of losing control. The fear of pain and collapse. The fear of death. Or should that be the fear of life?!

I have always known instinctively – and long before I knew the actual definition – that I had strong OCD traits in my character – and, in my new life, I am allowing the less destructive manifestations of this to flow freely – because they soothe me, keep the anxiety to a low level and are actually capable of producing great beauty. The two I am working creatively with are my neat freak side and my almost-spectrum need for organised colour around me.  Ironically, these two together, working for me and devoid of guilt’s invidious whisper, are creating a lovely home environment and fabulous energy. I am, metaphorically, painting my anxiety’s free and gentle lullaby all over the walls, the furniture, the garden, picking tones which relax and objects which are in harmony with my inner vision. I am making a space which is the antidote to anxiety, if you like – and it works!

Since I moved, on December 20th, my anxiety has been a fraction of what it was in my previous abode – and even after a really horrible day, I find that shutting myself inside my safe and lovely home gives me peace and healing.

The HRA has been dormant for the most part – and I have engaged in many outdoor, physically taxing, tasks, thinking to myself, ‘Whatever this swelling is, it’s pointless keeping my left hand away from work and exercise!’

This recent flare-up is not surprising. In fact, given my highly somatic nature, it would have been amazing if I hadn’t experienced a renewed bout of anxiety. But, with any luck, the orthopods will recognise what ails my south paw and will be able to advise me with regard to treatment (if any) and/or remedial exercises.

There! Now, how’s that for an inadvertently creepy photo? Looks as if I have chopped off someone else’s hand and am displaying it in bloodless glory!

I tremble: Let there be Light!

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/tremble/

I tremble with combined fear – and pleasurable anticipation! An unexpected £20 refund from B & Q allows me to indulge my creativity and imagination as far as the garden is concerned.

Long have I bemoaned its pitch-blackness at nights – though broken up, I have to be honest, with regular surges of the Moon and brightly twinkling kisses from Venus; but, when it comes to putting the bunny away of a night, I am all too likely to trip, to slither, to encroach upon her most personal space through dodgy footwork getting over the gate. Of torches, I am currently bereft, my last one, which might have condescended to illuminate a speck of dust so tiny was it, having flickered its last some days since.

So, off I go, full of excitement, and nervous tension, my skin all a-tremble at the thought of getting it wrong, judging badly, making a hideous reality out of the gorgeous patches and colourful rags of my tatterdemalion vision. The juddering reflects past reality, however: I am Mistress of my own Castle, and do not need to fear the disapproval and anger of anyone else in matters of taste. But the old habit of ducking my head to avoid the flare of fury, of shaking in an excess of terror, of freezing when iced with anger is hard to break – and I am semi-convinced I will make a mess of this.

There they are, in a box, six LED outdoor lights which correspond so exactly to my hopes and dreams that the trembling intensifies almost unbearably for a small moment. Two switches, they have, which means I can set them either to plain white -or to the wondrous kaleidoscope of colours which will not just light, but also warm and inspire, my lovely garden.

I put them together with care, though not with complete success; but, in the end, this does not matter because the little ones can rest on squared off abutments of fence, while the longer ones can burrow into the ground and shine their lights gloriously.

I plant them as tenderly as, two weeks ago, I did my snowdrops – now beginning to rise above the deepest Winter and put out little shoots of green edged with promising white – and then I have to wait, for these garden lights will not burst into flower until the darkness begins.

I immerse myself in other tasks, losing my tremble in sticking much-loved pictures to my walls, and dangling pretty pendants in various places throughout the house – and so I am caught unawares, bamboozled by the daylight sliding away, stunned by the sudden beautiful flicker of lights turning from pink to green to blue to red outside. I clap my hands in pleasure, for it is like seeing little fairies dancing magically upon my lawn and in the secret places by the growing foliage.

I dash out, laughing, so excited I am a-quiver once more; I rush into the smoothing navy of early evening, delight in the rounding of the nearly Full Moon, watch as each lantern takes on a different hue, no two the same at any point – and I point my mobile phone at the garden, take photos, try to capture this loveliness, even though I know that I cannot do the scene justice photographically.

Ah well! I can see it, enjoy it, tremble in its emotional message, know that I have chosen wisely, that I did not mess it up or do the wrong thing: Knowing that I can make decisions for myself and create an atmosphere, which reflects my taste, all around my new home.

A happy tremble! A good tremble! A healing tremble!

Ripping Hair and Distress

Tuesday night was dreadful: Very upsetting and stomach-curdling in the emotional sense. I cannot give the details, other than to say that the conversation, its barbs ripping at my every nerve, has put a big question mark over the multiply-delayed move.

In its aftermath, I did something which – I realised afterwards – is a life-long habit when faced with this level of stress and powerlessness: I started worrying at, agitating actually, my scalp – scratching and ripping, making it bleed – and, in the process, tearing out the beautiful feathers which had adorned my locks since the Frost Fayre.

It could have been worse. In the bad old days, it would have been: I would have smoked to excess and got paralytic on alcohol. Or I would have held a knife over the trembling pale skin of my wrist and wished for the courage to slice until blood arced up in a fountain.

But there is something so sad and symbolic about my tiny localised act of self-destruction: Those lures shining in my locks seemed to be such a key to liberation; I felt stronger and more me with them in – and then, as Tuesday night wore on in its awful unstated aggression, the colours adorning my hair seemed to fade, their potency in doubt, their loveliness mere childish vanity.

There was nothing I could do about the situation – not at that point anyway – and so the hurt and anger and impotence turned inwards.

Afterwards, I held those pretty feathers in my hand, stroked them and wept. They represented every charge that has been lobbed at me – of being embarrassing and acting insanely and being destructively eccentric. But they also represent wings and flight and escape.

I did not burn them, or throw them away; I did not cut my long curls back down to the scalp (though all of these were fleeting temptations). No. I have placed my lovely lures carefully in a drawer and am studying them to find out how to put them back in my riotous and wild tresses.

Out of this horror, however, came a burning determination and certainty: This is the last time this particular kind of scenario will cause me to damage my own body or possessions. I will weave the pink, the purple and the black and white back in somehow – and I will move away from the bony and decaying fragments of this long-drawn-out stand-off.

My head, my hair, my desire for colourful decoration, the person I am should not have to be shocked and tamed into grey obedience or another’s inhibition and fear. The metaphorical chain round my neck – and the cruel jerks upon it – will snap; I am quite sure of that…

Liberation is a hard battle. Its most difficult barrier to overcome is the wall of habits which long-term bullying causes us to adopt as safety strategies.

This time, I am prepared to fight back – for my own liberation, for those around me and for those delightful feathers which, so briefly, allowed me to reclaim my true self.