Remembering Joy

 

Remembering Joy ©

By Michael Casey

This will be my 3000^th piece of writing once I post it on my main site and the backup sites. Though in actual fact  I’ve done a good few more than that. I only started the count once I migrated to Blogger is it 11 years ago. Ditto with the word count, 1,630,000 words or 8400 pages or so, this does not include the “chats” that do not appear in my books. So two million words plus maybe.

To the point though, I’m expecting some bad news, some final news. So rather  than dwell on that I thought I’d go the opposite way, and highlight the positive. It’s far too easy to dwell on the pain, yes I know I mention it far too often, but it is part of my daily life, my daily bread, so forgive me my trespasses. No doubt I’ll bore you for the next few years, but let’s get back to  joy.

Being happy is a choice, as is being sad. You’re screaming at the screen now, but rather than debate you, you’d lose badly by the way. Let’s just say I speak from over 50 years experience of the matter, and I have the scars of learning via living. So you should all choose to be happy, and make each day count, as is the AA motto. I spotted it in a newspaper without realising it was the AA motto, as I’m no drinker, and cut it out and had it on my mantlepiece over 34 years ago. I also had a Caravagio Christmas card, as I loved his paintings, years before I discovered Andrew Graham Dixon, who wonders just who is the fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham. Though Russian billionaires may have only shared their Art collection with him because they read me in Russian while sat on their golden toilets. Very flash in the pan.

So do remember the pain, as a lesson, but then concentrate on the good and ignore and reject the bad. For sadness will drownd you, so don’t let it. Choose instead how you farted at the interview, your chances could have been stunk, or is it skunk. So instead you remembered what Aunty Delia, said, “wherever your are, wherever you may be let you  wind go free”. Getting up you open the window while still speaking about hot air central heating systems, your knowledge is so great, that you get the job. You did mention air filtration and purification as part of the most  modern systems. As you leave, they ask one finally cheeky question, though they have already decided you are the man for the job. How did you  manage to stay calm? So you quote your Aunty Delia, and say she had a saying for everything, so you mention how she helped a policeman prevent a prisoner escaping from Killarney jail, a backpacker who smelt of skunk. That raises a smile, and I forgot to say the job was for Facilities at Police Headquarters.

Yes, my Aunty Delia really did that in the 1970s or 1980s. The old penny used to be made of copper and  had Britannia on it, so when we were in Abegele in North Wales, we always seemed to go there, dad won the slot machine. It was a pound, but  in pennies, so he had to  take his baseball cap off to catch the pennies, all 240 of them. Dad had a bald patch with a Bobby Chalton comb over, hence the cap to avoid sunburn on his bald spot, so we went back to the flat with a cap full of pennies. This could be a Spaghetti Western title in itself. These are some of my memories of joy. Just as mum asked for a penny in change so she could use the public toilets while on a visit from Abegele to Rhyl, so the man rather than give her change, gave her a penny and said have one on me, we laughed, this was well before golden shower was dreampt of. People use to hold the door open too, so that the next shitter could avoid paying, so spend a penny probably came from that, go ask a toilet expert, or watch Carry On at Your Convenience, not the best of the Carry on Series, but there are 31 and they do have the spirit of British humour.

Watching films as a family is another joy, and remembering dad going into the kitchen to wipe a tear away, and saying he was getting a cold, or mum popping into the kitchen to put the kettle on while the adds were on. Not to mention the Friday night  Horror films, with Peter Tomlinson holding his teddy bear as he introduced a Dracula film, this would be 1968+ if memory serves. Though a 12 today would be far more menacing. But those memories are memories of joy, of crowding into our small back living room, before the kitchen extension, when we only had one outside toilet, and a chamber pot was still in service. If you wanted an actual pooh in the night you’d have to open up the back door, though the yard light and toilet light were actually by the side door and the green bread bin, under the coat hangers. Then freezing you’d pooh quickly before the ghosts would come, or the cold would freeze your ghoulies to the toilet seat, while a stray mouse might be in the coal shed next door to the outside toilet.

Yes,  this are  simple simple things, I nearly died in that coal house  too, we were making a guy for Bon Firenight, Guy Fawkes is 5^th November every year, so I reached up for paper to stuff the guy with. But I knocked an old heavy metal gas ring on top my head, so I cracked my skull. My mother wrapped my head in tea towel, so I looked like our Indian neighbours, we caught the bus to Dudley Rd Hospital. I had an Xray, and came home with mum. Maybe that explains a lot, why I treat safety serious, or as is my Writing as cracked as my skull. I also have a scar on my left buttock from where I fell on the air raid shelter so I had to sit side saddle for a few weeks. My brother was at Queens Oxford then so I had to flash my bandage when he came home.

Now you all have much better events and celebrations in your life, and even the occasional or even never ending sadnesses. The  choice though is how do you want to live, in fear of in hope. It’s not always easy, or even ever. You are a castle, you can raise or lower the draw bridge, raise or lower the portcullis, you decide how much to reveal or obscure. Or just become liquid and merge with other liquids. You decide, at whatever pace you decide, nobody tells you what to do or how to do it. You can stay a stone, or become water, nobody has any scissors to cut you. That  is the simple simple advice I’ve shared in the past to those who needed a bit of comfort. You decide. Then you can Remember with Joy, exactly what you want to Remember, you can put the past where it belongs, part of you, or abandoned, and you go forward with a spring in your step. 

Skip into to future with me, as we go down the garden path to have drinks with Gill from StatsMR, for she always held the door open, and so should you.