Welcome to justthoughtsnstuff

I started posting to jtns on 20 February 2010 with just one word, 'Mosaic'. This seemed an appropriate introduction to a blog that would juxtapose fragments of memoir and life-writing. Since 1996, I'd been coming to terms with the consequences of emotional and economic abuse that had begun in childhood, and which, amongst other things, had sought to stifle self-expression. While I'd explored some aspects of my life through fiction and, to a lesser extent, journalism, it was only in 2010 that I felt confident enough to write openly about myself. I believed this was an important part of the healing process. Yet within weeks, the final scenes of my family's fifty-year nightmare started to play themselves out and the purpose of the blog became one of survival through writing. Although some posts are about my family's suffering - most explicitly, Life-Writing Talk, with Reference to Trust: A family story - the majority are about happier subjects (including, Bampton in rural west Oxfordshire, where I live, Oxford, where I work, the seasons and the countryside, walking and cycling) and I hope that these, together with their accompanying photos, are enjoyable and positive. Note: In February 2020, on jtns' tenth birthday, I stopped posting to this blog. It is now a contained work of life-writing about ten years of my life. Frank, 21 February 2020.

New blog: morethoughtsnstuff.com.

Wednesday 24 February 2010

wednesday night

Sausages are delicious, especially when the gravy's lamb-shank (though the Heinz ketchup made them--sssh, don't tell Jess).

Watched the last few moments of Vanity Fair on DVD earlier--great until you viewed the bonus material and saw what the ending might have been. Cinema one was fun and upbeat but alternative was moving and profound. Ah well, Reese Witherspoon was brill in both.

Maybe it was the film that made me think of the big break up in my own family--some thirteen years ago now. Looking back, the events that caused the breach were so sad and pointless and, as I've written elsewhere, wholly avoidable. I am still astonished in particular at the absence of love then. I wonder what those involved thought they were doing?


Though I suppose nothing human beings do should surprise anybody!

Night.

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