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.

Saturday 17 February 2018

frosty mornings, spring sunlit days, poem
























Frosty mornings and spring sunlit days. Very uplifting and optimistic.

The daffodils ringing the bases of the lime trees along our street are all ready to flower.

I wrote the poem below this week. It is, of course, personal but I hope that something of it connects with readers. It stands alone but is also intended to be the start of a longer work.

The incident described happened a long time ago but it - and others around that time - cast a long shadow.

That phrase 'You'll get nothing' was so unexpected, so baffling. Even now, when I understand the strange thought processes behind it much more, it seems utterly bizarre - and terrifying. And prophetic - though in a way that wasn't intended.

--

You'll get nothing

October 1992

Mum opens her eyes and fixes me,
brow dark, lips disdainful.
'You'll get nothing, Francis.'

At lunchtime, there was no sign that
she might make such a statement.
When afterwards she fell asleep
watching the racing she seemed OK.

As so often, her words ambush -
but quite what the purpose is,
or whether I am really the intended victim
are impossible to say.

The benefit of hindsight -
time brushing the soil from the truth
at its inscrutable pace -
will give insights.

It is as if there is another me in the room.
Someone to whom the words,
'You'll get nothing, Francis,'
seem appropriate.

I know these wrong notes,
have known them all my life.
And they do ambush you, every time.
Strike you dumb.
Not sure if you've heard right.
Self-anaesthetised, protected,
you get through the moment.

Mum observes her imbecile son,
shakes her head.
'Never mind, never mind.
Are you going to make the tea, Francis?'

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