Things that make us who we are

Poem of the Month some time ago 

The other day, somebody asked me why I write my ‘Daf’s Diary’ blog page and that is a fair enough question I suppose, although the message actually asked was plainer, ‘Why do you waste your time writing a load of tosh that nobody reads.’ Well I suppose there are several more questions within that question are there not. 

Q1. Is a diary a waste of time? I don’t think it is really and for me it sees my world put into writing; What I am thinking about, what may be troubling me, where I think I am going and looking at it all calmly and clearly, rather than let the jumbled thoughts and feelings whirl around in my head, unattended, unquestioned and unresolved. 

Q2. Is it a load of tosh? Ahhhh! That’s the real question isn’t it? It is not tosh to me. I realise that it is not world shattering news either, like the items that hit the headlines on the morning news but it is my news, and it is, by my writing it, recorded, with a date and a heading, there for me to look back at, if I need to in the future. A diary in fact; and it is no more tosh than much of the stuff that gets into our daily papers. I only look at a newspaper whilst I have my coffee in the Rustington branch of Costa Coffee and frankly most of it contributes nothing to my world or well my being, certainly not as books, the theatre, cinema and travel do. 

Q3. Actually this part is not a question is it, that last part is a straight insult. ‘That Nobody Reads’…. There may not be lot of people who read it that is true, and most of the few who do, do not read it every day. My own daughter asked me why I didn’t make a bigger effort to spread it around within my own groups, or wider circles, adding the question ‘You would like people to read it wouldn’t you.’ Well of course I would, but it is after all, MY diary… Daf’s Diary and although it is not a secret book hidden away under my mattress, one of my thoughts in opening my diary to anybody with enough spare time to read a page or two is to see that I am indeed an ordinary open book. Maybe even a helpful one or even a little motivational.

 

 

How some may see me 

 

Much of my life is quite ordinary; washing, ironing, hoovering etc. Yet those are things that I would like to limit in fact. When I first left my parents home at the start of my first marriage, I dusted, wiped, cleaned, cooked and all those earlier mentioned household chores and kept the house spotless, as well as working full time. My life was my home and family and I worked to help that.  

Years later, my life has changed. My life, for the last forty years has been more full than it has ever was before and with the addition of Triathlon; that slid suddenly into my life twenty six years ago, it is tightly packed with sporting activity. Yet still I try to cram in more and more.

 

 

How my artist neighbour Christine saw me in 2002 

 

I have always been a big letter writer. As a teenager I found pen pals from contact columns in The Melody Maker and the NME. Those pen pals and I wrote pages to each other. Whilst my brother was in the RAF I wrote to him all the time and then to dear friends who had moved away.  

The writing did not truly start overnight when an accident tried to keep me resting for a while. What did happen at that time, was the poetry writing, just as a form of discipline to keep my mind occupied as I sat with my leg up and my arm in a sling. I forced myself to write a poem a day until I could get back to my sport. The poems did not stop however. Then a year or so ago, I started going to the Worthing Wow, ‘Write Night’, and I started, just by chance, from a picked up brochure to read Mslexia Magazine.  

The poetry has slowed down somewhat now because I started the open Diary. It was an idea in Mslexia that try’s so hard to encourage women to write… about anything. One tiny little corner, in the depths of the magazine put forward an idea to help spur us ladies on. It suggested that we try to write six lines every day. That just grew! I started running the same way, between lamp posts, a little at first and then a step more and a step more.

 

All linked together as if by magic

 

My husband Steve is most encouraging; he listens as I read my daily work using him as a sounding board. He knows how much I enjoy bashing the keys and loading my blog. I enjoy my daily writing, even if it is a load of tosh to some people. I exercise my body for fun and sport and for my health and the company of Steve and other friends, and this, my writing, is my minds exercise. Then, to make sure that I take myself seriously, I enter the odd poetry competition and it is amazing how much fun that is, it gives me a real buzz.