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.
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