My Wall

In my back yard, there's a wall my dad built. It has an alcove where I put my feet up and from here I can forget the tatty house behind me and just enjoy looking into the murky pond water. The pond is a bit pointless really, the fish all died years ago like everything else in this place, nothing ever seems to thrive, except me. But the water homes frogs. I like Frogs, they come every year and spawn. Watching the progress of eggs, to tadpoles, to tadpoles with legs, to mini frogs, to full grown creatures has never bored me.
Well this wall, this place it catches most of sun in summer and it's my quiet place where I have written many things and pondered many situations. It's here that I sat and cried when my dog died, here where I can sit for hours of stillness. This is my 'thinking' wall. I have sat and felt the first drop of rain, and still sat until the sky came hammering down on me. In winter I often lose my inspiration, freezing cold in a damp house is one factor, but to not be able to sit on my wall means thoughts dont get processed properly. I'm not suggesting I need this wall to write, but it helps me concentrate, it helps me put things in perspective.

When I hit blocks I fall into a sort of personal depression, it doesnt show to the outside world but it puts me on edge. For example the last six months I've lost Grace. I know she's somewhere inside me but nothing is flowing out, I don't know where she's going in the story, what's supposed to happen next. I feel like you've left me Grace, I know its my own fault but you need to come back and lead the way. Jim's waiting.

Here is the wall ^                                                                 Over there I'm sat on the edge of the pond
                                       My Gorgeous dog :-)

Here is a passage I wrote last summer while on my wall about the pond.

She sat there, almost completely still for so long that the shy creatures of the garden forgot her presence and began to come out of their hideaways. A female black bird was hopping restlessly on a stone step no more than twenty five feet away and the frogs that had scattered on her abrupt arrival now floated lazily to the surface of the pond croaking and gurgling around the mass of their spawn. The majority of the water surface was obscured by a blanket of tiny green plants that moulded together to form a sheet. Duckweed, it was so thick it gave the impression of one being able to walk across it. Transfixed by the idea Grace slowly put her hand out and moved to touch the pad of her finger tip to the blanket. Alerted once more to her human presence twelve or more frogs tumbled, dived, leapt and sank back beneath the water and into a nearby long stem plant. In their frantic retreat from a potential threat the frogs had disrupted the blanket, their splashes having left huge rippling holes in the weed.

 

    For a moment Grace raised her eyebrows in disapproval as the frogs abandoned their handfuls of eggs offering no protection had she been a hungry predator. Then her attention was caught by the rips and gashes in the weed blanket, she now had a somewhat restricted, but never the less, a view of the depth of the pond. It went three or four feet beneath the ground and Grace could make out a carpet of tiny pebbles on the floor, the water being unusually clear considering the muck that lay on top of it. A shimmer of light and then the flash of green land and a large house made Grace blink two or three times in quick succession.

Don’t be stupid! Grace ordered herself as she peered closer into the pond and saw only green tinted water.

Gregory

My youngest brother Gregory, is ten years my senior. I love and idolise him on a scale slightly above anyone else in my family. He's a bit of an arrogant, jack ass sometimes, but he's also hilarious! And infectious. When Greg walks into a room the atmostphere instantly lights up a bit brighter. Maybe thats just my oppinion. I value his advice and oppinion above anyone elses, life or death situations I'd rely on his word. If a hundred people said yes and Greg said no, I'd say no. It's partly because of this that I curse myself now, for Greg never took well to the Key Holder, and the Key Holder never took kindly to my brother. That should have been the first sign, rather than listen to my brothers subtle hints and follow his pushing I instead struggled to find arguments against his points in my own mind. I didn't push the two together because really I knew the truth...Greg was right, and the Key Holder was lacking.

If I was to lose anyone it would hurt, but to lose Greg would devastate me. Crying in front of Greg is my biggest irritant. I hate it. I can break down to James at any given point but I don't like Greg to see the weakness in me. I want to make him proud more than anyone else, I model myself on him, I steal his jokes and make them my own in our different circles. Granted there are of course moments in time when he pisses me off, he can be such a thoughtless twat sometimes, but the longest I can manage away is a week. He's one of my best friends.

I love his wife like the sister I wasnt given. Stacey, I was afraid of for the first few years of her being a part of gregs life, but then I grew used to her ways and her tone and I found I could actually give it back as I got it. Stacey told me about periods, she convinced me to wear trainer bras, she was the cool and sturdy older sister i'd always wished for. I know I can tell Stacey anything, and I know she'll tell Greg but thats ok because I'd tell him too. :-) She is my fierce guardian, you dont mess with her, and if I needed someone for battle it would be her. I'm glad two such wonderful people are sharing their lives together, and that they share parts of it with me.

Mirror Mirror who is the...oh sod it! give me your worst I'll deal with it.

So here's a funny sort of thing...
 If you've read previous blogs of mine you'll no doubt have cottoned on that I was never the most pretty or confident person. Frankly this isnt just self conscious nonsense, I'm just average, plain really, my friends have always been prettier, I dont begrude them it because they are each individually lovely and boys have always had nothing but praise for them. In clubs or just at college it's always my friends that have had the attention, men will cross rooms to talk to my friends, I'm usually the "will your friend go out with me" middle person. That's fine to be honest, I always thought that my creative side, my painting and such was my special thing and so I glow through that.

So here's the funny thing, since January, yes thats this January, well I think people have gone around the sodding bend! I became single a while ago, but suddenly something has changed, something in the force of nature has changed. Boys, Men are just popping up like daffodils! I've not just had a few one liners or chat ups but actual genuine "I like you, want to come out with me?" :-O and some of these chaps are really not half bad! Nice guys, I mean what! really? you want to buy me a drink? well ermm, I er...I erm..oh god say something Sian!!!
Now here's my argument....This is all very nice, these chaps, some randomers, approaching me but how am I supposed to handle this business? I tell you what's occurring at the moment i'm running up to my brothers every other day for advice. So for somebody who's useless at reading romantic situations, with little experience, and who's gone a long bloody time hiding in the shadows this new attention is very hard to cope with. Compliments are always surprising and really really flattering, but then of course comes the hot flush across my chest, up my back, stroking over my shoulders, tickling up my neck, pushing through my hair, like hands, a crimson blush splashed on my face. My stomach releases a flutter of butterflies, I feel a bright glow rush through me and have literally nothing to say. It really is cringe worthy. So then I must look like the sort of person who takes offence at compliments and I hate those kind of women. I'm really pleased you have an interest in me, I'm truly flattered, I just dont know what to do with it! If someone knows how to over come being shy and how to react in these situations then do tell me. Does anyone else actually relate to this?

the hardship of growing up as a girl

When I was growing up only my mother said I was the most beautiful girl in the world, and of course I always thought back "you're the most beautiful woman in the world" so it made sense...but twelve is the most awful age to hit, puberty and school thrown together, who the hell came up with that idea!?
Breastless, pencil thin, plain and featureless, all the while struggling with suddenly realising these tall creatures smoking round the back of the geography classes were boys, and you liked them! One day your'e going along as normal then suddenly you're bleeding for five days and not dying, your chest is aching like a bitch as breast tissue desperately tries to fill the front of your pathetic trainer bra, you've gone chainsaw masacre on your legs with a razor, you're either gaining weight or losing it drastically, you're washing your hair obbsessively and crying at random intervals because 1 the jerk ripped up my christmas card! and 2 you're period is hurting and 3 YOU JUST NEED A CRY SOMETIMES OKAY YOU JACK ASS!!! Get the hell outta my room!!!!! slam door, slam again. Just leave me alone!! I hate my life. Yeah thats a thirteen year old damn right.

Feeling ugly at highschool is something you will always carry with you though, if you relate to this then I'll say two things....the girls who made school hell, the boys that egged them on. Yeah you know who I mean, you would have had them too. If you dont regonise these two groups then you were probably in them, thanks a bunch!

Okay so 'eighteen' came along, now theres an age full of potential :-) your figure has settled somewhat, Jesus Christ! when did these breasts turn up? seriously get me a racy red lace number because these darlings are touching nothing but the best from now on! You're suddenly being whistled at from vans on the road and people call you a woman, 'town' has become a new concept; a dancing, drinking, hell of a time and you're rocking like mad, slut dropping to music you dont even like. Home at 3 am, rolling into work or uni the next day at 8 am because you're hard core! and we're young and we can get away with this kinda of stuff. :-)

It certainly is a new feeling, confidence, where did it come from? oh yeah those smirnoffs I just tanked!

Motorbikes

I was twelve when I first rode on a small motorbike, illegally and on an industrial estate with my brothers and my dad. I took a corner too sharply at one point and came off. The bike was on top of me and they ran to pull it off me. I didnt cry because I was infront of my brothers, I dont remember the fear or even if it hurt, but I remember the thrill, the excitement, the rush.

I turned thirteen when dad took me on the back of a real size motorbike, it was summer at a car show. I didnt have to wear a helmet on the camp site and I felt like my dad was the best person in the world. Nothing would beat the feeling of being on a bike. Getting off my inner leg touched the hot exhaust pipe and it stung like hell. Mum freaked. I was scarred for life, it was all his fault, I shouldnt have gone on it...but seriously you cant really see it now and it was worth it.

When dad took me on the Harley I know I'd fallen in love with the whole biker image...I tilted when he tilted, I felt the wind humming past, the thrumming of the engine under my legs. On open country roads the ride was so easy in the sun, I changed my mind a little when my ass hurt after three hours and up in the welsh mountains in chucked it down with icy water..but hey! there are up's and downs to everything. If you havent ever ridden on the back of a motorbike I can honestly say I dont think you've felt real freedom. My dad said something poetic once "listen carefully, the wind catches up to you and it whispers race with me, we've gotta beat the wind" I never once thought about coming off the bike, or getting hurt. I never think of that sort of thing and people sometimes think I'm fearless but I dont know if I'm fearless, crazy or just trust my dad completely. Childish really but nothing can happen to me if I'm with my dad or my brothers...and the thrill is always stronger than any fear.

I like being a passenger in a car, and as a typical everyday mode of transport especially for long road trips I would pick a car...but theres something special about a motorbike, it's like having a treat after a period of starvation..it is to me anyway. If I hear a song about a steal horse, or a cowboy riding through the dust, all these poetic pictures, I crave the feeling. I crave the rush of being on a bike.

My Beginning

So thought I'd write a little background information on myself, in preparation really for the biography I need to write for university. So...
 It was the year 1993, lol, I was born Sian Amy Siviter...to parents Ronda and Stephen, but lets be honest I should have be born Elizabeth, or Catherine Kellet, or Rogers, or something glorious in 1800 around about.
However it is what it is...my name, is pronounced shaahn...not Si anne, or Sean or some such like that. I really do hate it. The English variant of this welsh irritant is Jane. I actually like Jane..why can't people call me that instead? Because they're gits that's why.
 I was brought up in working class standards, in a working class street. I have no desire to be proud of my roots and all that nonsense some people spew out, I couldn't choose where I was born but if I could have done it would have been out in the countryside somewhere with a nicer accent than the black country. I remember from my childhood very specific things; car shows with my dad, polly pockets, the dog, and eating coronation chicken with my mum during trips to the art museum.

me, five days old

I have four older brothers and not many people appreciate the hardship of growing up with an age gap of ten years in a family of men. I was singled out already, I was to learn over the years how to adapt and how to fight for position. I watched my brothers leave one by one as their lives moved forward as they should, but eventually I was a little girl alone in a house that had once been full and it was hard. I got used to keeping my own company and I read books like reading was breathing.

I wouldnt say life growing up was wonderful, money has and always will be in this house, short and inconsistant. School uniforms were a struggle, the inside of cupboards didnt look like other peoples, the house was bare and plain. Not poor enough to cry poverty and make a best seller out of it, but sort of a middleish upbringing. I, like everyone, have issues with my parents, but out of respect I would not dwell on those feelings. I have not been abused or beaten or abandoned and I know I'm loved by my mother that is enough for me.

I have found over the years that my brothers mean the world to me, Lee, James, Greg, especially Gregory, we are close and I idolise them all. I love their wives, who are the best, most loving, dearest sisters I could have ever asked for. Then there are the children...my darlings, I adore my nieces and nephews they are the most wonderful little people and I hope the bond I have with them remains for their entire lives. I have another brother Mitchel, but for some reason he keeps seperate from the family, I dont have the same connection with him and his household as I do with the others thats for certain. My second worst fear I will say is not getting old and dying...but it is getting old and watching my brothers die before me...with an age gap like ours its not unlikely that I'll be suffering the loss of those dearest to me one by one like flies. It terrifies me.

My parents brought me up to be very independant, I did my own household chores, I was given the family allowance money to buy my own food each week, and as survival more than anything else at the age of 12 I cooked for myself. Mum's cooking and me have never been on the best terms. So yes from a young age I've taken care of myself, but if I needed help I know I have people to turn to. God this is so boring isnt it? My life really did have a boring start. Well lets leave it there.

Never read about myself

I write about people all the time, they don't know, I change names and things like that but I pick people up and drop them into my writing all the time. The man from the bus with the salt and pepper hair, facebook folk, friends, sexy guy from the shop, rude taxi driver....but it got me thinking, I've never known anyone to write about me. Hmmm would I be an interesting character to read about Would I like myself? I'd really like to see myself through someone elses eyes, another persons interpretation of me! You relate to characters all the time. I'm so that person in a random shop who starts bawling across the customers to my friend looking at a sales rack "Emily! Emily this is totally my song, I love this tune! It's exactly how I am!" to which she replies running enthusiastically across the isle
"Oh my god! me too! I love this song!"
and we progress to singing the current verse, well into the chorus and then leave the shop without having really looked at anything. But really you dont go in shops to look around, you go in so you can hear the latest Taylor Swift and say "Lets just stay in here until the end." Yes we're hated by many.

So point: If something really was written about me, other than some rant about annoying girl in River Island, I wonder what it would say. Hmmmm