I have turned into an offline blogger. I have been kept lean on the internet front over the last few days. Free internet at Power Train, but very little spare time to use it (fair enough – I’m being paid to work there – it’s not a complaint).
In the now familiar Premier Inn on Welsh Back (love that name – the first image I have is of beef and daffodils, closely followed by hairy rugby player fare), I have 30 minutes free. That disappears with no warning, though, so the blog’s been written pre-30 and uploaded. A scramble to find pictures and answer urgent emails has ensued. And then, all of a sudden, mid-tap, it goes, and whichever email I was on will fail to either send or save.
Right now I am on a sorely delayed train to Brighton. Hopefully to Worthing, but nothing’s certain due to gas leaks beyond my control. We’ll see, we’ll see. If it fails, I’ll stay on till Brighton and beg sanctuary with friends. If it even goes to Brighton. No point worrying though. Really not. All I’ll do is sit and see.
Today, graceful Charlotte delighted me a lot. She is a dancer who moves with gentleness and poise, just so. Her shoulders always high and back, her collarbone prominent. She glides. She has a clown face. I mean that in the best of ways. I mean an innocence in her features which reveals itself at certain times. She has altogether dancer features – fine and structured, cheekbones like statements. She amused me today. The others did too – Lucy, Wolf, Klemens, but Charlotte even more so. Her clown-face made me laugh.
I giggled today at the strangest of times. I was feeling grumpy. Stressed is more where it’s at. Realising that to be able to deliver the training on Monday, I’ll have to work for most of the weekend. But I’m at a conference. I haven’t paid much, because I’m volunteering and helping with a workshop, and because the lovely people gave me some money off – but I have paid, and I do need to relax.
But if I don’t work hard, I won’t be able to do the job I will be paid for on Monday. And no, I won’t be paid for this prep work. I suppose it’s in the fee, but it feels like a lot. Three versions of the same event. It’s taking longer partly because it’s in German. So it’s no one of these things, but the combination. Feeling overloaded and more than a little resentful that I have to cancel things I love to do (a show with Somekind) and let down people I value massively, to do something that doesn’t appeal anywhere near as much.
And of course it’s my choice. I could say ‘to hell with it, I'm not paid to work all weekend’ and be a jobsworth, but then my delivery would be less than it needs to be, and I’d let the company down.
Anyway, at lunch time, it had all got a little bit too much – I was feeling the impossibility of my task, and a slap of imposter syndrome – why would they want me there when they can have these Real Germans to do the job? How they must be a the end of their tether with me and wish me gone (oh, mind, why do you do this, despite any evidence?).
So I went out. There were other reasons – to get a small present for a friend, to find some lunch – but more than anything, to walk. To feel that beautiful cold biting my cheeks. To feel my feet on the pavement. I ran, in my smart coat, in my silly hat with the penis cut off, in my lame boots, which have collapsed in the inside heel. And that’s when I laughed. It felt outrageously good, running through the cold and sun, through reams of curly-voiced Bristolians on their phones.
Back to the work, don’t get me wrong. I did have fun. Wolf and I translated reams of text. Well, he did it mostly. I typed it, tried it on, made the odd suggestion. We tried it out, changed it some more, and then I’ll need to learn it, so as to unlearn it again and be more free.
I realise that today, I’ve dropped my status. Poor me, not a native speaker, not sure, not able. For fuck’s sake! Had I been on my own, I would have done the whole thing through. It would not have been the kind of perfect German that the others can muster, but it would have done the job.
I am grateful for the capacity for language-learning that my codebreaker grandfather passed down to me. I’ve hardly lived in Germany. About 7 months in total, if even that. I can speak it, thanks to studies and what time I was there. I can understand it. I can enjoy it, and with a little more live time there, I’ll have the kind of flexibility that I crave.
I love a good nuance, me. I love it when I can speak a language well enough to mess with it and speak it wrong on purpose. I’m grateful that I am getting paid to play, and do what we are doing, and I know I’m blessed to be working with people who are so nice to be around.
For a lovely long email from Ruth which I am yet to answer, but which I enjoyed very much. And another email from a very cherished friend. Love flowing thickly to you both.
I am grateful for a filthy steak slice I just put in my face. Not eating after 9pm meant I picked up ‘food’ during the long, cold wait at Southampton station. And there it was: a microwaved Ginsters. That’s a sorry thing. It doesn’t even stand proud. You have to let it drape into your mouth from its cardboard casing. It was ‘peppered steak’, which really means ‘dog food covered up with spices’. It was ace.
Now, my gratitude extends to a warm train, a quiet table mate (not the smooching couple from the previous train, who left me feeling like [in the words of beloved Victoria Sandison] like the bitter old whore I am). I wanted to scream at them, even in the knowledge that they weren’t being too outrageous. Not the prettiest part of me. Ah well. I didn’t give in. I stuck the Metro in front of my face, for privacy’s sake, both mine and theirs.
And to a train that seems to be going to Worthing. Fingers crossed.
Pictures courtesy of 'beef and daffodils' and 'dirty beef' - stunned at the lack of obscenity brought up by this latter. Internet courtesy of my hotel. In Worthing. Result!
No comments:
Post a Comment