Once upon a time there were two sisters: an older one, who knew most things and a younger one, who learned everything she knew from her sister. The older sister had lots of rules. She loved them. Rules made the messy world straight, rules kept everything to time and they made her feel happy. But no matter how much the younger one tried, she couldn’t quite keep to the rules. She tapped out of time to the music and ran late for the bus. She never sang the melody but would add her own harmonies, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. The older sister thought if the little sister just tried harder, she would be able to live by the rules. But she couldn’t.

The older sister had a red tricycle with a wagon on the back. Every day, she would ride around the lemon tree in their backyard on her red tricycle. She liked the younger sister to ride in the back so they could enjoy the journey together. But as the younger sister got bigger, she no longer fit in the wagon. Still, the older sister insisted, so she would curl her legs up under her chin and squash herself in and watch from behind as her sister pedaled her way around the backyard. The older sister was pleased and the younger sister was glad to make her sister happy, even though it hurt to squash her legs in, she was scared she might topple over and fall out and she couldn’t really see anything from the wagon.

One day, she had a graze on her leg and didn’t want to squash into the tricycle. She argued with her sister and her sister’s face grew red. Mum came out and asked what the fuss was about. The older sister explained that she wanted to ride around the garden together and Mum said, ‘That’s so sweet, let me get my camera.’ Now the little sister had no choice. The older sister smiled sweetly for the camera as she pedaled past, but the little sister, whose graze was hurting and whose legs were aching, couldn’t smile. She had a look of suffering, a look of defeat and a hint of defiance in her face.

The photo became a family favourite, the two sisters doing something together, one having a ball and the other grimly surviving. Everyone laughed at the little sister’s pudgy little body, the rolls of fat in her neck and her sulky face. The little sister never forgot the feeling of being pushed into the red wagon, knowing she didn’t fit, and having to do it anyway.

And because of that, one night when her parents and her sister were asleep, she stole the family photo album, found the photo and hid it in her sock drawer.

Until finally, one day, her family was looking through the photo album and wondered where that photo had gone. The little sister said nothing about where the photo was. ‘I hated that photo,’ the little sister said, and her family was very surprised.

It’s the close of the day and I’m already wrestling with those all too familiar messages that allow me to dismiss the call and the urge to write. It’s now a deeply embedded, well-practiced manoeuvre. One that I know doesn’t give me any satisfaction.

And yet – after all that I’ve experienced today – a day that came to me as gift – the temptation to let the old stuff have its way could, and might easily defeat me.

Except that Dev threw out a challenge to write something and send it to her tonight, and I took her up on this – knowing even as I heard myself say “I will” that I would struggle to follow through.

In that moment there was a bit of wind, perhaps euphoria, filling my sails after a day at the Gunners Writing Masterclass. But there was something more. And this was the depth of feeling I sensed in the recognition Dev and other people in the class gave to Helen’s gift. This acknowledgement startled me.

I loved that the gift Helen gave was, so thoughtfully, a gift just for me. A gently humoured encouragement from a wonderfully gifted and most impressive young woman to her mother-in-law. I know how much she savours words and how elegantly she uses language, gifts inherited from her own mother, and gifts she is passing on to her children.

But it was your insight into the deeper meaning behind this gift, and what it says about the giver and her relationship with me that shook me out of what I can see now was form of complacency. Hearing strangers react in the way that you did startled me into accepting that I am loved; loved for who I am; loved without any strings, demands or expectations. Loved even though I’m a “Gunna”.

Well – I’ve decided that, as of tonight I’m a “recovering Gunna”! I’ve decided it’s time to begin chipping away at the layers and layers of defences that I’ve allowed to accumulate over many, many years. And to make the most of this exciting gift and grab this opportunity to, at last, begin to tell my story!

“And here it is” he says to himself, shuffling the piano stool closer to the keys, knees almost touching the shiny black wood. Hands outstretched, two quick right left stretches of the neck and a long breath in.
Left hand octaves. Little finger and thumb holding down for four beats before changing. Laying a picnic rug of sound for the treats of the right hand to be arranged on.
“Here it is” a simple tumbling tune that holds no meaning bar that which the listener attaches to it. A ball falling down a flight of stairs.
And he’s crying now because it’s the best thing he’s ever done and it’s still an ants’ description of a sky scraper.
The right and left hand and the tumbling melody are like everything he’s ever attempted. Good but not… Brilliant.
He’s crying because he’s scared of this ordinary beauty. Scared of being satisfied with its round edges and pleasantness.
The tune revolves, coming back to the beginning which is really the middle which becomes the end.
It revolves like the hands of a child’s watch or… The moon.
He’s pretty messy now. Face covered with salt and snot and the sobs become giggles because who does he think he is? Who the hell is he to decide how good it is? How worthy? How meaningful?
The left hand makes its stately way through the pattern and the right hand runs about its legs like a puppy.
And that’s it.
That’s enough.
He wipes his eyes with the back of his hands and digs a tissue from his pocket.
“There it is” he says out loud to no one.

The man was going to a Turkish barber in a nondescript northern German town. He had heard that in this establishment, he could get all of his hair needs met, right down to his nasal hair, and cheap at that. Not that he particularly wanted his nasal hair messed with. As he was about to enter the place he, literally, ran into an expensively dressed young woman who was so intensely staring at her mobile phone that she paid scant attention to either him, or the uneven footpath, partly covered in dirty, icy snow. The action of the physical meeting of the two bodies caused the aforementioned phone to fly out of her hand and into a pile of less dirty, but no less icy snow, now on the side of the footpath. Unfortunately, both parties dived for the phone at the same time; the young man out of an apologetic attempt at recovering the situation, and the young woman in an attempt to quickly regain her most important possession, and this resulted in their crashing heads and her falling awkwardly to the ground. In this she was aided by the overly high, spindly heels of her rather white boots.

Every day she tried to talk herself out of wearing these boots, and into something more practical. But as a result of the most uncomfortable and embarrassing situation she currently found herself in, she felt that something more than her head had been knocked. She sat there for a while, no longer trying to reach for her phone, and looked at her shoes- those white boots she was wearing. One day, actually, today, this had to stop. Gingerly she reached down and slowly unzipped each boot. Whilst the young man fussed around, talking rapidly and generally trying to help, she slowly pulled off the boots, and let her feet out into the cold. She slowly wriggled her toes. The young man’s frantic attempts to talk to her made little effect, as they didn’t have his language in common. Still dazed, and in English, she looked up and asked him if he knew where in this town she could find a sensible pair of shoes. And thus, the man never discovered the potential joys of a Turkish barber.