However much you deny the truth, the truth goes on existing…

5 years ago I wrote a post about how the world of 15 years ago, the age of indifference and ‘meh’ had been replaced by outrage, fury and, well, more outrage. I referred to a review of journalist Jon Ronson’s book about social media shaming, which discussed

…a scuttling crowd of people who want nothing more in life than to be offended. Offence, for this lot, is not a straightforward emotional response, instinctive and heartfelt. It’s a choice, something they actively seek.

Rachel Cooke, The Observer, 15th March 2015

Well, dear reader, this past weekend I encountered part of the scuttling crowd on Twitter, and it wasn’t pretty. The algorithm decided to show me a post from Kirstie Allsopp in which I thought she was actually trying to Do The Right Thing rather than shouting her mouth off. There’s quite a bit of nuance here, perhaps the sort that could get her abused by both sides, but I was on board. She wants to elevate the conversation away from different groups attacking each other.

So like a naive liberal lunatic I chipped in. Thinking of David Mitchell’s line about everyone stepping up to make a difference because “what is an ocean if not a multitude of drops?”. I was trying to illustrate the point that many trans- people are just trying to live their life, they want to be happy, they don’t want to hurt anyone. I deliberately made it only about our family to try an humanise it, but also to not claim I’m speaking universally, although I accept that “the phrase”utterly lacking empathy” probably didn’t help…

Anyway, I posted that on Thursday evening, which led to an interesting set of notifications by Friday morning, and indeed over the weekend. Here’s a pretty representative sample…

It was a relatively small group who responded, but they were tenacious. A couple were more ‘reasonable’ in that they did agree to disagree with our choices, and had the grace to wish us well, and hoped we would all be OK (even though they kind of doubted it). But the majority were not like that. I’d characterise them in three ways.

They’re right and everyone else is wrong.
They truly live in a binary world, and deny the entire concept that a person could be ‘Trans’. Every aspect of Trans is false, dangerous, a scam, a lie, evil. They’re not really Trans-phobic, because in their world it is simply impossible that Trans people can exist. Any so-called science that affirms, accepts or even acknowledges it is wrong and bogus. Their feeds and posts often include the same images and links as ‘evidence’ but often this is a very ‘particular ‘generous’ interpretation of that term.

For instance, the book “Time to Think” by Hannah Barnes is a damning indictment of institutional and clinical failure at GIDS and The Tavistock & Portman Trust, documenting at best problematic but more likely unethical and damaging practices on children, driven at least partly by an agenda that excluded alternative approaches. This is now used by the people who responded to my story as ‘evidence’ that Trans- is a myth, and anyone in the medical establishment who disagrees is a danger to children.

They seek out the things they abhor.
I have narrowed my Twitter Universe over time to professional cycling, film and marketing strategy types. I want to read and post positively, sharing ideas and experiences – especially about topics I love with other people who share that passion.

The Trans-deniers I encountered seem to actively immerse themselves in stories and news that will offend and outrage them, exactly as Rachel Cooke described. They’re not looking for uplift or inspiration, but validation that they must continue to be vigilant and angry. They rarely seem to post original opinions, almost entirely retweeting or replying to what other people have said. They only discovered me because they follow Kirstie Allsopp, whom they mostly despise. It’s an endless cycle of outrage, shock, anger and attack. It must be exhausting to exist in such a constant heightened state of almost existential fear and threat created by the very posts with which they choose to fill their news feeds.

Anyone who disagrees becomes an enemy target.
Anything short of complete rejection would imply an acceptance of the concept that some people can be Trans-, so everything I said was challenged, ridiculed and attacked. Every response referred to ‘she’ when I’d clearly stated ‘they’. They were absolutely and utterly convinced they knew that I was wrong, deluded, cruel, and dangerous. There was no way anything I said could be true, and I needed to be shot down and shut up.

I know that these insults are far less serious than many people face every day on social media platforms. But even these ‘mild’ jibes would be unacceptable in our schools or workplaces; the offenders would be taken to one side and reminded about values, mutual respect and courtesy. But Twitter operates in a parallel universe where that social contract does not apply. I did report a couple of the more direct messages to Twitter, but apparently they didn’t break any of their codes of conduct. If I don’t like the people calling me ‘pure evil’ or ‘child abuser’, I can block them, while they can carry on attacking any number of other people in the same way.

Let’s get the Hell out of Dodge…
And so I have shut down my Twitter account for good. I have no intention or desire to offer Elon Musk and his platform any of my time or energy when it actively condones that sort of behaviour. I Reckon Twitter is worse than other platforms, because while I can choose my friends and whom I follow, it’s much easier and faster to see a whole lot more content on Twitter than I’d like. It’s very hard to control what you see and don’t see.

I will lose a lot; just in the few days since the weekend and deciding to close my account, I’ve had great interactions and chat about cycling and films, but I know I will gain a lot more; time, for one thing. All that cycling bantz takes time, especially when there are races on. I’ll also gain calm. I’ll not miss the sinking feeling of resignation anytime I see J K Rowling or Glinner or Eddie Izzard trending, knowing what’s behind that link; a cess-pool of rage and hyperbole.

I’m not judging people who want to keep using Twitter for the ‘right’ reasons. And I know that most / all(?) social media platforms have their problems, but this to me is just about how we treat each other. Twitter doesn’t give the first sh*t about how people behave, in fact I Reckon it revels in it. It knows that offence provokes outrage, that negative news evokes stronger responses than being nice.

I like people being nice. I believe in nice.

I want to leave those bigots behind, because they can deny our non-binary child and millions like them with all their spite and fear, but they continue to exist, and thrive, and make our world better for their presence.

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Not everyone can carry the weight of the world…

I was convinced that I’d used this R.E.M. lyric in a previous title: I’ve written close to 320 posts over nearly 14 years and I couldn’t believe this hadn’t come up. I mean, if you’ve read more than a handful you’ll know there’s plenty of existential angst and righteous-frustration with the world, as well as (futile? misguided?) attempts to reconcile the personal and the global.

Anyway, as in many things it turns out I was mistaken, and as the trigger for this evoked the lyric so immediately, I’m almost relieved I can use it. It was during a morning take-off session with the lovely people at FLOWN (yes, them again). The prompt for our morning journalling exercise was

“what do you struggle to accept, that you have no control over?”

Well, let me count the ways…

This came after a a double-rarity in my world, of two dreams that I actually remembered, on consecutive days. I probably remember a dream no more often than every few years, and when I do they’re usually reflective of an anxious state of mind or something specific. These both fitted that description.

In the first I was in some non-descript near-future (I think I felt older than I am, but not too much), and there was just evidence of the world going to pot; news reports about crop failures, flooding, natural disasters, social media being even worse than now, political strife etc. Quite a bit like Christopher Nolan’s film Interstellar. It was amazingly simple and on-the-nose, almost nothing out of the ordinary or surreal at all.

On the other hand, the second one was a conversation between me and our cat, Todd. I don’t recall what I was saying, but he was reassuring me. He often ‘talks’ to us in squeaky, expressive miaows – seeking attention, food, someone to attack (or all three), and his mouth was moving like that, but there was a human voice talking quite calmly, encouraging me not to worry, that things will be OK. I’d love to say he had the voice of Tom Hanks, but that would be an embellishment too far. Still, if you need someone to reassure you that the world is going to be OK, you could do worse than Todd, right?

So while my morning Flock were thinking about what challenges us, we also considered a short poem…

Clearing – Martha Postlethwaite

Do not try to save
the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create
a clearing
in the dense forest
of your life
and wait there
patiently,
until the song
that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself to this world
so worthy of rescue.

This is about acceptance, the grace to accept that world may well be going to Hell in a Handcart, but it’s not my responsibility to stop it. Sure we can all do our part, because every little helps…

what is an ocean if not a multitude of drops?

David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

…but we have to work on ourselves first, how best we can contribute, and on what scale we can. I Reckon that I mostly struggle to accept the fact that I don’t have any control over stuff that matters to me, like the moral qualities of politicians, or so-called journalists who write sh*t and get paid for it. It’s so important to create pace in rhe dense forests of our lives where we can be quiet and calm. And then make a difference close to home, for ourselves, our family and friends, our community. And if at some point the song that is our life reveals itself to be greater, broader, deeper than that, so be it.

I’ve often wondered about our cats and what they are thinking. I’m 98% certain that most of the time they are entirely in the moment, their immediate surroundings. Where am I? What’s the basic state of things? What can I do to get the most of that? What can I do to change it? What do I need right now? Yes, pretty self-centred, but absolutely not entirely. Todd (and Whiskers before him) makes a significant and postitive difference to my / our mental health, and I Reckon he knows it. He knows how much we both enjoy him sleeping on my lap, or playing like a lunatic with his toys.

I can’t always carry the weight of the world, and he definitely relieves my burden.

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Practise makes progress…

John Lennon famously sang another year over …and what have you done? (not in that order, but go with me).
Bit of a challenge, John, especially as you then spend quite a few minutes declaring that war is over, if you want it. Except I do want it, but it’s not over.
Anyway, this is not a review of all the things that I’ve done (hmmm…that’s catchy, could be a song in that too), but a reflection on the way that I’ve done things in 2022, how that has felt, and how I hope to take that into 2023.

My last post was extolling the benefits and value I was getting from being part of the FLOWN Flock. And this one will talk about that service and experience a bit more, because at the start of this week, they sent me an email encouraging me to reflect on this past year, but not in the way many businesses tend to do that sort of thing. It’s not about SMART objectives or stretch targets or performance optimisation, and not even about work-life balance, but about three things

Connection, Craft, and Growth

If this appeals to you, there’s a handy guide and downloadable template (which, being Old School, I ignored and just used a pen and paper). Please note: this is neither rocket science nor new-age-floaty-wafty-nonsense. It’s about reflecting and responding to past experiences, in order to make future experiences better, more rewarding, more motivating, more nourishing. When you distil what makes you happier, you can then set intentions to do more of that, more often, and similarly to eliminate, avoid, or reduce the impact of whatever is more challenging…

CONNECTION
This is the act of recalling experiences where you connected with other people, and how they made you feel; which ones were positive and enriching, and which felt more negative or draining. Don’t try to be exhaustive or comprehensive, start with what comes to mind – but I did go back over my calendar to remind myself. These are the positive ones: I have done the negative things for my own purposes, but you’ll get the drift.

• Shared Activities: my virtual work FLOCKS, orchestra rehearsals and concerts, Spin & Yoga classes, Live Music gigs
• Family Time: our trips to Bruges, Belfast, and Cornwall/Devon, but also an Escape Room, meals out, and watching our favourite films and TV
• Working with people: in-person workshops, getting creative, the positivity and enthusiasm of clients for my work, and especailly when our work becomes real, more than words on a page.
  

CRAFT
This is more about what you’ve done, but again it’s not just about work or numbers, but about how it makes you feel. Apparently we’re three times more likely to stick with a job when we get a sense of meaning or value from it. What skills, knowledge, abilities make you feel better? For me, this year, it’s been

• Mixing up my exercise: TBH, I’ve cycled less on the roads this year than the past few years, and I do feel a sense of loss about that (watch out 2023), but I’ve really enjoyed doing more Spin and Yoga classes (see above), which has helped build a different type of fitness, and I’m trying to ignore the Strava numbers.
• Getting sh*t done: in my previous agency-corporate world, I did a lot of work that took months (years) to see the light of day, and too many times great ideas or campaigns died in committee. This year I’ve worked with clients who have asked for my guidance, listened, challenged, built and then actually done at least some of the things I recommended. Trust me, this is enormously validating and rewarding, just to get something done and see how well it works.
• Mobius Works: it’s been more than 2 years since I was made redundant from a job I loved, and 21 months since I started trasing as a limited company. And so far, it’s going better than I thought it might. I work fewer days in the year, but earn at least as much as I did before. I was able to take most of August off. I’ve worked with ex-colleagues and new strangers, and with one exception, every one has either been an extended (3m+) contract or they have asked me back after the first time.
• Celebrating Jamie: I’ve written before about aspects of their journey, and this year really has been the start of the rest of their life. Jamie had top surgery in the summer to give them the flat chest they’ve long desired, and in September they started a degree course in Film at Falmouth University, and they are thriving. It’s not easy, but they are beginning to see just how much they can do and they’re enjoying it.
• Celebrating Eleanor: Ella is perhaps overlooked on this blog, and I don’t think she minds. By contrast to Jamie’s more turbulent experience, she is a more typical teen; except she’s not typical, I Reckon she’s bloody exceptional. Outstanding GCSEs and a first term of A-Levels have been matched by working part-time, rediscovering singing, discovering a love of weight training, (starting) learning to drive, and educating me in the brilliance of Taylor Swift, Lizzie McAlpine, beabadoobee and others in our daily school-run commutes.
• Celebrating Rachel: after a long time (since the first lockdowns) of really tough working conditions, as well as some ‘difficult’ colleagues and persistently draining health worries, I’m delighted that Rachel is now enjoying her job, and has ‘remembered’ that she’s really, really good at it. After dogged determination, the health issues seem resolved, and we’re busy planning a Big Year for the Moodys in 2023 (she has a Significant Birthday, Jamie is 21, Eleanor will be 18, and it’s also our 25th Wedding Anniversary)… ouch.
  

GROWTH
So this isn’t about achieving more, faster, further (I’m looking at you, Strava), but about how you feel you’ve learned, grown, progressed in 2022, (or not – think also about ways you might have felt constrained or stunted).

• New ways of working: I may be an old dog, but I appreciate new tricks. I’ve been fortunate this year to work with people who have different ways of presenting and thinking about the work they do, and it’s been great for me to learn that from them. For all its waffle, there are excellent people on LinkedIn; I just have to choose the right ones to follow.
• Better at working from home: this year I have probably worked remotely 90% of the time, perhaps more in the second half of the year. Which is why my new FLOWN community has been so invaluable. At times I have felt stale and ineffective at home, but the structured sessions, mutual support and generally amazing positive vibes from these groups have been tremendous.
• Self-Belief: hopefully everything from the previous section illustrates this, but the feedback I had from running a strategy workshop recently was immensely rewarding, and TBH I’m also pretty happy with the way my 50-something inflexible frame has responded to practising yoga. I’m nowhere near what you might call bendy, but I’m better than I was, and I can feel the difference.

After reviewing these themes, the key now is to set intentions for 2023. These are not resolutions, they are not necessarily SMART goals. They are intentions, fleshed out with specific practices, ways of behaving to get more Good Stuff into my life and less Bad Stuff. This is not about measurable achivements but about ongoing practice, living by the values I hope to embrace and promote, and by doing the things that make me (and hopefully others) happier. And always note, this is relative; happier, better: there is no end-goal (not everything that matters can be measured), but instead a direction and a feeling that will develop.

So, while I’m still formulating my specific intentions, a few themes and pointers include

• Live music (performing and spectating)
• Working and exercising with people (workshops, classes, Flocks, collaboration)
• Cherishing Family moments (like the school run commute)
• Working with people I can learn from
• Road cycling – this might include a tangible goal, like a specific long ride…?
• Caretaking my days; not taking on the weight of the world, less aimless scrolling, checking.

That’s what I’m going for – this process has been great so far, and I Reckon it’s worth an hour of your time to ignite your thinking. This isn’t about perfection, but about progress; about accentuating the positive and eliminating (or reducing) the negative. And its aim is to FEEL better, which I Reckon would do us all good.

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I will try to sing a happy song…

After my last post I felt a bit grubby; partly for ranting in a way I haven’t done for a while, and partly because I’d immersed myself in the grimness of our current world, which inevitably provokes a toxic mixture of detachment, hopelessness, and an involuntary urge to retreat, hide and protect myself that I felt so persistently in the period I was depressed.

So instead of repressing frustration, I Reckon it’s time for something lighter. After working at home, mostly in a solo way, for the past two years, I’ve increasingly found myself challenged by the forces of distraction, and so I recently signed up to FLOWN. Among the many ways it hopes to make me and its other users happier and more productive are daily morning TAKE OFF sessions. I’ve practised Yoga and/or meditation most mornings since the first COVID lockdowns in 2020, and these are complementary to that.

Create rituals that make you feel better
Each 20-minute Take Off session comprises of three rituals to set us up for the day
(i) A short guided meditation to bring us into the moment and settle ourselves
(ii) A journalling exercise, which can be Free Association, or there’s usually a prompt provided by the facilitator – more of these below…
(iii) In mini-breakout groups, we make a commitment to ourselves as we share our intentions for the day; what we want to get done, how we’re feeling, and so on.

The best type of loaded questions
The journalling prompts are often loaded with positivity, and they’re so much the better for it. The facilitators will always offer up free-writing as an option, but I always follow the prompts, because I Reckon that my free-writing could frequently be ranty, impotent outbursts that don’t help anyone, least of all me.

So instead, I enjoy the prompts, and I’d encourage anyone to try these out some time. Each exercise usually lasts around 6-7 minutes, which is enough for me to get into a flow and explore more than one angle on things, but not so long that I’m running out of steam. There’s no pressure or ask to share the results, but I really enjoy reviewing mine.

A few examples from the last few weeks…

Write about your future self in the present tense: this is a great visualisation; if you can see it you can believe it.

What makes you smile?: this sparked so many little things, and big things; people, feelings, music, films, places, sounds and smells.

Describe something that makes you sad, as a thing for which you can be grateful: so this took me a while to get my head around, but I started off with the feeling that WFH means I miss working with people. But on the other hand, it has afforded me flexibility and other things that I almost take for granted now compared to my ‘Old Normal’ of working in an office, a long commute and frequent travel to London.

Tell yourself what you’d most like to hear: this came up earlier this week when I woke up with that urge of flight / retreat. So I gave myself a pep talk in the way perhaps Rachel or a good friend would, and it rescued my day before it could slide downhill.

It’s OK to be grateful
I’m often reluctant to write or post about feeling grateful. I know I’m very fortunate to be privileged, comfortably well-off, with a lovely family, good friends, a well-paid job. When I do post about it, it’s invariably only after a good deal of self-doubt and anxiety. I don’t want to offend anyone, nor seem like a smug sh*thead.
Social media seems to frown on ‘sharenting’, virtue-signalling and whatever other behaviours have been labelled as ‘woke’ this week. It’s as though unalloyed optimism or positivity is no longer allowed, either because it’s clearly Fake BS or because, I don’t know, people are just angry these days.

To be fair, they have a right to be cynical when companies and brands declare their Purpose with a Big Capital ‘P’, that they’re more than just crisps, or toilet cleaner, they want to save the planet. Only this week the deeply problematic FIFA World Cup in Qatar has been attacked by, of all brands, BrewDog. In the spirit of trying to keep this post positive, I’ll just leave this here.

Pay It Forward: perhaps my favourite twist on the theme was the day that I reflected on how I might be able to spread more gratitude around. I can’t change the world, but I can make a difference to some people. You may well have read this before somewhere in a previous post, but the final lines of David Mitchell’s epic Cloud Atlas are a fabulous call to arms for people trying to make a difference. and to sustain the energy and motivation to do so in the face of resistance and criticism

…only as you gasp your dying breath shall you understand, your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean!

Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?

David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, 2004

And so, I started occasionally messaging people I follow on Twitter (or other places) to say Thank You for them being positive, informative, funny, friendly, insightful. Mostly it’s people I don’t actually know, but have followed for a long time, and interacted with from time to time. I keep the messages short but sincere and hope that they make the other person feel just a bit better about themselves. And maybe, just maybe it might bring a drop more gratitude and positivity into the world.

If you like the idea of trying FLOWN, have a look at their site.
They offer a 30-day free trial which comes with absolutely no obligation.

Full disclosure: I have told FLOWN that I’m writing this, and this is a bespoke link they have provided.
I am not being paid in any way for this post.

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There is a light that never goes out…

…but it wasn’t in our house (or hundreds of thousands of other houses around the UK last weekend. The combined assaults of Storms Dudley, Eunice and Franklin proved too much for trees and power lines, meaning that on Saturday lunchtime, moments after my Mum had arrived and a veggie lasagne had gone in the oven, our power went off and stayed off until the early hours of Monday morning.

For the first few hours we were in a positive frame of mind. We put aside the uncooked lasagne and feasted on the ice cream Mum had brought for dessert. We enjoyed the daylight to play a terrific game of Ticket to Ride (Europe), and lit our wood-burning stove. We discovered that ‘stove-top cooking’ is so-called for a reason, as we first boiled water and (on Sunday) made toast and reheated things we had been able to cook at Mum’s house.

Next time we’ll try jacket potatoes in the embers…

It became apparent by the evening that most of Tetbury had their power restored in the early evening of Saturday. We noticed lights coming on in the town centre, which soon made for a very dislocated experience. As I drove Jamie to their evening shift at a local hotel, the world was continuing as if nothing had happened, while a few roads on ‘our’ side of the town were in complete darkness, but for flickering candlelight evident in a few windows.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I’m writing this on 28th February, several days after Russia has invaded Ukraine and millions of people there are living in far worse and more hazardous conditions. I know our experience was a short-term, first-world problem. I do not mean to infer or imply equivalence or anything close with the horrors being felt in that country. This is a personal blog to remind myself of my experiences as close to when they happened. If this bothers you, please stop reading now (and probably don’t read the next post about our short city break to Bruges (also before Russia invaded).

And as night fell, we reduced our activity to the room with the stove. We read, played cards by candlelight. We went to bed early. We switched off our phones. There was a low level of anxiety and resignation as it became apparent this might continue until Monday, but we had ‘get-out’ plans to visit my Mum on Sunday to cook the lunch we had planned for Saturday, and use her internet to upload documents we required for a trip to Bruges, as well as a session at the gym, using their showers afterwards. See? First-World Problems easily resolved.

Sunday came and went as we packed for our trip while we had daylight. Our dislocation from the rest of Tetbury was peculiar as we went to the gym and shops but returned to a street and home without power. Having gone to bed very early by our standards, I awoke at 1am on Monday morning when the lights came on, fully 24 hours earlier than expected. The SSEN engineers must have worked a near-miracle to make the repairs in the terrible weather that raged all day on Sunday and into the night. Teams of men and women were working around the clock, all over the country, in dangerous and deeply unpleasant conditions. They are real stars and we owe them deep gratitude.

And so a weekend filled with complications about our upcoming trip was made a bit harder by a loss of power. At the time it seemed massively important, and occasionally overwhelming. But in the end, it wasn’t either of those things. But now I’ve written this, I’ll better remember its highlights; indoor camping, playing games in near-dark, a sense of the four of us being more together and present, not on four different screens in different rooms; and all the things we can be grateful for – this was temporary, and even then we had easy ways to better ‘cope’ with its inconveniences.

In the context of what has followed, I think I’ve reacted even more strongly to the scenes and testimonies of Ukrainian families seeking safety from the Russian invasion. We felt dislocated and anxious with no imminent threat or real difficulty at all. So I’ve made a donation to the Red Cross, and I would urge you to do so.

https://donate.redcross.org.uk/appeal/ukraine-crisis-appeal

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Beautiful Boy…

Yesterday, 4pm on New Year’s Eve 2021, I left our local vet’s practice with an empty cat basket, and what felt like an empty chasm in my chest. We had left our beloved Whiskers / Mr Whiskerson / Chief Justice Whiskerson / ‘mate’ / gorgeous boy / old-man cat sleeping peacefully, without pain.

We adopted / inherited Whiskers on 1st July 2016, when a friend’s mother had to move into residential care, and he needed a new home. We went to visit him, not at all thinking it was what we wanted. Our previous cat had died in 2014 after several years of ill-health, when she was increasingly hostile(!) to our children and indeed any visitors, did almost nothing, and every day involved mopping up the mess from her inability to use a litter tray effectively.

Whiskers was different. Within minutes of arriving he had climbed onto our laps, nuzzling and purring, moving from person to person as if to share his affection, or perhaps claim his new territory. Within half an hour we were taking him home, where he has been a hugely important part of our family over 5 years which have all featured significant challenges, and against which he has been a soothing, uplifting balm.

I can’t, I’m incapussitated…
A great thing about pets is that they’re far more ‘in the moment’ than humans, and being around them can help take us out of the whirlwind of anxieties, priorities and demands. Whiskers was so affectionate, wanting to be where we were, wanting to sit on laps, that we soon developed a new word to excuse us from doing anything else. Being incapussitated because he was sat on you meant you didn’t have to wash up, or make tea, or do anything else, just for a few minutes.

You weren’t thinking of getting up, were you?

Can you get purrs on prescription?
The medical profession seems increasingly aware of non-pharmaceutical approaches to many ailments, especially concerning mental health. On days I struggled to get out of bed, or function much more than to put on a load of washing or watch a film, Whiskers was complementary medicine.
Our relationship with Whiskers was very physical, involving lots of sitting, hugging, stroking, scratching, and brushing, the silkiness of his fur, the licks he would bestow on us, not to mention us talking to/at him and him purring. Something I read says the frequency and vibration of a cat purring promotes healing and eases stress. Whiskers purred often, loudly and for a long time, and it was a heartbreaking sign of his decline as this changed.

The little gaps he will leave
Perhaps worst of all this morning, our first without him, are the immediate gaps in our daily lives that he used to fill.

• First thing in the morning, opening the kitchen door and there he is, a small, almost strangled miaow followed by nuzzling around our legs, loud purring and the expectation of breakfast
• Getting in on our morning yoga routines – sitting on the mat beneath us while we’re in ‘downward dog pose’
• My working-from-home buddy; arriving silently by my office chair, almost regular as clockwork, chirruping for attention, so I pick him up and for a few minutes he scratches his cheeks and chin against my desk, sometimes tries to sit on my keyboard or papers, then jumps down again. Or he’d sleep on the bed behind me, or on the floor when the sun is in the right place.
• When we come back from wherever we might have been, he’d come to the front door as we open it. Less so more recently, as he became deaf, and so didn’t register the car pulling up. But as soon as he knew we were home, he came to us.
• In the garden, he loved and hated our hammock. He’d scratch the wooden stand, then seemingly demand to be picked up so he could sit on us, but then he really didn’t like the swinging sensation, however slight, and would need to be put down again, when he would settle into the grass beneath the hammock as though that had always been what he wanted.
• During the summer he would move around the garden, alternately chasing the sunshine, then seeking out shade if he got too hot. This also happened inside, moving around rooms in the house that were sunnier or cooler. In the winter, he loved the log-burning stove.
• He loved the time after heavy rain, as he would go out onto the patio and drink from the puddles on the slabs.
• When he sat on a lap, he seemed to recognise what you were wearing. I you had bare knees, he would at least try to tuck his paws in to avoid his claws digging in. He seemed to prefer my lap, as I have the longest legs in the house, meaning he could stretch out a bit more comfortably.
• He really shared his love around, and had particular behaviours for each of us. He seemed to know that Jamie was less keen to be sat on, so he would sit next to them instead. I had the longest and often most-favoured lap, he would ‘head-bump’ with Rachel, and he was far happier to be picked up and cuddled by Eleanor than by anyone else.
• At the end of the day, he seemed to anticipate when we were about to go to bed, or perhaps he encouraged us. He’d get up and go to the kitchen, awaiting his supper, and then he’d go to his chair with its fleecy blanket to sleep on.

“Working from Home”

How long does he have to be put to sleep for?
Jamie asked this when their pet rabbit was put down 10 years ago, and the words came back to me yesterday as I stood in the vet’s consulting room before he administered the overdose of anaethesia. It was both beautiful and brutal to be with Whiskers as he slipped away; a couple of twitches before lowering his head and his painful, laboured breathing slowing, then stopping. As we stroked his fur, feeling his scrawniness (he lost more than 1/3 of his bodyweight in the last couple of months), and sobbed into our facemasks, I was desperate to have him back, distraught that I couldn’t help him.

Time for Second Breakfast?

But of course I know it was the least bad thing we could do for him. Everything had become hard, he was barely eating, he stopped going outside, and he didn’t want to sit with us. He was a fraction of the cat in these pictures, in every sense.

I’m fairly certain we will get another cat, but I’m not sure when. I know that they will have a hard act to follow, and we need time and space to get used to our home being a little less full than it used to be.

RIP mate, our beautiful boy. May you forever sleep in the sunshine.

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Life under the stone…

It’s been said that empathy is the highest form of human knowledge, in which case Debbie Riall could be one of the most intelligent people I know. She is a specialist teacher for autism, and 5 years ago she had a conversation with Jamie that was a true game-changer for us all.

At that time we were increasingly concerned with Jamie’s unhappiness. They had experienced very nasty bullying and had moved schools, but after a short period of relative calm, things had destabilised again, this time mostly without any external antagonists. The fabulous SENDCO at Jamie’s school had suggested Jamie could meet with Debbie, because they considered that Jamie’s issues might be related to symptoms of autism. We had considered the same thing, and gratefully accepted the offer of help.

From that first meeting it was evident that Debbie ‘got’ Jamie in a way most teachers never had. But more importantly, she wanted to understand Jamie in the way Jamie could express it. She reported back to us that Jamie had described the way they felt in ways they had never heard before. This was the start of a journey for us that is ongoing, but was joyfully recalled a couple of weeks ago when we were privileged to be invited to the (small, perfectly-formed and socially-distanced) launch of Debbie’s book.

It’s written as a practical guide to help educators and others understand, accept and enhance the neurodiversity of autism and the behaviours that can accompany it. Not only is autism ‘atypical’, but there is no universal, or even most common presentation. Every autistic person is different and they need to be heard and seen to be properly recognised, and that is at the heart of Debbie’s approach.

It takes just one small strategy to make a huge difference.
It takes just one willing teacher to put that strategy into place
and
the school life of an autistic pupil has been changed for the better.

Debbie Riall, The Autism Resource Manual, 2021

Rather than talk about herself and her work, Debbie presented copies of her book to people who had helped, advised and inspired her, one of whom was Jamie. She said that their conversation from 2016 had marked a significant moment in the development of her teaching. “I was about to sit down with Jamie and share with them what I knew about autism, when they said to me…”

…Let me tell you about my autism. It is like a stone in the woods. On one side it is very worn where people have walked on it. Everyone sees that side, the problem side. But underneath – very few people bother to look under the stone and see that life is there. But you’ve got to know when to put the stone back or the life will find somewhere else to go. Yes, it isn’t an easy thing to live with. But under no circumstances do I want to stop being autistic. My strengths do not negate my struggles, and my struggles do not negate my strengths.

Jamie Moody, introduction to The Autism Resource Manual, Debbie Riall, 2021

I Reckon Jamie has hit on a truth that goes way beyond autism. Everyone operates with our own stone, a hidden side and a visible side, what we show to the world and what we don’t. Neurotypical people are often very good at hiding their ‘weaknesses’, whereas many ‘atypicals’ (in all their diverse senses) are less able to filter or mask their instinctive reactions and responses to the world, which can mean we ‘only’ notice their ‘weaknesses’, the problem side. But just as the sun still shines on a stormy day, there is life beneath the worn side of the stone, life that can dazzle and surprise and delight.

After their stint as a podcast guest and advocate for greater diversity in music earlier this year, Jamie recently spoke with and on behalf of the National Open Youth Orchestra, with whom they have played since 2018. at a Musicians’ Union Conference for Music Educators. It’s a NOYO principle that whenever they are invited to speak at an event, one of the orchestra’s young musicians should also attend, and Jamie was scheduled to speak alongside the musical director of the orchestra. However family COVID reasons meant that he had to present over a ZOOM link while Jamie effectively led the session in the room, to an audience of maybe 30 Music professionals.

The MU’s website noted that

we were privileged to hear from Jamie Moody, a member of the National Open Youth Orchestra, the world’s first disabled-led national youth orchestra. Jamie explained in great detail how to work with and support musicians with disabilities, and it was amazing to hear this direct testimony from such an insightful young artist.

Chris Walters, https://musiciansunion.org.uk/news/the-mu-education-conference—a-celebration-of-musicians-who-teach

And the newest edition of the MU’s Quarterly Journal expanded…

[Jamie’s] involvement was far from a box-ticking exercise, and they made some of the most memorable statements of the two days. Speaking about NOYO and the environment that has been created, they said “It’s a space where accessibility is provided before I have to ask – it’s not ‘on’ disabled musicians”. The session included a useful point on adapting or changing music so that a disabled person can play it. Warranting a big round of applause from the delegates, they said “You don’t have to chain yourself to tradition – the ghost of Mozart will not haunt you”. As someone pointed out on Twitter afterwards, this was a mic-drop moment from the young musician.

Harriet Clifford, The Musician, Winter 2021

The NOYO team have been fantastic at helping Jamie build their confidence, encouraging them to contribute ideas, suggest arrangements, and how to improvise. Music is commissioned by the orchestra for its current cohort of players, meaning Jamie can directly talk to composers about their part. The orchestra has 4 concerts scheduled next year. postponed from 2020, and I can’t wait to attend.

Jamie often finds day-to-day things about the world difficult, but Debbie Riall is right that seemingly small strategies from positive people can make a massive difference. I Reckon we all benefit when we adapt our world to accommodate and encourage the full diversity of our population, because there is life under the stone, and we are all richer to uncover it than to step over and walk on by.

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Equity is not a zero-sum game…

I’m certain that Jamie might have some problems with me writing this post because, for all their righteous and witty discontent at quite a few things in the world, Jamie doesn’t often like to be the centre of attention, except very occasionally when they do.
So I Reckon I should get my “sorry not sorry” apology in now, because I want to talk about Jamie.

For several years they’ve been a member of the National Open Youth Orchestra (NOYO), the world’s first open-access disabled-led national orchestra for young people. NOYO is a brilliant example of the benefits of active inclusion and diversity. Its musicians are mostly neurodiverse and/or have a range of physical disabilities. Jamie is autistic, others are blind, some are physically disabled such that they use eye-gaze technology to make music. NOYO works with a diverse range of people playing a diverse range of instruments, with living composers writing music specifically for those instruments and players. It is often collaborative, in that Jamie and other players can contribute to the arrangements, or request pieces based on their own favourite music.

NOYO had been scheduled to perform concerts in Bristol and London last year, but what with One Thing and Another, they have been postponed until 2022. Meanwhile, the orchestra has been building towards a more public launch, and now has regional hubs of students in Birmingham and Bournemouth as well as Bristol and London.

Cutting Kerbs to benefit everyone
During the Spring, Jamie and another NOYO musician, Ellen, appeared on the Young Musicians for Social Change podcast. And for once, for 45 minutes or so, Jamie was happy to be the centre of their attention. I Reckon Jamie and Ellen are hugely eloquent, talking openly about how the existence of NOYO has made a difference to their lives, and by extension, to the lives of all its players.

Notably, Jamie talks about the kerb-cutter effect, a phenomenon where creating features or implementing changes to benefit a specific group (often disabled people) has much broader benefits for other groups as well. Lowering a kerb to enable easier wheelchair access can also help cyclists, or parents with babies in buggies, or elderly people not good with steps, or people delivering heavy goods on a trolley.

Another obvious and now common example is subtitles. Originally intended for people with impaired hearing, they’re a staple in our house these days, not the ‘one-inch barrier’ as described by Bong Joon-Ho. As a young child, Jamie loved them as it helped teach them to read and spell the words they were hearing. Research among American College Students indicates that when colleges provide closed captions for lectures (usually because they have been required to for specific students), more than 75% of all students use them if they know they are available, and 85% like to use transcripts as revision aids.

We should all expect more
I Reckon that too often in our society we (by which I mean individuals, groups, businesses and Governments) have tended to do the least amount possible to cater for the needs of people using their transport, schools, workplaces and public buildings. ‘Additional needs’ have to be fought for, often on an individual basis. When a wheelchair-using friend enquired recently if the wedding reception venue he’d been invited to was accessible, he was told no. When he asked why not, he was told (I’m paraphrasing) “it’s an old building, what do you expect?”.

Well, for a start, not to feel like a second-class citizen…

Too often in our society the argument is made that affirmative action in favour of one group disadvantages another group. But equity is not a zero-sum game. Black Lives Matter does not mean other lives don’t matter: it is a response to centuries of systemic and institutionalised behaviour that has demeaned and debased Black Lives. Campaigning to eliminate the gender pay gap does not threaten men, it raises the potential living standards for nearly half the working population.

I am wholly behind equity on as many levels as we can dare to dream, because I Reckon that setting discrete identities against each other exacerbates the way minority groups can be marginalised, when in fact many of them have far more in common than would pull them apart, and because the world is not binary, humans are not binary.

In a moment of serendipity, my Facebook memories recently reminded me of a post I shared a few years ago. Morgan’s Wonderland is a activity theme park in San Antonio, Texas, that has been designed as a park of inclusion. It isn’t for people with special needs, but it doesn’t exclude them by design omission. It doesn’t shrug its shoulders and say “it’s a splash park, what do you expect?”. Instead, it welcomes everyone to its attractions, and for once does make special dispensation towards those with special needs, by not charging admission, and by having done all the thinking in advance. And everyone benefits.

Working 9 to 5 (or, in this case, 5.30 to 11.30)
In other news, Jamie has recently started their first real job, as a member of the housekeeping team at Calcot Manor Hotel, not far from Tetbury. During their job search this summer, they did occasionally encounter some responses like “we don’t have any vacancies that meet your needs”. On the one hand, this could just be an AI-generated auto-response letter. But to Jamie it was confusing, almost threatening. What needs are you talking about? To wear noise-filtering earplugs in noisy environments? To have very clear and structured instructions?
The people at Calcot have been terrific, and the support and training has been great. Jamie already feels comfortable, and is gaining confidence every week. This is by no means a small thing, as barely 1 in 5 autistic adults is in any kind of employment.

But even this is much higher than for people with learning disabilities. The Down’s Syndrome Association report that only 1 in 20 people with learning disabilities were in paid employment before the Covid Pandemic struck. Hence they have been supporting the outstanding campaign The Hiring Chain, which seeks to encourage employers to take the first step. People hire people (partly) because they see that other people are doing it too. And the film that brings this to life is, I Reckon, pretty bloody brilliant.

Because Jamie’s talking about everyone
Jamie, together with the Music Director of NOYO, is going to speak and share their experiences with the orchestra at the Musicians’ Union Education Conference in a few weeks’ time, hoping to inform and inspire an audience of Music Educators. Every time I’ve been to a NOYO rehearsal I’ve been amazed by the talent and enthusiasm of the young musicians, many of whom almost certainly couldn’t function in most orchestras; talent and enthusiasm that couldn’t flourish and find its full expression, for a basic lack of understanding and effort to accommodate it.

I’m sure there’s a motivational poster in an office somewhere that proclaims “if you can see it, you can be it”, or something like that. It’s a cliché because it’s true. I hope individual businesess hire people with learning disabilities because of The Hiring Chain, and I hope their suppliers or customers see this, and do the same, and so on. I hope that the Music Educators at their Conference in a few weeks hear Jamie talk about their experiences with NOYO and make changes to include even just one extra student with some kind of specific needs or disabilities. Because I don’t just Reckon, I know that when they do, everybody wins.

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You are the same kind of different to me…

I’m pretty certain that Jamie might have some problems with me writing this, because Jamie, for all their youthful, righteous and scabrous discontent at quite a few things in the world, doesn’t often like to be the centre of attention, except very occasionally when they do. And so I Reckon I owe them an apology, because today, and indeed in my next post, I want to talk about Jamie.

For several years they’ve been a member of the National Open Youth Orchestra (NOYO), the world’s first disabled-led national orchestra for young people. NOYO is a brilliant example of the benefits of active inclusion and diversity. Many of its musicians are neurodiverse and/or have a range of physical disabilities. Jamie is autistic, while others are physically disabled such that they use eye-gaze technology to make music. NOYO works with a diverse range of people playing a diverse range of instruments, collaborating with living composers writing music specifically for those instruments and players. Indeed, Jamie and other players can contribute to the arrangements, or request pieces based on their own favourite music.

NOYO had been scheduled to perform concerts in Bristol and London last year, but what with One Thing and Another, they have been postponed until 2022. Meanwhile, the orchestra has been building towards a more public launch. One part of this has included Jamie and another musician, Ellen, appearing on the Young Musicians for Social Justice podcast. And for once, for 45 minutes or so, Jamie was happy to be the centre of their attention. I Reckon Jamie and Ellen are hugely eloquent, talking openly about how the existence of NOYO has made a difference to their lives, and by extension, to the lives of all its players.

Notably, Jamie talks about the kerb-cutter effect, a phenomenon where creating features or implementing changes to benefit a specific group (usually disabled people) has much broader benefits for other groups as well. Lowering a kerb to enable easier wheelchair access can also help cyclists, or parents with babies in buggies, or elderly people not good with steps, or people delivering heavy goods on a trolley.

Another obvious and now common example is subtitles. Originally intended for people with impaired hearing, they’re a staple in our house these days, not the ‘one-inch barrier’ as described by Bong Joon-ho. As a young child, Jamie loved them as it helped teach them to read and spell the words they were hearing. Research among American College Students indicates that when colleges provide closed captions for lectures (usually because they have been required to for specific students), more than 75% of all students use them if they know they are available, and 85% like to use transcripts as revision aids.

Not trying hard enough…
I Reckon that too often in our society we (by which I mean individuals, groups, businesses and Governments) have tended to do the least amount possible to cater for the needs of people using their transport, schools, workplaces and public buildings. ‘Additional needs’ have to be fought for, often on an individual basis. When a wheelchair-using friend enquired recently if the wedding reception venue he’d been invited to was accessible, he was told no. When he asked why not, he was told (I’m paraphrasing) “it’s an old building, what do you expect?”.

Well, for a start, not to feel like a second-class citizen…

Equity is not a zero-sum game
Too often in our society the argument is made that affirmative action in favour of one group automatically disadvantages another group. I Reckon this is horse manure. Asserting that Black Lives Matter does not mean other lives don’t matter, it is a response to centuries of behaviour, much of it systemic and institutionalised, that has demeaned and debased Black Lives. Campaigning to eliminate the gender pay gap does not threaten men, it raises the potential living standards for nearly half the working population.

These things benefit us all, if they can reduce divisions between us, and reduce tribalistic identity-driven politics. I am wholly behind equity on as many levels as we can dare to dream, but I Reckon that setting discrete identities against each other exacerbates the way minority groups can be marginalised, when in fact many of them have far more in common than would pull them apart. To get slightly intellectually revolutionary for a second, it suits the people in power and with power to have marginalised identities fighting for themselves but not for each other.

I have a dream: a world designed for everyone
In a moment of serendipity, my Facebook memories for this week reminded me of a post I shared a few years ago. Morgan’s Wonderland is a activity theme park in San Antonio, Texas, that has been designed as a park of inclusion. It isn’t for people with special needs, but it doesn’t exclude them by design omission. It doesn’t shrug its shoulders and say “it’s a splash park, what do you expect?”. Instead it welcomes everyone to its attractions, and for once does make special dispensation towards those with special needs, by not charging admission, and by having done all the thinking in advance. And everyone benefits.

What is an ocean but a multitude of drops?
And then there’s this beautiful campaign for World Down Syndrome Day (21st March, in case you missed it) that brings to life the importance of individuals behaving differently, and the knock-on effects that can have. People with Down’s Syndrome have many challenges in their lives, but overcoming prejudices and ignorance and simply-not-trying-hard-enough if they are trying to find a job shouldn’t be one of them.

It is sort-of hardwired into humans to be wary, even fearful of things that are different, outside our comfort zone. But it’s also often something that is learned and acquired. Children might be afraid of some dogs (big, noisy, fast, teeth) but they’re not intrinsically afraid of different races or people with disabilities. Separating ourselves into echo chambers or identity-driven pockets will not (IMHO) lead us to a Happy Place, because there are too many of us sharing this planet; we’re too interdependent, and we thrive on diversity. Even if some people try to convince us otherwise.

A sign of progress is when kerb-cutting initiatives are seen as universal best practice. I hope NOYO is the vanguard for making music and orchestras more accessible for every type of player and instrument. And I hope that as we emerge from the seismic shifts that have been caused by the COVID pandemic, that a more equitable valuation of the importance and role of every member of society can also emerge, with actions and behaviours to match.

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You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone…

Or, in my case, I don’t really understand how much I’ve missed something until it/they come back.

I can vividly remember, more than 25 years ago, when I was living in London and Rachel was still studying in Exeter. She would come to London for a weekend and I would meet her on the Friday evening at Stonebridge Park station, a Godforsaken place between the A40 and Wembley that was close to the grim office block in which I worked. It was pretty easy for her to get a train to Paddington, get straight on the Bakerloo line for 20 minutes, and from there I could drive her back to my flat.

She would emerge from the train and exclaim “I’ve missed you so much”, and a big part of me felt a mix of shame and guilt. because I hadn’t missed her so much, not really. But increasingly during Friday, and especially as the train pulled in, and especially as she walked off the train, then I was delighted, overwhelmed to see her again, and I realised the difference in my life between Rachel being there and not being there.

And I’ve been thinking of those moments on a dirty, windy station this week because I’ve realised several big differences in my life in the past couple of weeks.

I’ve run two creative workshops for a client, helping their team to shape and develop the future of their growing business. We’ve done this in person, in COVID-safe ways, and the experience compared to Zoom & Teams calls has been like night and day. I love working from home rather than commuting to Bristol every day (a 55 mile, 2 hour round-trip), but being in a room with people, even when you’re not talking or helping or inspiring or making coffee for each other, is just a better place to be than hours at a desk, even in the comfort of my home.

Last weekend Rachel and I went for a meal with two friends in a local pub, in their nicely-covered, beautifully-decorated, still-socially-distanced courtyard dining area. The buzz of the other customers and staff, the bustle and movement, the toasts and laughter, the ordering and service, all of this and more, made it something pretty great. It felt like a privilege to be able to sit with friends and order food and drinks, have them brought to us, to chat and laugh and occasionally be still, in a place with other people, chatting and laughing and being still.

This week Rachel and I (separately) had our first ‘in-real-life’ Orchestra rehearsals, in my case, since March 2020. Back then we were one week away from our Spring concert for which we’d been preparing since January. Since then we’ve had a handful of ‘Zoom Rehearsals’, where we’ve played (all on mute), effectively accompanying a professional orchestra recording, led by our conductor who, with the aid of some whizzy software, can change the speed of the recording to something we can handle without altering the pitch.

It was a joy to play a Mahler symphony along with the Vienna Philharmonic in my own home, but it was only on Wednesday evening. as I prepared to play my first notes in ‘Nimrod‘ from Elgar’s ‘Enigma’ Variations, that it started getting dusty in the room. It almost took me by surprise how immediate and significant the feeling was. I shall try to remember that in the future, every time I sit down to play.

And then on Thursday we went to see Chloe Zhou’s wondrous Nomadland at the nearby independent cinema in Wotton Under Edge, the Electric Picture House. I intend to write more about this film, which also came close to overwhelming me on more than one occasion, and is as close to a ‘masterpiece’ as anything I’ve seen in a long time. But possibly even more than the gorgeous epic landscapes and intimate humanity of her storytelling, I loved the low murmurs of whispering conversations as everyone settled into their seats, the rustle of sweet packets and sipping of tea, the Pearl & Dean music (FFS!). In what is mostly a quiet film with a lilting score, there is one moment when something is dropped and broken, and I swear everyone in the room both jumped and gasped out loud. And in the moments after I couldn’t stop smiling because of what we had just shared.

There will be more moments and occasions where I catch myself in the coming weeks and months, as we travel to see friends and family, for a holiday in the Lake District or Devon, and I will make every effort to be conscious and present in those moments, to be grateful and not to take them for granted, to revel in their simple pleasures.

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