Went to the regular 4th Thursday afternoon creative writing class at Elizabeth Gaskell House yesterday. The tutor was prevented from attending by storm Doris. So we managed well enough without him!
Here's a piece that I wrote for the class and read out:
GIFTS
I don’t know what I was meant to do. All I knew was that I had to escape my family and the small town I grew up in. I needed a job and computing seemed to be the coming thing in the late 60s.
Looking back I realised that I found out who I was retrospectively by looking back at what I did. But I never knew what I would stick at. I always wanted to be able to say ‘I am a whatever – medic, teacher, carpenter, builder, father, grandfather, husband’.
So I guess that I have gifts but I was never brought up or taught how to recognise them. First one in the family to go to university – it’s a cliché but no-one told me you can never go back.
So I moved on losing friends with no care in the world. Every new step forward was the loss of the old life, like shedding a skin or sometimes becoming a butterfly.
And now another transformation is in progress. It is simple to say ‘I am retired’ but it is not a state it’s a process and I am not sure what is emerging from the chrysalis.
