Tuesday, June 16, 2009

A good place


What? Why am I posting a picture of a shower? Well, the Internet being the wonderful world of information that it is, it may be that one day another woman in search of a good place will come across this blog.

Maybe she too will have schlepped down to London at her own expense for a meeting which if it came off would have led to lots of very good changes in her life.

And maybe that meeting didn't seem to go too well, which was entirely her fault, and maybe she was very British and focused on having an afternoon free in London. Maybe she went to see some art and bought a nice magazine and maybe she almost kept the disappointment at bay. Until she missed a bus and sat on a metal seat on a four lane road clogged with growling belching traffic and realised that she was about to cry. For certain she will have known that crying on the bus would have turned her into the 'nutter on the bus' and so maybe she contemplated sneaking past all the homeless on the steps of St. Pancras church and going in there to cry in a pew.


If so, she should know that these new shower stalls in the refurbished first class lounge at Euston are excellent places to lock oneself in, turn on the hot water and have a bawl and a howl and a good, long, heaving sob.


And then maybe the bawling and the howling and the sobbing will just be starting to subside when she is surprised by a giggle at the thought of blogging a shower photo and she will recall that there are women (and maybe lurking men) all around the world who think her interesting enough to read her blog and maybe then she will consider that maybe she is not totally useless.


And perhaps she will remember that amongst the blog chit-chat of yard sales and quilted birds and fabric altars those women shared little bits about breast cancer and losing a child, about the death of parents and the failure of cycle after cycle of IVF. Then, maybe, she will wrap the towel around herself and sit in the cool lime green chair, look herself straight in the eye in the mirror and tell herself that the collapse of some pretty dreams are not on the same scale, that her life as it is not so bad ( even if it feels horribly insecure at the moment), and then maybe she will be able to leave that shower stall with a smile on her face, fragile but ready to dust herself off and face life as it is.

And maybe she will go home and find that her Daisy Chain quilt pattern is in this month's editions of British Patchwork and Quilting and she will manage a wobbly ( and very clean) smile. No day is totally bad.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

well now i know where to have a good cry in London. are you planning the same for HK, US etc? it might be useful. sorry to hear the meeting didnt go well. i often think of things that happen in my life as blog fodder, i hold a vomiting child and think, how can i write this up.

Gretchen said...

Sometimes a good bath and a cry makes everything OK for awhile. I'm glad to hear you found a good place for one and came out better if not all better. Hugs from a GA reader who always enjoys your blog!!!

Pennie said...

I read your Blog entry from start to finish absolutely transfixed! You are an excellent writer Helen, I went through the whole range of emotions just for you :-( :-) Congratulations on your publication!

Donna said...

sometimes a wail is the best thing. Sorry it was needed.

Diana said...

Oh Helen,I'm so sorry. Sometimes a good cry is called for--leave it to you to find a place like that to have it in. Hope things look up soon.

Deborah Boschert said...

Mama said there'd be days like these...

That green chair is very cool.

Hope tomorrow is better.

Lisa Walton said...

Pennie is right - you write so well. Sorry you had such a dreadful day but something wonderful is just around the corner I'm sure. Your trip for one!

Garnered Stitches said...

Disappointment and failure seem so enormous at the time, but pail into insignificance when the thing that is meant to happen comes along. I think of my Sister-in-law's failure of her A levels. Devastating at the time, but I would never have met her brother, never have had our wonderful children and my life would have taken a very different path! Oh, and her life is now pretty good too!!!

best wishes

Jude said...

Yes, we all hang on to your every word... :)
Life isn't too bad really.

Kay said...

A wonderful post! I hope the magic of the shower continues for you, and congratulations on the article!

Paula's suggestion made me laugh--on you upcoming trip, you need to think about that idea.

Rayna said...

I would have been the nutter on the bus, sobbing my heart out for whatever it was...but you somehow managed to write about this and make lemonade from lemons.
R.