Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday mum.

“A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie” -Tenneva Jordan

This quote is very true of my mother. Though “promptly” I think is the key word here, because most of us, given enough time to think would probably do the right thing and give up the pie. However for a mother, it’s instinctual. There is no time needed to think.

I love my mother. We all, well most of us, love our mothers. But if I truly love mine, why when it comes to her birthday, can I not think of a way to show her? In some ways it’s hard to give something back to someone who has given so much. You forget that they too have preference, likes and dislikes, even…needs. But my mum already told me she didn’t want anything. Plus what do you get someone who doesn’t like spending money, whose worst nightmare is shopping and who won’t go near anything girly? Well you could write a list of reasons why you love her…

First of all I like that she doesn’t wear make up. She doesn’t need it in any case but it’s cool that my first educator, my first female role model, exemplified that life doesn’t have to be seen through mascara laden eyes.

Second of all she’s very healthy. personally it freaks me out when people are too healthy. The kind of people who offer you loads of food but NEVER eat any of it themselves. shudders. But my mum is fairly cool with that. She never diets, as far as i can tell. She goes running almost everyday which is pretty hardcore but is always keen for second portions and does not shy away from pudding. Balance is something very rare to find but she’s got it I think.

Thirdly she’s like a…cough sweet. Hard on the outside but with a soothing liquid centre. For instance, as a child I was forced to sit at the dinner table, for what felt like hours untill I finished my dinner, and seeing as I tended to not like anything that didn’t look like a chicken nuggets, dinner time was a traumatic ordeal. But it made a lot of sense, to tell your child its ok to refuse something just because they think they won’t like it is to teach them, at such a tender age, that it’s ok to disregard the time and effort someone has put in, just to please yourself. It’s just respect. Furthermore I was encouraged on pain of death to sing and perform with my family. Which I hated. But looking back it was always to provide some kind of service, be it entertainment in old peoples homes, parties, conferences. And although I sometimes had to where colourful waist coats and not look quite as cool as I wished, it instilled in me the concept that arts of any kind are a means of serving humanity, not made solely to be created, secretly in your room. But how does this make her a cough sweet? Well, she sometimes appears tough on the outside, but there’s nothing fake or insincere about my mother. In fact she’s a very honest sensitive person, whose core is molten love. A living soother.

My mum never let me do exactly what the other kids did. In hindsight I can see that the charity shop clothes I wore as a child were the coolest of the cool. Yet at the time I could only dream of Newlook. But it’s probably a mercy that materialism was kept at bay just for a while.

Clearly there’s more than three things I like about my mother. And I could definitely go on. But  the most important thing she gave me was faith. A faith that taught me I was created noble, men, women and all races are equal and to expect tests not because God is unmerciful and enjoys watching us fail but because this is how we grow. Mum encouraged me to learn prayers so that in primary school when I was scared to death of spelling tests I had someone to turn to. And now at 17 I say these same prayers, when I have exams, when I worry about the future, and most frequently when I miss the bus.

So thankyou mum. By the way Dad, I acknowledge that you played a part in this aswell, but as it’s her special day…Happy Birthday Mum…and again thankyou.

Random acts of kindness

A couple of days ago, a friend and I decided we definatly had time to visit Mr B’s (the greatest ice-cream parlor ever) before we hopped on the bus. We foolishly underestimated the number of tourists that would also be heading that way. Thus we ended up queuing. While blissfully gazing at the glass shielded ice cream only a few customers away it slowly dawned on us that we would quite possibly miss our bus if the line didn’t move. This we voiced outloud, but decided to perservere. The girl and boy in front of us were asked to order but instead the girl turned to me and my friend and uttered the sweet words “have you got a bus to catch? You can go first.” it took a secound or two for us to take her up on this offer. We were both a little shocked. But why? It’s common decency to let someone in a rush go first, right? It’s not even like she sacrificed much. I think the main reason why it took us by suprise was because she was our age.  It’s always more scary to talk to a stranger your age than it is to talk to an elderly person or a young child. Most youths are apathetic towards each other and sometimes there seems to be vibes of indifference between us. Often we are trying too hard to uphold the “I am as cool, if not more cool than you” appeal with a hint of “either way am i bothered?” to pay attention to each others needs.

The result of this random act of kindness was us feeling quite, well, dandy as we walked with an extra hop in our step to the bus stop so much so that even if we had missed our bus, which we didn’t, our renewed faith in the world would have repelled any feelings of frustration towards Cornwall’s bus services.

So now I want to perform a random act of kindness, it will be like that film “pay it forward”…Except noone will die in the end…;)

Make-up or make-believe?

This morning I looked in the mirror and oh my gosh did I look rough. But as I continued to gape at my own reflection, I realised there was no good reason for this. I had slept well, I wasn’t ill, I certainly hadn’t been consuming any unclassified drinks the night before. Then it hit me, like a beach ball in the face; for the first time in a long time I wasn’t wearing make-up.  The mascara that so often clings obediently to my eyelashes and the eye-liner that so faithfully emphasises my eyes was gone; wiped away by sleep, the passage of time and most probably a facial wipe.

It’s not that I use a lot of make-up, I really don’t. Generally I’m lucky if I make it out of my front door in time to catch my bus let alone  spend more then a brief moment on my appearance. But somehow over the past few months  this subtle dependency on cosmetics has crept up on me. I was honestly shocked by the plain and seemingly vulnerable face staring back at me in that cold metallic surface.

I’ve seen it happen many a time, a girl takes off her make up and the naive onlookers gasps and ask;

“are you ok? You look tired or ill or something!”

girl: “I’m fine, I’m just…not wearing make up”

So why do we do this, create an image that’s not real? Some people even attempt to change their skin colour with the aid of intensive UV rays, from pasty white to brown, or orange as it so often seems. If a girl has curly hair she straightens it if it’s straight she longs for curls. What a kerfuffle. Why all the effort?

It could be argued that the whole point in creating the illusion of beauty is essentially to attract the opposite sex. It’s like survival of the fittest, fittest taking on a more crude definition in this context.  However happily married women do not suddenly fling their cosmetics to the wind. So whats the purpose? Perfection?  I wear make up and I am not a perfectionist, it’s just a dab of mascara and eyeliner that  just so happens to leave me looking dull and plain without  it. And I could go without it. I just prefer to look nice. Is that a crime?

No, not really. Make-up isn’t evil, nor is anyone who wears it an inanimate sheep. People often say that make-up is just a way of enhancing natural beauty, however we are disgusted when we see photos of tribes women stretching their necks with golden rings, and how about the ancient tradition of Chinese foot binding, which slowly and painfully stunts the growth of the feet. Is that beautiful? To us, certainly not, but the concept of beauty varies from place to place, nation to nation, person to person. Theses are pretty extreme examples but it’s the same principle, surely they too are just enhancing their natural beauty? To an extent it matters not how we  create the illusion of beauty, whatever that is, but rather the spirit in which we do it. If we are mindlessly distorting our image day after day to conform to a standard of beauty set by some artificially enhanced women in a magazine then we probably have some issues. But if you view your face as a piece of art then so be it. Go wild.

However we should be aware that these passions we put so much emphasis on are not eternal. They will not out live us. Whats more people do not love you because of the way you look, of course your style can very much reflect you personality, but anyone who is your friend solely on the basis of what you look like shouldn’t really be your friend. There are many other ways in which we can beautiful, our acts of kindness to others, our strength in conviction, our compassion, our generosity, our sense of humour. And many a time qualities such as these completely override our physical ones. And that in itself is beautiful.

So as i gaze at myself in the mirror, wondering what exactly went wrong this morning a thought strikes me, maybe it wasn’t my face that went wrong, after all it was just sitting there minding its own business. Maybe instead it was my mind, my whole perception on how important  make-up was in the first place. Maybe true beauty doesn’t come in a pot of foundation or a tube of concealer. Maybe its not make-up I’m messing with, but make-believe.

This is a spoken word piece about make up, its pretty good, although the guy’s voice is abit hard to understand in places. Enjoy.

Facebook Nation

First it was the car then the aeroplane, now its Facebook. What from the outside seems to be a simple networking program is in reality a complex embodiment of millions of people worldwide. Could our parents in their youthful days even have imagined communication with a random person in china at the click of a mouse? No, probably not, most likely they were climbing trees or catching butterflies, but who needs such trivial pursuits when all the fun can be had without even moving?

From the very moment of login, you are bombarded with seemingly pointless snippets of information, not only are you alerted about your own messages and picture comments, you are informed in a pick and mix fashion of everyone else’s too, so when you run out of things to do concerning yourself you can just begin browsing everyone else’s Facebook life. At the idle tap of a finger I gain admittance into a world where I am instantly notified when one of my friend’s relationships has crumbled, enabling me to swiftly come to their aid with a reassuring wall post and a “hug”. Meanwhile, with the use of pokes and instant messaging I have systematically alerted my friends of this tragic incident and am feasting on a fresh plate of gossip. Beautiful isn’t it?

Some would argue not so… some would argue that the likes of Facebook, Myspace and Bebo, are feeding the egotistical minds of young, bored people. Furthermore, they argue, are we really making strong connections with our friends? How many of us have accepted requests from people we’ve never even met? Does meeting someone once, at a drunken party indicate instant friendship? Not in the real world, but Facebook isn’t the real world. At least I don’t think it is…

The truth is, it makes a scarily convincing substitute, it’s crazy how 4 hours, 4 hours of looking at pictures, reading comments, commenting on comments and sending people applications like “what kind of dog are you?” can pass and at the end, when we finally drag our self away from that comforting blue and white glow are we satisfied? Do we feel anymore content? What have we actually achieved?

While I am aware of all these factors, the sum still equals another dose of Facebook, I can’t help it, its there and who am I to resist it? After all technological advances are irreversible, there’s no going back now. It cannot simply be wiped away, the chances are it will outlive us and from behind a warm fuzzy plasma screen will watch our children grow up. We cannot blame Facebook for our bad grades, our obesity or our addiction to guilt-free gossip. It is just a tool, the violent offspring of a messed up nation, confused and abused by us users but more importantly endowed with the ability to do good as well as bad. In our tendencies to find fault and yet another reason to complain we forget Facebook isn’t just a network system, it is a nation where peoples of any colour or belief can abide, a place in the world where there are no limitations on who you can talk to and where both men and women equally thrive. Finally seas and oceans cannot keep people apart, this piece of machinery although numb and emotionless is colour blind. It is agile and swift in its ability to receive and perceive messages passing on information in the twinkling of an eye, it’s a society where thoughts and opinions can be expressed without the use violence, and the spillage of blood.

We could see these technological growth spurts as essentially evil, harbouring only the insecure and the perverse in nature. Or we could embrace the possibility that communication at the speed of light, the sharing of memories captured in a snap shot, the uniting of forgotten family and lost friends from all over the world is pretty awesome.