Never on a (Easter) Sunday

By Bfpage (Own work)
[CC BY-SA 4.0],
via Wikimedia Commons

I hate going to church on the "big" holy days, like Easter and Christmas.

Well, to be precise, I hate going to my church on these days. And it's all because of those "welcoming" Sunday morning people.

I go to the evening service at my church (which is on a Saturday afternoon, because of historical reasons which are too silly - and slightly depressing - to go into here). I've been going to this service regularly for at least 5-6 years now. Before that, I attended several other services at the same church irregularly for a few years.

All told, I've been going to this church for almost 10 years - just not the Sunday morning service.

Weekend mornings and I don't get along. I work on a sleep deficit for most of the week, and I try to make up for that on the weekends. I can try to pull myself out of bed to attend something occasionally, but if I dare try to make a regular habit of it I start falling apart at the seems out of sheer exhaustion. So I stop doing it.

As a result, I don't go to church on Sunday mornings, but I force myself to make an occasional exception for "special events" - like Easter and Christmas. I can manage it for a couple of times a year, just not every week.

However, Easter and Christmas, being morning services, are pretty much the domain of the Sunday morning crowd. This isn't a problem - or at least, it shouldn't be. It should be a wonderful time of communing with the other members of my parish who aren't part of my regular congregation. A time where I can say "hi" to people I rarely see and bask in the togetherness that the season(s) bring(s).

Instead, without fail, someone from the Sunday morning crowd will take it upon themselves to "welcome" me to the church, as if I'm a passing stranger or a "Christmas Christian". There's nothing quite like being welcomed to make you feel like a stranger.

When I tell them I go to the Saturday afternoon service, this strange look comes over their face, as if they're completely stumped now. They were all ready to try to make me feel welcome to the church, being the complete stranger that I am, but now they don't know what to do with me.

Some of them keep on trying to act as if I might start coming to the morning service if they're just welcoming enough (like the other services don't count). Others say something like "Oh, well good to see you," and mutter something that barely passes as a conversation before they go to find a "real" stranger to welcome.

I hate it. This is my church, dangit - I shouldn't feel like a stranger. It's odd and disconcerting, and it has reached the point where I don't feel comfortable going to any service where the Sunday morning crowd are going to be there feeling all proprietorial. "Hi there, person I only see at Christmas, you are clearly someone who needs to be encouraged to come back to church, let me be the one who encourages you!"

No, go away.

There's every chance I've been going to this church longer than you have. Welcome me as a cousin you rarely see, not as a stranger to the family.

Last year, I even tried to shake things up by doing one of the readings at the Christmas morning service - surely it would look like I come to this church regularly if I'm up there reading a reading like I do it all the time (and I do, actually)? Nope. People still tried to engage me in the kind of polite conversation that is reserved for guests and strangers. "Thanks for doing us a favour, stranger" seemed to be the order of the day.

So, this year I'm going to do something different, and avoid my church on Easter and Christmas and go to a different church instead. If I'm going to be made to feel like a strange visitor, then I may as well be visiting a strange church.

Thinking About Fencing (or, "Go Hard or Go Home")

I promised myself I'd get back into fencing this year. After struggling with turning up for the first half of last year, I decided to just give it a rest for six months and try again in 2018.

Well, it's three months into 2018, and so far I haven't quite managed to get myself to the PCYC on a Friday night. Part of the problem is that by the time Friday comes around, I'm just pooped and all I want to do is sit around not exercising. We don't have Tuesday night sessions any more, and I do wonder if I'd do a better job of getting there earlier in the week, or if the fact that I have band on a Monday means I'm less likely to do something on Tuesdays.

Would I be more inclined to get my act together if I front-loaded my week? Did two extracurricular activities in a row and then crashed for the rest of the week? Or would I be more inclined to go to one or the other, but not both?

Part of the reason I stopped going last year was the attitude of a certain young man.

You see, I'm not very good at fencing. I know that, and I've come to be okay with it. I have the unfortunate affliction of getting actively worse when I try to get better. It's peculiar, but the more I focus on trying to do what my coach tells me to do, the more likely it is that I'll just completely and utterly suck. When I just fence like a "natural idiot" (i.e., someone who doesn't know what they're doing), I have a bit of the idiot's luck and can usually get in a few good hits. When I work on improving, I get steadily worse.

It's a strange and disheartening thing, to genuinely try your hardest only to get worse and worse results. For a few years I thought I'd build my athletic base and work on core skills: "Yes! I'm going to put the effort in, and get better, and become genuinely competitive!"  But not only did I lose everything all the time, I became so noticeably worse at what I was doing that my coach kept trying to tell me to put some work into it.

I wanted to stab him in the eye with my sword at times. For years, he was trying to teach me the same basic skills and we weren't moving on to anything else because I wasn't getting any better at the basics. I wanted to say: "Let's just assume I'm not going to be 'satisfactory' at anything, and rather than wait for me to be better at this, we'll move on so I can be terrible at other things."

So, this was my pattern for a while: Try harder, get worse and have people tell me I need to try harder, then stop trying and improve slightly and start to feel good about myself, only for people to tell me my technique sucked and I needed to work on it.

But I do love the sport. I didn't want to go home feeling depressed and deflated from something I wanted to love, just because I'm clearly incompetent.

I eventually gave myself a break and decided to be okay with being terrible, and stop trying to improve the way everyone (including me) seemed to expect me to improve. In a way, I was hoping to just keep playing until my "idiot's luck" moved into "natural progression".

But there was the sabre issue.

Now, ever since I started fencing (at a club which specialises in epee, and has a sideline with foil), I've looked at sabre and said "I want to play with those." I didn't understand how sabre actually worked, but I still wanted to give it a try.

However, sabreurs have been few and far between at my club, and they seem to be universally people who Aren't Mucking Around. They don't have time to put up with someone who wants to dabble until they can get their head around it. I suppose, given that sabre is more or less"who dares wins", you can't really expect sabreurs to have patience.

Eventually there was one guy who had competed in a few bouts down south and knew enough about the sport to give some basic coaching if anyone was interested.

I was interested, but not serious enough for this guy. He was only going to bother me coaching sabre if I turned up ready with all of my equipment every week and had told him in advance that "a sabre lesson next week would be nice, thank you."

Me? I was exceptionally busy at work and had a number of things happening in my life; quite frankly I thought I was doing pretty well if I managed to come two weeks in a row. And all I wanted in these early stages of sabring was some basic coaching and footwork that didn't really need anything other than normal epee gear and a sabre, so I didn't see why he thought it needed such high levels of dedication and commitment.

Now, he's a young man who has a bright future ahead of him in the sport and often feels frustrated at the restraints involved with fencing with a bunch of no-hope amateurs. I get that, but he made it clear to me over and over again that I should "go hard or go home."

On balance, I decided it was better to go home.

I don't know if it was his intention to make me feel like I was better off not coming to fencing at all, but that's where I ended up.

Living the Witchy Life (or: The Hallmarks of Being a Witch)

It's been a while since I've posted anything, so I'll compensate by writing something that's too long for anyone to read:

Lately, I’ve been thinking about being a witch. Not a “proper”, actually-dabbles-in-spells-and-magic witch, but rather the type of woman who is rumoured to be a witch.

When I was on holidays in Guernsey I discovered their “national” museum (great place – I recommend it), and it has a lovely section where a diorama of sorts tells you stories from Guernsian folklore. The last story on the list is about an old woman who is accused of being a witch. Since then, I’ve run across a few similar stories in short story collections. It’s not that I’ve never heard or read stories on this subject before, but for some reason I’ve stumbled across a number of them lately, and they’ve got me thinking about witchy things.

There are basically two variations of this story, and I’ve encountered many retellings over the years:

1. A woman who once had a family and was involved in the community suffers a tragic loss, withdraws from society, is rumoured to be a witch because she shows all the hallmarks of being a witch, is then shunned by society and eventually dies alone. One or two people encounter her shortly before she dies and realise she’s just a lonely old woman, but they don’t manage to do much about it before she ups stumps and carks it.

2. A highly intelligent but not very social woman lives on her own, on her own property, and keeps herself amused following intellectual pursuits. Someone decides she’s in the way (perhaps he – it’s almost always a he – wants her land), or she annoys the wrong person and makes a powerful enemy, or something unfortunate happens and the villagers need a scapegoat. It is decided she shows all the hallmarks of being a witch, so that provides a convenient excuse to do away with her and steal her property.

What these two stories usually have in common – and this is something that can be seen in almost every retelling in some way, shape or form - is the “hallmarks of being a witch”. People look at the way these women live their lives, and start spreading rumours involving the dark arts.

But what are the hallmarks of being a witch?

1. Living arrangements: A rumoured witch is a woman who lives alone, without a husband or children to take care of. She might be living with a female companion, such as a relative or friend (in which case, it’s possible they’re both witches, in a coven) or a “special” friend – in which case they are definitely both witches, because we all know that lesbianism doesn’t exist but the dark arts do. But the point is, she’s an “independent woman”, and those are not to be trusted.

2. Dependants and associates: A rumoured witch probably has pets – particularly cats. A witch will have animal familiars, after all, and nothing says “associates with evil forces” quite as emphatically as owning a cat. She may also occasionally be seen with other social misfits. They are probably also associated with the Dark One – otherwise, why else would they be misfits? She is unlikely to have any friends from amongst the “normal” people in town. Mind you, that could be because they think she’s a witch.

3. Living quarters: A rumoured witch will live in a cottage on the outskirts of town, or a cabin in the woods, or an old mansion-type house on a large property on one of the oldest streets in the oldest suburb (it’s probably been in the family for generations) – somewhere with few close neighbours. Her property is probably large enough to have an extensive garden (which is, no doubt, overgrown and slightly out of control) and makes sure no one sees more than a glimpse of her occasionally. Her house will be described by any of the following adjectives in combination: Mysterious, foreboding, ramshackle, ancient, run-down, brooding.... (basically, old and/or quirky and/or gone to seed).

4. Furnishings and accessories: It is highly unlikely that many people will see the inside of the rumoured witch’s house, but if they did they would find it full of assorted oddments, strange objects and apparatus. Perhaps it will be full of old books (which we can only assume are on topics like necromancy and spell-casting), or perhaps the place has a lot of plants and dried herbs on display (also for the spell casting). It’s probably also messy, and most things are not neatly filed away.

5. Clothing: A rumoured witch dresses in a highly idiosyncratic manner. She may be wearing clothes that are unfashionably out of date, or she might be wearing clothes that are decidedly Not Pretty, and are (shock! horror!) practical. These clothes give her the freedom to move around and engage in her witchy activities. Which brings us to:

6. Hobbies and interests: A rumoured witch is probably interested in plants. She may be an avid gardener (even though her garden is a bit on the “wilderness” side), or she may be the kind of person who goes out into fields and forests and comes back with plant samples. If she were a man, she’d be an amateur botanist. But she’s a single woman, so she’s probably collecting herbs for spells. If she’s literate, she’ll be an avid reader, and she might also be interested in tinkering with things or making inventions (all of which are definitely unsuitable pursuits for a woman).

Now, it’s at about this point where you might be noticing a slight trend in the “hallmarks of being a witch”: they’re all things that are actually really neat.

A witch is someone who lives independently in an interesting house with a fun garden who is comfortable with her own company and likes animals. She has a range of interests and hobbies, and a relaxed attitude towards matters like clutter and maintenance. She dresses comfortably in clothes that suit her lifestyle, and isn’t a slave to trends and fashion. She’s not afraid of doing things that are unladylike, and she sees no need to live in a way that pleases anyone else. She doesn’t need the “latest” things and is happy re-using or re-purposing old items and antiques. She occasionally hangs out with other people who are similarly liberated from the expectations of “polite” society, but she doesn’t need the company - she can take care of herself.

While I was thinking about these things, I realised that I’m pretty darn close to being a witch myself:

1. I live independently, and I’m quite comfortable with my own company.

2. I have a cat.

3. I chose my house because it had character (although, ideally, I’d like a tree-house or something with a lot of stone, a lot of wood and a lot of quirk). I don’t have a big garden, but I potter in it most afternoons and I like it best when it’s slightly over-grown.

4. I have a lot of crap, er, clutter, er, stuff from various different hobbies and interests that I’ve had over the years. This includes books, musical instruments, knick-knacks, odds and ends and equipment for things that I’m not sure I’ll ever use.

5. I dress for comfort more than fashion (although I have to admit that my style is “frumpy” rather than “idiosyncratic”).

6. I read a lot, I have a wide range of interests and I don’t care if any of them aren’t traditionally “feminine” pursuits. However, while I like plants, I don’t know much about them, unfortunately.

Basically, if I had more antiques, an older, quirkier house and a bigger garden (and knew anything about the plants that grew in that garden), I’d be well on my way to being a rumoured witch. Oh, and I probably need less boring clothes. But then, part of the witchy lifestyle that I’ve identified is being completely fine with whatever it is that you’re wearing.

And I’ve come to the realisation that I’m only dabbling in the shallow end of this pond. Now that I’ve recognised the features, it could turn into a full-blown lifestyle choice. This could be the next Hygge, or Scandi, or whatever lifestyle fad people have these days.

To live the Witchy Life is to be: independent, eclectic, interested in hobbies and books, happily cluttered, comfortable with being messy, comfortable with being unfashionable, comfortable with being “odd” and surrounding by things that make you happy.

It’s kind of like being a hipster, only lazier and more introverted – it’s all about being comfortable, and less about being “on-trend”. A hipster may dress like a dork “ironically” in order to feel superior to the masses, but a witchy person will dress like a dork because they like dressing that way – they dress for themselves, and not to be seen. A witchy person would smash their own avocado in their own kitchen and skip the café – because the café may be nice, but their own breakfast nook is nicer.

It actually sounds (to me, at least) like a pretty cool lifestyle to embrace on purpose. Although the downside is that people might start spreading rumours that you’re a witch.