Mum and the Monk

I’ve never mentioned what else my Mum does.
Yes, she works in the shop but that’s only a tiny bit of it.
My Mum and her two friends actually founded and run an organisation called Silence in the City.
It’s a big deal.
They arrange for the ‘superstars’ of contemplative living to come to London to give talks on the value of silence in modern day life.
It goes deeper than that of course. These things often do.
Franciscans, Dominicans, Trappists, Revs, Dr's... some names have drawn in over four hundred listeners.
Half the post we get in the shop is addressed to Silence in the City.
You could almost say the shop is just a front for their operations.
People ring up and think the shop is their office.
They’re often women who speak very quietly and I want to tell them they’re taking the ‘Silence’ bit too far and would they speak up please.
The contemplatives that give these talks are not the types to preach hellfire to shoppers on Oxford Street or sell exclusive tickets to heaven.
These speakers are wise, humble, gentle and good-humoured.
They’re not interested in strengthening dangerous myths that cause separation between religions and cultures. Instead they shed light on our own repetitive thought patterns and separation within.
Too deep?
We had a monk stay with us last week who’d come all the way from Wisconsin.
He arrived at Kings Cross Station in full monk garb and Mum still took ages to spot him.
I thought he looked like a character from Monty Python in his long blue robe.
Once home, I made him a cup of tea.
“I’m going to give you a superior biscuit,” Mum said, and handed him a packet of almond turrón.
That’s not a biscuit! I thought in alarm.
Turrón is made of caramelised almonds and is so hard you could use it to build a fortress.
If our monk was disappointed, he didn’t show it.
He tried to break it with his teeth then with his hands.
It was still intact when he finished his tea.
“I’m going upstairs to soak it,” he said brightly.
He retired to the spare bedroom where Mum had left out a copy of Shop Girl Diaries which you’ll agree is essential monk reading material.
I know he read some because he talked to me about it later on.
For supper, he removed his blue tabard and was all in black.
“I like your undergarments,” Mum said, dishing up her famous brown rice.
“I haven’t had anyone say that to me for a while,” he said with a big smile, then added, “It’s called a tunic.”
I don’t think Mum realised she’d complimented him on his underwear until later.
Inappropriate?
Relax.
Forget piety and preacher men with secret agendas.
Good humour is a lot better for the soul.



N.B. Illustration by my Mum, Jill Benet

The Full Story (of how the Date became the Fiancé)

Thank you Date, with your one guest post you’ve managed to double my readership.

Oops, did I say Date?

I meant Fiancé.

Because it wasn’t a publicity stunt to get more readers.

Shop Girl and the Date are officially engaged!

“Holy Sh*t,” my brother said, when I told him.

I’m only just starting to believe it myself and that’s partly because I have proof.

The Fiancé once said he didn’t believe in engagement rings.

He obviously changed his mind.

In the restaurant, after reading his blog post out loud, I turned to him and there it was, sparkling from inside the ring box he’d opened upside down.

STOP!

REWIND.

I’d sensed something extraordinary was going to happen that evening.

He’d been so jumpy when I’d met him as if he’d drunk ten cups of coffee.

Then there’d been that mysterious lump in his jacket pocket that I’d accidentally touched.

He’d disappeared into his bedroom, mumbling an excuse and when he’d reappeared the lump had gone.

In the restaurant he’d wanted everything to be perfect, had looked agitated when a load of children had piled onto a table nearby.

As our desert arrived, (ice cream which would melt in the ensuing excitement), he got out his computer to post his blog online.

He hadn’t banked on the internet connection being so terrible.

It started to look like it wasn’t going to work.

“You can put it on tomorrow,” I said.

“No!” he cried, “I have to put it on now!”

Maybe I knew then.

This was clearly no ordinary blog.

Before the computer battery ran out, the connection returned and he was able to put his blog online.

By paragraph three I was in tears.

I finished reading and turned to him, and he was holding up the box with a beautiful ring he’d chosen all by himself weeks earlier.

“Will you marry me?”

In my imagination I’ve always said a clear, resounding ‘Yes’.

In real life, I was a blurry-eyed, blubbering bundle of shock.

“You haven’t said yes!” he said. “You have to say yes!”

“Yes!”

Of course yes! He was the Date! He was the hero in my book! Of course it was always going to be him!

The first person I told was the Greek waiter.

He shook the Fiancés hand then knocked on our table.

“Number 33,” he said.

I won’t forget that.

33 will always be a lucky table.

And I am a very lucky girl.

Guest Blogger 'The Date' - Big Adventure

So the ShopGirl bullied me into doing a blog.

Here it is, I am real.

And for all of you that are wondering, I’m not writing on my exercise time all the way from Guantanamo. Thank God.

But I can’t deny it hasn’t been stressful. Every time we talk about it we end up angry at the world and hanging up on each other with the excuse of having to do something. The good think is that normally leads to a cute message and a very comforting new call.

Emily loves to text. Every time I look at my inbox, there is something new from her. She tells me when she does something, also when she doesn’t. She tells me when she’s happy about it, also when she’s not. She loves to wonder about the world... and text me about it.

I’m not a massive texter and when we started going out I wasn’t use to getting these many messages and calls. I always thought girls that texted this much didn’t have much to do or were just intense. However, as time passed, I realized something; is not something you have to get used to, is something you need to understand. Now I understand, Emily wants to share even the little details with me. And the little details are what made me fall in love with her.

Like the endless hours she has spend stroking my hair whenever I’m stressed, or the funny dances she does in the kitchen whenever I make her coffee. Or the so many silly-sounding spanglish terms we both have make up that would be soooooo embarrassing if anyone actually understands.

But probably the best little detail (ok, not that little) is that I don’t have to wonder 'what if?’ because it already is. We are a team. And team silly is going on an adventure! As Emily predicted our plans go in circles. With no confirmed dates for my visa and film, it seems a bit silly to book a trip to Colombia just yet. We will go as soon as someone somewhere decides to give me a date. But today we are embarking on an even better adventure.

Nothing is been confirmed, I have no visa and no secure dates as to when, but all this has made me think a lot. I hate to be in the hands of situations and I like to make my own decisions. We are going for an early dinner date in a lovely restaurant. We will have a starter, a main and a dessert. Maybe even a glass of wine and some olives. Emily loves Olives. And so do I.

And when we finish eating and we are having un cortadito, pretending to be in a sunny terraza, I will get my laptop out and put this blog online. Yes, I’m going to be that obnoxious (100 points to anyone that can spell this word) and I’m going to get her to read it aloud there. Love in the Times of Internet!

And as she finishes and turns around I will ask her...

Shop Girl in Circles

The Date still hasn’t had his UK visa approved.
He rang up to find out when he might be told.
“Don’t know,” the woman said.
Our plans go around in circles.
One minute we’re setting off, the next minute we’re staying put and waiting for the Home Office’s verdict.
It’s frustrating. I just want to know something definite.
“I’m going to make an executive decision,” he said today. “We’ll book tickets on Friday.”
Not cinema tickets, we’ve already booked those (for ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and don’t tell me the ending because I’ve never read it).
He meant plane tickets to America and on to Colombia.
Good.
Now I’ve blogged about it, we’ll have to go.
Or will we?
As I said, our plans go around in circles.
Meanwhile I’m keeping my head down and writing a lot.
I might have to stop soon though and get some extra days at the shop to pay for this ticket (cinema and plane).
The good news is the date will finally speak for himself on Friday because he’s promised to write a guest post.
Ha! I’ve blogged about it now so he’ll have to do it.
Or will he?

Little Shop Girl's Diary

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I went up to the attic today and found exactly what I was looking for.

A Diary of a ten year old.

You see, I’m working on a new novel and my two main characters start young and grow up during the course of the story.

It’s a bit of an epic.

And it’s going to be fun.

Hopefully as fun as looking though my diaries and seeing how much of a geek I was.

When I was little I started up an ‘Animal and Tree Rescue Club’ which took place in our Assembly room while we waited for our parents to collect us.

We didn’t do any actual rescuing. We just swapped stickers (two shiny ones for a furry) and wrote fact files about our pets.

Eg. Animal: Hamster

Name: Blob

Nickname: Blobus, Bobby, Blobby-Blob, Tom.

Likes: Eating, sleeping, Me

Dislikes: Our cat

Some say I was a despotic leader.

They were the ones I expelled.

I expelled them because they were fighting each other and I couldn’t afford to let them ruin the image of my club.

Such disciplinary measures might sound alarming coming from a fluffy-haired, toothy ten year old who couldn’t even spell disciplinary if her life depended on it.

However I have evidence that suggests I wasn’t all bad.

Along with my diaries, I also found a letter from the RSPCA thanking us for our kind donation of ten pounds.

So, there we are, proof that I was a strict but effective leader.

I have no idea where the ten pounds came from since we never did anything useful enough to raise money. But I’m sure it was got through fair means.

The club was obviously a key part of my life as a ten year old.

My diary begins with a promise: I promise that I will do my best to look after trees and wildlife.

And then I wrote down a Law.

Yes, an actual Law.

And it was this: I shall not tread on, or say ‘ergh’ to eny Animal or Insect.

Ah, but humans are weak.

Since then I’ve brutally murdered many insects, including a memorable and most satisfying splat of a big black buzzing creature against a bus window.

It may have been the last one of its species but at least I didn’t say ‘ergh’.

Sixteen years on and the pages of my oldest diary are still scented.

My diary reminds me of a time when stickers and toy trolls were the centre of my world, and boys were of no interest and generally annoying.

Even at ten I wanted to be a novelist, (July 1994: ‘I’ve started a new book which I’m going to get published’) and the attic is full with mini novels, including ‘Evil Eyes’ mentioned on the back of my book Shop Girl Diaries.

I can’t help grinning when I flick through all those early pages.

They mark the very beginning of a dream.

True happiness may exist in the present.

But for a moment, I drift into the future and visualise my first best seller.

Shop Girl and The Date

The Date’s UK Visa has been rejected.
I didn’t cry until I’d got off the phone.
Imagine if you had five days to leave the country.
Five days to close down your whole life.
To pack up your home, cancel the telly, the phone.
To say goodbye to the contacts you’ve worked so hard to get and to the jobs which were finally taking you where you wanted to go.
Imagine five days left with your friends.
Five days left with your girlfriend, except it wouldn’t be five days together because you’d be too busy packing your life up.
Could you do it?
We’ve already taken more than a year to close the shop and we’re still open.
We even fitted a new shutter last week. (Don’t ask, I don’t know.)
The Date has lodged an appeal. At the worst it will buy him time.
Four weeks, I think.
Something gave way inside me when he told me the news.
All those things that had mattered before like getting my own space and finding a new job ceased to be important.
What is independence if you have no control over the big things?
My heart isn’t heavy. My heart is fine.
Life may be uncertain but there is certainty in what I care about.
I feel light because for me there is no dilemma.
If he goes then I’ll follow.
I’ve always preferred happy endings.

Candidate: One Shop Girl

When I have children I’ll tell them to be plumbers.

I’ll hide their notebooks and give them plastic tools to play with.

I’ll tell them to get their hands dirty, do something practical.

‘But Mummy, I want to write stories like you!’

‘Don’t be silly, look how poor Mummy is!’

And I’ll thrust a spanner into my son's hand.

‘You can be anything you want my darling. Be a mechanic! Be a pilot! Be a lawyer if you must.’

But there’ll be no writing and certainly no poetry.

Oh don’t worry about me.

I’m not going to stop scribbling. I’m just a little disheartened by the work to money relationship there is in the creative world.

Writing at home this week has been a luxury, interrupted by moments of panic which led me to Google temping agencies.

I registered with one and up popped the dreaded SKILLS form.

I simply had to tick the box beside each skill I had.

I ran down the list and felt a growing sense of unease.

For instance: Audio Typing.

Yes I’ve done it once before.

It’s just typing what someone says, right?

But how skillful am I supposed to be at it?

For instance, what if the person speaking has a strong Jamaican accent?

Or a thick Irish accent for that matter.

We have lovely clients in Ireland but after they’ve said, ‘top of the morning to you’ the rest is guess work.

In a pub on Wednesday I stared at this man for five minutes, trying to work out what language he was speaking.

He was talking non-stop and it was strange because his friends seemed to understand him perfectly but were replying to him in English.

And then I caught him say ‘wee’ a few times and it hit me. He was Scottish!

Well, if I’d been asked to type what he was saying I would’ve ended up with nothing more than a blank page covered with wee...wee...wee....

So no, I decided not to tick beside audio-typing.

Next Skill...Touch typing

Well, here we go again.

It depends, how skillful? How fast do you need me to be?

I don’t look at my keyboard when I write but that’s because my trusty laptop knows me and I know her.

On other people’s computer however, like Macs, my fingers become clumsy and it takes three goes to spell my own name.

To cut the story short, my skills form didn’t fill up too well.

Come on, I thought. I have other skills. I could probably describe a tomato pretty well.

......

No, son, put the pen down. Writing will turn you into an emotionally unstable nutcase.

‘Like you Mummy?’

‘Exactly.’

‘So why are you doing it?’

It’s like a crazy love affair. All passion and not much sense.

I couldn’t stop if I tried.

If only I’d wanted to be a plumber!