Musings of An Angry Hippy.

I am supposed to be giving honest and true accounts of my experiences setting up Cultural Squatters, and I am not one to bullshit. So. Get ready for an honest and true (to me) account of how I felt today, and an impassioned and not particularly eloquent but articulate introspection.

Today, though a successful day painting, thanks entirely to the help from a top human and incredibly talented local artist, Grega Greave, has been the second most shitty time I have had since embarking upon this journey, the first nothing to do with the project, just my circumstances and how that impacted the project. I knew a dip would come, and bloody hell did it, today. When sat in the waiting room of the hospital I got to thinking about how some people can shaft you without realising it, and I learned my first lesson in business: a gentleman’s agreement means shit all. Get it on paper or you are knackered. As such, my healthy and motivating feelings of immense but positive pressure to deliver what we promised, morphed into an energy sapping, motivation draining sense of being overwhelmed by the amount of work we need to do, and now the total lack of almost everything we need to start a cafe. Easy peasy to sort if I had a few hundred quid to buy in the core stock I thought we had access to. That leads to thoughts about how I only signed up to do it when it seemed possible with hard work and dedication, good will and support from our community, yet when working with no money, you soon start to feel like a bit of a leech on your family and friends, regardless as to the reason why you are always asking for help - it still feels like I am always asking!!

I did it all on my own despite having some absolute monsters in my life who tried to literally kill me and emotionally destroy me. Surving that makes you resilient and tough, but extremely cautious and self reliant. Asking for help, even with something like painting, is so far outside my comfort zone that I am questioning if I have done it the best way, and I am wondering if I have done good job of it. You know how it is when you have a dip for a few hours - everything you do seems futile and inept, the constant questioning if you could be doing better, working harder, juggling more balls....it all felt a bit messy inside my head, for a bit. Granted I had been told some news at the hospital which I wasnt thrilled to hear (ontop of being a bit broken atm, I now need MRI scan for a cyst that the specialist clocked on the x-rays, incidental to the fracture and torn ligaments. I know I will be fine because I always am and I always will be, until I am not) but I was feeling incredibly vulnerable anyway, following my first lesson learnt revelation, so I was a bit ‘Ughh. Meh. Double Meh’ sat waiting in the hospital.

Don’t confuse this with a self pitying moan - I abhore self pity as it seems to me to be nothing more than a useless exercise in ego onanism, and what good ever came from sitting around feeling sorry for oneself? Very little would be the answer I was after, had that not been a rhetorical question. 

Really, what I think is the crux of my moan here, is that I am sick to shit of struggling and making do.   In my own life I will always be indebted to some people who liked me at my most darkest, stood by me, helped me and mine - like any one of us is, we do get by with a little help from our family and friends. I want CS to be the best it can be despite making do, and today, and if I am really honest even now, hours later as I type this, I am worried I cannot pull it out of the bag anymore, as there is no budget for what we need now, and the bit we have is for insurances and a few larger purchases. How do I beg borrow and steal for items we should have already, with opening in a few weeks, without looking like an amateur? That it isn't my fault is irrelevant in the bigger scheme of things - excuses annoy me, reasons are something which cannot be avoided, both amount to the same thing, ultimately so be proactive and find a solution or get out the way and let someone else do it. We very much have tried to find a solution, by the way - we dived straight in to speaking to local suppliers, scoured every charity shop in walking distance, and shall continue to but when do I have the time to do that, paint a two floored building that is in shambolic state, with a broken arm and ligament damage, on top of the recruitment and training and...OH MY DAYS we didn't account for this clusterfuck of a balldrop, as we didn't think we needed to, and I dont know how to fix it as we need cold hard cash to fix it, and we don't have that. Remarkably frustratingly, it would all be sorted in a morning if we had the cash... and that realisation is what upsets me, greatly, and, paradoxically drives me on, makes me want to roar even louder about social enterprise, and community work, as isn't that just about every one’s problem? Cold hard cash - root of all evil (as it were, evil doesnt exist, everything is arbitrary , and people can be massive bastards, but anyway) but cold hard cash  is an absolute necessity in this neo-liberal, capitalist wet dream society in which we are a part of, whether we like it or not.

After life took a major, unanticipated turn I had to use food banks, I went from being a key worker to having a key worker. I may be a reasonably well-educated woman who grew up in a very (hard earned) middle class home, but that doesnt mean I didnt get a bit messed up on the paths I was dragged down, unwillingly. That doesnt mean I havent fallen down the rabbit hole so far that I came back out again. I am blessed (privilege), and cursed (life) that my life experiences have led to me having gained insight into the many worlds which exist in our myriad society. I recall being taught about class in college, when studying A-level sociology. Later in life I recall reading books which patronisingly discuss the council housed and violent folk of our society, whilst proudly and peacefully living in social housing. I recall reading books which discuss that demonisation of the poor and vulnerable by the faux-middle class proletariat... Currently, tabloid red tops’d have me binned off as Benefit Scum. Until very recent, inhuman changes to the benefit system, just under 13 miliion UK families were state benefit recipients in the form of  Child Benefit, and up to 7 million in reciept of Working Tax Credits - but they are the good benefits, the bad, scummy dole dossers over here arent valid members of  our society. . They just sit in and watch Jeremy Vyle, on their 60inch TVs from Brighthouse (an aside: were Satan real I’d suggest such outlets spawned from the fetid jism he spilled whilst people whose surname is the same as a member of everyone’s favourite mercanaries 80’s TV show The A- Team, sucked his figurative cock. However, like concepts such as the aforementioned evil, Satan is about as real as his anagrammatised namesake, Santa. Unfortunately Rupert Murdoch is real). Us benefit scroungers drink pish cider and smoke knock off cigarettes  and have nothing more valuable to offer the Big Society than more wailing, unambitious, snowflake brats and veneral disease.

Except we don't. Scumbags are in all walks of life, from all sorts of financial backgrounds. The true arsehole demographic is not defined by employment status. Another reason why providing long term unemployed people quality work experience in our cool, sound and honest working environment that is Cultural Squatters is so important, is that as I believe that every individual alive has the potential to create something positive - a skill, a quirk, a talent etc. - though some people are denied the opportunity to develop or even find that quality. CS will help every volunteer to nurture their spark, and develop their own skills, and teach myself and the rest of our crew their ways. We learn together. I am training up basic stuff, but we are learning from each other, cooperatively.

I seem to have ranted myself out of my little fugue. In presenting my grievances for you all to pick apart, I seem to have worked through them and come out the other side, remebering why I am creating CS, building my little social enterprise based community instead of going back to work in education and teaching. I am remembering why I support our most vulnerable people in our society, the way I believe will have a positive impact upon their lives, and selfishly my own, as altuism is my greatest addiction, and why I am doing all this my way, instead of how I was expected to when I worked in schools and for local authorities. My way, by the way, is doing and learning as I go. I have no idea how to open and run somewhere like CS but then whomdoes as we have created a unique space. I do know wwhat I want to achieve, though, so I am working backwards, to realise my day-dream.

Still need a few hundred quid but don’t we all?

Best bob off and write a quick update about Painting Day 2. I have photos of us looking like actual Romero-esque zombies, undead and giddy from over-tiredness. They're unflatteringly ace.

Toodle oo.

#bekind