May Music, Day 15 – Yes! Perfectly Caledonian – with some Dignity

I’m one of these annoying buggers that sing along to a lot of songs. Sometimes even just the ones in my head.

But, singing along and singing along can mean quite different things depending on the occasion.

For this one, think party, people, alcohol imbibed in sufficient quantity to be somewhat reckless in demeanour (pished), end of the night, dj with a smart sense of how to wrap up an evening. Everybody loves everybody else. Oh, yes, everybody loves everybody else. (Except for that wee shite over there that’s asking for a belt in the mush.) Arms around shoulders, linking one to another. Think, swaying in time with stupid grins plastered. Think, starting slowly and then trying to keep up, arms and legs flailing while singing (shouting) along. Timing becomes nothing. Participation is all. Ach, you’d have to be there. And we have, Runrig with ‘Loch Lomond’.

Quieten down for a more melancholy sort of pished and we have, Dougie MacLean with ‘Caledonia’.

Speaking of pished. Hogmanay (New Year’s Eve) and we have, Eddi Reader with ‘Auld Lang Syne’.

And I can’t include Eddi Reader here without including one of my favourites of hers from when she sang with Fairground Attraction. And it’s a different sort of pishing down here. ‘Perfect’.

I had no idea when I began Twindaddy’s 25 days of music challenge how difficult it would prove to be. For a number of reasons. Nor that it would create a monster. I am currently incapable of choosing one song only. But, if you all only listen to one, listen to Dougie MacLean singing ‘Caledonia’. It’s perfect. Yes, for home.

And maybe some ‘Dignity’. Because the two of them kinda go hand in hand.

There’s more to Scotland than all portrayals. Including mine.

 

 

 

Mistaken

I saw you today.

We passed on our ways.

Face and figure so familiar.

Eyes held

above steering 

through glass.

I looked away,

ashamed

to have revealed

my heart to a stranger.

 

I am not a number…

….but today I was. Number two, in fact. Not the one I would have picked, as it happens, but there was no choice. I was not the only number two in the school. I encountered a few others. There were also number ones and fours and tens. There were numbers in the hundreds and even the thousands.

The whole school lost their identity for the day. It was returned to them at the end of the school day. For the duration of their time in school everyone was identified by a number.

The aim was to allow everyone to recognise the importance of our sense of identity. It was done to highlight Articles 7 and 8 of the UNICEF Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Article 7 (Registration, name, nationality, care): All children have the right to a legally registered name, officially recognised by the government. Children have the right to a nationality (to belong to a country). Children also have the right to know and, as far as possible, to be cared for by their parents.

Article 8 (Preservation of identity): Children have the right to an identity – an official record of who they are. Governments should respect children’s right to a name, a nationality and family ties.

When I heard this was going to happen last week I had an uncomfortable feeling. I didn’t know that I felt so strongly about my name. Yeah, I correct people when they spell it wrongly. An e at the end of Ann, if you please. And a hyphen between Anne and Marie. I know! But maybe we all feel a bit particular about our names. I’ve always liked mine. Never really wished to be called anything else.

I wasn’t really happy at the idea. And it was a very weird experience today being called, ‘Number Two’ or ‘Please Miss, Number Two’.

I hated calling the kids by a number. And I don’t even know all their names yet as this is a new school for me and I’m in and out of so many classes I might meet almost every child in the course of the week. It should have made it easier just being able to say the number that was on their badge. But it reminded me of people being branded with symbols to identify who they were. It made me think of how awful it must be for people who don’t know their true identity or who have forgotten it. Or who have had it removed. It did make me realise how important our sense of identity is to ourselves and that a name as well as nationality are vital in retaining it.

It’s not an experience I would care to repeat. But, I’m glad in a lot of ways that the children and the adults had the opportunity to see what it felt like to be nameless. A very simple right but one, if revoked, has huge implications on how we feel about ourselves and who we are.

There will be lots of discussion tomorrow.

 

This is well after the fact for this DP challenge. But hey ho! It just happened to link in with this post. http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/03/17/writing-challenge-names/#more-70813

 

Coming Out Of The Closet. Courtesy of Suzie.

When I started blogging 7 months ago I was entirely anonymous and felt fairly free in saying pretty much anything. Although I would never identify specific people. Too much of the teacher and private person in me for that.

As time has gone on and I have felt more comfortable within the community and in my writing and strength of feelings on certain subjects I have opened up more about myself but it does give me some concerns.

The more I have revealed of myself the greater the likelihood that I will be discovered and might get into trouble for ‘swearing’ or touching on certain subjects and being identified as a teacher by specific name.

The odd thing is I’m at the point where I don’t give a shit. I’ve been toying with the idea of going for promotion in a particular school and have to make my mind up within the next few days. I then began to think of what impact my blog and posts would have on my prospects and current position if they were connected. And, do you know what? Right at this moment in time I would rather forego promotion and even my job than be shut up.

Now, I’ve just turned 53, Suzie, and you’re just a young thing with your whole career ahead of you so, yes, I would worry more had I been doing this years ago. Now I feel like nothing can shut me up and I need to say what is strong within me. It’s not that I can afford to lose my job. But I feel now that writing and expressing and communication on many levels have become more important and I can’t live another moment, let alone years, not being out here speaking my truths.

Don’t get me wrong, I still think twice about what I post. I review and consider content and ‘flavour’. But, ultimately, I think, see, write and post.

Your post, Suzie, has come at an exact moment of rightness for me because I tonight posted something that was born of an awful day and I thought to myself, ‘Folk won’t like this. Wee Mrs. Sunshine is having an off day.’ But that’s life and it’s real.

You’re real to me, Suzie as are so many of the people I have ‘met’ here. There is a reason why we are blogging. What I am coming to realise is that no matter the blogger, anonymous or otherwise, there is a multitude of people who NEED to communicate to the world. I don’t know all the whys and wherefores of this. But it is a powerfully strong urge and it is important to those doing it. And, I think, to those reading.

It does feel to me like a massive reaching out of hands and minds and souls. People being prepared, even shyly, to open up to others and reveal their truths And, in the process, help each other realise that we are not alone in our experiences and our thoughts and doubts.

There is a world of feeling and understanding and insights to be gained just from the ‘mere’ act of sharing and reading.

I could no more let this go than fly. Although, I do think I can fly anyway. In fact, let me elaborate on that.

I always thought I could fly. Right up until I was in my twenties! If only I could find the way. Then I realised I was being foolish. I stopped believing I could. Although I still wanted to. Now I feel I can again. And that, to me, is writing. If I were to censor too much I would cut my wings. I can’t do that again.

Now I will still do videos ‘incognito’ ‘cos that has as much to do with acting the post as anything else. That and some days I look and feel like shit. And I just want to get the thing done. But, in the immortal words of Meryl Streep, in Mamma Mia!….’for one time and one time only…….

….for those of you who know me a bit and for those of you who know me well or not at all.

My name is Anne-Marie Hurley.

I am a mother, wife, daughter, sister, aunt, niece, godparent, cousin, teacher, etc, etc, etc. And I am a blogger. Bloggers Anonymous!

But firstly, I am spirit.

Then human.

Then woman.

And if I can’t speak my truths of life as how I see and think and feel then I can’t fly. And I won’t accept that again.

If the teaching profession cannot accept that their teachers are people then it does not deserve to be called education. We all bring ourselves to the job. I am not a pervert. I am not a criminal. But I have thoughts and feelings that I am entitled to express should anyone wish to read them. I will always keep private those things that I feel deserve to be kept thus. Those things I am not privileged to reveal because they concern others and would mar confidences. But, as for the rest, my ‘me-ness’, it’s going out there. Because I will fly freely. I will fall. But, by the rights of all ‘to be’, I will rise again.

I’ve had a shitty day. But now I feel so much better. Thanks, Suzie. YOUR honesty and transparency have convinced me that, for me, right now, there is no other way. Thank you.

 

And, further to the note of honesty, I am, within the next week or so, going to do an award post that ‘honours’ those who speak out on sexuality and sensuality and are unafraid to do so. We deem certain subjects to be taboo. And yet they are part of all of our lives. We may couch our feelings in poems or pictures or stories but we feel and we think and we are. Shame and judgement does not or should not come into it. I’ll get working on that one. I have no idea yet whether the awards given to me may be used for sex and sensuality but I’m pretty sure I can work around that. 🙂