Twelve Days of Christmas

The vortex of interminable depression and hopelessness had me in its grip. Day after day the depths of blackness increased. My eyes were dead, my mind seized up, thoughts whirling round unformed, I was incapable of any action however small and necessary. Communication impossible. The ward staff were watching my every move as I was looking for a way out.

One morning a bright, cheerful voice rang out at the reception desk. A lady, not in uniform, was talking about Christmas. My heart sank several feet lower but I couldn’t avoid hearing that there was to be a competition for the best decorated ward, themed on Christmas, which was 4 weeks away.

Over the next few days a tiny spark began to ignite the part of my brain where the fire had died. I began to create images in my head which morphed into doodles on scraps of paper. A couple of the ward staff noticed my sudden new interest and commented on my drawing. Finally I was asked what I was drawing and who was it for.

“It’s the Twelve Days of Christmas,” I said

“That would be a great idea for decorating the ward,” was the reply

“Well, it’s too much for me to do,” was my excuse.

The staff started to talk to us all about getting involved and brought paper, paint, brushes and even scissors. They even brought in books with pictures to copy, and by the end of the week there was a small group of patients getting out of bed and gathering round me, some observing, some drawing, painting and cutting out.

I became aware of my skills and those of my fellow patients. Conversations began and I was able to encourage some of them to discover those skills.  It wasn’t all plain sailing, The lords leaping, pipers piping and ladies dancing were not quite as I had envisaged, and some days, I would tear up or paint over my work  or cry over it and make the paint blurry. But the results were generally quite pleasing and the efforts we made seemed to make us all feel better. Three weeks later, the Twelve Days of Christmas was up on the walls starting at the reception desk with the partridge in a pear tree, and a cheer went up when we won the competition.

JT

 

Making Things

I enjoyed making things when I was a child, but because we were short of money - a large gaggle of children squeezed into our council-owned home and too many outgoings squeezed from Dad’s factory wage - there was little money spare to indulge that enjoyment. 

And so the things I created were largely made from materials other people had thrown away: home-made newspapers hand-drawn on the backs of computer paper rescued from bins when Mum was cleaning at the Uni; pine trees and Christmas angels made from the cardboard cone-interiors of knitting yarn from the hosiery factory a neighbour worked in and dolls clothes from scraps of fabric rescued by another neighbour who was a machinist in a garment factory. Then there was the Sindy furniture made from shoe boxes and cereal packets, and acorn people with pins for arms and legs who slept in button-fronted matchbox beds.

We were creative children, resourceful, and what we didn’t have to hand we used a workaround to do without. No paints or glue guns or staplers or craft scissors for us, but a sharp knife is excellent for slicing folded paper, flour and water a doable adhesive when there's no wallpaper paste to be had, and a needle and thread an adequate substitute when neither of these are available. And there was that time Mum was given some pinking shears, in the brief sewing phase of her motherhood, though they blunted surprisingly quickly when used to cut up cardboard and couldn’t be guaranteed to’ve been put back in a place you’d easily find them again.

Nothing much in our house was discarded (except, in the end, for our father, though someone else would go on to make use of him), and there were old things we managed to turn into something useful with our unique brand of talent and skill. The stepdad was a difficult workaround, though, as was the heap of aggro that came with him from Mum bringing him home for repurposing in the first place.

It explains why I became a hoarder myself, though, with a tendency to hold on to things long after I should let some of them go.

AM