Manifest

Well, you know what it's like,
having a mother with Causes -
Or, I don't know, maybe you don't,
maybe you never gave up your Sundays,
stood out in the rain with a banner,
cried out in the streets for your rights -
or someone else's -
Anyway, mine had plenty:
She was always out there,
smashing the patriarchy, putting down
the mighty from their seat,
that sort of thing. 'Jesus,' she said,
'a woman's body's her own, her soul's her creator's.
Don't you forget it.' Or, 'What this
country needs is revolution.
Lift up the humble.' She thought big.
So I was surprised when, at the wedding,
she said to me, 'They're out of wine.
What are you going to do about it?'
'Mother,' I said, 'this isn't the time.'
Meaning, of course, that I had bigger fish to fry.
'Jesus,' she said, 'there's one thing
you haven't yet learned about changing the world.
You begin where you are
and you use what you've got.'
So I did. That's where it started.

gwendraith was asking about my magical sunrise alarm clock...

Here it is, and here is what I wrote about it on FB earlier:

Today I have mostly been learning the hard way that this device was worth every penny I paid for it. Compare and contrast: waking up with it, even after an evening of wine and hilarity with church, brothers, ex-work, etc, at 6am, and being, if not exactly bidding Phoebus arise, functional and cheerful; waking up without it, having switched the light off at 10.30pm the previous night, at 6.25am, and feeling all day as if my eyelids are made of sandpaper.

Granted, sharing a bed for the first time since Christmas probably didn't help, and nor did the nightmare about the Cybermen, and my brain is still a bit wibbly after Friday (convinced that nobody likes me, just because there is no wine and hilarity this week - until Saturday, anyway - and believe me, recognising this as a sign of brainwibbling is in itself massive progress), but even so, the difference is really quite spectacular.

(And I am no longer feeling like a social disaster, having received an invitation to a party at Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. La, sir!)