Arriving Unannounced

I was sat at the kitchen table when I saw it, just the other week. Behind me, a window above the sink displayed the garden, which was still but not quite tranquil. Whilst there was no wind to disturb a single leaf or branch, there was no warmth or sunshine either, and so the lawn and its many accompanying plants were a somewhat unremarkable sight on this particular day. It tended not to interest me anyway, and my attention was indeed commanded by my laptop, at which I was typing away eagerly with only a mug of tea for company. The brightness of the screen had been turned down to preserve battery power, so the light from the great outdoors shone heavily on the screen. In this was reflected myself and everything behind me – cupboards, the kettle and the aforementioned window.

Very little is capable of breaking my concentration when I am engrossed in typing, but I would soon be stopped instantly in my tracks when the bottom-left hand corner showed me a most unexpected but intriguing visitor. Framed perfectly by the right-angle of the laptop corner, I was sure that a face had appeared for a split second in the window, as though someone was standing on the garden path that ran in front of it. I initially thought that maybe it was Dad, but if that had been the case, I would have recognised him immediately. Instead, I struggled to make out any features at all. No eyes, ears, nose, mouth or hair. No clothing of any kind. It was almost like whoever I had seen was merely a silhouette.

My reaction to this seemingly shapeless figure was what surprised me the most. I did not wheel round to see if anyone or anything was actually there. I was not scared, and I did not fear for my safety. The possibility of the visitor being an intruder or even a ghost – if you believe in that sort of thing – never crossed my mind. I was as cool as a cucumber and, interestingly, I found myself thinking back to somebody I used to know, but unfortunately am no longer in contact with. I had always longed for a reconciliation since we last spoke, and this desire had intensified more than ever in the weeks leading up to this visitation. I imagined the visitor taking the form of this person and granting me my dearest wish, but sadly it was not to be. As I have already said, the appearance was fleeting, but the impact it made has lasted. Some unexpected visitors are cold callers, frowned upon by those on the receiving end and swiftly forgotten once the encounter is over. Mine, however, had the effect of causing me to reminisce about better times, and hope once again that they may be rekindled one day. Perhaps it was less of a ghost, and more of an angel.

Mason

Half Time Oranges

I like to keep this blog as open as I can in terms of the subject matter it covers, but recently I’ve still felt pressure to write a “mission statement” or objective of sorts for Third Time Enabled. If I’m going to take it seriously and make it some kind of living, what do I want it to be? It was while pondering this question recently that I decided to take stock and compose a post that addressed it directly. In an ideal world, I want this project to grow into an outlet where myself and all other contributors have the opportunity to express respectful “opinion”, stories and thoughts from all corners of the “imagination”, and various items of interesting “information” from different areas of popular culture. I like to call these key words “the three ions”.

If I want to reach these as objectives, I’ve decided that we’ll first need some new voices. With that in mind, if you’d like to bring the three ions to life in a warm, humorous, imaginative and polite manner, please feel free to get in touch. You can email me at thirdtimeenabled@gmail.com, tweet me – I’m @HawkerMason – or message me on Facebook. I won’t bite, I promise; in fact, I’ll be delighted to discuss any ideas you might have floating around. Hopefully I’ll hear from you soon!

I know this post is much shorter than most of the others, but normal service will resume with the next one. Anyway, sometimes the brief job advertisements are amongst the best, don’t you think?

Mason

Sixteen of Mind

Tomorrow is my 20th birthday, but by contrast to my 18th two years ago, I’m beginning to feel more like an adult as it approaches. As I’ve said to a few people this week, I felt like I had more maturing to do when I first became a legal adult, as I was 18 of body but 16 of mind. It was strange that – for want of a better term – the “safety catch” had been taken off of my life, and I was now free to drink, vote, bet and buy things like knives or fireworks if I wanted to. Even though I was living (and still live) within the bosom of my family, I was suddenly faced with so many more independent possibilities. The world could have been my oyster at any moment, and although I probably sound like a drama queen, that was a daunting prospect at the time.

After all, I had only finished Year 13 two months earlier (although I had a short-lived spell at another college to come after that). I felt security there, with friends, work to keep me occupied and plenty of people to consult if I needed advice, but beyond the subsequent course I had lined up I could be on my own – it would be up to me what to make of my life. Despite my real age, I just didn’t feel old enough to be confident in making those decisions for myself. Maybe my inexperience in adulthood at the time was to blame. Whilst two years seems like an insignificant period of time in the grand scheme of things, they have come with a number of changes and challenges, with my recently-ended one year work placement teaching me a lot about the workplace as well as how to conduct myself within it. I feel better now about my ability to progress further, even though there is little to keep me busy at the moment. I’ll spend tomorrow with Will, who has just told me that he feels 6 on most days rather than 16 or 20, and have as much fun as I can – it’ll undoubtedly help me feel even more optimistic about finding something to do soon. I have a feeling it could only be a matter of time.

Mason

An Audience With The Sunrise

Many of us have been there. You go to bed one night at around this time of year, knowing big plans are going to be set in motion when you wake again. You try to get as much sleep as you can in the time that you have, but the adrenaline within has other ideas. It’s pumping through your veins, and you’ve never felt quite so alive since…well, since roughly a year ago, actually. You know you need to suppress it as best you can to get the rest you need, but this proves to be an impossible task. Every inch of you is almost shaking with the electric excitement that courses through your body, as if you’re hooked up to the National Grid. This goes on for something like five hours, and all the while your eyes are tightly shut in the hope you’ll drift off. These efforts are ultimately in vain, but at least you don’t need an alarm to know when to rise. The glow is there to guide you, both from the bedside clock – telling you it’s precisely 2:00am – and the landing, because the next bedroom is a hive of activity. You hear muffled and weary voices, and the hurried packing of suitcases. This is normally something done with the discipline of a military operation, because everything has to fit perfectly in every case and bag, but this morning it’s being done somewhat more excitedly, even as you try not to disturb the neighbours in their slumber. After all, you’ve got somewhere to be.

You’re going to the airport, and then you’re going abroad for a fortnight.

That paragraph described with relative accuracy how pretty much every one of our family holidays began for around twelve years. After the initial hustle and bustle upstairs, we’d all come down and gather in the hallway, adding the finishing touches to our preparations before leaving. We’d make sure we had a round of squashed Marmite sandwiches each to eat in the airport, and then we’d depart, driving away with the house in darkness behind us. To some, pitch-black and empty roads may have an eerie quality, but for me they always had a charm of their own. Street lights and shop signs of different colours would turn the early morning into a wondrous microcosm as they illuminated the gloom we journeyed through. I’d see other cars in both lanes, but their drivers would remain anonymous to me, so my imagination would be left to wonder what their stories were and where they were going. And as we drove further and further towards the airport, we’d find ourselves passing empty fields that were vulnerable to harsh winds, or motorways that were saturated thanks to a brief but torrential shower. Such sights meant that I always felt cocooned and warm, and most importantly that I could concentrate on the trip that lay ahead for us all to enjoy.

The numerous glows before me really did help with that. As Mum or Dad drove, the light from the instruments on the car’s dashboard were there to comfort me, and they made me smile as they pierced through the blackened yonder. When we reached the airport parking and had emerged into air that was chilly and crisp even in August, the hustle and bustle of the expansive buildings was there to greet us, and one could see the blazing white light of the countless rooms and corridors from quite a distance away. But between those two points, there was the most natural and eagerly awaited glow of them all in the form of the Sun itself. The latter stages of the journey would see it just poking its head above the horizon, giving the sky a faint orange tint that grew brighter as the giant orb ascended further into the sky. It felt like a race sometimes – who would finish their journey first, the Hawkers in the Vauxhall Zafira or Mother Nature? We did, of course, but the Sun was never far behind. As we wearily ate our sandwiches at a mucky table after check-in, its rays would be seeping through the windows. As we waited patiently in the Departure Lounge at everyone else’s breakfast time, it would be welcoming a morning in full swing with blue skies and birdsong. And then, when we were venturing out onto the tarmac to board the plane, it would be high in the sky, ready to welcome us with its full force when we disembarked, and to remind us – usually with all of 30 degrees or more – that the best fortnight of the year had begun.

Mason

Every Great Decision Creates Ripples

I know I’m a bit late to the party here, but as a dedicated Whovian I want to talk about Doctor Who – specifically, of course, the newly-cast Thirteenth Doctor, Jodie Whittaker. Before I start, let me draw your attention to some words uttered by the good Time Lord in one of his earlier incarnations, almost exactly three decades ago:

“Every great decision creates ripples, like a huge boulder dropped in a lake. The ripples merge, rebound off the banks in unforeseeable ways. The heavier the decision, the larger the waves, the more uncertain the consequences.” – the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy), Remembrance of the Daleks, 1988.

There is no question that the decision to cast the first female Doctor in 54 years was definitely great, in terms of both magnitude and brilliance. It was a pioneering move by a pioneering show that has never been quite like anything else on television, and I for one see it as something that heralds a bright new era for Doctor Who. Jodie is a fantastic actress, and from the moment she pulled back her hood and showed her face to the world I was immensely excited to see what she could bring to the role of the Doctor. We have new leadership in the form of incoming head writer Chris Chibnall, too, and I have no doubt that he will prove to be another mighty weapon in the show’s arsenal as its approaches its 55th year and eleventh revived series. Of course, there are those who – for reasons I simply cannot understand – are unable to accept the oft-repeated fact that Doctor Who thrives on change, and seem to be sure that a female Doctor will drive the programme to a swift end. Their ignorance and misogyny saddened me when I saw it on social media, and it proved to be a startling reminder of the darker side of the Internet, but let’s not focus on such people. They assume, without even giving Jodie a chance, that the consequential ripples from her appointment will be bad ones, whilst for me they can only be good.

The news reminded me why I fell in love with Doctor Who in the first place, and it once again encouraged me to embrace my inner geek. I don’t know what to expect in Jodie’s first series, and it’s that sense of unpredictability that I believe captivates Whovians all over the world. It’s often been said that you should never apply logic to the show, because nothing is ever truly impossible. The format is more open than that of any other programme I can think of, and so are the people around it, both in its production and its audience. An overwhelming majority of fans – 80%, to be precise – are looking forward to the Thirteenth Doctor’s debut, because they’re optimists and the show’s truest enthusiasts. They do not fear change, and certainly not the lead actor’s gender. I have always said that we have been blessed as viewers with twelve (thirteen, if you count the late Sir John Hurt) fantastic Doctors, and I am certain that Jodie will prove herself as yet another perfect choice for this iconic part. I wish her the very best of luck, and I know that throughout her tenure she will be able to count on the support of millions. As Noel Clarke said on Twitter after the news broke, I do not see a man or a woman. I only see the Doctor.

Mason

The Sixpence Test

Yesterday marked Mum’s birthday (I’m far too chivalrous to reveal a lady’s age), and to celebrate it we went out for a meal. Yes, my main was fantastic, yes, the slice of chocolate fudge cake I had afterwards was very generous, and yes, I laughed a lot as well – but I’m going to cut to the chase here. The evening’s crowning glory lay not in the food, drink or company, but in the disabled toilet facilities, which stood head and shoulders above many others I’ve used recently. When the able-bodied amongst you are out and looking to spend a penny or more, you are probably able to take the environment in which you do so for granted and without a second thought. It is unlikely to prove impractical to you in any way, shape or form, and as such you can breeze in and out leaving only the commanding hum of the hand dryer – and no trail of devastation – behind you.

I and my fellow disabled loo patrons are not always so lucky. The history of the disabled toilet is littered with major blunders that make these cubicles, which can be designed with a foolish lack of foresight by people who will never have even the slightest reason to venture into them, completely inaccessible to people with handicaps of all shapes and sizes. Over the years I’ve visited disabled facilities so small that even the most compact wheelchair user could not close the door behind them, let alone have enough space to transfer safely between toilet and chair so they can do their business. Those who dare to provide rooms so inadequate are showing blatant ignorance towards the needs of the disabled, and their disrespect is therefore equally as clear and insulting. When I find myself with so little room to manoeuvre and do what is necessary, it becomes apparent that perhaps the only reason some business owners install disabled toilets at all is to tick a box and satisfy legislation. I can only assume that said people still have more reading to do on what equality means.

There are, of course, people who get everything right with regards to disabled provision. The toilet I used last night was clear evidence of this. You could definitely swing a cat or two in there, and upon entering my wheelchair was able to turn perfectly on the spot – or “on a sixpence”, as some like to say – without either end activating the hand dryer or scraping paint off the wall. I could park up and move between gel cushion and toilet seat with room to spare, and without having to worry about getting tangled up in the emergency cord and pulling it by accident. The whole process was a breeze, just as it should be, and this was thanks to a great deal of careful consideration from a proprietor who realised their duty to make every disabled customer’s experience a comfortable one. When it was suggested that I write a post about this, I was encouraged to name and shame those who show neglect and disregard for disabled comfort breaks. I cannot do this, as I fear it would be a hot-headed affair, but I can live in hope that they realise the error of their ways and do their bit to make our everyday lives that little bit simpler.

Mason

Unwritten

Will wrote about his dyspraxia recently because it was our shared intention that all four members of this project – Emily, Tamara, Will and myself – would write about our respective long-term conditions. In my case, that obviously meant banging on about cerebral palsy again, which I suspected you’d heard enough about for the time being, so if I was going to do this I’d have to think of another way of talking about it. And that seemed impossible. A lot has been covered, so what could I tell you that you probably haven’t read already?

Then I had a thought – namely that there’s always more to write about any given topic than you think there is. Take my life, for example. As I may have said before, I resisted starting a blog for years, and all because I doubted that I’d have more than ten posts’ worth of material. 108 posts (including this one) later, and I’d like to think that Third Time Enabled is still going strong. That must mean that either my life isn’t as dull as I thought it was, or I’ve just been consistently repeating myself for the last two years. I would imagine it’s probably the latter, on second thoughts! Seriously though – at the moment it might seem like I’ve exhausted every possibility when it comes to talking about any topic, but maybe it’ll transpire that there’s a new perspective on my disability that I haven’t found yet. Part of the beauty of life is that some of its best stories are yet to be written, and when I find them I’m glad I have the perfect space to bring them to life.

Mason

Every Sentence is a Song

I’ve long said to myself that when I can write or find the right ones, I will post some interesting poems or quotes on this blog to provide a little bit of variety alongside the longer posts you normally get to read. At the moment, I can neither come up with nor locate anything worth uploading – but thankfully, something came to me by chance when I was least expecting it and I decided it was too good not to share. It was this blog, and where to go next with it, that I was pondering when I suddenly remembered a brilliant quote about sentence structure that a teacher had on their wall at school:

“This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals – sounds that say listen to this, it is important.”

This quote came from a man named Gary Provost, and whilst I’ll have to Google him to find out exactly who he is, his words intrigued me from the moment I first laid eyes on them. As I’ve written before, I’m a mildly capable keyboard player. I’ve been doing my best to improve for four years now, but it’s becoming increasing clear that no matter how much I play, I’ll never be as good a musician as I am a writer. It’s therefore reassuring to know that in Mr Provost’s eyes, we’re all musicians through our respective languages. We’re creating musical pieces of many different shapes and sizes in anything we write, be it a shopping list or an epic novel. And the very nature of language means that we’re often led to use shorter, medium-length and longer sentences in varying quantities, so every day we have an opportunity to be creative and expand our grasp of English in the process. Maybe we won’t even be aware we’re doing it, but think about two of life’s greatest gifts, language and music, combined as one. Isn’t that just something that beggars belief?

Mason

The First Sign of Maturity

Being a mere 19, I can hardly call myself old, but at the very least I’d like to think that I could describe myself as mature (apart from when I’m around Will, of course). I’m definitely growing up, becoming a man, and – let’s face it – not getting any younger, even at this early stage of life. What that means is that there’s already been a point at which I’ve noticed my rapid ascent into adulthood, and that observations have been made about how I’m looking, talking, thinking and acting as a result of this. It’s not just me that the observations have come from, however, because the wider world has offered them too – and sometimes in very random and unexpected places. I don’t even necessarily have to look for them, because in an instant they’re as clear as day and right under my nose.

Let me tell you about one particular example that I noticed. It’s something very run of the mill, and not at all like the earth-shattering realisation of all the adult responsibilities you’ll soon have as you get older, but I nevertheless found it interesting as well as mildly amusing. During my lunch breaks at my recent place of work, I’d take my wheelchair up to a patch of grass in a public space to eat my sandwiches, and this meant that I could peoplewatch to my heart’s content whilst I was at it. Peoplewatching is one of the simplest pleasures that life can offer, so long as it’s done discreetly and without a weird hidden agenda, and in some cases even observing from a distance can reveal quite a lot about life and those in front of you. On one occasion, I was minding my own business with my ham, lettuce and mayonnaise sarnie when my eyes darted across to the ice-cream which was often nearby – and which always seemed to be there when it wasn’t sunny and there were few people around to buy from it! Sure enough, business was very slow, but the treats on offer did have one taker.

This was it – one of the moments where the innocence of youth very briefly gave way to a cynical, straight-faced, humourless adult. Standing before this ice-cream van, waiting to receive his Mr Whippy, was a little boy – and not a toddler. He was at least seven and certainly didn’t seem to be ill, and it wasn’t exactly the height of holiday season at this point either. Therefore, my brain came to an immediate but unexpected conclusion, namely one that automatically led me to silently utter five immortal words:

“Shouldn’t you be in school?”

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that was the moment when I truly shocked myself into realising that despite being in the spring of my years, I was definitely getting older and had encountered the titular “first sign of maturity”. My reaction to the sight of this little boy surprised me because I thought it unlike me to be so judgemental, and of course I knew very well that there could have been any number of legitimate reasons why he was eating ice-cream instead of sitting in class. In that case, then, perhaps it wasn’t a conscious exclamation at all, but the sort of outlook that arrives unannounced as you gradually experience all that life has to throw at you. If that’s true, then maybe it’s even more of an incentive to stay positive, open-minded and chirpy – and to be a bit more considerate when peoplewatching!

Mason

Please Leave a Message After The Tone

That’s it. I have passed the point of no return. What’s done is done and now I must face up to whatever is to come in the next minute or so. I take a deep breath, doing my best to calm and mentally prepare myself while I still can. Here I go – I raise my trembling hand to my ear, and it is greeted with a moment of eerie silence. Then the tones, in bursts of a single second each, ring deep into my mind for what seems like an eternity. Will they ever pick up? There is silence again, but I barely notice it before the sinister crackle…and then a warm and familiar voice. “Hello?”

Yes, the amateur sleuths amongst you may have worked out that I have just described the build-up to a phone call. This is an act to which millions around the world would not even give a second thought, but to me – even as I approach the ripe old age of 20 – it is still something strangely alien. Indeed, you’re reading a post by a man who would rather conveniently “forget” to plug the phone in at his last job, just so that he didn’t have to answer it and risk making a fool of himself. I don’t answer the phone at home either, and have been known to ignore its rings even if I’m sitting right next to it. The main reason for this is very simple, and I believe it is also commonly known as “verbal diarrhoea”. It doesn’t matter how meticulously I may have any phone call or response planned out in my head, because any hopes I hold of a seamless and flowing conversation are usually dashed as soon as I open my mouth. This is something my friend – who I am normally more than capable of speaking to without a problem – fully found out when I rang them the other day, while feeling the crushing pressure of sticking to the script I’d taken the time to form to myself beforehand.

The nervous gibberish that ultimately seeped out from between my lips seemed so incoherent that it’s a wonder we aren’t still finishing an originally straightforward exchange now. I’ll definitely have to apologise to my friend when I next see them – I feel like I wasted their time! Maybe I can also attribute my lack of phone confidence to the added pressure of trying to remember important information when it’s quite literally going in one ear and out of the other. It’s especially difficult if you’re frantically trying to find a pen or paper to record it on at the same time – if what someone is telling me is really so crucial, why can’t they just text me, email me or send me a letter, so I have whatever I need in black and white before my eyes? It’s reassuring to be able to see such things as many times as I want rather than to hear them once, which is why this blog’s email address is open to collate however many messages it may receive. Besides, I like reading, and responding to one gives me an opportunity to do that. Plus I’m a creative bloke, and I get to carefully consider and write a reply, so what’s not to like about that?

No phone calls please. I won’t be available – so you’ll have to leave a message after the tone. At least I can replay those!

Mason