Today I peeked
beneath the thin disguise of my brain
hidden neatly in its protective cranial bone
thinly skimmed by this freckled skin
and I realised it was true: I am the alien.
My smiling lips quivered, exhausted
from sixty years of translating peculiarity
into ill-perceived phrases to be slung
innocently to the uncomprehending winds,
while I failed to perfect the unfamiliar language,
being too foreign to hear the subtle lilt of earthlings,
too inexperienced to successfully chisel myself
to fit into a round peg;
a beginner trying to conceal the screaming difference
which so discomfitted my peers and neighbours,
and only my conscious mind was deceived
into thinking it could become that which,
it now transpires, is normality.
©Jane Paterson Basil
Making it write 
And what, my dear, was running around in your mind when you wrote THIS little ditty? Strange!
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Well… erm… (shuffles uncomfortably, stares down at feet) I was walking along the road yesterday, on my way to see my VDF (I can do abbreviations too – that’s Very Dear Friend) and I was thinking about how alienated I felt all my life, until I joined WordPress… erm…. sorry… (risks a shamefaced glance at Calen’s face and realises with relief that she’s smiling – you are smiling aren’t you…?)
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No. Actually I’m laughing right out loud picturing you walking down that road like a little kid running away from home! 😀
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LOL! It kind of looks that way when I leave the house. I suffer from intermittent bouts of agoraphobia, which i refuse to give in to, so when i finally pluck up the courage to leave the house I dash up the road as if I am running away from home, and arrive at my destination exhausted and wobbly. I expect it looks hilarious!
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Just don’t forget to breathe between steps, dearie!
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there’splenty of time for breathing when I get to where I’m going!
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I wonder if I have one of those alien thingys in my head ? Just drums to a different beat. Perhaps we all do 🙂
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Perhaps it’s the downside of a creative mind. I think many of us dwell in a different world, with the result that we are not understood.
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I often feel out of step from other people. Other women seem alien, buying clothes and shoes and loads of make up and enjoying having their hair and nails done – weird. I don’t like soaps or X Factor, which makes me doubly weird, apparently.
I think weird can be very, very good, Jane. Be happy with it. Celebrate your alien nature 🙂
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I do these days, but it was difficult when I was a child. I suppose it didn’t help that I went to school in a rural village populated by people whose ancestors were all buried in the graveyardd beside the church. They were pretty insular…
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Always the outsider? Difficult to get through, but it makes you resilient and helps your creativity, I’m sure. Most artists are NOT ordinary 🙂
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You’re right, of course – something too do with the right side of the brain, presumably.
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Probably. All big creatives are bit ‘other’ – that creativity spills over into all areas of their lives, so they’re always a little out of step with the world.
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All the same, I wouldn’t want to lose my creativity, and cease to be ‘other’.
Would you?
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No! I feel a little like an outsider in certain circumstances, but I’m sociable enough to have a handful of friends and some close family I love – that and to scribble is all I need 🙂
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And a few simple cullinary delights, I suspect…
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Oh, yes, definitely!
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I just so enjoyed the rhythm and pace of how that poem reads Jane – the indents seem to give that little extra pause space after the line breaks at those points. I’ve never heard you reading your poems but there’s a voice inside my head that I imagine to be yours as I’m reading! And for all we know, decades or centuries into the future, history will tell that all the supposed ‘normality’ of our mainstream society was sheer madness 🙂
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When I write a poem I read it out loud several times, and I sometimes indent in the hope that it will give a flavour of the way I recite it, because I think it clarifies the essence of what I’m trying to say. I’m pleased that you get it – either I’m doing something right or you’re very perceptive, or both…
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