Art – The Misspraxic Blog

Poems for Dyspraxia Awareness Week

Click to find out more about this year’s *Dyspraxia Awareness Week* from the Dyspraxia Foundation.

My hope to publish this at the start of Dyspraxia Awareness Week was of course an ambitious one… It has been a busy week with a few dyspraxidents for good measure – before you ask, nothing too serious, just broken glasses and a mishap with the hair straighteners resulting in minor burns…! It shouldn’t come as a surprise at this point, since us dyspraxics certainly aren’t known for our spatial awareness and coordination.

And on that note – I really hope that the following poems can be relatable in some way, whether you have dyspraxic traits yourself, or know someone who does. As always, feel free to let me know your thoughts in the ‘Comments’ section.

Take care,

-Misspraxic

1. bruises

the greenish bluish tones of cerulean

mixed with a dash of ochre

create an image – not the impressionist greens

found in Monet’s lush poppy fields

and not the strong blues flowing down the Seine

but the textures of unruly paint dots, erratically

splattered spilled stained

they bleed all over my pages

but my legs and mind do try ever so hard

to keep up with a weary world

where there’s somehow no security

in the greens of a paintbrush

that cannot guarantee my protection,

for I’m the amateur artist who lacks control

like that old car with the dodgy motor

that nobody trusts enough-

my skin is left tired and tainted

by these greenish bluish blotches

and risk cycles round me in circles.

i never progress past yesterday’s chapter

of knocking falling staining –

these marks are less than flawless ceruleans

and lesser than crisp impressionist skies

but these are the honest blues beneath my paper’s edges.

more than the reductive label of the “Clumsy Girl”,

I beam with a creative license

and my bruised and battered bluish greens

make my skin tough enough to take

the hurtful words and leave my legacy

as I knock and fall and always

return to the page every single time.

2. paper crowns of envy

Have you seen her heels,

the ones pulsed with envy studs that shine

as she strides across the office like it’s

her palace and she’s real estate royalty?

Have you seen the way she flaunts

her haute-couture laces in a void of pricey premiums,

internally screaming, “Look at me”?

But she only looks at me with a shiny branded fixation

like a Waitrose security guard she subjects me

to scrutiny from head to toe for tomorrow’s urgent yesterdays,

my last-season eBay dress my unshaven legs and the ghastly gap

that makes my teeth protrude in an ugly unfashion.

I return her glare, for I see through her masking tape glory

and the paper crown she idolises, especially when

she dares to demand I leave my personality

outside the door. “And where’s yours?”

3. Do they see what I see?

I’m disconnected

from the false connections that the masses crave to touch,

quick clicks to links that redirect the engine of the heart

back and forth away from you. A nano-second

is all it takes to churn up a multitude of possible solutions:

Siri, Alexa, I bet you can’t explain – what does it even mean

to be faced day to day with pixels and promises of meaningful

clicking and Likes and Care emojis that never quite fulfil?

Forever in “public” mode, my pain sinks into a certain state of

behind the scenes coping, with Stories and Tweets that seem to be

removed from any authentic storytelling, like the kind you have to sit around for-

I’m disconnected

so tell me this, do the masses see beyond the cyclical games

that re-tweet themselves into an ever-Beta version?

How ridiculous is it to want to click “Undo”

and warp this reality into my Beta version

with a more balanced voice a stronger smile or a faster Intel Core Processor?

Search me and then you’ll see my pain

persists like a Trojan virus from a Justin Bieber advert on the side of Facebook,

waiting to pounce and then it sprouts

up all over the place, picking away at the scabs of my

internal wiring and desperate to be seen.

4. Reset my compass

the cogs of my mind spin both slower and faster than you could ever tell

when you watch me outside the Co-op, looking lost in the weeping wells of time.

magnetically challenged and pulled towards the edge

to navigate the winding lanes with a semi-functioning GPS

is like navigating my differences when a magnetic force

snaps like a car in slow-mo, anticipating the crash but too slow to stop it.

you propel my gross motor, fine motor movements but still I press

the wrong buttons and stop then start all over

the pavement’s sharp edges and ons and offs rattle me

as a million sparks swelter underneath my cotton sleeves.

the cars and lorries and buses screech in a foreign way

and yet they cross my path daily, like false friends.

National Poetry Day – Choices

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Earlier this week it was National Poetry Day, with the theme for 2021 being ‘Choices’. It felt like a very fitting theme, given all the changes and uncertainty we are having to adjust to. Admittedly, I am two days late (would it really be Misspraxic if I weren’t?!)… I still wanted to mark this day by sharing a few of my poems.

I wrote the first poem this week, on the theme of ‘Choices’ – my poem is about centering yourself as a priority when making difficult choices, which is not always easy to do. I wrote the following poems at various points during my first year in teaching, to try and express the experience of teaching and learning through the pandemic – I hope they can resonate with some of you in some way!

Next week is Dyspraxia Awareness Week – the theme is ‘Primary and Secondary Education’, so I will aim to post about this and share another set of poems about dyspraxia then. In the meantime, have a look at the Foundation’s website for resources and information about how you can get involved in Awareness Week.

Feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments, and do check out other poems and brilliant resources from the National Poetry Day website here.

Until next time, take care everyone.

– Misspraxic

1. the uninvited visitor

she didn’t choose the uninvited visitor

who ‘forgot’ to knock every time

and pushed into the line without a pass

she didn’t choose to press the pause button

when in full flow, targeted by the visitor

who jammed the system into overdrive

and no, she didn’t choose to be chronically

dysfunctional, beating a skip and

skipping a beat, her paper heart in shreds

what was that you just said?

no, she didn’t choose for her wires to fizz and flare,

numbed into discomfort. she didn’t choose to count

the dead ends at this crossroads,

drained, there was now no space left but to

pause and listen to the currents

that kept the machine whizzing on and resist its pull

and as she made the decision to ‘re-start’,

she could see a blank canvas sky

graced with stars of connection,

where she could still choose to paint

the warmest smile and still hug the empty corners with her hope.

creased all over, she could still choose to hold on

despite the visitor’s prodding and pricking, she knew

the interference would grow duller and defeated as time went on,

as she could now see it clearly: she must choose herself everyday

2. Freedom Day?

Today’s date is July 19^th 2021 and today we are learning about ‘question forms’

and questions form on the page, as forming questions

becomes our Learning Objective that’s etched

onto my pages too. we run in parallel, a mirror lesson from me to you to me again,

from pixellated Chrome lessons in my living room and back

to the pandemic classroom where you are confined

to a jagged danger line, disjointed and perhaps

a warning sign that this safe box got crossed just too many times,

as we were pushed to ‘think outside the box’ in our teaching,

a word used loosely now, ‘teaching’ from my living room

on ‘Freedom Day’, pestering students to pop their gum in the bin

and just listen to the sounds of Miss, “you’re laggin”

and muted tones and shuffled seats,

a futile command to “listen” – but who would?

to a blur of a leader projected onto my future whiteboard

that wouldn’t break down- will it show us what to expect for 2021?

3. Climbing the walls in 2020

in twenty-twenty we were held

only by the silver birches, the beeches,

not those beaches, but in Epping.

we simply missed being sun-kissed

and hugged by the arms that once knew

old grins, gone in a beat, Missing-In-Action

in twenty-twenty-one our vase is still missing

the plot, its cracks let out all the

water, half empty

energies drained on pointless floral yoga,

goodbye clematis, alstromeria, gardenias-

your petals bloomed only last season

and you now pose a risk to our health,

climbing up the trellis in a resistant gang

against the locked-down iron bars of prison cell gardens.

now it’s only us who are climbing

the walls, desperate to grab a hug stuck in time,

stuck in twenty-nineteen.

4. Why?

Even Better If

the retired lines of Chronic Fatigue

scrawled by dud pens

didn’t make it onto the whiteboard,

now grey board- bored like you.

Even Better If

the wavy panic lines didn’t wash out my cheeks

and If the torn-down posters

somehow weren’t on display today,

If they just hid away in the bin.

Even Better If my mask did a Better job

of masking creases on waterlogged sheets

of paper scattered between Year 7 and 10

and if the creases on a bed unmade at 6,

weren’t unseen all day.

Even Better If we could go without

the background groans that yawn around the room

and fidget with fatigued,

unanswerable whys-

“miss, why?”

[For those reading who aren’t familiar with the ‘What Went Well’/’Even Better If’ feedback style that inspired the above poem, Why?, ‘EBI’ this is a common example of ‘Assessment for Learning’ in UK schools and suggesting how students can improve their work.]

A puppet in search of answers and pulled by the strings of Long Covid

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CW: Long Covid, anxiety, medical gaslighting

When I say I will write in a few days, I usually mean a few months. Or several. I had the best intentions for new routines in 2021, hoping to blog every month. It started off well in my first term as a Newly Qualified Teacher (NQT), when I could depend much more on my energy levels. I should know better than to promise you updates, though; my first year of teaching forced me to work on being more realistic with my expectations, both of myself and others. I frequently put off tasks for weeks and months, especially when I am rundown or under pressure. A seemingly simple task like washing up yesterday’s breakfast bowl gets left for longer than is sanitary. And you can add to that list: paying council tax in time to avoid incurring a summons, putting out the bins before collection or even pressing ‘Send‘ on a simple message draft to a friend. I am ashamed to say I put it all off and no amount of to-do lists or post-its seems to work, as I seem unable to prioritise anything other than my job.

Previously, I had always turned to Google to guide me through the challenges in my life. Google was like a non-judgemental friend, with its comforting guarantee of answers just a click away and always on hand to help me navigate overwhelming new cities abroad, instruct me on how long to roast potatoes for, and talk me through how to change batteries in a smoke detector. Google was a comfort, at least, until I tested positive with Covid-19 in December 2020, on the last day of the school term – just when I thought I had made it through with less drama than some of my unfortunate colleagues. When it comes to the matter of catching a new infectious disease at work, though, there is only so much that Google can really help with. The answers do not exist for anyone – Covid-19 has defied Google and medical science, and disturbingly, its seemingly never-ending supply of symptoms has defied me and my sense of self. I know myself pretty well, I thought, I am mentally strong and consistent. But after nine months of learning what my physical limits are, I am still finding my way on this journey with ‘Long Covid’.

*A puppet in search of answers and pulled by the strings of Long Covid* – ink and watercolour

What is ‘Long Covid’?

The broad term refers to long-lasting symptoms that continue to develop more than 12 weeks post-infection. Over 500 symptoms have been recorded and can include – but are not limited to – fatigue, chest pain, shortness of breath, palpitations, muscle aches, gastro-intestinal issues, and neurological symptoms such as headaches, brain fog and dizziness. The list goes on and the symptoms can change over time. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), approximately 114,000 of the million people living with Long Covid in the UK work in education (2021). In the context of low vaccine take-up among young people aged 18-34 and amid increasing research into the long-term effects, I hope that sharing my experience can raise awareness and provide comfort to others struggling.

When you find yourself sitting on the floor to clean, or allowing deliveries of shopping bags to congregate at the bottom of the stairs for days, you realise you are well outside of “normality”. You have a problem, and accepting that problem can be difficult. I only realised I hadn’t washed up for three weeks when I had no clean cutlery left – I had completely let myself go; I had lost control and my usual dyspraxic coping mechanisms were just not working. Friends noticed the difference too and told me that I seemed very out of breath on short walks when we met up. One said they didn’t think it was right that I was working full-time in this condition.

Beyond a collection of irritating physical symptoms, the experience has been unnerving due to its unpredictability; it is anxiety-inducing to wake up each day and not know quite how I will feel or how a certain activity will trigger a symptom in the future. My energy levels still seem to fluctuate each day, so while teaching full-time, I find the symptoms distracting and challenging to manage without regular rest breaks. When faced with low-level disruptive behaviour, the pressing sensation in my chest intensifies the lack of physical control, at just the time when I am in most need of reliable energy levels to exert my presence in the classroom and meet the Teaching Standards. There is certainly an uncomfortable tension involved in prioritising what feels good for my body, over what feels right for my students’ education, and vice-versa.

And what about Dyspraxia?

How Long Covid might interact with pre-existing conditions like Dyspraxia has not yet received much attention by medical professionals, though through support groups I understand that other dyspraxics also notice that their memory and processing has worsened since Long Covid. Whether or not dyspraxia is a “neurological disorder” has been subject to much discussion. Forgetting my best friend’s birthday, for example, was a catalyst for me realising that I was not functioning at “normal” capacity, as I had never forgotten something so important before. So was this ‘brain fog’ – a reportedly common Long Covid symptom, affecting cognitive function and memory and most likely caused by inflammation to the functional nervous system – or just dyspraxia, the coordination disorder I have lived with for years and for which I have found my own coping mechanisms? To what extent is dyspraxia a permanent part of my ‘personality’, or as Occupational Health described it, something I am ‘suffering’ from, like symptoms of a disease?

It can be hard to explain the impact, though mild, on my daily life. Narratives tend to dominate that such symptoms might be ‘just stress’, when someone looks ordinary on the outside. After all, I am certainly not ‘ill’ in the sense of having a cold or the flu. But I am in a different body, a shell of the person I once was. I can no longer exercise properly without chest tightness, pain, and shortness of breath. Intermittent tremors, headaches, earaches, tingling, crawling, itching, and electric shock pains that pulsate through my body make me question my sanity on a daily basis. How can a new part of my body be zapping; where is the logic in this twitching when I grasp my hair straighteners? Muscle weakness when I struggle to open a jar? In my head and hands deciding to go numb as I try to fall asleep to switch off my body and fall asleep? Why is it that my brain is still wide-awake and now fizzing, like the contents of a bottle of coke left out in the sun? I have felt like a puppet whose strings are tugged at and pulled in all directions, whilst I am determined to throw myself onto the stage and pretend that I can do this and ‘teach as normal’, desperately wanting to be ‘fit for work’.

But this is my stage, I repeat as a mantra borrowed from a close friend whose grounding words helped me get through my first year in teaching. I have tried to ignore the symptoms, meditate through them, exercise despite them, and continue as ‘normal’ (whatever that means) – but however I seem on the outside to my students or colleagues, it is a different story on the inside. Mild as the symptoms are classed as, they are real and they still interfere with my life, worsening when I over-do it. I have to be much more mindful of my ‘spoons’ and how I choose to spend them (click here to read more about Christine Miserandino’s helpful Spoon Theory analogy to explain chronic illness). It took four months of blood tests, ECGs (heart tests) and chest scans coming back as normal before I could be diagnosed by exclusion and referred to a Long Covid clinic, and nine months before I was seen by the clinic. When seen by the clinic, it was disappointing to not be offered any sort of ‘quick fix’ for the discomfort and fatigue, yet I was also grateful to learn that Covid has caused a dysfunctional breathing pattern, known as a ‘breathing pattern disorder’, which could be exacerbating my symptoms. This is apparently common in ‘Long Haulers’ and I learned that I must now retrain my breathing pattern and reduce how much I do, in order to support my recovery from symptoms.

Throughout the past months, though, I have felt a major gratitude for my baseline health. I was never hospitalised, never left bed- or house-bound. I am fortunate to be able to walk and manage to work in a job I love. I can go about my daily life still – even if ‘functioning’ certainly means something different to what it meant in November 2020. These are things that huge numbers of people with Long Covid are not able to do. In its own way, this gratitude has been healing for me, much like painting and writing as an outlet for untangling my body’s warped state. Ultimately, my own Long Covid experience is just that – and can only be that – just one experience. It has heightened my awareness of the experiences of thousands of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) sufferers, whose voices have been gaslit and silenced for decades. The struggles of chronic illness are multiplied when they intersect with race and gender inequalities, where people living under greater oppression struggle for their voices to be heard. I share links to some other voices and advocates below, so please do have a read.

In light of how frequently women and also people in the neurodiverse community are subjected to medical gaslighting, I also feel fortunate to have had a patient and understanding doctor who has listened to my concerns and made me feel heard each time I phoned her about a mysterious new symptom. Even when she didn’t know the answers to my disgruntled whys and hows, she took steps to refer me for further testing and to the Long Covid clinic. The professionals at the clinic were incredibly reassuring as they had heard my symptoms so many times before. “You will recover from this”, they promised me, “it is just going to take time”.

Long Covid Kids

Of course, Long Covid does not only affect adults. As many as one in seven children (14%) who test positive with Covid still have symptoms 15 weeks later (UCL, 2021). Developing Long Covid as a teacher has made me more aware of the long-lasting symptoms in the children I teach. It is concerning that increasing numbers of young people who contract the virus are presenting with an array of long-lasting symptoms after weeks and months post-infection. One of my students came to see me at the end of a lesson back in May: “Miss, my chest feels tight”, he said. “I feel a pressure on my chest and my arms are also tingling. I’ve had blood tests and I’m waiting for the results…” And another student the following week: “Miss, I have virus-induced chest pain, I need to take some time out…” These are just the students who are able to or choose to articulate their symptoms aloud. If my brave students can talk about their experiences then I think I can, and should, too. After all, they are what push me to get up in the morning and drag up my reluctant body into school everyday, so it matters to try and make them feel less alone in their experiences.

Finally, please feel free to reach out to me if you are affected with lingering post-Covid symptoms and would like to share your story with me. Your experiences are real and valid, and I promise you are not alone. Be kind to you.

This time, I will avoid the rookie error of promising to write again in a few days… But I hope to write again soon.

Take care everyone,

Misspraxic

Links to further reading

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Please let me know of any others and I will add to my list.

A Misspraxic Christmas update

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Hi everyone,

It’s been a while since my last update…! It is an understatement to tell you that this term has been a challenging one for schools, students, their parents and staff. As you will have already gathered, students and at times whole year groups have been instructed to self-isolate at home, with some students missing more months of their education and losing the structure that being in school provides. I now relate better to how it might have felt/feel for my students to be trapped within the same four walls, or to carry a confusing label with a stigma attached, or to be out of sync socially with their friends and family, especially at an important time of the year. Dyspraxia and other hidden learning differences can certainly exacerbate the anxieties associated with COVID-19, as there is a tendency to overthink situations, process them differently to others, and feel the emotions of overwhelm more intensely than neurotypicals might do.

As ever, poetry and the arts provide a helpful way for many of us dyspraxics to process this overwhelm, ground ourselves, and make sense of challenges, hopes, fears, triumphs, and our favourite word of the year, “unprecedented situations”! I know this is the case for my students, too, whose poems and courage to share them continue to energise me and strengthen my sense of purpose as a new teacher. The following poem might not be the most uplifting one I have written in 2020(!), however I am sharing it in the hope that it might be relatable for some of you, whether you are dyspraxic or not:

It is but it isn’t.
 
If it isn’t the label of disordered fine motor control,
then it’s the loss of control in a train engine
planned to stop at the station three days ago,
back before Saturn collided with Jupiter and gave me a new label.
 
If it isn’t a hot turkey dinner made for six, 
then it’s an empty plate and one absent voice
with only several paranoid ones lingering 
in the background of a laggy Zoom call.
 
If it isn’t Tiers like on last summer’s fancy wedding cake,
then it’s only a second-rate ready meal eaten alone 
and its shredded paper wrappings tossed to the bin,
right where Christmas is now, rotting away
 
in the company of crushed-up carrots that Rudolf missed, 
and chicken past its sell-by date. (Let’s not forget 
my own saliva stuck to tears that fester 
in a camouflage trap that convinces even wild animals of its safety.)
 
If it isn’t squeaky-clean laminate flooring and polished windows,
then it’s the insanity of the ones who sanitised obsessively,
who were negative about being on the positive list, 
all in a split second. 
 
You didn't break me like you broke all the others,
shattering their windows, and like you broke Christmas.
You spared me like you spared the turkey I won’t be eating,
and if it isn't Christmas, then it's a miracle that I am sparing others.

“Next time you feel alone, remember that the season of isolation is when the caterpillar grows its wings.” – Mandy Hale

I wish you all a safe holiday period, whether you celebrate Christmas or otherwise. If you are spending the holiday alone this year, then I hope that you can find little joys and lightness among the darkness. All dyspraxics carry inner strength necessary to overcome struggle, even if it doesn’t seem like it – I hope you can recognise yours and learn something from it.

I will write again in a few days with a more detailed review of my first term as a dyspraxic teacher, including some reflections and advice for managing distance teaching and Google Classroom as a dyspraxic teacher, and managing distance learning as a dyspraxic student (along with some hopefully amusing anecdotes as always!).

Until then, do take care everybody,

– Misspraxic

Long, dark November: Held back but holding up

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During teacher training, I was warned all about the challenges of getting through November as a new teacher. This phenomena was referred to as something along the lines of “long, cold, dark November”, when October half-term is a distant memory and the Christmas holidays are too far away to count down to just yet. And here I am – this is no longer a figure of speech! The “cold” part is definitely exasperated by the current requirement to push all classroom windows wide open…

It feels like a small milestone to have already made it past October half term, though, as living a daily contradiction with the label of “lockdown” leaves education settings stretched and squeezed to the limit. I tried to reflect this absurdity in this week’s poem, and hope that it might be relatable for some, whether you identify with dyspraxic traits or otherwise.

Take care everyone,

-misspraxic

Held means Hero

they make a bee line
for the C line tube
where we are all squeezed in:
them with their juice cartons from concentrate
and me with my brain cells concentrated
on just getting through the day,
on getting through to them
in an hourglass squeezed full of sardines
stuck against the frames
wedged open and our few screws
have come loose again
as they shiver the words:

"Miss, do we have to keep them open?"

but coats and mouths are zipped to close
down mentions of the C-word,
for this tube is held
by bleak Outlook pings
and crippling reminders 
that 'Held' means hero in German-
  Held back with 'can't's streaming down my cheeks,
  Held up through the missed minutes 
and unsaid pep talks on weary late nights
Holding us up through the missing links
that test us in tubes
squeezing to burst.

Creativity in the corridors of coping

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I am the teacher tired of paceman-style manoeuvres that create chaos in the corridors of not coping

Creativity tends to be a major strength in dyspraxic adults and young people alike, as we can think “outside the box” in highly valuable ways. These ways might include, but are in no way limited to, creativity in art, music, and our use of language. Creative writing can be a cathartic practice for all of us, particularly in testing times, and I know that this is certainly the case for other dyspraxics too. When you are pushed to your limits, your struggle can fuel a creative energy that enables others to feel and connect with your experience. My students sharing their own powerful poems on handouts in the staffroom this week has motivated me to do the same.

This first poem is entitled “Corridors of coping”, and expresses some of the logistical challenges involved in starting as a teacher this September.

Corridors of coping

armed with dog-eared downside-up seating plans

scrawled with hieroglyphs that hold your gaze –

today’s performance is masked by a face drenched

in sanitised regrets. i only tried to

sanitise my mind, yet my mind is a magnet

for lost words stuck down the back of yesterday’s trimmer.

i misread my timetable and arrived five minutes late,

asking you to fill in today’s missing pages,

not to fill the room with your fits of giggles.

but i can decipher the codes clues to your

barrier to learning familiar to my own barrier to teaching

for i am the teacher who catches you

dropping to the floor without a back-up plan

like a pile of clumsy papers lost along the

one-way maze at rush hour on a weekday.

i am the teacher tired of pacman-style manoeuvers

that create chaos in the corridors of not coping.

i aim to be the teacher who builds a bridge past the haze,

that unexpected rare breed of teacher, like the

novelty of a poem unfinished

As always, feel free to get in touch with your thoughts or any questions via the website and do take care everyone,

– misspraxic

The “rentrée” and my “départ”

4 Sep 20174 Sep 2017 misspraxic1 Comment

I started writing this post in mid-August, when both life at the office and life in Paris were considerably quieter. What people say is true: the city tends to empty out each August as a large proportion of parisiens go on holiday, leaving mostly tourists. The métro was generally quieter because of that, but it remained as busy as ever during rush hours. A year on from my summer school in Heidelberg, one thing has certainly not changed: I still find myself losing balance, slipping, and stepping on peoples’ toes. It makes it harder to “laugh along with myself” in Paris, though, because there are rarely smiles of amusement when this happens.

Finally got around to visiting the excellent exhbition at Fondation Louis Vuitton: ‘*l’Art africain*‘

I mentioned in my last post that the family was going on holiday for most of the month of August. In their absence, I attempted to water their garden. Supposedly, this should be a manageable task that doesn’t take too long. The reality for me, and I imagine for many others who struggle with their coordination and spatial awareness, was the opposite. The greatest challenge was not tripping up in the hoops of the hose pipe as I moved from one area of the garden to another. I can only hope the family remained blissfully unaware of the stalks that snapped as a result of my awkward maneuvers around the garden… On a few occasions, water wouldn’t stop spraying out everywhere from the hose pipe. It took many attempts at fiddling with the setting and turning the lever backwards and forwards before I managed to stop the fast flow of water, by which time it was not just the poor patio that was covered in dispersed soil, but also my legs… thank goodness no neighbours were about at the time to witness the drowning.

Galerie Chantilly — Château de Chantilly – *galérie des peintures*

I made the most of my final month in Paris, by exploring most of the remaining musées and parcs on my to-do list. I was fortunate to have a few visits from friends and family during the final six weeks of my placement, which made it a lot easier to focus on office work during the week. I saw an incredible cabaret show at the Moulin Rouge, and experienced some great classical and jazz concerts indoors as well as at the Parc Floral. I have increased my tolerance to loud music – oddly enough, it hardly bothers me now (depending on the quality of course!). I enjoyed a few wonderful days with one of my German friends who came to visit – the photos above are courtesy of her talent! We had a great day in Chantilly together, visiting the château pictured above. A few days later, I travelled out of Paris by train again, to catch up with one of my French friends in the town of Auxerre. Back in Paris, I also fitted in some final visits to art museums before the end of my placement. My favourite museums within central Paris include the following: Musée Marmottan, Musée de l’Orangerie, Musée national Eugène Delacroix, Musée d’Orsay, and Musée Rodin. Go and visit their exhibitions if you get the chance! Needless to say, of everything I know I will miss, I will miss Paris’ vibrant arts’ scene the most.

arc de triomphe

It is now the beginning of September, widely known as “la rentrée” to parisiens, who have been reluctantly returning to work – and school – following the quiet month of August. The métro is no longer so calm. The office is no longer empty. There is once again a sense of colleagues buzzing around the office, after two weeks of less activity. The rushing-around starts all over again, and fortunately, it is now that I leave – just in time! My départ from the hectic world of Paris was not dramatic at all – my year abroad ended quietly, in contrast to some very loud moments along the way.

I feel a mix of relief and pride as I claim my seat on the Eurostar train back to London. I saw my final placement through to the end, an achievement which at times felt doubtful. I have proven to myself that I can often accomplish a lot more than what I initially consider to be possible. With the right support along the way, a year abroad can absolutely be realistic for a student with specific learning difficulties.

I intend to continue my blog in time, with advice on some of the practical challenges I have not been able to detail in my posts, and more reflections on what I have learned this year. I will also update you on how my final year at university goes! Misspraxic adventures, although not abroad for the time being, will definitely continue.

Thank you to anyone who has read my posts this year. Thanks to your support, I have achieved my biggest challenge yet. I will now be taking a break from scanning machines for the foreseeable future!

Love,

–misspraxic

A weekend in Normandie for La Fête Nationale

31 Jul 20174 Aug 2017 misspraxicLeave a comment

Bonjour tout le monde !

In my last blog post, I said I would be going to Normandy with the family for the long weekend to celebrate the la Fête nationale.

We set off by car shortly after I got back from work, and I have to admit, as I am sure you can imagine, I was running about like a headless chicken sorting everything out. The journey took about three hours, and involved more broken crayons, a lot of maquillage (children’s make-up), and more arguments about music choice. The little ones won, and were over the moon to hear the classic Magic in the Air on repeat and full-volume. The music filled the car with life. The toddlers’ dancemoves increased my morale, if not everyone else’s too. The songs the children have introduced me to will stay with me when I leave Paris, as they provide a sort of soundtrack to my time in France.

We were welcomed with kindess and generosity by the grandparents at their house in the countryside, not too far from the port town, Granville, marked on the map below:

Map Granville

For this long weekend, we were a smaller group than usual – just the two youngest children, plus two of their cousins, were staying in Normandy with us. This meant that dinner and bedtime routines were a lot more manageable than the previous two weekends I have spent away with the family. I also had company and help, in the form of the aupair who will take over from me when I leave, and the cousins’ nanny.

As always, though, I felt a great responsibility to keep an eye on the four under-fives racing around the garden on their bikes, and to run over whenever there was the slightest accident or crash.

On the Saturday, the two other nannies and I enjoyed a day in Granville together – we visited the old city including the cathedral, went for a walk along the coastal path, and visited the Musée d’art moderne Richard Anacréon for a Courbet exhibition…

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I enjoyed the long apéritifs before dinner, listening to the grandfather’s stories (which reminded me a little of my own grandpa’s story-telling, from which I have learned a lot). We had some lovely meals altogether, in which I go to know the other side of the family. We sampled some delicious seafood typical for the Normandy region, including snails, langoustines, and crab. The taste made up for my allergic reaction to the shellfish!

On the evening of the 14th of July, the fête nationale was celebrated across France. Months ago, I was expecting to be in Paris for this day, but instead I ended up having a very different experience: I stayed up to watch fireworks from the top floor in the house, which although was undoubtedly not as magical as the real deal, was still special. I watched the processions taking place in Paris live on the grandparents’ television, with the whole family.

Granville 3 Back in Paris, the réceptionniste has just returned after two weeks’ holiday. Although I had the company of the other stagiaire réceptionniste for the first week, which was a great help, I was by myself for the second week. Sorting through and stamping the post, a task that would normally take up to two hours on a normal day, took me five hours on the Monday. I got there in the end, though, more efficiently than the last time I was alone. The German assistant was, as always, happy to help me when I had questions. I admit that I did panic that same afternoon, having to multitask by myself: colleagues’ demands, phonecalls, packages arriving, messages to leave, clients to be welcomed… After leaving the desk to run an errand, I had misplaced the key to the reception desk drawer. Inside the drawer was my bag, including my phone. The spare key was also locked inside the drawer, and I had to stay at the office until I had calmed down enough to begin rationally looking for the key.

I am convinced that this sort of juggling, the phenomena I described in a previous post, would overwhelm anyone. It really can be a struggle to remain calm, efficient, and logical. The colleagues who stopped at the reception desk to tell me that I have been doing well and that they will miss me when I leave, or the postman who smiles and mouths “bon courage” (good luck/keep going motivation) reassure me that they maybe do understand, to some extent, this struggle.

The family has just left for their holiday, and whilst they are away, I have been tasked with watering the garden… Wish me luck!

I aim to write another post next week, as I prepare to leave Paris in exactly one month’s time. How time flies!?

Merci à tous de suivre mon blog ! (Thanks again for your support in following my blog).

Bisous,

–misspraxic

Return of “La Petite Anglaise”

5 Jul 2017 misspraxicLeave a comment

Hello again tout le monde !

I planned my favourite sort of trip for the beginning of June (une visite surprise !): I went home for the weekend to surprise my family.

The Eurostar train from Paris to London was delayed, so I missed my connecting train, and arrived home somewhat later than I originally planned. In my haste to grab my tickets from the self-service machine in the two minutes before the train was due to depart from Paddington Station, I left my return ticket in the machine. It was a classic misspraxic mistake, and I was very lucky to have both tickets reimbursed by the kind and understanding station staff. Such treatment would not have been the case in Germany or France, where rules and regulations tend to override when it comes to transport, in my experience.

Next time, I will try even harder not to rush around, because it is not worth the trouble in a big, busy station. I would also recommend booking a connecting train with a departure time of at least two hours after your first train is due to arrive! That way, you can sit back with a book instead of anxiously sprinting down escalators. You can also arrange to pick up your tickets in advance of the journey, or pay extra to have your tickets posted directly to you. If you’re like me, it might be worth it!

Home 2 — Surprise visit home: wandering through an orchard by the sea

Despite the unfortunate timing, my visit home was a great success. A couple of weekends later, I returned to London again, but this time I didn’t go home. I went to a conference on something I care a lot about – the future of languages and cultural relations in the UK post-Brexit.

I can understand why some might be skeptical about the idea of interrupting a placement abroad with a visit back home, and all that entails (planning ahead, travel complications etc.). For me, though, the occasional return to the UK during my year abroad has been very worthwhile. It has sunk in just how much I have learned and achieved within a short period of time. My mind was overflowing with colloquial French expressions, even in the middle of the British countryside. I realised how immersed I had been in the language and culture, which in turn boosted my morale on my return to Paris. Dyspraxics are often known for having a particular attention to detail – this applies to me, as I am aware of being more sensitive and critical to cultural differences, for example reflecting more on the behaviours of people around me…

Party — Big corporate summer party with clients and colleagues – there was even a red carpet, would you believe!?

Back in Paris, I have developed a nickname in the office – I am known, particularly to the other réceptionniste, as la petite anglaise (the little English girl)! The name amuses me, as I am actually plus grande (taller) than many of my colleagues. The past few weeks have honestly been testing and tiring, following more débâcles with the scanning machine and its frequent bourrages, as well as disappointed and disgruntled colleagues following my inadequate phone messages or manner. There are some days when I feel like I will never be good enough at the job due to the nature of it: I need to stop blaming myself for saying or doing the ‘wrong’ things, as some of the tasks or knowledge expected of me is not reasonable. Dyspraxic or not, if you are in a similar situation to me, I hope it helps to know that you are not alone in struggling with a stage (internship) in a high-pressured office environment.

During a year abroad or during any stay in an unfamiliar place, it is likely you will feel isolated or stressed or both. Each week I try to make sure I go out to a new place, or let myself enjoy strolling around a new art gallery, or going to a café for lunch. It makes up for long and often tedious hours at a computer. Recently, my free time in the city has been completely enriched with art, music, and culture! Let me tell you more…

Last weekend, I enjoyed a visit to Emile Zola’s house in Médon, a small rural village to the west of Paris. Although the house, museum, and château that inspired Cézanne were unfortunately closed, I enjoyed chatting to the local people in the village, and relaxing on the bank of the Seine. I suggest checking the website thoroughly for practical information before getting carried away at the prospect of visiting a new place (which, in my case, is easily done)!

A couple of weekends ago, I took the children to a public farm at Saint-Cloud, where we got to watch the animals being fed. Afterwards, we had a lovely picnic in the Parc de Saint-Cloud (outside of Paris in the banlieues – suburbs). All was going well until the little ones decided to take the older ones’ lead to climb trees in the farm’s garden! I didn’t have enough eyes to follow all the children’s fast movements, and was afraid of someone falling. I had to step in – that led to more tantrums, and my glasses fell to the ground, but thankfully none of the children got hurt, and my glasses survived to tell the tale.

Ferme — A Sunday afternoon in *Saint-Cloud*

I also enjoyed la Fête de la Musique on June 21st – there were all kinds of concerts and performances all evening in Paris, as well as in other towns in France, and in other countries. A concert called Komm, Bach attracted me – it was probably the German title, or the prospect of harmonies involving an Organist, a soprano singer and an African Djembe drummer. On the night of the festival, I made my way to a church in the 8th arrondissement – an area I don’t know very well. It was an absolutely incredible concert, and without a doubt one of the best I have experienced during my year abroad. A few days later, I had another great evening at the La Défense Jazz Festival with a friend, and got to know one of her Germans friends too – it was fun to all chat in German together, and it was a welcome change from French.

Have a look at the photos from la Fête de la Musique, as well as other events and exhibitions I have recently experienced:

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For the long bank holiday weekend next week, I am going to Normandy with the family to celebrate la Fête nationale – also known as Bastille Day on 14th July. I will let you know how that goes!

Bonne semaine et à plus,

–misspraxic

Normandie in May: a Renaissance château, celebratory Champagne, and sketching in Monet’s garden

13 Jun 201714 Jun 2017 misspraxic5 Comments

I am sorry my updates on the rest of the busy month of May are so late. In between work, babysitting, and everything else that I have been doing, I have not left myself with enough blog-editing time!

Following La Fête du Travail, the next May bank holiday was La Fête de la Victoire (Victory Day): an important day in France to mark the end of the Second World War, and to remember lost soldiers.

The family kindly invited me to accompany them to Normandy for the weekend, which provided another opportunity to take a break from Parisien routines. We had to leave as soon as I finished work on Friday evening, and one of the main Métro lines was temporarily closed for repairs! I had to take a different Métro, then an RER train, followed by a very packed bus, which took double the amount of time. Fortunately, my lateness did not matter at all, because we were travelling by car instead of by train. There was no point in rushing, and as my parents regularly tell me, it is often the case that “if you slow down, you can get there faster.”

I enjoyed getting to know even more of the cousins, aunties, and uncles who didn’t go to Brittany in April. Most of the children stayed in bedrooms in the renaissance castle pictured below, which I couldn’t quite believe, but I stayed in a comfortable gite (cottage) just down the lane.

Chateau — A *château* of overwhelming grandeur!

We could not have been luckier in being given a guided tour of the château by the grandmother’s cousin. As we climbed up dusty steps and paced through pitch black rooms, we discovered the secret side of its history. Family anecodes were documented in the form of black-and-white photos, sketches, geneaological trees, and even original paintings that apparently belonged in the Louvre! The château was an absolute haven; a treasure passed down from generation to generation, and how lucky I felt to be included in this one-off special occasion tour, involving 25 of us, aged 2 to 82, traipsing up to the top of the castle towers you can see in the above picture.

On le Jour de la Victoire (Victory Day), we visited the musée du débarquement (D-Day museum) at Arromanches, which overlooks the remains of one of the Mulberry Harbours. The cinematic exhibition was particularly well done, and moved me. At work, coincidentally, I have been involved in translating some articles for a memorial project on the same subject, so visiting the landing beachs a few weeks prior provided me with a sense of context that I couldn’t find in a book.

I had to closely watch the younger children, who were climbing onto and into concrete bunkers, through very tight gaps. Inside, the bunkers were full of puddles but no daylight to see sudden steps or sharp edges. Needless to say, it was not the easiest part of the trip to chase them all – it may be a dyspraxic trait that I am less agile than many toddlers!

I also stayed up to watch the long-awaited results of la Deuxième Tour Présidentielle / the Presidential Election with the whole family (even all the little ones), and some neighbours. It was a moment in history that I was fortunate enough to share with a French family, listening to their debates, and asking them questions.

On Sunday afternoon, we celebrated the grandmother’s birthday with a delicious buffet in the castle grounds, with the whole family as well as neighbours and other local guests. It was such an experience – even if I did need eyes in the back of my head to keep tabs on all the little ones playing frighteningly near the unfenced stream.

All in all, it was another enjoyable weekend getting to know the children better, as well as experiencing more of French culture in the régions outside of Paris. It was great to have another break from the repetitive office environment, but it did take me a few days to get my energy levels back to normal after a physically and mentally tiring weekend.

Upon my return to Paris, it was the Nuit européenne des musées, so most of Paris’ museums were open and offering free entry, along with a variety of special performances, for one night only! Regrettably, I was not organised enough, so I ended up waiting in a queue for two hours, and only managed to go to the one museum, where I had been before: Musée de l’Orangérie. I did, however, get into the museum just in time for the second and final Japanese taiko drumming performance of the evening. Monet’s Japanese bridges and waterlilies provided the perfect setting for the music – it was well worth the visit!

A week or so later, I returned to Normandy to make a trip to Giverny near Vernon, which many of you will know as Claude Monet’s hometown. I had a wonderful time exploring the gardens which inspired the Impressionist artist’s paintings…

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I found a free bench in a quiet corner of the garden, where there were fewer tourists, and I sketched for some time… until I heard the footsteps and voices of a large group of American tourists approaching. Their guide said, “Look, just there, where that girl is drawing, that’s actually Monet’s bench. This is where he would have sat.” What a coincidence, I thought…!

In my next post, I will give you a less retrospective update on my life in Paris.

A très bien tôt,

-misspraxic