Saturday and I wake with Stanza on my mind. My partner and I have coffee, chat and plan the weekend. We get up for a bacon bagel breakfast and then I am getting myself ready to go off to the poetry Stanza. Before I can go there is the garden guy to chat to and the hedgehog to feed. That done I take to the road and drive to the community hall where the Stanza are meeting. There are ten of us. Of the ten I feel I am the lesser poet, not because I am but because the group makes me feel ignorant, like a neophyte in group therapy. It feels like I’m the only one who does not know the rules or the language. It takes me back to the idiot boy at school who could not write and found relief in be delinquent. Old patterns begat new delinquency. I try to fit in, make sensible observations, be kind and try my best but no I cannot resist so I play a bit. However there is one poem that takes me by surprise which is intimate and touching. I listen to the group talk about it and I cannot escape the sense that they are grappling with stuff out of reach. I do comment but it is no where close to what I want to say as I fear slipping into being a therapist again. I leave at the end feeling like I have no way into this club.

Home and I find my partner has cooked tea as the friends we were going for a meal with have cried off due to illness of one of them. We eat and then I start to draft the blog while the TV provides wall paper. The evening stretches out in front of me with only the football highlights to illuminate the end of the tunnel. Time to read Anansi Boys and to sleep.