Bluebeard's Castle
I live in a mews.
I didn't know what a mews was before I lived there. It's a row or a courtyard, with spaces that were once used for stabling horses and storing carriages. The upper floors were often used as living quarters for grooms or coachmen.
Now they are mostly residential - and any stables are long gone.
I like my mews. There are about ten residences here, flats over converted garages, some of which are now workshops, businesses and studios.
To enter the courtyard you walk under a peculiar, almost trefoil archway. I always think it looks like a giant lock and I imagine a golden, twenty-foot high key that would fit in it.
It's a listed building, which in the UK means it's of special interest, and laws protect it from being subject to significant changes. It's one of those fusty things about the UK that I enjoy. Although I own no property that I'd like to alter, so I only see the benefits.
My mews has a public database entry to categorise the features of interest. It looks like this:
Dwellings over garages. c.1881. Yellow stock bricks, moulded brick and stone dressings, brick quoins, slate and bitumen-covered hipped slate roofs with overhanging eaves carried on bracket cornices. This is the only mews with an archway entrance. In the area, it's the only mews originally built with such an imposing entranceway.
I love that this is someone's job; to study these buildings, identify its features with the appropriate esoteric language (what's a quoin? I'll leave that for you to look up) and write these passages for public record.
This isn't the point, other than to say my mews is a peculiarly historic environment, a negotiated space with shifting purposes. There is limited, time-sensitive parking for the homes and businesses that operate there. Sometimes it can be hard to wind my way through multiple vehicles, walking my bike to my front door.
Today as I was walking home with my bike, a car and van were parked parallel, blocking most of the courtyard. I started to squeeze past on the car side but found it too narrow, so I turned back and went around by the van instead.
A large man, over six feet tall, stepped out squarely in front of me, blocking my path.
"Where are you trying to get to?" he said firmly.
I felt an unfamiliar emotion stiffening me. Contrary to my usual friendly demeanour, I replied, “Why?” - a single word, both question and boundary.
There was a pause, where I held his eye. It may have felt longer than it was, but after that moment I sensed he had moved a little out of my way, and I began to move forward.
“I thought my car might be in your way,” he said, his tone still authoritative, but I didn't stop to look at him.
“I live here,” I said. From behind, I heard him say, “I suppose I should have recognised you.” I kept walking and let myself into my flat.
It took me several minutes in my kitchen, whilst I paced about, still wearing my bicycle helmet, to analyse the feeling.
It was anger.
I had to replay the event to discover why he had angered me. Had he really done anything wrong? His words were not obviously hostile. How had his body been turned towards mine? Why did I feel he was looking down his nose at me? What was it in his stature, his tone, that had offended me so?
When these things happen, I often test the situation with my own behaviour. Would I have stepped in front of someone and spoken in the way he did? If I had meant well, how might I have approached a stranger that perhaps was put out by my car? All I could think was that I’d have opened with an apologetic 'Is my car in your way?'
Another simulation I run is would he have behaved in the same way were I a man? In this case, I think the answer is yes. This was not about gender. I would guess this man is an established homeowner in the mews. There was something proprietorial about his manner, as if I were in the grounds of his castle.
I feel satisfied with my response.
I have not always been the quickest to respond to an emotion, with trust. I remember in therapy years ago. I’d retell, as if to a friend, with words tumbling out, a situation that had upset me. The therapist would lean forward urgently and say, “Where do you feel it in your body?” This would silence me, and I’d think, “Oh fuck off.”
I still don’t feel emotions in the way that would satisfy my old therapist. I don't know where in my body the anger was. What matters today is that I let it lead me.
Sometimes the body feels things quicker than the mind can unpick them. I was raised to be polite, be pleasant, and not to cause a fuss. When I followed these rules, and ignored my instincts, I found myself disappointed afterwards.
It’s too easy to assume guilt or wrong-doing when confronted. Like an ill fitting door, it drags and forms an ugly welt over time.
I'm tired of the old rules, and these small moments of self-possession are how I reclaim my own thresholds.