the last burnt sienna crayon

I never thought that I would do that. I never thought that I would stop appriciating what I had. But perhaps one only knows exactly what they have when it begins to fade.

I know now that I never fully appriciated my first family until it began to die, disappear and break apart.

Then, I chose a new family. A new family, not of blood, and not of marriage, and not of relation. It was bigger than any of those. Family was suddenly wider and all emcompassing. Bigger than a surname, than even a way of life. It was extended family in the truest sense. How could I have found a new family so large without those natural ties? I took for granted that it could stay the same forever, and I would never lose that again.

I know now that I never fully appriciated them.

My first family used to gather, and tomorrow would have been one of those significant dates to gather. Gathering was a way to reaffirm that family is family, blood is thicker than water, that despite the rest of the year, at least we still gather on this day and ‘do this’, because we are family and this is what we do and this is who we are, whether we like it or not. It wasn’t always pleasant (because family isn’t easy), but it was affirming.

My second, chosenfamily, as well, used to gather. Again, it wasn’t always pleasant, but to me, it was reaffirming, a way to define ‘this is who we are’ and who I am. I knew who I was in the midst of them. But now the whole looks a lot smaller to me, a bit more fragmented.

And rationally, I know that’s ok, and I know that moving on is a normal and grown up thing to do. But emotionally I fear the segmentation. The move from defining that ‘we are we’ to ‘I am me’ looks scary from this angle, because suddenly there are fewer landmarks, fewer guideposts. And I continue to try to find a cord to tie the parcel back together again. Whether it’s the right thing to do, or not.

It may be the grown up thing to do, but for this disabled woman, who has spent so many years leaning on the crutch of her new family, going out into the big wide world looks a bit scary and I simply want to have some chicken soup and go back to bed where it’s safe.

Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone?

But, again, rationally, I know that the best families help their children to stand on their own two feet. To leave their father and mother and do their own thing instead.

Thing is, when I left my father and mother, the thing I chose to do. . . was to form a new family.

So now what do I do?

… I’ve added a new flickr account RSS feed to the right, though I had been hoping it might upload at least thumbnails rather than just text. And if anyone knows why my photo frame (at the top of the blog) won’t let me upload and customise anymore, or what I can do to fix it, just let me know. Ta.

Reverse psychology actually works on my three year old!!

The insights into baseline human nature that looking after a toddler gives is not only frustrating, but frightening. The natural instict towards opposition and rebellion is truly one I’ve never understood. But suddenly when she thought she was doing something I didn’t want her too (”Flower, DON’T eat your toast!”), she did exactly what I wanted her to. . . but only so long as it was the very thing that she actually wanted to do, but didn’t want to do it if I wanted her to do it!

Sometimes I just feel like, why did I struggle all those years to get through my own childhood/adolescence to become a fully mentally and socially functioning grown up, only to turn and walk straight back into the midst of the irrationality of the phase I worked so hard to leave.?! Do I have to wait another 20 years to find sanity, only to find I’m too late to do anything with it?

I think I need some grown up company.

Have been determined to discover some new music lately. Not just newly released, but new to me.

About a year ago, husband and I stumbled into some music, so to speak. We have a LOT now, not that we were really hurting for music before, but this is a LOT of stuff and a LOT of it is good and a lot of it is classic. (that’s not to say that there isn’t bad stuff too) It has made me aware of how much that I’ve only exchanged passing glances with and really needed to explore a bit deeper. So at the end of May, I had a major photography deadline and wanted to shut myself away in my room with no one and nothing else but a bunch of musicians, a laptop, a printer and a slew of jpegs.

So I’ve been telling myself that I’d write out some of my discoveries. These are not all the albums that I tried out and not the best or fullest of descriptions (I’ve never been good at writing reviews), but just thought I’d get it down, at least in part, before I forget.

I’ve just decided that I could keep writing and writing about this tonight, but really don’t have time, so I could always come back to it later. But here is some of my musical discovery of late, at least in part, and all of it is influenced by the fact that I was looking for something I could work to. So my assessments might be very different, when listening at rest.

Albums discovered that I could listen to as a whole over and over again. (Couldn’t work to these, they were too good. kept listening to the lyrics):
1972 – Neil Young – Harvest
1977 – Peter Gabriel –self titled (Car-album cover)
(What can I say about these two albums?! I think my loss for words says enough.)
1999 – Divine Comedy – A Secret History (an album where everybody probably knows a good proportion of it, but hasn’t listened to the whole thing. So I did listen to the whole thing. And really enjoyed it. Lyrically clever, always liked his voice and singing style, all around pretty fun.)
2007 – Beirut – The Flying Club Cup (This is my ultimate musical discovery of the year! Suggested listening by a friend, I read the sleeve notes first and it immediately intrigued me and it reminded me of Rilke’s prose [a favourite], though Rilke wasn’t any actual influence on the album. The album was actually inspired by an old photograph of hot air ballooners found in France. The photos in the album are lovely. The music was intriguing, different, powerful, emotional, descriptive and just plain good. Lyrically the songs made for good poetry with or without music and Zach Condon’s voice could melt marble! The sound of Eastern European folk brass along with French accordion was actually beautiful. The lyrical imagery was as well.)
1984 - The Smiths – Hatful of Hollow (but anything Smiths will do. These, actually, were pretty good work albums too, really. They’re just good albums.)

Album discovered that I could listen to as a whole, but once was enough for one day:
1999 - Penguin Café Orchestra – When In Rome (enjoyable. I really liked this, like the first time I heard it, but didn’t want to stick it on ‘repeat’.)

Tried, but I’ll pass:
Camper Van Beethovin (might try again, might not)
California Guitar Trio (kind of got bored)
1976 - Phillip Glass - Einstein on the Beach
1982 - Phillip Glass – Koyaanisqatsi
(These two upset my cat. I wasn’t far behind.)

Albums I discovered that were good, but I couldn’t listen to for more than a few tracks at a time:
1975 - Patti Smith – Horses (great album, great performer/artist, but started to twitch with nervous energy after about 4 tracks. I think perhaps this is one to listen more to the individual tracks than as a whole. for one’s own sanity’s sake.)
1973 - Pink Floyd – Dark Side of the Moon (again, great album, and there are individual songs I’ve always liked, but as a whole, and with an impending deadline looming, I opted for something a little less unstable, more calming and encouraging. It was kind of like when my roommate and I lay on the floor in a darkened room in university and listened to the Beatles’ Number 9 (on Revolution 9) and totally tripped out, stone cold sober. Anyway, I will give Dark Side of the Moon another listen as a whole album, but not when I have anything pressing or nerve wracking, I think.)
1983 – Police – Synchronicity (Actually, I’ve always really liked this album, but again was getting a bit anxious. Some tracks better than others.)

Album I just didn’t like:
1997 - Radiohead – Ok Computer (don’t know whether I think it’s good or not (I can admit to something being ‘good’ even if I don’t like it), I couldn’t get past the first track!)

I found these Good albums to work to:
2006 - Cat Power – The Greatest (I think I actually enjoyed her, but would need a few more listens before assessing whether or not she’s actually good.)
2008 – Ting Tings – We Started Nothing (ok, this was a bit of a surprise to me. I didn’t expect to be ok with or cope with it, but the sheer energy was conducive to a deadline, which is why I think I went for it in the end. I don’t think I necessarily think it’s good, or that I would go out of my way to listen to it again, but it was ok and it would be good for house cleaning to. House cleaning needs something with energy.)
1959 - Ray Charles – The Genius of Ray Charles (was surprised that it was all instrumental And just simply, he was a genius.)
1988 – The Clash – The Story of the Clash (2 CDs) (couldn’t listen to it everyday, but good stuff.)
Talking Heads - all of it (I love Talking Heads, have for a long time. discovered them late on, really, in ‘94. I don’t know why, there’s just something cathartic about David Byrne’s style that I can relate to. . . no, don’t think too hard about that!)

Things I used to listen to a lot, but on revisiting, didn’t really want to revisit. Not bad stuff, just for then, not for now. At least, for now, now.
Waterboys –made me sad and nostalgic
Smashing Pumpkins – could take it or leave it this time
Indigo Girls – who wants to be 17 again?
Tori Amos – who wants to appropriate all that angst? (also, see above comment)
Fiona Apple - didn’t realise she was so angst ridden too.
Seal – this one actually fared best of this section for listenability. He’s pretty good. Actaully, yeah, I still liked this one.

Would, of course, as always, be interested to hear what you think.

I fear I may have given some of you a skewed impression.

An impression that what you read or see here is a picture of “me“. And whereas that is not untrue, it’s not completely accurate either. It is, it isn’t. You decide.

This blog is a reflection, a dark mirror, an impression of a carved relief, a place to store the tapes that run through my head, especially in the mornings and especially as of late, to allow for a less noisy approach to my day. It is a place to leave it, so that I stop carrying it, hearing it.

That’s all.

And you may or may not have an out of focus picture. It is all true (I would never offer you lies, my reader, only truth), but it may or may not be fact. Because this photographer can only take and present these pictures in whatever way she chooses. You, reader, will take from them what you will. The viewer always does.

When I was little, I used to feel, as you did too probably, that my parents misunderstood me a lot. When I would do something and get in trouble for it, I would often be bemused and perplexed. How could they have misunderstood what I was trying to do?

My daughter’s look of absolute shock and confusion when I told her off the other day for drawing on her wall, reminded me all too well that, like me, she was probably innocent of any willful wrongdoing, and I felt chastised in not understanding her.

When I was a teenager, I used to feel, as you did too probably, that everybody misunderstood me a lot. I was figuring out that I was this person with all these thoughts and opinions and hopes, feelings and aspirations. But I was often perplexed at the fact that other people, friends, family, teachers, audition panels, universities, employers, didn’t ‘get it’. How could they have misunderstood what I was trying to do with my life?

When I’d stay out all hours of the night, when I’d get into trouble with my father at three a.m. for being out with my friends, the accusation was that I must be doing something wrong. Taking drugs, drinking, being reckless. When really, all I ever did was talk, try to find a place for me. The accusations hurt. Didn’t they know that I wasn’t as bad as all that?

Now that I am older, I often worry, as I have no idea if you ever do, that I have been misunderstood, misinterpreted, mistaken. Things that to other people might be water off a duck’s back, to me plague and unsettle me, still believing people think wrongly of me. I remember how often I felt wrongly accused as a child and even more as a teenager and react in fear that it has happened once again, that once again, it has only been a ‘misunderstanding’. The fear of accusation sometimes withers me.

I have learned that I am ‘different’, and I do/think/behave/mean differently to the people/culture around me. Often being ‘different’ leads to my expectation that others will misinterpret me, and getting into trouble, when, at least I believe, that my intentions have only ever been the best.

burntsienna is dropping everything
burntsienna is clumsy
burntsienna is not as well as she has been recently
burntsienna is looking out the window
burntsienna is often loquacious, but not this week
burntsienna is is in pain, but only slightly
burntsienna is listening to Classic FM
burntsienna is only trying to break the silence
burntsienna is nostalgic
burntsienna is lethargic
burntsienna is stuck
burntsienna is looking
burntsienna is many things
burntsienna is provocative
burntsienna is inert
burntsienna is disappointed
burntsienna is sorry
burntsienna is concerned, not worried.
burntsienna is restless
burntsienna is bored
burntsienna is ineffective
burntsienna is not depressed
burntsienna is . . .

The window envelope sat on the bed waiting for, daring me to, face it.

“To the parent(s)/guardian(s) of ______ ”

Of course it’s a standard, administrative way to address correspondence to the parent(s)/guardian(s) of a child, but after our/my struggle to become the parent(s) of _____, I’d really rather not be referred to as the guardian(s) of _____.

Call me picky, but. . . some things still just rub the wrong way. some things still hold the memory, and I’d rather not.

I knew what the contents of the letter would be, and I knew I would have to open it. I knew that if I opened it I would have to read it, and I really didn’t want to, but thought I may as well get it over with.

Yes, it retold all the gory details of that unpleasant meeting in May, where it was made perfectly clear that I am completely wrong, though he, our professional correspondant, was aware of how controversial the argument was, though he was aware of how passionately I felt about the issue at hand, and how he could understand how i felt and how stressful the whole thing was, but in the end. . . i was wrong. A room of two senior professionals (one, top in the country), one junior, and another adult all stood on one side of the line drawn in the sand, and I slid my chair back, quite literally, to the other, ganged up on, and standing out. Was I that strong to stand on my own there? Am I still? No, I don’t think I can be that certain. Passionate, convinced, but not certain. This nonconformist not only has a sensitivity to rejection, but a fear of standing alone, and of being wrong.

He didn’t use the word “wrong“, per se, because when it comes to philosophy and ethics, you can’t really, and you can’t prove anyone as being “wrong“, you only really have the majority and what they say to prove your case. But he and his collegues made themselves perfectly clear. No one in this country would support me in my opinion, and as I live in this country, that’s what any respectable and responsible parent/guardian would do. . . in their opinion. And as far as anyone is concerned, their opinion is what counts, as I am not a top professional of this kind in the country, only a parent, for what it’s worth.

I still don’t think he is “right” but he is not “unfair”. I am sure I must conceed. Everything tells me that his arguments are hypocritical. . . but I’m not interested in arguments anymore. I’m done arguing.

Who decides what “right” we have to anything?! He was as much making a decision for her as I was. When it comes down to it, no body has any “right” in this matter anyway, not me, not him, not even HER, as God has all the rights and has made all the decisions already. We simply don’t get a choice. Facts are facts. What right do we have to pretend they aren’t so. Don’t we do a child a disservice in teaching them denial, in teaching them that everything is ok, when it may not be. The line in that sand has a row of ostrich on one side, and me on the other.

But I must learn to quell my passion when it gets shaken up. It would seem that it, the things that it holds to, and I, are “wrong”. And I can’t in all honesty say, swear, that those on the other side of that line are not “right”.

So I went shopping and bought myself a tub of Ben and Jerry’s.

I’m not homesick. That’s not what this is.

The keener eyed of you will have noticed that I wrote a story last week that I then went on to delete. It wasn’t quite complete and felt a bit too raw to share in such a level of my incomplete description. The problem being that so much of the description lies in the experience, which none of you could ever have had. At least not in exactly the same way, as it’s mine. You didn’t know my family. I’ve put the story back up, but know I may be the only one to undertand it quite.

I get updates from NPR (national public radio) which give me interesting photography stories, high quality news and tips on new music. Yesterday I was sent some links to listen to Moby’s new album. This track struck a chord with me and when I found the video, even more so. The simple line drawn alien conveys more to me about how it feels to be outside of one’s country, one’s culture, and one’s family perhaps more than I could have expressed in writing. Notice that the friends he imagines and draws for himself do not only look like him, but move like him too. He smiles, until they fade away.

I didn’t know a line drawn alien could break my heart.

Difference is good. Difference is important. But understanding is comfortable. And death is so final. I didn’t realise, until recently, that in embracing difference that I would be giving up so much understanding.

I left without realising that I could never go back. And without realising that no one would wait for me to try.

“Put me on the train, send me back to my home
Couldn’t live without you when I tried to roam
Put me by the window, let me see outside
Looking at the places where all my family died”

I stood on the old whitewashed, wooden, wrap around porch with the two squeeky porch swings and the chimes blowing gently in the breeze and felt something well up in my throat. And the ancient general store next door where I used to run my fingers through vats of nails, bolts and washers as a child, as so many generations of children did before me, stood empty with a large “For Sale” sign in the window. The soda fountain, deserted.

The place, the old towering Victorian mansion, I had so often played there as a little girl. Just as I had on the farm accross the river, with the acres of cornfields and rusted, antique machinery, the hummingbird feeder and the stray cats, the dog lead, belonging to collies long dead, lying limp on the gravel.

And the family. The family were always there. The family were always there, and difficult.

The women collecting in the kitchen, to swap gossip, coupons and recipes. The men in the livingroom by the wood fire arguing politics and religion, with a freshly piqued anger that could strip the wood panelling with their curses, determined to win their battles at all costs. When nobody won, the misery of failing health and old age was always a comfortable armchair to retreat to. The children looking for cats and dogs and playing hide and seek in the barn, blissfully unaware of consequences of the battles that were being engaged in in the liiving room. The women pretending that their lives were not engulfed in the wars fought by elderly men and their slightly younger apprentices in these matters, who looked to the faltering wisdom of years to guide them as they clung to their Budweisers and foul mouths for ammunition. The children just accepted and ignored. Until they were older. I left. Most didn’t.

Both places were void of human life on that day that I returned, but the ghosts came in their cavelries to trample the unfaithful heart who had left them so many years before. I never had said good bye. And now there was no one to say good bye to. No one was at home that day, and I stood breathing the memories with dry and silent tears invisible on my cheeks. I held it back, partly for the sake of myself, partly for the sake of the woman who uncomfortably journied with me that day.

I don’t quite know why it overwhelmed me that day, but something happened. Something changed. I think I said good bye.

I had a leaving party before I left on my recent trip. It was kind of a strange thing to do, as I was coming back, and I knew it at the time, but I still felt like I had to do it. I knew that there was a good bye in this trip somewhere, but to feel it so soon, before I had even stepped on a plane, was odd and confusing. It was decisive. It felt as large as the final battle.

I didn’t understand it at the time, and was aware that I was acting strangely to everyone; the party, saying good byes, hugging people, sitting on my own in the park, looking whistfully at the ducks and feeling so sad, like i would never come back. It felt like I was leaving, like the little death that I had to die to come here to begin with. I had a return ticket and my travel plans and knew that realisticly and sensibly, it was rediculous, but still it felt somehow like i was leaving, like what I had done so carelessly before.

I know now that I was just feeling, experiencing, what I was always going there to do, but would not be allowed to express while there. I know now, that I did leave here for the last time, because now I am somehow different.

You see, the first time I left the homeland, I never said good bye. I just got on a plane and left. I never looked back. I convinced myself for practically a generation that it had never exsisted. Now that I’ve been back there and have felt the ghosts, recognised their monuments and paid hommage to their memories, I can no longer deny any part they have in my own history, the part they played in making me.

The soldiers in that war have almost all died. But those places, those battlefields remain. They’re where I came from. And I’ve finally begun to say a propper good bye.

I am trying to teach my daughter about saying sorry. I wonder how it can be such a natural thing for a child to not want to say “i’m sorry”. and for that matter, I wonder at why so many adults have it in their nature to avoid it too.

I wonder at the reluctance, when my own inclination is to say it so often. I have been told, I say it much more than needed. I suppose I want to fix everything, and even though I know that I can’t, I want people to know that if I could, I would.

I’m probably going about it all wrong. Whatever I’m trying to do to teach this little girl about saying ’sorry’ will probably see her end up in therapy in 20 years time with a guilt complex.

What good is ’sorry’ anyway? It doesn’t change anything. Perhaps I’m just too cynical now? Why say it anyway? Habit, perhaps? It can’t fix anything or heal anybody or undo what has been done. So why bother?

I guess I just wish it could, so I keep hold of the importance of saying it. While all the time not believing it will do any good.

Sorry for me is a desperate attempt to undo the state of things. Sorry for her is simply the overwhelming and uncomfortable confrontation that the state of things is because of something she did. Is there any kind of healthy balance in between guilt and denial?

haven’t been able to write much today. lots to say, three entries begun, just can’t seem to complete them right now.

I run to where you will not be
Amongst the shelves of poetry
The dusty worn out libraries
That live inside my mind

I’m here but hope you will not see
I hide from you and look for me
Where silence and the voice agree
For once I understand

Have been scouring my old writing books, notepads and journals, and the journey has been facinating. Perhaps I’ll find a starting point? Perhaps I kept them to begin with because I used to think that there was something there worth not throwing out. I’ve thrown so much out.

I don’t mind looking back. Sometimes I find it more hopeful than looking forward.

I had a long conversation with a friend once.

I was about 18 and as we were both from one of those ’small towns where nothing ever happens but everybody listens’, for some reason, we often found that sitting in the middle of my street (i mean actually on the street) was as good a place as any to have a long conversation at 3 am. I don’t know why, but then I don’t know why we did half the things that we did when I was 18. There really wasn’t anyplace else to go.

He was the kind of friend who didn’t pull any punches. And neither did I. (I probably still don’t, for that matter) After several hours of him telling me (in the kindest possible of ways) exactly what he thought of me and what my place in the world should be I said “D, is there anything good about me?” (remember, this was a friend. just an honest friend. And I actually liked that about him. You never had to wonder where you stood.)

He thought for about half a minute and replied, “You care. . . You care about things, but you care too much.” And I couldn’t begin to even comprehend what he could possibly mean by that. How could it even be possible to care too much? Is there a “too much”? It bemused, perplexed and stayed with me for 15 years.

However recently, I began to understand, and I now accept his assessment of the character of my former self. Because I am completely aware that it could also describe my current self. I don’t think I’ve really changed that much.

I had a conversation with my husband not long ago. And somewhere in that conversation I remember him concluding that “Unfortunately, you’re a bad kind of combination. You’re a nonconformist who is sensitive to rejection.”

I understood and accepted that assessment of my character from the start. Some things can’t be denied when they’re as plain as the nose on your face. And again I think it all comes down to caring too much. And it has caused me a lot of grief over the years. If I could manage to be a ‘nonconformist who didn’t care’ then I could just get on with doing and saying things that confuse people in a parameter outside of the norms, and being different wouldn’t cause me any bother and I would be perfectly happy.

But I can’t. And I’m still not sure that I’d really want to. I don’t think I’d really want to stop caring. I’ve tried, completely unsuccessfully. Perhaps there’s just a way of doing it better? I don’t know.

We don’t have a large back garden. It’s overgrown, a bog and a mess. It could be worse, but I’m not all that happy for Flower to play there, as there are some very toddler unfriendly bits. But the two parks accross the street may keep me living in this tiny Victorian servants’ house longer than is practical. We often refer to the parks as “our grounds”.

“Would you like to come for a walk around our grounds with me?”

One park has a large duck pond, a playground and an open ground where kids play ball and students have picnics. The other park has botanical gardens, tree covered paths and large open green fields.

I really love these parks. I feel like they’re an extention to my home. It helps that I can practically step out of my front door directly into either of them. It is a wonderful place for Flower to run and play and explore and they are all neatly landscaped, manicured and kept up for me by the pleasure of the city council.

For the past year and a half the Flower Child and I have ventured out together almost every dry day, to the duck pond, or the gardens, or the ’squirrel walk’. I love the hidden wisteria tree and she loves the hidden paths. This year we have cygnets. At the appropriate times of year she loves to pick daisies and buttercups, or collect pine cones, or chase dry leaves and splash in puddles. She’s a good walker for not even quite being 3 yet.

Currently, a month before her third birthday, she is suddenly becomming more aware of the world around her. Today she was impressed with the ‘big treees’ and said ‘look up! there’s hundreds.’ A couple of weeks ago she discovered her shadow. We had pointed out and explained shadows before, but she actually noticed it for the first time a few weeks ago. Now she is very much attached. she looks back when her shadow is following along behind her on a sunny day and says ‘c’mon shadow!’

and when the sun goes behind a cloud or we walk under a tree she says, worried, ‘where’s shadow gooone?!” So I explain that when we walk in the shade under a tree, shadow goes to meet us in the sunshine on the other side. today as we stepped under a tree into the shade she leaned toward the path, made a kissing sound and said “bye, shadow. see ya LA-ter!” (i wish i could type the vocal intonation.)

it’s very cute.

I don’t think I’ve had a normal emotion in 12 years. Until now.

Grief is a normal emotion.

Grief is a normal emotion, and this time, I am experiencing it in a different, ‘normal’ way. And I’m finding it very confusing. I don’t know what it’s meant to feel like. I’m not quite sure what to do with these ‘normal’ emotions yet. It’s very new.

As kerensa commented here awhile back, grief looks and acts very much like depression. And, as I have written here before, over the years, I’ve experienced a lot of grief. Now, I’m not claiming that I’ve not been depressed as well (that started 16 years ago, and besides i have an illness that takes chuncks of tissue out of my brain, so something’s got to get muddled up in there along the way), but if you look at those last 12 years, they are peppered with death, loss and ill health.

8+ deaths (including my father and grandmother), 4+ house moves, emigration, several unrenewed job contracts, 5 years of unemployment and application/interview rejections, 2 unfinished degrees/qualifications, diagnosis of chronic, lifelong illness, 3 lengthy hospital stays with following convalescence and housebound times, loss and recovery and loss then recovery again (etc.) of eyesight, walking, speaking etc. . .

I’m not going to go on, but it does. And this isn’t a pity party, and I’m not looking for you all to read that and heap loads of sympathy and kind words and such, i mearly list all that there to make the point that it never stopped! And everytime I began to go through the grief process, for whatever loss I was trying to grieve for, a dr. jumped up and said “You’re depressed! Better give you some pills! We can make these things better now, you know.” Maybe I was meant to be feeling depressed. God knows, I’ve had enough reason to be. Maybe I needed to feel the pain, the denial, the anger, the depression if I was ever going to accept anything about this painful world we live in at all!

Because when I was a child the storybooks told me that everything had a happy ending, and it doesn’t. Because every dr. I’ve ever met has told me to take a pill and I can magically have that happy ending.

It’s a ****** LIE! (sorry, all this grief stuff must be starting off in the ‘anger’ stage. thank you, i’ll try to control my outbursts from here on.)

You see, they have never fixed it, they can’t. I’ve spent 12 years popping various different pills and suffering the consequences and in the last 3 years it litterally ruined me and took something so important away from my daughter, her new mum, any possibility of her having a new mum.

How was I supposed to have normal emotions?! How when the chemicals were quite literally pulling my strings? I do have anger about that. But something tells me that that’s normal. I don’t know anymore. I don’t know what’s ‘normal’. But I think I’m going to try to find out.

I left something behind when I came back from my journey to my homeland last month. I knew when I left on that trip that something would change, and it did. But I have imposed on your time for long enough, so that’s a story for another time. I’ll probably delete or edit this later anyway.

But a few weeks ago, I started to feel like a mother for the very first time. And that feels so good, so normal.

Then R died. Now I’m grieving again. And I’m not sure if what I’m feeling is normal, because I’ve never felt something quite normally. I’m not sure what it’s suposed to feel like. Because there was always a dr. saying ‘well, this isn’t normal, so we’d better fix it.’ Ok, it was painful, but I suspect that it was normal. This time, I’m determined to let it happen, ‘normally’, somehow. No matter what happy ending the doctors try to offer me.

My friend died last Wednesday.

My friend is dead.

And I feel like I’ve been kicked in the stomach. And I’m trying to understand, and I feel a bit like I did 2 and 1/2 years ago when I had another friend who died, and I grieved and I cried and I felt like I had no right to be grieving so, as I was not as close to him as others were, but I did, I grieved, and I felt guilty back then for doing so. Perhaps I didn’t (and don’t now) so much feel guilty for grieving but instead for not having taken the time to know him then or her now better. And now I will never get that chance.

no. . . i feel/felt guilty for grieving so much.

My friend died last week and something hurts, but at the same time keeps reminding me that we were not close, that I rarely saw her, that we never spoke on the phone, or had a heart to heart or even sent Christmas cards. But I keep thinking of her voice and how comforting it was in a crowd of strangers and how I always thought that she had the most beautiful speaking voice of anyone I ever knew and how I will never hear it again. She had often been a comforting presence to me, and how much pain she had just been through, and how unfair.

I dare not think about her husband, her three children, her newborn son. Yet I try, when I can, to pray for them. I try, but, it’s shaken. What good does prayer do? It couldn’t save my friend. It was never meant to save my friend, but we hoped that it could. We all prayed. Those who knew her, those who never knew her but only cared for someone who cared about her or even cared for someone who cared about someone who cared about her. I Corinthians 12:26 says “if one part [of the body, of Christ] suffers, every part suffers with it.”

I don’t think I ever prayed so hard, for two weeks we all prayed. All over the world, we prayed. Why did we pray? My friend is dead.

Now I look at all of my friends. I look at them and try to be normal, I try not to speak of it because perhaps one is not to mention the unmentionable? I try to be normal with my other friends, because most of them never knew of her, and I don’t really want to speak of it, or anything else really, anyway. I look at all of my friends, but wonder if in two weeks they will be dead too? And that hurts. We never expect this to happen. But it does. The last time I saw her, I did not expect it to be the last time I would ever see her. The last time I saw my other friend who has died, I did not think that it would be the last time. Why did I know them, when now it is done? Why do I know anyone? When will be the last time? Was it today?

And what is death anyway? I know what my faith has taught me. But I don’t understand. Perhaps right now, I don’t believe. Perhaps the question is not, ‘what is death?’ but in the end, ‘what is life?’

my friend lies dying in a hospital bed, 3 weeks after giving birth to her 3rd son.

and i’m finding it hard to care about much else.

It was seven years ago, that in
Looking for that lighthouse near the cafe called The Rock,
In Devon or Cornwall (I always forget
Which it was) I slipped into a silence.
It didn’t just happen, but slowly rose
To my side and took my hand.

Stunned, I didn’t hear when asked to hand
The waitress the leftover cup which, like me, now had nothing in.
And clumsy, not thinking, knocked over the vase of roses,
Felt my heart sink like a rock,
Or like the sound of angry cursing in a room of proper silence.
Those feelings one tries to forget.

And I did forget,
Seven years ago, looking away from the task at hand
I once more took my old friend, Silence,
With me to the water’s edge, hoping that the tide was in,
And at the shore picked up a small rock
To skip across the first wave that rose.

It was then that a new (or was it old?) feeling arose,
Though no sooner than felt I began to forget,
And the earth began to rock,
To crumble like dried petals in the giant’s hand
Bringing forgotten ways of life rushing back to settle in,
Along with memories of the desire for a voice not silenced.

I hadn’t remembered a time before the silence.
The memory went the minute that I rose
To my feet to see the old friend who’d come in.
It had been years since we last spoke and I’ll never forget
How cold it was once again there standing hand in hand,
By the bay at low tide our bare feet on sharp rocks.

But now alone. Alone, and not alone, I ask the sea a question for each rock.
Will I spend my life here, wrapped in this web spun of silence?
Could I still hold my voice with these cold callused hands?
Could silence pierce me like thorns on a rose?
But the sea interrupts, and it begs me “forget,”
Undecided, distracted, I return and walk in.

It was seven years ago, in rock cold silence,
That I rose from my ashes and threw up my hands.
In Devon or Cornwall. . . I always forget.

last week a poet friend sent me an assignment. i mean an actual writing assignment, like the kind you’d be set at school. It wasn’t just to me thankfully, and he was very relaxed about whether or not anyone took up the challenge, so by now he probably assumes that i’m not going to.

thing is i keep thinking about it and mentally composing snippits, but of course when i am not in convenient proximity to pen and paer or laptop.

that never used to be the case, i was never far from a pen or a notebook. i used to write my mind much more than i do now.

Some (most) old journals are self indulgent nonsense and sickly nostalgia and most of them should be burnt. but there are others that retain some worth, others that can remind us of someone who we used to be. . . especially when that was a person who, in many ways, we like better than the reflection we confront in the mirror everyday.

half term week means no playgroup for the Flower Child. this half term week, i’m convinced, exists solely to test my ability to multitask. and whereas since returning from my trip, i have been better, more myself, healthier, calmer, more motivated with slightly more energy and more than a touch more confidence than in so many years, i still think that succeeding with everything i have to do this week is going to be a bit of a stretch of the imagination. (am singing Cbeebies songs with Flower to keep her amused as i type this… how’s that for multi tasking?)

am still processing events from abroad, but i will close that box for now and set it aside until it is more conveniet to sort through the contents.

oh i hope she naps today!

in this life we make choices. we make choices based on hope. sometimes a hope for something better, sometimes simply hope that we’ve made a good choice. we then live with those choices in whatever way we find ourselves able to do that.

some people never live with their choices. they refuse to and stand against the world in a blockade of denial.

other choices are made for us. in that case we either have to find a way of living with it, or find a way of changing it. otherwise, we get stuck behind the blockade again.

(by the way, Hamlet is my favourite Shakespearian play.)

I want to teach my daughter [how to] to make [good] choices. I also want to give her a way of living with [accepting] the reality of the world that we live in.

they say that the best way to teach children is to model the behaviour.

the first 3-5 years of our lives are the most important for a child’s development. this is the time when our brains and bodies go through the most dramatic changes (the teenage years being the other developmental hotbed of activity). these early years are when patterns are formed in our brains that hardwire (a word i find i use quite a bit recently) us to act in certain ways and expect the world to respond in certain manners.

i believe this is one reason why we are so territorial. i believe this is why we have comfort zones.

many years ago now, i left my comfort zone. there were many reasons, and there were many reasons why i never returned, at least never for good. and now i have a new comfort zone. but that hard wiring in my head, that was forged before i was three, living in another land, still expects things to happen and people to respond in a certain way. particularly the people. they just respond to me differently. and in turn i’m never sure how to interpret.

but when i left, i gave that up. things don’t happen here in my chosenland in that way. the chocolate tastes different here, and it’s good chocolate, but it’s not how i expect it to be.

it’s not the only chocolate. there’s no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way for it to taste, as so many people would have me believe.

and i’m starting to relearn that, and have the occasional bar of ‘the other kind’. and that’s ok.

(incidentally, that’s a metaphor.)

“But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more immaterial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest, and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.” — Marcel Proust - Rememberance of Things Past

I returned to my homeland to find, to my surprise, that strange things, small things, unimportant things, were suddenly strange, big, important, distant and annoying things to me.

Friendliness. Speaking. I hated being approached in a shop. Something that my chosenland has taught me. We do/should not engage in conversation with others unless we want or need something from them, and therefore should generally avoid making too much contact with the outside. There are people who speak a lot. . . and we’re not meant to like or trust them.

“Hello! Can I help you?” I felt violated.

“Those are two for one today, by the way.” I was certain I would be exploited.

“Isn’t it hot today? I can’t believe these temperatures in April!” No, I’m not going to buy whatever it is you want me to in order to make me cooler!

Why had I become so suspicious, so skittish, so warry, so paranoid, so certain that friendliness was only a mask to cover manipulation? Did I act like this most of the time now? I do. I don’t speak to anyone unless they are ‘approved’, ‘vetted’, ‘ok’. How did did friendliness for friendliness’s sake become “hello my name is… what do you do? weather’s terrible isn’t it? well, mustn’t grumble.” Certain of the worst. And so used to mistrusting people that I even suspect the worst from vetted friends now.

what a way to live.

by the middle of my second week in the homeland, i began to fall easily back into my old way of acting, of being friendly. i began to realise that random conversation was no more than random conversation, and we all have to make it through the day in some way, and being friendly sure beats being stand-offish.

and i began to chat back. no one asked me to buy anything.
“ok, just let me know if you need any help.”

I got chatting to the lady in the candle shop and told her that I was only visiting, told her where I came from and where I live now. More information than some people I’ve known for months or years know. I told her: “I don’t need to have ‘things’ from my home country around my house, I don’t need to speak the language or eat the food. I just want it to smell like home.”

And I do, I realised, I want the smell of hazelnut coffee and scented candles and cinnamon and apples and lilacs and books in the air when I walk through the door. Those smells have more power to strike a chord with my heart than any story or even photographs.

I bought some candles from her. And she never once asked me to.

i’m not ready to talk about my trip yet.

patience. i’ll get there.

just wanted to bump up this post, as i was interested to see if there were any further thoughts out there. thanks to chas and smudgie for comments so far.

Here is a tale of the trees in a wood
They were never that pleased on the land that they stood.
So they upped and they walked as far as they could
‘Til they felt the sun shine on their branches.

I was little boy lost, and I was little boy blue
I am little Jack Frost but I am warm through and through
It’s not easy to hide when your heart’s on full view
Oh, tonight, cruel world be forgiving
Oh, for once in my life I am living.

There they did stand and there they did stay
When there came a young boy who was running away
From a mad world, a bad world, a world of decay
And it’s comfort he sought in their branches

I was little boy lost, and I was little boy blue
I am little Jack Frost and but I am warm through and through
It’s not easy to hide when your heart’s on full view
Oh, tonight, cruel world be forgiving
Oh, for once in my life I am living.

There we found love and there we found joy
And the warmth in his heart oh, it filled the young boy
And his friends taught him magic and secrets of old
While the trees kept him safe with their branches.

I was little boy lost, and I was little boy blue
I am little Jack Frost but I am warm through and through
It’s not easy to hide when your heart’s on full view
Oh, tonight cruel world be forgiven
I was little boy lost, and I was little boy blue
I’m little Jack Frost but I am warm through and through
It’s not easy to hide when your heart’s on full view
Oh, tonight, cruel world be forgiving
Oh, for once in my life I am living.