On grief

I tend not, really, to think back to that day when I made plasticine figures for people that I didn't know, in an attempt to turn irretrievable darkness into a smile or a lingering acknowledgment.

I was 3 and had successfully evaded the boy at number 7 who on our horseshoe-shaped road, had threatened to eat me alive as I got lost on my way home.

I was 3 and I had bold plans. I was 3 and nothing could touch me.

And so death, when it came, wreaked such damage that it dismantled all of our lives for a while. Scattered us to the wind. Fighting our way through the customs, we were noticeably smaller, diminished, as if the parts of us we hadn't checked in had been dispersed and remained skulking in a lost-luggage office, unclaimed.

I don't recall much about the subsequent year, apart from the insurmountable sorrow that I did not understand and the memories of that one night and early wintery morning. And of the Doctor whose name I forget now and who ordinarily was awful but on that day, was as sweet as grief would allow.

I remember him of course. Fleetingly, and in daydreams I remember him better. I remember angels wearing denim who endeavoured to shoot the breeze. Ruminating over the time and the hour and the vagaries of life. I remember those who spoke to me gently and firmly, later, of my imagination.

But when I think of him I remember wings against the window, plasticine figures. And I see him around corners, in places I'd forgotten I knew, smiling in puddles and larking elated, witnessing the wind. I remember another brother, older and bolder. One who drummed, a magician conducting the melody and who scratched out his teenaged will on a wall in spray paint, when he was just a boy. Who spoke in a such a way that life won't ever quite deliver all that it promises to offer.

The gap they leave aches persistent; a dull tooth that I shall never get around to checking for fear of losing them to a filling.

I remember those that I lost too soon, but sometimes I cannot place them. They remain drifting a little left of the horizon, lingering and dictating my living hours, when I ought to be dancing more, fearing less and shrugging off the inevitable. Putting hours to bed.

But at night when sleep should hold and claim me without thinking, I dream mostly of falling teeth and wake to a morning little changed, despite my years.

A Christmas Duel

I found this last year and amidst the endlessly repeated Christmas songs found it a welcome novelty. Warning: profanities abound.

Postcards from New York

I was due to be in New York this Thanksgiving weekend but things don't always have a way of working out the way you planned. Here, instead, is a small selection of the gorgeous photos taken by the hugely talented FB on his recent trip: my best friend and collaborator (co-conspirator).

Now and again

And you were burning

almost, alight and on fire

and I think I loved you more

then, than ever before

and so raw edges have a way

of unravelling the careful

stripping it threadbare to skeins

of passionless twisting

and we, caught beneath the blue light

of tangled sheets, frigid with

unspoken fragments of past lives

and other lovers

mutely move to wall await

instructions, breathe softly.

And calmly forget, swathed in silent sadness

to reach over, now and again

In the company of silence

It is, of course, a well acknowledged truth as we scratch through the hours, the days and the years that we begin to seek solace in quieter times. During the painfully enforced years of teenage study, I wouldn't contemplate my revision hours without the loop of the record player crackling forth whatever song I believed spoke to me and me mostly. If it drowned out the omnipresent kitchen hum of Radio 4, then so much the better. Coupled with the confusing Sunday Quaker meetings, I lurched in the other direction. To live without music invoked horror, to live without noise was unthinkable.

My quest for quiet began with my daughter. I won't be the first parent who knows that there is little quite like the seconds of silence that succeed the settling, amidst the limbo hours. It is in these snatched moments, slightly before we acknowledge the day's defeats, that we may embrace both the triumph of impending sleep and potential of all that is to come. These shards of the dazzling are what lead us on, make us want to get up again.

The nights of broken sleep have long passed and yet I see the symphony in silence with increased regularity. Just as I acknowledge the beauty in the wilderness I always loathed, I see the beauty in the error of my ways. I can no longer sit down and work to a backdrop of noise, as the tangential thoughts that are my close companions neglect to drop by and the words falter. This is clearly not an unwelcome evolution. It isn't as if someone has hit a definitive mute button to a world I want to indulge in, and I appreciate that I can still make this choice. I acknowledge those that can't.

But I also remain surprised at the silence I reach for, given my skill at eking out the chaos in my former lives. Is this the stage marker grabbed on the slalom descent to aged behaviour? Or is it just a nod to someone who, at last, recognises her own consciousness, greets it as a friend? Are my Quaker roots coming back for a timely visit? I propose a step back into the company of silence to consider. And you?

A large part of the inspiration for this post was taken from the great quotes on Miss Whistle's infinitely wise and informed blog.

À Deriva (Adrift)

I am undecided about Vincent Cassel, he has the look of an ex-boyfriend with whom things ended rather badly. (In all honesty, things didn't start out desperately well and the middle bit of the relationship was perhaps the worst part of all, but I digress). There is much about this trailer that strikes a chord; the dreamlike cinematography, the protagonist coming-of-age in the 80s, the beautiful location. The underlying tragedy of a failed relationship possibly, and the irreversible repercussions. Or perhaps it's just the sight of some sun as the UK is buffeted by interminable squally showers and the roads are slick with puddles and leaves. Directed by Heitor Dhalia.

The glittering

Beneath

the panoply of the bandstand

summer burns still

slanting long fingers that reach

from the ramparts and

hoodwink the season

Poseidon, lugubrious

idles time forgetful

whilst diamonds from dew, a spider

spins the glittering

binds and lulls the current

Subdued by the sun

the clouds furrow brow, submit to

late vermillion.

The sea shifts to autumn

boats float less often