Friday 14 February 2014

Kind of a year in, on good days when lots is going on, it kind of feels like:

I lost something big, or small, something crucial, but I can't remember what or when or how.
And importantly, like I don't know how to get it back.

Or:
Like my tummy is empty, but no, it's not my tummy, and it's not food that'll fill it.

So:
Empty, and lost, still.

Maybe I always felt this way, but now I have a good excuse.

Tuesday 4 February 2014

Letter to my Father

Dear Papa

I miss you.

It's Mum's birthday today, and I'm away in England.

I'm writing this on my office table.  The one I was sitting at when we talked for the last time on the phone.   We've changed the room now so the table doesn't look out of the window.  It now faces the wall, so the window is behind us.  It was too glare-y the other way.

The Man and I sit together at the table when I work at home.  It's cramped, but cozy and I love being near him.

My book is still not out, nor my paper.  I'm still working on both though.

Winter is turning into spring. The small cherry (or almond?) tree in the town center is always the first to burst into bloom every year, and this week, it has.  The moon is a hazy smile, waxing in a dark blue sky.

I think of you so much off late.  I wonder if you can hear me, if you can hear me calling you in my heart. Yesterday I woke up in the middle of the night, shortly after falling asleep.  I thought: If I fall asleep at once, Papa will come to me.
Then I shrugged it off and turned around and couldn't fall asleep and I guess that was the end of that.
Are you trying to reach me, Papa?
I'm trying to reach you.

Can you hear me?

I love you so much.

Me.


Saturday 1 February 2014

Flatline

Months and months of just nothing much.
Tasks and lists, and getting the veg bag every week and wondering about deadlines. Will I get that job, will I want it if I got it? Boredom. A movie, coffees out. Plane ride home, plane ride back.
On and on, round and round the mulberry bush.
Straight face, flatlining.
That's what grief does.
It does not wail, or scream, or howl or screech. That's life, that's awakening, birthing, bleeding. Those    Things screech and howl.
Grief is the empty nothing that has nothing to tell.

EXPRESS YOURSELF!!! our culture shouts.
LET IT OUT!!!!

But grief cannot be 'expressed', or 'let out'.
It just is. A quiet, enormous, aching flatline. And rather boring, actually.