"Stay safe." I used to say to him. "Because if anything were to happen to you, I would cry forever."
It was without warning that we found ourselves in the Grief Islands... Alone. Adrift. Our lives splintered and shattered. We had lost one of our dearest, before his prime. Our lives will never be the same. I am not sure which one of us first washed ashore on the sandy beaches of Pretendland, breathless and vulnerable... But here we are together, and alone, stranded in its complex archipelago trying to see our way back to the mainland.
Tuesday, 9 December 2014
Stay Safe
"Stay safe." I used to say to him. "Because if anything were to happen to you, I would cry forever."
Wednesday, 3 December 2014
Remembrance Day
I wake, as I do most mornings, with a sinking sense of dread.
I try to slip back into sleep, but its too late. The dreams that are lurking there will give me no purchase. And if my brain has managed to process anything useful while I slept... let it keep its own counsel.
I am no longer surprised to find my eyes wet, my head pounding or my heart palpitating. I touch the corner of my eye to feel the wetness. Just for confirmation. Just to be sure. That’s just normal now. My heart heaves and sinks. It leaves the emptiness of my chest cavity and slips wetly and effortlessly through my ribcage. It bursts painlessly through the flesh on my back, flutters through the linen sheets and the goose-down topper on the bed. It navigates the springs inside the mattress, finds a gap in the floorboards and falls swiftly, a dead weight, through the empty room below. It cracks its way noisily through the foundations. Down and down, burrowing its way through layers of ancient bedrock til it is embedded in the earth’s core. It can fall no deeper. Perhaps it will be safe there, where I can’t reach it, it can’t break any further. Perhaps the heat will warm some life into it, so it can be useful once again.
I used to be good at sleeping. Now I am good at waking. I used to like sleep, it used to be a pleasurable past-time. Now it is a rocky thing I navigate. I go to sleep tired. I wake up tired. And the intervening hours give little respite.
I can tell that it is just before 6, even before I prize open an eye for confirmation from the little blue numbers on the bedside clock. A small black wooden cube, the size of a child’s building block. I bought it from one of those “fallen-off-the-back-of-a-truck” stalls that pop up like magic in the centre of the shopping mall. He, the man I bought from, and I, both know that I paid too much. But a guy has to make a buck, right? He was Chinese, he was middle-aged, he barely spoke English.
Its 5.40 am. I can tell its going to be a cold day, I can feel cool air brushing my feet where I’ve pushed them out from under the covers. The room smells gently of vanilla and bergamot and I can hear in the distance, the squish of rubber tyres on wet road. I don’t like rainy days. There is not the usual sound of birdsong, but I can hear gulls calling one another, perhaps that is what woke me, this time. There must be storms out to sea for them to be this far inland, though its not far, we are only 7kms from the beach.
It is still an hour and a half till the alarm sounds. I try to go back to sleep. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can’t. I turn on my side and fold my arms across my heart, as if to hold dear that which has already gone. I curl up as small as I can and lay as quietly as I can. Thigh to thigh, knee to knee, calf to calf, heel to heel, ankle to ankle, toe to toe. And try to empty my mind. I recite a mantra. Sleep, don't think. Sleep, don't think. Sleep, don't think. I try to find the stillness and that intangible space between becoming asleep and falling awake.
Its no use, my mind becomes burdened by too many memories.
I think of the day ahead. I no longer look for the joy, but I search at least for something good. For a minute I think it is Sunday... Its Monday. No matter. They are all just days now. And Monday means I have a busy workload. I will be tired, but I will be distracted. It will be as good a day as I can wish for.
It is Remembrance Day. I remember. Lest we forget. Lest I remember. Lest I forget.
He hears me stir and pulls me into him and perhaps I will sleep some more.
To sleep perchance to dream.
To awake perchance to remember.
To remember perchance to forget.
To live perchance there will be joy.
On the subject of loss...
I was born with a mop of thick dark hair... Not surprising given my Welsh mother and Scottish father. My mother grew tired of people peeping into my pram when I was newly born and exclaiming “Oh, hasn’t she got a lot of hair.” Growing up in the Antipodes, my head was constantly kissed by the burning Australian sun, so I spent most of my childhood and early twenties as a honey blonde. And although I maintain the blonde these days, my natural colour has darkened with the passing of years.
Winter has finally struck in Sydney. We’ve had it too good for too long. There is a chill in the air and when the temperature dips to one digit, even I start to notice the cold. I stepped out of the car one morning last week, early, before the sun was up and I felt something I’d never felt before. I felt the cold on the back of my head. Not my whole head, not my nose, not my ears, just a little strip at the back of my head. Odd, because I’ve never felt the cold there before, not specifically and exclusively.
There are things they don’t tell you about grief. Things that I’d never considered. “Its so... complicated.” I said to my psychologist. “We have a name for it.” she said. “You are suffering from what we call ‘Complicated Grief’, tho’ we prefer not to use labels.” she hastily added. But I was ahead of her on that one. I knew from the start this was bigger than I could handle on my own, and far more complex than anyone could possibly imagine. That it would be more than I could bear. And on top of that, there is all the other stuff... the stuff they don’t tell you.
There are certain things I never thought I’d lose. I never thought I would lose a child. I never thought I’d lose my hair. But in April my hair started falling out, not in a patchy alopecia kind of way, just an all over thinning kind of way, and as disturbing as it sounds, I wasn’t overly concerned. There are worse things. Its a mantra, I say it all the time. There are worse things. And that’s another odd thing about grief. There are things I just don’t care about anymore. Loads of things. I call it the “Super Hero” effect. I can “see” what is important now, and what is not. It’s ironic that in losing him, I have become more like him with his laissez faire attitude.
Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t really like the prospect of losing my hair. The thought of being a bald bride was leading me towards thoughts of wigs and turbans. And it was supplying Stan with a new source of humorous material. I can always rely on Stan to find the funny side. The master of turning a negative into a positive. “Never let bad taste get in the way of good joke” he always says.
I had lots of blood tests... just in case... but in the end my Doctor just said. “Stress.” and I just shrugged my shoulders and nodded in agreement.
“I’m surprised it hasn’t fallen out before now!” my hairdresser said, not very helpfully.
“It looks OK to me.” Stan said as he nonchalantly picked up a long blonde hair resting on top of his dinner plate. “I don’t have a problem if you go bald.” (He’s such a honey.)
“You have such thick hair anyway.” my friends all said in encouragement. But I could tell by the amount falling out that it wasn’t good. And when I pulled it into a ponytail it was only half the volume. Three winds of the elastic and not two.
So its stopped falling out now, and no-one but me can really tell the difference.
Its such an insignificant thing to lose or worry about in context of all that has happened.
Wednesday, 26 November 2014
Tears
I dreamt that I'd cried so much that all the colour had leached from my eyes... Turning one of them a soft violet grey and the other the palest seacrest green.
Three Wise Men and an Elephant
"What the fuck are we doing in Mexico?" She said. "I mean Mexico! Of all places. Fuck."
He smiled and shrugged. It was a rhetorical question. They both knew why they were there. It was just that Mexico was the last country on earth she wanted to be in after everything that had happened.
They had missed their flight to Cuba, it was just one of those things. The flight into Cancun had been delayed 30 minutes on the Tarmac and the flight out of Cancun for Havana had left 30 minutes early. Go figure. She wasn't even particularly upset. And hey, he'd wanted to go to Mexico all along.
They were sitting in a "Mexican" restaurant... "Piknik" in downtown Cancun. They'd asked the guy at the hotel desk for a recommendation. What kind of food do you like? He had asked.
"Safe food. I don't want to get sick." he replied. The girl at the desk giggled.
They ordered Fajitas and margaritas... It was Mexico after all. And the food smelled like authentic Mexican food. Like it did the last time she was there, so many years ago. It must be the oil, she thought absent mindedly. The waiter, a tiny happy man who looked Filipino, offered them two for one cocktails and beers. So they ordered both, even though she doesn't drink beer.
She look dubiously at the crushed ice in her margarita but drank it anyway. The fajitas came with salad, he ate his, she prodded hers with a fork.
"Try the cucumber." He said. "It tastes really good. Really fresh."
She eyed him suspiciously.
"You know I don't eat salads in third world countries, I shouldn't have eaten the ice!.
"Just try it." He said. "This is Cancun! the food is... probably safe! Plus it's been peeled." She was glad that he didn't remind her that she doesn't normally eat meat in third world countries either. But she had to eat something.
She ate the cucumber, it tasted really fresh, English cucumber, like her dad used to grow, with the same slightly bitter aftertaste. He smiled at her triumphantly.
The restaurant was located in a narrow pedestrian-only laneway behind their hotel. And their table, out the front, in the warm night air, meant they were prey to a constant stream of hawkers. They were all good spirited and accepted her "no" and abrupt wave of the hand without argument. After a few she realised that a simple shake of her head had the same effect.
First there was a young man in a blue shirt who serenaded them to the strains of a beaten up guitar, then a couple of guys selling souvenirs. A chubby man cruised by with a large bouquet of red and white roses... She thought she smelled aftershave as he brushed past, but it was the scent of the roses that had lingered.
Another guitar player came by, his voice competing with the faint doof doof of a nearby "nightclub" and the intrusive "caterwailing" from the karaoke bar across the way.
"I don't even feel like I'm in Mexico" she said. "I feel lost in
translation again" she continued. "I feel totally ambivalent about being here, unconnected."
"Disconnected." He corrected. But she meant unconnected. He was sipping on the second beer.
"I don't even care that I'm here." She went on. "I should be excited that I'm in another country, but I'm not." She knew she was being grumpy, and she didn't care.
"We didn't plan this." He said. "But we should make the most of it, while we are here." He started channeling his inner Desi Arnaz. Saying things in a thick Spanish accent to make her laugh. What is it with the men her life, she thought, and their love affair with all things Spanish?
She thought about the other one, and pressed the heels of her hands in her eyes in an effort to hold back the tears. They spilled out anyway.
"Hey." He said, trying to distract her from her thoughts. "Come back to planet earth. We are here."
"He would have been so much fun to travel with to these places." She said.
She could visualise him speaking Spanish to everyone, charming them with his way, delighted with himself at their surprise. So blonde, so tall, so blue-eyed, so fair, so pretty. He would have been the centre of attention.
It was only a year ago that he was here in Mexico. Her eyes prickled with
tears once more.
"Fuck!" She said again.
She looked across the street, past the families promenading with their kids and the odd tourist couple holding hands. She could tell the locals, they were dressed simply, short people, even she towered over most of them. The tourists were either earthy backpackers or young couples way over dressed for this seedy bus-station end of town. The girls teetering
awkwardly on ridiculous high heels, clack clacking up the cobblestone lane way. Escaped from their natural habitat of "resort land", they looked so out of place. Two Rastafarians had spread out their wares on an old blanket. Just near them a young Mexican man was juggling pins. No one was
watching.
The waiter arrived offering more beers. "Do you have desserts?" They asked. "No," he replied . "But we have Tequila! You can have Tequila for dessert!" He announced proudly. "Tequila isn't dessert." She said flatly.
"I just saw a girl walking up the street with a bag of churros" she offered as an alternative. she knew he loved churros. "And I think there might be a street fair at the end of the street." He didn't question her, she was invariably right. Years of travel had honed her intuition.
"I have to say..." He said "I really appreciate your calming influence and words of pragmatism in times like these." He was referring to the missed flight and the "change of plans". He looked good, relaxed and happy despite the stresses of the day, his blue shirt unbuttoned at the neck. She envied him his insouciance.
"It's only money." She said. "It doesn't really matter. I've never placed much value on money. It's a first world problem. I used to say to my kids when things went wrong 'no one is bleeding, no one is hurt, no one has cancer, no one is dead'. I can't say that anymore. There are a lot of things I can't say anymore... "
She fell silent for a minute and then she sighed the heaviest deepest weightiest of sighs. He knew that sigh, he knew it well. He knew not to ask. Her response was always the same and he didn't hold the answers. No one did.
"The worst possible thing that could happen to me, has happened." She continued. "This is nothing. This is a gnat bite. This is just a missed flight. It's not like we had to be in Cuba, we don't have to be anywhere right now." She just wished she wasn't in Mexico. She had been there years ago before Cancun had been "discovered", she had flown into Merida and
visited Chichen Itza, perhaps if they were stranded for a couple of days, she could go back there. Nobody went to Cancun back then, there was nothing there, just an unremarkable town and a stretch of empty beach. She counted in her head the number of times she'd actually been to Mexico. The first time she was 10 years old, she remembered shops full of silver and buying a sombrero in Acapulco... The second time she was 17 and a man in a silver shop had asked her father if he could marry her for all the jewellery in this shop. ...Five times, this would make six.
She watched the juggling man go past, his pins tucked under one arm. His black hair was fine and plaited in one skinny braid that reached almost to the back of his knees. It was warm and humid, 4 nights ago, they had been in New Mexico in sub-freezing temperatures. She'd scrunched through snow.
Travel is weird." She said out loud to no one in particular.
The street was lined with mango trees snaked in fairy lights. They walked past a by-the-slice pizza vendor and shop declaring it sold "hot dogos".
The street opened up onto a night food market with local people, families, friends, young lovers and the occasional backpacker promenading under the yellow glow of street lamps. A wagon train of food stalls surrounded a central space that had been set up for a small open air concert. Churros
stands, taco stands and Icecream vendors. A young man scurried past wearing blue shorts, a singlet and red clown shoes. His face painted as a clown with a small upturned red prosthetic nose.
She watched in fascination at one stall where a man was making marquesitas. He poured the batter skillfully out onto a hot black skillet, once it was cooked he spread it thickly with Nutella and sprinkled it liberally with yellow grated cheese. He then rolled it tightly into a skinny cone shape parcel, smeared the side with a dab of Nutella, placed it in a paper bag and gave it a little top knot of grated cheese. She couldn't quite get her head around the chocolate and yellow grated cheese combo.
In the central area small ride-on battery-operated model cars were available for hire and being driven by a mad chaotic traffic jam of small children. Swarming mindlessly like ants on an anthill.
They passed an open fronted street stall where three men were dressed up as the The Three Wise Men. One on a plastic camel, one a plastic horse and one on a fluffy elephant. It was a set up as a tacky nativity scene where children could have their photos taken with the three wise guys. Like our Santa photos she thought.
"I think Its time we got the cameras out." He said.
He smiled and shrugged. It was a rhetorical question. They both knew why they were there. It was just that Mexico was the last country on earth she wanted to be in after everything that had happened.
They had missed their flight to Cuba, it was just one of those things. The flight into Cancun had been delayed 30 minutes on the Tarmac and the flight out of Cancun for Havana had left 30 minutes early. Go figure. She wasn't even particularly upset. And hey, he'd wanted to go to Mexico all along.
They were sitting in a "Mexican" restaurant... "Piknik" in downtown Cancun. They'd asked the guy at the hotel desk for a recommendation. What kind of food do you like? He had asked.
"Safe food. I don't want to get sick." he replied. The girl at the desk giggled.
They ordered Fajitas and margaritas... It was Mexico after all. And the food smelled like authentic Mexican food. Like it did the last time she was there, so many years ago. It must be the oil, she thought absent mindedly. The waiter, a tiny happy man who looked Filipino, offered them two for one cocktails and beers. So they ordered both, even though she doesn't drink beer.
She look dubiously at the crushed ice in her margarita but drank it anyway. The fajitas came with salad, he ate his, she prodded hers with a fork.
"Try the cucumber." He said. "It tastes really good. Really fresh."
She eyed him suspiciously.
"You know I don't eat salads in third world countries, I shouldn't have eaten the ice!.
"Just try it." He said. "This is Cancun! the food is... probably safe! Plus it's been peeled." She was glad that he didn't remind her that she doesn't normally eat meat in third world countries either. But she had to eat something.
She ate the cucumber, it tasted really fresh, English cucumber, like her dad used to grow, with the same slightly bitter aftertaste. He smiled at her triumphantly.
The restaurant was located in a narrow pedestrian-only laneway behind their hotel. And their table, out the front, in the warm night air, meant they were prey to a constant stream of hawkers. They were all good spirited and accepted her "no" and abrupt wave of the hand without argument. After a few she realised that a simple shake of her head had the same effect.
First there was a young man in a blue shirt who serenaded them to the strains of a beaten up guitar, then a couple of guys selling souvenirs. A chubby man cruised by with a large bouquet of red and white roses... She thought she smelled aftershave as he brushed past, but it was the scent of the roses that had lingered.
Another guitar player came by, his voice competing with the faint doof doof of a nearby "nightclub" and the intrusive "caterwailing" from the karaoke bar across the way.
"I don't even feel like I'm in Mexico" she said. "I feel lost in
translation again" she continued. "I feel totally ambivalent about being here, unconnected."
"Disconnected." He corrected. But she meant unconnected. He was sipping on the second beer.
"I don't even care that I'm here." She went on. "I should be excited that I'm in another country, but I'm not." She knew she was being grumpy, and she didn't care.
"We didn't plan this." He said. "But we should make the most of it, while we are here." He started channeling his inner Desi Arnaz. Saying things in a thick Spanish accent to make her laugh. What is it with the men her life, she thought, and their love affair with all things Spanish?
She thought about the other one, and pressed the heels of her hands in her eyes in an effort to hold back the tears. They spilled out anyway.
"Hey." He said, trying to distract her from her thoughts. "Come back to planet earth. We are here."
"He would have been so much fun to travel with to these places." She said.
She could visualise him speaking Spanish to everyone, charming them with his way, delighted with himself at their surprise. So blonde, so tall, so blue-eyed, so fair, so pretty. He would have been the centre of attention.
It was only a year ago that he was here in Mexico. Her eyes prickled with
tears once more.
"Fuck!" She said again.
She looked across the street, past the families promenading with their kids and the odd tourist couple holding hands. She could tell the locals, they were dressed simply, short people, even she towered over most of them. The tourists were either earthy backpackers or young couples way over dressed for this seedy bus-station end of town. The girls teetering
awkwardly on ridiculous high heels, clack clacking up the cobblestone lane way. Escaped from their natural habitat of "resort land", they looked so out of place. Two Rastafarians had spread out their wares on an old blanket. Just near them a young Mexican man was juggling pins. No one was
watching.
The waiter arrived offering more beers. "Do you have desserts?" They asked. "No," he replied . "But we have Tequila! You can have Tequila for dessert!" He announced proudly. "Tequila isn't dessert." She said flatly.
"I just saw a girl walking up the street with a bag of churros" she offered as an alternative. she knew he loved churros. "And I think there might be a street fair at the end of the street." He didn't question her, she was invariably right. Years of travel had honed her intuition.
"I have to say..." He said "I really appreciate your calming influence and words of pragmatism in times like these." He was referring to the missed flight and the "change of plans". He looked good, relaxed and happy despite the stresses of the day, his blue shirt unbuttoned at the neck. She envied him his insouciance.
"It's only money." She said. "It doesn't really matter. I've never placed much value on money. It's a first world problem. I used to say to my kids when things went wrong 'no one is bleeding, no one is hurt, no one has cancer, no one is dead'. I can't say that anymore. There are a lot of things I can't say anymore... "
She fell silent for a minute and then she sighed the heaviest deepest weightiest of sighs. He knew that sigh, he knew it well. He knew not to ask. Her response was always the same and he didn't hold the answers. No one did.
"The worst possible thing that could happen to me, has happened." She continued. "This is nothing. This is a gnat bite. This is just a missed flight. It's not like we had to be in Cuba, we don't have to be anywhere right now." She just wished she wasn't in Mexico. She had been there years ago before Cancun had been "discovered", she had flown into Merida and
visited Chichen Itza, perhaps if they were stranded for a couple of days, she could go back there. Nobody went to Cancun back then, there was nothing there, just an unremarkable town and a stretch of empty beach. She counted in her head the number of times she'd actually been to Mexico. The first time she was 10 years old, she remembered shops full of silver and buying a sombrero in Acapulco... The second time she was 17 and a man in a silver shop had asked her father if he could marry her for all the jewellery in this shop. ...Five times, this would make six.
She watched the juggling man go past, his pins tucked under one arm. His black hair was fine and plaited in one skinny braid that reached almost to the back of his knees. It was warm and humid, 4 nights ago, they had been in New Mexico in sub-freezing temperatures. She'd scrunched through snow.
Travel is weird." She said out loud to no one in particular.
The street was lined with mango trees snaked in fairy lights. They walked past a by-the-slice pizza vendor and shop declaring it sold "hot dogos".
The street opened up onto a night food market with local people, families, friends, young lovers and the occasional backpacker promenading under the yellow glow of street lamps. A wagon train of food stalls surrounded a central space that had been set up for a small open air concert. Churros
stands, taco stands and Icecream vendors. A young man scurried past wearing blue shorts, a singlet and red clown shoes. His face painted as a clown with a small upturned red prosthetic nose.
She watched in fascination at one stall where a man was making marquesitas. He poured the batter skillfully out onto a hot black skillet, once it was cooked he spread it thickly with Nutella and sprinkled it liberally with yellow grated cheese. He then rolled it tightly into a skinny cone shape parcel, smeared the side with a dab of Nutella, placed it in a paper bag and gave it a little top knot of grated cheese. She couldn't quite get her head around the chocolate and yellow grated cheese combo.
In the central area small ride-on battery-operated model cars were available for hire and being driven by a mad chaotic traffic jam of small children. Swarming mindlessly like ants on an anthill.
They passed an open fronted street stall where three men were dressed up as the The Three Wise Men. One on a plastic camel, one a plastic horse and one on a fluffy elephant. It was a set up as a tacky nativity scene where children could have their photos taken with the three wise guys. Like our Santa photos she thought.
"I think Its time we got the cameras out." He said.
Varanasi
They were different times.
She stood on the banks of the Ganges and there was joy in her heart
and her compassion was far reaching.
She didn’t know.
The storm clouds were already amassing. The darkness descending.
A long way away. Distant. Alone. The world was changing.
Soon everything would have context, but she didn’t know.
Wednesday, 19 November 2014
Bella
She knows the sound of my car, even though it's been a while since I lived there. It's still my house, she's still my cat. She is already making her way across the front lawn to greet me before I've had time to pull into the driveway.
She is getting on in years now and her miaow-er is broken. She mimes a miaow or two as she pads towards me, but there is only the faintest trace of a sound.
She flops provocatively on grass a metre from my feet and looks up at me with her limpid blue eyes. I know better than to rub her exposed tummy. I scoop her up in one fluid motion and prop her on my left shoulder,wondering as I always do whether the G-force affects her tiny brain. She starts to purr. If she's happy she'll support her own weight and balance there without my aid. But if she's restless for food she tolerate me for a few minutes before she makes herself a dead weight and leans toward the ground for release. She'll only sit on my left shoulder, not on my right. Not on anyone's right. Only the left.
Sometimes she'll lick my cheek just once, She imprinted on me when she was a tiny kitten. She's still my cat. This is still my house.
Today she is happy to stay on my shoulder, if I lean forward to put her down she will dig her claws in to stay.
I lean against the front porch and watch the wind swirl the leaves in the gumtrees. It's a warm spring day and sky is my favourite shade of eternal blue. I try to remember the happy times but my memories are still fleeting and feeble. Mostly they hurt too much.
I bury my face in the warmth and softness of Bella's fur, so no-one can see the tears.
Bella always smells good. She smells like home... And now more than ever she reminds me of him.
"Have you noticed," I asked Katie once, "that Bella always smells so sweet, like she has the faintest trace of perfume on her?"
"Yes." She agreed. And we debated and laughed about the fact that cats must really just smell like cat spit. Bella spends hours and hours grooming herself, so she must really just smell of cat saliva. It's a weird thought.
It took me a long time to figure out that the fragrance was his aftershave because she spent so much time on his shoulder, or curled up in his lap. She was my cat, but she was drawn to him, he indulged her. It was he who named her Bella. And after Katie and I moved away, she became his cat.
She leans heavily away from me and thuds onto the front steps. Time is up, she must have something better to do now.
Sometimes she sits in his chair next to the computer and sometimes she suns herself in the backyard on the teak chair where he used to sit. And sometimes she slinks down to his room where she tries to burrow under the bedclothes before she is caught.
It took me the longest time to realise she no longer smells of his aftershave.
I know cats. They like to return to their happy places.
Sunday, 9 November 2014
Synapse
My eyes traced a string of lights for a hundred miles. A solitary road. The blackness beyond, unfathomable. I was drawn along with the lights. The ground below must have been flat because the roadway hardly altered in its course. I touched my forehead against the oval window and felt the vibration and drone of the engines. The other passenger were asleep, the cabin dark and the window was cold against my skin. Mesmerized I kept watching, Sleep eluding me. We were flying between here and there, somewhere above somewhere. The Middle East I mused, but I had no real sense of time or place.
Every now and then the road would divide and led off in another direction and following with my eyes, the road would explode into a bright oasis of dazzling lights. Too regular a shape to be a village, too small for a city, a rectangle of lights framing a central glow. The cluster of lights looked like a walled palace or compound or an industrial estate ...a single road leading to it from nowhere in particular. My eyes flicked back to the main road as it traversed invisible terrain and I followed its path until eventually it lead to another glowing palace.
Every now and then the road would divide and led off in another direction and following with my eyes, the road would explode into a bright oasis of dazzling lights. Too regular a shape to be a village, too small for a city, a rectangle of lights framing a central glow. The cluster of lights looked like a walled palace or compound or an industrial estate ...a single road leading to it from nowhere in particular. My eyes flicked back to the main road as it traversed invisible terrain and I followed its path until eventually it lead to another glowing palace.
My thoughts go often to those strings of lights now, because that’s how my memories of him form. In clusters that bunch together like inflamed synapses. Raw. Intense. Emotions huddling around street corners, his old school, the streets where I taught him to drive, his kindergarten, his best friend’s house... all of the places he inhabited. And in between the nerve endings, the memories thin out along gossamer threads that connect to one another so ethereally. The in-between places are where I can breathe.
The strings join all the places he has been, the places where the memories reside and the places where I feel his loss so acutely. The memories hang together like those illuminated "Palaces of light" in the desert, strung together with rows of lanterns. I walk through them. I pass by them, sometimes in my car, sometimes on foot. Sometimes I linger and sometimes I hurry by... trying not to get caught in their filaments. Globular clusters of starry matter thick with energy and nuance and context. As I approach I feel a billiard ball clump in my throat and my breath labour and my heart clench. And as I come out the other side, the symptoms wane and I doppler-back into the now.
“Try and breathe through it.” My psychologist advised. “Control your breathing, tap your meridian points, bring your focus back to the present.” But its not always easy. Sometimes I tarry in those emotionally charged nebulae and sometimes they cling to me like a tear drops welling on a spider’s web.
The lights shine so brightly in some locations that I still expect to see him. In the supermarket. I bumped into him there once, not expecting him to be there and now each time I go there the memory is as sharp as a shard of glass. If I walk to the end of the row, if I turn the corner, will he be there, dressed in his summer shorts and a well-loved, well-washed T-shirt. Hairy legs. Shopping basket over one arm. Grinning because he is so glad to see me. The expectation is too real for it not to be real.
There is the grey "Besser" block corridor that leads from the underground car park at work to the back of my studio. I photographed him there once. Lit by one of three fluorescent tubes. He was wearing a pale blue singlet and jeans and his signature white leather Lacoste shoes. His pimp shoes we used to call them. But he was unfazed, he could care less of what we thought of them. He loved them... He had posed for me, leaning slightly forward, looking tough, biceps and blonde hair. His arms pressing against the walls on either side, muscles flexing. Just 20 years old. I step through that memory twice a day. The fluorescent light is ironically on-its-way-out now, flickering a sickly pink light. Not the one on either side, but the one he stood underneath. Sometimes, foolishly, I touch the wall that he touched.
As if.
The street corner near his high school. I get such a strong sense of him there. Tho' I can’t recall ever seeing him there. I know he crossed at those traffic lights every school day. But I can’t remember him in his school uniform. I can’t conjure up one memory of that. Whether he wore long pants or shorts or whatever shoes he wore.
At the airport, the last place I saw him happy and well, embarking on a new adventure. He had packed characteristically light. His leather carry-on was visibly empty. They were going to Mexico so he could practice his Spanish. His girl with shiny eyes. Going home for the holidays, Christmas in the snow. I can’t walk easily past that point. The memories sear. If I stop there I will burn, I step quickly over a threshold that only I can see, through memories that mar my vision of what is ahead.
“Do you want me to come to the airport to see you off?” Katie offered before my last overseas trip. “No. Don’t.” I replied. “I can’t say goodbye to anyone I love there anymore.” Not there, not next to the sign that reads International Departures.
Monday, 27 October 2014
"She dreams in colour, she dreams in red, can't find a better man..." - Pearl Jam
I dreamt in shades of Pantone. Bright solid colours. A fracture of images devoid of any narrative. A scrapbook of fragments inspired by an afternoon of Turkish music at the recital hall. We had meandered past city shops, past bridal couples posing in sandstone doorways and sojourned at the evening Noodle Markets.
I dreamt of blistering reds, Pantone 032 burning into 485, strung across the twilight sky as Chinese Lanterns. I dreamt of buttery yellows, a table full of yellow flowers. Sunlight bright. Sunflower warm. Bridesmaids wearing saffron satin gowns, their bouquets of eggy yellow and coconut cream. I dreamt randomly of skinny stretch jeans in 325... clear and clean and as cool as the shallows of a tropical beach. I dreamt of a black and white striped skirt cut diagonally on the bias, twirling like the tenure of a whirling dervish. It twirled around and around in slow motion until the stripes slowed and embraced slender legs, the stripes folding over themselves like an unfurled umbrella.
And finally I dreamt of Gabe, sitting on a street corner on a blue milk crate. Pantone 300. Indigo jeans and white shoes. He was wearing a black T-shirt. He was talking to someone, leaning forward over his long legs. Earnestly engaged. His blonde hair was a little longer than usual. I didn’t see who was talking to. I cast no one of consequence in that role. And while the lights of the Noodle Market bokeh-ed behind him, I tried to remember him owning that black shirt. The only one I could recall was from a time when he was much younger. I watched him for a few dream minutes, my eyes unwavering. He didn’t see me and I didn’t give him any lines to speak.
And there the dream ended on the street corner at dusk.
I search for him each time I sleep.
I wake with such yearning.
Wednesday, 8 October 2014
The Five (No wait! Seven) Stages of Grief.
“So where are you up to?” He asked me earnestly. And for a second, I naively, wasn’t sure where the conversation was headed. “I mean, the five stages of grief.” He clarified.
I think its actually seven, I thought to myself, my shoulders slumping. But I couldn’t remember and he was still waiting for an answer.
“Its not like that.” I replied. “There aren’t five stages that you go through in a neat chronological order, its not linear. It jumps around. I can experience all the stages in the course of a day, or an hour... or none of them. Its different for everyone and it doesn’t conform to the textbook.”
But he wasn’t following me, he had an expectant look on his face, like he was still waiting for me to answer the original question. Fine, I thought. I take a deep breath. I pick one.
“Denial.” I said, firmly. “Denial, because I don’t want to believe its true. Denial. Because I can’t believe I will never see him again.” In the back of my mind I had a vague idea that denial was still the “first phase”.
He sunk his head into his hands, not able to process the pain of my reply. I felt like I’d failed the questionnaire. Like I picked the wrong answer on the multiple choice. No, wait, I wanted to say... I’ll pick another one, to make you feel better, Acceptance? No. Bargaining? No. Hope? Is that even one of them? Grumpy, Sleepy, Sneezy, Wroth, Sloth? Does it matter? And why are they always listed conveniently in fives or sevens? No, wait... I am up to... Depression. Tick. What’s next? The “stages of grief” all blend into one. Except for guilt and anger. I don’t experience either. I’m not an angry person and I’ve always had the courage of my convictions, there is no guilt. There is no anger. They are two “stages” that I wont entertain. I don’t even contemplate explaining “Complicated Grief” to him or that I have PTSD.
There is unrelenting sadness. Sadness doesn’t even make Kübler-Ross model. And sadness is different from depression. I can distinguish between the two quite readily.
I waited for the longest time until he lifted his head.
“Oh Al.” was all he could muster. He shakes his head in despair and wipes a leaky tear from one eye and sinks his head into his hands dramatically once more.
I waited for him to compose himself. Its strange watching people not dealing with my grief. I drift back off into the land of disassociation for a few more seconds. As if I’m not really here, sipping wine. I wonder why the other people around me don’t say anything. I look at the carpet. I look back at him. I look at the fine bubbles of condensation forming on the wall of my wine glass. I look at the curtains and the swirly patterns in the carpet. I think its my turn to speak. He can’t cope with my answer. I try not to be ungracious.
There are times when I find myself comforting the people who don’t know how to react around me. I leave Disassocia I return to Pretendland.
“I have a long way to go” I hear myself saying. “Its OK.” I say, trying to make things sound normal and OK.
But in reality, there is not really anything “OK” about it.
Monday, 25 August 2014
In my dreams
He was in my dream last night... A rare cameo appearance. Usually I am searching for him. Searching and searching.
He was wearing blue jeans and standing in the kitchen. Leaning back in the corner against the cupboards between the sink and the stove. Resting on one leg with the other crossed over at the ankle. He was eating breakfast from a large white soup bowl. Weet-bix, milk and banana. He had almost finished it. He always did just leave a little bit in the bottom, infuriatingly. Just one mouthful left at the bottom of the bowl. His spoon resting, not in the bowl or in the sink, but on top of fresh tea towel he'd just used as a serviette to wipe his mouth, scrunched up and left discarded on the bench.
"...what if you aren't really here?." I was saying to him. Because even in my dreams I know he is gone. I touched the right hand side of his face with my left hand to feel the stubble along his jaw line.
"What if..." I continued. "It feels like you are here, that you are real, but really you're not. You are not here at all. You don't exist anymore."
In my dream he didn't understand. Because in my dream he knew he was alive and I knew he was not.
He didn't answer because in my dreams I hardly ever give him any lines to speak. I find it hard to remember the pitch of his voice, it's timbre.
"I'll never forget the sound of his voice." Stan said to me one day.
"Really." I responded. "I can hardly recall it at all. Except for 'Hi mum' or 'thanks mum', or 'love you mum' ...which is the last thing I remember him saying... Or was it 'night mum'?"
The last time I saw him alive I kissed him on his right cheek and felt his five-o-clock shadow against my face.
So in my dream he just looked at me. He didn't look at me like I was nuts and he didn't look at me like he was confused, he just looked at me the way he would if we were both in the kitchen together and he was eating breakfast.
And then, because the dream had no where to go, it blended into something else. And I left him behind in the kitchen.
Sunday, 24 August 2014
The Brick is Back
I woke up with the brick in my chest again... And a wave of nausea washed over me. I've been "brick-free" for a while now, but this morning it was back.
It has been raining for over a week on the Island of Grief. The sky has tilted permanently to 60º slanting itself wetly across my vision. Sheets of rain falling in grey stripes headlong into dark waters.
My dreams weighed heavily and waking, even heavier. But I let the dreams go. They melted gently into the early morning light. And I let them. I remind myself of the good things ahead, it doesn't come naturally... I have to relearn it every morning to make it true.
I stand on the windswept beach of Griefland and see the rays of light on the Isle of Distraction. I will spend most of the day there buried in my work, pushing pixels around my computer screen. A 32 page catalogue will occupy my day. A calmness will prevail. I'll make the pieces fit, the copy will balance, the colours will harmonise. I will resize and colour correct and justify and compose and kern and adjust leading. Unlike the world of reality, I can always "undo" an unsatisfactory outcome.
I stand on the windswept beach of Griefland and look towards Pretendland. It never rains there. I can find safe harbour. I was there only last night, drinking cocktails at a bar, watching the last of the afternoon's golden light fade westward. Sunlight making diamonds sparkle shinily on the waters of Darling Harbour. We settled comfortably, warmly, into well-worn brown leather couches and I played idly with the drink rings on the wooden table in front of me. I chose my cocktail purely for its colour and although we had dinner planned we still ordered thick-cut potato chips, piled up in golden salty planks. And a couple of chicken tenders decorated with a zigzag line of lime aioli. We made plans, we projected ourselves into the future, we talked and we laughed and I watched the shadows forming patterns across the room. There was techno babble music playing, not too loudly and it took me back to happier, timeless, carefree, times.
The reason I write
I started a Grief blog because I needed a place where the thoughts and stories can exists on their own. They are often bleak and dark and I know that those of you who know and love me will be moved by them. And some of you will fear for me because of them.
I write them for me. I write them because it is an outlet and a release to the intensity of the feelings I experience. I write them because it helps to purge, to share, to vent and to formulate.
I lost my son in February 2013. It is a difficult sentence to write. He was 26 years old. I lost him suddenly and tragically. He was in his prime. He was beautiful.
He was healthy and happy and well loved. Our lives will never be the same.
Grief is so many things. Far more complex than I could possible have conceived. It is debilitating and exhausting, it is overwhelming. It is relentless. It is the worst kind of lonely and it is all of the sads. It is more that words can express and at times, it is more than I can bear.
I don't write these words for them to be read. That is a by-product. And if it gives you insight, then that is good. If it helps, then that is good. Because there is nothing good in what has happened to me, to him... (to all of us). And although I like my grief to be acknowledged, I do not seek comment. For me it is important that I write it, not that you read it.
The postings will be random and varied. A thought, an anecdote, fact, fiction. A musing. Not in any chronology. But just so.
The inspiration for this blog came from our shared experiences of Pretendland... That place we find ourselves, where momentarily we can forget. Where we can be lost in the moment.
Katie Kins wrote about it most eloquently here...
You should read this first to understand the backdrop to the way we play out our lives, such as they are now.
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