Thinning Fog

This week I've been to the dentist and the hairdresser, had a filling and a haircut. I also met my poet friend, A, this morning to do some writing together, first time in a long time, since my Mum died in fact. She's having a dreadful time with work stress, and took time out from crying and worrying to sit with me, drink tea and write. We used Mark Doty and Anne Carson as inspiration.

Also, I went to meet other people bereaved by suicide on Wednesday, a small warm group, a space to talk offered as part of a festival of death and dying in our neighbouring town, called Pushing Up Daisies. A marvellous encounter, and the meeting of a need I didn't even know I had. I hope we may meet again.

It's been a time of travelling in fog. Some dim shapes are beginning to emerge, a slight inkling of a future. Too soon to make them out distinctly, but the suicide group and the writing meeting have helped me begin to see them.

This weekend my brother and my sister will be here. First time we'll all have been together since my Mum's funeral.

Mothers

A week in Scotland, looking at the sea. One day a fox on the beach. One evening a badger in the garden, one morning a snake on the path. Watching cormorants in flight - a colony on the cliffs near where we stayed. Bluebells just opening everywhere we went. Day after day waking to the light on the water, the long slow out and in of the tides across the sands. Waves breaking right to left across our line of vision across the Solway Firth, the channel between Cumbria on the English side, and Dumfries and Galloway on the Scottish.

After months of digestive unease, and slightly concerning weight loss, I'd had a battery of tests and all had come back looking healthy, so a good time to go away. Disconcerting to have this diminished body, even reassured that it isn't telling me anything sinister (I have had to change the way I eat quite drastically because of the digestive difficulties and eating a lot less carbs explains it pretty well.) Tightening my belt, buying new trousers, feeling bones I didn't used to know about... I feel older, less substantial, uncertain who I am. And this extends beyond my body sense. A loss of identity, a feeling of being adrift without bearings. Driving in fog or a blizzard. There are poems suggesting themselves but I can't reach them yet.

I've lost two mothers. I try to keep faith with them both.