In The Corner

Wordless In Cumbria

Better Late

I will get to grips with this camera. I will figure out how to upload the pictures onto the blog.

This one is from last August. But finally, here it is.

Keep

It's like this - just keep getting up in the morning, just keep going to bed at night. Hear the cry of the curlew even when you cannot see it. Remember how at last you felt understood, acknowledged in that old persistent pain, even though that deep connection is now in the past. Keep listening, keep remembering, keep looking at the pink sky at night. Even when it all seems meaningless, keep putting one foot in front of the other, keep cooking good food, keep turning up for each day, keep lighting fires, keep going for walks, keep talking to friends, even when there seems no point, no hope, no purpose. Keep on keeping on. Keep faith that the spirit will return.

Magic

In my singing group tonight, a woman who reminded me of G. In fact the mother of E, the young woman who leads the group. Something about her energy, her stance, the tilt of her head, something subtle in the arrangement of her features. I don't even think you'd say she resembled her, and she was a bit younger, but she evoked G's presence so powerfully for me, it was at times hard to know whether to stare or look away or try not to stare or try not to look away. I kept breathing and kept singing and I was alright. It was like a kind of terrible magic.

The evidently loving relationship between this woman and her daughter, and nine-year old grandson, who came to the first little while of the group before heading for bed, so moving, so alive. G's daughter and granddaughter were, I knew so important to her, and I saw them at the funeral, faces pinched with shock and grief. I am so happy for this family that they are safe and together, so envious, so angry, so - I don't even know what all these emotions are.

Seeking

Can't make things join up. Fragmented. Dead daffodils. Carbonated Natural English Mineral Water.  My house and the things in it. My head and the noises in it. The pasts. The present. Having no idea what to say but wanting to say something. Driving to work and home from work, endless temporary traffic lights, endless passing of the same pubs - The Saw, The Old Packhorse, The New Packhorse. And always G is there, as she was all those months I was trying to cope with the job when it was new and I couldn't sleep. She hovers over every drive to school and much of the drive home. She hovers over everything. And that is alright. But I am not and can't seem to be. I think it's having to work with other people's need and distress and I think ideally I wouldn't be right now. Blessing coming soon - two weeks off. If not for that I would be worried. More worried. Believe me I am seeking out things that help me, heal me. Massage, singing, friends who actually understand. Better for a while, I keep submerging again under the dark waters of despair. Panic.

Out

We made it out early evening for a meal and wine in Nelson's our local wine bar. Mexican pancakes, tongue-burningly hot and took about half an hour to arrive, but nonetheless there was pleasure in the familiar wooden-floored basement, friendly bar staff and reliable wine and veggie food. It was in fact the first time we'd been there since it reopened after being massively damaged in the 2012 flooding. More shocking to realise this was the first time I'd been out in the evening since G died apart from two weeks ago to the pub up the road, and a few weeks before that to a friend's party, which at first so overwhelmed me I thought I'd have to turn straight round and leave, but actually managed a couple of hours, a drink, a chat a little dance... Oh yes, I did also go to the pictures once... What is so disconcerting is to realise that is more than three months of barely going out in the evening, and it has not even occurred to me to notice. Going back to work has been such a major undertaking in the realms of being 'back in circulation'. Time is just so strange this year. And there we were in Nelson's considering our summer holiday options. I can still only barely comprehend that we are out of December, out of winter, into the third month of the year. It is hard to explain. Part of me still sitting on the sofa hearing the news of G's death, looking at the rug I grew up with that we had just brought back here from my mother's. Now I look at it every day and grow more used to it being here, more used to the way the days keep passing, keep taking me further and further from the last time I saw G.