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.

Just

Notes To Self

Always have fresh flowers in the house.
Make kefir - drink kefir.
Do some exercises every morning - even for three minutes.
Meditate (nearly) every morning - no judgement about the leaping monkey that is my mind. Five minutes in - 'what did you say we were supposed to be doing....?'
Keep remembering to be kind kind kind.
Walk every day. Take in something from the walking - the lapwings, the curlews, the light.
Sing to yourself, to G and to Mum.
Remember this is not forever.

Still Here

My Mum died in the early hours of Sunday 8th February, peacefully, in her sleep. I feel like I've been a very long way away from here. The funeral was last Friday. I am absorbing, processing. Also caught up in the swirl of being an executor of her will, and former attorney with administrative tasks to sort out in the wake of her death. I'm tired to my bones and have few words now, but will write again when I can.

S Is For...

... snow!!! About six inches today. It fell and it fell and it fell. We didn't go anywhere. Watched from the window as our car and garden disappeared under soft white curves.

...and snot, which has hijacked my life for a week now. I will spare you the details. Tissues have been a major part of my life. I can't think or feel properly. Yesterday I thought I was really beginning to recover, but the grade of snot has thickened today (sorry I was sparing you the details wasn't I?). Feeling adrift in my mind, adrift in my days, and the snow is mesmerising and faintly anxiety-provoking.

...and shingles, with which L was diagnosed last Friday. A strange uneasy condition. She doesn't have too many of the blisters but those that there are feel sometimes itchy, sometime sore, and sometimes cause strange nerve pain, sort of burning and sharp, as I understand it.

Strange days...

All I Have To Do Is Dream

The eve of New Year's Eve, and snow still lying, frozen and compacted in some places, melting in others. It fell copiously on Boxing Day evening. Early that morning L's Mum died peacefully in her bed in the care home where she lived. She had severe dementia and it had been many years since she recognised L or anyone else. A difficult loss to fathom. L moving through memories and moods, and we wait to know when the funeral will be.

A ukelele has arrived in our home! The inspired Christmas gift from L to both of us. It is red and oh so small! And I am rediscovering the feel of making chords and strumming, at least 35 years after I last played the guitar at all regularly. And L is getting her fingers around these skills for the first time. We explore the internet for songs to play and since ukeleles have become flavour of the times, we find plenty to entertain us. Today I was singing and strumming the Everly Brothers' All I Have To Do Is Dream. It's such good fun, and the fingers on my left hand are already developing the beginnings of familiar callouses after being rather sore for the first few days! The main problem is my hands are quite big and the frets of a ukelele are small. Watch this space to see if I decide I really must get a guitar again after all these years...