Bluebell Woods

It’s bluebell season, or rather, the start of it. My son wanted to hunt for a carpet of bluebells under a canopy of sparse spring foliage so off we went. Meandered through several villages, stopped by a couple of cafes and village shops in the sloping hills of the cheshire countryside to ask if anybody knew where we could find bluebells.

One kind lady drew us a map and we parked our car next to a quaint little church and made our way over a stile and into a pine wood. My kids moaned and complained about the steep climbs and the many holes in the ground – badger setts? Fox dens?

Oh they WHINGED and it got on my NERVES and I told them so! My son was afraid of a little fluffy white dog and I told him not to be such a baby which was really mean in hindsight, given that he was attacked by some dogs when he was two and still harbours a (sensibly healthy!!!) fear of canines. I feel awful about it to be honest. The frustration with the moaning, the lack of patience with the fear….

But we found bluebells. Carpets and carpets of them, flowing and rippling in the wind over little slopes in the wood. My son picked a bunch and said they were for me because I was the most beautiful and best Mama ever. See? So much guilt. Why can’t I just be what he says I am. Why do I have to be such a witch sometimes!

Then when we had our fill of bluebells we drove to the ruins of a castle, climbed up a steep hill to the top (more moaning, more whingeing), and then the children’s screams of laughter and joy on the windy summit, the glorious view of sunny Cheshire all around us, oat crackers and grapes in hand – and suddenly it was all worth it.

Is it all worth it? I asked my five year old.

He asked to sit on my lap and I said no, but you can lean on me.

So he leant on me and I stoked his hair and he said it was so amazing up here.

There’s guilt and joy and sadness and regret and guilt and then so much joy and love in their presence and being and existence… and then there is me promising myself, after they are in bed, to be more patient, more kind, more lenient, more validating, more wholesome….

Tomorrow we walk to the library (I expect more whingeing but they must learn to walk long distances!) and then to the hospital for an appointment, and then perhaps stop at the shops on the way home for some seeds and laundry detergent.

Hopefully my phone will be out of sight and mind, I will be more patient (despite knowing i will need to nag a million times to get their toys put away and their shoes put on), and I will be more accepting of my children as they are in their own precious little spaces.

Because dear God I love them.

NOT my photo! This photo was taken from here.

Space

I watched the moon rising over the sea and it was as though I had never seen the moon in my life before. I have never seen the moon like this. A great golden orb, bigger than I have ever seen the sun, and my eyes followed it hungrily as it edged its way over the watery horizon, up up up in the black starlit sky. Huge, emitting its pale warm glow, reflecting over the silent and calm sea as it rose further into the sky that spanned my place on earth.

My place on earth.

Earth swimming with the sun and the moon in the vacuum we call space.

Space because it stretches on and on and out, forever reaching the unknown infinity.

When I look at the world this way, and I think of my place in it, and the hum of life and humanity and the machines we have created of materials and ourselves, my mind stills for a moment and I realise the noise is there to distract us from the truth. Of our being. Our existence. Us on this earth, with space spinning above our heads and under our feet.

We are here.

And we won’t be soon.

So where will we go?

Where we will go.

And it’s a glorious feeling because even though we all argue here on earth about our existence and the inevitability of the end, deep down we all know the truth. Our cells and bones and souls know the truth. You call for the truth in the depths of your fear. In your deepest slumber, you know the truth.

Why, the truth is as inevitable as your beautiful death.

Am I doing bloganuary? I just logged in to check my blog before kids’ bedtime..

Daily writing prompt

Do you spend more time thinking about the future or the past? Why?

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Oh dear. Ugh. I hate this one. But I’ll answer it anyway. The past, probably. Cringefest in my brain, all the embarrassing things I said and did. And the dumb things I chose to do. And the downright idiotic psychopathic people my lonely lost self chose to associate with. Starved of affection? Validation? God knows. Couldn’t smell the real deal when it was shoved in my face, so chased after something bogus, and harmful. Eurgh. It reeks.

I don’t think about that a lot anymore though. It rears its ugly head every so often but I soon snuff it out.

I am scared of the future. Always have been. I feel somehow I don’t deserve it. Like it’s too good for me. Or the good in it is too high for me to reach. Like I am not worthy. But when I question it I don’t understand what I have ever done to be unworthy?

Hmm, maybe making a stupid choice at 16? I was told often enough it ruined my life and made me the most evil villain to ever exist.

But the rational almost 30-year old me knows this cannot be true.

Then I try to psychoanalyse it and it presents itself clear as day but I am terrified to take it and let it speak to me.

It says ‘you never felt you deserved good things as a child.’

Now, THERE is some unpacking for me to do. Do it I must, before my kids get older, and think they too don’t deserve good things in life, so don’t go chasing better.

30. Goodbye, November

I began this month feeling hopeful; we had just emerged from a particularly warm October. Indian summer. Evenings shorter but not quite cold enough to realise the inevitability of the hibernation season. Then as November progressed, I succumbed to the misery of short evenings and lack of vitamin D. It was mostly due to not getting out as often as I would like. It’s being too cold, my worry over bundling children up, a myriad of things. But we have reached the end of November, and are hurtling towards the middle of winter, and I find myself resigned to the season. Not just resigned, but gathering some hope in it. Seeing the beauty in the darkness.

Like how the stars glitter in the black sky.

Like how bright the moon is on clear nights.

Like how beautiful the icy crystals of frost as they decorate everything the sun does not touch.

How the water has frozen in the watering can, and what a beautiful pattern icicles make on the shed windows. How the leaves crunch when they’re frozen as opposed to when they’re dry. How the birds still find a way to chirp when the very air feels laden with cold.

How the mornings are hazy, clouds of mist billowing over the grass, ice in the atmosphere, in our very breath. The landscape is magical when the sun chooses to reveal herself.

But even when it is cloudy, the scenery revealed by the lack of dense foliage on trees can be breathtaking.

November has been kind to me this year. Patient with my tantrums. Holding space for my impatience. Much kinder than I have been to her – to winter in general – heck, even to my family.

I leave November a little sombre. Deep in reflection. Hoping to be more kind of spirit as December knocks a cold fist at the door.

How was your November?

25. Dear Diary

If I were to write a diary here, I would say. I would say, dear diary, I am in love. With what, well I could not begin to tell you. I do not know for myself.

The solitude in the hour before dawn, perhaps. Listening to the wind whistle through the hole under the radiator. That coffee I have at 5:30am before the gym when my family is fast asleep in their beds and I have a few moments to just ..be.

I don’t ever ‘be’ though because my mind is elsewhere, planning for other ‘be’s which are never ‘be’s because my mind during those ‘be’s is in yet another ‘be’. What does it mean to just ‘be’?

If I were to write a diary here I would say I almost married a doctor, except I did not almost marry him, I did not entertain the thought of marrying him at all, and the man I did end up marrying, was the one I had wanted to marry since I was eleven years old. The world is old and ancient and spinning on its axis, but once every so often it catches your eye with its own rheumy ones, sighs a dreary, earthy sigh, and there. You have one of your moments to just ‘be’. It was always meant to be. The trees knew it, the mountains knew it, the tempests which curled their fingers around the waving grasses knew it.

If I were to write a diary in here today I would say that Eliza’s child gave me the most adorable hug, and kissed my cheek upon leaving my home. In the same breath she told me she was very happy to be going home as she did not want to be in my house anymore. I laughed and Eliza laughed because at three years old, the world is so very simple, and two juxtapositions can dance merrily together.

If I were to write a diary in here today I would say that I am starting to get SAD, not ‘sad’, but SAD, as the nights draw drearily closer to the mornings, as the icy winds whip and bite even though the sun shines, as the days become bitter, harsh, and turn a cold shoulder to the adventurous spirit. I would say that I don’t have enough social interaction to fill my cup, I would say that I need my house bursting with the warmth of PEOPLE, I would say that winter is a time to make warm soups and hot drinks and share food, share light bulbs, share laughter, share plants, share soil, share beds.

If I were to write a diary in here today I would say that on the 25th of November, as Midwinter hurtles towards us with terrifying speed, as the creatures of the night roam ever closer to our periphery, as the moon looms large through the spindly ebony branches of undressed trees, I would say that I am in love with the beauty of this earth, and in the same token pained severely by the morbidity of life, and content, so so content, with the fact that we all have fates and they are all scheduled for us, and that fates are not set in stone, and so one must always gather one’s scruples, tie one’s horses, speculate on one’s plan, and get up, and carry on.

Image Credit

24. Literacy

We woke up to sunshine, and when we realised the train was due in half an hour we ripped through the house, coats, shoes, scarves, hats – half on half off as we laughingly made our way to the train station. Was the front door locked? It didn’t matter, there was nothing of consequence to steal from the house anyway, unless somebody deigned to go in and usurp our residency there. They would not dare. This is the west, after all. We are civilised.

We caught our train to the city where the birds chirped the songs of robots, and the trees swayed to the tune of tram-hum. Hum drum. Our feet joining the thousands of others that battered gum-spotted pavements. The trees scattered about as an afterthought, the asphalt and cement rising around us like an enchanted concrete wood. The enchanted forest, Brenda breathed, only it was dotted with windows, sewage pipes and institutional systems.

We found the library in the end. It was nestled in between two glass towers which reflected the sun and beamed right into our eyes, distracting us, it seemed, from our literary goals. We made it, though, we always do. We made it up the ancient stone steps, the gargoyles heralding, guarding, sentinels of the treasures of the mind that lay within. We entered from light into darkness, into light again. The light of the hundreds of worlds that lay between thin leaves, that resided in the musty smell of time. The light of the voices all clamouring for attention, thousands of them, rising in unison to ensnare our minds and guide them towards the myriad of pathways to nowhere, everywhere, all the same, different.

When we left, it was dark. The sun had set. The night bore down heavily on us, too overwhelming even for the twinkling lights of the city trying its mightiest to beat away the sombre winter. Our books tucked under our arms, our laughter stilted, muffled by the bounty of knowledge we sensed we had achieved, our eyes blinking under the too-bright fluorescent lights of the train home.

This beautiful image can be credited to ClappedBEANZ on Deviant Art.

17. Whale

I watched a film recently – mind you, it did take me 3 months to watch it in its entirety, but such is life. It was called The Whale, and even though I didn’t consume it in one sitting, it was a pretty emotionally charged film to watch.

One theme that emerged was honesty. The protagonist lived his truth but in doing so caused some destruction in his path – to himself and his family.

There was one powerful scene where he gave a monologue to his students and about authenticity in writing, and how students are made to ‘rewrite and rewrite and rewrite, and be more objective, less you, with each draft.’

It struck me because lately, in scrambling each day to string something together to make a post, to write as I have promised myself, I find my fingertips reaching the bottom of the barrel. Scraping its harsh surface, bringing back nothing.

However I realised that if I allow honesty back into my writing, something real would emerge. And reality is, let’s face it, a gushing waterfall of a multitude of things that spill over each other, into each other, out of each other.

So that’s what I’ll be taking with me for the next half of November.

How can I get more honesty back into my writing. To speak from my core?

How do you insert honesty in your writing?

16. Cold

Brightest day, brightest coin, madness, light shining through a long and narrow doorway. Pictures hung askew on the walls which were stained brown but it was not cigarette smoke. She was told something about chemicals bleeding through the paint. Too much humidity in the room. All her crying, she supposed. She was awfully emotional, prone to violent outbursts, tears and fits and a quick blow of her nose and all was calm again. Peace waves washing against a no man’s land shore.

She went to different charity shops to collect paintings she liked. Muddy watercolours of forests against a backdrop of something watery. Rivers or streams, a still lake with fir trees rippling on its surface. The stunning kaleidoscope of a cloudy sunset.

Her curtains were cream and brown, picked out by her own damn self, nobody else bothered to come.

Brown floor, cold. The cold was like a harsh creature, waiting in the drafts that blew in through the old windows and any hairline cracks it could find in the house. It seeped through two layers of socks and under the three jumpers she wore and shook a long bony finger at her which made her shiver in her chair. Nothing staved off the cold.

It was the brightest day today, though. Brightest light, cracking through her narrow front door. She was just relieved somebody had come to check on her. Her bones must be brittle by now. She had gone to so many charity shops during those freezing days, as though the warmth in the paintings she hunted down could be her blanket.

She saw the door move, slam of a boot. Loud shout. They went to get help. Silly people. Just move the blankets, it will open fine. I put them there to block out the cold.

Brightest crack of sunlight right on her face, blinding her eyes, oh if only it were closer, that sun, to warm her bones. They were so very cold.

Maybe they could make her a cup of tea. That would be fine, she had been waiting long enough. Oh. There they were again. Just push the door open, lads. It’s only me blankets.

They did.

They were shouting. One of them looked frantic. Another pushed him out again. Oh it’s only me, lads!!

One stood on the threshold, pushing the door further open, brightest of bright lights behind him sucking the saturation from his body so he was a black shape against the beam. He stood for a long time, and she couldn’t see if he looked at her, but she knew.

She knew when she saw his shoulders heave, and when he strode forward and covered her unseeing eyes with a shroud.

Brightest light, snuffed out.

15. Midway

Half on and half off.

Half full, half empty.

Teeter, borderline, edge of reason. Upper limit of normal. Within range. Adequate and average, neither here nor there, halfway there.

The Terminator (read: the line that separates night and day).

The grey line, the twilight zone.

Night on one end, day on the other.

Two lights at both ends of a long tunnel.

Perpetual Twilight: Letters to Earth. Nasa Blogs.

Little Moments

This week, as is every week, was full of little moments.

I never usually stop and really take them in, I think it’s an addiction to dopamine. Fast paced life. Although life seems a lot more slower, less stressful, now that my kids are out of nursery and my job has… vamoosed. Less money… more time. Ahh, life.

Here are some little moments.

My mother sending me a selflie. A mirror selfie. Not for any other reason than to show me a beautiful dress she got for my sister’s upcoming nuptials. Her hair – always something my curly-haired self deeply admired – black and thick and framing her face. The way she held her phone in her left hand, her right index pointing at the camera button, mid-click, her pinky out. The pose of a generation allowed to grow up in the freedom of a lack of surveillance. Not used to taking pictures of oneself. It moved me in a way I can’t describe. My sweet mother. I thought. I don’t think that often. I think, my hardworking mother. I think, mother who I love.

Nettles. Long nettles as tall as my shoulder growing just beyond my back garden. Behind the trellis fences we put up because ivy had taken over the previous ones and rendered them a ruin. To keep the ivy away, we put trellises, so we can catch them the moment they start snaking up the fence posts. So now nettles have taken over, growing over and through the carpet of ivy at the back of the back neighbour’s garden, behind the huge trees they have covering their house. Well. it’s an old man’s house. He was taken ill and carted off to a nursing home last December. His garden a beautiful memory of 40 years of life and love and family. Ivy and conifers taller than the houses now, but which must have been small when he planted them with his wife – in a bygone era.

My moment was that I went into the back, pulled up all the nettles using a pair of rubber kitchen gloves under my usual gardening gloves. I picked each leaf off, while my kids watched from a safe distance. My boy ran inside to collect his scissors, and started snipping at other foliage, emulating me. My daughter pushed her babies around in a little pram, stopping by me every so often and putting a small chubby hand on my shoulder.

I picked all the nettles, we had nettle tea. A nettle rinse for our thin curls. Some nettle soup with toast.

Slowing down.

Screens off.

Rain on our faces and down our necks.

Appreciation of love.

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