Leaving behind the life we used to have

 Today it's Halloween, and All Souls Day, Samhain - the day to remember the dead.

It's been raining most of the day - not photograph weather so these are some taken at the end of October over the years.

 Above  -  Montacute House, Somerset 2009

Boston 2010

Madeira 2011

Birthday cake for me and 

 

Robin's squashes 2012

Exeter sunset 2013

Boston ivy and

tart tatin , Exeter 2014

Homemade raw chocolates 2015

After Robin  - University Parks  2016

2017 Exmouth beach

 2018 'My' sheep and the plane tree in the field at the end of my garden. 

 This morning in Exeter in between showers.

Now it's past midnight. I was invited out for a curry supper and the movies - a lovely treat - even though I don't usually go out after dark in the winter months...and it does feel like winter now.

It was odd driving past the turning to our old house, leaving behind the bright lights of Exeter, the streets full of groups of shouting young people, celebrating Halloween, some of them waving drunkenly, dangerously across the road.

 I  head out into the dark narrow lanes leading to my village, swooshing through  deep puddles, the yellow autumn leaves swirling across the wet tarmac like chips of gold shining in the headlights....glad to be going home to the deserted streets and peacefulness of my ordinary country life. 

Leaving behind the life we used to have in the city...easier to visit it now...easier to leave it where it belongs...in my memory.

"So like children we begin again..."

It haunts me all day....while I sit in the dentist's chair, my nose and lip stinging, numb,

while I walk around the cavern of a tile showroom which shimmers, glows with colours of earth and sea, rock and glass....

while I eat soup in my kitchen, the lights on at 2.30pm against a glowering sky, rain slashing the windows....

the bad news. A friend's mysterious illness - diagnosed  by the doctors - cancer -  terminal.

But she won't give up yet....will still seek all and other treatment.

My heart hurts for her, her husband, her family.

I've been reading some excerpts from Rainer Maria Rilke's Book of Hours ...reminded about him from reading  Suzi Crockford's wonderful blog. This one has stayed with me...helping me take in  the bad news.

“If we surrendered
to earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.

Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.

So like children, we begin again...

to fall,
patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly.” 
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

Autumn and the Loss of the Anvil

 Late October - autumn in my garden this afternoon.

Leaves of rust, berries, late blooms. A constant robin and crow.

This afternoon, as she lays her hands between my shoulder blades, lovely therapist asks,

And what is your main loss?

Of course it's Robin

 but more than the whole of him

 it's the loss of the anvil

 of relationship, 

the opportunity 

to spark growth,

and change,

and self discovery 

in the friction, 

in the fire

in the mirror

of

the beloved other.

Kissing the cold glass

of a framed photograph

 creates

only

sadness

and 

longing.

I still have bricks and mortar.

A young friend comes to tea on Saturday.

He brings chocolate raspberry brownies and sweet kindness in his good wishes for me.

Sunday I bake a feta cheese, courgette, tomato,  spring onion and rosemary frittata  and make a sweet red pepper sauce to go with it. I take it along with an apple/orange tart tatin for lunch with my sister's family. 

As my sore knee stops me playing football with my great-nephew in the garden,  I sit on a bench in unexpected warm sun shine and watch the game...  so lovely to hear him and my nephew laughing. At half time we have tea and the left over chocolate raspberry brownies.

Later we join the half term Sunday crowds swarming along the promenade and playing on the beach at Lyme Regis for slow walking, sandcastle building and ice cream cones. And then back for Harry Potter on the TV and baked beans and eggs on toast for supper.

Today 

I feel disoriented since the clocks went back yesterday...the hours seem longer.

And the temperature drops dramatically.  There's ice on the car windscreen this morning.

The warmest place is the kitchen -  especially this evening with the oven on - I roast a pan of  parsnips, purple carrots and white onions and make a spicy vegetable medley for supper. But I still have to keep defrosting my fingers in hot water so I can type.

I keep thinking about the book I'm reading at the moment, gift from a dear friend,The Salt Path by Raynor Winn.

She and her husband become homeless and penniless, and he is diagnosed with a terminal illness but they walk the South West Coastal path with nothing but a tent and packs on their backs.

It makes me feel so grateful for the house - however cold and  uncomfortable it is - however much I'm dreading the winter and all the building work ahead -  however temporary  - I still have bricks and mortar  and the protection that Robin left me with. 

I still have choices.

I may not have this beautiful humming bird wallpaper ( that I spotted in a furniture shop) in my new home but at least I can contemplate the possibility of it. And I do love it. Something lovely to think about instead of the  house being bashed about, a digger in the drive and the  prospect of bricks and mortar piling up in heaps in the swimming pool and ice on the ground.

...they just stand there shining.

Super tired tonight.... there is a wild wind battering the trees...

long day ....good day ... but no gaps...

I interview interesting builders...promising.

Dear friend guides me through the possibilities of my new bathroom and kitchen plans. We visit  many tile showrooms till we lose the will to live and restore ourselves with  late lunch..the sun going down... ...fab pizzas at Franco Manca in Exeter.

I'm not sure what these sea birds are...I photographed them on a beach in Cornwall...near Lamorna...in May 2014 when I was having a respite break....my sister looking after Robin....so I didn't break with all the strain and pain if it all.

And I read these words tonight by Anne Lamott ....they somehow encourage me to stay true to myself...my intuition to be still....to make a contribution by BEING  something not always DOING something.

Light houses don't go running all over an island looking for boats to save ; they just stand there shining.