A Goodness out of The Robin Years

I'm feeling sad writing this as it's my last blog. As trishcookingcurrie anyway. It's time to stop after nearly ten years.

Not just take a break as I have done many times and returned. 

But I have a reason. Instead of going on with it I'm going back inside it.

Up to now I haven't been able to re-read it - re-visit what I wrote and felt.. ...before Robin's diagnosis ...then living with him and his illness and the impact on us... and then afterwards ...living without him.  Of course I remember it all -  and have added guilt and regret -  but I haven't really let myself know what happened...and I've kept blogging to try and make sense of my life now.

But now I feel that until I really know what happened - and it's all there in my blog in black and white and colour -  and let it enter me  -  the truth and reality of it  - I can't move on with my life. I keep trying to ...changing my house, my home...searching for a place to rest, a person to become, but I'm still stalked by loss and trauma.

Several people, including my father, over the years have suggested that I turn the blog into a book. One which might help other people who have been or are still going through something similar to what I did - caring for Robin through the years of a terminal illness. 

I have always rejected the idea.  There is just too much of it.Thousands of words to edit. And a book? Me?  I'm just not good enough. 

But recently, and thanks to kind and supportive encouragement, I'm beginning to entertain the idea as a possibility. And without any idea about how.

Even if it doesn't get as far as that  - as publishing - I want to do it not only if it could help someone else but because it could help me. To go back deep into that time...to mourn ....to heal ...through the process of reading and editing and  re-writing ...  and to create a goodness out of The Robin Years.

And then let it be.

So I have booked flights to Portugal in March. To my timeshare apartment in the Algarve where I can retreat and immerse myself in this blog ...go back to the beginning ....

and just let myself unravel into whatever arises.

And trust in the goodness.

Blogging and Gardening and William Blake's Formula

I want to write but not sure what to say or rather feel I've lost the knack of how to say it....especially when I feel flat or sad or uninspired or tired of everything and myself...like now.

Does this count as writer's block I wonder... not really solved by eating another wedge of lovely  crusty rye bread- a gift from my my niece at the weekend -  slathered in cold butter.

I've been thinking about it on and off today...this blog...why I'm still doing it...who is it for....what needs to change if I continue...it started out in another lifetime - 10 years ago...originally inspired by my poet niece... to become better at something creative you need to practice it....even a few words a day...but not sure that's what it is  about any more.

These are my words and photos  today...for better or worse....

while I have been 

gardening and 

taking advantage of a glorious warm blue day - even hanging out the sheets on the line to dry.

I re-pot the two white hellebores I bought at Christmas, sweep up heaps of dry leaves with my hands in thick gloves, prune back the hydrangea, the lilac, the roses, weed the daffodil and allium pots, and manage to lose my secateurs. I "lose" my secateurs many times during a gardening session and I always find them again on a stone or a wall or abandoned in the foliage where I've been working.

Not this time. I'm  afraid I've thrown them away by mistake, dropped in the brown compost bin along with the dead leaves.

 A celandine for B. I found lots of them growing around the LPG tank in the front garden whereas there are none by the stream where I'd expect to see them.

And the first crocus is blooming in the front garden along with 

a wonderful display of snowdrops crowning the Devon bank which marks the border 

between my garden 

and the road. Today it was busy with tractors trundling up and down,

their trailers piled to the brim with muck for spreading on the fields.

All day I've been accompanied by the sound of the stream rushing and bubbling along,

 and the birds - the tap-tapping of a woodpecker across the field which I can't see, the calls of  buzzards and rooks,

the constant sparrows chattering 

and the rampaging starlings. 

I don't come to any conclusion about the blog while I'm gardening but I've been thinking about a quote  that I read on Robert Holden's blog from the mystic visionary and artist William Blake about his formula for living a creative life.

Think in the morning

Act in the noon.

Eat in the evening.

Sleep in the night.

It sounds ideal although I imagine he had someone to do his washing and shopping and cooking and cleaning so he had more time for creating.

I like the sleeping in the night concept and realise that's why I'm struggling with the blog. I write it late late late at night ...eating into my sleeping time. It's nearly midnight now.

Something I could change...not what to write but when to write it....which would mean changing a very ingrained habit...

One of Blake's paintings.

He also wrote,

"I'm not  ashamed, afraid or averse to tell you what Ought to be Told: that I am under the direction of Messengers from Heaven, Daily and Nightly."

I think I need help too from the angels about this one.

This is the closest I came to heaven yesterday afternoon - driving back from Tiverton along muddy country lanes - the sun breaking through the clouds... making me catch my breath and stop the car ...a moment of glorious angel light.