Rose Petal Ritual

Saturday 

I wake early after a hot restless night

with a longing for the ocean,

and drive to the place where the estuary flows into the sea at Budleigh Salterton.

The last time I threw wild  flowers into the sea for Robin was in Portugal on his birthday .

That time the waves swallowed them up so fast and I lost sight of them in seconds. 

This time my gold and amber rose petals falter in the shallow water on the river's edge,

and linger round smooth pebbles before a current catches some of them

and they drift towards the bigger rougher sea.

There was another time, in the winter time, when I did this same ritual in exactly this same place....standing with my father and my sister....throwing dried red rose petals into this estuary .....honouring and remembering my cousin who died when he was even younger than Robin.

Although you aren't supposed to take them away, I choose some lovely pebbles that I think Robin would like -  speckled, veined, polished ovals and hearts -  and I fill my small rucksack, 

bring them to his grave,

 scattering the rest of the rose petals over him,

light and soft as ashes.

His Life Lived In Ink and My Own Heart

In Robin's office on the top floor of the house.  On the mantelpiece above the fireplace is his portrait by Rachel Jamieson, Robin as a baby, a collage of our visit to  New Zealand in 2014....Mount Cook in the background.

 He kept everything neat and tidy, in order and organised.  And now it's such a mess as I have started to sort and clear it. I've taken everything out of the drawers and cupboards. Each paper clip, each photograph, each cheque book stub, each CD with his handwriting on it....I need to make a decision about.

 And I haven't gone anywhere near all his diaries and notes and innermost thoughts and insights and angst and his personality, his humour on paper, in box files.... his life lived and written in ink. I keep thinking he won't write anything ever again.

Today I armour myself with resolution to be gentle. I stay with the easy stuff.... fill black plastic bags with reams of bank statements and old receipts, and account ledgers. The figures on the pages reflecting all the effort of his work, his commitment, his care and his promise to look after me. I'm drenched in gratitude ....

And

 when I feel wrapped too tightly

 in the memory of him, 

in the ending of him,

 all his things surrounding me

 on the carpet,

 on the desk,

 on the walls,

 I go downstairs into the garden,

 where the patio stones are still warm

 under my bare feet

and I sit with a glass of cold wine

and listen 

to the evening 

settling down

on the grass

and the leaves

and the petals 

of the begonias.

And hear 

my own heart

thrumming.

In Their Absence

My Uncle writes from Canada that his father's house in South Africa has burnt down in the Knysna fires.

The house on the Lagoon holding our family holiday memories.

The photos of that time - the 1960s -  are all in black and white.

But I remember it in surround-a-sound techni-colour.

The deep blue Jeyes Fluid in the bucket to clean the non-flushing loo.

The perfume of the waxy frangipani bushes in the garden.

The racket of the cicadas as we walked down the path to the edge of the lagoon,

where the little rowing boat was moored.

 The whole hot day, the whole sunburnt summer ahead, waiting to be explored.

And my grandfather sitting at the head of the table with a white starched napkin tucked under his chin, smiling his lopsided smile as he peeled a very ripe banana.

You can't burn down the memory of happiness.

Pelargoniums I planted in a pot close to the patio door which I see every day. In memory of my mother who loved them.

The salad I made tonight to take to my mediation group supper. Broad beans, french beans, radishes, carrots,  courgettes, garlic, parsley and fennel. Everything Robin grew on the allotment. In memory of his love for the earth.  And for me.

The new potato, asparagus, sun-dried tomato, olive and chive salad I also made tonight and served in the blue, white and green flowered bowl I bought for my father, which has come back to me, which lives on the kitchen counter and which I see every day, which reminds me of him and his passion for the "green revolution".

Love is a bowl of cherries....

In the chapter of her book, 'Grief Works', about what we need to do to help us grieve, Julia Samuel writes that....

 We have seen in case studies that the relationship with the person who has died continues, although in a radically altered form.

They are loved in absence rather than in presence. Some people may need to do this a great deal, others only occasionally or on special days like anniversaries. A central pillar in the support of our system is  finding ways to externalise that relationship.

e.g. wearing something that connects to them - like an article of their clothing.

eg visiting their grave.

e.g. creating a memory box of special objects.

 eg. writing to them in a journal.

e.g. cooking their favourite recipe

Finding an external expression for the continuation of the relationship, through regular rituals has been shown to reduce negative emotions and increase positive ones.

Over time the regularity of these rituals may decrease.

 Reading this, I realise that the ritual of making meals - even if it's just for me -  using fresh and alive ingredients, is one of the ways I connect to Robin.....and actually all the people I love who have died.

In their absence keeping them...and me... alive in the present.

 Without the poison of my regrets.

Death by Neglect

Driving east towards the dentist

I am trapped in the hot capsule of my car.

The sun 

a magnifying glass through the windscreen 

burns my leg

inside the material of my jeans.

It reddens the skin on my arm

already  stained 

with raised spots of

solar keratoses.

Only sun damage.

Not death

 by fire

by searing flames

by chemical smoke

by someone's

neglect.

And 

greed.

Someone who did not live alongside

 the 600 people -

man

woman

child -

inside

that tall

 unprotected

 box in the sky 

 they called

 home.

 Now a black

smoking

skeleton,

 water hosed

 down 

and out.

A careless capsule

 of

death.

An  agony

 of

outrage

 for

those 

left 

alive.

And damaged.

Every Small and Sweet Thing

Pink elderflower cordial I made from the lace cap flower heads, dew wet with rain, that I picked in my nephew's garden on Sunday....remembering the 12 litre bottles of it - rosy nectar - that I took to my niece's wedding nearly two years ago. That batch was made from the elder tree on the allotment.

Will it always be like this ....everything ...every small and sweet thing.... hooking me back to that other life I had with Robin?

The remembering is good. It's the remorse and what ifs? that I hurt myself with that aren't good.

Today I wondered if, like any habit, I could stop it.....notice when I was going too deep into the wound...and do something  radically different .....think kinder thoughts....not exactly ignore the elephant in the room but take it gently by the trunk and feed it fresh grass.

The salad I couldn't eat tonight easily as earlier on I broke a tooth on a piece of yesterday's stale focaccia bread I was nibbling, soft but chewy. I felt something come away, sharp against my tongue -  I thought it was a chip,  a tiny piece of enamel. But I was horrified to find it was my whole tooth sheared off, rough and decayed, at the level of the gum in my lower jaw, the root still intact but leaving a gaping hole. And it's such a big hole as I'm one short of a tooth on that side anyway.

 Up till now I've kept all my teeth even though some of them are heavily filled.  I expect to find them there. Suddenly there is this raw empty space where once there was certainty and strength I thought I could rely on....with the help of the dentist. Now it's gone - that particular tooth with it's own particular history, that I've taken for granted all my life. 

Leaving me surprisingly bereft.

An Old Comfy Cardigan

Freshly dug garlic bulbs hanging up to dry in my sister's poly-tunnel today.

 I took my friend who is staying with me to visit her.  We share an African history. She and her family lived in the same road as mine in Lusaka, Zambia, when I was a schoolgirl. I used to brave the gauntlet of the dogs barking in our neighbour gardens to go and play with her in the long hot afternoons. Our mothers were friends. She now lives in Harare in Zimbabwe.

For the last two days I have been immersed in another dimension laced with memories of our past and filled out with the details - the  stories and the changes  - of our more recent lives.

Tonight I cooked supper  for us of grilled asparagus and boiled eggs, butter drenched Jersey Royal new potatoes and a deep bowl of sliced  fried green garlic - a whole bulb - and a mush of cherry tomatoes coated in fresh feathery dill.

We ate it outside on the patio, next to the red geraniums, till a duvet of cloud smothered the sun and it turned chilly in the shade.

It's only the second time I have had a visitor staying in the house since Robin died. I realise how I have grown used to living on my own, got used to my own routines especially at the beginning and end of the day.... like wrapping an old comfy cardigan round myself.....and however much I love them and their company, which I do, it takes some digging deep into my reserves to accommodate and include the whole breathing soul of an other into the cocoon of my newly single space.

A tray of Smoked Garlic at the Exeter Food Festival a few weeks ago. 

Toe Dipping and Red Geraniums

I miss writing.

 I miss writing this blog. I miss you witnessing my life as I write it.  I never find it easy to write. I notice that watching TV late at night to escape - currently Law and Order Uk -  instead of writing this blog, is good escapism but the next day I have no words to mark my hours spent. All those thoughts and feelings I had are lost and un-remembered. Which may not be a bad thing -  like the washing up, thoughts and feelings can be never-ending. And demanding. And in constant flux. 

Tthere is also a bit of So what? in the mix. Maybe there are already too many words in the  world.

 The art is to choose which ones say it best.

But when you ask me,

How are you? How are you doing?

and you seem to want to know -  which makes me feel so very loved -  I don't know what to say. 

Because I feel different every moment of every hour of every day and night - a clashing pendulum of  misery, hope, despair, pleasure. And making decisions has never been my strong suit. So to help me to answer your question -  and to tell it to myself -  and practice choosing - I thought the best place would be here - in this blog.

Choosing today to dip my toes back in the writing water, tentatively,  to test my courage temperature.

This morning I planted geraniums -  their scarlet ball heads holding hot memories of early summer in this garden, memories of a different variety - pink starlets -  cascading over balconies in every small French town we ever drove through - during all those late summer holidays. And I felt nostalgic.

 I thought about what does it mean for us - the confusion of this hung parliament?  Of course I voted yesterday - for the Suffragettes -  but I feel distant, disconnected  from the whole mechanism of government and politics. Which don't represent me. Although I'm grateful someone is doing the impossible job of PM. If it was mine I would pour all the money into parenting  classes - fierce loving and guidance and support for parents and children....teaching self love from the first breath.

 I thought about the terrible fires, claiming lives and livelihoods, in South Africa in the Knysna area where my grandparents lived. Knysna which holds all my childhood holiday memories of sizzling heat and giant curling waves and white sand beaches. And sweet watermelon and yellow peaches. And I felt sad for all those peoples' loss and pain.

And I thought about Robin  - which I do nearly all the time. Wearing his old blue gardening T-shirt. He would have dug out the wormy compost from the bin and filled the wheelbarrow for me so that I could plant my red geraniums in their terracotta pots on the patio. So that I wouldn't strain my back ...like I did today.

Then I remember that senario was a long a time ago. In the last year he couldn't lift a spoon let alone a spade full of compost. And then I feel bereft all over again. Digging and planting the garden without him. Even when he couldn't do it he would look at all my hard work and say,

You're wonderful.

I didn't believe him then. I wish I had. I could believe him now.... but the pendulum has swung again and I only feel the cold wind of his absence pulling me away from the sunlight of his smile and dropping me into the dungeon of my own shame and regret....where self love is hard to find me.