September, 2006
Today is a sad day
Today is a sad day, a little sadder than the others. I’ve become very adept at working through sadness, but not so good at expressing the anger that snaps at its heels, and it is that that I have been looking at this week. I don’t know how to express anger, and can only think of one time in my life I have been truly livid. Yet as I swallow down my grief and keep it in manageable chunks as I go about my daily life, I can feel a pressure inside that will one day need to come out – and this scares the crap out of me. I’ve always considered myself to be an emotional person, able to express how she feels at the drop of a hat, but it turns out there are things I can’t express, or perhaps won’t. It strikes me that to allow yourself to be angry you have to feel justified, to be able to honour your emotion. I don’t know why I do not think I am allowed to feel angry, as there is so much to be angry about. Anger is a very active emotion; sadness so very passive. It’s no wonder that life is a meandering path at the moment, as opposed to forging ahead like a torrent of rushing water.
I’m sure the anger will come out in its own good time. For now I am simply grateful for friendships that take me out of myself and my achy head. My weekly dates with Madeleine feel like a lighthearted version of Julia Cameron’s Artist’s Dates. We drink, eat and play, and unburden ourselves of our responsibilities and worries – something I’d recommend to all. Tonight she’s cooking me dinner, another example of a friend’s ability to look into your soul and see what’s needed. And today I need it.
Happy Birthday sweet man… beloved soul… infuriating teacher… Tonight I will drink a glass of wine for you, my love.
September, 2006
Without any apologies
This poem is very raw. It is an early draft, but more that that, it deals with how I feel this week, today, right now. I release it, just as I swallow my Nurofen, and hope the ache goes away…
Nineteen
The blood on my inner thigh
does not mean I am
bleeding to death, simply not
carrying your child, again; for
the nineteenth time I remember
that that is an impossibly
now. How many times
did I launder the sheets, poppies covering
the snow of our bed? Your desire
for me wasn’t squeamish like the other
lovers who chose to ignore my
woman status, wrinkling their noses
and turning their backs to me in bed. No,
you were hungry for me,
for my limbs, my skin,
for the secret places of my heart,
raw and exposed, beating in
your hand. You knew I was alive when
the shock of red painted the small space
between us in the morning
after a night of tender loving. You never
rushed to the shower – you would simply
reach for a cigarette, and holding the curlicues
of smoke away from my face
you would kiss me, laying your hand
against my empty womb.
For more poetic inspiration, go here. Image from Shutterstock.com
September, 2006
Compulsive poetry disorder
“In a world drowning in useless information, poetry returns us to what is meaningful. The poem acts as a pocket of air in an upturned boat.” ~ Jeanette Winterson
So if my habits of the last few weeks are anything to go by, I have developed a new addiction… to poetry. I’m reading anthologies and finding new poets, then ordering all their books and greedily devouring every word. I’m reading poetry with my morning tea and going to bed with a book of poetry in my hand. I’m currently waiting for six books of poetry to arrive from Amazon, but had to pop out today to buy yet another one from Borders. Suddenly there’s not enough time in the day – so many words to be read, so little time! I actually wrote this in my diary the other day – there are too many words and not enough time.
Does this strike anyone as a bit obsessive?
I like to think that I’m simply reconnecting with the writerly part of me and this is part of the compost I’ve been preparing for the uber-productive book writing period that’s going to happen a n y m o m e n t n o w. I think I read somewhere that Jeanette Winterson only reads poetry when she writes her books, that they provide her with bowlfuls of nourishment. I believe she said that “poems are writing DNA.” (I can’t find either of these cuttings so I could be wrong, but somehow, I don’t think I am. It sounds exactly like something she’d say.)
As I read my book in Borders I had an overwhelming urge to lay the book on the floor, stand on the chair and literally dive into the book. I want to cover my bed with poems and writhe around naked on them.
I think I need to get out more…
For more deep breaths, go here. Image from Shutterstock.com
September, 2006
Sunday Scribblings: Instructions
After my love died, I stayed with my sister for a few days, letting her look after me. I remember the first morning she went back to work and I was on my own in her house. I sat at her computer and typed the word ‘grief’ into Google. I was sufficiently in a state of shock to be able to disassociate myself from what had happened and became the observer. I wanted to know what I was dealing with – what were the symptoms of my impending illness, and how could I cure it? I ordered about ten books on grief from Amazon that day, and sat reading the on-line definitions of the stages of grief.
Denial ~ Anger ~ Bargaining ~ Depression ~ Acceptance
These five words seem so inadequate considering what I know now. Looking on Wikipedia just now, I found the following redefinition:
Shock and numbness ~ Yearning and searching ~ Disorganization and despair ~ Reorganization
I remember asking my bereavement counselor how long it would take me to ‘get better’, to not cry on the bus, or need to drink a bottle of wine to be able to get to sleep. She said for some people it might take six months, while others may never ‘get over it’. Thinking about it, I’m grateful for her honesty. Some days I experienced all of the stages of grief in one go – other days I felt nothing, a complete void.
All and none of the books I bought over the first months were useful. The frequently detached tone in the author’s words didn’t touch me, didn’t reassure me, such clinical or logical explanations barely scraping the surface of how I felt. Often I found more comfort in novels. However, the two books I returned to again and again were Virginia Ironside’s You’ll Get Over It: The Rage of Bereavement, and Stephanie Ericsson’s Companion Through the Darkness. The latter became my dog-eared, tear-soaked instruction manual. The author’s husband died of a heart attack when she was pregnant with their first child and the book is a collection of her essays and diary writings. Reading this book I learnt that I wasn’t mad to spend all night staring into space and all day crying. I wasn’t mad to not want to talk to another soul for weeks on end, and to beat myself up with survivor’s guilt. As she voiced her anger, her inertia, her despair, I knew I was not alone, I knew someone else had felt what I felt, and that they had survived. Her words were a map I could follow - consolation when I needed it, validation at other times. I keep this book beside my bed even now.
It doesn’t surprise me that a book helped to heal me. One day I will write a letter to Stephanie Ericsson and thank her for sharing her story – and for inspiring me to share my own.
For more Sunday Scribblings, go here. Image from Shutterstock.com.
