One of the bamboo shoots had caught itself inside the window, blown by the storm to become part of our interior. A single snail clings to its pinnacle, swirling tentacles at an attempt to read the room.
The rest of them, the shoots – outside looking in – captured moments of sunlight on their leaves and made patterns of stripes gently swaying to demonstrate the absurdity of their being: unorganized, uncontrolled.
I don’t want to write about sadness now. About melancholia or grief, about the mysteries of a mind filled with tragedy. What is the point of trying to describe something so unfathomable and so personal? So unique and so ordinary?
The human condition is to die, to experience loss and sadness, loneliness.
And/yes it is also to live, to experience joy, beauty, connection, even in solitude and especially in times of woe.
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You used to call.
We would exchange texts of information all day long, syncing consciousness, an ally in all. Yet you always preferred a call, even at the start.
I’d have a hard time tracing your feelings as archived memories of textual information – yes, fleeting moments of I love you and other words that said the same thing – but most of the life force was spoken through your voice just for a chat to be together momentarily, calm in the chaos of life, whether that was meetings or diapers or existential questions. With you, we could talk about the horrors and injustices of the world then subsequently plan dinner and a walk in nature. We could be sarcastic, serious, unsure…all within a sentence or two.
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I take a train. The humming, even rhythms soothe the questions that linger. Erase their edges so the imaginary, the memories, become a framed picture, not the actual landscape. Some days, I try to hold onto the sharpness and itch of the wild grass. It’s as if it is disappearing in my grasp, disintegrating into the earth, up toward stardust.
The ungraspable past. Trapped in a repeated sequence. Released in a dream.
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Why do people seek the answers of poetry in tragedy yet eschew its significance in everyday life? What if we kaleidescoped our daily existence with the language of poets, in many forms beyond the printed poem — spoken, dancing prose, the movement of things?
How easy it would be to add this significance to moments and words.
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Boxes of dusty ornaments and coasters, tools and books that didn’t get shipped. Haphazardly placed in open cartons or laundry baskets, waiting for life. They come with me to this new place. They share secrets from the past. Reincarnate as some kind of home made of puzzles, invisible and visceral, a labyrinth for any entrant.
I search for the sounds, the echoes of that voice, those laughs and silliness. Uncanny silence instead beckons the imagination to create —
A welcoming.
Thanks so much for reading. I’ve been writing a lot, but it’s all quite unpolished as I navigate my new normal after my husband’s sudden death. I’m planning to do a lot more here in the next couple of months.
Soon, I’ll fill you all in about my new role as Director of the Buxton Book Festival, which starts next week. If you’re in the Peak District this July, come say hi!
That picture of you two smiling and reading that poem on Father's Day is really sweet and moving, Kate. 🥲🩵🕊️
"You used to call." Three words and the whole absence is there. can't say more, just I wish you all the best and more love