I look at my blog this evening and I think - Kate, what are you trying to say? That you live in a comical cheerful yellow world? That everything is light and easy and daft. Hello, what? What bloody nonsense is this?
Well of course I don't. None of us live in our blog worlds do we - most of us live in mundane reality. Blogging is merely a projection of ourselves - an image we can tinker with - airbrush and edit -
My reality is a fair bit dimmer and darker. It has great bits, sure, full of kids, family and friends. There's work, there's chatter. And then there's great long spells like now - spent in a chair in the kitchen, silent, alone and trying to figure it all out. Trying to reconfigure my life.
My man's gone. I'm facing imminent redundancy. I have a lot of stamina but no energy anymore, am generally easily baffled and confused - and I have 3 kids. Who need me. To be strong and ever present.
I've divorced, I've moved - set up a new home from scratch. Found a change of career and full time work after 13 years at home. Found Rob, lost him. All in three years.
I can't keep going I think. I know. It's time to stop.
Then I see my eldest son, who lives with his dad mostly, has sent me this poem. Which he's come across at school and he likes.
It comes out of the blue in an email.
And I remember my reasons to be.
And I send a copy to my own ever present and beloved mum.
And I press on.
(It is Untitled):
Mother, any distance greater than a single span
requires a second pair of hands.
You come to help me measure windows, pelmets, doors,
the acres of the walls, the prairies of the floors.
You at the zero-end, me with the spool of tape, recording
length, reporting metres, centimetres back to base, then leaving
up the stairs, the line still feeding out, unreeling
years between us. Anchor. Kite.
I space-walk through the empty bedrooms, climb
the ladder to the loft, to breaking point, where something
has to give;
two floors below your fingertips still pinch
the last one-hundredth of an inch...I reach
towards a hatch that opens on an endless sky
to fall or fly.
Simon Armitage
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16 comments:
Oh Kate how glad I am to see you and for heaven's sake, you're going thru so much and actually writing about it and sharing your life without being mauldlin about it all...everything will work out for you because I think you have it in you to look past the gloom and go straight for the gusto! Your son's poem was brillient, just what you needed...I think he felt in his soul that yours needed lifting...hugs to you my friend, see you again soon
Sandi
Shoot Kate, it's me again and I am such a dolt, it dawned on me after I went back and caught up on all you're going thru that ROB had told the boy he was needed by you...yes, I'm quite sure. I wish I could give you a hug, I feel you need it. So, I'm hugging you with my heart, hope it helps
Sandi (again)
Excuse me, I do not go by 'the boy', I have a name.. Tom. And actually no, I felt I should send the poem as a means of contact as I dont see Mum much and studying it reminded me of her, that is all, and hi mum, this is a fairly haunting post but evidently true nevertheless, Im about to email you aswell, check it x
So sorry Tom, I didn't mean a thing disrespectful to you. Your poem is a beautiful tribute to your mother I hope that you will forgive me for any offense you felt. I certainly did not mean it. You're a great comfort to your Mother at a time when she desperately needs it. You are to be congratulated, but believe me when I say that the spiritual world is a marvelous place, one that touches each of us in different ways. Again, Tom please forgive me for any ill will you felt. I certainly did not intend it.
Sandi
Thank you for your sweetness Sandi.
Big Hugs to you Blog Friend. And I hope you're OK. How are you? And Mac?
I'll come and see you soon to find out.
Thanks for understanding...
Blogging - I'm thinking right now - is about having a voice and having friends that hear you. It is a tool for good... X
Hello Tom :-)
Tall independent young man I'm so proud of.
Family and friends keep us afloat. They do. Even when we're miserable and moody and self-pitying like I am now. They help us to get over it. And then we help them back...
Smiles.
Love. Always. Mum X
Hot tea and a cosy jumper to you.
xx
Cheers Kev! ;-)
I'm sorry I wrote such a sorrowful post.
:-(
And thank you all for hearing me.
I learned something through this. Thanks.
Today we heard we are all redundant after Christmas. Place of work sold and the land'll be used differently.
Well, actually, it's a relief to know facts and not shiver in the dark anymore.
So:
It's time to sharpen my tools, rev up the van and get back into being a self-employed gardener. Maybe some of my colleagues will come along too..!
But first - a rest over winter and time taken to get over this bloody awful year.
(And I'm putting up a new post shortly as inspiration)
(It may not be yellow, it maybe mustard-coloured instead. But it'll be Positive.)
:-)
I do so like and admire your fighting spirit, Kate! The fact that you only blog when you know you can say something positive, is so heartening - and such a relief, to be honest, after all the 'misery memoirs' one so often sees in blogland.
I loved the fact, too, that your son paid you that beautiful public tribute - and then appeared, himself, to defend his position...
When I was writing Ibeatrice, my daughter and my sons were among my most faithful readers - and the fact that they seemed to have liked what I was doing meant more to me than almost anything else. I had so feared, you see, that, being so clever, and so very much a part of a different generation, they would have hated it!
I think of you often - but like you, I seldom write unless I have something positive, and somehow life-enhancing, to say.
My very very good wishes to you. I do not believe that someone like you will be laid low by life for very long...
That is a very wise comment here Bea. Thank you so much.
:-)
I think of you too. Reading your novel on Blogger as you wrote it chapter by chapter, giving feedback and always being answered and included in the circle of listeners was a joy frankly.
It was a new experience of storytelling for me - and I still miss visiting your page to find out the all important - what had happened next!
However, meeting you in real life and enjoying the trip around Ham House was even better.
I have to wake the kids and drive over to work now - to enjoy the last few weeks there. Morale has improved significantly simply because we now know the truth.
Tom is my first son, almost an adult now and I love him very much.
You and Sandi both know that.
Friends. What would life be without friends...
Kate X
I should have added in my earlier comment, by the way, that I loved your reference to the jolly comical yellow world in which it must appear you live (I think I've got that right).
I'd love to be able to think that you still went there now and then .... And knowing you, I'm sure you do.
It's where I see you coming out again, anyway, in some happier future time. Knee-deep, shoulder-high (well, over head and ears in fact) in sunflowers!
Thinking of you. GillX
I'm working on it. A person as well intentioned and frankly as cheerfully clumsy as me is bound to pop up somewhere good eventually. It stands to reason...
Smiles
Thanks Gill X
I think you are every kind of amazing.
No wonder Rob fell hard for you.
Keep going, Kate. Keep going.
xx
oh my dear. you can keep going. just go a little more slowly. your grief....i know....must be immeasurable. and i am so sorry. i do love reading you, happy or sad.
Kate - have only just found this post. I'm glad you also share the down moments in your life - it does help to share - even if it's just on the screen- it's better out than in.
As your readers we can choose whether we share your sad times or creep away and come back for the more upbeat postings.
I didn't realise you're facing redundancy - 'life is a beech' sometimes . . . . just going to return to your blog to read your latest ofering . .
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