Katsu

 

He was the cat I didn't want. Tiny kitten, eyes as big as saucers, staring at the camera with a distrustful, not to be touched air about him. But he came as a pair, bonded to his bigger, more vocal brother and his rescuer felt they needed each other.  They were feral cats, born in the pig bays of a farm. Sick for a time, lucky to have survived. Extraordinary, the farmer's wife said, what a battle it was to get him to take the antibiotics when the others didn't bat an eyelid and just accepted it. Suddenly I recognised that fierce independence as a self-reliant protection.

It took time and patience. Hours of quiet waiting until he crept out from his hiding places when hunger, curiosity and playfulness got the better of him. He would join his brother in leaping around the furniture, making inquisitive darts past us humans trying to make up their minds - friend or foe? His brother trusted first and then slowly, as his sense of safety grew, he began to inch closer. I learned not to reach out when he approached as his flight reflex would kick in and he would be gone - hours of  building trust undone. Until one day, trembling and tentative, he crept onto my lap, circled around a few times and then hunkered down. I held my breath and slowly let it out as the quiet warm weight of him settled against me.

I can't really explain the connection. I knew almost instinctively he wasn't okay when he slipped in from the garden one evening and onto the chair in the kitchen where I was making dinner. Days of worry followed and I felt his suffering in my bones. He would have been in a lot of pain, the vet said, after they diagnosed an intussuception of his bowel that required major surgery. In all the prodding and poking and medical interventions to save his life over the course of that week, he never made a sound but for a deep purring as I whispered to him over and over that he was safe, he was safe. 

He was snow falling softly. A quiet presence blanketing a winter landscape. The only sound he ever really made was a little chirrup in unexpected moments when he came across me suddenly or I reached out to stroke him when he tip-toed up with his little arched-back. It was a sweet sound, like a little bubble of joy. At night, nestled beside me, I would feel a little paw reach out gently to touch my arm, my face - a reassurance for both of us. I didn't know how much I needed him. Seeing him and his brother together gave me a feeling of wholeness and completeness that healed a part of me I didn't know was broken. Katsu himself eased a loneliness that had been gnawing at me for years. 

This missing - it's familiar - I've been here before. I will settle into again even though I don't want it. Like a timid, distrustful cat, I will circle it awhile before finally giving in. But this time, I will keep the door of my heart unlocked to honour a little "rare blue-eyed" ginger kitten who wasn't supposed to make it but did long enough to nudge it open. 
 

Dream-peace

"They talked together late that night, and though always they came back to the bitter matter of what lay before Ged, yet their pleasure in being together overrode all; for the love between them was strong and steadfast, unshaken by time or chance. In the morning Ged woke beneath his friend's roof, and while he was still drowsy he felt such well-being as if he were in some place wholly defended from evil and harm. All day long a little of this dream-peace clung to his thoughts, and he took it, not as a good omen, but as a gift. It seemed likely to him that leaving this house he would leave the last haven he was to know, and so while the short dream lasted he would be happy in it."

from "Wizard of Earthsea" by Ursula K. Le Guin

What are we now

Tigers

What are we now but voices
who promise each other a life
neither one can deliver
not for lack of wanting
but wanting won’t make it so
We cling to a vine
at the cliff’s edge.
There are tigers above
and below. Let us love
one another and let go.

 by Eliza Griswold

Ten simple lines tell the story of what we are now. This is us - clinging to a vine at the cliff's edge, tigers above and below. You holding me in this moment feels like all I've ever missed, wanted or needed. But it's no place to live - on the edge of peril, swinging precariously in mid air with our hearts in our throats. Loving you is the easy part, not even a choice but as necessary to my life as breathing - loving you is not something I can undo, not now, not ever. So I wonder about the letting go - what it might mean. What if we let go together? What if we chose to fall into the unknown? What would that hold for us - certain death maybe or perhaps the tigers are imagined or can be tamed, perhaps we could survive them? Or do we let go of each other, climb back up into our separate lives and face the tigers we know? Or maybe in the letting go, just one of us falls and the other climbs back or stays swinging on the vine. There's a loneliness in that that scares me more than the tigers.

Letter - Part Two

Do I honestly think I made a mistake?

I honestly don't know. Some days I believe I did, other days I believe a different version of the truth.
You said it was your stupidity - that you pushed me away. But at the time you had your reasons, I didn't try hard enough to understand and I didn't fight to stay. I just got lost in the hurt. Later when you tried to make it right between us, when you braved honesty and asked if we could start over again - I was the one who pushed you away. I had my reasons then too but now, all these years later I don't think they were good ones. I was worn out from the pain of always missing you, tired of being alone and couldn't see the way forward for us to be together in the future. I lost faith in the distance between us disappearing and gave way to doubts about whether or not we were right for each other.

I fell easily for someone else's words and promises in the here and now - that lent even more weight to my doubts. In the end I chose simple and uncomplicated over heartache and uncertainty. At least that's what I thought - turns out I was wrong about that too. I won't detail the wrongs in my marriage here, you know a little from what I've told you but telling it all feels disloyal somehow. And maybe it's no more or less than most relationships struggle with.

There has been good in the choices I made, not just good but wonderful too - I can't deny that although I'm finding it hard to hold on to those memories right now.  But in the back of my mind is always the thought "If this was absolutely the right choice then why are you always thinking of someone else, why can't you leave them behind in the past?" The pain of missing you has never gone away, I have always felt alone on some level and wondered if you felt that too.

My head tells me I should let you go, that a future with you is just a mirage - a fairy-tale in a book that can never be real. It tells me I should make the most of what I have, focus on the present and not give up on the promises I made but work to keep them. The grass is only greener where you water it...

But what if you're the only one doing the watering?

Summer's skeleton

"Toward the end of August I begin to dream about fall, how
this place will empty of people, the air will get cold and
leaves begin to turn. Everything will quiet down, everything
will become a skeleton of its summer self. Toward

the end of August I get nostalgic for what’s to come, for
that quiet time, time alone, peace and stillness, calm, all
those things the summer doesn’t have. The woodshed is
already full, the kindling’s in, the last of the garden soon

will be harvested, and then there will be nothing left to do
but watch fall play itself out, the earth freeze, winter come."

by David Budbill

For the first time in a long time it's quiet, i'm alone and i can feel what i feel. 
I miss you.
It's as simple and as complicated as that.

Letter: Part One

I promised you a letter but I can't promise it won't be chaos. I don't have the answers to the questions you asked, no certainties except how I feel about you. I don't know how to make the fairy tale real and like you, I'm scared of destroying it in the process. This is all I know:

At the airport, waiting for our luggage and knowing that you were waiting on the other side not so far away, I could hardly breathe. I felt like there were hundreds of wild winged creatures flying around inside me. But as soon as I saw you it all went calm, I knew it would be alright.

Just being near you, sitting beside you, even in silence I felt at peace. I was happy - the kind of happy that doesn't depend on circumstance but just thinks "I'm here with you - nothing else matters." You asked me what I was thinking and I told you I was imagining an alternate reality but in truth I was imagining us there in that moment abandoning all pretence. What it would be like to hold your hand, put my arms around you, kiss away your tears. What it would be like to fall asleep beside you without the ache of knowing that the day after, or the day after that, one of us would have to leave again.

Then there's the actual reality - that in this moment we aren't free to be together and what keeps us apart matters too. In time maybe they will matter less, or we'll find a way to make it all work... there are no guarantees. All I do know is that I hope that I can find the courage and the strength to follow my heart when a crossroad appears. I didn't the first time around - I don't want to make the same mistake again.

Heading home

Wild Geese

"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things."

by Mary Oliver

 Wild thoughts in my head are still trying to settle themselves into words. But this poem says something of what I feel. How I ache to love what I love, let go of what weighs me down and be free. I've searched for home my whole life and grown tired of trying to make myself stay in places that aren't. Something in me knows where I'm heading, it's moving me across landscapes and I know I will end up where I'm meant to be. There's a kind of peace in that for me; trusting in the natural order of things, how one season leads into another and soon the wild geese are heading home again. 

The road between us

No Road by Philip Larkin

"Since we agreed to let the road between us
Fall to disuse,
And bricked our gates up, planted trees to screen us,
And turned all time’s eroding agents loose,
Silence, and space, and strangers–our neglect
Has not had much effect.

Leaves drift unswept, perhaps; grass creeps unmown;
No other change.
So clear it stands, so little overgrown,
Walking that way tonight would not seem strange,
And still would be followed. A little longer,
And time would be the stronger,

Drafting a world where no such road will run
From you to me;
To watch that world come up like a cold sun,
Rewarding others, is my liberty.
Not to prevent it is my will’s fulfillment.
Willing it, my ailment."



It was still there after all these years - the road between us - so clear, so little overgrown. Did that surprise you as it did me?Standing  at the gate, heart aching to walk it. I hadn't expected that - the pull towards you, like the roots of a parched tree to water. A world where no such road runs would be too cold. Promise me we will defy time - that it will never be the stronger.     Will we keep the road between us and hope that one day it can be followed again?

Don't know how to reach you now. Feel very far away from you and very lost. Hope you're ok. Tell me if I should stay away and I will.

Thinking out loud

I still don't know what to say. You said it's not my fault but it doesn't feel that way. I knew coming to see you would be a risk but maybe I didn't think carefully enough about the consequences for both of us. When I asked you told me you were happy most of the time. If I've pulled you away from that - I'm sorry. If we were both free things would be different  - but we're not and maybe head needs to win over heart right now. Time to write is short at the moment but I want you to know that I will always be here for you - as a friend if that's all that's possible right now - and if you were happy last week because of that then I think that's ok. You're allowed to be happy when a friend visits aren't you?

Fairy-tale Logic

Fairy-tale Logic

Fairy tales are full of impossible tasks:
Gather the chin hairs of a man-eating goat,
Or cross a sulphuric lake in a leaky boat,
Select the prince from a row of identical masks,
Tiptoe up to a dragon where it basks
And snatch its bone; count dust specks, mote by mote,
Or learn the phone directory by rote.
Always it’s impossible what someone asks—

You have to fight magic with magic. You have to believe

That you have something impossible up your sleeve,

The language of snakes, perhaps, an invisible cloak,

An army of ants at your beck, or a lethal joke,

The will to do whatever must be done:

Marry a monster. Hand over your firstborn son.

by A.E Stallings

There are no impossible tasks in the fairy tale I imagine us in. I have no need of chin hairs or  dragon bone. I only ask that you believe some things last, that time doesn't diminish or erode. Remember us and the way it used to be. Hear me and know me in the silence of words unspoken and the absence of touch. No masks or invisible cloaks. Just the two of us, vulnerable and brave in that first meeting and again after so much time.

First Love

"...This was a child's love, and yet I clench my eyes
till the pictures return, unfocused at first, then
almost clear, an old film played at a slow speed.
All day I will glimpse it, in windows of changing sky,
in mirrors, my lover's eyes, wherever you are.

And later a star, long dead, here, seems precisely
the size of a tear. Tonight, a love-letter out of a dream
stammers itself in my heart. Such faithfulness.
You smile in my head on the last evening. Unseen
flowers suddenly pierce and sweeten the air."

from "First Love" by Carol Ann Duffy

Again I feel I've said too much, too little, and nothing at all.
It all blurs as tears fall.

First love that all these years later flows back from the past to flood the present.

The sweetest, sharpest thing I have ever known...

What I wanted to tell you

"They stared at each other under the ancient sky with the soft rain and full wet earth. More than anything Ephram wanted to talk to her and tell her things he'd kept locked in the storehouse of his soul. He wanted to talk to her about the way Rupert Shankle's melons split on the vine and how honeysuckle blossoms tasted like sunlight. He wanted to tell her that he had seen a part of the night sky in her eyes and that he knew it because it lived in him as well. He wanted to tell her about the knot corded about his heart and how he needed her to loose the binding."

from "Ruby" by Cynthia Bond

Letters

I will always send you letters,
folding and refolding in a million different ways,
trying to make a snowflake that won't melt in your hand.
Maybe one breezeless day I will word the question right
and your answer will find a way back against the current.

The Art of Paper-Folding

Once upon a time there was a girl shut away in a big old house in the middle of nowhere. For its many rooms and sprawling grounds it was a stifling place. She was never without company but felt lonely and empty in a way she couldn't explain. Until one day a letter came that changed everything.

Released from the envelope it unfolded itself into a boy who laughed at her surprise. "It appears we're to be friends," he said, "but appearances can be deceiving so I thought maybe you should see for yourself!" They became the best of friends after that and were together often as he showed her how to fold to fit into an envelope too and send herself wherever she wanted to go.

Many, many years passed with them folding and unfolding themselves along well-worn creases and familiar lines until the passage of time granted them other more magical ways to be together. But for all their ease, she missed her name in his hand. The art of paper-folding never lost its charm for her and one day soon she will cross an ocean and hope their paperless selves know which way to bend.

(Dear S, for thirty years of friendship - thank you x)

Letter to my Muse

"The union of the mathematician with the poet, fervor with measure, passion with correctness, this surely is the ideal."
William James

You are nothing like how I imagined my Muse. I thought I'd squashed her flat when I picked this place up off the dry cracked prairie and set it down here. I thought I saw the pointed toes of her silver slippers sticking out from under the planks. Instead I find you standing on the front porch looking very much like an accountant in a crisp blue shirt and polished shoes.
You have followed me here and I'm glad. The place was lonely without you. I didn't realise what was missing until you showed up. I'm even more glad that you are not a cranky witch with a broomstick to poke me in the ribs with. Measure and correctness is much more my thing. Seven words is all it takes, right?

Inside My Head

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

   from "Mad Girl's Love Song" by Sylvia Plath

A blink of an eye and the scene changes.
I leave one world behind and enter another.
I tried living in the Real
but I have fairytale running through my veins.
So here I am starting again in a place that feels like home.
Deeper in the woods, far from the madding crowd.

Summer's End

Dear S

It's the last weekend of Summer here - the boys have gone to trap it in their sails and I'm stitching it into the hem of a Winter skirt.

Do you remember our first Summer's end?
I remember the letter you pushed beneath my door, how it slipped through the silence and began that Summer's song. I hear it playing and I think of you as the sun slides low and shadows lengthen.

 "May I?" you asked holding out your hand for mine. They were the only two words I ever needed and the ones I held on to as the days fell like dominoes.

They're falling again now - I graduate tomorrow and the day after that... I guess your own dominoes are falling too.

When you need a hand to hold,

Always x

How to Stay

"Despite the years he has lost, sometimes a memory flies back. It can be very small, the detail that sparks a piece of his past. Glancing at it, another person might not look twice. And yet an insignificant detail can zoom out of its ordinary setting and induce such sorrow he feels twisted inside."
from "Perfect" by Rachel Joyce

I choose them carefully, the little pieces of my life that I take to show her in a quiet room with a softly ticking clock. They are fragments of something bigger, something scattered that I can never gather and hold together all at once. My counsellor is patient and kind. It's like archeology - this piecing together of parts with no sense of the whole. Someone suggests a timeline might help - my life in linear going from A to B. My life has never felt linear - sometimes my past is in front of me, my future behind and the present nowhere to be found. I try to pin it down on paper. It takes many days of flicking backwards and forwards through pages using different coloured pens to differentiate between the years, the places, the people, the events and experiences that make up who I am right here, right now.

I spread the decades of my life out on the table between us and see them for first time through someone else's eyes. She is struck by how much loss there has been and wonders, with so many endings and leavings, how does a person learn how to stay?

Between the snow and the huge roses

"The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.

World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural, I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes - 
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palm of one's hands - 
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses."

"Snow" by Louis Macneice


Over sixteen years ago now, I was up a ladder painting walls in Cambridge Blue and Ivory Lace - the colours of summer skies and vanilla ice-cream - when I realised.  Just a moment between heartbeats when I knew there was life unfurling inside me. The room was suddenly rich.

Several weeks later in a room suddenly dark they showed me her tiny frame wriggling in a halo of light on a flickering screen and another smaller body, wrapped in shadow, frozen in time. Twins. World is crazier and more of it than we think. Viable and non-viable. I weighed the words but couldn't stop the world from tilting. The drunkenness of things being various.

And I have lived that way since - holding joy in one hand and sorrow in the other. We light candles to celebrate and grief wells up from an underground spring. The fire flames with a bubbling sound.

This is me in midsummer - more than glass. I walk among bright pink roses and simultaneously leave my tracks out there in the snow.