Superhero
Moving is always strangely cathartic. On the one hand I’m feeling raw, like the layers of my life are being stripped away, sorted through, discarded or boxed for later liberation. And on the other hand I feel cleansed. It occurred to me that the weight of useless sludge we carry is just as prominent in body as in reality.
Once I got past the initial cutting of the umbilical chord I suddenly experienced a sense of euphoria that all these pieces of physical matter held something spiritual to me, but still they were and are simply items. And so I began discarding with wild abandon and realising that all I needed was in my head and heart and the things that mattered. Everything else I discarded.
Eventually G and I climbed into bed and talked. That’s the part of each day I love most. I’ll lie beside him and run my hands along his arms, lifting those soft baby hairs between my fingers and twirling them around to make small peaks. I’ll talk about the people I’ve seen that day or the cold on my nose or the pho soup I had for lunch which made me smile with delicious happiness. I’ll ask him why people say things like ‘how are you?’ in the same way they say ‘gosh it’s cold’ because neither requires an answer. I’ll tell him about the homeless man that lay in the street, whose hand I held because he said he was dying. And how silly I felt when he got up as the ambulance arrived, collected a half smoked cigarette off the floor and strolled off.
G listens to my silly tales and smiles. He nods his head in agreement and shakes it in all seriousness when I rage about some oddity. Together we can put away the social constraints and say the things we think, but wouldn’t normally say out loud.
And so it was we fell asleep and I woke in the middle of the night bolt upright gasping for air. My fingers and toes were frozen with fear and I was afraid to speak in case the dream were real and the beast were still lurking. I jumped out of bed and locked the bedroom door before shaking G to tell him I’d had a bad dream. It was useless; he shuffled in his sleep and grorted… (groaned and snorted) before falling asleep again and so I gave up, pulled the sheets tighter around me and wedged myself into his warmth.
When I woke this morning, I remembered I’d had a bad dream and as G gathered my in his arms I told him,
‘You know, they came for me last night. They were flesh eating aliens and they were stripping the skin off me and eating me alive’
G, pulled me into his arms and said ‘oh no babes, don’t be scared, I’m always be here to take care of you and protect you’.
I sat upright and stared comically at him… before laughing,
‘You – protect me?... Last night I could have been eaten by aliens, beaten by club carrying ants and whisked away by gremlins and you’d have grorted three times, before hogging the sheets and nicking my pillow’
We laughed some more and I shook my head… there under the sheets in the early morning light, I realised something. Superman has Kryptonite, Batman has bats, Popeye is helpless without spinach, while G is rendered powerless in sleep.
Once I got past the initial cutting of the umbilical chord I suddenly experienced a sense of euphoria that all these pieces of physical matter held something spiritual to me, but still they were and are simply items. And so I began discarding with wild abandon and realising that all I needed was in my head and heart and the things that mattered. Everything else I discarded.
Eventually G and I climbed into bed and talked. That’s the part of each day I love most. I’ll lie beside him and run my hands along his arms, lifting those soft baby hairs between my fingers and twirling them around to make small peaks. I’ll talk about the people I’ve seen that day or the cold on my nose or the pho soup I had for lunch which made me smile with delicious happiness. I’ll ask him why people say things like ‘how are you?’ in the same way they say ‘gosh it’s cold’ because neither requires an answer. I’ll tell him about the homeless man that lay in the street, whose hand I held because he said he was dying. And how silly I felt when he got up as the ambulance arrived, collected a half smoked cigarette off the floor and strolled off.
G listens to my silly tales and smiles. He nods his head in agreement and shakes it in all seriousness when I rage about some oddity. Together we can put away the social constraints and say the things we think, but wouldn’t normally say out loud.
And so it was we fell asleep and I woke in the middle of the night bolt upright gasping for air. My fingers and toes were frozen with fear and I was afraid to speak in case the dream were real and the beast were still lurking. I jumped out of bed and locked the bedroom door before shaking G to tell him I’d had a bad dream. It was useless; he shuffled in his sleep and grorted… (groaned and snorted) before falling asleep again and so I gave up, pulled the sheets tighter around me and wedged myself into his warmth.
When I woke this morning, I remembered I’d had a bad dream and as G gathered my in his arms I told him,
‘You know, they came for me last night. They were flesh eating aliens and they were stripping the skin off me and eating me alive’
G, pulled me into his arms and said ‘oh no babes, don’t be scared, I’m always be here to take care of you and protect you’.
I sat upright and stared comically at him… before laughing,
‘You – protect me?... Last night I could have been eaten by aliens, beaten by club carrying ants and whisked away by gremlins and you’d have grorted three times, before hogging the sheets and nicking my pillow’
We laughed some more and I shook my head… there under the sheets in the early morning light, I realised something. Superman has Kryptonite, Batman has bats, Popeye is helpless without spinach, while G is rendered powerless in sleep.
posted by Teaine at 4:18 AM
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