What lies beneath

It's long and narrow the winding path
the pebbles pressed apon my feet
I lost my way as shadows fell
in tangled wood and forrest deep

It played apon my sense of need
to go, to stay, to feel complete
I took the path less travelled by
and in the dark and lonely night
i wept, I sang, I could not sleep

And here it is for all to see
the road I took now gently paved
the fear in me almost assuaged
the chance to know I am now saved.

For Geoff

I lay in fields of brick and stone and watch the evening shadows long, and this my space is cold and hard and carries with it my beating heart. A gentle smile upon my lips while quiet stars are softly lit and I am here on solid ground a perfect balance I have found.

Human Kindness

There was an article in the paper today about a little dog called Bibi, that got blown off a pier in Melbourne. The windy weather was so powerful that little Bibi simply trotted air-bourn off the edge of the pier and into the frigid north Melbourne Ocean.

Bibi’s owner watched helplessly from the pier edge and her little pet tried desperately to swim back to shore in the freezing temperature, battling wave upon wave which relentlessly held him back and pulled him down.

In the midst of all this, a young man was also visiting the pier to scatter his grandmother’s ashes into the ocean. While deep in ritual and farewell, he spotted the precarious fate of little Bibi and thought nothing of diving into the icy waters to rescue one very sodden, very cold miniature canine.

A Midler song sprung to mind… just one line. ‘Human kindness is overflowing, and I think it’s going to rain today’. Buried in the pages of global crisis, earth quakes, human loss, scandal – the story of a dog made the greatest impact on my day. Maybe it’s because I love dogs so much, perhaps because little Bibi reminded me of my much loved furry ruffians. I don’t really care to analyse why I felt the way I felt, but that it hurts and feels good in equal parts to know that there are those that cannot defend themselves and then there are those who would risk it all to do it for them.

It's just goes round and round.

We had a discussion. It wasn’t such a big thing, but more a number of little things. The pile just grew larger, nothing spectacular, just a lot of little niggles, little burrs hidden in the fabric I wear, not distinct enough to be visible, but just annoying enough to keep my busy twitching in discomfort.

I’ve been learning things these past months. Learning things about myself and others, about environment and responses and understanding and patience. I’ve been learning to replace emotion with consideration, action with deliberation, anger with empathy, voice with ear.

I discovered that my greatest fears are embarrassment, loss, translucency and unimportance. I didn’t like that I do so much for so many people and find myself measuring the weight of their love by the response that they give. I felt hypocritical for not giving unconditionally, but more so for believing that I did and ignoring the voice that whispered in my ear each time I gave and felt let down.

I find myself chewing wasps. I don’t like talking ill of people, but as the feelings of disappointment weighed down on me, I whispered them in secrecy, wanting a nod in agreement and tasting the bitter flavour of disloyalty when it came. It is a double edged sword as they say and while I wish I were more saint than sinner, I realise that I am fallible. A giver of gifts with no evident value, but still measurable in my head.

So, we had a disagreement and it irks me to say that the learnings I have made these past months gave me clarity. If I do not like what you ask and expect of me, if I feel used and of lesser value against others you call friends, then it is my interpretation of who I think you think I am and what I think you think I am worth. And so there it is, as confusing as that, yet strangely straightforward. I felt you let me down, not once or twice, but many times. I felt you’d placed a measure of our friendship below where I thought it was. I realised that each of the times an event occurred I was left questioning my value to you, I chalked it up and tucked it away, but I’ve had enough. I decided that how I felt in a situation could only be fixed by me. I chose to be honest, I chose to tell you what I thought and felt. I don’t know if I am right, but at the end of it I cried and you said all the things I wanted to hear. And then it occurred to me that you were sitting on the other end of the phone feeling exactly as I felt. Perhaps you and I just didn’t agree. Perhaps you felt it your right to ask of me things that I would never ask of you, perhaps I was wrong to think that you shouldn’t. I don’t know what the answer is, but I know that I the gap is vast now and that I do not like how I feel when we are together.

I keep holding on, because I miss my friend. We used to have so much fun together. We’d talk for hours and we had respect for one another. We protected and understood one another. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know if it is my fault, but I don’t like to feel this way. What happened to our freedom? What happened to the way we liberated one another. I’m concerned about what conversations we will have and what I might be asked for. I don’t want to just fill half empty cups and provide a shoulder to lean on. I’m not only here to fix things. I don’t like that my space is just a place you flounce through, it’s not a hotel, where a servant is paid to clean up behind you. I’m sad at the flippancy with which my things are taken and consumed as if I have it all and therefore am expected to share it. I’m sad that when you offer something I am suspicious of the honesty of it. I am wracked with guilt that I can’t look at you without squinting when you suggest or promise or propose something totally selfless. I want to say yes, I want to smile and throw my arms around you, but I’m apprehensive. Too many times I’ve taken a gift to find it has a price – conscious or otherwise – a gift with fine print listing out terms and conditions I never thought would apply. Terms and conditions I don’t even think you realise always turn up at some point on each timeline.

I’m a coward, because I can’t tell you. I don’t like this merry-go-round.. it’s not merry, it’s just go-round.

Inconsolable

Remember the path you took? So many roads you could have taken and somehow you wound up here. Could it have been any further a-field? Could the chances have been any more slim and yet somehow still, here you are. After all this time and angry reflection, would you say the beginning was the end?

I can’t help but feel frustrated and somewhat in contempt. I’m cocooned in the chrysalis of overflowing rage. What the hell were you thinking? What sombre moment of deep reflection helped buoy you on your way. What silly childish impetus help convince you of loves soft flush and it’s all enduring emotion would take you all the way.

We were supposed to be your buttercups and your sunshine in the rain. Somehow in the midst of the circle you got lost and took a lengthy detour. Our little circle bowed out of shape and those little souls watched patiently for you to return to us. Little souls warm to touch, filled with expectation and fearlessness. Do you realise how long you took? Do you realise you were gone so long you still haven’t come back? And our little souls filled with knowing, drowning under the bitter taste of daily disappointment.

He didn’t treat you right and you chose to stay. You thought you hid the pain from us, we were so desperate for warmth and love and each time we saw you breaking you let someone come and take us away. We learnt desperation and emptiness before we ever knew what it was to love. I’m not sure what to feel when I think about that. Perhaps I’m like a set of brass scales, a display of shininess and temporary usefulness, swinging from the weight of anger and pity, whichever one infects the spaces in my heart most.

It’s been years. We’ve told you infinite times how much we love you. We’ve cradled your damage and finally carried your pain. These manic character changes range from sad understanding to wild eyed rage. We didn’t come back because you mended your ways, we learnt to love on our own and still we’re old before our time.

We children have had no youth. Those knees we scraped, the playground fights, the naivety, the first love, the dreams, the hopes. They were never shared. We ran away, we found emancipation far less painful than living in the shadow of your torment and his contempt. Nights spent scrubbing out fridges and waiting on tables, study done in lunch breaks and on early evenings in the school library. Hungry days with no food and no money. Walking past the winter warm homes with soft light and the smell of dinner wafting from the kitchen. Friends who lived in perfect rooms in perfect homes complaining of being grounded on a Friday night. I don’t remember how it felt, I don’t like to remember. But I know the hunger, I know loneliness, I know desperation and fear. I know enough to know that these souls might never be fully healed, but still we’re fixing yours.

Shhhhhh

I went to see my local doc. I told myself not to cry, not to become emotional, just tell it how it is and ask for help. I told myself that it would all be ok, but when they called my name, the doctor took my hand and shook it gently, smiling warmly as he introduced himself. I knew then that it would take all my resolve to remain distant and clinical. I knew he’d broken the barrier with his warmth and I feared for the tears that were already welling up.

We stared at each other for a while and I wondered whether he thought I was sizing him up? I wasn’t, I was simply waiting for the shakes to pass and the warmth of tears to subside before I started to tell him.

‘I hear things’, I said. ‘I think I’m going crazy’.

He stopped looking at his computer screen, sat back in his chair and rolled slightly away from his desk. It was clear he wanted me to see I had his undivided attention and suddenly I felt sorry I’d come.

‘I, ah… I don’t know what to do. I feel anxious all the time. I can’t sleep and I’m dreaming. Dreaming horrible vivid dreams where I’m not sure if I am awake or asleep. I… I think I’m going crazy, but I keep thinking that if I know that it’s not normal, does that mean I am or aren’t going crazy?’

He stared hard at me, brows furrowed and hands together, fingertips touching to form a pyramid. ‘Tell me more about these voices’ he said.

I started to cry. ‘I don’t know, I’m not sure what I’m hearing. They’re outside and inside. They’re whispering in my ear and in the background. I asked my husband if he can hear what I do and he tells me no’.

‘What do they say to you’?

They don’t really say anything. It’s not like that. When I’m doing something I can hear a low hum in the background. I hear the rise and fall of intonation. It’s like many voices and they’re whispering, some urgent, some fervent… others just disinterested and bored’ I try to explain, but it’s all a mess. A big jumble and it doesn’t make sense to me, so how can I make sense of it to him.

He hands me a tissues and then asks me if any of what I hear is clear. I tell him about a little boy, he whispers in my ear as I fall asleep at night. He whispered to me the other night just before I woke from a horrible dream. I wasn’t afraid of him, I was afraid of them. But who is them? I don’t know.

What did he say, he asks me.

‘I don’t know’, I sniff, ‘I don’t know. I think he tells me shhhhh. He tells me he’ll protect me, but it’s not like I hear what he says, it’s more that I feel it. I don’t know if he only comes in my dreams because the only time it’s just one voice is just as I fall asleep or just before I wake. I don’t know what is real and what isn’t, I don’t know what is a dream until I wake from it and the shakes and the ice cold fear in my belly stops throbbing through my veins long enough to catch my breath.

He asks me if the voices tell me to do things and I tell him no. He asks me if they leave messages for me in news papers and I know what he means. I know he’s referring to the same thing as the movie ‘A beautiful Mind’. I tell him no. I tell him there is nothing clear, just enough unclear that I’m always un-balanced. I’m always flipping my head from side to side to try and catch what I can’t really hear and wondering if I’m hearing anything at all.

I tell him about the visions. I see things. Things are moving out of the corner of my eye. I don’t know whether it’s the light playing tricks on me, but I’m in constant double take and I now don’t know if I trust what is and isn’t real.

I can’t catch my breath as I try to explain how awful it is.

‘Doc, I’m not sleeping. I’m sick in my stomach. I have pains, pain when I eat, pain when I don’t eat, but I don’t know if I am sick or not or whether it’s in my head. I see things that aren’t there and hear things that no one else can hear. I got in the car the other day and smelt smoke. The hair on my neck stood on end and I know instinctively that someone had been in the car. I checked to see if anything was missing, but because the sat nav and sunglasses were still there I told myself I was dreaming it. I told myself that if I heard and saw things that weren’t there then maybe I was smelling things that weren’t there either. Two days later I noticed the lock on the car on the passenger side had been jimmied. I knew the car had been broken into there and then, but at the time I hadn’t trusted myself to go with instinct’.

He asks me more questions and while I’m crying and talking at the same time it is a relief to finally say out loud what has been haunting me. The heavy feeling lifts slightly and while I’m exhausted I feel relief. He tells me to wait a little while, he’ll get help for me. He tells me it could be a culmination of many things, but that I can accept that I am ill, just to what degree and with what we don’t know. ‘Don’t be afraid’ he says, ‘the hardest part is already over’.

I don’t know what to believe anymore.

Fear

I’m blanketed in fear at the moment. It’s frightening and all consuming. I see things out of the corner of my eyes and find myself in constant double take. There are whispers and shuffling and I keep turning to G to ask him if he can hear them. He can’t.

My wits are not about me and I’m experiencing a sensation of imploding. Imagine the image an atom bomb and the way the mushroom first pulls everything in and then flashes outward. I’m experiencing a constant sensation similar to that in my head. What does this mean? I’m trying to think of realistic answers – vertigo, dizziness, tiredness, stress. I’m afraid that madness is coming to me.

I had laser eye surgery recently. I can see now! I can see without the aid of looking glasses and disposable contact lenses. But now I’m not sure about what I’m seeing anymore. I’m hoping the flashes out of the corner of my eyes are part of this. I’m hoping that it’s normal.

Last night I couldn’t sleep properly. I kept waking because I could hear movement downstairs. I could hear voices, a low hum that wavered with intonation, but when I sat up to listen closely, I heard nothing.

I’m dreaming! They are intense and frightening and some nights I’m not sure whether I am awake or asleep until I am actually awake. I dreamt there was someone in the room with me. They were whispering in my ear. I couldn’t turn or move – paralyzed with fear. I wanted to reach out to G and drag myself into the curve of his safety, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t breathe and it felt like my eyes were wide open staring hard into the dark trying to see what I couldn’t see. I felt two hands take my ankles in a vice like grip and pull me with one fast intense motion a third of the way down the bed. I felt the bed sheets rumple under my back and my singlet ride up and in that moment the shock broke the paralysis and I gasped for breath as to flipped over to grab hold of G. I felt around me and it became clear that it was a dream. That I was still at the top of the bed and hadn’t been dragged anywhere. But it was so real – so real I started to cry.

I have a lump that is rising up into my throat and my body has waves of cold heat washing over it. I’m hearing voices and I don’t know where they are coming from. I’m hearing voices and whichever scenario I try to attribute it to – I realize there isn’t one that is normal.