Navelgazing

I Like…

by Veronica Foale on June 30, 2010

I like to stop and watch humanity swirl past me, a rock in a river of flooding water. Catching glimpses of reality; the way light falls on her hair, a chubby ankle as a baby learns to walk, a smile for the stranger.

I like to watch and listen, silent against a wall, a small smile as I pick up bits of someone else’s life. A he said she said conversation, a teenager with angst, a mother at the end of her rope.

I like to live inside my head, holding imaginary conversations, wondering if this time, this sentence, will it be the branch that breaks the dam and leaves me head down, drowning in a sea of words – a beautiful thing.

I like to lay on my back in the grass in the warm sunshine, feeling the earth support me as I breathe in time with the world.

I like my imagination.

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Clocks ticking

by Veronica Foale on June 15, 2010

in Life, Me, Navelgazing

When I wake up, colour has disappeared. A phone ringing cuts through my sleep, but being only my mobile, I ignore it. You can do things like that when the world is frozen and your phone takes messages. Slowly my children surface and I throw open the curtains to reveal a world frozen, icy white.

No colour for me. Not today.

It’s the kind of weather that seeps into your bones and sinks fingers into your soul.

Frozen pipes herald the middle of winter, when you turn the tap and nothing but icy air appears.

Even as I warm up and the world defrosts, I feel frozen inside.

***

It’s like a clock ticking.

tick

tock

tick

tock

Twelve months ago she was alive still.

Twelve months ago we had nine days left. We didn’t see the countdown hanging over our heads, hiding just out of sight. We didn’t see it then, but I see it now.

***

I sink myself into my archives from June last year.

I survived that.

How did I survive that?

My body takes over and leaves me moving, one step at a time.

Don’t think, don’t count, don’t look at the calendar. Turn the music off, pull your eyes away from there. Don’t listen, don’t feel, don’t think about it. Keep your eyes focused, smile, laugh, your mind can’t go where you don’t send it. Be matter of fact, keep your practicalities. We need more sugar, who spilled the milk, where did that nappy go? What’s for dinner, who’s peeling potatoes, can I have a hand? Amy get down, Isaac shush, Mummy needs a moment. Don’t think, don’t look, don’t make any sudden movements.

We can do this.

One step at a time.

tick

tock

tick

tock

One step. And then another.

We’re moving closer and I’ve forgotten how to breathe.

***

What was I doing twelve months ago?

You were surviving.

How?

I don’t know.

***

Life is hard.

No wait, scratch that.

Living is hard.

But it’s also beautiful.

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A journey

by Veronica Foale on April 22, 2010

in Life, Navelgazing

Grief is a journey they tell me. With stages and progression. You walk the path and tread the steps of thousands of people before you and you come to accept that this is the way things are.

That is what they tell me.

What they don’t tell me is how some days, there is no forward progress. Some days, all you can do is plant your feet, lean into the wind and refuse to move backward. Some days, waves break over you until you can’t breathe.

That is what they don’t tell you.

Time heals everything they say.

I don’t doubt that it does.

I am certain that time will take away my hurt, my pain. It will fill the wound left behind by death.

Time will cover the hole left behind, until a scar is left.

But,

I doubt,

that time will heal the missing.

Scars will form and the pain will lessen.

But, I don’t think the missing will go away.

Because even as it would be nice to not feel the longing and the wanting,

as long as I still miss her it proves that she was here.

Once.

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Calling me

by Veronica Foale on November 20, 2009

in Book, Navelgazing

This place calls to me; silky smooth, I want to trail my hands up and down its length.

Write on me it says as I wander about the house, procrastinating. I need you. You need me. Write on me.

This place of mine that bears my name, I itch to fill it with words. To feel it swell and grow with me, to feel it take on a life of its own. I want to be known. I want people to know who I am, to say, that’s her, she’s a writer. I knew her. I taught her. I helped her birth her baby, I know her and now her name is known.

I want that, but the wanting feels selfish.

***

Open your soul and sell your words. Spew them forth onto the page and scream your story.

It’s not my story though. It’s her story. And she’s gone quiet these last few days, leaving me staring at a word document and longing to feel her breathe down my neck, telling me what to say.

***

I’ve not had a panic attack in a few days. At first, I thought it was a good thing, until I realised that it’s because I am refusing to think anymore. I’m refusing to do anything but cope.

Denying the pain works wonders for the issues arising from it. Long term though, it’s not a pretty sight.

I think that is why she is gone. I can’t feel anything at the moment.

I’m too caught up in coping.

And still this place, it calls to me.

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Do you know

by Veronica Foale on October 11, 2009

in Navelgazing

We talked about death a lot in your last few months, when we knew it was coming and we couldn’t stop it. Like a freight train it hurtled towards us, yet we didn’t notice it until it was upon us. It raced into our midst, and blared its horn. You passed away in the silence left and we were thrust aside, broken and bereaved, grieving your absence.

In the weeks following, I forced myself to cope even though I was shattered inside. I made inappropriate jokes and I woke and ate and slept at all the right times. I pushed down my grief until it was a tiny little ball in the pit of my stomach.

Only now, it’s welling upwards. Leaving me with a feeling of panic, because like the freight train that was your death, I can’t stop it. I can merely sit and wait to ride it out and hope I don’t end up broken irreparably.

***

I feel the panic rising in my throat and I swallow it back down. I force myself to breathe as the wave gets higher taking me along for the ride; an unwilling passenger.

***

I’m sad.

Why are you sad?

I miss my Nan.

Oh. That.

Yes. That. He hugs me, knowing that no words will work here. He wishes he could make it better, but he can’t and so he’s inclined to ignore the fact that I am broken. Duct tape can fix many a thing, but it can’t fix me. He’s left feeling useless and I’m left feeling alone.

On bad days I will poke my jagged edges at his face. Look. Look how I am broken. Look at me and acknowledge this.

He lets me grieve in his arms, a safety zone. I can’t stay there forever though. I’m needed elsewhere.

***

Do you know that the baby started to crawl?

That my daughter is gluten intolerant and that is what caused all her issues?

That my brother had a speech read in Parliament?

Do you know that I wake up in the middle of the night unable to breathe?

That I’m certain everything is just waiting to go wrong and I think I’m out of reserves to handle it?

Do you know that we miss you? Every day?

***

In my dreams I talk to you still. Until the baby wakes and his cries jolt me to reality. I cry then, wishing that I were back inside my dream.

Everything is wrong here in reality. Like Alice through the Looking Glass, things are backwards and nothing seems to work how it should. Left is right and happy is tainted with inexplicable sadness.

I’m slowly learning how to traverse this new terrain. It doesn’t mean I’m enjoying it though.

***

I got horses yesterday.

I think you’d like them.

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