gently observing age

touch : touch not

I reach out to touch, fingers slip into light.

Yet it is not my fingers not my flesh fingers.

Because how could I reach out with them to touch something that is not touchable?

My chest aches, quivers.

Am I sad? Am I happy?

Prickly eyes.

gentle

gentle

gentle

so deeply tender

small pink

obscuring or seeking?

letters

An exercise is suggested, two love letters (there is more time for the first, perhaps about ten minutes). The first to a place, the second to an action.

The place. The only place. A valley. A valley in chalk. A valley topped and sided by trees; a bowl like valley with exits and entrances up and over. The only low gap being a field that leads to more fields. A tin shed house, green. A hedged garden. A world of its own. Apple trees even cojoined apple trees. Lilac. Cherries, both ornamental. An adhoc shed of old doors and windows and wooden panels. A bucket toilet – with a view. Two gardens, one each side of the house; one his one hers. Two swinging gates divide: clunk thunk thunker thunk. Oh smells so many smells, from paraffin to sweet peas – even the two together, the larder, the wood fire. Sounds of insects’ feet – ok maybe spiders’, on the board walls, the crisp yet deep sound if I drew my fingers across the walls. Rain on the roves. Blackbirds and cock crows deep in the early morning; woodpeckers and deer. The click of the door on it’s ball closer, the clack of a latched dor, foots steps. The sound of the clock – sometimes clocks, tic toc chime. The voices – the voices left in the parrot after the breathing lungs have ceased to be.
The sense of belonging, of acceptance, being comfortable. Body relaxed, my body relaxed, my self accepted.
Oh early morning chaffinch in the big cherry tree, coming in with the light flickering through leaves and cotton net curtains, as I hang half in sleep on a high princess and the pea affair. The hint of apple, from yearly storage. Dark corners in the room, boxes of photographs, mysterious never unravelled. Never can be unravelled. I live now knowing so much remains unknown. Now it is only through conversations, through words and another’s memories that I can glean new information from inside fence and hedge, inside the valley, the square mile (y sgwar) of place. Sound, smell, touch it all bundles around, memories clear and vague; whispers that will not be held, that cannot be chased.
So I look back and ponder and try to think of this all, maybe to unravel or understand. Was it always about loss, at least from the age of nine? Before that it just always was there, then it was rationed – a week a year? Loss of childhood? Was it, is it fantasy? It is full and deep and real in me – the feelings, the memories, the sensations – all of it of course now memory.
A place no longer, you do not exist. Except for the cherry tree over 70 years old.

- - - - -

Your hands. I could pick so many actions of your hands. Scampering across the keyboard, relaxed doing nothing, soft on your lap; of course cooking: deftly chopping, stirring, clearing, cleaning, serving. Hands so adept, so full of precision. But of course mostly, I remember the feeling – the physical and emotional feeling of your hand on my face as we slowly moved between two display cases at the Arnolfini. And wondering when on earth someone had last touched me like that….
And I think of the letter that I have just written to a place and wish you could have stood there, within that garden, and have touched my face like that; in that place. I want you to know me and still touch me like that. To be known and loved and accepted.

this year

It is a new year, I suppose the date change is finally getting to me, it is begining to feel like a new year on january the first. These new fangled creations (the first january the first new year in england and wales was after all only in 1753) do eventually catch on, creep into ones being. So if this is a new year, can I please ask for one not as bad, and certainly not worse than the last; I don't think I could go through all that again. It was a distressing year, from early on. Some things have been dealt with by just hiding them and allowing bite size bits out. Sometimes though sadness and weariness slip over me. It has not all been awful, I have made a few new aquaintances, some of whom I have not actually met - some a long long way off, snail lady, densie fruit bat...to name but two. They have been especially supportive and generous. One new person has been actually met, lunches shared, easeful times, delightfully ordinary times. As some older friends seemed to have faded, some existing friends become closer.


For some months I have been withdrawn and not particularly creative. Something is moving right now and the desire to make, create and share lifts. I have even printed out the details of a call for proposals for a site-specific art festival in Finland. My photography has continued along familiar themes, but I can sense something more serious emerging, and I have started to think about getting out my 'proper' camera, and buying some film. I hope that my relationships with others - close friends to strangers also grow, expand.


A short trial run, today, gives me hope that I shall be walking the steep slopes to a favourite place that I have not visited in over a year. How easily time slipd by. How easy it is to forget to love, to reach out to the world. I am reminded of an entry earlier this year about reaching out (see here). In fact the imagery used there has been coming to mind and today I came across a print of it and looked hard at it, felt it.

withdrawn

I am not very outgoing at the moment. Communications with others are very sparse. Perhaps just a mid winter withdrawal, but I think also the aftermath of the summer and autumn. The frosts come and I feel alive.

one hand clapping

reflection & shadow allow one hand to clap

one in the hand...

a giant blackberry flower


a rose falls apart in my hand

rose vinegar and the setting sun

sunset light catching

reaching out

I reach out to see if I am still there, because Mark Who Had A Cat Called George is not. I wonder if I, myself can find and do I want to and why?

I would like to pick a bowl full of rose petals and sink my face into them.

bank holiday weekend

Another bank holiday weekend is upon us. so friends arrive from the city and we go to the beach. after having been to the swings and climbing frames. of course it is not really beach weather. I have my red tarten blanket with waterproof backing and we wear fleeces. many big cars and big dogs on the beach and big noisy marine machines on the sea. why do people think it is a good idea to have cars on the beach...and in a natonal park? we are not going to see dolphins again with all the jet skis and motor boats.

So sand- castles were made by adults and sometimes knocked down by a child. ice cream was eaten with chocolate brownies.

Bank holiday monday has proven to be very cold with a wet morning. Also very windy, perfect for a playing park for children up in the hills.

swifts & tea

Five swifts screaming through the air, yesterday evening, they really are here. A pair come within arms reach of my window. below a cat looks up and watched me, I stare down past my calico cat mug at it. Here they are again, close



Then a new tisane mix of elderflower, linden blossom, calendula and roses is made. I smell the jasmine that follows me since the back massage that I had late this afternoon, my lower back feels better than it has done for several years. There are ways to ease pain beyond codeine...but they cost money!




This afternoon I am at my parents because it seems that is where I am needed most. So I walk the dog up to the chickens. I throw them corn, I throw a second scoop to try and spread them out, prevent the squabbling, but it lands exactly where the first scoopful did. I am reminded of my A' level art teacher, Aneirin Jones, who in the first lesson made us throw away our erasers and draw in biro or ink - he said if we rubbed out a line we would draw it back in the same place, one of the most valuable lessons I ever learnt with regard to drawing. Strange how the stream of thought diverts and wanders. The quince tree has had a caterpillar invasion. The shower turned to liquid sunshine, then ceased, though black clouds rush over the hills illuminated by the sun. It is turning into the longest sunny dry spell of the day......

reaching out

I realise I have not written
in a while.
Fingers have hopped, skimmed, limped over the keyboard:
creative and mundane emails;
but I have not written
a shape on a sheet,
dipped into worlds of words
randomly spread in my head,
and coming from body
and interface with beyond.

I am frayed and murky,
a boggy pond, where is the edge?
There is no edge.

How are we us? The I?
Knowing only my own way of being,
my own centre of the universe,
there is no way out of it.
No side step I can make to look in at it,
to make sense of it.
There is no way out,
that’s the way it is until I’m dead.
In one breath I’ll have to give it
all up
and not be.
Sometimes that makes me roar with life.
Sometimes I am solidified with the cold horror of it.
Sometimes it makes me shrug my shoulders in a teenager way: ‘whadever’.

I take my extra large, bargain price, barbeque protection gloves off
slowly
and still slowly
reach my hand out.

Even though it is not wanted by the one who tempted me to reach out a year ago, even though the surface smarts with the burning it has received. What else can I do?