Days slough on, canter on, dither on, as normal as it is for everyone else. Not one of us has the hold of the microphone on this, this takeshot of a life, moments, held, and held too long, or not long enough to learn the something of it all. . The past is whipping at our tails every second, and, as we all know, we do not see things the way they are, but see things as we are. Now that is one hec of a fricker, don’t you think? I think I see the truth and the one beside me, although he isn’t anymore, would turn his head up to me, his eyes astonished, and wag his head. I wasn’t there that day, he said. He was, but only in my story. How in the helikinns are people able to stay together for decades? I have no answer to that. I did. He did. But I am not sure either of us wanted that. It just kind of worked. We were tired, fricked and tricked out, beyond the the beyond of ourselves, as if there was only the Edge left to either of us, and there was no option there. We had frolicked and bolloxed our way through a million miles of forever, sagging together, furious together, lost together, shamshackled. 

I keep walking each day. I keep the rules, my rules, the tidy, the hoover out, now and then, the dust a blow in my mouth and the wheech of it laughs me as it just lands somewhere else. Prettier now, I tell it. I approve. A shift shape is always a mighty thing. I miss the Poppy dog. She was not mine at first, under the ownership of the captain of all ships, including hers, and mine. He was divolute with his training, absent, actually, but when he dived into the earth, heading down into the bowels of the whole thing, I took her on. Don’t be telling me that old dogs can’t learn new tricks because that is a load of horse. She learned, no treats on begging. No begging. No sandwich crusts of a lunchtime. No paw up will soften this mother heart, jeez, have I not know this begging thing and not just from dogs in my dithering life?

But, I confess, I loved her. I still do, and just thinking of her out there under the freeze of winter, coming home to the nothing, of the without her, rises the lump in my throat, my eyes looking for her jounce at the window, her bounce around my feet, every single time.  The way she dashed miles through the home, up and down the stairs, a toy in her mouth, her skids flipping the stairs into slide, so fast she was, her arse bumping against a wall when the curve confounded her.  Was. Not a great word, Not about her. Thinks me about other wases. Not sure there is a plural available just yet. There will be one day. We have new young writers and a serious need to blow the dust of the Oxford Dictionary. Another Shamshackle.

Seeing things as we see, or saw them, is how it is. But, and there’s a butt there. Moving on is never easy. not for nobody. Notwithstanding, if we refuse to move, we will be left behind. I can feel it, hear it, see it all around me, us. The shamshackle of it all. It is a sham and a shackle. Not for me. I am old, I know this, but the fightlight is wild in me and strong and I am hoping it is wild in you too. I think life is not the dream we imagined, but better, because whatever we go through, whatever we face down, sham out, shackle out, we can rise, torn, yes, broken, dirty, but still with the rising in us. 

Tomorrow is the Monday of it all, the ghastly wotwot of having to shiftshape into a someone else. For school, for a job, for the weather, for new clothing, a new identity. You know yourselves. You see and know what you see and know. Be clear on that. It might be a shackle, but it is not a sham.