trudge

Today was sludge. Some days just are, and not just for me, even as my own day takes on an immense importance. T’is disproportionate, I know, I bloody know. Nonetheless, it is so. I wake too early, about 5am which, I tell myself, roundly, is fine in the months of early light. My other self reminds me that winter is so very loooooooooong up here and those 5 ams are quite ghastly. An oxymoron, just for your information. Something is either ghastly or it isn’t. There is no ‘quite’ about it. Just saying. I trudge on through coffee, sweeping a floor, putting away drained dishes from my solitary supper the night before. I light the fire. In May,? Myself catches me by the arm. I want to swear at her. It is cold, I annunciate each word, my lips exaggerating ridiculously, just in case, overnight, she has suffered a demise of the brain or a loss of hearing. I eat breakfast, of sorts, and it is done and swallowed by 6. Now what? I wander through the rooms, looking for an answer. The carpet needs hoovering but it will do and, to be honest, I cannot find the energy to connect with my hoover. I shower, dress, come downstairs. 6.15. My mind heads off into loony land. What, I speak this out loud, is the point of my existence, hmmmm? My husband is dead, my children, and theirs, are all miles away and I am tired of everything. I can write, oh hell yes, I can write. I can sew, walk, watch nature, tidy, cook for one, clean out the fridge, even hoover the damn carpet/s. How exciting can a life become?

But, when will I pull on my fancy boots and be whisked away to dinner, one I don’t pay for? When will I look forward, in anticipation to a shared evening, a game of scrabble, the intercourse involved in the tricky process of preparing mango chutney from mangoes, or plum brandy for Christmas, the fun of discussing an evening with friends, the shall we do this-ness of real life, because being alone after so long is not real life. It is not. It. is survival. Who will dip the oil tank? Just me. Who will repair the faulty back door lock? Just me. Who will watch a fantabulous sunset and marvel? Just me. Eish , not enough, not by a long chalk, whatever that means. The rip asunder of a shared life, no matter the palaver of it all, is like a chasm and there are days I fall in, spending half of the next week climbing out, and for what?

A rant, on first looking, is like meeting a mammoth in a doorway. It is huge, inappropriate and tusked up. It is also, by its being there, blocking forward motion and also a massive startlement. It has to be named and addressed. There’s a mammoth in the doorway, you might say and those around and benigh you would immediately tell you there is no such mammoth. But there is. No, they say, kindly, a hand staying your pointing arm, there is just a clear and empty doorway, a way through, a clear passage. It is infuriating to be thus denied and fixed. When I am facing a mammoth, what I need is someone to believe me, whether they see said mammoth or no because if that did happen, and someone stood beside me, listened, heard and never said anything, I would disappear the beast all by myself. I would feel seen, heard and honoured, and the mammoth would, I just know it, look puzzled and confused. Oh, oops, wrong doorway, wrong timeline and way too warm. He/she would turn around and lumber off, soon distant, a natural departure. Instead, when I hear a trillium of flowery wonderments, covered as I am in slime and mud, cut and grazed from yet another climb out of the chasm, I feel unseen, unheard, dishonoured.

I know it is a natural desire to fix a ‘problem’ but if someone just needs to name the mammoth and you are privileged enough to be that much of a friend, just be there and say nothing. It is the quickest way to send the mammoths away.

This very day I set sail, winds permitting, for the mainland. Destination the French Alps. I travel with family, kiddies and adults and am away for a week. In theory I will don ski boots and give the slopes a chance to delight and excite me, but my last efforts at maintaining the vertical in such conditions warn me that I may not continue with my lessons. Back in the day when I was a tricky teenager I really hated ski lessons. In fact, I only had one and that was enough. I am a walker by nature, taking my time, gathering no speed and certainly not at the mercy of those long Turkish slippers. In walking, I control myself.

It thinks me. Although I am not interested in gathering unnecessary speed either grounded or in elevated position, such as on the back of a horse, or inside a car, or, even, on skis, I always like to give something my best shot before saying this is not for me. It is the same with anything I do in life. To say ‘this is not for me’ without experiential knowledge of that to which I say No, is just plain foolish. How can I possibly know from the outside of anything? Of course, there are many things in this life, in any life, to which saying No is just not an option. But there are ways around that too.

Say I am stuck in a job I dislike, that doesn’t float my boat. I may dread stepping into another day of this arduous drudgery, among these people who aren’t of my tribe, who don’t respect and value my work, and yet it seems I have no choice if the bread is to be earned. There are two ways to change how this goes. Either I tell myself that these people do not define me, that I know my work is of value and that I wholly respect myself, leading me to research new work and to give in my notice, or I take a good look at my perception of the situation and work on changing it. I know, from experience that this is entirely possible when giving in notice is a million miles from possible.

Snow is both cold and exciting. If I don’t continue with my lessons there is a vast array of alternative pleasures. I could walk over it, listening to the scrunch of it beneath my feet, look back on my footprints alongside all the others of those who have walked this way before me. I could consider their lives, their size and weight, their choice of boot. I could look up to where the mountains point into the sky, imagine the cold up there, wonder who climbed so high and how it might have changed their view on life. I could see the flowers in Springtime, now sleeping beneath their winter blanket, careless of the weight of human trudge. I could hear the laughter, ride on the chairlift, laugh and play with snowballs, breathe in the ice and feel it freeze my face. I could watch the skiers and marvel at their skill, my heart in my mouth as they hurtle down the breast of this huge majestic mountain. I could even see Hannibal and his elephants and wonder at his courage.

In ordinary times, as the West Coast rain rains and rains without ceasing, it is hard to imagine that in a few hours I will be in a very different landscape. I have my writing pad, my books, my waterproof kit and, most important of all, I have me. How this holiday goes for me is down to me, no matter how many others I may share it with. In order to really ‘see’ it all, I must clear my misperceptions and step out naked, obviously not literally or I may not get home at all, and be as a child, ready for any mystery to open out before me. It is no different at home, just much harder to believe in, but it is the key to life and I have proved it over and over again. The drudge is inside a mind, not out there, as is my definition of myself, my love and respect of self, my childlike sense of mystery ahead. And, although it could be hard to make a snow angel from rain, I will give it my best shot when I get home.