The Slow Song to Bethany

The sea echoes forth with its weary tide

slowing to lick precious salt from my toes.

Its beating wings build to a crescendo

in spray of white and wind.

The sea sings of carrying me away,

its retreat beckons me forward, to the

watery depths where Poseidon reigns

and justice hangs on a trident.

Cool ripples of watery hands clinging

to my warm flesh, their slippery fingers

struggling to find purchase whilst the ground

holds fast, planting my roots

in the yielding sand. The spray scurries back

to the jaws of the sea, relinquishing

its grasp in mock fear, gathering

reinforcements. To uproot me.

JC

I wrote this a while ago and found it again today. Thought this was the time to post it.

The State of Things

It was said of Van Gogh that life weighed too heavily on him. This seems a very apt statement at the moment. Everywhere I look life is weighing heavily on the people I care about. I continually feel like I am on the brink of buckling, that at any minute my knees will give way and I'll be face down in the pavement too weak to get back up.

Everyone around me seems to be feeling the same. Just as they feel they can't take any more another load is dumped on them and somehow they have to survive. There is an element of guilt over not being able to share each others' load. But in this time we are all floundering under the pressure unable to look to our left or our right, unable to really see those struggling around us.

We are together in this terrible time, but I've never felt so alone. The only thing we have to share is our own despair, which is something we feel selfish for doing. The world is shuffling along, crippled by the weight of our choices, forced to look down at our feet.

I guess we have lived through the lazy days where we could take in the sky, looking at the clouds. Basking in the metaphorical sunshine. We didn't see where our feet were headed, we didn't comprehend the true price of our leisure.

We pay for it now. And paybacks a bitch!

Where the Spectacles Fade

Travelling monkeys and circus shows.

They have nothing on the spectacle

where our love grows

with spine-tingling hope.

we wait for the façade to fade

to a duller, less faceted

version of the truth, where love is

expressed in the mundane.

To days of urbanities and chores,

the trudging steps of the everyday

to which the brave succumb.

Sentiment filed away

for special occasions

and passion a lukewarm memory.

That is not us, in this tangle

of sweat and earthiness, grounded

and in flight, simultaneously,

an intricate performance too real,

desperately clinging,

whilst inwardly fleeing

to the safety of the mundane.

Thought Season

An errant thought wanders around my mind

gathering dust, trying to find a friend

in the wide expanse of open field.

It is thought season.

All the errant thoughts have been scared out

of the undergrowth to fly for a brief glorious moment,

soaring through the azure skies

not sullied by cloud or rainstorm.

These clear effervescent strands of ideas

sparkled in the crisp, fresh air and were shot down.

They were gathered up and carried away,

limp and devoid of life, by the jaws of Doubt.

Now one errant thought remains

huddling in the corner as the night draws in.

Loss

I thought I had hit my my low for now. I thought packing up my things and leaving a course that I had always thought was my vocational path was the low point of this year.

I was wrong.

On Easter Monday my cat died. It may sound like a small thing to most people, but this was completely unexpected and I was away from home when it happened. This has affected me more than anything has for quite some time.

I tried for a long time to think why it had had such an impact. Yes I loved her and yes, she meant an awful lot, but so have others and their loss did not hit me this hard. After the initial shock I was able to look back at the time I had her and I realised she had symbolized much more than a pet for me.

I had got her 3 years ago, just before I went off sick from my job, which I never returned to, due to ME. I have lost so much to this illness over the years, missed out on a lot and for me my cat was the one thing it could not take from me. It sounds silly and irrational, but there it is. There have been many moments in my life where I have had to make sacrifices because of my illness, where I have given up personal relationships (probably wrongly) as too hard or overwhelming to cope with alongside everyday life. For me it was so important to maintain this facade of being able to manage the everyday things that relationships and personal connections became peripheral to my life.

Only in the last few years have I realised I have this the wrong way round. During the long months of my illness where I could have slid very easily into disability, quietly surrendering to the illness that constantly tests my mental strength, I got up every morning because there was a little soul that was depending on me. The simple task of getting up and feeding her was the difference between persevering and drifting into obscurity.

In return I received so much love and affection. She kept me company when I could not leave the house, she stopped me going mad in that pokey little flat all on my own. And now she is dead and it is difficult to sum this up to people. I had not realised how much of a unit we had become in my mind. I may not ever get the chance to have a family, I don't even have a home right now, but at least I had my Hattie. Well now I don't even have that.

This loss has magnified a gaping hole in my life and I don't even know how to start to fill it.

Addressing the Elephant

I am no longer going to be a teacher.

2 weeks ago something clicked in my brain and it finally said enough was enough. I got up that morning, like most mornings, tired but okay. My heart protested, told me I should not go in to the school where I have been placed for my teacher training. I tried to ignore feelings inside me as I got dressed. I cried as I gathered up my things and then I forced myself to stop with all my will so that I could go out in public.

I battled myself as I walked to the train station, reasoning out that it was too late to call in sick and that I could not possibly turn back. I battled hard to stem the waves of tears my heart battered me with, after all my mind is stronger than my heart. I got to the train station and rushed onto the waiting train, finding a seat easily.

Then it hit me. I had had this feeling before. This exact feeling is how I felt heading into my old call centre job when I was really ill. That is when my brain clicked.

I had to get out.

What had been building for the last few months suddenly flattened out like an enormous vista where I could see exactly how I had got here, to this point and what I had to do. I had not been happy for quite some time, but I stored it away, because happiness is not useful for me during these 2 training years. I knew they would be tough and I would have to 'Man up' and push through them, but it should have been different.

My brain might be stronger than my heart, but it doesn't always know best. I listened to my intuition, something I had been afraid to do, and every fiber of my being told me my situation was toxic and I had to get out. My brain took the hint.

It was right about 1 thing though, it was too late to call in sick. I went into work, worked the full day and then left knowing I would not be going back tomorrow.

I have gone against the judgement of all my friends and family who had spent the last few months urging me on, telling me I was doing the right thing carrying on. But they are not me. They cannot know what is best for me. If they do not like my decisions they can f**k off.

So what am I going to do now? I'm going to keep working on being happy. I know certain things make me happy so I am going to do those things. I am looking for a job, just something part time to stave off the unemployment blues I suffered from last year. I am not looking for a big career anymore. I do not need one. I need writing, crafts and artwork and so that is what I am going to do. I don't care whether it's any good or whether I pen a publishable novel. It's not about that for me, it never has been.

If that makes me an arse or pretentious or anything else you wanna call it then that's fine. I believe doing things for the sole purpose of being happy is becoming a crime these days. If it is, lock me up now because I'm not changing.

rant

So I reread the poem I posted and was going to put a comment on there but decided to just post on here instead. It's funny how things creep up on you before you realize it. I have had some good news this week, I received the highest mark I have ever got for an essay I handed in before christmas. This is a big deal and I should be really happy about it but I'm not. I got a little embarrassed and then tried to forget it.

I'm a little flat. I want to be positive and enjoy what I am doing but I am not. Low. I guess I am low. I'm just whining and need to pull my finger out of my butt and get on with things.

There are things I want. There are are things I thought I wanted and am now indifferent about and there are things I know I don't want. Hmmm...

Poem

I promised a poem to Mog, but I couldn't bring myself to post the silly little Haiku she wanted me to. Here's something else instead:

Everybody knows.

They hear in your prayers

silent voices that stop

you, right where you stand,

staring out to sea.

Everybody sees

the scars that bare your soul

in the light of morning

and touch eyes so full

of Sorrow’s darkness.

Everybody knows

the words you softly speak,

eyes closed tightly against

black that caresses

all atrocities.

Everybody sees

your broken body lie

disassembled by your

thoughts, scouring a pit

of mournful anguish.

Certainties

So been a long time yet again. My life is a little overwhelming I guess at the moment.

This whole teaching lark is somehow exactly what I thought it would be and also disappointing at the same time. Teaching seems to be as I expected but I am not how I expected. I don't mean that I'm not as good as I thought I'd be (I'm pretty average for where I am) I guess I thought I'd feel differently about it than I do.

It is something that I could do for the rest of my life but I'm not satisfied. I guess there isn't such a thing as too busy to think of the dreams you're missing out on. I know without any doubt that what I should be doing with my life is writing. For the first time in my life I know that. I don't just think it would be fun if I could get my bum in gear as a hobby to write a book in spare time from a real job, which is how I felt before.

I'm not satisfied playing at it anymore. The trouble is there is no practical way to do this so I must keep on the path I'm on and hope that one day I'll find my way back.