Swallowing Tears

I can pinpoint almost to the day when I started to fall behind. I was still close enough to keep up, but the deep paring of this year dragged me, and time, back further still. There are changes afoot and the ground is preparing again to fracture my time and disturb my balance.

At the time of our great southern investment there was little I could hold onto that remained my constant. My parents, my family were the touch stone, reliably present, and knowing enough to stay with me whatever I did and whatever choices I made. They provided an anchor, a central strength. My friends shifted their orbit around me as the changes in my life impacted on them, and Salt was this new creature who promised dreams I’d never thought to imagine.

I can see a time ahead when this new life, this present, and this future will have normalised and I’ll have caught up. In the interim I wonder if immobilisation can aid the lag. Maybe if I sat still long enough, stillness would give breath to the space. Staying in the present I can do, believing the present is something else.

I’ve listened to those who’ve lost who search for meaning, who want to make something of it, to do more, to action the loss. I’ve wanted to do so much less. To ground down, to curl in, to protect, to loosen the jaw, and be still, so very still.

For October we remembered.