this new life remains a slow dance. i see the world through my veil. i awake some mornings not realizing right away things are different. i listen for the sound of the tea kettle, wondering if my husband has made me tea... then i remember and i take a deep breath and crawl out of bed. some days are so happy, light, i laugh with my friends until my ribs hurt. some days i am like a robot performing my tasks with only muscle memory. those days are long, everything reminds me of how it used to be. i imagine his work clothes covered in tractor grease and cow shit. the stains i couldn't get out and how much thought i put into that task. i remember them blowing on the clothes line and how vexed i would be that my laundry failures were on display. i don't know what to do with the book he was reading before he died, do i take it off the nightstand or do i continue to dust around it. it seems somehow unlucky somehow to put it back in the bookcase - because at night i still dream of him and perhaps that shadow of my husband looks for the book and won't return if its gone.
life does go on. things are getting done. the cows calved, the garden planted, the lawn mowed, and on and on..... we seem to be moving forward. we seem to be coping. time will tell if my child and i can run a farm on our own. i imagine time will tell a lot - but right now i'm telling time that it may not completely rewrite the blueprint of my life. i will hold onto the remains of the day.
i took a knitting course in february and it has stayed with me. hours and hours since then have been devoted to learning and knitting and knitting. i knit in the evenings and watch british tv on bootlegged dvds. i am a tiny bit obsessed with: on the knitting side - brooklyn tweed and jared flood and on the tv side - the great british bake-off and graham norton. it is a happy time for me. my worries and grief get worked into ever lengthening shawls and wraps, sometimes if you look closely you can see them sailing away from me in tiny ships on a sea of wool.
we went on a holiday of sorts in june. we went to see my mother. i am very pleased to report that my mother continues to treat me as if i'm nobody special. for 10 days i was reminded of my many, many shortcomings and failings. it delighted me really........ but what is it with old people and counting. maybe i've mentioned this before but my mother is like the geriatric rainman. she counts everything, especially food on a plate. how many clams did you get with your order, how many pieces of lobster were in the chowder, how many biscuits were put on the table. i could write for 2 days and not cover everything she counted during my visit. i would wake in the morning and hear her on the phone recounting to my aunts the number of bottles of water i had drank the day before and asking "if they had ever heard tell of anyone going through that much water" she counted the number of cars i passed when driving, how many times i said "jesus christ" in a day. the number of times i rolled my eyes at her......
i returned home inspired. i had seen so many small businesses run by women - of course i won't count them for you but trust me it was enough for my heart to catch a clear glimpse of ways of making this new world order work for me. a framework of hope. it is enough for now. because for now there are carrots to pickle, jam to stir, hay to bale and a need inside me to return to this world and tell my tale
bev xx
ps. to those of you i have neglected over the last months i am truly sorry. i thought of each of you so often. sometimes i would lead all of you on an imaginary tour of my home and life. please bear with me as i make my way through the stories that i have missed and the voices i have not heard.
