I walked for 2 hours this morning. All the way into East
Croydon and almost through it, halfway to what used to be Mayday Hospital. It drizzled and persisted with being that
strange slightly off white the sky can be when it chooses to. Supplying enough
light to be almost over bright, but at the same time: dull. I was struggling to think to myself – ‘gosh,
what a lovely day!’, because that was what I wanted to think. It wasn’t too
cold, which was a good thing. I ended covered
in sweat on my top half despite being dressed quite lightly. I got blisters on my feet as I didn’t have the
right socks on. The right shoes, but not
the right socks. People never remind you
about getting the right socks, it’s always about the shoes.
The odd thing was, I didn’t think I’d been paying massive
attention as I walked, but on the bus on the way back (by the time I realized had
walked off my stressy unable to sit still feeling and had now entered the exhausted
feeling), I kept seeing shops or signs of fields I had passed, and realizing
they were incredibly familiar, that I had memorized them exactly. A large purpley mauve sign on a flower shop;
a huge green (but dull, that light) playing field next to a primary school,
just screened from the road by hedges.
I missed having Fluffhead with me. We have been having lots
of walks lately. He was ill with one thing after another all December, and off
school even before the holidays. Today was my first day without him for a long
while. School started again. There had
been a huge loud and heartbreaking crying fit before school about not wanting
to go. Forced dressing after cajoling
and bribery and reason failed to work.
Crying down the street. And then meeting two of his friends and instant
cheering up. But still. There’s been other problems at school
recently. I was worried they would recur. So I did that thing I do that I seem
unable to not do: where I just can’t
stop thinking about the person I am worried about. As if, should I hold them in my head
constantly, it will somehow enable them to be ok. It’s not magical thinking. Party because I don’t think it works; partly
because that’s not how magic works (holding worry in your head is almost the
antithesis to doing good magic!). It’s just me being obsessive and overly
responsible for another. If Fluffhead
was bigger, we’d say co-dependent. But
he’s still a child and still reliant on me in many ways, so we don’t say that.
We just say I worry dramatically, overly; that I’m over protective. I try not to show it too much in front of
him, don’t want him growing up terrified just because I am (and fear is a plague,
it spreads easier than a cold).
But I missed him. I missed
watching his small feet in their cute Bobox Velcro do-up shoes pacing beside
me. I missed his warm hand with the cold fingers in mine. His red Thomas jacket, hood up against the
wind. I missed him telling me about the
bus schedules and the trains coming, and wanting to go to Purley, or East
Croydon. In his funny high voice, with
his novel word order he does sometimes (“where him will go?”). Even though he seemed quite fine when he
eventually got to school, I had that incredibly twitchy utterly stressed out
feeling. I wanted to come home and do a
thousand things with my sudden time, but knew I’d never be able to settle; that
the best thing to do was to let my body walk it off.
Due to an earlier conversation with Hystery, I was half in
mind to trek until I found a Catholic Church and then go and find a Virgin Mary
and look at her for a bit, quietly. But
I didn’t see one Catholic Church the whole walk. Which was weird, I seem to remember them
being everywhere. Instead, I DID see 4 protestant churches, 2 united/free
churches and 2 pentecostal churches above shops, the way those often are – any space
available. I saw signs inviting me to
creches, prayer meetings, bible study classes, the Alpha Course. I wandered on, a bit bemused by the sudden
lack of Virgin Mary’s.
For the first ever time, I went into the Whitgift Centre and
didn’t get lost looking for the shop I was going to. (I had decided that since I had come this
far, I might as well be useful before I went back, go to Holland and Barrett
and get sausages for Stanley. So I did.
Unable to not go past the Toy Barnhaus next door without going in, and
worriedly buy some wooden track for Fluffhead with money I really couldn’t spare.
Who am I cheering up with the track? Him, or me? I don’t want it. But I want to have something nice to give him
in the future as a reward for something. Always a good idea to keep rewards
around the place; you never know when you might need a 5 year old to do
something big – and you can’t run a barter economy entirely on chocolate. And I
was still, of course, thinking about him.)
While I was in there, there was a strangely emotive
mainstream slightly country but not song on. Feeling emotional, it caught me immediately
and I started listening. Though it was a
whole other world: someone had left someone, someone was sad, someone wanted
them to come back and was being very mournful and very lyrical about it. See how it was sort of country? I asked who
it was at the desk. Taylor Swift. When I got home, I looked her up. She has
nice hair. I might download the song and sit here pensively enjoying the mood whilst
not sharing the precise problem. The
song had some nice key changes. She can’t
even be 30 yet. Oww.
When I got back, Mum was still here. Which is a bit
difficult, as when I am this stressed, company tends to stress me further. And mum is great, but she is also a very
stressed person (only she’s one of those weirdly interesting stressed people
who think they aren’t stressed and
keep telling you how happy they are despite a vast amount of negative things and
negative interpretations and slants on things coming up in conversation from
them). So I tried to be very polite and
minimal and hid in my room. Typing
this. When all I want is to go in the living
room, sit under a blanket and watch Deep
Space 9 (come to me, Odo) till it’s time to go and get Fluffhead, and see
if he had an ok day, or whether the troubles have started again. I wish it wasn’t so hard to be with people.
But it just is. Not all people, granted. And not all the time. But enough of
them; enough of the time.
So today is not mine.
But I suppose, being me, that is to be expected. This day is another of those endless days of
change, between, neither one thing nor another. It’s very clever of Hekate to be
the goddess of between things and changes, because it makes her the goddess of
just about everything, when you think about it.
All things are either in a state of change or they are about to be, or
they just were. Or they really should
be. If I was a goddess, and I had to pick an area of expertise, I could
probably not have done better than to pick that. Plus the whole illuminating darkness thing.
Who isn’t in the dark? Some of us are just more aware of it in a tortured or
otherwise kind of way. Clever Hekate.
It’s raining again.
My hair has just dried from this morning, and my feet are still
throbbing. I dream of my sofa and my
blanket and the TV. And, to an extent, of
not being quite as me as I am. Possibly I shall be someone else for a while?! I think I might go and make some cookies. It’s
something to do and I have flour and sugar and chocolate I can cut up. How about dark chocolate ginger cookies? That
sounds wintery. Sensual things hold the attention, usually, for me. The wind does that low
hum in the background.
Stanley wants
snow. I wonder if it will come?
alpha is good x Caroline
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