Maybe Tomorrow

[Talisien]

Something I wrote this morning...

MAYBE TOMORROW

I drag a lumpy old cushion to my cold stone doorstep. Wrapped in a fleece-lined hoodie, double socks and a deep-red soft wrap I place pen to paper in the hope of re-kindled creativity. I had promised I would make it to the Beer Garden opposite today but this, at least, is a beginning.

I study the mossy cobbles at my feet for the first time this year. April in Devon lifts the daffodil heads bobbing above the damp ferns. They still struggle against the chill breeze off the sea as it funnels past the remains of my old friend the Holly. Now a clumsy stump under the telephone wires. A skeleton cast aside by the estate on a day when I was not here to protest. The two poor camellias, now exposed, offer a solitary flower hidden in the glossy green leaves amongst the struggling buds.

The crocosmia has already taken over the flower bed. I had promised myself that I would thin them out this year but they strike through the white quartz stones collected over the years from the beach below, jostling aside oyster shells from the ancient midden behind the house,  multi-coloured glass bottles and a twisted shell-shaped silver spoon.

In contrast, the newly-painted, stark, white wall of the chapel hangs with the remains of the once proud clematus that used to bring exclamations from visitors clear across the valley as it flung itself in ravishing pink splendour over the chapel roof. Now stray fingers hang valiantly from the eaves, a few leaves hopefully a sign that it will once again lovingly embrace the hymns on a Sunday.

My eyes are drawn to the one offensive plastic pot amongst the mossy terracotta jumble; a testament to the careless builders with no regard for peace or pride. I remind myself I still have to re-pot the azalea properly but it will have to wait for a miracle bag of compost to turn up.

London pride spills over the curve of an old grinding stone, a soft pale-yellow primrose at its centre. Sheltered from the wind and thrusting proud against its winter fleece a Blue Moon rose; a present from a kindly neighbour with whom I once quietly shared a childhood memory of my mother's rose garden.

Anxiety creeps into my chest and begins to clench a fist around my heart. My pen falls silent a while. I listen to the bird song, the distant drawing of tides over cobbles and high above the lonely keening of a solitary buzzard. Pheasant calls mingle with seagull cries ...

And suddenly, all is broken. Estate strimmers slice across the page shattering my pen. Rapidly I retreat inside, cats nipping past my ankles, back into the safety of the house.

Perhaps tomorrow I will make it past the doorstep.

[Talisien]

Thank you! it takes a lot of courage to live each day but the last few days I have the found the courage to share who I really am and it's scary.

[Talisien]

I can relate to the feelings you describe. For a short time after I had posted on the forum I felt it too. I was looking at the number of people on the site and thinking "Why is noone posting replies?" I did a trick I learnt under similar situations - went away made myself a hot chocolate and watched a catch up of one of my favourite series, came back and bingo all these replies.

What do I write? For a couple of years now I have been trying to stay focussed enough to work my way through a Writer's Course online and a Proof-reading & Editing Course online. I was delighted when I got very positive reviews from the Writer's Course and for a while I was writing every day following their guidelines of submitting work to magazines etc. ...but I stopped to cope with life. I started the Proof-reading Course and loved the detail of it ...again life interrupted. So now I have paid for both courses and they are both sitting there waiting for me to continue. It is finding the motivation, dragging my mind into focus, stopping the dissociation, deciding that life is worth the effort, believing in myself...and the list goes on.

In the meantime I role play in the online 'game' called Second Life. I run a small role play community there and we 'role play' in real time writing our stories as we go along. I encourage others to do so too and support some players with mental issues like mine. I would like to do more but deep inside I know that this is dissociation and keeping me from my 'real' life issues. But I don't beat myself up over it as it has its own benefits also.

I would love to read some of your poetry sometime if you feel like sharing it. And yes little steps each day and even if you don't manage that don't beat yourself up about it.

[snailspace]

Thank you Talisien, I loved your piece and found it wonderfully evocative because as I read I recognised this is currently my neck of the woods also. I live a bit more inland but there's still a chill breeze.  I hope you make it to the beer garden today, I laughed at the London pride spilling...
The world seems alright at the moment as the swallows have returned and they nest every year in the old stone stables outside. The only year they didn't come was in 2002 when measures to kill a swarm of locusts in North Africa by spraying insecticide also decimated the swallows.  It felt like a miracle when they flew in the following year!   Keep up the writing, I for one enjoyed reading. 

[Talisien]

Thank you snailspace. The swallows mean a lot to me too as they are a reminder that spring has at last returned after each difficult winter. I use my writing in many ways and have just come to realise that one character I have been role playing for many years suffers from PSD and has flashbacks. My own issues reflecting through my work.