After the Dream

He’s gone and now I can snuggle down into the bedclothes. Where he was they are damp and so I move away from that part of the bed and put a pillow between me and his vacant place. I love to lie still and quiet in the dark and remember things. It is so easy to slip back, my little gift, almost everyone I know struggles with memory as if those times are gone but to me they grow with my care. My mum struggled; she was a traditional and stolid woman. To her memories were bitter wells, where stories which didn’t need to be told again and again could be pulled up with real effort. Rarely profane she would sometimes say ‘what’s the point of polishing shit?’ I have somehow become the opposite. Even this apparent negative image of her flies me back to her love, her angry condemnation, her tidiness and the food she put on the table. Her parable was solitude and surrender and she truly believed it was the only way.

I’ve had a few husbands now. This one’s my third; he’s bright and wishful but not very practical. He’s made a bit of a hash of things the last few years and he frets about what will happen next. We had a good time while it lasted I tell him, it’ll come right again and if it doesn’t we’ll manage. I think back to when we met both us high on late flowering sexuality. It’s strange to get all the way through to one’s thirties and then discover what makes that connection. We exploded into our early relationship. Our hormone highs made for some pretty doubtful behaviour but we were hell bent on pleasure. I would still fuck about for a while; the power I felt at having more than one man want me was intoxicating, having more than one man on the same day and mixing them up inside me addictive, the immorality haunting. But within the harsh world of ‘I desire, I take, I consume’ there was also delicate beauty. This one was passionate about me and he used words to seduce me. He would drive me endlessly to places in my own back yard, places that I never knew existed and place my hand upon things so that I could sense their history and their place in the world. And physically he knew how to love me which others didn’t. I discovered that there is a big difference between pleasure that results from my insatiability and the pleasure that I gain from submission.

Today is a perfect day for me. No work, time with a friend. What I don’t want is to have a day of introspection, picking over the past. I want to be content and at peace. I know that I shall have to tread carefully, now there’s a recurring theme over the years, with my Dad I’d have to be very careful though he wasn’t there for long. First things first, some more sleep. That will get me through until mid morning and then I can get the dog out for a walk before heading into town and with some skill avoid the demons of despair that will corner me and pick a fight if I’m not careful. I afford myself a little smile of contentment as I fade back into my hidden mind.

Ending of a Dream

I was sleeping soundly until a vicious stab of memory propelled me upright, it rushed out of my dream, leaving my cold and sweating body, the irritation of its passing ending my unconsciousness, and the horror rushed out and into the dark.

As I woke and reality started to metamorphose out of my dream sensations manifested themselves. Deep arrhythmic breathing, impatient muscle tensions, a hand through my hair revealed it to me as gritty with sweat, the bedclothes as plastic wrapping binding my legs.

Something of the dream’s memory began to coalesce. I am driving a powerful locomotive out of a siding pulling many wagons behind fully laden. The engine screams and whines it thunders and hammers at my ears bones and flesh. I am vicariously powerful for a moment and feel pride. The power to move is mine and I am calling it to do my will. But at that moment a hideous crash against the windscreen twists my perception cruelly and pulls it hard by the roots. Blood and hair, a flash of a face smashed and horrified. And then I see you crushed too, lying on the road and what you are experiencing is a complete negative of my dream. Silent on lookers are shocked into stone, you have no way of preventing your death and your body is becoming immobilised as your breathing subsides.

I feel you stir in the bed next to me and for a moment you are even conscious enough to ask me what the matter is. I don’t answer and soon enough you slip back into wherever you are. I get out of bed and go downstairs to the kettle and while I wait for it to boil change into something dry. I think of my daughters sleeping who knows where; back at their mothers, with their boyfriends, or maybe out in the world. Wherever it is it is unknown to me. I sit down with tea and check four different message sources, nothing of importance or kindness is there. I nurse the smoky Lapsang mug.

Over by the kitchen table is a little desk, one which you use to organise us and make sure all of our papers are accessible. Folders colour coded, pens in trays, photographs of the kids. But because you are not here all day you do not know what the postman brings and you cannot bring order to what is hidden. There are things I that hide. Letters with a momentum that increases daily and soon their tide will be beyond the breakers, too high to resist. I go to the pocket of my coat and pull out one from yesterday. More than three years salary owed if I had a salary which I don’t, and that’s not all.

Caedmon's Hymn

The oldest poem in the English language is a song of creation, known as Caedmon's Hymn. The story goes that whenever Caedmon, a worldy established man and maybe a shepherd, was called upon to sing amongst his fellow men at drinking and feast gatherings, occasions of joy, he was overcome with shame and embarrassment. He knew no words or stories and felt ashamed as this was an essential part of belonging to his people and of sharing that joy. One night after leaving his fellow people in silence once again he retired and fell asleep. He was visited by an Angel who asked:

"Caedmon, sing me something?" and when he replied "I cannot and that is why I left, I do not know how to sing" the Angel replied "Nevertheless you must".

Caedmon asked what he should sing about and the Angel said: "sing to me of the first creation". And Caedmon sang in words that he had never heard:

Nu we sculon herigean, heofonrices weard,
meotodes meahte, ond his modgeþanc,
weorc wuldorfæder, swa he wundra gehwæs,
ece drihten, or onstealde.
He ærest sceop eorðan bearnum
heofon to hrofe, halig scyppend;
þa middangeard moncynnes weard,
ece drihten, æfter teode
firum foldan, frea ælmihtig.

The translation is unimportant to me. The writing is from Bede, a seventh century English monk from Whitby who may have borrowed at least elements of the story from extant folklore and embellished it with Caedmon's story, one of piety and godliness. I just love way it sounds, that is what matters to me. It is beautiful. Whether these words are of Caedmon, Bede, or God spoken through a man is less important than the narrative connection. This is part of who I am, I can feel it, believe it. I am not alone when I hear speak these words, I can understand.

I will try to find a way of posting what this sounds like when I read it aloud, until then here is a link, and many thanks to http://kayray.org/ for the LibriVox recording. She recites it beautifully.

Caedmon's Hymn

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Sleeping

Yesterday evening my life took a cruel downward spiral and as a result I slept outside last night in a darkened world of thoughts and unmet promises. No mysterious forces prevailed upon me, neither at midnight nor at any other time was I approached by spirits. I am now, I will say, well and truly rooted in the real world and well and truly alone.

My world now has renewed margins, margins defined with highly immediate clarity: anger, violence, disappointment and discontent. The parameters which identify me are creations of both me and my now estranged wife. This is not to say that we should both take all of the blame; much of our situation has been visited upon us by forces greater than the resistance that we could marshal. In the midst of life we are in debt, doubt, personal history and emotional tyranny. But I would accept that the greater majority of our situation is our own creation, one way or another.

I would ask that you don’t jump to conclusions about all of this, who does what and when is always mired in a distorted narrative, I am aware of that and would hope that any reader is too, I don’t have time for black and white and I don’t have much time anymore for people who cannot see the world as grey. This is incongruous and contradictory, believing in grey at face value should coincide with a peaceful characterisation, but it is a question of who we wish to be with in life. Black and white people have no heart, nor do they care for another’s heart. Is it a cliché to say one should only be with people who both set out to treat one’s heart with respect, to be benevolent and munificent with it? Well, if it is a cliché so be it. Black and white is no doubt good for business, science and many other disciplines; but for the heart it is a disaster.

It is enough to say for now, defensively, that it was not I that was violent. I did react strongly to what I perceived as poor treatment, but only with words, and the quality of the treatment that I received was certainly debatable. In doing so I unleashed a demonic tirade of hatred, fists, degradation and a shoe. I am pleased that it was only a shoe; a little earlier it had potentially been a dumbbell threatening to crash into my skull; but even a shoe, recently re-healed, was enough to leave a three inch cut in my scalp. It’s not deep, and doesn’t even feel sore today, so it clearly wasn’t such a big deal physically. The intent behind the battering it was meting out, mostly behind my unresisting but self-protecting arms, was lost in a lack of control and the result was an inability to exercise restraint. When it was finished I knew that I had to act. I packed some things, too much really because my car is now far too much like a poor episode of a bad sitcom, and just left. Bizarrely my wife went downstairs and watched television throughout my packing.

It wasn’t difficult to find somewhere safe to park and sleep. In my first hidden spot after an uncomfortable half hour a car came in to my English Nature-nature reserve bedding place and turns to face mine. The driver revs aggressively and flashes his lights. I think that this is an invitation, or a signal coded to identify a like minded soul. A dog-less dog walker lost in the night. I get up from the back seat and the driver takes off, clearly I wasn’t what they were after, although maybe it was my misted windows that led them on.

So I drove off and had a thought. I know a place where the road has recently been closed off creating a country cul de sac within a village. Down a little lane and away from the houses, far enough to be dark and quiet close enough to be safe and away from prying eyes. So that is where I slept. Not brilliantly, it was bit cold and for tonight I need to get a blanket or two, but I think that I got four or five hours. I had taken a flask of coffee with me, so I woke up to a little comfort and I had taken some shorts and a tea shirt or two. So at seven fifteen I was in the gym, worked out for an hour and a bit, used the showers to freshen up including shaving and then off to the supermarket to buy a few things for breakfast. And now like no doubt so many before me I am in a coffee shop, with a laptop, killing time with nowhere permanent to go. I have decisions to make, accommodation to find, a life to rebuild and a relationship to take apart with a woman who has well and truly lost it with me. If I am going to sleep in the car for a few days until I decide what to do I think I need a few hidden and safe places so that I can rotate them and not draw attention to myself. Whatever next I ask myself.