Strata
Sea thrift is clinging to the rocks where I sit. Below, sea pours pure white froth into the stony cove. South of my perch on top of Cape Cornwall rocks, a Victorian chimney, relic of a tin mine, points skywards and on the other side of me there are more ruined remains of the now silent mine workings.
In this moment I am content: breathing in the smell of the sea, watching the waves rolling and crashing, the September sun on my face. It’s not a cosy landscape. These rocks are hard and unforgiving and give way only to the pounding of the sea over millennia. I am here with a friend and over tea from her ancient flask, we were having a conversation about falling and breakages (something relevant to us both in recent months) and I remember my man.
Broken
His broken leg. Physical pain. Mental anguish. His ‘broken’ brain and how death held him to account. Nothing less than its unequivocal and inevitable approach would have brought him to what I refer to as the redemption of his life. Such was his – well hidden – mental anguish and self loathing, which he numbed nightly with hefty doses of co-codamol, that he could could not be with himself with any attitude of self forgiveness or even imagine a merciful outcome for himself. Speaking of his dying, my friend used the expression “He stepped up”. He did. He stepped up to making peace with what had dogged him for 45 years since he was a child of 10, and when it was done he died. Death, in that context, was his guide, master and ultimately, his place of peace.
I see it, I praise it, I bow down before it. And I mind. What about me? Us?
Knowing
I have often thought that knowing takes a long time, years, to become true and real. Cognitive understanding is one thing, but for something to become real, it seeps down through the layers of brain and belly, bone and soul. Gradually it lands in the core of me.
And so it is with my husband’s death and what it means to me. I understood quite early on that the love we shared would be foundational to my life going forward – the redemption of my life if you like. Little by little I have understood how I continue the work which we began and that only through his death – and simultaneously my son’s – could I do what I do now.
But somehow on this sunny September morning with the rolling sea and unremitting rocks, I have felt it seep into me more deeply. Our love – which was never ‘ours’, we knew and understood it was a gift – continues. This is what I offer to the world, filtered through the strata of my being, purified by years of grief and soul searching and crafted by my effort and whatever skills I have developed. If you are touched by anything I write, then what you are feeling is a moment of the love he and I experienced together.
Longing
I suspect that I will be longing for the rest of my life: longing to be met again as once I was. I do not expect it to happen, at least not out here in the material world. The meeting, I imagine, will become more and more interior. And yet, when you write to me, when you join me at something I offer, when a film maker puts me in their frame, this is in consequence of the Love which once experienced cannot be denied. And it touches me all over again.
With my love
Nickie
News
First Drop in Writing Session– Monday 5th October 12 midday – 1pm.
To make these blogs more collaborative, more relevant to you who are reading them, and build more of a sense of community, I am trying out drop in writing sessions around a theme. My current plan is for them to happen monthly on the 1st Monday of the month at midday. Let’s begin in October.
In order for you to join me on 5th, you will need to let me know by 7am on the Monday morning so that I can send you out the Zoom link. You can do that by writing to me here.
10 of you have expressed an interest but there may be lots more of you who would like to drop in. You are all welcome. Equally, if there are only two of us, that’s grand too!
It is free for those of you who already ‘buy me a coffee’ on a monthly standing order. I would welcome a £5 cup of coffee from everyone else.
Any questions contact me via the link above.
Into the Dreaming – online writing retreat, 6th, 7th and 8th November
If you would like to write yourself into the dreaming time (or dream yourself into writing time!) then do please join me. There will be 7 online sessions over the weekend and plenty of time to be in nature, write, create, nap, rest and eat. I do suggest that you keep this as your focus for the weekend so that it really feels like a retreat from your every day concerns.
Places are limited to 10 and we are already half full so do please book soon if you’d like to come.
More information here or write to me here or at the address on the flyer.
Or if you are ready to book, you can do so here.
Buy Me a Coffee
I have been writing this blog for 3 1/2 years now and for the last couple of years many of you have gifted me through Buy Me a Coffee. I felt shy to ask you initially, but I cannot tell you how much it warms my heart to have £5 drop in here and another £5 or £10 there. You don’t pay me for my writing, you gift me for what I offer and to me it feels as if our shared currency is love. Thank you so much. I am open to receive your love any time you feel like sharing it! www.buymeacoffee.com/nickieaven