Today is my first day alone for a long time. The children are all back at thier respective edifaces of educational the friends who were helping me do the bathroom floor have finished and left and are off doing thier own things and despite being busy glazing ceramics, entertaining puppy dog and making large textured beads from porcelain there is an emptiness that no amount of cupbpoard cleaning and other domestic chores seems to dispel. To be fair I think having Adele playing on the computer in the background may not be the best choice of uplifting mood music but its more than that. I know its been seven months now, the pain has gone but there rests an emptiness that no amount of letting go and building our own lives will shift as yet. I know I do not want him back I know I will never trust him again but I miss his friendship just the brief silly conversations we had about the kids about life. I miss him being an active part of the kids lives and mine. It is very strange knowing if I text him or email him he probably won't answer and that he shows no interest in what his children are doing with thier lives. Since I have no idea where he lives, and any post comes back as not known at this address for the only contact address I have for him he has become a sort of a phantom in our lives.
The weekend was busy busy busy, we ,me and the boys, stomped off in the rain to an exhibition on Japan, youngest for Sushi, eldest son for Manga, me for the serenity and beauty of the fabrics and gardens. The boys were persauded to join in a demonstration of a hybrid judo karate type sport using Kodachi, short foam training swords. Eldest son who is shy and at that age when anything public is fraught weith potential humiliation was a reluctant combatant youngest leapt at te chance. After beating all 4 of the trainers into a sweat the two brothers were pitted against each other and would have spent the entire day happily bashing each other ceremoniously about the body with the swords if hunger hadn't set in.Luckily for my limited budget the only club is 2 hours drive from us but it seems a great way to get rid of pent up emotion and I shall put Kodachi swords on thier christmas lists for certain ! Supper was at a friends with superb homemade pizza and since it was walking distance a rare adult night for me where I could enjoy a glass of wine and sit outside in the dark with my hosts watching the stars after the boys had made their excuses and gone home to bed ( which on my somewhat tipsy return turned out to be a euphemism for playing computer games together).
Sunday rose in glorious sunshine with no sign of promised storms and we headed seawards to pick mussels climb rocks and play on the beach at Gwen Zegal where we sat in a cave and ate out picnic lunch sheltering from gale force winds and vertical rain , the promised storms apparently having only been waiting for our arrival before they showed up too.
Gwen Zegal has ancient poles stuck in water trees which have been over the centuries uprooted by the locals striped of thier branches then re rooted in the seabed where, presumably, they are anchored by rocks, today small boats moar on them but in Napoleans time the deminutive dictator used to tie traitors to them at low tide and leave them there to drown as the waters rose, ah those were the days ! There is also a cave with pillars inside which once had iron gates to the roof in which he kept prisoners, sometimes the cave floods to the top sometimes only waist deep either way not a pleasant place to await your death. I'm not sure Bonaparte was an awfully nice man but there you go.I suspect when he sent the message « Not tonight Josphoine » she may well have breathed a sigh of relief !!
Anyway enough rambling and prevarication back to work for me, I have a kiln to fill and a cake to make and peanut cookies to bake for two hungry boys, so forgive my vague air of melancholy it is an indulgence that comes and goes and forgive the erratic spelling my computer is having a french day and refuses to recognise English let alone correct spelling. I will as ever pick myself up and dust myself off and start all over again !!
ps the photo is of Gwen Zegal taken this weekend before the storms set in.
4 comments:
Wonder where the Japanese exhibition was?
Aloneness, loneliness, emptiness...they are all part of life when we have lost someone. The hole refills. Later. Stay brave.
I feel the rhythm of your day through this post. The ups and downs seem less pronounced, but perhaps longer - like a long, slow slope rather than the peaks and valleys of a few months ago.
I'm glad you're back at your kiln. I must go over to see what's new at your website.
Un Peu, I send you huge baskets full of best wishes and hugs and love.
It is so very difficult to ever know why another person might act in any way at all. I think that when we do face unexpected valleys, it can seem so difficult to think about doing any climbing. My own experiences of life have assured me that time is a very strange element, and that it does always help to return to whatever you do find entertaining, soothing, intriguing...this is what can keep you curious about the next day and the days after that, too.
Gosh...this might sound like many silly words, but hoping you know I send these words with affection.
xo
A big hug from me too. A most moving post. But the business of letting people drown wasn't just a Napoleonic invention. At Execution Dock (Wapping) prisoners were buried up to the neck at low tide and then drowned as the tide came in. Later they were hung.
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