Giant Teddy Bears
Yesterday was a blissful day; a lazy wakening, stretching in the comfort of my bed, slowly falling out of my dreams. Coffee; both of us in the kitchen sitting room; watching the birds flying up to the bird feeder. First the blue tits and coal tits which got chased away by some very business like starlings who in turn were put to flight by a magpie who, with his menacing pose on the fence post, looked like some sort of gangster.
We sat and talked. I tried to put on Desert island discs and then agreed that conversation was better; especially as I have been in one of my silent periods lately. To find words spilling and dancing with each other was wonderful. I heard Wendy’s delight at the BBQ last night with her childhood friends; talking away until the bats were swooping low over their heads. If I could record Wendy’s conversation when she is in full on silly, rude, mood, I would become a famous something or other; I suppose a thief! But I would love people to hear her and her friends when they are in full flow; much better than any theatre or film and I haven’t even seen them when they go for it, away from the bonds of those that have men folk in their life.
I had been thinking of my silence. I think I have lost a little of my oomph. I do my work, I walk the dog, I talk when I have to, I shop and do the cooking but I am not really quite here. I think I am going through the motions. My CPN told me it would be hard few weeks while the police decide if they need a statement or an appearance in court about an old teacher of mine from about 45 years ago. I had scoffed in my mind, thinking; 'He wasn’t that bad.' And also scoffed at the thought that it would be a hard few weeks.
But I find that I am thinking of a past I had thought I had tucked away and come to terms with. I am realising that my breezy statements that some of us mentally ill people have not been through trauma are not as certain as I thought they were. I cannot quite catch sight of my life, it is more a story now, but I do know once it was often lonely and uncertain, or maybe it wasn’t. I don’t know anymore but in the silence of my heart I am troubled and confused in much the same way that I am troubled when I think of that person who hit me and spat at me later in life. I still don’t consider that to be abuse; I still think I deserved it, still worry that, despite the lack of violence, the fact that I stopped loving and found my voice lost itself from our relationship meant that I deserved all I got and far worse that I deserve the silence that has now extended into years from my son. I worry that whatever my intentions and however much I may have loved him; that I harmed him terribly.
But yesterday I came out of it slightly. I got an email from the detective saying they had enough information to form a statement and I felt a sort of relief, a sort of; it did happen and it was wrong.
As we talked, the sun shifted to shine in the tiny alley outside our door, with its ferns and hostas, its mirror and ivy and its birdbath and as it shone on that birdbath, the sunshine operated fountain came to life. While we talked, we were accompanied by the tinkle and trickle of the music of the water. It was beautiful.
Finally we picked the children up. I was anxious about dropping off the charity stuff, getting to the paint shop, doing our walk and somehow my worry stopped being a worry. I think that was down to Wendy.
For once the children voluntarily put on their sun cream; happily scrambled from the car. We walked by the Clyde and on the beach. We wrote Happy Birthday Dash in great big letters on the sand. We walked along sun dappled paths between sweet smelling may blossom. Wendy and the children chattered and chattered. We found ourselves by the canal with the swans and their cygnets, the ducks, moorhens and a haze of fluffy seeds on their parachutes, floating through the still sky, forming a carpet on the path and the water.
At the café. Which we decided we had time for, we had a brief moment when we thought it would be too hot to stay outside and Dash too thirsty to wait for us to finish. We also had another brief moment when James said he was very, very, hungry but there was nothing he could eat. In the end he had pancakes and syrup and spent his time trying to put Dash into his shadow until dark clouds provided relief to all of us.
The charity shop loading doors were firmly shut when we arrived, leaving the children covered in redundant cat baskets and bags of clothes that we would have to take home.
We had ten minutes in the shop though. The first thing the children saw was an eight foot high teddy bear for fifteen pounds. They rushed up to it, rushed back to us, whispered to their Mum; tugged at her. She looked at me for support which I didn’t provide, saying we had only just got Charlotte’s room clear of enough of her possessions to think that she might agreed to sleep in it again without putting eight foot teddies into it. I said we had no room in the house, no room in the car.
James said he had room in his room; Charlotte said they would have joint custody. I said;
“No way!”
Silent children with bent heads went back to the car. On the journey to B&Q they sobbed desolately. In a moment of clarity I said that they could get the teddy bear if their Dad agreed to have it in his house. They carried on sobbing.
Wendy began to plead with them; saying they were now going to get the teddy and that I would go back for it in the morning.
In a very small voice, Charlotte said
“Thank you.”
And carried on sobbing. James sobbing increased to hicuppy like sniffing.
At the car park we all waited for Wendy to pick up the paint. Total silence apart from the occasional choking sob.
And then somehow it changed. I bought sausages and icecream and rolls for our garden party for Dash’s birthday. James began to speak and began to eat some of the crisps I had bought for him.
In the garden in the high lush green grass Dash unwrapped his presents with his teeth and retired reverently to a corner to eat his bone. The children bounced on the trampoline. Wendy asked if she could join them. James said she could but I couldn’t, so I became judge of their contest.
Today on our bank holiday I made bacon and eggs for everyone as a treat. Wendy found out when the shop would open and they agreed to put the teddy aside.
After an hour and half round trip I took the teddy up the steps to the house. The children, Wendy and Dash were all gathered there watching. They fell on the teddy with little screams.
They are now off having picnics with their Nana, having spent the morning taking Everest, as he is now called, around the house; showing him the different rooms, the television, the sofa, the chairs.
I have walked Dash in the sunshine among the cool of the trees at Ardmore, looked at the dog roses, the bluebells, those white white ones, the may blossom. The air is rich and still with scent, the grass so vividly green, the sky so blue. I loved my walk.
I see my CPN tomorrow. I don’t really want to see her. Or I do but I am weary of it all, another jag (How many have I had over the years?) She will ask me about my symptoms and I will say I am fine. I will feel tempted to say that when you know you are destroying all the beauty of the world it is silly to ask about symptoms but cannot be bothered. I will come home, start work. The days will continue.
Despite this I am astonished at the wonderful life I have; the small daily dramas of life, the energy and humour of my family.
In my heart I think I am terribly selfish to continue to expose them to my evil but in the next sentence I think that I don’t care. It is summer, Dash is asleep in the cool. I will paint the shower soon. The children and Wendy will burst, overheated, into the house soon and Everest will get cuddled again. That is all that I need to think about.
Yes, I do like this very much. Sunshine. Cool drinks. Blue sky. That fountain soothing the day with its soft sound of trickling water.
(Photo's : Bird Bath Fountain. May 2021, Swans at Bowling. May 21)
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