Patterns to wake up to.
Now I think of it I am not too sure what a pattern is. Something repeating? But then you have irregular patterns. Something with meaning of some sort or an algebraic root?
I don’t know; people find patterns in the clouds which, in some ways, makes no sense. People see patterns in randomly generated numbers which makes even less sense.
A pattern in our behaviour or our life? Wendy used to say her relationships lasted no longer then seven years; thankfully that pitfall is long behind us now.
There is a routine to my day, a twenty past seven put the coffee on, make the children’s lunch boxes up, an eleven o’clock take the dog to Ardmore for his walk, a five thirty start making the family their tea and a nine o’clock pour the first far too big good night drink of the day.
It is a pattern we relinquish with relish at the weekend for a get up at ten, watch Saturday breakfast live, go to the photography and come back determined not to ask what we will do for the rest of the weekend as order and routine ruins the freedom to be free from demand and obligation and planning.
For me patterns on the weekend, are hopefully more about the scattering of the rooks nests in the trees across the road, the tangle of tree branches against the sky, the ripples in the sand and on the water and all the spring flowers bringing delight into the hours that lie ahead of us.
I think Wendy’s ideal weekend pattern would be a huge boulder flung into clear water and the haphazard spray that soaks us all; with the laughter of the children as someone or maybe the dog, fall into the pond after the stone has soaked us . Or it would be children darting around the house switching from painting pictures or playing on X box to the girls teasing the boys or vice versa. Or maybe it would be the pop of the prosecco cork as Peter and Sharon come round and we overorder Chinese takeaway with boxes that line up on the table. Planning and organisation would be there just to allow the spontaneity of what it is to be human to come to life.
I don’t know if my life has had a pattern; if it has, it has been an instinctive reaction to I don’t know what. I have never sat myself down and tried to create and craft a journey with a scatter of achievements to take me to some goal or destination. Once the pattern of my life seemed to be a repeating loss of sleep which always fell into the chaos of a world most people are unaware of, to be limited by long corridors, rack on rack of identikit bedrooms and plastic covered chairs, even plastic covered beds and the ever present stare of the nurses, most of whom wanted to be kind hearted but who sometimes failed in the connection I needed.
I find routine keeps me safe and brings a beauty to life in much the same secure way that the symmetry of a flower does, or the paving of the town square; the waterfall of a bedroom lightshade. I crave the order that this creates where you know what will happen next and where one square fits precisely with the next moment. Such patterns are almost spiritual almost sacred; like a chant in a monastery.
But what I crave is the wild wonder of leaping into the air, swinging from branches and falling into streams, starting a kiss with no idea how it will end and no worry about what that ending might be. Setting off for a drive without a map and no idea how much petrol there is in the car. Steering into the darkness and silver of a moonstruck sea where the glow of the instrument lights down below half blind me when the hatch is opened and when I look into the sky I have not a clue what star is what star or what constellation is which, or where the shooting star will next come from or when the moon will set, leaving the sea just that little bit darker than before.
I like the pattern of lying besides Wendy and slowly timing my own breath to suit the rise and fall of her breath on my chest and I like the idea that I might fall asleep besides her with no idea what dreams I will have when cuddling her or whether they will be places of beauty or fear or just bewilderment. I also crave those much more frequent times when I lie alone and wake at three am to the regular routine of the radio besides me, drowning my distress or smothering my thoughts and replacing them with the voice of the presenter and the tangle of the sheets around me and the feel of Dash the dog asleep at my feet.
My bunched pillow summoning me back into hours and hours of dozing where meaning and emotion are replaced by the smooth abyss of the dark softness of sleep where order has lost all its power.
(Photos; Ardmore March 2022, Kidstone Park March 2022, Bedroom March 2022)
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