Awakening from the Fumes

I had promised myself the longest sleep. I had been boasting all week of how when Saturday came, I would lie in bed, lost in dreamy dreams until just before time to go to the café at eleven.

And what happens?

At four fifty I am wide awake, or at least conscious. I sprawl in my bed stretch my legs out from under the downy into the warm air, cross my arms behind my head. Realise the radio is on, the light is on. Look at my full whisky glass and my crumpled book and think, as ever, that it is that tumble into bed; a wee bit muzzy each night of the last few weeks.

That sudden blink, where before I even lay my head on my pillow, I am gone, lost to the world until, at some time, in the brief dark of the night, my bedside light wakes me and a short time later the dawn lights the room.

And I do not know.

This is what I always say nowadays;

I do not know, I do not know; even when dreaming, even when muzzy with sleep, even when clear eyed in the dawn.

I do not know because I am wary; wary like some threatened creature, of having an opinion or a belief or the certainty of any knowledge at all.

I hesitate to claim that something is right or wrong or good or bad.

Even in the face of science and objectivity, I reach for alternatives and the reality of our personal visions.

I have my wife’s card about my mother in law’s death on the coffee table downstairs and I would like to say that the words inside it are harsh and hurtful but I do not know. Sometimes I think I deserve a lifetime of hurt. But I do not know what it is that I did to deserve that.

I do not know.

Yesterday in the classroom where I told my story and each time I told it, I got a burst of applause. I looked at the young people I was performing with and thought

“You are all amazing.”

Yet there is a distance, you the young people who are so articulate amongst yourselves, so amazing in the brief bursts of testimony fall silent at points I do not expect and I realise that to you, I am a person of power and a person apart, an older different, alien, species.

I do not know how I became old and how I, who am so unused to power, could be an intimidating presence.

In the evening when I was rushing to finish my emails; trying to tie up the week before the weekend. I found myself filling in a survey about an organisation I admire and somehow the words I used about it, about people I think are amazing became those of I don’t know what. I found my words condemning and then, when I tried to lighten them, I found my word count limited and so I left the harsh words to do their damage and submitted the survey and turned off my laptop.

I do not know why I did that. Why would I venture to express an opinion that I know will damage and depress already beleaguered people and why in my hurry for the evening did I let those words free to do what they may do?

I found myself sitting outside; sitting on my bench eating peanuts and drinking last night’s whisky, already impatient to relax, to start my weekend and I found myself thinking I will be drunk and maudlin by seven at this rate and on the edge of my mind was this voice that was saying;

“Why do you seek oblivion when you are tired. Why can’t your bleary eyes and your aching mind acknowledge that on the days you do not drink life is so much better and sleep better and life cleaner?”

I do not know. I think I find myself hiding from myself; hiding a knowledge and an awareness that I am unaware of.

When I hung my washing up, it contained, tiny clothes belonging to your children and a dress that belongs to you; a blue one. I smiled at the bright colours, felt warm, felt like my home was now a home for a family, though it could never fit a family in.

Jo George came along with her box of fabrics for our craft group; took a glass of wine, said she had stopped talking recently. Then Susan came along with a roll of lining paper for our awareness session and a glass of cold white wine.

Somehow I sparkled for a while and we talked and talked and then at odd intervals there would be these pauses of silence as though we had all forgotten why we were talking to each other. I do not know why there were these pauses because I could tell we all liked each other.

After Susan went home; Jo George started talking and I have no idea why but I cannot remember what we talked about. She was confiding and talking in that honest way which makes you know that you are privileged to be given these stories and half defined thoughts and ideas but I found myself slightly distant; at first all engaged and then later thinking about my tea in the fridge and for some reason deciding not to share it with her and I do not know why because, after she left, it felt like quite a lonely tea which I made too much of and ate too quickly. Why would I do that?

Then you phoned and we talked and talked and at first I did not know what I wanted to say or what was upsetting me and making me uncertain. I did not know what the jangle was inside me and that void of ash around my heart that was not letting me know what I felt or wanted. All I knew was that I wanted to be holding you and even more to be held by you. I wanted to wake up in the middle of the night besides you and yet my words were not saying that.

Somehow I found your words guiding me; I found them opening gaps in my mind that I had no knowledge of. There is something about your words that brings me joy and a desire to connect and share. I found myself expressing fears that, if you had sat me down, I would not have known how to express and I found myself understanding my worries and saying things that, now it is morning I cannot remember. I do not know how you do that and I do not know how I allow myself to become open and trusting with you when I find that so hard to do.

I do not know why you make me laugh and giggle and I do not understand why after we have been speaking for an hour my tired body feels energised and my bloated mind feels clean and fresh and my anxiety has subsided, it is like your voice has washed over me, cleaned out all those dark alleys and given me a soft bed of love to lie back in.

When that happens I realise that it does not matter that I have become so uncertain of opinion and meaning and reason and decision making and all those bits that we all rely on and which seem so obviously fractured when we hold them to the light. It does not matter. I do not know why. It does not matter because I yearn for you even when my body fails me. I connect with you even when my words have left me. I hold you even when I am uncertain I have anything to give. I love you with all my heart even when my heart is closed against me and derides me for such fancies as love. With you I dare to belief I too could bring joy and I certainly don’t know how that happens but as I sit here writing, I think of you, of all of you and I know I am blessed in a way I didn’t even know I could dream about.