I’ve been into the moon for as long as I can remember.
For almost as long, I’ve been taken, too, by grief.
I’d waken in the dark of night hungry for them both in their own right.
Hungry like the winter wolf.
Taken by the lived reality of both — but — more hard than even this to shake— I’ve been held tightly in place by their absence.
Those brief, bright moments when we know both , or either, are still there — of course they’re still there — but we are under the quiet, unassuming spell of something unseen, unheard. Something the like of an eclipse, perhaps; a moment that hides away the moon; that holds away our grief — albeit for the most fleeting of moments.
Since my first child was born, I have found myself inhabiting a landscape the like of which I never even knew existed. As someone whose lived a life punctuated by extremes : light & dark ; pain & joy ; loss & love — each taking centre stage — taking over completely for the entirety of their stay — finding myself inside this new life, this new world, has left me at a loss for words.
It’s like a walled garden , new motherhood (all motherhood? I can’t yet yet say) — it’s very own season; it’s own way of marking time; it’s own individual mode of existence. The rest of the world carries on outwith the walls—still the leaves green, the leaves wilt, the leaves fall, the leaves freeze — but these happenings bear no solid impact on the trees inside the walls. The seasons come & they go, of course — but inside the garden every single season can exist in the same day—the same moment.
And so— here are the sun & the moon together, holding hands — how we never could dream to see them in the world outside the garden of motherhood. Here is grief , bringing joy her coffee in the early morning — as the last cornflower opens up — so late, so frosted, so unsettling in its beauty.
The fact that the world outside can be full of breaking , burning, aching, dying — all while my heart experiences the deepest, fullest, brightest joy — is a little hard to process. The world hurtles ever faster towards the ending of so many good things; the loss of much — so much — and here I am smiling so hard each day I think that I might crack right open, face first, heart next.
I read, in snatched moments — when I should be doing something else — about various forms of crises — and I am heart sore. The next moment comes and I am being kissed all over my face by a small blonde haired creature until I don’t think I can take anymore. I’m full to bursting with joy that I feel ashamed of; that doesn’t feel allowed in these days. I hear of pain, so much pain , fear , anxiety and loss like we’ve never known — but I have to hold , in beside this knowledge, the truth that these are the best days of my life. That I feel lucky in ways I can’t explain ; grateful beyond any way of telling it.
Tonight, beneath a waxing crescent moon , hung low in a frosted sky, I thought of my grandfather for the first time in months. Something about the determination in my child’s face as they’d painted glitter dots all over old cardboard had carried him back to me in startling ways. When he died , I couldn’t imagine ever trusting another person the way I’d trusted him. I couldn’t imagine ever being able to grieve him without it being tied up with the traumatic breakdown of a family, a life, a mind (all mine). I can’t say for certain that motherhood is what’s changed my relationship with grief but I know for sure it’s changed my relationship with absence. How I feel when things , people, places — are no longer there. It’s helping me understand, a little better, my place in a tight knit fabric of existence and my oh my am I grateful . There are no black & whites in my garden any longer.
‘Only dark talking to dark’
Only light talking to light…
My night sky glistens, darkens, fades, blurs — at any which time it pleases these days. I have found , made, drawn, lost & sang, moons —at every hour of the day this year.
Grief & love together; the moon & the sun ; worry & hope — it is all there, always, and I am so full of it all — every single shard of it is mine for the learning, the knowing, the keeping, the sharing.
How do we hold joy & hope close, as we navigate these wild & changing seas?
How do we care for creatures that we have hurt ?
How do we mend things that we have broken?
More simply — how do we learn to live ?
‘We live the stories that either give our lives meaning , or negate it with meaninglessness. If we change the stories we live by, quite possibly we change our lives.’ - Ben Okri
This was beautiful to read. The way you write about that inner conflict of knowing, logically, that the way you're feeling doesn't match up with what others, or world events, is telling you you should be feeling/experiencing. And, having read and loved Thin Places, it's heartwarming to hear that, this time, for now, the conflict is being won in your favour, almost a feeling of a role reversal - by that I mean, to feel joyful in a struggling world, as opposed to that numb feeling of suffering in a world that others seem to be experiencing as joyful.
I hope that makes sense, and I hope I haven't overstepped in taking that from my reading of it.
clarity.