Being here

Little girl

Four years strong.

Tree-climbing, conversation making
Child.  Putter-on of your own
Shoes and socks
(I'll help you with the laces,
my love)
Four years of ghost memories and
I'm still no more certain of
your hypothetical self
Had you lived to four.

But still, I feel I know
More of you
From the tiny glimpses I get
(I'll take any that come my way).

Kids tell serious stories
Using your eyebrows.
Your colours - that orangey-pink-red and the
Grassy pale green, retro light blue
Are apparently fashionable this year.
Every rose and its scent
Is yours by right.
The crush of petal to lip.
Your sleeping brother's eyelashes.
His insistence.
The new warble of young magpies.
The whole moon and your star's
Side of the darkening sky.

I piece you together from
These clues.
I want to find you nearby
To make these circles overlap:
Knowing my child is okay
and Being here.



Yes, it has been yonks.  So many yonks that here we are again, back at Z's time of year.  Divorce, selling the house, working again, being mama have all kept me in a constant path of motion, so it is good and also scary to have a little pause.  I am thankful.  It all could have been so much worse.  The break-up nastiness was shortlived and we're both so delighted to be out of the relationship (and to have sold the house for more than expected) that there is actually goodwill between us, as well as huge love and concern for Ali and Snazzy.  It's hard to know what I feel, though, while everything is still in boxes, awaiting removal from the old house, storage, and unpacking in my new space.  We've been in some state of renovation or divorce induced transit since february.  Why do I need physical possessions in order to feel my feelings?  I don't know.  That's not quite it - it's more the energy that managing possessions across three places and in various states of packed / unpacked requires.  I aspire to own less

I had decided back in July that I wanted to start marking the 28th as Z's birthday, which it actually is - but our accident was on the evening of the 27th, and because there was no sleep that night, and because of that confusing death and birth in the wrong order thing, I had always marked it as the 27th.  A big mashed-up birthday, deathday, accident anniversary sadfest.  This year is the first time I have actually been able to start distinguishing between the grief and the trauma, and I think I optimistically thought I was 'over' the trauma.  But these last few weeks it has come back to bite me with nightmares and feeling triggered and hypervigilant while driving.  So I think I need to mark the 27th as well - even if just to keep it firmly in my gaze because I don't trust it enough to be an ordinary day.