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Published: March 30th 2009
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Hanzi
There's an old saying Missing
sleeping on him, alongside him, waking beside him, seeing his curls
feeling safe in the comfort of coupledom
The sound of a bouncing dog on the hard wooden floor, laughing at his twisted jumping around a bowl of food being delivered, seeing his understanding of the world develop, him knowing when he is naughty but still doing it
Waking with a normal heart, not empty or heavy
Family walking in the sunshine and darkness
The endless possibilities
‘That look’, the look that took my breath now given to another
The yard, the hands, the ring.
The sound of his return
That light falling in the room across the crystals
My chosen home and neighborhood, the egg lady and banana man
Not feeling tired
I wipe my sleeve across the pages of last week, across the water and across the thought of her face. Shallow heart breathing
Sensory lurching from emptiness to a sorrow to a calm acute awareness throughout different times of the day. I know which times to avoid, to occupy with other things.
And I thought it was all under control until a screaming puppy cried and cried like a hawk for the
loss of its mother and the boy who had bought it didn’t understand why it cried and what it needed and my heart just burst and I lost focus. It reminded me too much of a puppy I once had who cried in the night. I wonder when these triggers will stop.
I slip backwards. Two steps forward, one step back.
It hurt, that hurt, I hurt, you hurt, it’s still hurting - me.
Temporarily Blocking it out with more working hours, being privy to the heartfelt stories from students, and my own scattered words written on pieces of paper.
Today, I found a white crinkled yoyo hair attached to my dress, after pulling it free, looking at it, I let it go in the breeze.
Last week,
I fell asleep on a sofa, in front of a table, by a window in the old lanes and an unknown woman covered me with a blanket.
I also began to find myself again, the old self reawakened by loss.
And, sitting in the full sunshine smiling, watching the brides littering the lanes for photographs for their hopeful albums, a friend quietly sat beside
Charlie's homework
his happiest day... me, listened to the silence and understood.
Borrowing snatched glances of things of beauty wrapped in borrowed time, bowls, flowers, fish, paintings - but they are not mine.
The only things I gather for myself now are a new found knowledge, new found time and new found plans.
A man asked me why my dog was longer with me, on telling him, he laughed and I laughed too whilst taking note of his waist length hair and slow walk.
But today I don’t find it funny.
He has a new partner, new chosen life when I still feel unsure because it was thrust upon me without care or consideration. My soundness ripped apart by his need to be desired and wanted. He should have told me honestly.
So many messages from home making me smile - even laugh - the fantastic news of a new baby for a great friend, the memory of Darius’ knee, the email from an old friend at the bbc and the one about making a film.
not without hope
we are defined by our opportunities - which I’ve always made and will continue to make. I just need
to speak to my daughter first because it is now 11 days since we were cut off.
On the way out of work at 3.30pm this afternoon, I bumped into my friend, the barber, (Suzhou Born and Bred) I have not seen him for just over 2 weeks because I no longer walk the dogs and to see him would make me sad. He asked me why I no longer walk by his house. I told him, in perfect mandarin, because I have learned this ‘My boyfriend and I have split up, He no longer loves me but loves another. She is his 18 year old student.’ He came to lunch with me but ate nothing and I ate very little. We talked. He understood enough of my bad mandarin to understand the situation, and I understood a little from him, the rest he wrote down - here it is:
There’s an old saying in China and Buddhists say it too.
You should never harm anybody but you need to be cautious with all of them.
Everyone will reap what he has sewn. Sometimes, it is that things don’t go like this. It’s just because the time hasn’t arrived yet.
Falling down is not terrible. The terrible thing is that you don’t stand up in time.
You should stand up and brush off the dust and go on walking proudly as you used to do.
he also told me to let it go.
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