ljidol series 8; Week 27. 'Once upon a time'
Once upon a time I was a small girl, living through air raids ‘There is a war on,' was the excuse. I don’t remember it all, but seared into my head behind my eyes, with flames and fire I see a crashing plane. I was three, and standing on the back path. My parents urging me to the shelter. “ Quickly, come on, Daddy will carry you.”
The smell of the warm rubber of a gas mask against my face as I protested; Then the fog like darkness of the shelters; Back to my cold bed when the wailing sirens stopped. Back to my flannel sheets and my hot water bottle; Another air raid we had survived.
The wooden veranda, where I sit, slants slightly to the left, years ago that part was a ‘sleep out.’ I imagine the old bedstead there, with its occupant waking to go and work at the Co-op. They tell me he weighed the dry stores and let the children sit on the scales too. This house has seen different times, it is a hundred years old, it is a place for reflection, looking out as it does onto the main street. The wooden floor echoes with my footsteps, today is warm, the sun heats the front first then creeps to the side. My hanging baskets of impatients will soon be over, as winter starts to bite at them. Today they nod in a balmy breeze.
Once upon a time I didn’t live in this half of the world, where the sun gets so hot it can cook eggs on the path. Instead I lived where winter had a cruel edge. Even as a child I cried for the sun. I used to stand by the window watching the rain, and longing for the summer to return. Hating those winters I stayed in England until I was nineteen. Then, escaping with my artist husband to sail to New Zealand, I started a new life.
My first summer in New Zealand I devised ways to take everything outside, I was the mad English woman. who ironed outdoors, whose small daughter ran barefoot and naked. When Kerry was only seven months she had a play pen set up in the shade with a blanket beneath it. My agile baby daughter got her feet under the blanket and pushed the pen into the patches of sunlight,
That first summer we spent long days outside, playing and sleeping, with me cutting up vegetables or sewing as Kerry played in the warmth. That love of the sun, and being free. I like to think it is my legacy to her.
Now she only visits; It takes a full day or two of torrid travel to close that gap between us. We dream of our time together when we will again drink cold wine, and tell secrets. Knowing we are forever connected by our sun worship, and a binding thread from those far off days; we survive.
From my chair beneath the shelter of the verandah I can watch passing life, school buses, and housewives with shopping jeeps. I stretch out my feet feeling the wood reflect back heat. The magpie with a broken wing has made his way to me, a perilous route from the bowling club. Danger lurks when you can’t fly. He comes to feed on cheese and scraps, and basks in a warm spot against the fence, head on one side in an imitation of mediation. When he is threatened he runs along the back lanes, one wing speeding him as he holds it up. He survives.
The peace for a moment is complete, then I turn my back on the world outside to cook and clean. Still needing this routine even for just two of us.
Once upon a time I was a busy mother, with a job and three children, I crammed cooking and housework into spare corners of my life. I baked bread and made three different meals at once.I worked in a hotel, or a hospital, or a clothes shop, I stayed out until dawn at parties. I lived every wild moment, never leaving room to breathe and reflect. I cared for my dying mother in law, dried teenage tears when love went wrong, had moments when my life nearly went off the rails because of the stress, but made it all work, kept the threads of life woven together. I survived.
Once upon a time there were picture perfect days; like the holidays in Devon, when the sand was washed clean reflecting the sky, and the sea was like silk. Not only the place but the time is one I wish I could return to. Ten of us went on holiday. There was endless food to prepare; and wet sand-logged trousers to dry. Travel was in a transit van, with Grotty our dog on my lap, his face a picture of pleasure. I would arrive covered in blonde dog hair, and have to cope with an over excited dog vomiting grass in the lounge. His perpetual happiness at being with us was a joy. Now I know those last holidays when the children were not quite grown up were so precious. We rented a house and took my parents too; for them it was a brief respite from the daily struggle to exist and the last time they both enjoyed good health. Those were good days, once upon a time.
Now I still cram my life full, but have oceans of silence. Days of tranquility; I need to have deadlines. So I paint, and enter competitions and try to create art and cook in tandem. In quiet moments words jam my mind, the keyboard becomes my escape, and there are a dozen reasons why the ironing isn’t finished. The thoughts burst through and find their way to a page, captured everlasting. They survive.
Once upon a time I was sensually alive, it was the core of my being. Sensuality is still my soul food, reaching out like warm fingers to the world outside, unchained desire still etched deep in my skin, it was once the driving force, the very scent I exuded. Sex is power, sex is stronger than we ever know. Yet I was unaware of my power, had no idea of the unharnessed roar of it. Too late I know what I had, and lament its passing. Yet I will not cry too many tears, the past is gone, but in my life I have had more love, and joy and wonder than I ever deserved. Is this my happy ever after?
http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/566865.html
The smell of the warm rubber of a gas mask against my face as I protested; Then the fog like darkness of the shelters; Back to my cold bed when the wailing sirens stopped. Back to my flannel sheets and my hot water bottle; Another air raid we had survived.
The wooden veranda, where I sit, slants slightly to the left, years ago that part was a ‘sleep out.’ I imagine the old bedstead there, with its occupant waking to go and work at the Co-op. They tell me he weighed the dry stores and let the children sit on the scales too. This house has seen different times, it is a hundred years old, it is a place for reflection, looking out as it does onto the main street. The wooden floor echoes with my footsteps, today is warm, the sun heats the front first then creeps to the side. My hanging baskets of impatients will soon be over, as winter starts to bite at them. Today they nod in a balmy breeze.
Once upon a time I didn’t live in this half of the world, where the sun gets so hot it can cook eggs on the path. Instead I lived where winter had a cruel edge. Even as a child I cried for the sun. I used to stand by the window watching the rain, and longing for the summer to return. Hating those winters I stayed in England until I was nineteen. Then, escaping with my artist husband to sail to New Zealand, I started a new life.
My first summer in New Zealand I devised ways to take everything outside, I was the mad English woman. who ironed outdoors, whose small daughter ran barefoot and naked. When Kerry was only seven months she had a play pen set up in the shade with a blanket beneath it. My agile baby daughter got her feet under the blanket and pushed the pen into the patches of sunlight,
That first summer we spent long days outside, playing and sleeping, with me cutting up vegetables or sewing as Kerry played in the warmth. That love of the sun, and being free. I like to think it is my legacy to her.
Now she only visits; It takes a full day or two of torrid travel to close that gap between us. We dream of our time together when we will again drink cold wine, and tell secrets. Knowing we are forever connected by our sun worship, and a binding thread from those far off days; we survive.
From my chair beneath the shelter of the verandah I can watch passing life, school buses, and housewives with shopping jeeps. I stretch out my feet feeling the wood reflect back heat. The magpie with a broken wing has made his way to me, a perilous route from the bowling club. Danger lurks when you can’t fly. He comes to feed on cheese and scraps, and basks in a warm spot against the fence, head on one side in an imitation of mediation. When he is threatened he runs along the back lanes, one wing speeding him as he holds it up. He survives.
The peace for a moment is complete, then I turn my back on the world outside to cook and clean. Still needing this routine even for just two of us.
Once upon a time I was a busy mother, with a job and three children, I crammed cooking and housework into spare corners of my life. I baked bread and made three different meals at once.I worked in a hotel, or a hospital, or a clothes shop, I stayed out until dawn at parties. I lived every wild moment, never leaving room to breathe and reflect. I cared for my dying mother in law, dried teenage tears when love went wrong, had moments when my life nearly went off the rails because of the stress, but made it all work, kept the threads of life woven together. I survived.
Once upon a time there were picture perfect days; like the holidays in Devon, when the sand was washed clean reflecting the sky, and the sea was like silk. Not only the place but the time is one I wish I could return to. Ten of us went on holiday. There was endless food to prepare; and wet sand-logged trousers to dry. Travel was in a transit van, with Grotty our dog on my lap, his face a picture of pleasure. I would arrive covered in blonde dog hair, and have to cope with an over excited dog vomiting grass in the lounge. His perpetual happiness at being with us was a joy. Now I know those last holidays when the children were not quite grown up were so precious. We rented a house and took my parents too; for them it was a brief respite from the daily struggle to exist and the last time they both enjoyed good health. Those were good days, once upon a time.
Now I still cram my life full, but have oceans of silence. Days of tranquility; I need to have deadlines. So I paint, and enter competitions and try to create art and cook in tandem. In quiet moments words jam my mind, the keyboard becomes my escape, and there are a dozen reasons why the ironing isn’t finished. The thoughts burst through and find their way to a page, captured everlasting. They survive.
Once upon a time I was sensually alive, it was the core of my being. Sensuality is still my soul food, reaching out like warm fingers to the world outside, unchained desire still etched deep in my skin, it was once the driving force, the very scent I exuded. Sex is power, sex is stronger than we ever know. Yet I was unaware of my power, had no idea of the unharnessed roar of it. Too late I know what I had, and lament its passing. Yet I will not cry too many tears, the past is gone, but in my life I have had more love, and joy and wonder than I ever deserved. Is this my happy ever after?
http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/566865.html