The Week Of Flooring Dangerously
Z had a week off between leaving his old job and starting his new one so we spent a lot of time laying down wooden floors and painting walls in his old house before people move into it. In many ways it was gruelling and exhausting and in some ways it was fun - (like eating takeaway pizza on the bare newly-laid floor of a bare house, and dancing with no music through heaps of sawdust)- but in most ways it was boring and exhausting. I don't think I'm really cut out for DIY. I lack the attention and the patience and physical co-ordination. Also powertools make me nervous since my vivid imagination always provides me with many scenarios of disaster.
I think the heat and the paint fumes conspired to make me light headed and I constantly had flashes of myself from the vantage point of an outsider watching a movie in which a dark-haired woman pranced around hammering and painting walls in her underwear. As though with each laid board we deposited the ghosts of ourselves around the room, filled pockets of still time. Left them scattered around like love, or laughter.
But hey at last the floor is done and the walls are done and all limbs present and correct and to celebrate this we got some Turkish takeaway bad voodoo lamb yesterday which has been disagreeing with me ever since. I spent the night tossing and turning and wailing in wretchedness and begging for death. But I happened to survive, and the cat and I have spent this day embracing and moaning our miseries to each other while he wilts from the heat and I swear to not ever ever ever eat anything again ever(except for apples and dark chocolate, for medicnal reasons). My cat, I've discovered, shares my penchant for drama and melancholy, and we both find our bitch fests soothing. (I swear that animal could not be more like me if he went around in pink glittery hats; one of these days Z is going to come home from work and find us on the sofa molded into each other eating popcorn and watching trashy films; for the moment though we content ourselves with mutual sympathy and forlorn asthmatic wheezing).
I went to Belgrade recently to see my grandmother and make my peace with her as well as I could, which was by and large a success. It feels good to be able to say I forgive you and be loving and gentle. For years it was a very important part of my healing to feel like I had a right to be pissed off on my own behalf and the behalf of my parents, but I think fundamentally I'm not an angry person. It felt good to let go of being angry not because the reasons for my anger were not justified but because it felt like the right thing to do. To say I forgive you in full knowledge of everything she had done, and who she was and to just love her, regardless. Ultimately because it feels more good to be kind than to be the record-keeper of transgress and disaster.
And while I was there I ran into an old lover of mine, who is married with children these days. His wife doesn't like me, so we don't really keep in touch, except sometimes when our paths cross in brief, unexpected meetings. It always feels good to see him again, no doubt more so for the spontaneaty of the encounters. A burst of joy, a gift. Like finding a £20 note in between the pages of a book, like a postcard from a friend.
We hug, we smile at each other, we make small talk and inquiries of what's new while in the background memories of summer afternoons and that winter night float on by. We part as warmly as we greeted, we are always happy for each other. And walking away the insidious unsaid words swirl about our heads like streamers: I still care about you, I sometimes miss you, do you ever think about me in your new life.
I think the heat and the paint fumes conspired to make me light headed and I constantly had flashes of myself from the vantage point of an outsider watching a movie in which a dark-haired woman pranced around hammering and painting walls in her underwear. As though with each laid board we deposited the ghosts of ourselves around the room, filled pockets of still time. Left them scattered around like love, or laughter.
But hey at last the floor is done and the walls are done and all limbs present and correct and to celebrate this we got some Turkish takeaway bad voodoo lamb yesterday which has been disagreeing with me ever since. I spent the night tossing and turning and wailing in wretchedness and begging for death. But I happened to survive, and the cat and I have spent this day embracing and moaning our miseries to each other while he wilts from the heat and I swear to not ever ever ever eat anything again ever(except for apples and dark chocolate, for medicnal reasons). My cat, I've discovered, shares my penchant for drama and melancholy, and we both find our bitch fests soothing. (I swear that animal could not be more like me if he went around in pink glittery hats; one of these days Z is going to come home from work and find us on the sofa molded into each other eating popcorn and watching trashy films; for the moment though we content ourselves with mutual sympathy and forlorn asthmatic wheezing).
I went to Belgrade recently to see my grandmother and make my peace with her as well as I could, which was by and large a success. It feels good to be able to say I forgive you and be loving and gentle. For years it was a very important part of my healing to feel like I had a right to be pissed off on my own behalf and the behalf of my parents, but I think fundamentally I'm not an angry person. It felt good to let go of being angry not because the reasons for my anger were not justified but because it felt like the right thing to do. To say I forgive you in full knowledge of everything she had done, and who she was and to just love her, regardless. Ultimately because it feels more good to be kind than to be the record-keeper of transgress and disaster.
And while I was there I ran into an old lover of mine, who is married with children these days. His wife doesn't like me, so we don't really keep in touch, except sometimes when our paths cross in brief, unexpected meetings. It always feels good to see him again, no doubt more so for the spontaneaty of the encounters. A burst of joy, a gift. Like finding a £20 note in between the pages of a book, like a postcard from a friend.
We hug, we smile at each other, we make small talk and inquiries of what's new while in the background memories of summer afternoons and that winter night float on by. We part as warmly as we greeted, we are always happy for each other. And walking away the insidious unsaid words swirl about our heads like streamers: I still care about you, I sometimes miss you, do you ever think about me in your new life.