Category Archives: Act of Memory

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Teoría de Ondas #7

The cloud cover broke a little just beyond her trees and blue peeped through. She followed it, she let herself be swept along and up and through to Valencia.

And she dropped down, she landed like a curled up leaf and then unfurled. Stretching out, warming in the Spanish sun.

And she was there.

There, in flowing linen, and cream hat, there in the indigo glass reflection, in the white spots of sunlight on polished chrome. Just a split second, as though she viewed it all from here, older, looking back, as though the moment had rippled back and forth through time, throughout the whole course of her life.

And she would be there, limitless in the azure blue and violets. She tried to freeze the moment but it ebbed and dipped, rose and fell, in and out like her breath on the warmth of that day.

Under the startling architecture they wandered as though it had been created just for them.

She was there.

There, in the deep soft cream settee of the of the taxi, low down, buildings blurring as they explored the town.

There, by the bicycle racks finding Tourist Information. And maps were drawn and plans were made as they forged themselves back out.

There, to the left of the Cathedral, then the fountain and that sense of achievement when they found their bearings once again.

There, in that repeating sense of being trained, that she would need these skills just down the line. And then her husband sat, with Guinness while she took their small boy’s hand and walked away.

And she was there in the twenty minutes before the shuttle bus to the docks, striding out to find a souvenir with their son. And the pavements seemed so white and the buildings were warm ochre and in the Spanish sun they were being taught to explore alone.

And there and back and to the cafe meet up with one last photo, one last pose.

She was there and snapped them, husband and son at the fountain, grinning. And the water droplets sprayed up and the photons sparkled down as minutes slowed.

And in the Now she went back there, tired but noting moments on the coach, smiling at the buildings, wide-eyed like a child. And the city shone as though everything was brand new, resplendent, shimmering like themselves.

And the day was white and chrome and violet with an endless sky to call her own. And she clambered back into the feeling, to be there, to be together, to be whole.

If she could have just one day it would be there, it would be then, under the mothering Spanish sun.

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Teoría de Ondas #5

The mint leaf rested effortless on the hot water’s surface tension, so it had just enough support. And in her morning mug the sky trembled, the trees rippled in their inverted world.

She thought of reflections of the restaurant ceiling, upside down in her wine glass, garnet red and rounded, with its full deep sun warmed taste.

The sun was up in the Now, drying leaves, dropping pale light across her golden browns. But she wasn’t there, she had stood in ancient ruins in the morning and now, back on the coach trip their bellies rumbled from the early start.

Lunch came, with perfect pasta, passing bowls to strangers across a carnival of colours. She drank it all in, at the long wooden table where they sat. She looked right and up to the violet curtains, gold organza fluttering, how they seemed to light up despite the dimness of the candle lit room. And if she took out her small camera she would capture them and have the moment frozen for all time.

But nothing could hold the colours, like jewels against the window and she watched the sunbeams dance amongst the dust as though everything was slowing down. It was as though the moment was calling out to her, look at me, look at me, this is a second to hold. Side by side, in the flickering dim and although her camera could never do justice to the light, she knew her mind would keep it safe. And there they were in that restaurant with high ceilings and wooden walls, sharing food with the strangers of their day.

And later, much later, the fountains and bridges faded to a hush, to a crowded, shoulder to shoulder throng looking up. Quiet, neck-straining to take in the paintings up above and how strange it seems now. That oddness in the thought of rubbing shoulders with no fear, and they stood crammed in together, tasting the air, breathing without masks, without hand gel.

She dropped back to the Now and the day that lay ahead of her but it was tinged, it was softened around the edges like the quality of light. And if she breathed in long and deep she was full, she was lost again to the scent of the Sistine Chapel.

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Teoría de Ondas #6

She would be standing there now, looking up. So much of that time seemed to be about looking up or looking out in that outward expanding world. Not like this, not like this small enclosed tight place.

But that was then and so she looked and listened to the guide. They were taken to a shop selling leather coats, its heavy scent still lingered and here the crowd of strangers stopped just to use the toilets. The owner watched as people drifted in and out to the back of his shop, some stopping to stroke the leather but no-one buying. He nodded to them as they passed by. He was used to it I suppose, an arrangement with the tour guide. Perhaps she was a friend.

Tired feet pushed down on the Piazza di San Giovanni, drifting around a stall of puppets. Pinocchios dangling, hopeful, desperate to feel real again. And back along by the side of the cathedral, soft russets against blue, she looked back up.

Pinocchio swung in the small boy’s hand and they walked on, through medieval alleyways in the footsteps of tourists, capturing moments like you do, like they did.

And later after coaches pulled up in the rain in a Pisa carpark, she bartered with the brolly sellers, a trick she did often and well.

And there they were again, another second, backpacks and cameras, holding up the tower in the rain. At the market stall, the bags and scarfs pulled her close and as their boy learned how to make Pinocchio dance she pottered amongst the gifts.

The tasseled black and red scarf still hangs in her wardrobe but then it was clutched in her hand, then it was her trophy from the day and they rushed back.

And just before the meeting point where her husband waited, she slipped for a second, went over on her right ankle, on the wet cobbled lane and then regained.

Raindrops on coach windows, a greyed out Pisa on their left, throbbing ankle and a new scarf to wrap up the day. But Pinocchio sat on the young boy’s lap to her right, small and wooden, his painted eyes, trying to recall what it felt like to be alive.

Grazie mille, they whispered to the town as they pulled away.

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Teoría de Ondas #4

There was a time when white sands flanked them on the left as they wandered, when the beach framed the bay, resplendent, calming like a long out breath.

At the end of the road by the market stalls, Matisse’s house stood, elegant and shuttered, perfect angles under the startling sun. And thinking about his paintings, how they seemed to be lit by the same insistent sun, as though the paint itself was lit from within.


And in one breath she lived there, russet skirts brushing the stairs as she came down in the morning. There would be no rush as she chattered with the stall holders. A smile and a joke and then with her basket full of nectarines and oranges she would drift away to the edge of the beach. And staring out to sea she would feel herself ripple and drink in the day.

And later back in Cannes the moment was frozen by a passerby, dressed head to toe in baby pink and tripping by her feet was her clipped poodle, dyed pink to match the owner. Woman and dog sparkling in the heat.

Their day was a vibrant palette, bright colours on each brush. It was a painting to stare into on dark chilled autumn mornings. And there, in the South of France she wore white and she seemed to be lit from within.

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Teoría de Ondas #3

And she floated down to the earth with her leaves, twisted, crumbling. They caught the sun as they fell, each one a moment, a glimpse of her. Here. There. And she cascaded, one second into another.

The girl in jeans lying on his bed, waiting for a trip to the forest. And they were there, wrapped and younger with hours ahead. And leaves crunched.

And then the morning, one year later, squeezing through packing boxes and squashed into his car, they traveled north. The fig plant on her lap, bouncing, faded lemon and green leaves, tangling into her long hair. And they unpacked.

A blackbird skooshed under the branches in the right here, right now and then she fell again, dropping from the trees, a mess of golden, a curled up fading form.

And she was there in their new lounge, taking on the owner with her fiancé to her right. A stressed-out seller to her left, who sabre rattled a rolling pin in the face of her husband-to-be.

And she rallied, she reared up. ‘You’ll have to get through me first’ she said and her words rattled around her head, the phrase that became their anecdote, in their new home, in their new life, on that day in a distant autumn.

And leaves fell and she joined them, down and down, as though there were no structure to her thoughts, as though her edges had given way. The sun in the Now called out to her, soothed her through the mothering blue of an empty sky.

And in the cloudless start to her day, she stood flanked and strong by her husband and son, as they stared out across the park. Gaudí’s Cathedral looked back, its stone sweetcorn against their perfect sky and it soared up, magnificent, intricate, an image almost permanent.

And they walked on, following the tour guide with her yellow sign, held high. The ground still swayed a little but they were out. Feet on dry land, together, hands linked as they went on their way.

And leaves fell in the park in Barcelona, and beyond her window in the right here and right now, she floated down. She let the cool breeze carry her, gentle, down-to-earth, where she rested with the others, where she turned her head up to face the sky.

She was the warm yellows of her past, in a scattered ochre morning. She watched herself fall down, an October mulch to feed her day.

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Teoría de Ondas #2

She saw their faces, Florida worn and florid as they bellowed across the starched white breakfast linen. She let it wash across her.

They were a freak show at the table, a curiosity over the crisp hot bacon slice, the entertainment in their morning, while the orange pulp left bits inside her mouth. And she saw themselves stretched out, distorted in the silver coffee pot, elongated versions of themselves, smiling as the table rocked, almost imperceptible with judderings under foot.

The overnight pitch and yaw still rattled in her mind, the slam and crash of metal, tipping, tilting hard. And down the narrow corridors, room service trolleys swayed, clattering into closed doors.

Bay of Biscay batterings until exhaustion beat the waves and by dawn the creaking eased, by dawn the swell had calmed and took them, in gilded lifts, to start the day.

And their morning opened in the background buzz of chattering, of clinking cutlery, of sausage sizzle with its fat dripping on their chins while seasoned travellers just shrugged off the storm.

A gentle rolling with short sleeved strangers in the constant supply of toast.

There were days, months ahead of her when this feeling would be common, when this fragile sense fighting foes, of wrestling waves would be familiar in her day. But not then, then it was just a squall to ride and nothing more.

She was being trained in storms.

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Teoría de Ondas #1

And the weather came up to greet her. She was so thankful for its covering, the solid mass of grey and in the twist and ripple of the orange and tired greens she could relax.

It was a time of ease, of unfurling and soon she would be out there, twirling, the rain clattering into her face, like sea spray, like that moment, that becoming.

And there she was, purple-wrapped in chiffon, hair up ended by the gusts and from the deck, their town would shrink and from their place above the churning grey they would be captured.

There. Then. In that second that defined them. Together swaying.

And today storms promise from beyond her double glazing and she’s primed to be out in it once again. To be twisted and ruffled, inverted like the leaves that stir her hair. And her feet push concrete but all she can feel are the waves, glorious, impermanent, rising up to meet her like that day.

Paul drove them, to drop them off from his tattered golden car. His children chirruping behind her head as the ship reared up on their left. The softened autumn sun glinting off the side of his bald head and they were there. Piling out onto the slipway, suitcases, hugs and her purple scarf danced around her, untethered.

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Temporal (All that Matters) #5

This, this now, this having slept 5 hours on diazapam and you’re propped up, wired up waiting for Johnny V, do you remember Johnny V ? Looked like Johnny Mathis in his way.

And you pulse, you brace, you ride the spasms as they come.

But Johnny brings fresh news and plans change yet again. And so you beamed at the prospect of a long day opening up ahead, of no need for surgery at all.

And it’s this kind of feeling, waiting for the needle team, for the back stab and their voices swirling, fading in and out.

And now, in the now, the warmth of cooking chocolate cake wafts up and frames the day. And you’re settled, softened to the carnival of colours in your head, to the moment when the needle took the pain away, to the sense of loss and separation from it all. And the minutes formed a day and early evening bought more work.

And now under the distant drone of passing planes, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that despite the pushing, your hours bled, theatre bound.

And there under green and lights, there in the clink of instruments, was the moment he came to be. Up and round and out, up and out, all pink and red and warm.

That moment, your time, all three together. Despite everything, all that matters is you came through.

Skin to skin and the sense of coming home.

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Fragments – Belonging

August 7th

And there were small footsteps from their home, running to the car and a wave and she would see him later.

The woman and the kettle sat in an empty room. But how full it was, how it pulsed and sparkled, full of every second they had lived. Bright with the moments, charged with the normal-ness of their life.

And she sat while their boy played elsewhere. Men and boxes came and went like the shifting thoughts inside her, until the door closed one last time and she thanked the spaces that became the past.

And there they sat, waiting in Starbucks, waiting for the call and for the keys, until they came. And their possessions poured into a new place, to fill it up, packed with their hours.

And later the small footsteps returned and they ran and they charged down a new hallway. She stood there seeing his beaming face and all the moments lined up ahead.

And now as a different kettle boils, she feels it all, every second of their world spinning in her hot green tea. Around and around in every spiral, safe inside the mug, inside her heart.

And they were there on that old green carpet that they left behind and they were here on the new blue carpet that filled up their home.

She sipped from the mug in the Now, hoisted up her skirts again and carried on.

August 9th

Always there in that morning before their evening, in the morning before their night. And her skirt waited and her hair waited, long and thick and dark. And he would be leaving soon, heading north with his plans, with his ways and her day would unfold, quiet, in the way it used to do.

Always.

This day, neurons buzzing forming shapes telling her stories again and the Now fell away, her aging body swooned and they appeared.

Navigating. A closeness. A certain intune-ness in the swish of her skirt, in the whiteness of her crinkled top.

Always under sap heavy trees and he took her home in his old car.

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White Cloud


It always comes back to blossom, every year no matter what. And her road wound its way, like it did, up from their tiny home and turned left.

The colours started then, the froth and flutter like the taffeta scrunched around her, filling the back seat, like their petals filled the sky.

And turning right around the roundabout where she would take their unmade child, where school walks would be full of leaves and sticks, she saw her village on the right.

It ebbed away like her childhood, tucked safe inside her like the hidden garter on her leg and they drove on. At the junction trees came out to cheer her, smiled and waved in baby pink and candy whites as though they’d been grown just for this day, as though their only purpose was to shine.

And she sat and shimmered. Another roundabout and the hill eased down into her town, traffic lights held them while cherry flowers bobbed and frilled. Down and down, through the sap lined chorus, till a sharp left and squeeze of her hand. A chauffeur’s smile like the morning, as if he were the creatures in the branches turning their gaze towards the car, and calling out ‘look look, the blossom is out, watch her swirling now.’

And she sat. Two turns to go and moments folded round her, people scattered and petals burst, giddy, gleeful as though this was the first day to sing.

A route they’d travelled and planned with care through autumn leaves, but now every branch etched the sky just for her and every blossom swooped like swifts dived and murmured, like swathes of bird’s wings coming home.

Last turn right, until gates framed her, frills and fussing, with flowers in her arms. The tiny church path held her ivory feet and she came out in the blossom, like her day, like her trees, like her moment to stand out in the sun.

Leaves sparkled as she swept, soft pink, white scent before the hush. The cherry trees came out to hold her, to show her how to live. Bursting full, grabbing hours before they ease their colours to the ground.

Every fanciful floating petal was waiting just for her and she brushed towards him like a cherry tree in bloom.