And the feeling of meconium, pushing through, the filling of my fragile wings until they’re strong.
Until they carry me up and out and over and away, watching the flowers beneath me, the breeze, lifting me. Sunlight turning up my colours till they sing.
And on the leaves below, the photons warm through the residue of who I used to be.
And if you look up, you can see me, can hear the soft beating of my wings.
See me, hear me.
There is no shame.
Beetle in a box
Box on an island
Island in the ocean
Ocean at my core
I seem stuck, a little laden down, a little numb. And while today’s radiator warms my back to the sound of clocks and snoring, my younger hands lose their grip and tea comes tumbling, scalding, soaking into their hospital robe and I crumple.
Soon, cursor flashing, clock ticking. Tomorrow, younger, stronger.
Still stuck.
Worried the words will find me in a heap on their sterile floor but I keep going, like then, like now. Keep going and I slept half on diazepam, half on exhaustion like a dribbling drunk in their faux leather chair.
With prayer around me.
This familiarity in sitting, waiting, a sense that I can’t give up. And if it were a Saturday I’d have cried at the woman between my legs, at her optimism for the day but not later. Later, no change and I sank back into the endless bed. Her trundled trolley of glinting things tidied away hope and wheeled it out the door.
Only the armchair held me, knew me, when I called out for help. I do wonder how her life worked out, the woman with the strange name who took my weight over the toilet. I still think about her, even now and the meds they locked away from me till morning.
Morning started in the thin pink ethnic t-shirt that took me under the tree I’ll pass by later. I’m sure the bole of it remembers me, it showed me how to bend into the nature. I said I’d do whatever it takes and I did.
Now I come to think of it, it was the pale green embroidered t-shirt, did I change in the morning, now I’m not sure? Either way trees came and went. They wheeled me inside.
Later. Round about now a new ceiling watched me sleep despite the spasms.
Pillows subsumed me.
You know when you can hear your mother inside you saying that you have to rest? But you know and she knows that you can’t, not now. Well, not just yet.
And your mother’s face is around you with that look, that understanding that you can’t stop. And she swallows hard, keeps it all in, and like her, you do just the same.
And she sits alongside you in the silent dawning kitchen, she makes the tea for you while you let yourself feel feelings for a while.
She wears that old green dressing gown that kept her warm and she shuffles with her life-lived feet. She knows. And under her dressing gown, her body that made you, is reminding you that you can do this, that you have the strength.
You lean into the worktop, the oak takes your weight. It’s quiet in here, apart from your sniffing and the soft sounds of your mother busying herself around you.
She walks alongside you keeping you up.
She passes the tea cup to you. She knows everything you feel.
You drink up, wipe your eyes.
Do it all again, she whispers.
You can stop soon. just not today. Your mother on the inside, charging you up. again.
The water seems kinder today or maybe I’m just more aware of it that’s all. I wash my arms with consciousness as though cleansing myself from within. It helps.
I wonder about the woman in the black dress . It looked black though its print was of tiny bright flowers, red maybe orange. She passed me on day one, eyes pooling, brimming, hand to nose and mouth as she rushed out. I couldn’t hug her but the feeling pulsed up through me. It would have startled her anyway if I’d reached out, she had enough to deal with. She spilled over as I just about kept it in.
That was last week.
I wonder about her this morning. Is she having a shower, does she have time for a bath, is she thinking in the water like I am? Is she held in its amniotic fluid, giving her strength for another day.
Maybe she has a quick wash, doesn’t bother with make-up, or maybe she needs it as a shield against the world.
Does she feel the tightness in her chest, her tummy flip as she sanitises her hands and pushes through the heavy doors? Has she forgotten she’s even got a body, is she churning in her head, like me.
The water is kinder today, present, healing, it tells me to slow down as it drips off my skin. Little spheres of surface tension, swirling rainbows dance inside. I send them out to the woman in the black dress, I hope she’s still holding up, like me.
I must try to remember I have a body.
I breathe out.
It’s day eleven, (maybe twelve.)
Now there’s a tree watching over the bed, birds scrabbling for food, people darting in and out the Costas just off to the right and if they looked up from their latte they’d see me in the window looking out.
I didn’t like yesterday’s room though, felt too far tucked away, almost a sense of punishment, of neglect. Broken thinking on my part, of course. Tiredness doesn’t help.
Of course the care was on point and Senior Sister Gemma enfolded me with her reassuring London tones, her voice and her words and her ways. She called me darlin’ and we joked about the room upgrade. She should have been pulling pints but she was pushing beds instead and I was grateful .
And when the upgrade came, when trees were administered, when the relief of natural light came into view, I relaxed (a little.)
A ward with a window over green and the bole of the tree stands guard, steady, constant, dependable bark that’s been there a hundred years watching people change.
I feel like I’ve been there a hundred years but it’s only day seven or is it eight?
Maybe that’s why the previous room took me down, floored me with an echo of late pregnancy, of no privacy, of people poking and me hanging on. Propped up, out of time with a job to do, concerned faces, waiting, willing. Praying.
I think that’s it, the silent magnolia walls, the speckled ceiling, just a little too high for my liking and a view, (if you can call it that,) over the scrag end of the buildings.
Still, that’s not now.
I’d better get up, I’ve got a job to do. I hope Gemma’s on today. I like her long black pony tail. When she walks, it swings like a metronome on her back, keeping me steady with her rhythm.
Is it day six or seven, I’m not sure? Not that it matters. Time has rolled in on itself. There aren’t hours, there are interruptions, people doing things, bringing things, taking, giving, adding observations to their charts. There’s no natural light, everything’s in suspension.
I walk the corridor in my mind, through the big old doors, nod to the receptionist, past the childrens’ drawings of a lion. The lion smiles, you know, the way they do? Secure in their strength, protected by a massive mane of gold. I think he waves a paw at me, not sure. And up the slight incline almost like a ramp boarding a ship to somewhere else, a sense of entering a different world.
The artwork on either side demands attention but I rush past, abstractions blur, birds and flowers shrug at me. They don’t care, they’ll be there on the way out, suspended in gouache, captured moments that mean the world to someone.
My feet keep walking, step after step, soles squeak on their lino, sometimes heels click, depending on which shoes I’m wearing. It doesn’t matter either way so long as I keep going. Past the towering stacks of SHEETS and BLANKETS covered in thin plastic. They’re organised in here. I’m back in the machine, cogs turn, people sometimes smile, sometimes avoid your eye. Everyone churning, focused.
I walk the corridor in my mind. It’s 06:08. I’ll walk it for real again soon. I’ll say hello to Leo as I go past, Maybe I’ll imagine that I’m a lion too.
Do you know how much I hate the relative’s room? I know hate is a strong word, maybe I resent it, is that better? Of course, I’m so grateful for it too, its functional furniture, its token flowers on the windowsill as if to say don’t worry, things will bloom again.
Do you know how much I feel for The Lady from Upstairs? She visits us twice a day, in her clouds of dementia, has a little walk with the nurse who tells her she can’t go any further. That’s the men’s ward, she repeats but The Lady from Upstairs doesn’t care, she protests, she says hello regardless and we wave back until she turns around to go again. She’s on repeat – as am I.
It makes me sad, it makes me grateful, it rams home our essential life affirming interconnectedness and all I want to do is bundle her up in my arms and hug her until all the things she struggles with will seep away, until she’s a young lithe girl again, giddy, in fresh love and her mind is as crystal clear as her young eyes.
I turn away, I look towards the bed I sit by. I want to do the same for all the patients. I want to make us all ok, but I can’t.
And on the way in for the nth time this week, up the endless polished corridors, I passed the brand new parents, the father clutching a warm thing to his chest, he murmurs ‘it’s ok young one,’ as as I go past, although I know he’s not talking to me. And as I reach the place where I turn off, where I brace yet again, an elderly man pushes his wife in a wheelchair, and I feel the invisible threads between us all. The elderly woman and baby swap places, meld into each other and I can’t tell where either begin or end.
This morning I took time out in the relative’s room, I looked out past the sprig of freesias to the claustrophobic slabs of brick. I know this place. I’ve got form.
I throw my damp tissues into the bin and head back to the ward. The Lady from Upstairs will be back to see us soon. I hope she feels happy in her world, somehow, in some way.
Why is everything so blue in here? I guess it’s designed to bring calm but it doesn’t really work. I don’t like blue concertina curtains. They unnerve me.
Janey L Foster 