Tag Archives: rings

by

Place Value

Of course, if it were nearing the end of April she couldn’t be anywhere else but striding out towards the gate, at the end of the path, at the top of their alpine village. And her arms flew wide and wild, hair at every corner as the shutter smiled and caught her.

It held her face through the years, such that in times when she reduced in size, she would recall herself and the way she beamed. Trees blurred out behind her and his SLR bounced alongside them like a giddy Jack Russell, sniffing and rooting around for the next great shot. And they walked, for the rest of their lives it seemed, they walked up the winding path away from their alpine village which only existed for them.

It didn’t matter that her kitchen was still somewhat cold and although she seemed to sit on a hard wooden chair, she wasn’t there. She was upright on a plush train seat, looking right, as the mountains softened and the land lapped up to the side of them, in their double-deckered, pristine ride. And it would be the Wednesday, maybe Thursday but she’d be beaming, heading south, face up against the window like a child as the fields fled, as they sat side by side.

And it didn’t matter that her heating had just creaked on or the scarf around her shoulders kept her warm. She wasn’t there. She was, of course, on the low wall by the lakeside, kicking her feet and grinning, one hand holding the sunhat to her head, the other on the ubiquitous Diet Coke, in the days when all she needed was her small red rucksack and a first-aid kit to make her day. And if she paused, her wooden kitchen chair gave way to stone and the welcome seep of coolness reached her thighs despite her jeans.

Someone painted the lake for them, or so it seemed and everything was tinged azure and cobalt and they wandered. And the town was deserted or maybe not, maybe all she could see was their feet in unison, climbing the stairs up the tower and round and around and round and around to a platform where they peered out. The more she travelled the younger she became somehow as she clambered up the short steps to the very top, while he humoured her and waved from the opposite window. And she was there clutching the cobbled wall, perched on the window ledge looking down and her white cotton shirt billowed out like her hair.

And her heating rattled and complained, she needed to get the boiler serviced but not right now, now she was counting turrets and burnt sienna tiles and he was helping her back down the staircase in the secret places that they’d found.

Then the pier rose up, lakeside and people bustled but she didn’t care, she wanted to call home. And from a phone box (imagine that, a phone box) she pressed in the coins and waited for connection. Distant sounds came and crackled and then her voice burst out, like a child, like the youngest of girls. I’m in Italy, I’m in Italy and she laughed and gushed while they stood there. Cloudless, edgeless, sun waving streaks of speckled white on a lake to call their own.

And was it later or the next day, she wasn’t sure but the end of April held her close. She borrowed his shirt to protect her from the sun and while he packed or read or slept, she felt it flap around, over her t-shirt as she walked by herself in Zermatt. Not far but far enough, back up the winding path and out of town and every hanging basket sang out and called her name, colours cranked to full saturation, people on bikes and she strode. She walked out and up and away for a while, exploring by herself (a skill that would become vital years from then) but then there was no weight, no weight at all. Just herself and the village path and the drifts of snow, six-cornered starlets melting in the warmth. And could it be real, was it possible at all, that there she was, the smallest of creatures on the planet, yet her tiny frame expanded in the sun and the more she walked, the more she grew and she swung her arms and smiled, smiled liked she did on their first holiday, smiled as though there could be no pain.

She learnt to walk by herself, in his shirt to protect her and every snowflake saw her joy, every flower waved and cheered her on. It would always be the end of April and they walked the winding paths that led to now. At the start, at their start and Murano glass beads jingled round her wrist, throwing rainbows of Millefiori round her heart.

Advertisement
by

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.

by

Navigation

The seagulls are back today, they swoop around, they circle her old home and from their wings she sees the carpet in the lounge, how it turned from spiralled blues to pink. And she sweeps above the kitchen, where the corner chair became a cupboard for the pills, opposite the kettle where she first made him a drink.

And as she looks, the seagulls fill the rooms, their wings waft feathers in her face and carry her upstairs and there they beat the air, there they hover at the edge of her old bed, with its camblewick green cover and in the light that lifts from day to night and day to night again, she sees herself lying, turning, holding thoughts.

The cupboard to the right is silent, where the drawer is stiff, the rich deep wood and a lamp stand of fading brass. She can smell the scented carpet and the polished trinkets, there, on a painted window sill that overlooks that world and as her seagulls settle and fold their wings she smells the coast.

Bedruthan rocks wrap around her and as the sand sneaks in her trainers she pads the beach towards him, laughing, parka flapping in the cut of air, then back.

Seagulls resting on her bedspread, her bed by a bookcase from her youth, crammed with early interests and they whisper. The ivy green curtains are closed, the lamp is off. Her seagulls watch over them, their words and murmurs.

And it’s August. They ruffle feathers around her and lift her up, away from her black and white skirt on the chair, its bells silent and the birds sing out, it’s always August, they call out, we’re always there.

by

Leaden Circles Singing

image

She woke to the thought that the long distant wedding guests would arrive today and they came in the afternoon with their neat bags and powdered faces and some stayed in their small room. Others booked into the hotel by the Cathedral where the party would be held and the sun came up on that morning as it rises now, swamped in thick cloud like the years between the girl and the woman. The heat from the hydrogen would burn through later, like the time, like the images in her head. And she would be there.

***

And later the day arrived and it was her morning, one of the few days in her life when she would be in the house alone. And she woke to the tiredness and the bedclothes and the words. She leapt up. How young she seemed on that morning with the phone on the floor and she squealed down rhe line to his friend and her parents and how they laughed that she would see them later on. And her friend was on the way to help and the nine o‘clock door would open to her face.

How smooth the day felt, the silk of her tights, of her underwear, its cold comfort under a patterened paisley wrap and she would wait. She wondered about his morning and the bacon that she didn’t have. How he joked with his friend in the flat and cravats were tied in a hallway mirror until they were just right.

It was a day to wait for doorbells to ring and for wonen. People she only saw twice who would come and brush and preen, while her coffee went cold on the polished wooden shelf and her friend kneeled to the front, strapping laces. So many faces around her, in preparation for just one, one face that would know her with his smile.

And the boots would be on by now and the kitchen floors a reek of lilies and in the bustle and movements of the day she would see herself. Herself amongst the visitors and they came for jobs then left. She would have looked to her bare finger and thought of later, how it would glisten and glow. It was the moments that were a part of her, that would sit like a peeling bell, reverberating through her life, despite the hours, she would be there.

And soon with the help of her friend, she would find the rustling upstairs and climbing into taffeta she would be, there in that moment, that she would live in their bedroom, wrapped and swirling in silk and somehow as she dressed, she knew and felt herself looking back from now.

And she notes how everything is circular, the rippling waves of the bells, the skirts that dance around her and the rings. So many rings on so many fingers, how she loved to decorate her hands just like her Mother in Law, with fine fingers to dress and stone and gems to throw colours up into her eyes. The eyes that have held her world, strengths that fade in and out, round and around, a never ending pattern that holds and releases her like the gold around her finger, like the symbol of a song.

Everything is repeating today, she observed and she knew it always would do, like the indent on her finger, the permanence in the space and in those moments that came round again she filled herself up and drank long. She watched herself across the years and she prepared. She would always be in this moment, the stairs and the full clouds of silk, the faces glint, the gliding whiteness, the chauffer’s smile turned towards her in the corner in her mind.

She would be there in the smell of blossom, up the pathway to their world and in the hours she would live through, by the old wooden seats to the alter and they were there, all of them together,  in one moment and the circles were gold and her finger was bare.

And it was time and there was certainty.

image