Staying Soft

I went up early because I was restless, because for the first time my life has no clear path ahead, and I am caught in an unavoidable, interminable pause. I wanted to be present with my daughter, but I could not quite reach her, or even myself, so I climbed the stairs intending to watch the night through my window, to lie on my bed with the light dimmed and let the smell of hot air and warm rain come in.

Instead, I sat with my tarot cards, asking questions I already knew the answers to, while they told me things I had not asked and showed me something I must have known already, because as soon as I saw it, it felt familiar: whenever a relationship breaks down, my mind wanders towards past lovers.

Not because I really want to return, but because they are known, their shapes, their stories. A new person would require something else entirely. I would have to trust my judgement, trust my intuition, and let someone arrive without knowing the ending.

This, as it turns out, is terrifying to me, because I like to know everything, and I have spent so much of my life understanding myself in relation to another person, writing their story, reading their silences.

But I like myself now, I respect myself now, I know what I need, and I believe I am allowed to need it, which is wonderful, of course it is, but it is lonely too.

I put the cards down and beat myself up for wasting the evening, for not sitting with my daughter to watch TV, even though I do not like TV much, except sometimes when I need to turn off my brain, or on Fridays when we do movie night, because really there are so many other things I want to do instead: read, walk, draw, write.

I am tired, but annoyed with rest. I look around the dark room, everything is uncomfortable tonight, although I have made it beautiful. On the mantelpiece there are candles, unlit, and in one corner there is a tall candle lantern, also unlit. I wish there was someone to light them for, someone to watch the night through the window with when the air smells so beautiful, not to talk to, just to be present with, someone who notices.

As I always do when confusion settles, I ask my dreams to tell me more or bring me peace. They often oblige. The night was long and very hot, full of rich and explanatory dreams, but they flew away before I could catch them.

There was no coffee on the chest of drawers when I woke, no token of existence. I wasn’t rested. I reached down to the side of the bed and pulled out my journal. Every day I do this before anything else, but today I don’t have the words. I don’t know what to write anymore, because there is nothing left to do, nothing left to analyse, only the waiting, which feels like passing a long confinement.

The nothing days are the worst. I don’t reply to my emails or messages, I don’t walk, I don’t write, but I go through the motions: the school run, the lunches, only the necessary.

I remember that film, The NeverEnding Story. The villain is the Nothing, and it devours everything, which is how I feel today. I sit on the floor by my bed and I know I must do something to fight it, although I have no horse, no magical dog-dragon, and there is no one who can make beautiful wishes to make this pass.

There is only time to pass now.

My life taught me relentless resilience, so I get up and strip all the beds, changing the sheets because it is something to do with my hands, but it’s still only going through the motions. The Nothing is still winning, so I stop. I breathe. I cannot make a wish for myself at the moment, because that wish would be someone to watch the flames dance with. Someone curious, clever, creative. Someone kind. Someone to share with.

I cannot make a wish, because it’s still that someone would wish for me.

I shouldn’t let the Nothing win, so I lift one fresh white sheet and tuck it neatly at the corners, put the pillowcase on, fluff the pillow, pinch each corner out. One, two, three, four. Then I lift another white sheet, take it in two hands, wave it into the air and, like a moment of magic, it floats softly down onto the bed. I fold the top down, so gently. I slide my fingers down the edge of the sheet between the wall and the bed as if it isn’t a sheet but the finest gossamer of tissue.

Nothing comes from nothing. I line her slippers up by the edge of the bed and walk out softly.

A Favourite bed in Charleston