(pic: unsplash)
18 months ago, it was 12 July 2021. My father had died a few days ago. That was a difficult time, possibly not always for the reasons you might imagine. There was a lot going on that was stressful and difficult then, which I didn’t want to think or write about then and still don’t wish to.
The notes in my notebook at that very intense time – which I spent living at my parents’ place – do not reveal how stressful or intense it was. I didn’t have the emotional capacity or mental energy to unpack my emotions and relive them by writing them on a page. So the notebook is a mostly neutral, unemotional record of lists and facts: what I’d cooked, what someone said, what I’d cleaned or thrown out, what I’d observed when I’d gone for a walk.
Now, when I look back at the notebook, my reaction is to distance myself even further. There’s no point trying to superimpose emotions now, that I didn’t record then. Did I even feel anything at the time? Probably not. Sometimes, you’re too swept up in the needs of the moment. You don’t have the luxury of feeling anything.
So, I thought I’d be experimental with those notes. What would happen, I wondered, if I flicked through pages, randomly letting my eyes fall here and there, and scribbled whatever few words I saw, onto index cards, and then jumbled those up, making the words even more random by taking away any chronological order?
Obviously, I must be keen to remove myself even further from the actual events and emotions felt. But it’s a playful exercise, too, because sometimes when you put seemingly random words and phrases together, and read them with a brain that naturally tries to make connections between words, new meanings can seem to arise from the result. Think of it as a freeform poem. Or a draft, for – who knows what?
So, below is a string of random words written sometime between May 27 and August 29, 2021.
During that time, my dad received a diagnosis that he had a very advanced, agressive form of leukaemia, and about 4 weeks to live. He died, 5 weeks later. 5 weeks after that, my mother had a fall and fractured her ankle and went to hospital. Two days after that my sister, who lives overseas, flew home again, leaving me living on my own at my parents’ house, where I stayed for another six weeks as there were lockdowns in place that meant I could only visit Mum in hospital – by sitting outside the window and talking on the phone – if I stayed there and didn’t go back to my own home.
Random words from my notebook, May 27 – August 29, 2021
get up early
snapped back, thinking,
all I said was
lace curtains
bare details
irritated,
surprised to hear Uncle Leo singing
a blacksmith
smoke was coming out
a replica of the original
when the day came
almost like I had a
you tell me?
being gentle and weird
shortly after I gave up and,
about 200 Tattslotto tickets
referral form
little nylon overnight bag
water gushing into the washing machine
dissolves into white
when she’s here alone
especially in the west
Blathering About Nothing 