My dear little car confidently informed me today, via the clock radio, that the date today is the 15/08/2008.
I know the clock is broken. It has been broken since before the real 15/08/2008. I could take it back to the dealership and get it fixed but I am . . .lazy. This is not some sign that time is spinning backwards, my perfectly normal little old Ford Fiesta is not suddenly going to spew me out back into the midst of three years ago, in a Back To The Future stylee. Although that would make quite the blog post, I have to admit. It's a sign that I am lazy and don't particularly care about knowing the date (the one that the world is agreed upon) or arriving anywhere on time.
Now I find that my eye is irresistibly drawn to the digits, surely incontrovertible proof that something is happening. Is bound to happen.
I am counting down the days.
In anticipation of what I am not entirely certain.
The return of the past?
An opportunity to go back and save her?
Perhaps that would be impossible even if I could, somehow, revisit that time.
And maybe she would not be there. She is not a creature who has much to do with time any longer. Perhaps death removed her from this continuum where her mother still paces back and forth and frets over her broken car and what this all meant. If it meant anything.
I find that I still pick and pick at this idea.
And re-visiting the lines from my original post, I find the final line, overlooked by whoever was speaking in that radio interview that first drew this quote to my attention.
‘It does not seem to me that we understand the laws governing the return of the past. But I feel more and more as if time did not exist at all, only various spaces interlocking according to the rules of a higher form of stereometry, between which the living and the dead can move back and forth as they like. And the longer I think about it, the more it seems to me that we who are still alive are unreal in the eyes of the dead , that only occasionally, in certain lights and atmospheric conditions, do we appear in their field of vision."
Still taken from Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald, only now slightly more complete.
And I wish I could know that I did. That I did appear in her field of vision.
When the light is a certain colour, when the rain slants in a particular fashion, when there is a stillness to the atmosphere.
Or perhaps, it is when there is a storm.
Does she see me? Do I appear in her field of vision? On occasion.
Or are we forever cut off in mid-breath, all lines of communication down?
Then what I am to do with all this mess in my heart? This troublesome mind that itches and wants?
How I wish I could reach her. I don't care to know when, I'm not fussy about that.
I don't want to know the particular blend of conditions that would conjure me to her.
Just as I am forever conjuring her to myself.
Just to know it could happen would be enough.
That this isn't a one way street.
I hold the sturdy weight of her sister asleep in my arms. With her beating heart and heavy limbs. And I can't believe that this, this experience that so saturates me and her siblings could come to just . . nothing.
All to naught, to a . . . withering. Surely that simply cannot be? I cannot let it be. I can maintain both sides of this strange relationship if necessary. Just give me a basis for doing so.
And I can't stop thinking that I am nearly there, this thought tickling at the edges of my brain, that same feeling you get just before you grasp something complex and slippery.
Time is a trickster.
Perhaps her death was always just waiting.
When I was four, it was waiting.
When I was sixteen, it was waiting.
Was it always waiting? For her?
And perhaps it is still waiting, waiting for me to go back and find it. Find her.
One of those moments with no beginning and no end.
29th August 2008. My own perfect circle.
Trudge, trudge. Surely the circumference is getting a little worn now.
If is does turn out to be a time machine, will you come and pick me up too? I wouldn't mind a trip back to 2008 to find my daughter.
ReplyDelete... and yet, I fear no good would come of it. I have always felt that if I didn't lose her the way I did, it would have been some other way.
I do, truly believe, that my daughter IS somewhere and that where somewhere is, she is able to see me and hear the love that my heart beats out for her. I believe that of all our babies.
Catherine, so much of this post makes so much sense to me.
ReplyDeleteThis especially:
"And I can't stop thinking that I am nearly there, this thought tickling at the edges of my brain, that same feeling you get just before you grasp something complex and slippery. "
Sending you love as always,but especially for the coming days. x
Great Scott!
ReplyDeleteI wish we could all time travel although I have a feeling it would be like one of those horror films where everything that I changed led to worse consequences...
In the mean time, I persistently drive at a steady 88mph.
I can't help but think my whole life was building up towards August 2008. That it was always meant to be, and the days from when I was born, until that very moment I lost her were always ticking down, waiting for that bomb to go off. I was on a freight train, gathering speed, that I could not stop. And I could not get off. It feels as if that outcome was always going to eventuate for me.
ReplyDeleteSo this really resonated with me:
"Perhaps her death was always just waiting.
When I was four, it was waiting.
When I was sixteen, it was waiting.
Was it always waiting? For her?
And perhaps it is still waiting, waiting for me to go back and find it. Find her."
And that date. Ouch. The day after my due date. The day I went in to labour. And was sent home from hospital, because said labour was not established. Ouch. I will always remember that bloody date.
So many dates like that in August. For us both.
xo
What an interesting thought Catherine. So much of me wonders the same thing, I look at the clock and when I happen to see 5:06 in the evening time, it brings me to the time the doctor came in and announced that she was indeed gone. 5:06. I have often wondered how it would be if I could revisit her somehow. I never thought about it this way though. She has nothing to do with time. How sad to think she might be stuck in those hard days of the NICU if she did. I embrace this idea that time and her have nothing to do with each other. Thank you for your beautiful words. Wishing for your heart peace,
ReplyDeletexoxo
Everything you said here..
ReplyDelete"Time is a trickster.
Perhaps her death was always just waiting.
When I was four, it was waiting.
When I was sixteen, it was waiting.
Was it always waiting? For her?
And perhaps it is still waiting, waiting for me to go back and find it. Find her.
One of those moments with no beginning and no end.
29th August 2008. My own perfect circle.
Trudge, trudge. Surely the circumference is getting a little worn now."
Wow.. so perfectly ringing true to me tonight. I have always been waiting.. and now even at 34 I am still waiting. I need that DeLorean!
Beautiful, Catherine. So much for me to reflect upon.
ReplyDeleteI brought an empty glass jam jar with me all the way to Australia. Why? Because one fine summer day, I filled it with baking soda and I had written, in blue felt pen, the date of "July 2003" on the label. It was purchased when C. was still alive in my belly, perfect, kicking, and feisty. When I was round and glowing, full of expectation of dreams come true.
After we buried her, that jam jar full of baking soda sat in my cupboard for years. I saw it every time I made dinner, had a mug of tea, searched cluttered shelves for vitamins. It was my own time portal in my kitchen...back to a moment when all was as it should be.
When we moved, the jam jar was emptied of the long-expired baking soda and packed carefully with other keepsakes. The label is slightly faded, the marker a lighter shade of blue, but it still displays the date July 2003.
...
"And I wish I could know that I did. That I did appear in her field of vision.
When the light is a certain colour, when the rain slants in a particular fashion, when there is a stillness to the atmosphere. "
I've been thinking about this too, and the Sebald quotation. I like to think that we're the ones who appear misty and indistinct...that we come into view when we're thought of, but that the light and the colors here are so different to the place we've forgotten and to which we will one day return. But, yes, vision is changeable and as much a product of our hearts as of our eyes.
In C.S. Lewis book, "The Great Divorce" the main character goes on a day trip to Heaven with a bunch of other people. As he wanders he looks around and sees all these wispy figures. When he asks his guide about them, assuming they are heavenly creatures, he is informed that they are the people he travelled with. Compared to the realness of Heaven, they are thin and wispy.
ReplyDeleteThe Sebald quote reminded me of this. I like to think that since losing Laura I am a more real solid version of myself, not quite so wispy and unreal in the eyes of the dead.
I totally understand the slippery thought phenomenon. It is reassuring to know I am not alone as I walk the periphery of my brain over and over and over.