Preoccupations

Prompted by Cathy from Missouri noticing some connections between several of my more recent posts and the amazingly gracious (and tenacious) Aoife who has been delving through the archives here.

Georgina.

Denial, disbelief, waiting. Still.

Wombs, machines, whirring, gasping, aliens, isolation, unusual, outlier.

Maternity, motherhood, parenthood, failure, shame, embarrassment.

Fooled, foolish, fool, fool, fool.

Creepiness, self consciousness, self doubt. self loathing, rotten, rotting, rottenness. Rotten inside.

Smallness, discreteness, separateness.

Shot through with gold.

Time travel, space, temporospatial fluidity, movement, communication.

The after life, contact, wires, threads, strands. Loneliness. Cut off. No reply.

Chaos. Construction.

Regret.

Georgina

Love.

I hope?

Love.

***

Proprioception is an underrated sense. Not one of the big five. Smell. Touch. Taste. Sight. Hearing. Proprioception doesn't even feature on Nina and The Neurons.

The sense of the relative position of neighbouring parts of the body and strength of effort being employed in movement.

I don't know if it is possible to experience proprioception in relation to a body other than one's own. Probably not. I suppose my constant awareness of my living children's bodies in space, their rib cages, their brains, their moving hands, their turning eyes, would fall into the category of awareness of the outside world, exteroception. But I imagine that I feel it, it is as though I experience their proprioception. Using my long, maternal antennae which brush up against their little brains, intruding and sending shivery signals back to me.

I feel them, moving through space, their bodies displacing empty air. Emptiness replaced by solidity. Such an unlikely occurrence. How it ever happens I simply don't know. How it is so widely accepted that it will happen? And not end in death and despair and mourning? Regret?

A mystery.

***

I was out Christmas shopping this week and I was feeling happy and benevolent, kind of avuncular towards the world at large, gazing at the window displays and idly thinking about the presents that I would buy to put in Jessica's stocking. Amongst others (too many others) I've opted for a space hopper, which suits her personality I think. And a powder that will turn your bath water into pink jelly.

But suddenly, amidst bath jelly and feelings of good will, I had a flash of a First Christmas outfit. Almost reflected in the window that I was looking in to. Like an eerie flash of Christmas Never Was. Christmas Imagined by Catherine W in July 2008 perhaps?

It is an outfit that I own. It consists of red velour dungarees with an embroidered reindeer on the bib, a red and white striped vest. It is size 0-3 months. It still has the price tags on it. Actually I own two of these outfits. For the daughters I never had.

One is in the loft in a bin bag I think. The other is in Georgina's box. Too big for the girls. Too small for Reuben. And so achingly, achingly flat. Occupied by nobody, filled out by nobody, worn by nobody. Never or ever.

My mother bought them. For granddaughters that never existed. But were expected. Were wanted.

And I'm so sorry. For the whole thing.

Just so very, very sorry. So sorry I could curl up into a ball and just keep curling.

Regret. Again.

***

And why is this still being written?

Three years of emptying my chatter into a void the size of my daughter.

I'll leave it to someone else to explain.

There is no deadline.
There is no schedule.
There is no plan we can fall back on.
The road this far can't be retraced.
There is no punchline anyone can tack on.
There are loose ends by the score.
What did I come down here for?
You.
You.




Georgina. You. My love. You.
I hope you don't mind. 
I hope I am not keeping you from your rest.
Somehow tying you here, trapping you here.


You.