UNSURE

BEEN A LONG AND STRANGE WEEK the wheel keeps turning.
listening to nirvana my favourite (16 year old self) song which has just come on the radio 'i'm so happy- Lithium'
cut my baby's fringe this week which has turned him into a little boy.
wonder some times whether you can actually have any control over events in your life or if they actually just happen when the time is right for you?
have had vivid mental dreams this week .
good night.

bed time

tired. been a long day. day time OK in many ways but evenings not so good. I see a photo of my sister and I can't possibly believe she left us. I recall the coldness and the permanence that coldness brings. my heart misses her so strongly.

mundane versus heavenly

been up since about 7 am when significant other left for work. sun shining bright. did a quick bit of stuff in the garden all with a a view to mud reducing- just now for example my son has walked muddy foot prints into the titchy kitchen.I managed to tackle the completely covered surfaces in the kitchen and now is quite tidy, and I have piled a weeks worth of laundered not-put-away-yet clothing into piles of whom they belong to. for some reason I just can't bring myself to put them away. The London marathon is on today so am not going to venture out till about one when will take the kids to Greenwich for some Anglo Saxon/ Viking stuff. Son took the littles to the park locally with his ferret which gave me about half an hour of child free time (minus baby) which all adds up in the pot of sanity. Now they are back and upstairs with the ferret, so relatively peaceful.
baby- actually 14 months old - is drawing a picture in his high chair. I am the only one not dressed properly yet so gonna do that soon then leave after they have eaten some lunch. Why am I writing this all down, I wonder? Well in answer to that i don't know it is like taking a breath and exchanging -with myself i guess- the rather mundane activities of reality and the churning of my mind. I so often find myself in a state of acute stress and anxiety that this process is like a breather; a recap; a touch base. Plus one day I want to write something of substance and I guess the process of just writing is good for me as I don't have real time to do any thing else or to finish anything. I want to soon start creating art and posting that on my blog as that is another way to expel the mundane and its opposite- the heavenly...or the other stuff that reams between the mundane.

Let them Leap

Today started well, in that I woke up when all were sleeping and went into the garden where I sat and drank tea from a mug my sister used to give me tea in (she'd be drinking expressos in teeny weeny expresso cups while I liked a gallon of tea). That made me feel so sad. I closed my eyes to wait for some whisper in the morning breeze, some whisper from her. But when I opened my eyes the garden was unchanged and there were no whispers. I wondered if she could see me like in the films. But even that didn't provide fruit. The garden has been excreting. As if the bowels of the garden seem to bring up stuff. Some of it is brought in -like stuff we used to make the ferret a house in the shed. It is like undigested humongous piles of  rubbish. Then earth sits in piles which has become sludgy, deepest blackest brown mud from the rain. Filthy toys lie amongst the odd lost, squashed and abandoned beer can and bamboo cuttings. Gunk and crap, .....sand and stones intermingle with ferret rubbish and expanding litter my son has carelessly left lying around.
I tie already-filled - sopping wet bags shut and scoop up garden shit into other bags like I am changing the garden's nappy. I have started to hate earth; or maybe just mud. I like clean good moist earth; earthy earth. I have mud. I like to make mud balls as I scoop it up and toss it where there is other mud. There is too much mud. I hate it.
Mud is a funny word. Why is it different to earth. An old friend of mine used to annoy me when she's say she needed to get mud to plant her plants. She meant compost/ soil/ earth. I feel these are different things.They aren't really, but I guess it's like 'would a rose smell as sweet by any other name' or whatever it was in Shakespeare's stuff.... Anyway, the annoyance was mild and voiceless as it seemed silly of me to pull her up on such a idiosyncratic thing, plus she was pretty messed up herself too... It was all really more of a question mark in my head.. I just didn't understand why she called compost or earth mud. Silly really .....
So I'd put on my gloves of rubber and elastic cloth and begun with the easy bags that are light and full of cuttings. I lift them one by one through the house. It is like I am in playing a vital role in the excreting process of the colon of the garden and house and, bit by bit, I carry the shit through the narrow corridor of the house until outside the front door becomes the toilet, containing huge, muddy and filthy bags of stuff that has gathered muddily in the garden plus undigested twists of metal and broken plastic things. I move silently and stealthily as I do not want to wake the kids from the precious sleep. They do not stir.
I clear the car equally of it's months of toys; paper; soggy things, sweets, clothes .. and bring those back into the house and fill the car up with the garden's shit.
When I return inside, the baby is crying panic stricken on the hip of my fourteen year old boy and the children are up. They have choclate spread sandwiches and yoghurt for breakfast then watch Spongebob Squarepants. I leave them all- including baby of 1 year with fourteen year old and I escape to the local dump- a place I  like to go, the nowhere land of rubbish and unwanted things, and I toss the bags of shit into massive metal crates. Goodbye shit I think as I drag the heavy bags up the metal steps and heave them into the huge bins to settle with all the other shit from other homes and gardens. I leave the rubbish dump and get back into my now lighter car. I should go home but the freedom is almost delicious. I have only been ten minutes and radio two is playing I Feel Fine by the Beetles which I turn up loud and relish in as I drive towards the Old Kent Road. It is beautiful, the drums, the guitar, all of it is glorious and I think of my sister and seem to enjoy my tears which give some solace and some relief to the emptyness there is after her name in my mind.. the goneness.
So not to home do I go but to B and Q where I will spend money, that should be saved, on sand and pebbles and plants for the garden. Retail therapy can be truly delightful while it lasts.. As I pull in at about 9 am the car park is nice and empty compared to what it will be in a  frenzied hour or two. The radio is playing the most fantastic song of brilliance The Ikettes I'm Blue- The Gong Gong Song (doobi doobi doo... so reminds me of her). I park the car , turn off the engine, close the windows and listen to it loudly in my ears.

I spend thirty pounds with gladness. Tomorrow will come and it can all wait.

I drive home fast down the Old Kent Road with the usual jerks insisting on diving in the space in front of my car so we can all sit together behind the red lights. Let them leap I think as I drive on at moderate speed. With car smugness I glide into the left lane overtaking the overtakers and swinging smoothly left into the road of The Five Bells Pub leaving them sitting in traffic going on. They probably don't even notice. But then I am not so sure on the road - for me it is sometimes as pathetically immature as the playground and these small triumphs can make it all the more enjoyable.
I get home and bathe the little kids one by one, then me. They dress and are clean. I think of taking them to the museum. They have hot Dogs from Aldi for lunch. The baby sleeps. They go upstairs to play. The museum can wait.

tension of the tightened bow

I feel like Yeat's tightened bow. like something is waiting to break. i think this has always been a part of me but a part that has laid dormant in me, waiting, like a hunched shadowy figure in my own shadows to come and relish in the agony it which it gratefully finds me. the noises of children; people...brings out this tense impatient angular creature that just longs for stoppage and for silence and for stillness.
i feel inhabited by angles and agony. i feel inhabited by tense misery that sits comfortable in me and relishes in my lack of desire to wake to the day and instead coaxes me to abandon myself; to leave my hair unwashed; to shy away from the sun and cherish the damp dark of solitude.
only when all sleep do i feel free. and like the last breath of living it takes so long for sleep to come and bring
 some kind of solace and peace.

dragging feet

times are pretty tough. not just for me but for everyone i know. and days for me are sludgy and horrible. things have altered so strangely and i have grown changed.  I have been walking through a thick fog and days have turned to weeks and weeks to months. people say you need to carry on now. but it isn't like that. it is a sludgy and horrible. i feel like i am falling apart and don't know how to glue back together again.

existential agony

I know not if I use this word correctly however I feel it suits my current feelings.
I am drinking a glass of beer and I am smoking a roll up as I  type this. 
I am itchy and I feel covered in an eczema-like rash. My eyes itch; my legs itch and then my back itches. I feel irritable and irritated. I just want to scratch my legs. And then my neck itches. 
But I think this itching is not anything but psychosomatic..... my shin skin feels too close to the bone and sensitive. My children today- the youngest two, have had this strange desire to be always touching me- that makes me sound strange and makes me feel autistic (in fact maybe I am autistic), but I mean wherever I am they seem to be there, clambering on me and pivoting around me like small creatures always with one hand upon me, fighting over me. And yes they are (small dependent creatures), but I feel crowded and itchy in response. My son of fourteen is like an argumentative ferret - one of which he now possesses, and even my little toe itches, though I must state the ferret lives in a ferret safe shed outside with mod cons and blankets to keep it warm, so the itching is not ferret related (for the record). To top it off I believe I have something called trichotillomania (a real mouthful for 'a compulsion to pull out ones hair)- think classic mad woman scenes and your half way there. I mean how bad can it get. It began in secondary school some 20 years ago as I deeply hated the walls that bound me into school and all it carried with it, and here I am today still yanking out strands of hair to appease in some way the existential agony in which I so frequently seem to find myself. The way I feel is a bit like a Laurel and Hardy day which my late sister -coined the expression-  called days where the universe seems intent on hurting you. It may be amusing to be met with small moments of incidental disaster (like getting a ladder in the head as you stand up, or walking into a door) but in reality these are days which hurt; where you stub your toe; raise your head and bang it on a shelf or catch your hip on a table or your pocket on a door handle or manage to knock everything down as you pass thus creating an avalanche of misery and irritating inconvenient distressing anger.
i will soon to bed as the day has nothing left for me ( i must have autism- 'a tendency to view life in terms of one's own needs and desires.... from Greek autos self+ ism' online dictionary). I mean I accept that I am pretty self obsesssed; navel gazing and wallowing in my misery, but this is all part and parcel of my existential nightmare and the ties that bind me so strong and so invisible to my psychological make-up. 
I have a piece of bedroom furniture from my darling late sister's home and I had to screw it all back together to put in my daughter's room. I mean, what the f*** happened? What is this all about....What am I doing? I think as I tighten the screws. Why is this not in my sister's room, where is she? What happened? 
And so the wheel goes spinning round unfairly and relentlessly. 

MISS YOU SISTER

Sister

I miss you

like the lungs would miss air

and the heart would miss oxygen.

I miss you like the tongue misses water

when it is dry and sallow

and parched with thirst.

I miss you like the grass misses the wind

and the dark night

misses a glass of red wine and the

company of a girl who knows how

to laugh.

I miss you like a cold morning remembering

the warmth of yesterday

like a a table covered in empties

longing for the party which is over.

Like the desert misses the rain.

I miss you

for all the yesterdays are but a memory on my tongue

without your reassuring compliance in the tale;

your laughter is missing from the story

your agreeing eyes are not here.

I miss you like a finished conversation

when the phone is hung up

and the warmth but a memory

setting into sharp relief the present.

I miss your sweet company

your salmon fish cakes and perfectly fried egg

your constant understanding

and your view of trees and things.

I miss your delicate feet and your vibrant love of coffee and all things nice.

I miss you like warm wine misses ice.

I miss your hospitality

and your sweet encouragement

your belief

your indomitable spirit.

I miss your funny

I miss your innuendo.

I miss your ocean depth.

I miss you.

diagnosis

2010 October i think, i had been painting the sitting room. i got a phone call that day that my son had had a fight with another kid and this was quite stressful. I saw my sister the day before. we had bumped into one another in Greenwich. twice over the last few days. in the library. i saw her looking far off and distant. i drew closer but she still did not see me. until we were nearly touching and then she saw me. she seemed so dreamy and far away.we talked and then we went to the charity shop together. she helped me look for things that would be good for my pregnancy. she said she wanted to find a pretty shift dress. she said she had a feeling she would not be wearing a pretty dress for some time. i didn't really understand this. but she sounded sure. she had been having back pain. she had dismantled her bed thinking it was the bed's fault. i offered to have Dylan that night. she was grateful and agreed. that night she was called to hospital following the results of a blood test. the following day she was diagnosed with acute myoloid leukaemia. i was in catford in the car driving when i got the call from another sister. it seemed like i already knew.  the shock started. some little time later i was in the queen Elizabeth hospital haphazardly surrounding the bed upon which lay my sister, all laughs and disbelief and lithe petite body; slim and well so far as i could see, in jeans and sweater my sister relinquished to this cruel disease not yet showing  the ravish it would bear upon her. not yet revealiong the horror of what was to come. so brave she was she had us virtually laughing so light she treated things; light hearted and generous with her loving humour. god bless my big little sister. xxxxxxxxRIP

i paid for my freedom

while i was home alone i made a chilli for dinner and subsequently have burning hands- i react badly to chillies, plus the chilli itself was way to hot to enjoy. i did a few other things too. i drank a beer and did a bit of gardening. but oh i paid for my time off.
on arrival home the kids came in first followed by significant other carrying the baby who was asleep. he looked peeved. five minutes later him and my fourteen year old son were at loggerheads and fighting verbally and it seemed nearly physically. a neighbour- who is a social worker knocked on the door worried about what was going on.
oh my god. what a nightmare.
any way all was really okay but also not.
but hey ho. this is my lovely life.

guilty spade shopping

i went shopping this morning and felt like a secret criminal as i wanted to buy a spade to dig up garden stuff and put crazy (and i mean crazy) paving down instead of having a mud lawn with the odd tuft of grass here and there. i am trying to minimise mud in the house.
because financially  things are fairly pinchy right now my other half laid down the law the other day...'we can't afford a spade' he said ???. well anyway there was one for six quid in asda on the old Kent road so i got it and then snuck it into the garden to avoid an argument, i mean for gods sake..... so my institutionalised paving is underway, haphazard uneven but full of character. and i am not doing it 'properly' with cement, i am just digging, putting sharp sand down and then placing any bit of paving/ brick lying round my garden and putting sand and gravelly stones around it. i like it like that and i don't mind if grass or wild things grow between the paving. it is purely to minimise mud. i want to create an outside studio in my garden to do some painting etc.

quite groundbreakingly, i am all alone at home. my other half has taken all the kids including baby to woodland farm at shooters hill to a open day. yipppeeee. i am terrified they are going to come back soon and i am drinking up the time alone greedily and getting hiccoughs with the sudden freedom. i might even pass out. cept i don't want to do any housework or any thing. i just want to bathe in being alone with time to call my own. long may it last. i made them a picnic and hopefully they will be gone for hours so that when they get back i might actually be happy to see them.

i miss her funny

i miss my sister's humour. her little boy said the other day  'i miss my mummy's funny'.
 i never could imagine a world without my sister's funny. it was unique and is difficult to recreate, she is kind of its' embodiment. she could magic humour to the most humourless place, time or situation, i mean she practically had us in stitches when she was dangerously ill from her bone marrow transplant a year ago. we would come mournfully to visit her and often we'd find ourselves cracking up as she brought cheer and confidence to our hearts and smiles to our faces. with her there was a certain kind of funny. how lonely without her. and i miss her to talk to about stuff. we all miss her something terrible.
wherever you are sis i love you so extra oobly special much. you and your ways are so very missed xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx...

woke up this morning

watched two films yesterday- rabbit hole with the fabulous Nicole kidman and The Lamp with actors i didn't recognise. both films were about death and grief and i suppose recovery. the first was really good, Nicole kidman's portrayal of a grieving mother was excellent. the second film was not so well acted although the male lead carried the film with his passionate portrayal of angry and hurt grief.
anyway i haven't the bother to say much more. but this morning i woke up and realised how tightly bound i am to my past. the rope is so strong it strangles me. i have i think inadvertently tried to loosen it over the years and have, perhaps clumsily, attempted to saw away at the rope but have only loosened a few threads. I think this is what strangles me. It is perhaps being bound to an invisible set of rules and expectations which has led me to the particular mind set and life in which I now inhabit.
I welcome the big strong scissors to cut through this rope.

WHAT TO SAY

I haven't written because things are so damn awful that i simply don't know what to write. i wish i could write something like a novel or something useful but if i ever go to write it just pours out of me, the frustration, the aching redundant depression; the bitterness i guess. the loss of my sister still sits like bricks in my head my heart and my stomach. the struggle of just getting through the day becomes purely irritating and teeth tinglingly horrible. motherhood is like a thorn in my side. i hate to write it, but the fact of having children becomes painful. how can i say this? am i unnatural;. i love them but i am so low that i can only bear to keep them fed, watered, clothed and warm and loved- this is good, but right now i can barely do more. the future looms ahead of me like a long night that will never end- with no alcohol to take away the shadows that claw oppressively at me. every night i dream of death and rats; of decaying homes and faces of garish white and pain. i dream of drunkenness and lurid scenes of Hogarth decadence and depravity. i dream of danger, of fire and of confined spaces.
 it is like a circle of viciousness. i suppose i am still depressed. life is so depressing. it must be my genes cos other people seem cheerful and productive while i have a black pit that moves within me and inhabits different parts of my body and my psyche on different days. i still feel like a character in a zola novel being controlled by omniscient hands of a cruel fate. it all started long ago when i was just a thought in another's mind. that small seed seems to have been grown then swept asunder and now i feel like an anomaly that does not belong anywhere with children that slip through my fingers like something oily. and I have no idea how to make it all solid and tangible and meaningful.

i find being the parent of a fourteen year old boy so so hard. it almost hurts.
i don't really know what else to articulate on that. it just hurts.
it is like the poem when s/he is good ..is ver very good, but when he is bad he is horrid.

any way there is some small satisfaction in telling it down. even if just some random Russians are not even reading it. all the other blogs on these stinking blog pages are fully functioning normal people who just don't even scratch below the surface. they are just grinning faces and high productivity. i guess they are psychologically sound and grew up right. they are not broken and clipped and dumbfounded by stuff they are shiny happy people; go getters who know how to get what they want- a good husband...a good job... a good business- they have worked hard for it . i feel like a grey maggot from the little mermaid whose song has been stolen by the evil undersea witch. i feel like a black hole- like my dada told me i was when i was young- sucking up all the brightness and turning it to coal and ash. i feel like nothing.

sick

i have managed to make my life even more disgusting and stinking and horrible than it can already seem. i have allowed my son to purchase a ferret and it is very symbolic of how dreadful life is. it has been in the house for a few short hours and the house stinks already of urine. ferret urine. i cannot actually believe i allowed him this it is all the constant constant pestering which has finally paid off and our lives are all the more miserable and our eyes stinging with ferret stench. yuk

SISTER IN LAW

she is lovely and of the earth she too is a mum and she is a good one. she gets her kids up and out and they do well. they are all lovely. she has 5. she and her husband came round this eve and we chatted for about 4 hours till they went off. it was really nice to catch up- though i hate that phrase-  but we did. they livc up north and it suits her well. she has her kids her husband and they get on with things.

teenager

i have one. he is just fourteen and i just don't know where i am with him. it is quite exhausting. on the one hand he is utterly mature, humorous, confident and funny and good natured. on the other he is sullen, miserable argumentative and gives me massive guilt trips. 'j....' i say, 'why are you speaking to your little sister like that?' 'well obviously i am speaking to her like that cause someone has spoken to me like that' (harshly/ loud/ angry) GUILT guilt guilt.....
if i say i am concerned about his behaviour that means i am calling him a 'retard'. i refered to the film Kevin and perry to my mum during one heated exchange- he mistakes this fort the film about the psycho kid 'we need to talk about Kevin' and assumes i assume that i think he is a psycho.
i can't get it right. i am crap at being a parent. i thought being a mum at just turned twenty was hard. being a mum to a teenager now is even harder.

having dreamt many mixtures of strange wispy jigsaw puzzle dreams i am awake. i sit alone in my kitchen, dressed. i went to the local shop at 5 45 am to buy some 7 up because the sink was so full of things i cold not pour a glass of water.that sounds dreadful considering people in some places can't even find water to drink fall stop. but in my context I guess I am in a weird place right now. i am somewhat in habit of drinking cold sweet sugary drinks in the morning. i got up early to do some house work and everyone is asleep. i haven't really done much, preferring to sit and stare out of the window. i have emptied the sink at least. if i was to really tidy up I'd wake everyone up and i am not ready for company. the birds sang very loud this morning and a cat cried outside my house.i think of my sister. that is all i can do. i feel she has really gone to another place and i can't reach her.
it is, i think, quite a strange life.

kids are painful

i definitely love them- my blood ones at least but boy do they drive you to the ends of distraction with their whinging, whining, moaning, arguing, ..... competitiveness; crying.... but sometimes like the most turbulent relationship they suddenly fit into place and be contented and happy. and sleep. sleep is when they are so lovely and often at their best.

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DREARY TICKING HANDS

tick tock until beer or wine o clock. life is pretty tough right now with not much let up. ping pong everything's wrong, twist and shout, everybody out (meg and mog, rescue spell).
good day mostly kids wise. big son entered a drama group like a person being pushed to the edge of a cliff, and left really cheerful and confident- high five! little daughter and neph spent day together and went to the park. baby 1yr- had fun on swings. but it is all quite hard right now- emotionally, financially; work wise (not enough)..... alcohol wise (too much pain relieving), house wise- it remains a tip i can't get on top of. but tomorrow is another day i guess. i am gonna go to bed soon and wake up tomorrow with renewed enthusiasm and energy.
all the different people are walking sludgily through the daily shit getting irritated and getting fed up, getting hungry, cracking up; needing more, needing money this old life it aint so funny.
i feel really angry right now with things. with big people who have no damn idea of stuff. i feel like i might just opt for a nervous breakdown at least i'd get some bed rest and medication to block out alkl the living nightmares.

despite the continual base of sad regret for things i cannot change the sun shines today and the children have the garden in which to nearly roam. my nephew is growing well, is dressed and fed and loved; my daughter full of whinges at the moment is also dressed and fed; they play outside in the sunshine while my big boy works on building a play house. the sun shines on their skin. their bellys are full. my smallest boy crawls around and trys to walk to be with his bigger siblings. they are all loved.

all this is good and i feel privileged to witness children's life. it was a great pleasure yesterday to see the two littles, my nephew and daughter as they ran from attraction to attraction going totally nuts on whispy clouds of candy floss.

i say that and then suddenly i hear crys of anger from them in the garden 'mummy i was standing there first' they are shrieking, a little arm lashes out. this is how wars start. 

my plan was to take them all to their uncles so they could playin his garden for a bit give me some time off from mothering. but the choice for me today is pretty unappealing- the house is in a serious mess and will take some work to get up to scratch. boring.