Confinement – Life as I know it

Finally, alone and unharassed her subdued persona could reconnect with her rebellious by design self; she could listen to the pangs of her longing heart and feel present and alive within her mortal body and not through the relentless latent demands and laments of those near her.

She leant back on the door frame exhausted, agonisingly searching for that support she felt was being eroded day after day; searching for a conduit that would give way to her newly found exuberance and uncontrollable fire. Her stoic backbone pushed firmly against the wood, each vertebra finding solace one at a time, aligned and secure against something she knew would never change, alter or collapse; something that would never let her down. This was the one fortuitous encounter she knew would live up to her unattainable expectations. Two surfaces coming into contact with each other; one inert but unbreakable and unchangeable, the other so alive but frozen in time like the myriad of shapes fossilized in the wood-grain never to be released, and yet so much more present, lasting and transcendent than she would ever be.

If the pig, the lance, the pelican and the hippo can be so vivid whilst trapped by countless years of growth and change, why can’t I shine with such fervor? Why can’t my imprint overcome the limitations of circumstance, uncertainty and fear? – she asked herself over and over again as she also tried to figure out why she was the only one in her large family who could clearly discern these weird and wonderful creatures, otherworldly faces and implements all over the surfaces of the family home: floor tiles, kitchen splash-back, floors, doors. What is the point of such a supernatural gift, if it serves no purpose? She wrestled.

Her anger bubbling up inside at the thought of a higher being all knowing, all seeing and all understanding who played with human beings like string puppets; their lives literally hanging from an almost invisible thread pulled from high above, enthusing them with miraculous glimmers of joy, movement and light and yet condemned for the most part to a life in a dark domestic box wondering when the next bit of ecstasy and meaning would come. She hated being toyed with by humans and Gods alike. She surrendered all of herself in her vulnerable and transparent state to anyone who could glean her mysterious alluring nature. In her universe, no offence was greater than to be lulled into a false sense of security to then be let down and done with in the most savage of ways: silence and indifference.

‘Anger and frustration lead nowhere’ – she heard the frame’s unequaled wisdom reverberate onto the back of her chest. ‘Believe and trust that you have been made to feel and wrestle like this for a reason. Keep the faith, trust your instincts’- words edged and burning on her pronounced rib cage. Rooted once again, having gathered strength and regained balance from that familiar timber refuge, she stood at ease gradually letting go, confidently detaching herself from the one place in her life where she was fed authenticity, hope, meaning and the very much needed reminder that rejection came repeatedly because she did not belong in this world in the first place.

My heart is so full tonight! On the one hand it aches with guilt at the thought of so many exceptionally selfless, brave and committed individuals who are giving their all to keep us all alive, fed, and content. I am at home looking after the ones I have been entrusted with. Yes, I will be the first one to complain that it is no easy task to always think of other’s needs before one’s own, but my kindness is being extended to those closest to me whom I love and care so much about. It is quite a different challenge to give your all to complete strangers, specially when circumstances dictate that those close to you will in turn go without. Saving the lives of complete strangers; seeing to their every need whilst being torn away from those whose needs you feel compelled to meet even before they feel the need themselves. Such is a mother’s nurturing instinct and double-edged all-consuming gift.

Yet, even though the guilt tugs at my heart like a yoke round a cow’s neck, I feel my heart is bursting at the moment with the sheer joy of being alive one day at a time. They say we cannot see the light without the darkness; we cannot know good unless there is evil or joy unless there is sadness. Such is the ugliness, the horror, the chaos, the inferno that is burning in most hospitals and nursing homes around the country, I feel like as the fire intensifies, so have my senses been re-tuned and enhanced. The bigger the hooded claw reveals itself to the world, the more uplifted I feel by the supernatural around me. As the darkness around us has grown, so has the light within me.

The colours of the flowers in my garden are so much deeper and pure. Their hypnotic scent impregnates the whole of my being and lifts me into a kind of Eden where there is no pain or hurt, no death or loss, no fear, just hope and exhilaration at the thought of taking in another breath of treasured, infinitely sought-after air.

The birds are evermore present and synchronised, and I am treated to a new symphony of sheer acoustic delight and perfection every evening, as I catch the last rays of the incandescent zenith that proudly stares intently at me throughout the day, jealous, capricious, resenting its isolation; longing to be down here enjoying with me the myriad of inexplicable equations of nature that makes for a heaven and a hell simultaneously coexisting in perfect harmony.

Even the Poplars just the other side of my garden, which always stand so haughty and aloof, have thrown caution to the wind and dare to waltz in my presence, reminding me with their soothing sway that I will once again be at one with the ocean. The ocean, like me, toils tirelessly back and forth under the guise of freedom. And yet, its repetitive motion in the confines of habit reveals a soul that is enslaved and far too entrenched in its own familiar rhythm to ever brave the unknown.

Poplars waltzing!