OK, I know I'm overdoing it a bit especially since there is no-one out there reading all of this but these were already typed up.
My first real boyfriend:
I never before had someone that is just there, laying next to me in the bed, no angst, no expectations, scratching my head and liking it when I scratch his back and not expecting me to be perfect and always look good or giving me the feeling he is just waiting for an excuse to leave. I love the way he is just there. Next to me. Laying in the bed reading, having a shower with me every morning. Sometimes I think I am with the wrong person. He does not see me, does not value me. But then we fight and talk and fight some more and talk some more and there he is there again and I am there again and I marvel at our there-ness. Cooking with me, talking with me. Soft warm skin. Early morning qigong standing next to me smelling the morning mistiness, the sun forming soft halos around the dogs. I am no longer alone. Afgetrokke, he is thinking about something else. In his own world. Where I do not exist. But I can call him back. His head turns, his eyes focus. His white sexy teeth smiles. He answers me. He is thinking of my bum, religion, plants, his job. We are walking down the road with Fey and her three puppies. The moon is so bright. A horse makes a stranger noise. The white wall says we are close to the stop street where the road ends.
We talk about tarot. He does not like doing it too often, he does not want to do it now. I explain, he agrees to do it – he does it differently. I take a deep breath and remember I care. He lies next to me. I hold on tight. He is warm. He is there. I breath. My chest relaxes, the ball dissolves. I breath He is here, laying next to me. I am not alone. It is not important. There are flowers on the duvet. His hair is short except for one hair tat escaped the razor when I shaved his head. It sticks over his ear. I feel his heart beating and I am filled with the simple wonder of laying next to someone else.
My first funeral:
I am sitting in church waiting for the service to start. What should I be feeling? Not slightly bored, that is wrong, disconnected and selfish. My eyes follow the wooden benches around me, the wooden beams above me, the sound of the organ ponderously whining. All the black suits and sad faces. My mother now without a mother. The black choir singing deep beautiful notes. My grandfather alone and absent. So sad. Does he knows how he feels?
At the cemetery, trying to avoid my cousins. Walking along the road. Looking at my shoes. Not knowing how I feel. Not feeling comfortable with not knowing. Standing around the grave. Listening to the Dominee droning. I look up and see my aunt. I have never liked her. She is standing apart from everyone else, looking bewildered. I feel sadness welling up from my heart. All my what and how wonderings disappear. I put my arms around her and feel her leaning into me. We are together in the moment when the first earth hits the coffin. Things do not matter. The black choir sings. We walk back to the car. I wonder how long the journey home will take. Does my grandfather have a grave booked in the same cemetery? Why are funeral flowers so ugly? I remember my cousin wearing a green dress or am I remembering the green dress at my brother’s wedding? During both occasions me and my sister tried to avoid the family, not fitting in.
One day my mother will be gone too. One day my sister and my father and my dog and Florian will all be gone. One day I will also no longer be here. I hope there is someone to lean into. For all of us.
I never before had someone that is just there, laying next to me in the bed, no angst, no expectations, scratching my head and liking it when I scratch his back and not expecting me to be perfect and always look good or giving me the feeling he is just waiting for an excuse to leave. I love the way he is just there. Next to me. Laying in the bed reading, having a shower with me every morning. Sometimes I think I am with the wrong person. He does not see me, does not value me. But then we fight and talk and fight some more and talk some more and there he is there again and I am there again and I marvel at our there-ness. Cooking with me, talking with me. Soft warm skin. Early morning qigong standing next to me smelling the morning mistiness, the sun forming soft halos around the dogs. I am no longer alone. Afgetrokke, he is thinking about something else. In his own world. Where I do not exist. But I can call him back. His head turns, his eyes focus. His white sexy teeth smiles. He answers me. He is thinking of my bum, religion, plants, his job. We are walking down the road with Fey and her three puppies. The moon is so bright. A horse makes a stranger noise. The white wall says we are close to the stop street where the road ends.
We talk about tarot. He does not like doing it too often, he does not want to do it now. I explain, he agrees to do it – he does it differently. I take a deep breath and remember I care. He lies next to me. I hold on tight. He is warm. He is there. I breath. My chest relaxes, the ball dissolves. I breath He is here, laying next to me. I am not alone. It is not important. There are flowers on the duvet. His hair is short except for one hair tat escaped the razor when I shaved his head. It sticks over his ear. I feel his heart beating and I am filled with the simple wonder of laying next to someone else.
My first funeral:
I am sitting in church waiting for the service to start. What should I be feeling? Not slightly bored, that is wrong, disconnected and selfish. My eyes follow the wooden benches around me, the wooden beams above me, the sound of the organ ponderously whining. All the black suits and sad faces. My mother now without a mother. The black choir singing deep beautiful notes. My grandfather alone and absent. So sad. Does he knows how he feels?
At the cemetery, trying to avoid my cousins. Walking along the road. Looking at my shoes. Not knowing how I feel. Not feeling comfortable with not knowing. Standing around the grave. Listening to the Dominee droning. I look up and see my aunt. I have never liked her. She is standing apart from everyone else, looking bewildered. I feel sadness welling up from my heart. All my what and how wonderings disappear. I put my arms around her and feel her leaning into me. We are together in the moment when the first earth hits the coffin. Things do not matter. The black choir sings. We walk back to the car. I wonder how long the journey home will take. Does my grandfather have a grave booked in the same cemetery? Why are funeral flowers so ugly? I remember my cousin wearing a green dress or am I remembering the green dress at my brother’s wedding? During both occasions me and my sister tried to avoid the family, not fitting in.
One day my mother will be gone too. One day my sister and my father and my dog and Florian will all be gone. One day I will also no longer be here. I hope there is someone to lean into. For all of us.
1 comment:
Bar one, all the funerals I went to had me participate as "Bored teenager". My Afrikaner family was flung far and wide and filled with cousins and aunts and uncles I hardly knew.
When my mother's mother died, the funeral, for the first time, was for somebody I really knew. There were two services, one in the town she lived the last few years, the other in a town she lived in for sixty years. And at neither service did I feel sad. I don't know why. I remember most vividly that everybody would be bearing up well, then someone would sob, and that set off a whole ripple of grief. So I kept myself composed, because I didn't want to start a ripple. People were sad enough without having additional sorrow inducted by hearing someone else sob. Grief by induction. How much of our pain and grief is real, and how much is inducted in us somehow? Or maybe inducted grief is as real.
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