She Was.

She died quietly on the footpath outside my bedroom window. I was awake, in bed. It was one of the rare occasions on which my mother, her daughter – the one she had kept, offered to take her out for the day. I remember hearing the click of the front door as she left. I remember smiling and pulling the covers over my head. I had broken up with my partner of four years the Sunday before and I was tired. Happy to finally be alone. I remember getting out of bed, holding my breath to peek through the curtains, to check on her. Her standing outside waiting for my mother. It was automatic hard habit by then. The constant checking, the hovering, the handwringing.

I remember seeing her standing out there, by the side of the road, high heels on the pavement, back to the window, long silvery grey hair tied up into the usual severe bun. Camouflage. Armour. She was 73, had endured a stroke, resulting epilepsy, the unburdening of a lifetime’s secret guilt, a million questions, and retribution, harsh and swift, in the way only my mother could deliver. And yet standing there, looking to the right, waiting for her daughter, she was beautiful. Still. Dignified. I remember thinking that her dignity was as old as time, immovable, ancient, forever, until the end of days.

I remember quietly letting the curtain slip through my fingers and getting back into bed. Exhaling. I remember, moments later, hearing a long, slow, thud. I remember fighting the urge to jump out of bed, to yank back the curtains and to check again, check on her. She’d been better the previous few months, almost back to her usual self, everyone had been so reassuring. I remember softly spoken words and a light touch on my arm – don’t fall into hypervigilance. Whispered medical words. Only, now, directed at me.

I remember hearing the screech of car brakes, an insistent hand on a car horn, my mother screaming, screaming her name and mine. I remember knowing then. I remember lying in bed, closing my eyes, the room beginning to spin. I remember calling the ambulance before seeing. I remember the woman asking me to put my ‘mummy’ on the phone, talking to me like I was a toddler. I remember pushing back the curtains, seeing her heels again, this time legs splayed on the cold concrete. I remember opening the front door, my mother running towards me, the voice of the woman on the phone, telling me that I needed to remember what I had learned in first aid, that I needed to give her the best possible chance until the paramedics arrived. I remember my neighbour, standing tears streaming down her cheeks, as I crouched down next to her head, trying to close her sightless eyes. I remember looking up at my neighbour, asking her, begging her, to please, please, spare me this. I remember her wordless no. Her quiet backing away. I remember begging the woman on the phone, to please, please, not make me do this. I remember her hissing one word at me, responsibility.

I remember the sound of something clicking shut in that moment. Something incredibly cold settling over me. A slowing. My slowing. I remember knowing that she was gone. That nothing I would do, nothing I could do, nothing from me, nothing of mine, would make any difference. I remember the feel of her ribs cracking under my hands, I remember the feel of her mouth on mine, her saliva bubbling back into my mouth. I remember the flood of gratitude when my neighbour’s mother-in-law arrived, long before the paramedics, to help me. To share this thing, this duty, this responsibility, this failure of mine with me. I remember my neighbour’s hands pressing on her chest. I remember my hands on her chin, on her forehead. And I remember her hands, small and bony by her side. That image floats behind my eyes. The helplessness of us all. The three of us.

My mother, inside brewing coffee. My mother clawing at my back, telling me to stop. My mother, asking me, later, when I was back inside – safe, to organise the funeral arrangements. I remember my best friend walking through the door, his eyes on mine, I remember thinking that someone was finally here now. I remember walking towards him, wanting touch, wanting warm lips on mine and I remember my mother sliding in, stepping into his open arms, as I slipped out the front door and sat on the cold concrete while another just arrived friend looked into my eyes and said, loudly, loudly so that I would hear, ‘it’s over now, it was always going to be you, but it’s over now’. And as I held her hand and called my sister to tell her, I remember the sound of my voice small, muffled, like it had to rise up from the bottom of the ocean to be heard.

I can’t write any of this without my heart beating loudly in my chest. Without my breathing quickening and catching on the vomit in my throat. But there was a time when I couldn’t think any of this at all. When I had to shake my head and hold my eyes tightly shut to make it go away, to breath. So I guess this is progress. Confronting. Pathetic. Angry. Progress.

Found on a Seidel and Naumann Erika Series 5 typewriter.

Notice that he is not smiling.

When she got better, before she died, she made me promise to do some things for her after she was gone. This is the first.

I would like you to keep a gardenia on your windowsill and when you look at it, I would like you to remember me.

And so, in this new house, in this new/old continent, it sits. On the veranda. I care for it. I water it. I fuss over it. I move it here and I move it there. I keep it out of the sun. It’s leaves are shiny, dark and green. It has a few beautiful blooms. I google gardenias and read the million different instructions on how to keep them healthy and alive. I worry about it.

At night the fragrance of gardenia floats in the dusty Athenian air and I sit and smile at the new buds. The thing is though, most of the buds never bloom. In the morning I find them fallen at the base of the pot, never having unfurled.

And I sit and I remember her and the hardest promise of all. To find her daughter and ask for forgiveness.

We share a love for wharves, for ports, for harbours. Walking in the dark tonight, I noticed how firmly tethered the boats were, the complexity in the weave of the rope, the precision in the mechanics of safety.

Sometimes she thinks she falls asleep on a mattress thick with fluid hopes and warm arms draped over waists. She rests her head on pretty things and dreams of blueberry kuchen, wet noses and beer breath.

She doesn’t understand why she wakes up cold, in the dripping walls of her own igloo. She reminds herself that igloos are not always transient. Secretly, she likes the cast of the blue glow, and when she is honest she admits (if only to herself) that the circular shape of her dwelling comforts her. She thinks that there might be a metaphor in this, but her head is too fuzzy to be sure. She is surprised when in her research she discovers that the temperature inside an igloo is not as cold as one may think – depending on the heat source. She thinks that maybe, maybe, she is capable of generating enough body heat to thaw the air.

Other times, when she lies down, she thinks that perhaps she is adrift. Weightless and anchorless, her thoughts bob on the surface of a suprisingly dense liquid she would prefer to sink into. She doesn’t like this feeling of being adrift. She needs to be bound. To something, to someone, to a thought, an idea, even a signpost would do. She doesn’t know when she lost the ability to form knots. Her once dexterous fingers fumble and fail. She can’t tie herself to anything, not even sleep, and she wonders what all this means.

Funny little —— boy*. Big blue eyes. Greedy. Big strong arms, sexy pout, my beer swilling lout. Black Black hair, long lazy days, summer, hot, desire, meet you in bed, are you still my friend? Seperate, you and I. when i see you im spinning around coz its in your eyes and on a night like this i wanna stay forever coz you make the days brighter and my life a kylie song. Funny little —— boy miss you when you’re gone. Bad poetry. For you. Coz your not here and you’re never gonna know.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx always.

* * * * * *

I used to keep an online diary. A long time ago. I never wrote in it much. It was mainly about boys. I was talking to a friend recently, about expat life, about going back, about giving in and giving up. About fear and insecurity, freight costs and tails tucked between legs. The conversation turned to the reason we are both here, as it inevitably does, and we spoke about love. It was one of those rare moments when I catch myself speaking truths. One of those moments when clarity graces me with it’s presence. And I spoke of the person who has loved me best in this life. I don’t know that I loved him best. But, I do know that of all the people that I have known, of all the people that I have loved, of all the people that I have shared of myself with, he remains the one and only person who has been able to accept the whole of me. The good with the bad, the light with the dark, the anger and the sadness, the vulnerability and the strength, the crazy talk, the gentle (and furious) rocking of my hips. He is the one person by whom I have never felt judged. And it is an amazing gift that he has given me, that feeling of complete acceptance. Thanks to him I know how it feels to be loved, to be cherished. I know what it is to be held and to be soothed, to be wanted, unconditionally and without reservation. And because he gave without taking more than I wanted to give, because he loved without laying claim, because he cared for me as if I was his own, he remains my compass and my benchmark, my starting point, my comparison, my beginning – if not my end.

* * * * * *

I’m getting rather tired of the retrospective. What is it about being 15,000 kilometres from home that results in my examining every encounter, every part of my life in excruciating detail, looking for meaning that in all likelihood isn’t even there? I feel like I am becoming one of those people that examine the tissue after a giant, wet, sneeze. It’s just not right. Especially in public.

* all names have been changed to protect the not so innocent.