Tomorrow the body that once contained my father will be burnt.
This morning, after reading for a while about freedom, I followed a quiet urge to weed the gravel garden.
The gravel garden is a shady secret space circled by an ancient wall, faded blue trellis and a rose with pale pink blooms that - every year - I exhort everyone passing to bury their noses into.
Everything had been thoroughly drenched and the weeds slid so easily from their mixture of fine gravel and wet earth. As I pulled them I searched for a metaphor - a hot knife through butter? A clog of hair from the plughole? In the end I decided it was an action that resembled only itself - the slight grainy suck of the earth, the easy harvest of tangled webs of roots. It was delicious.
I was accompanied by a robin. She dotted around, landing inside a trellis gap, on the gravel at my feet, on the crab apple tree. She was so close. A new iris had come out - glorious royal purples, demanding attention. I should have bowed before it.
I was weeding because I wanted to do it and, even so, a flicker of self-congratulation slipped in. Look at me - tending the temple garden on a bank holiday! How virtuous! Soon after this thought I put both my palms around a long nettle by mistake.
Later we went to a garden centre to buy pond plants. We wandered down the new wildlife paths, said hello to goats Eric and Ernie, and had our eyes fed by an orchestra of plants. Then we drank good coffee and ate very disappointing vegan cake.
Now I am here, writing to you. My palms are tingling, teetering on the edge of pain. I am thinking about everything that made up my dad slipping out of his body, like the green stalks from the dirt. His memories, skills, failings, adventures, disappointments, mannerisms. His hopes. The burdens he had been carrying for a long time. His love.
When I slip out of my own body, then maybe things will become simpler. Maybe they won’t! Until then, at least, I am guaranteed a mix of rose scent and nettle sting. Friendly robins and disappointing cake. The freedom of choosing to weed, and the prickly obligations of dentists, broken down cars and kitchen cleaning. Kind messages from my friends and funerals.
What can I do about the goddamn unpredictability of all this? The uncontrollability? The chaos? The grief? How can I force it into a neater order? How can I dodge the horrid parts? How can I feel more lightness and less sting?
In a few weeks the roses will come out. I will once again be able to nose-dive into them, hardly believing their generous honeyed offering. Smelling the roses reminds me that when I stop struggling, I float. The river of being-alive carries me. It bangs me up against rocks sometimes. I often don’t know where I’m going. I have lost people along the way, and eventually I will lose everything.
For now, the currents bring me purring cats, and fat raspberries, and poems. The river bank shows me things over and over until I understand. It splashes cold water onto my face, softly, softly, to wake me up. Almost everything sparkles. I remember: the unpredictability is how I learn. The uncontrollability is how my heart is stretched open. Not dodging things means I end up bashing into joy.
When I let the river carry me, I am held.
Go gently,
Satya <3
I read through this twice more with intention and felt it squeeze and break my heart just a little bit. All those things we cannot control, our "prickly obligations" and the rocks we are thrown against soften us so we can float with ease and "go gently" forward. Thank you for this beautiful piece. Wishing you a season of fragrant roses ahead.
What amazing, beautiful words to read in the morning! Your touch of the earth and your vision of your dad’s essence slipping out of his body mingle together to give me new insight to to my own slipping out of my body. Simply stunning, deeply felt, deeply worded page to inspire your readers.