The raindrops on the washing line
look pretty after the storm.
by Rebecca L. Atherton
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Nestled in the nook of the window,
a moth,
sheltered
between concrete and wood.
by Rebecca L. Atherton
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Watching a man
sandblast a building –
cleaning one level,
dirtying the next.
by Rebecca L. Atherton
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The wind makes ships out of balconies –
canvas and tarpaulin flapping,
plant heads creaking and snapping;
blowing everything – sadness, anger;
fear, frustration… away.
Like my head –
barely tethered, overly weathered;
subject to a disco of light too bright
for one with so many years.
by Rebecca L. Atherton
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A misunderstanding turns what should
have been special into something plain
and the associated pain hurts more
than I care to describe.
I stare at the window and will
what is real into something else,
replacing what is
with what I would like.
by Rebecca L. Atherton
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I have nearly completed my Christmas tree and I’m so proud, waxing about her as if she were a newborn child. Given the brevity of time before me and the new terrain, the landscape of ‘different’ in which to source from, she’s a work of art. A patchwork of randomly sourced objects, lovingly put together with an attention to detail and adherence to certain rules – like each additional adornment must be serviceable all year, for life not just for December…, she presents a whole that even I with my obsessive need for perfection cannot readily unpick.
There is a velour cat with a bubblegum pink ribbon; a perspex diamond accommodating two mis-adventuring mice (one, with her purple jacket and hat, reminding me of my grandma) a child petting her pet, who just so happens to be a beautiful chocolate-brown spaniel; a hippo in a tutu attempting a pirouette; a moose holding a snow-clad tree – tiny in comparison to his rotund self; an eccentric giraffe displaying, in his outstretched hand, an umbrella (perhaps to remind me of England and all of the rain I incurred there); a felted tiger straight out of ‘Where the Wild Things are’, a similar felted fox and kangaroo, part of a matching collection; a terracotta angel painted Mallorcan style; a ceramic squirrel with a hollow centre and a rabbit carved from local wood. All that’s missing is the star.
Sitting at the very top, visible from every angle… the star cannot just ‘do’, she has to outshine. So while I’ve seen passable solutions and the occasional ‘blow me away with their beauty but also with their price’ attempts at twinkling joviality, I haven’t yet seen anything that works without breaking the budget (which is also one of the rules!) apart. But I believe… : in the solution, in the ‘right’ one, in the five-pointed declaration that is made specifically for me. When the Universe is ready (as like with everything else), she will extend her palm and yield. And if for some unforeseen reason she will not explain, she, the universe and all of the powers that accompany her… deem I am not to have a talisman, a gem to shine in the night, to ward off the darkness… then so be it. There are reasons greater than me.
And maybe it’s about being flexible in the face of restriction. Or happy amongst the uncompromising walls of limitation. Or about only seeing what you want to see.
Living from the one hastily-packed suitcase, a sitting room full of boxes it would be unwise to unpack; making do with another’s curious ornaments and furniture – a glass bowl full of plastic fruit, a black sofa with rose embellished cushions, threadbare rugs that house more beach than dust, a table and chairs with green velvet seats (seriously?), a kitchen that supports the making of tea but actively dissuades the creation of anything else, appliances that make their grievances known, usually throughout the night; bedsheets that itch and towels that scratch, tiles that bear the mark of generations and shift beneath passing feet: there is a lot of accepting and reimagining involved.
But like with boxes and randomly placed objects; unfolded clothes, decaying flowers and unwashed cups: all manner of unwanted but immovable things… After a while they cease to exist, the eye cleverly distorting what the mind lacks the conscious desire and active need to see.
So really it’s just my tree that stands out, projecting beauty, colour, positive energy, fun, enchantment, love and pride. Greeting my return like a faithful friend, she adds a little warmth and welcome to an otherwise cold and inanimate space.
Pulling, cutting, carving.
Holes in pale white skin.
by Rebecca L. Atherton
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Growing from the centre, spreading out; opening tired arms, reaching out… I begin to evolve; returning – slowly, surely, bit by timid bit – to my maker, to the one who conceived the thought and (albeit thousands of years ago), made my forebears who then lead lives that in a very protracted ‘meandering-around-the-fields kind of way’ (a bit like my writing) eventually led to me.
But who is that voice that’s calling? And why now? Why not before, when I first had need of it?
Was it necessary to be so beaten, so tattered and torn, so tangled and tormented, bereft? Did I need to lose it all before I could from the ground, the grey grit of the tired bedraggled pavement, start crawling back?
~
Praying, meditating, practicing yoga; spending quiet time, alone time, time with me: I pick up the pieces, attempting to reassemble the puzzle that – whole, complete – amounts to an entirety of something I am only now coming to know.
I try to remember that God loves me and that Jesus died for my sins. I try to remember too that other people have suffered, suffer, are suffering still, and that we are all battling similar things.
Only it’s easy to forget and then feel miserable, or perhaps act out, speaking from the lonely part, the child that has since we began been neglected.
~
Reading self-help books; studying religion, spirituality, philosophy, metaphysics… I move, crossing a landscape of boulders that was ‘once upon a time long ago’ green and vibrant.
Planting seeds; tending to the garden, praying to the moon and dancing for the sun: colour arrives and I thrive, rising up from the ashes of pain and shame to walk with grace and confidence.
And I try to have fun and to remember how to play, taking advice from children and the tiny inside me, the ‘me’ that I am only now really learning to see and accept. Fimo unicorns dance across tabletops, origami doves gather around lamps, felttip rainbows remind me to be kind to myself when all around me I’m staring at clouds. Having allowed what has been forbidden to surface, it won’t now be shut back down.
I was afraid that perhaps I wasn’t being mature enough.
I was also afraid that I had gone mad, losing my soul down a rabbit hole that, once entered, did not permit one to turn back.
Now I see that the answer is simple, that I have instead been forced to rewind, returning to parts that never grew, reconnecting with parts that were rejected.
Listening to her, seeing her, for the first time; looking with complete awareness, judgement-free: I slowly heal what was allowed to self-destruct. It is painful and slow. Strange how this journey began as one thing, as a new career path, as an evolution of ego – albeit with a good heart – and then turned into something else entirely that has, in new and nefarious ways, challenged me.
~
Walking in the light, I see that God had other plans and that, really, when it’s all peeled back, there is only ever one path, one way, and it is love.
Love makes us happy.
Love brings us peace.
Love enables us to forgive and thereby to finally heal.
Love enables us to reach out and touch and begin to restore, transforming hate and anger, cynicism and judgement, depression and pain. Little by little, the world begins to change.
It is a journey of a thousand miles. And, like all of you, each day I take another step.
by Rebecca L. Atherton
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My partner has started to refer to our situation as a black hole. The sky barely visible, the horizon concealed, it is a barren place without comfort or cheer. It is also full of anger and rage, emotions which scare me. Cold and empty, lost and alone, I feel hopeless and desolate. I no longer know where to go, how to feel or what to attach myself to. The plan we had has gone awry. Bad things keep happening. And there are too many antagonists in the mix. If I’ve felt worse, fallen lower, had more to cope with at one time: I can’t remember it.
I’ve suffered accidents and injuries. I’ve experienced heartbreak and loss. I’ve been disappointed and disillusioned… I’ve swallowed lies, drunk poison and eaten rejection… I’ve lost my best friend, my grandmother and the love of my life. I’ve been broken, bruised and damaged. I’ve been injured, ill and sick. I’ve been a danger to myself and a danger to others. I’ve been used, hurt, left and abandoned. I’ve swapped one life for another in pursuit of a dream, only to be sorely disappointed, twice…
Yet, none of it was like this. Here, now, the shit just keeps on coming and there’s nowhere to hide.
Today I should be happy. Today I should be productive. Today I should be facing in a direction. Today ‘We’, should be solving at least one of the many things on our ever-expanding list. It should be a day of moving closer, a day of advancing towards, a day of shrinking the problem(s) that seems determined to grow. But this isn’t the case. Life has thrown yet another curve-ball and – hit, injured, wounded; eyes black, heart blue, spirit torn – we are sitting in a café trying to make the best of it.
My best, or at least my idea of attempting such an ambitious feat, is to take the situation and pour my soul into it. If I can document – in transparent account, in poetry and prose, in illustration and needlework – what is going on, perhaps something positive can come out of what is dark and negative?
by Rebecca L. Atherton
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This morning I had a mini-meltdown, the backpack finally finding my rigid shoulder blades, the suitcase latching lipit-like onto my balled hands. Two months after making the decision, four months after sensing the need for a different approach, a year after feeling itchy and miserable, it’s hit me – the mountain, the avalanche, the stone, the thing I’ve been evading – and I can’t, no matter how much I might want to, escape.
Standing in the middle of my new flat – an apartment really to be exact, to give it (my abode most humble) its credit, its due, the tears came and my lips collapsed. Used to being strong; to coping, to managing, to steering the ship; to keeping us (both e and my partner) afloat – if not financially, then at least emotionally and directionally: I was both humbled and shocked. Shit! What now? What next?
Overwhelmed, everything beyond the current moment was black: the hour, the day, the week… all the way up to as far as I could see without losing myself in the clouds of tomorrow. Too many problems, too many obstacles, too many malicious them’s attacking and subtracting from the sum (currently pitiful) total of us.
I’m sure, comfortably seated in the future, once again enthroned, I will look back and laugh: ha, ha, ha!!! I’m sure this – now; the beast, the burden, the monotone, the unmanageable, etc. – will all be a joke. When my house is a home, when my shell is a nest; when my family are settled and together, happy… But now, in the void, in the interim, in the in-between space from which there is only today, a day that is heartless, callous, never-ending in its pursuit, there is no laughing or smiling or joking. No furniture, no fixtures, no familiar things: it, this, where I currently am – both emotionally and physically, is just an empty space, devoid of emotion, of meaning or me. Which wouldn’t be a problem, only we are bereft of the means to make amends.
Finances being short, thanks to a run of unfortunate events, events that stubbornly keep on coming – thick and fast, faster than we can fight them off, faster than one would have thought possible: we are well and truly up the creek (proverbial) without a paddle to steer by. This is not how I like to be. This is not where I want to be. This is not what I saw or what I agreed to in the beginning when we kicked this whole thing off. Having been sold a dream which was already a personal nightmare (my idea of Hell, if I am honest), I am struggling to keep up.
Slipping, tripping; sinking, drowning: I attempt to evade the wave. Yet no matter how fast I move, how far I go, how much I push against it, there is no escaping the flux. Even as I write this, endeavouring in concretising to superficially placate my rapidly breaking self, there is more… The café that has been my haunt, my rock, my stone, my safe space in a place that lacks any and all things familiar, has just ousted me, informing me that my presence is not welcome any more. Apparently it’s okay to come and sit, providing said ‘sitting’ is for a short while – bite-sized, delicate and feminine – partaking of a coffee and cake or a toast and tea. But to idle with my iPad or sit with my knitting and stitching, is outside the realm of the image they are looking to promote.
If I wasn’t already so upset, so emotionally bruised and battered by the current run of events, I might be able to see my way to the funny side; after all, it does keep coming… As it is, I am struggling not to collapse into a heap. Two things hold me together: 1. I am expecting someone – who, ironically, I am intending to use wool to make things with; and 2. I am surrounded by people who, disturbed by a sudden flow of water, would turn in curiosity to stare. Dignity and pride are my saviours and I embrace them for all they are worth.
by Rebecca L. Atherton
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Rebecca L. Atherton 