#141 OR withered petals

I have a problem with jasmine.

Actually, as you've probably guessed, I have a problem with many things. Today it is jasmine. Courtesy of a woman at the train station who swept past me, knocking into my shoulder and leaving me reeling. Not because of the knock, I'm not so fragile, because of her perfume. Not overpowering, which made it worse; the scent elusive, drifting, awful. The memory of smells and tastes is so much stronger than the others. The quicker to open old wounds, to twist the hollow in my chest and leave me standing, aghast in a crowd of pushing strangers.

Jasmine grew over the deck, crept up the posts and pushed tentative tendrils through the cracks in the planks. The flowers opened in the evening, as the sun set and enveloped the house in a cloud of jasmine perfume. She made jasmine tea, harvesting the small white flowers in the early morning, a basket of them, petals tightly furled. More than once I woke surrounded by the smell, confused in the early morning light, to find her kneeling, concentrating with that small frown, over a sheet covered in tiny white flowers. Picking the best of them and periodically standing to press the rejected flowers into the mosquito net, held there by fragile green stems. That night the rejects would open for the last time, still clutched in the net. She'd lure me to bed at six, early, flickering orange light of the lamp on her skin, warm against mine. The smell of jasmine curling around us.

Standing in the middle of a throng of pushing commuters, I recalled this poem:

The Wind, One Brilliant Day

The wind, one brilliant day, called
to my soul with an odor of jasmine.

"In return for the odor of my jasmine,
I'd like all the odor of your roses."

"I have no roses; all the flowers
in my garden are dead."

"Well then, I'll take the withered petals
and the yellow leaves and the waters of the fountain."

The wind left. And I wept. And I said to myself:
"What have you done with the garden that was entrusted to you?"

Antonio Machado
Translated by Robert Bly

Which left me so much more stricken than the smell of jasmine alone. That final question echoing in the hollow of my chest.

#138 OR spine unbroken

I say it gets easier. I say there's light at the end of this exceptionally dark tunnel. I say it was worth it. That I'd get married again. That I'm fine. That work is a good distraction. That I have hobbies and friends, as though any of those things compensate for family. I say that I'll call you back, that this time I will email, that I'll come visit, come stay, that I'll be at your wedding, definitely. That I'm thrilled your wife is pregnant, that your nephew won a race, that you'll be in town in July and we will be having drinks, that I can't wait to see you. I say I'll book a holiday, relax, enjoy being alone for once. That I'll get in touch with my last living relative and finally let him know what happened. That I'll text you back, sure. That I'll come out, watch you drink and dance. That I approve of your new girlfriend, that I'll meet you in Soho. That I'm fascinated by the details of your new business. That I enjoyed the book you lent me and returned to you, spine unbroken. That I have somewhere to go this summer. That I have plans for Christmas, already. That I have plans for life, that I'm going somewhere, that I have ambitions. That I've started drawing again, don't worry. That I'm not spending too much time alone. That I'm sleeping better, without pills. That I'm taking my medication and going to the doctor. That I'm eating right and talking about things. That I feel better. Really.

What I don't ask is why people are letting me get away with these huge lies? Enormous, blatant lies. Easily disproved lies that I tell straight to their face, looking them right in the eye. Perhaps the truth is too uncomfortable, it certainly is for me. I prefer the lie, the dream, the fantasy, the few elusive seconds before I'm truly awake when I believe they're here with me. Why tell the truth? Why let people see that behind closed doors I'm a wreck and perhaps the string tying me together is made up of threads of memories and dreams and ghosts. The only person I trusted to see me like this is gone, the person who saw what I meant rather than what I said, the one person I allowed to care. It hasn't been long, but already I'm not even sure how she managed it. Where the cracks in my stonewalling are, the tiny spaces she infiltrated now closed in self defence. No more, not again, certainly not yet. Too easy, once people are inside, to be hurt again. Too easy to be seen. Really seen and known and the full extent of this pain exposed to strangers. No. I prefer the lie, the stonewalling, the safety. I prefer to return the book, spine unbroken.

#135 OR outrunning

One day off a week, and I have no idea what to do with it. In a way I wish I was new to this city, then I'd feel obliged to explore it instead of having this pervasive feeling of apathy. Wanderlust, too. Wishing I'd chosen another path, there were two choices back in January - a job in London and one in Goa, India. I chose London because it was familiar and because I had planned to move to India with my family...around now actually, June, we were due to leave Cambodia and start afresh. She was so excited, we'd been on holiday there a year ago, loved the chaos, the press of people, the noise, the heat, the colours. Mostly loved her being happy. And now, here, looking out at rain-soaked grey buildings I can't remember why I turned it down. Fear, obviously. Afraid of falling to pieces dramatically and being unable to cope, of letting my friend down and ruining his new business, of moving alone to a new country - even though I've done it before, frequently. But there's a stark difference between being alone and being bereft.

Maybe tomorrow I'll write a resignation letter. Imagine being on a plane next week, packing up the shabby old kit bags that have survived so many ridiculous adventures and just leaving. Locking up all the memories of them in this flat and taking myself off, away, somewhere warm and bright and spend my days working on something that matters. There's a space for me there, already planned and waiting. Space for three, and I'd still feel bereft, of course. I know from bitter experience that there's no way to outrun myself, however hard I try. But maybe a purpose? A new language to learn, new children to teach, living with friends, maybe it would work. Soothe the raw ache in my chest somehow. Maybe it would hurt more, finding myself once again on a long-haul flight, turned away into the window and wondering what the fuck happened. Maybe it would recall too strongly the flight home in January, a stark reminder of explaining to the check-in girl why there was only one passenger instead of three. Of crowding myself into the airplane bathroom, kneeling, almost a month since I lost them and finally, finally wracked with sobs so harsh my lips cracked and bled, burnt with acid when the wrenching made me vomit. Keening, curled and spent on the tiny floorspace. Harsh, acrid misery, white knuckles gripping the sink, shaking, not recognizing the dark-eyed, gaunt man in the mirror. Returning to my seat, one of a bank of three. Two of them empty.

#132 OR puzzle pieces

Dinner with old friends tonight. Christ. Awful. Pretentious city bar with generic dark decor and glass tables, vase of beheaded flower stems on the table, full of bankers with their ties hanging from jacket pockets. I'm out of place, got caught up in my work, had to make do with the clothes I keep in the workshop. The mirror over the table reveals, barely, through too low light, a scattering of sawdust still in my hair. I smell of fresh cut wood and epoxy, bandaged hand where I was too avant-garde with a chisel. Our friends are in suit pants, tailored shirts and gelled hair, clean shaven, too much cologne. I barely recognise them from the idiots I met stealing road signs outside University halls. Somehow our roles have reversed; at Uni I was the smart one, always smart and well dressed, they were sure I'd be an advertising exec - a wanker in a tight suit. Somewhere along the line they became the executives with the tidy wives and the pressed shirts and the children and I...I became someone else entirely.

When something terrible happens, something life changing, something which completely alters your perception of yourself and the way you live your life, the way you do everything; you're broken down. You're in pieces and have to work to put yourself back together. Some things are simply thrown out, some are reforged, reshaped, twisted and turned until they fit somehow in the new you that's being created. It happened when I crippled myself, it's happening now. And somewhere in all of that I stopped being the guy that wore snappy suits and stole road signs with his friends. Now I turn up to swanky city bars covered in sawdust, wearing steel capped boots and plaid shirts, I wouldn't choose these friends. I'm not the same person, and my 18 year old self would have had nothing to do with this guy. I'd have wondered why he couldn't afford cologne instead of eau de woodwork.

The first time I put all the pieces back together I somehow became the man that disappears overnight to have frantic adventures on the other side of the world and has to send postcards to let people know he got married. Somewhere in that wreckage I became the guy that steps up and volunteers for things. I liked that guy. I was certain that I was a good man, my wife was proud and endlessly frustrated by me. I took that to mean that I was doing the right things. Now, I'm not quite sure.

Everything's all mixed up and tumbled around and spread out on the floor of the spare room with her life. I've been back in London for four months and still wake, disoriented, straining for the sound of cicadas. I'm not sure where the old pieces fit or what the hell to do with these new pieces; these jagged red and black slivers of grief and guilt and fear that have somehow become mixed up with the familiar, worn edges of the pieces I knew so well. They'll fit, eventually but I get the feeling I'll lose some more friends, put up some more walls and maybe those new sharp pieces will re-shape the old ones into something else I don't recognize.

I never did have the patience for jigsaws.

#130 OR teapot gin

A dance last weekend. One of her favourites, a monthly affair, themed. We used to go religiously. Last night I took a male friend. Dusted off an appropriate outfit; still in the dry cleaner's bag with her dress; an unpleasant surprise, the familiar feel of the silk between my fingers. Still held in the same place, even the dreadful lights are the same. Recognize some of the people, some of the outfits, definitely know the MC. I'm holding my breath as soon as we step through the archway. Bugger.

This was a big mistake. Huge. What was I thinking? Nefarious (names changed to protect the incurably indecent) has my arm, wrangles me into a chair. Drinks, he says. Being drunk will cure everything. He's at the bar for eons and I'm five years ago in the same suit, watching a tiny dark-eyed woman in a silver dress wend her way over to me. Excuse me, she says, my husband is a terrible bore and won't dance with me. Her eyes are mischievous, smile curling at the corner of her lips. Would you mind stepping in? I gesture to my cane, leg, shrug apologetically. She's got my hands, this time she won't take no for an answer. The next song's slow, we're not doing the jitterbug. She knows, requested it to lure me onto the dancefloor. She hooks my cane over the back of my chair, leads onto the dancefloor, leads the dance too. I murmur my complaints into her hair, her cheek pressed against my chest. Hand wrapped around hers, one arm around her back, the flat of her palm under my jacket. We don't move much, no athetics. After a handful of songs she's pestering me to see if I'm in pain. I am and I don't care, she's happy. It's the end of the night by the time we wander back to our things, trying not to lean too heavily on her. Someone's twirling my cane, joking about some people taking the theme too far. Hands it over, stammering, makes a joke about the war - and I'm the one taking the theme too far? She smiles up at me, something about being a hero, distracted by her wide smile, the hands on the small of my back and pressing my cane into my hand.

Nefarious is shaking my shoulder. Shit, yes. Now. I'm here. Present. I spend the entire evening drifting between memories of her in this hall and Nefarious. He succeeds in pulling me into one dance and then I retire, prefer to be the voyeur. Prefer to sit back and drift. We went there so often when we lived in London, annually when we returned, strangers smile and nod; remember me vaguely. It's hard not to recall her laughing, red lipstick, all dressed up; joking about not spending this much time getting ready in the past twelve months back home. Doesn't believe me when I say she's exactly as beautiful after all this effort as she is after showering in the rain. Punches me in the arm, should have said earlier, she wouldn't have bothered. Smiles, kisses my cheek and scrubs off the red lipstick with her fingers. Mostly I watch her flirt and dance and smile, stealing glances back at me all the time. Sometimes we take friends to our evening. They ask how I can watch her flirting and dancing. It's easy. She comes back to me. With an undignified crash into the seat beside me, pressed close, hand under my jacket, lips warm against my ear; "did you see him? He was far more handsome than you. I think I will let him take me home." Grinning wickedly before pulling me down into fierce kisses. She always came back to me.

#128 OR distance

She left me once. It wasn't all roses. In fact it wasn't ever roses. I tend towards practical gestures rather than the beheading of flora. After an argument in Paris she forgave me because I de-iced her car, left the heater running and slipped handwarmers in her coat pockets. She ran back up six flights of stairs to tell me I was ridiculous and that was forgiveness. Back home it was checking her shoes for scorpions, the eaves for snakes, brewing tea and spending two hours a week painting every crack with roach repellant. It took us a while to fit together like that. What seems mysterious and intriguing in a stranger isn't quite so fascinating when you have to deal with his silent grouching twenty four hours a day.

She left because I could never find the words. A recurring problem for me. She told me she loved me first, of course. I'd already loved her for weeks, assumed she knew because I already knew she loved me before she said a word. After a few weeks of waiting for me to realize that sometimes words are required she was gone when I came home from University. I had no way of calling her; we had no cell phones, no landline in our shabby little apartment, wasn't even sure where she'd gone. I didn't know what to do. At the time, I wasn't even sure why she'd gone. There was nothing to tell me what she was thinking. I'd like to tell you that a bloody great clue finally slapped me upside the head when I was so confused at her lack of communication, but it did not. So smart in some ways and so very, very dense in others.

She came back, of course. It was a week later when I tripped over her backpack as I came through the door. She was curled in her chair, asleep after her flight. She looked like hell and I finally realized how upset she must have been (that clue finally arrived, heralded by a sonic boom) paler, thinner, dark circles under her eyes. That was my fault, God, I loathed myself. Knelt in front of the chair, knees creaking on the floorboards, rubbed my hand over her thighs, watched her wake slowly. Always a struggle for her, a gradual shaking off of dreams; scared the hell out of her when she first saw me snap awake, instantly aware and grabbing for whoever woke me. The first thing she said? "I'm sorry. I didn't see it." Some things you can't see close up, some things need a broader view, a little distance to get them in perspective. To see what I wasn't saying.

Her hand was cold on mine, frowning, serious, nipping at her bottom lip.

"I need you to say it. Just once. Not now, just...sometime. I know you do. But just once, just this time, I need words."

I did say it. And I remember it so clearly, not just because it was the first time, but because it was one of only five times I told her. In the hospital, when the nurse asked me to talk to her (they're so convinced, against all evidence, that somehow talking will make a difference.) I still couldn't say it. It was reassuring to still be choked for words right at the end. A relief to know that I didn't regret being unable to say I loved her. She knew. For each of those five sets of three words there were countless actions, gestures and looks. She was an expert at reading me, always said it was that week away which brought me into focus. Not that being an expert ever stopped her from calling me ridiculous, or from introducing me to her best friend as a functional mute. She joked, when she found herself talking about 'forever', that she hoped I'd die first because I'd never find another interpreter if I lost her. She envisaged me living alone on top of a mountain, wearing a hair shirt and frightening off climbers with my inarticulate growling.

It's tempting.

#126 OR avoidance

Our friends mean well. They call with advice, with sympathy and drop by for cups of tea, or with food. Don't bring their children, even though I'd like to see them. Get the feeling I'm being handled carefully, know that they call each other about me. Check who has visited, what to bring, whether I've completely shut down yet. They want to do the right thing, to find the magic combination of words that will make me laugh in spite of everything. That's the trouble. Those magic words "in spite of everything" seem to follow everything I do that isn't simply breaking down and sobbing. It doesn't help that most of them are couples, I can't pinpoint when that happened, when my friends stopped being Frank the Twat and started being Frank, Ethel and Junior. It's the natural evolution of things. And now I'm an aberration in the group. Well, "now" - we were different before but acceptably different. People don't tend to understand when you flit off to the other side of the world and send long, rambling emails describing your fantastic new home. They tend to reply with sensible things like - "I thought you had no water?" Yes, and things are still great! "No power?" Well, no. You should come and stay! "Perhaps...perhaps you two could visit us in London? Next year?" But those are things you choose to do, friends don't understand and definitely don't want to join you, but they get used to seeing you once a year, vastly different and with mad stories which couldn't possibly happen in Europe.

This is different. This is tragic and sudden and heartbreaking and I always had the feeling we had friends because of her. Because she broke the ice, because she answered the phone, because she was cheerful and charming and open, the exact opposite of me. And now I find myself in a group or on the phone and I'm grasping for conversation, for actual words because suddenly listening and being goaded into telling stories or providing the punch line isn't enough. They expected me to change, of course, impossible not to change. But this isn't part of that, it's just how I always was except now there's no one to translate for me; no quiet hand on my thigh under the table when too many people and too much inane chatter drives me quietly mad. No one telling me categorically that we are going out and that we are getting dressed and that we will make conversation and that if I'm not ready to go in half an hour I'm never getting laid again. No one timing me from by the front door with my own watch, snapping the case shut as I fumble with keys, cellphone, cane and with my wallet in my teeth, she removes the wallet, tucks the watch into my pocket; I'm one minute late. She'll grant a reprieve, smiling against my lips.

Now I don't go. I don't even answer the phone. I went twice, two meals. Awful, dire. Ducked out to smoke twenty times, to answer imaginary phone calls and finally just left early. It's almost worse that they mean well and still don't know what to do. I stick to the same handful of friends who have known me for years, single and married, can fall back on inside jokes and one word sentences. Easy friends, comfortable friends. Actual friends. I feel as though I should see her friends, they want to talk about her, want to feel near her. But I can't give them that. Not yet. I feel like I should just make the effort, give them what they want. It'll hurt, give me a miserable few days before and after but surely I can do that, for her friends? Apparently not. Bastard.