robert

My father, Robert James Logan died on this day in 1990.

ruby

In the summer of 1990 I worked in a nursing home for a couple of months before heading off to university. My father had died in the June and I left home for Derby in September. 

My father spent the last months of his life in hospital, dying on the morning of June 2nd. Watching him slowly fade, gaunt, with bedsores and towards the end his oxygen starved brain leading to confusion, I was a teenager with a larger than most experience of ageing, and a teenager in deep, profound distress. Working in a care home was a strange choice looking back, like prising my eyes open with matchsticks and forcing myself to gaze unblinking at suffering, failing bodies, death. Was I numb? Did I feel some duty? I do not know.

There was a woman in the home who was dreadfully confused, behaving as a toddler. If left on the toilet for too long she would smear herself, her thighs, walking stick with excrement. I remember being on my hands and knees washing her, verbally scolding her. In some part of her brain she knew she had done wrong and whimpered a little. In her room was a black and white photograph taken in the 1930's of a stylish, smiling young woman with beautifully waved dark hair, she had on pencil pleat shorts, gorgeous legs and was perched on the back of a motorbike. Young, at ease, carefree, loved, our reality and the image at odds, and I've never forgotten that moment. She was a girl just like me. 

Just once I went into Rudy's room, the curtains were drawn and in the dim light I could make out a naked figure on the bed, she lay on her back and was so thin, I recall my shock at seeing the outline of her spine through her stomach. The room smelt of urine, and Ruby was conscious, eyes open, uncomfortable, my memories are vague, that we turned her, bed sores being present in many... Outside, I felt a shiver of enjoyment from a staff member who regarded my reaction, probably assuming that was my first encounter with death, having no understanding of my own recent trauma.

Death was in that room, and I hope it came soon. Over the years I've thought about Ruby, never forgetting her name, never seeing her girl self photograph. I also think of the other woman, the one who's name escapes me, but her image does not, the young creature, radiant at the beginning of her womanhood. Its been almost 26 years since these experiences, their families do not know they are with me, that I sing for their bones. 

Around this time I remember sitting at a bus stop, an old woman glancing at me turned to her friend and said loud enough for me to hear, Young people today don't know their born,  depressed, newly bereaved, working in a care home I vowed never to be that unseeing woman. 

an alien thing

I'm always surprised that people have both parents, that people my age have grandparents, or knew them in adulthood. It baffles me, the experience of intergenerations, of a living past. A woman of 49 can still call her father, that this woman could ask for help, be helped. It is the most alien thing to me. 

fleeting nature

Two days ago I walked in the woods and was captivated by the intensity of green. Within a week or two it will subtly fade, but now, in this moment, it's the purest vibration of bright lushness. My heart was happy, and while I wished it would linger, I also realised its rare beauty is in its fleeting nature. Change is the only constant. 

tempo

While walking on Wanstead Flats yesterday I was fascinated by the trees in open ground, could feel their fizzing energy. Tens of thousands of leaf buds on the verge of bursting, nature felt as an elastic band stretched to its limit and about to ping! Trees in the forested areas have pinged into leaf, sheltering each other from the winds that whip around the more exposed and bud filled trees. 

I thought about tempo, and remembered the quote by Ezra Pound, The difference between a gun and a tree is a difference of tempo. The tree explodes every spring.

As I continued to walk I passed a mature horse chestnut and was made tiny by it! Thinking about the best way to describe it, hulking settled into my mind. Questions tumbled - how much do the leaves weight? How much does the tree weigh? How much water is lifted up through the trunk in a day? Transformation, energy, connectedness.

With leaf the trees have become dense, inflated, huge. They stand their ground.

pies

In a well known department store recently, I tried on a pair of jeggings. The word jeggings, while effective at describing a cross between jeans and leggings makes me shudder in its ugliness. Once on they felt a little too snug, did I need the next size up? The staff member in the fitting room was alone so couldn't retrieve the item for me, and I simply couldn't be bothered to remove the jeggings, so lagged in stretchy fabric off I scurried to find a bigger size.

While searching the rails a gentleman approached, one of the shop floor staff, telling me he had an eye for sizes. Upon hearing what I was after, he looked me up and down, gazed momentarily into my eyes and asked in a clipped African accent, Are you planning on eating all the pies? Ha! He did not keep to script, he was being himself, subtly scolding me for thinking I am bigger than I am. He amused me.

He was right, they were too big!

sock it to em!

Finished LATE last night, rainbow feet for spring!