flesh, bones, and breeze
the circumference of the unspoken
Hello. This post is about Death & Birds.
This week has seen us return to the loving embrace of a vitally autumnal England; the vibrancy of which, even on the greyest of days, soothes my aching heart—parts of which remain firmly entrenched within a pair of four-legged beings in Africa. I dream of them, and the kisses of mine which belong upon their foreheads hang in the cold morning air, nowhere to land. Grateful, then, am I to have walked into the time of year which feels most like home—a concept which, to me, seems quite amorphous. My beloved is home. The winged, are home. The earth in which my mother’s bones rest, is home. Slowly, this body of mine becomes home. Home is where twenty-two Magpies polkadot the lawn, and where three large Crows police them. It is where wings both wide and miniature manipulate the air to their will, and where tiny lungs compel the sun to rise—so that they might once again sing it to sleep. Reverence to these beings who dance with the days, who speak dusk and dawn, and keep time with the ancient rhythm. May I only ever become more birdlike.
It is a strange thing, to feel more closely related to beings not of ones own species than to members of ones own bloodline. From as early as I could remember, when particular constellations of the family gathered, large and invisible manuals listing the lengthy subjects which must not be spoken of gathered along with us. I learned the rules by osmosis and, begrudgingly, followed them. But I had no understanding as to their origins or purpose, and so could only suffer them so long. My grandmother was a woman of exceptional poise. She looked strikingly like Katherine Hepburn, and there existed between us a deep love and an even deeper tension. When we’d visit her, I would feel psychic ropes wrapping themselves around my torso as soon as her house came into view. Deep breaths became impossible, so I’d practice the habit of detaching from my body in order to watch the day play out as though it were a movie and not something within which I was physically immersed. Resentment towards the ropes naturally crept in, and I was only ten or eleven when the two of us began to lock horns. One afternoon, in her immaculate drawing room, I was looking at the porcelain figurines of young women in 18th century gowns that stood atop the mantelpiece, with their alabaster skin and impossibly small waists. I reached up and moved the angle of one of the women, who was locked in a demure twirl of her pale blue dress, delicate hands humbly clasped to her chest. “Darling! Don’t touch those” came the short sharp instruction from a woman whose peripheral vision was somehow as clear as her central. Keeping my hand firmly on the hard pleats of the woman’s dress, I met my grandmother’s gaze, and turned the figurine again. The room itself tightened, and the ropes constricted like a Boa mid kill, a binding reminder of the cast iron rules—but her narrowed gaze and the air leaving the room served only to fuel my desire to create a critical mass of ire; because surely some genuine expression of feeling had to be better than suffocation? I stopped turning the figurine and instead nudged it towards the edge of the mantel. Never has a minute tilt of the head conveyed the level of threat that she managed to then—but this was now a battle of wills, our ancestors had gathered like storm clouds and there was power to be negotiated. The figurine, in all her rigid beauty, was nudged closer still to the edge. My grandmother leaned forward, her thin body feline and poised to strike. I had never felt so embodied in her presence. Just as my aunt walked into the room, my index finger found the centre of the figurine’s shoulder blades and gently sent her tumbling towards the slab of marble which would release her from the bind of her perpetual twirl. My aunt ushered me from the room at lightning speed and closed the door firmly behind her, leaving me to stand in the hallway, filled with guilt, fear, and euphoria.
When that door eventually reopened, there was no acknowledgment of what had happened, and it was never spoken of again. The arrangement of the family was such that there was no willingness to engage with any painful thing—and I was a pain-full thing. In hindsight, I don’t know what I could have done to provoke the response I was looking for. I had misunderstood the ropes, believing them to be something that my grandmother insisted upon me; but it was she who was bound, and her sense of suffocation had a wide circumference. I used to think that the Death of my mother—her daughter—gave us both access to the same field of pain, and I was desperate for her to meet me there. But I know now that the ropes—placed around her before she was even born—prevented her from ever crossing that threshold. In my adulthood I have writhed and wailed and howled in grief, like the animal I am, in the belief that so doing holds the potential for multi-generational healing.
My grandmother’s ashes were given to a breeze which delivered them across a hill overlooking our village, and her daughters grave. I like to think that around this time of year the three of us gather—flesh, bones, and breeze—and boldly speak of all the subjects that the invisible manuals contained. Each of us free. Each of us home.
Yours in aimless flight…
If you find yourself called to the work of untangling from the inherited ropes which keep us bound, The Deep End course or The Submersion 1:1 might be of interest to you:
When I read your words I somehow feel both changed by them and more like myself. I find me in them in ways I struggled to see before you shed your light. As I read of the figurines and your will for something to be different to how it was, I was filled with a joyful recognition, only to end in tears as I read more. Thank you. Your sharing has a profound impact on my own exploration of unspoken things.
Wow. Thank you, Chloe. You wrap words around a feeling I have had but could not name. I’m reminded of the poem Because by James Mcauley “We were all caught in the same defeat”