Rhythm and beat
Obscure miniscule creature
Little ugly bug
How often have you been seen?
[My sister, at some point]
I hear the rhythm in my head and the words fill the beats. Writing. Two syllables that invoke elation. An elation that comes from creating. I wish you could see it. Maybe you can. I want to share it with you, share the happiness it brings me. In the wake of losing you, such pure and unadulterated happiness is a rarity for me. So I throw myself into it, into this world of writing. I had heard people talk about writing, about painting, about any form of creating as if they had no choice. They had to create. There was no other door to walk through. I appreciated what they were saying, as I sprinkled over my pinch of salt. I would indulge what I perceived to be gentle pomposity and grant artistic licence. Now, I get it. I really get it. Writing is not a choice for me anymore. It’s the way I engage with myself. The way I engage with the world. Until I write, I cannot digest my thoughts fully. An emotion cannot be understood until explored in words; it only takes shape as the words appear on the screen. Before that, it’s simply grey storm clouds swirling around my head. The pressure rises until the words pour down.
There is something so deeply satisfying about capturing the process of engaging with my ‘self’, the inner part of me, the oddball for whom the imaginary is as real as the physical. About managing to grab that fleeting thought or elusive emotion and capture it in words; I can identify it, give it a face. It warms me. It’s not like you don’t know this feeling. You have been searching for and engaging with creativity all your life. And you were bloody brilliant at it. For me, I’m only just finding it again. I’m finding my groove learning to produce without the purpose being to produce. Was this the feeling you got from painting, or those beautiful textile artworks you would create? Or those haikus you would write when you took yourself off to Hyde Park on sunny mornings. I have a vivid image in my head of you sitting cross legged on the benches for hours, denim shorts and white vest, eyes closed, head tilted back, soaking in the rays. Were you pondering your next verse? Did I even see you there or do I simply have a romantic image of you, the poet, in her zone, engaging with her sombre thoughts.
I remember your poetry. The way you could paint a picture in three lines. The way you captured the essence of the emotional storm that sometimes surrounded you in seventeen syllables. It was a gift. A magnificent gift that sometimes terrified me. The dark prose on the page gave me an insight into the darkness you battled. It was proof of the pain you experienced, proof of how I failed to protect you, my baby sister. Yet, within the darkness was pure beauty. And there was a purity to the beauty. That was always the paradox of you; the darkness battling the fragile naivety of an angel tormented by existing in the wrong place. I hope you don’t mind me replicating my favourite here, but I am just so damn proud. You capture "you" so well. With that magnificent gift of yours. I think of you jotting it down in your notebook, resting it on your knees as you sit on that bench, writing your cursive letters that never joined up.
Little bug I see you now
Oh the Bodhi tree
Fly away and on with me
[My mum, some time after]
