Sunday, December 23, 2012

set down this

I am speaking to you from the flip side of the Apocalypse.  You may think that it is all over bar the shouting and the fat lady singing on top of Mount Bugarach, but I have it on good authority that this is just the beginning of the end.  You may say that whatever point we are at, from there one can always say that it is the beginning of the end.  It may also, however, be the beginning of something completely different from the thing that the end was attached to.  What I can say with absolute certainty is that here on the edge there is much activity around celebrating the birth of a new era.  People are joining hands and celebrating the birth of a new consciousness which will, if I read my group emails aright (I am on a list that keeps me informed of such things) bring extraordinary transformation.  I am talking a new heaven and a new earth.  I have nothing to say to this or to those who hold fast to the idea that the Mayans simply ran out of calendar space or thought this would be a perfect way to wind us all up.  Meanwhile there is another Apocalypse date set approximately four years hence and I want to enjoy Christmas with my children, one of whom will be landing at Heathrow tomorrow just in time for the festivities.

Well I didn't keep to my plan of putting up a post a day between 24th September and Christmas Eve.  It was a bit of a long shot and I have been no'well.  Today I went to a friend's pre-Christmas party and had to leave the merry throng downstairs and sit quietly on a chair on the landing upstairs where the truth came and announced itself to me without fanfare - quietly.  Parties and attempting to make conversation in a room with many people talking are inflammatory to the neurologically compromised brain.  It is no longer possible to be involved in activities that include such things and might mean ruling out weddings, special birthday parties, book launches and eating in busy restaurants.  It is the beginning of the end, and a long journey it has been to get to this beginning.  There was a time when I would not have been able to contemplate it without tears.  But I can now.  I am grateful for what I still have.  It is, you may say, satisfactory.

10 comments:

Sabine said...

I, too, had to come to a very similar conclusion and the struggle with the dramatics of never again has taken a lot of energy out of me, energy that I could have used for better stuff. It's shit, really and truly. But the thing is to stay with it, to accept the chaos that it creates in your mind and to take things from there. I have mourned my loss of energy and social activity with a lot of self pity, maybe that was necessary, maybe only a waste of time. And as you write this so very clearly and movingly: time to be grateful for what I have. But I would leave out the "still", because I don't want to see my life now as I life with something missing. It's different. Have a wonderful time with your family! And thank you for posting these thoughts.

Anna MR said...

My dear, beloved Signs: you are brave and wise. I don't know how else to put it; the bravery is in the bold acceptance of what is. I don't know if there is any greater bravery.

Incidentally, and hoping this will amuse you. In order to send you this comment, I am proving myself not to be a robot with the words 4 BritArti. I find the good old word verifications, these random generations (as in "to generate, generation", right) of garbled messages, just sometimes hit the spot in an uncanny fashion. We are, by definition, meaning-finding creatures (for instance, I remember endless childhood summer nights, waiting for sleep whilst watching the private showings of psychedelic sepia Rorschach movies created onto the chalked-white ceiling of the summer cottage when the roof had leaked during rain); so when a character-generating programme says on our friend's beautiful post, "For Brit Arty", we see it as the random and meaningless universe getting its act together for a brief moment of meaning, to salute her beauty and bravery with this honorable mention of life's artistry.

Verily.

And, you know, Merry Christmas. It is so snowy here, you would love it. Just like the North Pole should be at Father-Christmas time of year.

x

Reading the Signs said...

Sabine, good wishes to you also and thanks for your words. I have been thinking about the "still". I see your point, but think that for me it feels right to have the word there. My way, perhaps, of honouring the fact of loss, and also that there are other spoonie people I know for whom life is immeasurably harder.

My dear, beloved Mr. Anna, in the land of the brave I am a stumbling foot-soldier who follows after much braver souls. And I am grateful for good, true friends who bring a shine to life without which I don't know how I would navigate this terrain at all. Lookin' atcha, Schwes!

You know what, I think at this time of year perhaps the Word Ver Leprechauns (your term, which I still like) transform into Gawd's very own ministering angels. I believe this - and much else besides.

Mwah!

x

p.s. endless grey rain is the pits - please send snow!

Zhoen said...

I have no diagnosable excuse, but I can't stand any of those situations either.

Fire Bird said...

rather like Zhoen, without organic reason I was just thinking how much I struggle with party-type situations. I went to one in the afternoon last week in honour of a friend's birthday and the season, just after finishing work, and almost turned round and left again on seeing the room full of people all seated, and no more seats to be found. We stayed an hour and a half but it was mostly torment to me. Except for the cake...

Fire Bird said...

and oh, yes, Happy Christmas. Enjoy family, warmth, twinkly lights

Collin Kelley said...

Happy Christmas, Andie. I'm back in the UK next summer for an entire month (from the end of June to end of July), so hopefully we can meet up again. :)

Montag said...

People always get together and celebrate "new eras" or new years, but they're always the same.

Your withdrawal from crowds is to me an indication of the tenderness of a new consciousness.
The truly new shuns groups of smiling celebrants. Only later does it return to the world of mankind.

That's what I think.

Reading the Signs said...

Ah well - I fear my withdrawal is to do with neurological disturbance, but I like your take on this, Montag. So perhaps I will go with that.

Mim said...

Dear Signs:

I read you.

Steady in print, coherent, still . . .

Always--or until the end--
Mim