The Spiral of Dreams...

"Sometimes, the most beautiful thing...

The most innocent thing, and many of those dreams,

Pass us by,

Keep passing me by..."

Words from 'Angel' by S. Nicks

I've been sleeping very badly since I got the news... Mind whirling in spirals, consumed by whirligigs.

...Not knowing is the worst.

Anticipation and imagining is just awful.

What to expect, what might I find?

And, even worse, what's not going to be there, where I expect it to be?!

I've called the Council Tax people. Apparently, I owe them over three hundred and fifty squid. I'd guess that's just for starters. Roll on the gas and electricity bills!

And I've found her obituary online on t'Internets. Not even my dad's name is mentioned, but her family are. And yet she chose to be buried with his name... Odd that. ...As if he never existed. (As if I don't still breathe oxygen too). ...But I, and my family know differently...

We went to her daughter's home to collect the keys... GJ donning the mantel of The Guardian of Keys...

Meanwhile, I 'wandered lonely' in an up-market supermarket nearby, buying some clothes and toys for my niece's birthday. She's Emily, and she's tiny, all of 4 this month. There's something positive to look forward to...

I chose some frilly cool cotton tees with bunny rabbits in gardening gear on them and leggings for her, looking forward to brighter, warmer days. Everything I chose is white, lavender and pink. Now she's also got a pink Barbie-stylee car complete with little blonde doll and black kitty. "Suitable for ages 3+". So that's okay then.

Lovely.

A good friend, whom I'm meeting for lunch again soon, told me ages ago that the reason I gather so much pink about me, even tho' 'I was never a Pink Person', is because of an absence of love. She feels that I'm trying sub-consciously to draw affection and love to the central gap in my shimmering aura... As I live on without the love, or at least the presence, of my dear parentals...

She may be right.

And so I treated myself to some new DVDs while I was at the supermarket... I buy things to comfort myself, to cheer, there's no doubt. They say women are prone to that, don't they?

I know Mutti was... And one of the reasons, I think, that she went to her hasty, 'twirly', grave (= 'Too Early'), was her fear of being submitted helpless to hospital, meaning she wouldn't be there to intercept the post before my dad did of a morning...

...That he'd find out she had a credit card bill, with what we'd regard today as a modest amount, outstanding...

My dad was the mildest of men. The month she died, I even had to teach him how to use a cash-point card. The ATM machine was so foreign to him... He had a card but had never used it, my mum gave him pocket 'money...', with which he was wholly satisfied. And I know he may well have grumbled and whinged about her perceived weaknesses, her spending too much money on daft things, and me...

He would have gone quiet on her for a bit, but he would never in a million years have stopped loving her. For he never did.

He was always fond of telling me that he had room in his heart enough still to encompass his Joanie, as well as me, my family, his dog and later, his new partner, who was to become my own 'Bette' noir in so many ways...

I came about fifth down on that list in terms of pecking order. I used to joke with him about it... I came just after Sophie the dog!

He adored her. Soph' he called her.

And when he was laid a-bed, delirious and dwindling away himself, he dreamily said, among other things, "I'm going to see Joanie. ...Soon..."

He said that. With witnesses to tell me thus at his bedside. I think there are some things that we just will never understand in life.

Nor ought we to try.

Such as the time when my infant son whispered to me, when he was very small himself, and innocent, wholly without guise or guile,

"Don't you remember, mammy, silly mammy...

Back when I used to sell papers on the corner of the street?

Don't you remember - When I was a little boy?!"

He was a little boy... What memory could he possibly have of a past life lived? At three?

There are some things we should never try to understand, to explain away.

Like continuing with love, while living has gone...