DUSK

I DO LOVE THE THERAPEUTIC WRITING GROUP!

This was the theme for the creative writing group a few weeks ago. Callum took us on a long and fascinating wander around the art associated with it, the philosophy, the reality, if I dare say such a thing. I forget much of what he said; I was distracted at the time and knew I needed to leave before I could write.

One thing I did learn is that twilight, when the sun is setting, precedes dusk when the sun has set but the night is not there yet; not completely. I heard stories of how dusk can be a time of fear when the ghoulies come out and our vision dims. I also learnt that it can be a time of peace and comfort, those times when the moon gently lights the evening spring to mind.

Dusk is a feature for me nowadays; now that we are in the middle of winter and the nights are long and the days short. I can be in the midst of dusk, even when work has only just finished; when I am walking up the hill from the train station. When it is twilight that feels wonderful as often the sunset lights up the windows of the houses I pass and the remains of the evening create a tapestry of colour to delight my eyes. When it is dusk I can be weary; disgruntled that it is night time, that the day is signalling the end of activity even though I still have tea to make and conversation to have.

At times like this when I have probably spent a few hours on the train and may have been busy giving talks to people I do not know about my life and the lives of people like me, I can be tired. And if I have stopped off at the Co -op for milk or bread, maybe a little grumpy. Walking up the steps to the house with that particular slab that always clunks when I stand on it; seeing the light from the sitting room and the dogs peering out to see who it is; I am usually both delighted to be home and yet busy shrugging off the day; trying not to have to speak to people.

I often come in and while I talk to the dogs who will be bouncing around me with excitement, I will also tell them off, in a not necessarily serious way, when they are so busy bouncing, that I cannot take my coat off or get my shoelaces undone. And … I always do it! I go into the kitchen to put my bag down; to put the shopping away and only then do I go to the sitting room to say hello to Wendy and Louie. I know they look forward to my greeting and conversation and I know I really look forward to theirs but it is a time to stop and slump, so; often, I just sink into my chair after saying hello; take my phone out and start scrolling until I have the energy to mutter a few words or get ready to make tea.

Luckily, I have a very forgiving family; the women downstairs will tease me and witter and do their own thing. James, upstairs, will grunt his hello but it seems good humoured and the night will gather round the house but in a positive and friendly way.

At some point Louie might try to steal my phone off me and at another Wendy will embark on some story about another adventure or story or conversation or scheme to do something or other and I will find myself smiling inside; wishing I could have her energy and delight, despite my stony face staring at my phone screen.

Dusk in the house. It still feels safe to me; to be in a house as the night gathers. I have never been unsafe enough for my home to be a place of fear.

Though I do remember trips downstairs in the dark when I was a child and even as an adolescent; when my heart was in my mouth because; due to the siting of light switches, I ventured into dark hallways and basements and rushed to switch the lights on to escape the monsters under the stairs or dashed up from the dark as fast as I could, into the security of light.

Actually, I tell a lie. I glance only slightly to the side and remember waking to see the dark presence of a person who said she loved me; sitting, hunched on a box above my bed, in a box room; muttering and writing curses and insults about me; tearing the paper up and scattering it over me before silently going away downstairs.

I remember the same person making me sleep on the floor of the sitting room because I didn’t deserve a real bed. I remember she had thrown all my Christmas presents in the outside rubbish bin and thrown the ashes of the fire on them. I remember she had hit me, punched me, spat at me before telling me to sleep on that floor. And yes, I do remember the fear of coming home to that house at the end of the day.

But in this house such experiences do not apply. I do not know fear here.

At night time, outside in the dusk I am, like many people; anxious. When I have been in the woods and the dark is all around me and I can hardly see, I feel fear. The grasp of a branch or a rustle in the leaves spook me and yet when I still my breathing and relax and begin to look around me in the gloaming, it can begin to feel wonderful. The shift of crows in the trees above me, the streetlights to the side, the alien delightful scattering tumble of bats illuminated by those same street lights, the small sound of leaves shifting and far off the hoot of a train and maybe if I am lucky, a fox trotting along the street now that the streets belong to it and its kind.

At such times I feel very lucky and very happy. Sometimes I try to get the children or Wendy to come and see the bats as I find them so amazing but usually, they are comfy in the warmth of the house and reluctant to walk into the dark.

I remember a time at Ardmore in the early twilight, when the sun was still golden but just about to dip under the far hills in Argyll. The whole road glowed with the most wonderful light. I could see columns of insects illuminated silver by the sun and swallows darting over the fields and hedgerows and again, the bats jinking and kinking and making the whole world a rich wonder where I wanted the evening to carry on for ever and ever and for the advent of dusk and my return to my car and home not to happen. I wish I had been able to have had my family with me to see it, but it was the end of yet another trip to Morrisons for the weekly shop and so I was alone.

This dusk thing is a strange concept; it is an anticipation. There have been many times when I have been at sea when the fading into the night has been serene and mystical and wonderful. A time of beauty where, one moment, the sun is lighting both the sea and the sky and then next the moon is layering breaths of silver over the waves and it is stunning but all along you know the darker night will come, the hint of the loss of vision becomes the threat of the weight of the night where everything is that much more risky and that much more difficult and that much more scary.

Scary, knowing it will be hours and hours before the dawn comes. That we are back to the primitive sense of helplessness where we can’t turn on a light for comfort or stop the boat and get off to walk to a safe and stationary bed where all we need to do is sleep and dream. Instead in the early hours we will still be steering, trying to check if we can see the nav lights of ships that may run us down; trying to guess whether the wind will rise and we will need to go forward in the dark to reef the sails or secure the dinghy.

That uneasy sense of self where you realise that all there is, is you. You cannot stop, you cannot say;

‘I am fed up with this and want someone to take over.’

And yet before this happens, before this happens if the weather is good and the sea smooth and the temperature is warm, it sometimes feels wonderful, the silver black sea; the hint of phosphorescence, the softness of the air, the stars just coming out and a night to gaze and lose yourself in thought and the murmur of conversation.

Those times when I feel safe and prepared, when the rhythm of the sea is a reassuring pleasure and the sight of the moon a joy and the quiet conversation and the swish of the sea alongside us. Well; such times can be amazing.

It is past dusk now, the night is firmly here. I took Dash out for his wee and he saw Dexter passing. He hates Dexter and Dexter hates him, so they barked at each other from a safe distance. The sky was dark but studded with stars so, finding out that we will have a frost later, I took my torch and went into the back garden to shut up the cages of the rabbits so they wouldn’t get too cold. I said Goodnight to Wendy and she said she would be up later. I said Goodnight to James who sort of replied and half smiled. I said Goodnight to Louie who needed me to teach her how to work a CD player; that made me feel very old indeed! I had a shower and in a moment I will stop writing.

The light in the room is soft and soothing, the room is almost tidy, I am warm and Stevie Nicks is singing from the Alexa. I might hear the owls screeching later. As the day lightens and we get up to get the children ready for school the rooks will be stirring, getting ready to spiral away in clattering waves into the beginning of the day.

To learn more about my life and life with a mental illness do read my memoirs START and Blackbird Singing. Available from Geilston Press. Best got from Amazon at the moment.