FROM SOURCE TO SEA

Another peice I was going to enter to a competition- this time to the WIldlife Trust. I think there is still time left if you like such things!

There is a line of water droplets hanging from the edge of the open window; they gleam in the light of the late dawn. I would like to run my fingers along the rim to cover my face with the fresh water of the new day. The coolness, the shock of it would wake me; make me smile.

I can hear the sound of the morning rain on the roof, which provided a lullaby from which I am just waking. I can also hear the rooks in their trees across the road, they seem indignant or concerned. I remember when one of their trees fell down in a storm earlier in the year and crushed our neighbours car; they all gathered in the road around it, for all the world like a suited group of concerned councillors and maybe they were, considering their house had just been destroyed. I can also hear song birds, I don’t know what they are. I am not too good at the culture of nature but they make this waking and stretching in bed a pleasure, even though it’s the weekend and I wanted to sleep as long as possible.

Later, I am off to the Rest and be Thankful with the photography group. Our theme this time is Comfort and Disturb. I like that.

Even at the worst of times I have always found nature comforting. When I have been at sea in wild gales, the exhilaration of the motion has been wonderful; though I do remember many years ago, as a child, praying for our boat to be safe when we returned to port; the constant smashing of the hull into the waves terrified me; maybe my fondness for the natural world is rosy eyed; misplaced. Maybe I do not understand it as I should.

I live with schizophrenia or I am told I do; for much of my adult life I have felt I should be dead; it damages my living and my joy in life. It damages those who love me.

Sometimes, at the worst of times, I find myself in hospital followed everywhere by people protecting me from myself. I resent them hugely but they minimise what I do to myself. Maybe the worst aspect of those times is being confined to the ward; unable to relish the fresh air or the grass under my feet.

I remember my joy when the restrictions were lifted and I was allowed out with a member of staff, to visit the vitrified iron age fort on Craig Phadraig. The liberation and the delighted giggles of both myself and my escort when we got lost and realised we would return to the ward later than we had been permitted! It was raining then too. Cleansing me.

I have been seeing a psychologist for the last few months. She spent four sessions assessing me and now I have a formulation, not that I really know what that means. In it she has listed some of the sources of my troubles and some of the triggers for when my world goes dark and it sort of makes sense, though my heart denies it.

We meet every fortnight; I see her face on screen and feel the strangest mixture of being held and, at the same time as being kept safe, thrown into the unimaginable. Last time I saw her I told that when I see glimpses of how I really I am, I fear I will explode or die and she promises me that when eventually we go there, she will do so sensitively.

After these sessions, if I don’t have to return to work, I want to curl up in bed in silence and grief but more often I go out to walk; down by the sea at Ardmore with my partner Wendy. Here, I can unclench my mind, listen to Wendy and slowly relax. Not so long ago, as we walked along the shore, I would see huge stationary groupings of herons. For all the world like a flock of ministers, who, having given up on preaching, now stand, sadly contemplating the water around them and not long after, for a brief time, the terns would flicker screeching above the waves. I like how these exquisitely beautiful and delicate birds seem so ready to shout at the world; yet again challenging my perceptions of beauty and decorum.

These walks, among the trees besides the sea, smelling the rich mud smell of the bay at low tide; they sooth me.

I also do this after I get my jag, my fortnightly depot to keep me sane or so they say. I have so much scar tissue from the years of injections that sometimes the injection doesn’t work and they have to try again and then again to get the medication inside. It doesn’t hurt much but can feel like an invasion, especially as I do not willingly take it.

Again, at these times, with Dash the dog sniffing the bushes and the ferns, I calm and slow, as I walk, listening to the curlews, watching the oyster catchers flying low over the water, the seals on their rocks at mid tide. I look at the flowers and watch them change with the seasons. I smell the roses at the point and the coconut scent of the gorse in spring. I hear the bees as I walk, I feel the wind on my face and feel a semblance of peace here, by the sea; escaping from that ongoing torment; hoping that my psychologist is right and that our talking will flatten the worst of my thoughts. I do not really understand her but I trust her and I do not understand the natural world but always, always, throughout my life, I find solace there, especially when I am wild in my mind and with the rhythm of my walking and the warmth in my muscles; the clamour of my thoughts slows, diminishes and falls away.

You can read more about my life in the natural world in with my family and with mental illness in my memoirs START and Blackbird Singing. Do get them from Amazon or message me direct for one at a discount.