21 October Labour Weekend 17 My mourning morning pages inspired by loss and love and Robyn and Jean and all friends…lost and new found, Anne Marie, Mary, Margaret, Angela, Kathy, Carolyn especially, Heather, a cousin once removed, Lucy, Geraldine, Anthea. They are women. They are of different backgrounds, beliefs, no beliefs, ages, then there are the artists, Tiffany, Lynda, all the others, real people who listen, have empathy…they make lights in my mourning cloak, enable me to find a path through the day, to let me get through to curling up safe in a book at night. But the night gives way to day and once I relished that welcomed the light looked forward to delights of seeing peole I loved, sharing, being with them. But the day, it has birdsongs, flights, movement, my Cairn slowly meandering nosing his almost blind way through the streets, light of feet on grasses. The day lacks colour, clarity, purpose now. In Christchurch city, I have few points of reference that I feel are real anymore, few that I like, but they are there, Antigua Boatshed, the River, the homes of friends, who survived, the lights of the streets, that are different but incude, Scorpio bookshop moved but still a haven, Alice’s where my beloved baby daughter worked, changed but with us as a solid entity, despite Paul’s and her leaving. I miss my family, I greive my dead loved ones. I don’t know how to be alive without them. But have anchors keeping me in this world despite myself. My dog, my children my granddaughters, my hope of reconciling, regreeting, meeting, keeping us together, but not yet, the trust has been broken I am fearful, reduced, humiliated, hurt and very wary, as well as afraid of being old, my body in chronic pain, my dog losing his bearings, sight, yet some days doing a happy roll a dance, light on his dear wee paws and hoeful and my heart lifts with his optimism. As Beckett says “I can’t go on, I must go on.” He had his wife always there protecting, encouraging, being by him. I have lost my protector prior to quakes, then got stalked, frightened violated, reviled, now I am in a bubble of small space, with sea air, healthful it is supposed to be…I don’t know, I’m panicking because in the euphoria of getting a Labour government, I forgot to fill my anti panic prescription. Stupid. And no other pharmacy will, as it is a ‘controlled drug’ . Ridiculous, it controls my panic, not me. I am the one who needs it am not going to give it away, take more – the doctor made me feel pinioned with his lecture as he prescribed, I could not deflect his felt contempt wiht any words being struck dumb by despair that my life had coe to this, after my struggles always alone to be. So somehow I have to get through the weekend without and to not shatter apart, as I put one foot in front of the other, fear reverberating with pulses at every step. My life did not use to be so fragile, so terrifying, I had peace, joy, loved the sights and sounds of birds, walked my dog confident of being safe, in an environment that was solace, my own home to shelter in, my garden for sustenance, now its’ shattered, gone, I exist amidst and in chaos.