My edges are frayed this week
Finding solace in poetry, art, living
A poem, written more than a decade ago:
Microscopic threads bind torn pieces of me.
Stitching my soul, hemming in memories.
New experiences appliquéd over old.
This patchwork me frays when a snag pulls at the fabric of my self so
I gather the loose threads and mend the tear (invisible to most)
before it becomes a hole.
Words written when I was fraying at the edges, when I wondered what would happen … if …
As I sit at my desk on a sweltering summer’s afternoon, I reflect on these words, now the epigraph to my novel, Wildflower (published 2023, Bloodhound Books). I think of this week’s news about a work colleague: an invisibly frayed life now gone, leaving a gaping, hurting hole for those left behind, especially her family and young children.
How fragile life is, how it is built of sweetness and sorrow, of pain and possibility.
How easily we can fray at the edges.
How we try to mend and patch and darn.
How, sometimes, mending is not enough.
I sit and my desk and think about the bittersweet nature of living, loss, the passing of time, the fading of memories. The beauty and terror of it.
An exhibition, a reminder about cherishing those around us and valuing life’s fragility.
Created by artist Tyrone Wright, better known as Rone, TIME. RONE is an evocative exhibition currently at the Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA) in Perth. There’s a sense of loss, desolation and abandonment in the dusty, cobwebby scenes he has created in these still-life rooms: a mailroom, a typing pool, a pharmacy, an art studio, a sewing room, backstage at a theatre. The ghosts of yesteryear linger in these ephemeral spaces, and large-scale portraits of his muse give life to the abandoned spaces.
On a typewriter, a photo and a letter:
My sweet Tom. With each keystroke, my heart beats for you. Your love is my anchor. Your smile, my guiding star. Until we’re in each other’s arms.
Stories frozen in time, forgotten, laced with melancholy. I find myself close to tears one moment, pausing to wonder the next. I imagine the people who would have sat in rooms like these, strangers with stories and stories of strange-ness, sweetness, sorrow and spice.
I muse about these moments after we have left the gallery.
What do we leave behind when we go, when our time passes? What stories will people remember? Will anyone know what we held dear to us?
A song, of the sort that makes your hair stand on end and a shiver run through your soul: Somewhere Only We Know by Keane (the goose-bumpy version sung by a children’s choir for Britain’s Got Talent). Alone in my room, it makes me sob. Days later, it is still stuck on a loop in my head, even as I write now.
Another song: I Am Not Okay by Jelly Roll. I am okay, I will be okay. But the lyrics, they fray my edges once more. I didn’t go looking for this song - I heard it for the first time a couple of days ago. It gives me chills. I want to hug my husband, my children.
I realise that I am soaking up others’ words like a thirsty sponge, but I have few to offer. All I can offer is myself, a listener, a doer. But I must remember to take care of myself and not only take care of others.
A book, Bittersweet by
. I finished it the day before …My laptop wallpaper is a photo taken in Berlin in December 2024. I look at it now and see impermanence, in all its bittersweet beauty.
And I leave my desk to seek solace in creativity, whatever that means in this moment, whatever is true and good for me right now.
“What follows may or may not be better than what came first. But the task is not only to let the past go, but also to transform the pain of impermanence into creativity.”
Susan Cain, Bittersweet
We are just passing through
Today my house smells of fresh air, vanilla and lemongrass. The windows are wide open to welcome a brisk sea breeze; the sky is blue and cloudless. Soon I will drink coffee with A; we will debrief about the day - his at work, mine at home. But now, as I sip an Earl Grey tea and wonder what to write about, I find myself musing abou…
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Mine too darling Monique 💕
Beautifully poignant 🩷