Nights – 3654.

Posted by kidsaregifts20

A hundred and twenty months. Ten years. An outrageous survival.

Each night angry, uncharitable. Sleep. No sleep. Dreams. No dreams.The death of so many. Dreams.

In my dreams, I plead with you. Please stay, Be’ta.

We’ll find a way. Don’t give up yet. Don’t go away.

Come here. Sit with me.

Tell me what I need to know. Tell me what hurts you so. Tell me how I can make it go.

I could guess when you were hungry, thirsty.

To your amused annoyance, even when you wanted to pee. I just knew. I don’t know how.

But this one I did not see coming. I couldn’t. I don’t know how.

I am sorry. I had no map. I was lost in the fast lane.

In my dreams, our dark sides are friends.

Together they figure it out, Have a laugh, make it all okay.

In my dreams, we breathe together nice and slow,

As if singing a joyful melody. We hold hands and dance in our kitchen

Crying on each other’s shoulders, secretly.

From the fridge, I pull out a white china bowl

Filled with pomegranate seeds,

Rubies, I harvested earlier in the day. Please stay, my Jaan. I would say.

In my dreams,

through my furious longing

I can momentarily understand.

Your pain, your silence.

I can understand why you had to go.

Like a boat sailing into a new morn,

I must release you.

I must stay.

I must let you be on your way.

In my dreams.

(An ancestor of this poem is Walt Whitman, who said, “We were together. I forget the rest.” )

Catriarchy

Posted by kidsaregifts20

His dad was Russian royalty. Since the age of six weeks he could tell the difference between gourmet and ordinary meals, silk and cotton stoles, real and fake woolen throws, synthetic and down duvets, the warmth emanating from humans and radiators. He could tell if he had the full attention of his staff or not. He still can. He knows how to get them to do what he wants without saying a word, be it opening the door for him or being stroked at the back of his neck.

For entertainment, for a short while the laser pen was fun but very soon he let us, his staff, know it was cheap and silly. He wants action, involving blood and gore. He’s out hunting, bringing home trophies of half-dead mice, baby sparrows and often a big gash somewhere on his body.

He knows he’s good-looking. His James Bond swagger gets exaggerated when he knows he’s being watched. He sits like a statue when he’s being talked about but his upright ears change direction like a satellite dish. If he’s in the mood he humours our affections but prefers that we stick with our duties.

I do believe that he needs to check his cat-privilege. For centuries, cats have pretended to be domesticated while all the time exploiting humans. It’s about time we, as humans did something about it. I am in the process of designing an ‘unconscious bais’ training for him while at the same time preparing myself to be royally ignored. He has a clear preference for male company. It has been communicated to me in no uncertain terms that I am ‘extra’.

Named and reared by one of the finest specimens of the human species, he is a Maharaja of the Kingdom of Two. We celebrate his majesty, Mr Milkshake, paws, claws, whiskers and all. And his surrogate mum, Saagar today and every day.

Happy Christmas. xxx

To you, with love. xxx

Posted by kidsaregifts20

Sixth Christmas with your empty chair

Now more salt, less pepper in my hair.

That I’ve been breathing all this time

Still makes no sense, no reason, no rhyme.

Your cat makes all the other felines quake

His sweet name, given by you, is still Milkshake.

The Christmas markets we visited at the Southbank

The doughy sweets we gorged and the German beer we drank.

Those candle stalls and hand-knit shops, I believe are still there

But a visit, I cannot bear.

Ice skating at Somerset house with friends

Merry shopping here and there, for odds and ends.

Cocktails at ‘All bar One’ after work at Waterloo

What I would give to have another one, with you.

Beating the hell out of every one at Ping-pong.

Not many of your moves, slow or wrong.

The years trundle in and roll out like a stream,

I watch and wonder how they could be both,

A nightmare and a dream.

Standing back, I watch and see.

Trying not to judge. Just be.

There are but three things to know,

To love, to learn and to let go.

The sun has risen.

Posted by kidsaregifts20

The longest night of the year is behind us. The sun is rising. We are sitting by the log-fire swapping stories of Christmas’s past, Si’s and his sister’s childhood, drinking pots of tea, mainly to carry with it slabs of brandy-soaked Christmas cake.

We recount our holidays from a few years ago when Saagar had the pleasure (not) of dressing his first pheasant with the help of an aunt from the country. We all took turns at being beaten by him at table tennis. He looked gorgeous in a navy blue shirt and dark-rimmed spectacles. He had just been prescribed glasses. He was getting used to wearing them and I was getting used to seeing him wearing them.

Until he was 10, we religiously left a glass of wine and an orange for Santa on the mantle-piece. He wrote a letter to him every year. I remember he always started with “Dear Santa and Mrs Santa, …” 🙂 We took pictures with him. We watched his films and we found him to be cool and cuddly.

That year his gift was wrapped in a deep blue paper with glittery stars and snow-flakes in various shapes and sizes. He found just what he wanted inside. He jumped up and down for a bit and then sat down, visibly thinking.

“I saw a roll of this identical wrapping paper in the corner of the boiler cup-board.” He said. I sat on the sofa, over-smiling, as though I had nothing to hide. The mechanics of his brain clicked away as he figured out how the roll might have got there. I made feeble counter arguments.

“Maybe he had too many things to carry so he left some things here.”
“Maybe he wanted you to keep some of his favourite paper.”
“Maybe he has kept it for next year.”
“He left that paper there last year.”

He wasn’t fooled. That was the end of innocence.

Have a good one my darling, wherever you are. Lucky are the angels that are with you.
You are loved and cherished more than you know, Christmas or no Christmas.
Love you sweetheart! xxx

Day 804

Posted by kidsaregifts20

This time of the year is difficult for many families. Financial pressures, obligatory socialising with people whose affections may not be entirely genuine, a perceived time for evaluating various aspects of one’s life, overindulgence, having to revert back to traditional gender roles, the need for things to be just so…

Many women fear the festive period. Not a year goes by when there isn’t a seasonal rise in incidents of domestic violence reported to the police. Humberside Police Force reports that calls rose from 38% in the rest of the year to 54% in December 2015.

“For too many children across Ireland, being home at Christmas, is not a place of safety, warmth and happiness. It’s a place of fear, loneliness, pain and neglect,” said the ISPCC (Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children). On Christmas day more than 1000 calls were received by their 60 strong staff on Childline service from children reporting distress due to domestic violence and/or alcohol abuse.

Pangs of loneliness are more acutely felt by the elderly and floating populace at this time of the year. Age UK works steadily on reducing loneliness in the elderly, 1.2 million of whom suffer from it on a chronic basis. Their objective is : ‘No one should have no one on Christmas’.

For those of us who have recently lost a dear one, their physical absence is more visibly, painfully and deeply felt than other times. That one less present, that one less seat on the dinner table, that one less name on the card, that one less beaming smile, that one less hug …

Ref: http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/welfare/2015/12/it-s-hardest-time-year-why-domestic-violence-spikes-over-christmas

https://www.rt.com/news/371953-child-abuse-helpline-ireland/