I look up, gazing beyond. I become the sky, each time. There’s no limit then, here on the ground, among people who do not see outside of themselves. Blue or grey, black, sprinkled with a thousand stars, falling with rain, or breaking with thunder. Shot through with light from a hundred clouds, blazing with a perfect sun. Home to my birds. My soul mates, we are connected because they show me what freedom is. What courage is. The power to believe that when you fall, you rise. Swooping through the air in a timeless fashion, weightless in the moment. This is what I saw, then I discovered what I see, I can become. There are many ways to survive, many ways to discover life, as a small child I looked up to find my way. It was the way out which led to the way in.
I need to tell you what’s happened. I’ve waited so long. The wait. It’s been an ache, pulling on my skin, screaming in my bones, desperate need, with nowhere safe to go. All that time holding on, all that time having to forget. My amnesia was art, a creation to sustain life, itself. How perfectly it flourished, standing up to the test of time. Like an army of a thousand hungry warriors, holding the line, so knowledge and truth evaporated to blood and dust, sifting quietly down within me. But still breathing, heart beating. Amnesia lived, it lives, biding time, until I was broken with willingness, as only the very desperate are. I didn’t want to forget, but when you are given no choice between forgetting or dying, then you have to forget. As a prisoner of terrorists, with the alternative label, ‘ family,’ those were the options. Where do I start then ? It was a hot, endless Summer day, the kind that goes on forever, light stretching out into indigo, purple, slowly dark. My favourite dolls went everywhere with me, we were never separate. Their clothes, home made, from material my dresses were made of. Sue, she had brown hair and cupid bow lips, dressed in a flouncy layered dress of emerald green organza, each layer lined with dark green velvet. Rebecca had short curly, blonde hair. Wearing a seersucker white, cotton dress, sprinkled with blue forget me nots. I had wandered out into the garden with my dolls, one in each hand, talking to them, as I went. It was a big garden, one I could get lost in, winding down to a vegetable garden, and beyond that, some gnarled old apple trees standing over a stream. The neighbours kept bees, their hives were on the other side of the fence, next to the apple trees. At dusk I would sit listening to the water, watching bees float, glowing in golden light. But today my little mind was ticking over, ruminating on finding a way.
Walking out to the garden, I said to Sue and Rebecca, where shall we play ? It was July, the rose garden was in full bloom, bursting with colour and scent. The sound of an ice cream van carried across the warm grass. I counted the roses, until I couldn’t be bothered. There were so many of them, crowded together. I looked into the petals to find ladybirds, often curled on the soft colours. I found one, as it opened up like a little flying clock, whirring into the air. So I walked further into the roses, to sit on the earth, sun beating down, airplanes humming overhead. Quiet, just me alone, until I started digging in the soil, then I felt like the birds, singing all around me, were watching me closely. I dig and I dig. I can’t stop. The earth is warm, damp lower down, I create a space big enough for my dolls to lie in. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m 4 years old, I am finding my way. I love my dolls, tell them everything. They are my companions, little insurances against the endless loneliness I cannot feel. First I lay Sue down in the space I have dug. Then Rebecca. I straighten out their hair and smooth their dresses under them, so they look tidy. I kiss them on their plump cheeks. Then I get to work , busily covering them over with earth, until they are completely buried within the garden. No one else will know they are there, it will be my, our secret. Deep, deep down, where they are safe. I made a home for them, where no one can get to them. I sit a while, under the beautiful roses, when I look up the sky seems even more blue than before, the sun warmer, birdsong sweeter.
Now I’ve told you that, can we go back and get them ? They will still be there, waiting. All the years will fall away, we’ll be small again, playing at pretending. We can reach down and gather them up from underneath the roses. And then we can feel what it was like on that day, long ago. We can remember, see why we did what we did. I feel sad, very sad now. But I also feel amazed, elated and stunned I could have known at such a young age, what I had to do to survive. There was no one coming to save me. I had to come to save me, so I did. Tiny hands playing out the adaptation, creating the art of a child’s mind, from a place way beyond where adults see. I go back and I keep going back. To that Summer’s day with the blooming roses growing above me. And I dig to find what needs to be known. Then I look up and say, thank you for my life, it’s beautiful.