Every year it comes round. Rolling in like a storm. Monsoon floods, sheets of water, sticky nights. Dark clouds brewing, growing black purple, bruised heavy with rain, falling in this body, my window to time. I see, I Feel. Everything. There’s no way to stop it, I’ve hoped for a forever ending, but memory doesn’t work like this. Memory doesn’t end, stopping when you want it too. Even with an iron will. It has a life of its own, breaking like the storm it is. I have to weather it. Trees shed their leaves making patterns on the ground, as the storm blows through, more will fall. Fluttering, dashing, swirling down to shape a picture, so I will look and say, that was why, now I understand. And to understand I have to feel what’s being shown to me, to all of us, reading the signs, this is not remembering without a purpose. Memory becomes a path to freedom, because I choose to give it this meaning. If I’m going to allow this, then I will use it to learn more about our nature. I can’t stop the storm from arriving, but I can meet it and talk to it, letting it show me, me. My life, my secrets. The secrets of the little children, the ones who had to hide. I will be battered on all fronts, I will lie still on my bed, watching swallows dive, longing for it to pass, and it will. But every year I will learn about the forgotten that resides in my body. The secrets I was threatened to keep forever will be blown up and out on the surge. I will embody what I was forbidden to do. Know the truth, Feel the truth, Speak this truth. The rain will keep falling so I can keep seeing.
The table is laid with a starched white table cloth, embroidered with daisies and forget me nots. They are raised up from the white linen, as if they are growing. Delicate fine china tea cups and plates, dotted with red roses are placed around the flowers, in the middle of the table is a vase full of sweet peas. Their fragrance fills the room, slightly sweet, slightly sickly. My Grandmother brings cake to the table, Victoria sponge, home made, then biscuits along with chocolate tea cakes. There are paper doilies under the plates. Everything looks pretty, everything looks perfect. The room is warm, it’s June. Beyond the dining room window I can see the garden heaving with the colours of flowers, and beyond the vegetable garden. It’s Sunday tea time, about 5’oclock, a ritual in my Grandmother’s house. The cultivation of these images of home, surface observations which hide other rituals no one will believe. Family arrive, Aunts, Uncles. They give me money to buy sweets from the corner shop. There’s a lot of adults in the dining room, noisily laughing as they take food from the table. I want to be somewhere quiet, I feel myself shrinking around them. Their loud voices, high pitched laughter, but I also want cake. So I stay, choosing the sweet treats on offer, sitting quietly enjoying my delights. The room smells like lavender and bees wax. A lot of polishing went on before today.
I live in brace position. Holding, waiting. Sprung, at the starting line. I don’t know how long I can live like this, but in the end I have to do it so often, I forget and it becomes my default position. Knotted. When the birds go quiet in the evening I tie a little tighter. Summer evenings are soft pinks and yellows. Fizzy lemonade, ice cream, buzzing bees. I don’t want to go to bed, the sky still glows deep blue, promising silver stars to watch. Shining lights a long way from me. If I look long enough I can be there. Far away becomes deep longing. From here. Wishing out of myself. All it takes is imagination. Then it’s dark. Things are going to happen now that only amnesia handles. Because I am small I do not understand, but I will do what has do be done. Life will find a way. Magic is real. Alchemy comes from here, inside. Take a lot of love, cast it all about. On the inside I am still me, with my imagination as my shield, my armour, my sword. My soul knows it’s job, knows what it has to do. It has my back, holding up the rear. It’s lonely having to be an army of one.
Such wisdom is held here. I finally learned to trust it, stop resisting. My body told me, this is you, this is how you felt. when you were small, so I no longer wished not to hear. It was such a quiet, persistent voice. Gentle, I could feel the love that offered understanding. Never forgetting how to play, or dream. To wonder, how can I, how can we be free ? Memory shows me, guides me to this place called soul. This one true love, the one that Never abandoned me. I’ve learned to trust the messages my body gives me through memory. No matter how painful, that’s what getting free is for me. Trusting me like I could never trust me because I was never allowed to, actively discouraged not to. Trust, love, freedom. All these I am given through holding memory. So I welcome you, you don’t have to hide anymore. I’m here for you.
