Mindometry: Family Origins - A Child Makes Meaning

Writing for the States of Mind Collection, Mindometry)

Siblingometry

-Making Prisms of Meaning.

 

This family is a square:

at each corner is a child;

the hexagon at its centre

surrounds the lynchpin -

the charismatic mother.

The sides of the hexagon

consist of the beloved dead.

and the generations to come,

who send their own stories

swinging onwards and backwards 

in time..

  

              Child One:  Boy One

She wanted to make you brave like her

but she should have loved you more.

You are the tender one, your bruised personality

springing out of injury and unintended hurt -

loving music, following fashion

playing out the role of victim

with justified conviction

your hesitancy hiding

a romantic heart

that crashed and broke too early.

Child Two: Girl One

You were the feisty one -

the most like her, with your hot temper

and your challenging demeanour.

She was bound to steal your cigarettes

and smoke them to teach you a lesson

You were bound to be the one to test her to the limits,

to call her grown-up bluff. In the end,

you built  your wall of worldly success and family life.

So, defeated, she was driven to surrender

her power and ultimately keep her distance.

Child Three : Girl Two

You idolised and feared your mother

and tried to please her with cups of tea.

And – your stories between hard covers.

Needy and watchful, with your eagle eyes,

your bat-like ears, you tried to make sense of the language

and action around you - at first without understanding.

But you forgot nothing. Your primal perceptions became

Memories which you wove into stories  that both hid

and revealed a difficult  truth. To know you

the world  would need to decode your stories

and fact or fiction - fabricate its own prisms of meaning

Child Four: Boy Two

You were the last, the final product

of a soul-mating-bond cut off  too early.

You were her baby, her ewe lamb:

clever and self-determined.

Normally frugal, she’d make any sacrifice for you –

sweets and bikes galore, demonstrating  pride

and admiration. I remember the day when,

bold as ever, after diving with too much ardour

into a stony shallow river, you came home

with a bloody chest.

I watched her pick out the small stones

and bandage you gently,

with a nurse’s care.

(C) Wendy Robertson 2017

Several Pieces for My Mindometry Collection

Work in Progress. 

I am writing and collecting pieces that mirror my reflections on my time over the last three months on experiencing what the medics call  'low mood.'

 It's not all bad.

I hope eventually these pieces will build into a collection called:

Mindometry

States of mind

La Même

Thinking he was someone else

you leaned down and kissed him

But he wasn’t someone else,

he was the same -

the same slow delight,

the same pale, bright eyes,

the same puckish smile.

But you must admit

he was not the same.

Not the same.

Descartes

You sheltered under a dry stone wall

on the windy side of the moor

sharing the contents of his leather bag:

red wine and round biscuits.

You spoke of thinking and being,

your laughter echoing his,

across drying heathers.

When the storm blew up

you scampered down,

his leather bag over your shoulder,

leaving behind an empty bottle

and the last round biscuit,.

Je pense donc  je suis. 

OR 

Cogito ergo sum

OR

I think therefore I am 

Promise

It was a new car.

You did like your cars

You drove me two hundred miles

to the place where you were born -

the street where you played as a child

and the beach where you fished with a long line

and then to the road

across from the grammar school

where you walked with your father.

He said to you,  'The red brick building 
over there will be  your gateway to power.

Be sure of that.' 

Still a Problem 

Turmoil in your mind

stops you sitting down

to do what you want to do

These are not hard tasks –

simple transcriptions or

straightforward amends. Easy.

But it’s like I’m stone or steel

Lacking the power to move from

sofa to  desk.

  

  
  

   

The Door

The desk in the window is making a difference.

She see the light streaming into the room

and onto the grass and the tall trees. Easy to sit here

for three hours and concentrate on a book or a blank,

naked page. Sweeter than the other place
.
The other place is a back room with a big door. Once,

she chose this as the perfect workroom with a living fire,

space for shelves and tables for papers.

And a big technology corner. Sun only after noon.

But that room became a forbidden place

Darker than this room with its sunny window.

She thinks the back room must contain some essence.

Already in her life she’s glimpsed and heard things

That she knew weren't there.

She’s no longer reacts to this, remembering

the half-smiles shot in her direction.

As a child she’d been accused more than once

of being away with the gypsies.

But what about this essence? Is it the dread-feeling 

of  some eighteenth century maid who feared the place?

More likely it’s the world flooding in 

through the firecracker-gateway of the computer: 

a world too vast, too packed with too many people,

 too many things, too much pain.

But perhaps this crisis of the door, the room,

represented her own guilt about work undone:

tasks untackled, obligations unmet

Or perhaps it's the timid soul

which sits there at her core

not daring to try to breach that door.

So now, in the window the sunny room,

she decides to pull herself together,

get out of the house, away from the door

and away from that essence, that dread-feeling.

Wouldn’t it be too easy, to stay locked in

and fall asleep yet again?

So she flees the house, drives out through trees

and finds a cool space where she can focus –

manufacture order out of chaos, move on forward.

New feelings surge through her, freeing her

from the visceral strings that tie her down, that

make her dumb and stop her thinking straight,

Now, away from the dull routine and the person 

she’s become. She knows she’s not that person -

the person she’d invented to meet the low expectations

in the house with the room with the big door

and its threatening interior spirit,

its emanation of pain. She thinks now that

she loves the house, even the room  with the door.

Surely after so many years they’re woven into each other

like a precious carpet. She begins to see that

caring for the house is no different to caring for herself.

Sensing that spirit in the room where she works is sensing

herself in turmoil. Something to deal with, not to flee.

Yes, it's complicated. Be sure of that. sk in 

A writer defining Dips – the Ups and Downs of Low Mood.

So, you’re sailing along, feeling great.

Even greater.

Then you take a dip, a curtsey, a nod to fate,

a dark dip into the black, a mind filled with

storming thoughts: Rachmaninov’s brain fever -

a creeping paranoia that makes the world your enemy

crowded with open mouths, crying and wailing,

demanding attention, Attention.

Achtung! Achtung!

Now for the first time flirting with death.

No. Flirting with the idea of that unspeakable state

brought into being by the recent death of a friend -

other deaths punctuating my long life,

going back to the deepest loss.

There you have it: a great big dip. Proving that this

is not just  a chapter setting the future theme

but a timely reversal,  a dip to keep you grounded

on the way back to normality.

Free Lines inspired by Len Cohen’s phrase, 'Dance me through the panic ...'

Dancing

Strings vibrate your soul
Embracing the unreal

Drums thump against  your heart

You breathe, your distinctive sweat

threaded through with Elan by Coty.

Your feet itch to stomp, to jump and sway,  

Your body invades your brain  

Your voice sings  along, anticipating

the new world drenched with promise

Panic                                                      

                    

Crowded places, detailed lists,                    

a thousand colours in your eye

sidelong looks, curling lips

leaden heart, boiling brain

shaking hands, frozen self

trapped tightly in one place

recalling futile actions 

and aborted promises

copping out, settling for less, 

embracing compromise.

haunted by unborn children,

breathing behind a wall of glass

Here comes  the panic and now there is no dance