The Other Side

Well, a splendid new year to you all. Whether you turned with the sun or the calendar, here we all are, safely on the other side. It's much sunnier here. And, as we are past Christmas, I can now show you one of the name signs I made this (no, last) year:

I had a little exhibition in the local cafe, as I have for a few years:

and autumn came in exceptionally splendid colour:

We, very sadly, had our last day at Forest School. Pickle climbed trees (of course),

then the mums had had enough of the freezing cold and we went into the hut to make clay pots,

and dress up as a ram.

When we thought all the fun was over, we found an excavator in the car park!

We were all (mums definitely included) sorry to leave, but luckily at home we have the best toy ever - a washing machine box (note 'cat flap' onto sofa):

Pickle's final day at her superb Montessori nursery came and she was a gender-bending Jack Frost in their Christmas play:

Tip for parents here: it takes a VERY long time for liquid eyeliner to come off a child's face. About a week, in fact.

And then, after all that picture-door opening and day-counting and decorating and wrapping and card-making... it was Christmas! I think last year Pickle couldn't anticipate so well, but this year she really struggled with the waiting. But it was all worth it. She spent the first 24 hours in her dinosaur onesie and was kept in a constant state of delight with presents and lights and music and treaty food and all manner of rules (I love a rule) relaxed.

We spent Christmas morning together, just the two of us, for the first time. I had been worried it somehow wouldn't be special - wouldn't feel Christmassy. This is linked to my suspicion that just Pickle and I aren't enough people to really feel like a family. Basically, I feel there should be more squabbling and a complexity of dynamics. I thought a lot about the last time we were home for Christmas, in 2010:

but was rescued from my secret maudlin thoughts by Christmas dinner with our wonderful neighbours and an afternoon of more presents, much food and some ridiculous fashion attempts with a fibre-optic lamp.

And throughout all these doings, I have been through my first cycle of IVF. I never really believe things will be as tough as people say, until I do them and discover, yes, this is really tough in every way. As well as the emotional double-whammy of doing a really intense thing while injecting yourself with hormones, I had a bad reaction to some of the drugs (OHSS if you're in the know) and it all got a bit scary at the point I couldn't quite take a full breath. I was put on extreme rest (an older, and old-school, nurse gave me a proper scolding about what I had been doing (which I thought was resting). She actually wagged her finger and told me I was not allowed out the house or to stand up much at all. This became boring within minutes but I was a good patient and I'm fine... but no baby. It was amazing watching (on a screen, obvs) the little embryo being squirted into my uterus (twice, in fact, as it accidentally got sucked back out!) and the doctors were excited about the quality of my embryos... but it just didn't snuggle down and stick. 

So, this month we go again, but without the drugs which made me ill, because I have two little snow babies (frozen embryos) waiting for their chance at life. And such a beautiful world to welcome them into:

When gorse is in blossom, love is in fashion:

Love in the Snow

Disharmony

Two days of chilly shoulders and frosty undertones. No more snow outside. It has gathered on our hearts. 

We rally round our daughter, coaxing her from tears to joy again and again. It is exhausting, but she keeps us in some kind of contact.

The Solstice fire has died. Christmas has been unwrapped. Another year looms and I am unready to meet it.

Another 365 days of nappies and hoovering and washing up and surviving from coffee with a friend until a cup of tea at playgroup.

I feel physically dis-heartened. Something has gone so wrong. I am tired, but I am always tired and I didn't feel like this last week. I don't remember feeling like this since I have been in partnership with my husband who is usually such a source of joy for me. Today he is an irritant, possibly acidic. Not even a bath of asses milk would be balm enough. I need something else.

 Feeling Rather Tense

My husband needs something else too. And though I ache to give it, I cannot name it, much less find it in myself.

He cannot stay in a space with me. He laces his boots in a silent, depressed fury, kisses our girl who sits on my lap goodbye and opens the door to leave.

My breath stops. He has never, ever, refused to kiss me like this. A desperate voice  from inside me calls,

'I love you.'

The door shuts. The tears track my cheeks and I hug the baby tight as I watch him descend our steps.

He turns around. He'll take his bike; get further from me.

But no. He has opened the door again.

He is in the room.

He says,

'I love you too.'

More tears. And we tell of the mirrored smallnesses which have sucked the heat from our lives.

We kiss. Find resolutions. Find comfort in each other again.

There is a bright flame in the dark and we gratefully warm our hands; thaw our hearts.

Later, I ponder what had led us to that place. Many things, of course, had interwoven the net which caught us, but I see one thing clearly: I had forgotten my machete. When the world is tangled and dense and catches at my hair I have a tool which never fails me if only I remember to use it: I can write.

I recall evenings too busy and sociable or too tired and miserable to write my journal and the dream-binding which followed; which always follows.

Fool

I am a fool. If I achieve nothing else this coming year, may I remember that writing is not only my passion and my talent and, newly, my job. It is also my lifeline, the lighthouse beam which sweeps an arc accros the unknown so I can catch a glimpse of my mind-corners and chase the scuttling creatures away.

And I am wise. 2 days of iciness out of 365? We're not doing so badly. I did call out. And he did turn around. He is the source of much of my joy once again.

And all those nappies? That's where the real love is. One nappy at a time, I am saying to my family,

'I love you'.

In Love; At Peace