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Quite a bit of apologies for not posting/paying attention

Things have been a bit chaotic lately and I haven’t been in much of a mood to be online but let’s see if I can turn that around, eh?  Yeah?  I hope so.  Anyway, have some nice cool followers now and I just realised you all have brilliant musical tastes.  I know how to choose ‘em.

Coming Too Close

I’ve always loved cemeteries.  It isn’t one particular reason that draws me to them but several, and I suppose the absolute first is because I’ve never, ever really associated them with Death and it’s dark cloud.

My first brush with a cemetery was probably when I was around five years old.  My paternal Grandma lived about five miles away from us, a bit further out into the cherry orchards and asparagus fields of Oceana County and on a stretch of road that included the one room school house my father attended as a youth (you know the one - up hill both was in a snow storm - yeah, that one).  The road she lived on, according to her, was exactly two miles one from the end her house perched on to the other, and she often would do a daily ‘constitutional’, walking those two miles by herself in often the warmth of the afternoon.  When I visited, it meant I took took that walk with her.

Few buildings were on that road.  A couple of other homesteads and farms, several orchards, an old Mennonite church and the little cemetery that my grandfather had been buried at - when my father (36 years older than myself) was only three years old.  Often on our way back up the road towards Gran’s house, we’d stop at the cemetery and wander about.  Grandma would point out members of our family and tell little stories that always made me giggle although I couldn’t even begin to recollect them now.   I never particularly noticed her spending more time at Grandpa’s grave stone other than to possibly spend a little more attention to clearing the weeds around his name.  There was a little sense of sadness there, but nothing about regret.  Despite losing her husband when she was only 35 years old, my Grandmother never remarried and I have a feeling she spent a good deal of time sitting at that stone talking with the love of her life when the little nosy grandchild I was wasn’t around. 

So even as an adult, I’ve found myself loving cemeteries and the stories they allowed.  Family secrets and sordid storylines would invade my creative brain and I’d come up with all sorts of fantastical ideas.  Ghosts really didn’t even enter in the story because if they were there, they were protective and never threatening.  I never felt afraid of walking through these places and I still find myself in my world travels drawn to them. 

When my Grandmother died at age ninety five nearly ten years ago, I was very very upset.  Of all the members of my family, she was by far the only one I ever felt I could honestly relate to, but before I left home for her funeral I was reminded that one of her greatest strengths was her ability to smile and laugh through so much.  She had lived through SO much!  World Wars, Great Depression, her husband’s death, her children’s struggles and then illness of her own.  So I went to her funeral with a smile and fondly recounted amazing stories about her during the luncheon afterwards.  I’m always going to miss her but I knew then it was important to remember what was and how it was WHY I was going to miss her.

Recent days have really pushed me to remember Death.  A serious of Unfortunate (although possibly avoidable) events have transpired and I am actually writing this in a hospital room whilst my boyfriend lies resting after being admitted yesterday with extraordinarily high blood pressure and breathing problems.  These are not problems a 38 year old would be expected to have, but life has a funny way of reminding us that it really works on its own timetable, never ours.   Immediately I spent time alone crying - crying because I was being unable to get myself to help him before this - crying because I was neglecting my job and my performance has been slipping - crying because surely this has been all my fault for wanting things this life simply can’t provide for me. 

Last month I spent half of my savings on my cat who suffered from cancer and had to have his leg removed.  I thought for sure my companion of fourteen years would die and leave me behind but with work and perseverance that has proven to be incorrect.  He still struggles to get around a little but he’s still poking along and snuggling and purring.  Last night, curled up on the couch with my phone clutched to my chest he was all I really had to keep me remembering that there is comfort out there in the form of something real and tangible.  Put all your faith into God you want, but there is nothing that came close to the rest provided to me by the purring of that cat. 

I’ve had my own health scares as well - worried about my eyes as floaters and focus problems increased.  A trip to the eyedoctor and an amazing new piece of equipment that took a photo of my entire retina gave me peace of mind that I had needed for weeks.

So it’s been a few close calls.  Death’s been lingering around, just casually reminding me that she’s out there, but like strolling around the cemetery there is no reason to be afraid because when she’s ready she’ll come no matter what we do to prepare.  For now, it’s important to be here in this hospital room, watching over someone I love very much and remember one day at a time.  We’ve come too close.   Tomorrow I hope we’ll step a bit further from the precipace.

Thoughts on Highgate

It takes a lot for me to sit and write these days.  My mind has gone very ADHD, having facebook in one window, a band forum in another, work email popping up all day and then there is life:  a boyfriend asking questions from another room, a sickly little cat causing worry at the back of my brain, bills to be paid.  These things keep me from sitting still for the time needed to pour my thoughts onto screen like I once was so diligent about doing.

It’s a bit of a shame, too.  In high school, my reading comprehension and writing test scores were much higher than my science and math and yet a pervasive sense of ‘I need to do something useful’ pushed me into a degree with chemistry, physics and statistics as a baseline.  Yes, my degree was actually pretty fun to do - especially when I started working in the field and doing things IN the environment, not to mention my passion for wanting to do something good, but I’ve always felt as if my career - and hence my life - was a bit of a sham.

Yet writing takes time, discipline and hard work.  I’ve never been really short on time and if you’ve known me at all in my life you’ll know what whilst I am more than happy to complain, I’m actually not afraid of hard work.  It’s the discipline of sitting and putting things to paper (or in this case, the screen) that is the difficult part.

Not to mention I always think I’m a great deal wittier than I actually am.

So why write today?  What is driving me back to this space to possibly actually use it?  In the shower this morning, I picked up my piece of Lush Honey I washed the Kids soap (inspired by a trip so long ago to Covent Garden) and thought of my last trip to London.  My initial reason for going was pretty standardly Loria.  Editors were touring there, I am a huge Editors fan, and I wanted to see them back on their home territory.  I also had friends I could stay with - people I could travel with and see the city.   During this time I had the opportunity to meet and stay with, and ultimately experience life with a friend I had met online years before - my dear Alan.

Alan doesn’t know this, and frankly I hope if he reads this he doesn’t become profoundly embarrassed by it, but he really did change my life that little holiday.  He didn’t just welcome me into his flat, sleep in the little den, let me drink his coffee, his diet coke and eat his food (although to be fair, I did make him Mum’s chocolate chip cookies); he welcomed me in as an equal.  I didn’t feel like a guest so much in his home as I did a real friend.  I felt like I belonged there in a way.  I could come and go pretty much as I wanted, and yet he took me to some of the most beautiful places in the city that I may not have explored on my own.  He pushed me to follow the google maps view of the songs in the Editors album, which caused me to walk through sections of London that I never knew existed.  But what struck me this morning - what caused me to sit down and write again over my coffee and blueberry pancakes - was our trip to Highgate Cemetery.

I have always loved cemeteries.  As a child, my grandmother and I would walk the two miles from her house down to the corner and back, and in the middle of the walk was a small cemetery where her husband, my grandfather, had been buried decades previously.   Grandpa had died when my dad was three, so obviously I had never had a chance to get to know him, but I felt like I could sit at his headstone for hours whilst Grandma weeded around the stones, and feel close to someone so long dead.  I felt like he could tell me wise things sitting there and while I never really felt like ghosts could be real, I certainly felt being there he knew I existed.  Now, these days, my grandmother is also buried there and my father has cleared the plots around them so that my mum and dad and elder brother will also be buried there.  I don’t feel a sense of dread or sadness when I think about it - just an odd sense of peace.

Alan took me to the famous Highgate Cemetery when I visited him, and yes, whilst there are many famous people buried there, there was just something intensely fantastic about walking through and gazing at the headstones - some intensely artistic, others very plain - and seeing history laid out before my eyes.  Not just history of the stones as they had been engraved, but how some sections of the cemetery were new and well tended whilst others… you could gaze down a row and into overgrown trees and brush and it felt so old and sobering.

We didn’t see much of the cemetery - it’s quite a huge place and you can take semi-guided tours - and we didn’t even get to the place where the REALLY famous people are buried.  When I go to London again, though, even if Highgate isn’t on the list of places to go I will definitely make a point to visit the cemetery.  If nothing more than to quietly reflect on mortality and the quietude such places inspire within me.

These thoughts, I must admit, come to me after a restless night worrying about a little pet cat that is struggling with cancer, after worrying about a coworker diagnosed with stage three colon cancer, and after being saddened to learn the memory problems with an old and dear friend have come to a point where she doesn’t quite remember me.  Mortality is weighing heavily on my mind, but not in a way where I regret anything I’ve done.  Instead, I’m finding myself grieving for those I’ve lost and looking for ways to move forward.  I bought a set of coloured pencils yesterday, and a sketch pad.  I’m a pretty rubbish artist but sitting on the floor last night with them, creating little stick figures and silly off centre drawings - it reminded me that just because I haven’t done it yet, doesn’t mean I can’t, and life is far far too short to put things off anymore.

And that’s why this post exists today.

Obligatory first post

I have yet to do anything with this - and I’m not quite sure if I will do anything exciting with it but I’d like to so… here we are!  Hello.  I’m Loria.  I do things. I listen to music.  I travel.  Maybe I’ll tell you more soon.  x