Archives for posts with tag: wedding

Time Independent Equations

April 17, 2022 //
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The lilies were excitable, giddy somewhere in a shop and hands prepared them, their stamen snipped away, no pollen stains today, they whispered, somehow as if they knew.

And later they lay looking up at the kitchen ceiling, primed and buzzing like the day, tingling heady at their edges and they waited, perfumed and still.

Until they jiggled as the car pulled away, soft petals in a silver cloud, in the safety of the boot and up the hill and far away.

And they were ready, they were pinched in, secured with satin bows, biding their time to shine.

Then daylight flooded into them, as if to say fill yourself up and drink it all in. And they were lifted out with care, in all their colours, their rose malmaison, in their vermillon swirls. Taffeta embraced them with its cool champagne folds brushing against their leaves.

In the hush and murmurs, in the dust particles dancing, they were secure. With strong stems and frills of fragile verve, they made their way. Photons caught them, turned their brightness up to full saturation and everyone watched, as though they saw their own lives in the petals, their own beauty, their own sense of time.

And moments passed, planets turned and stars imploded.

Then back out into delerious sunlight, and the lilies were lifted high, thrust into the sky with shrieking, as if to say, this – this moment now and look at my glorious colours and always breathe me in.

These seconds of the magnificence, right here, right now. Forever gazing at the stars, outside of time.

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Categories cycles

Time’s Arrow

April 17, 2021 //
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Just to the side of the Cathedral, the daffodils returned into their buds, the froth of blossom retreated and folded itself away like a timid creature hiding from the light.

They stood amongst it on the hillock for a while then walked backwards, her ivory taffeta pulling her into the lobby, flooding upwards over stairs and steps. It tugged at her as like an eager child. And inside faces mingled, people rushed away. Someone watched as they clambered back into the car, as they smothered her in silk and they reversed away.

Backwards through streets they knew, past the Guildhall and away, back out and up the narrow lanes and strangers waved. Trees swayed heavy, as they drove, petals unleashed themselves from pavements and fluttered up to stick themselves to branches as though they’d never left, as though they’d always be connected to the twigs and not let go.

And roads unfurled before as they reversed back out of town. Round the bends where sheep waddled, where dogs ran away from the flock and in the dip, past the pub on their right now, the car slowed and turned a hard left.

The church gates arrived to their side, scattering people, tin cans bundled up and rattled as they stopped. Someone suited, smiled and poured the taffeta, drained the pool of ivory from around her, until it soaked the pavements.

Hands pulled away from them and as birds hurtled, startled back into the trees, confetti murmured in the air, throwing rainbows whisps and swirls back into the grab of hands. It leapt from her hair, from her train and burst up from his collar, from his dress-suit as they weaved along the path back to the door.

Flowers lifted up, bobbed and nodded and beneath the archway with her bouquet held high like she’d just won the cup, people shuffled and swallowed their words. 

Her dress brushed the slate, slinking, reeling her back in and up the slight step at the front. Relatives in unison, like toy soldiers playing a game, ushering them round the back to where they all took turns to watch the fountain pen suck ink.

And then clouds of her swished backwards as though the alter itself held a force. And hand-clutching-heels-clicking they reduced themselves back to the step.

And stood face to face in the hush.

Dust hung in the air as it did, as it does, particles dithering and faffing in the shafts, diamond lights around their heads and they looked up.

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Categories beginnings

Phoenix

April 17, 2019 //
0

April 16th

It was bitter in Paris, the wind sliced across our faces like a knife but it was Easter, an adventure, of sorts and everything was giddy, new.  

I’d stared through the window watching the propeller on my first ever flight, as though I alone kept the plane in the air, as though sitting by my fiancé and opposite the air hostess, my only job was to control the wings. 

It was twenty-one years ago, our second holiday and it sparkled and danced like the lights across the Seine. 

Despite trawling around Tourist Information Centres on a heaving Easter weekend, we were ok. Despite our desperation for an upgrade from the dilapidated B&B and the hauling of our luggage down the rues and boulevards to the new one that we found, we were still fine. And ushered to a cramped room by a spherical hotelier who beamed and pointed to the spiral stairs to breakfast, we settled in. Carefree with croissants and we unpacked.

We ticked off attractions like you do when you’re invincible and the icy wind didn’t bother us. It took pieces out of us though, as we crossed the square to Notre Dame and battered us as we stood with everyone else, waiting for the warmth of her arms.

And we shuffled and we inched. In the darkness and smell of ancient wood I lost myself. I remembered the floor in that sacred silence, the air that hummed and buzzed with rustling tourists, I remembered the thick smell of dust and sweat and little more. Wrapped up in Our Lady I was taken ill, I was helped to sit down somewhere away from the crowds and I saw feet, lots of them, the shoes of my fiancé and those of a strange woman whose name we never knew. 

And this morning while ash settles in the streets there, while people lift up their eyes to view the savage route of flames, I think of the lady who came to help us. And she’s a memory of a warm patterned skirt, oranges, yellows and browns, swirls and circles like flames around her feet. She sat while I regained myself, called us a taxi and stayed with us until it came. I never saw her face but had a sense of her on my left, she wished us well for our marriage, blessed us with healthy children and was gone. 

And I think of our lady today, I wonder where she is in this moment, if she thinks of Notre Dame and the couple who she helped years ago. Does she remember the young women, who only saw the stone floor of the Cathedral but who is tied to it now, somehow. There in Paris, in the coldest of Easters, the ancient monument became a gatekeeper to their life.

The light falls over the place where the Spire had been, and deep inside there is the echo of a woman sitting. And she will be rebuilt and carry on. 

Post Script

April 17th

We married one year later and as I wake to thick fog, it engulfs my town, my road, my mind, like the smoke engulfed the Spire and I am tumbling down into the structure, cascading in the edifice, sparks and flames mix with blossom, with confetti. They float around me, glorious, transient, burning up in the atmosphere of the day, in the flickerings, the fleeting gasps of time.

Twenty springs have passed, twenty bursts of blossom and it is full now, resplendent, magnificent. It swishes around in my peripheral vision like swathes of ivory taffeta, like a girl. And it will age, fall and flutter to the ground, to become part of the soil that feeds the tree. Until next year and she will be back to bloom again.

Time itself, our companion on the journey, folded into Parisian rubble and the strength to rebuild, striving, resilient, fragrant with hope.

Always – in the memory of blossom. 

xxx

 

 

 

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Categories beginnings, cycles, Loss, parenting

Portals

April 17, 2017 //
1

14th

I’ve been tiding up today, in old corners in preparation for Monday. Our teen is approaching the end of school and planning a break from revision with a take over in the lounge, with his mates, with their games, with their testosterone. And I’ll be upstairs, away from the event, in my own event in my mind.

Amongst the dust and old receipts today, I found our life, scrumpled up in dog-eared magazines in the scrawl of our younger boy’s hand and the photos. Lost days caught in pixels, faces I used to know and they looked back at me. Deep sea diving, distorted thumbs up from a submerged world in our past and I went back. Back to the presents from friends, to the trips and the linear life that we knew and while I brushed remnants into the dustpan, our son woke himself up watching You tube.

He has subscribed to many channels now, some fascinating, some nonsense but it’s his world and on Monday while I’m away in my head, his world and the connections he has made will fill our room. I’ll welcome the loudness of teenage boys, the inescapable movement of time in contrast to the blossom in my thoughts. It’s nearly here.

The sunlight pours in through my blinds as I take a break from tidying. The edge of petals deepen red, the purples turn to pink and I stop.

There was such excitement eighteen years ago, nervous energy getting the final jobs done. Long distance guests arriving tomorrow and everything gearing up for the day. My friend would make the journey south, her toddlers at Grandma’s for the day. She would strap me into my dress and lace boots. Her toddlers are adults now and, like our son, full of verve and possibilities with virtual worlds at a touch.

We had no fb to post our wedding pictures on, no tweets about the highlights of the day. No instagramed tweaked shots, filtered to perfection just an aperture and the light flooding in, just a dark room and the chemicals bleeding us out of the paper, in our finest clothes, in our silk and taffeta, in our scarlet and cream. In crisp suits that smelled of corsages and we emerged, an image at the church door, an imprint on glossy paper in a tray. There was nothing instant in those days, just smiling and waiting and wondering.
And now the excitement builds again, our teen is planning food and games, a re-charging of batteries in a multiplayer universe where I don’t belong.
On Monday my home will be rich in the scent of lilies, now as back then, perfumed in petals from my roses, under the vibrant sound of youth.

On my stairs there will be a portal, an aperture where I’ll cross between the worlds, a necessary doorway between this present and our past and I’ll move through.

And while our boy winds down and whips up I’ll return to my own multiplayer universe where all the faces are frozen in time, where I pause and rewind and play again because I can, because it’s a game I love so much. Away from the hubbub downstairs, back in the spring sunshine with confetti in my hair.

16th

And now Sunday is around me as I finish favours and take place cards to the hotel in my mind. In every re-run I’m one rose short, so I rushed to haberdashery shop, bought a single silk flower and stuck it in position while relatives nattered, before I was driven home. I rustled the bagged dress up the stairs, felt the nerves surround me and watched the clock.

And back here in the now, the bunny ears have arrived for our son. He’s agreed to tell his mates the gaming is off and instead an egg hunt has been arranged! I’m so tempted to come back downstairs tomorrow and ask the hoards, using my best playgroup voice,

‘Would anyone like a jelly ?’

And we laugh, he knows I won’t, of course. I’ll be away amongst the daffodils with the Cathedral to my side and I will smile.

The afternoon is ticking, my lilies are opening up and in the pungent air of our teen prepared lounge I pause, I watch the blackbird bathe – tomorrow is approaching.

17th

Our son’s asleep and all around me in the opening of petals are the moments, fast forward and rewound, and paused and played again. The sepia pixels finding colour as I check the clock and watch myself in the corner of our little lounge, with women attending and flowers arriving and the air rich with perfume and nerves.

I need to put the sausage rolls on, in the present, our son needs to do his last minute checks and the home is still. All I can hear is the throbbing of the fridge and cars brushing away outside while in my mind the layers build, the fragments flutter round me and I am younger, I am preparing and I am there.

And the tarmac fell away to fields, distant crops and clouds, and closing in as the birds sang out, to the gate and the rush of last minute friends. Downstairs now, the food and drink are piled high, devices are charged as I swish up the path, past old stones and ancient trees to the welcome faces at wooden doors.

And our son waits for the cars full of mates while you wait in the hush as I walk in. Our son’s party starts soon. The lilies open wide their faces to the clouds. Heavy pollen drenched, like memory.

In hope, in certainty.

xxx

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Categories cycles, Loss, parenting