jmgoyder

I am laughing and chatting and listening to music and watching the birds and giving Ming a hug and cooking dinner and turning the television on and washing the dishes and changing the sheets and blogging and reading a good book and checking facebook and deciding whether to give the emus half a cabbage or a whole one and half-noticing the sunset and hoping the phone won’t ring and hoping the phone will ring and making a shopping list and trying to find my diary and paying bills and answering emails and making a to-do list and feeling glad about some things and sad about other things and thinking about pruning the roses and baking bread with the flour I bought a few months ago that probably has weevils in it and wondering whether to have a coffee or a tea or a diet coke or a beer and feeling hungry and feeling sick and wanting to go to bed and wanting to wake up and cleaning out my office and organizing my paperwork and resigning from my job and loving my friends and loving my family and loving the dogs and wishing I had continued to write columns for magazines and wishing I had written more than one book by now and and hating getting older and loving getting older and wondering what it would be like if we had more than one kid and remembering how I nearly got frostbite in Canada and wishing I had rung Tulia in PNG before he forgot about me and wishing I remembered everybody’s birthdays and wishing we had more money and laughing and chatting and helping Ming with lyrics and loving grammar and being amazed that he has the fireplace lit and feeling glad that it isn’t going to be as cold tonight as it was last night and wishing the day were night and the night were day and dreaming about eating fairy floss and Disneyland and sunburned shoulders and feeding the squirrels and wanting to find the keys to wind all of Anthony’s clocks and opening my mouth to say something to Ming but he is busy and wondering how my niece’s preparations for her wedding are going in Scotland and thinking it might not work to take Jack the Irish terrier into the nursing lodge and wishing the kitchen staff would bend the rules and give me scraps for the chooks and delighting in the anticipation of fresh eggs and thinking how lucky I am to live in such a beautiful place and wondering why good people suffer and reminding Ming to set the alarm so he will get up to help milk the cows for the neighbours and finding the library book I lost several months ago and laughing because I forgot to remember to do whatever it was and then ….

…. it hits me like a car crash – the grinding metal of grief and I stop breathing, terrified that there might be another slamming of brakes, swerving of lights, skidding of tyres but, instead, there is silence, so I creep into the bathroom and lock the door and put the noisy fan on so that I can muffle into my collar the horrible sounds coming from throat so that Ming won’t hear me or worry about me or get impatient with me or wonder where his dinner is and, eventually ….

….I come out of the bathroom and into the light-filled, Aga-warmed kitchen and continue to stir the stew I have made with fresh vegetables and meat and Ming comes into the kitchen excited about his new lyrics and a new tune and wants me to listen and, once again, I am laughing and talking and listening to music, knowing that by now Anthony will be asleep.