Grey space

I’m in a dead zone at the moment. A grey space. It is not lethargy or despair, but an undefined realm of confusion and dismay. No misery, just bleakness.

Reasons for joy fill me with guilt; sources of expectation are a cause for anxiety. I should be carefree - instead I am riddled with fear and doubt.  Having no one to discuss it with, or in front of whom I could lay things out and seek their opinion, I have no idea if this is a rational response to my situation - a clarion warning, some part of me frantically gesturing to get back towards a sensible path, or a sign that I’m already beyond the bounds of sanity.

I would say to others, all these small things needn’t cause too much concern. Dirt, mess, dodgy finances, poor diet, lack of sleep - they can be dealt with: break them down, do a bit, don’t feel too bad, accept your fallibility. But for myself, I cannot. I didn’t mow the lawn today, and it chills me. A quickening of the heartrate, a mild nausea. The same for everything else. I can just about keep on top of the simplest, most essential chores - washing myself occasionally, and my clothes, cooking and loading the dishwasher. Just getting out of bed, making some coffee, not spiralling off into the wilderness - this is what I can do. But I can see the other things, that I did before, and they seem as far away as a dream. The yellowing leaves beyond the window may as well be a fiction - I cannot touch them. I can’t go outside and walk under them, I can’t get a train, I can’t visit the places I remember. I see other lives, and although people are often quick to remind me that what you see is not what you get, it is clear that they are managing better.

Perhaps it’s just that those like me are largely silent. The darkest times are the hardest to share. Or maybe it really is as bad as it feels, and I am already dead in all the ways that matter. The worst kind of afterlife, seeing the world but unable to touch it.

And still the days pass, ever more quickly. And time I could have enjoyed I have merely endured.

June

[I wrote this in late June 2012, saved and forgot it, but I thought it was worth sharing even now, nearly four years later].

Gardening ties you to the year, of course. You must sow your beans now, or it will be too late for an autumn harvest. You shouldn't have sown your oriental leaves until this week, or they will run to seed prematurely. The raspberries are ripe - out in the garden - right now, go and pick them or they'll be gone for another year. They needed those months of winter dormancy, cold and darkness, to rest and gather their strength; that frantic burst of growth in the spring, coming into leaf; the weeks of flowering, and the clouds of bees to pollinate them and set the fruit. Too much or too little cold, or rain, late frosts, or drought, and they are lost. The ebb of sunshine up to June, and the imperceptible falling away again even as the summer builds in temperature and fecundity - all of this is witnessed in the garden, first hand, intimately.

Birds are another link to this, the passing of the year. Go down to the beach in February, and the whole world seems grey. The sky is grey, the sea is grey, the wet sand reflecting nothing but grey. On a calm day, the lapping waves are the face of an invisible mass - there's no horizon, and the seascape could be a stage set, a veneer - or it could stretch on forever, the only reality. The birds down there then are noisy, various, ever-moving. The year-round gulls and oystercatchers are joined by tiny sanderlings, invisible until you realise they are there - smaller than blackbirds, never still, scuttling over the sand; there are redshanks and godwits, turnstones on the rocks, and at dusk great clouds of starlings, sweeping in to roost under the piers. But in June, you'll find the beach open, and empty, just a few white gulls and whistling bands of oystercatchers remain. At dawn all is lilac, then it divides into golden brown and blue above. The same lapping waves transport the mind to tropical shores, the world seems immediate and interconnected, no longer ghostly and disembodied. Terns on the wing bring a touch of glamour - not the cosy, round birds of winter, but sleek and pointed. The year has turned, and that same place - the beach - is another. Two worlds sharing one space, separated by time.

--

Night at this time of year doesn't bother me, because it's so short - literally a shadow passing over. As on a day with blue skies, and just a few small clouds - when one passes in front of the sun, it's suddenly cold, and dull, but you look up and see it will soon pass, and it doesn't trouble you. You know the sun will return so soon. That's how it is with summer nights - just as your mind settles into the darkness, it melts away. You can luxuriate in light - there's so much of it. Hours of light have passed when most people are getting up, and there are many more in which to do what you need to, to be out in the world.