Unbound

In response to

This Is Not A Rescue by Emily Blewitt

I want to tell you it will not be as you expect. For years

you have hammered in stakes, handed men the rope and said

consume me with fire. Most have run – one does not burn

a witch lightly. This one is water. He’ll unbind you, take

your hands in his and say remember how you love the ocean?

Come with me. You’ll go to the beach on a cloudy day, watch

foam rise from the sea’s churn until sun appears. In turn

you’ll say let’s go in and even though he hesitates, this man

will kick off his shoes and wade to his shins. Jellyfish,

shot with pink like satin dresses, will dance between you, flash

iridescent. His body is all whorls and planes like smoothly sanded

planks used to make a boat, his ears are pale shells you hear

the waves in, he smells of sandalwood and salt, his eyes

are ocean. He’ll spot the pebbles that in secret you have sewn

into your skirts and give you his penknife to unpick them.

You can’t swim with those. He’ll teach you to skim. The pebbles

break the surface like question marks. You’ll throw each last one in.

“Unchain my heart – set me free,” the song goes.

Instead of writing about “unbound,” I want to write a true story about my son, the difficult one in the previous piece, from whom I cannot be unbound.

When my sons were 11 and 13, we went to Majorca and stayed at a noisy hotel full of brash people for whom a holiday seemed to mean drinking as much alcohol as possible. However, it was situated by the most beautiful cove.

One day my elder son (rather typically) found a rich family on whose yacht he was invited to spend the afternoon. I was left with the difficult one, who only wanted to swim in the pool. He had developed a phobia about the sea and boats following a disastrous boat trip in Brittany at the age of eight.

I persuaded him to swim with me in the warm, shallow, clear turquoise sea. Almost immediately, he started to scream and cry – he had been stung on the shoulder-blade by a jellyfish.

He was completely hysterical (it was of course all my fault even then) and I took him to our room and applied cream. We then went down and asked the receptionist if there was anything else to be done, but there was not.

We returned to the room. Eventually the hysterical crying lessened. “Shall we go to the shop up the road and get something nice?” I asked, thinking of an ice cream or a packet of crisps.

“Yes,” he said. “I think I’ll have a mynah bird.”

I was unbound, by your hands, by your mind, by your willingness to accept me. You unbound me, unpicked me, scratching away, crumb by crumb, layer by layer you unravelled me with love and care. You never said come with me, but I had to follow you, because you walked a different path, a path I had never walked on, a journey I wasn't unable to undertake – until I did it with you.There were others before you, of course; too many, too much, ugly souls I looked for myself, because ugliness was what I felt I deserved. They say we end up looking for the same relationships our parents show us as we grow up, and I looked for men who didn't need me, who found me insignificant, selfish men who used me, who thought the way I looked was more important than the way I felt. But you... You loved my scars and you loved my hurt and you loved me naked, the way I was, without pretence. You liked my shabby clothes and my heavy spectacles, my tears and my trembling hands. You held me and helped me grow into the person I needed to be, not for you, but for myself.You unbound me and I accepted myself, accepted the past, growing up inevitably, without even knowing.All I needed was your arms around me, my arms around you, an indestructible unit I could trust.There are no question marks left.I trust you with my life.I trust you with my heart.

The feet of Japanese women are bound at birth to keep them dainty, feminine. When their bones stop growing the feet are unbound. They totter about on their tiny feet encased in embroidered shoes. I wonder how they feel when they first discover their little feet without the bandages, deformed. Are they so persuaded by their culture that this is desirable? They wear beautiful kimonos in bright colours, a big sash and ribbon bow at their waist, black hair adorned with flowers in whorls around their ears, perfect heavy make-up. Their job is to entertain and please, spending most of their lives on their knees, shuffling, subservient. Are they happy? Or is it me who is bound by my judgement?

We’re all in need of being unbound, unfettered, from our past and present commitments. But, it is difficult, even impossible, to escape our ties to parents, siblings, real friends and loved ones to whom we have committed ourselves. Yet the thought of finding personal freedom intrudes into our settled state, or, as Ron Carey, put it in his poem, 'The Murderer’s Dog', into our ‘flower filled prison'. Having separate holidays do it for some partnerships. For others, the more permanent unbinding is divorce. In a glider, silently high above the ground, there is a transient sense of being unbound, until it is realised that one must return to earth!

Unbound. Free floating. Released from savagery. Riding high on the crest of a wave, that will eventually, somewhere, in the distance, come crashing down, touch ground, before pulling, snatching at all it can grab as it recedes. Hands clutching, grasping. Greedy tides. Seaweed hair, straggling, concealing, the face, the snarl, the true self. My snarl. My true self. Light and dark. The surface and depth. Light glimmering on ocean expanse. Dark, depths, unknown. Unknown. So often feared. Yet on Saturday I swam out to the buoy. We walked a long way out first; after the first two steps it was soft sand all the way. No creviced rocks, no nipping claws, no undiscovered sea monsters in sight. Just soft sand, soft waves, soft winds and the ease of gentle company, gentle strokes, gentle ambition realised with ease. I have little idea what I am talking about and maybe that is okay. Yes it is okay. Struggling for knowledge has not often helped me. Let it come, let it go. Easy rhythm. There are days of storm, of crashing, dragging, snatching, trashing. And there are now days of ease, when the wind has lain down flat across the sea to rest, to float, to be carried. Allow myself to be carried. To sway, to and fro, a little here, a little there. Does it matter where I am going? Do I need to nail my colours to the mast, stake out my route? Just a single buoy, floating. A bobbling blob of colour, envying the sun it’s burn, fizzle, energy, untethered – is the perception, not the reality. We are all tethered. Gravity holds us in place even as we roam. No tail spinning free falling out of alignment. There is an order, there is an ultimate holding; a line to toe? Toe, towing. My toes. Lines. Rope, tow-rope. Feet caught up in rope, tethered, like a lamb for slaughter. Slitting the neck, my neck, the blood flows and pools. A sticky pool. I touch my fingers to it. It holds fast, leaves a mark. Mark of Cain, of Abel. Cain and Abel – organic food delivery box service? Not very biblical! Not like the mass exodus at Churchill Square, the swarms descending on the shops. The boarded up sections, repairs under way. People busy at work. People busy with money, spending, consuming, eeking out an existence.