Beloved

(in response to Different Heights, a poem by Stephen Dunn)

Is that the title of a Toni Morrison novel? I think so. I think I read it when travelling in America. My friend Yvette asked me what I thought of it – actually, no she didn’t, she asked me if I l loved it and was so surprised when I said no. I felt I’d committed some kind of sin, transgressed some social expectation of affirmative experience. I can’t remember much about the book, other than a sense of pain, of rawness. I might read it differently now, with more resilience. I wonder if what I am saying is accurate. Is that the name of the book? Beloved. I don’t always feel my memory is reliable now. Once I had a fantastic memory for facts and details. People often remarked on it. But now I know that not to be the case, and it has taken away some of my surefootedness in the world. I become hesitant, clumsy even, as I start a sentence, then falter with self-doubt as to the truth of what I am saying. I don’t know if my memory has declined or my self-doubt grown to undermining proportions. Anyway, will I remember what is key to me? Memory is a creative act. Memory – long-term memory is one of the last parts of the brain to shut down when we are dying. We are taken backwards to earlier times. I thought this was because these were the most cherished times, the most beloved memories. Now I’m not so sure. They linger longest in the memory on a physical level. Does longevity make something more beloved? The memories I most savour are time worn. I don’t know if they will last – why would I say that? I don’t know if they are true, if I have remade them. How many revisions can they go through and still retain some truth or were they all entirely fiction in the first place? What has the reliability or not of memory have to do with beloved? Will I remember the gentle narrowing of your chin, your wide deep eyes, the soft bow of your lips, the feel of your flesh? Will you fade with the years both in reality and in my memory?

My beloved. My darling.

My nourishment. My medicine.

My will. My stubbornness.

My future. My present.

My support. My walking stick.

My friend. My music.

My sunshine. My harbour.

My torch. My warm coat.

My beloved.

All the things you mean to me.

Without shrinking you to a

handful of metaphors.

My beautiful creations. My beloved companion.

My husband. My children.

I cannot translate into words

what my heart feels,

but I hope you hear its song.

I hope you are certain, my love, through my calls and my texts and the food I prepare and the sheets I change, and the stories I read and the walks I force you to undertake. I hope you are certain, through the words I speak, through the advise I try to give, the tales (my tales!) I recount to show you you are not alone. We all fall, we all fail, we all crash and stand up and try again. This is what makes us human. Stubborn, angry, tender, reaching-out humans. People. Beloved parents, wives, daughters, in this messy space we call life. Trying to find order. A box for every feeling neatly arranged on those shelves or scattered, displaced, so that it's no longer clear which is the right thing to feel, which tool should be used for the task. I'm going off topic again. Down the basement when I should be sitting at the table writing about BELOVED.... Oops! Too late.

You exist, and you are your own perfect.

Perfectly you. Perfectly flawed.

You swim in my thoughts, playful and dangerous.

Whilst others swim through, like passing ships.

Opening my eyes, I see a world I'd like to live in.

Drawn in, my identity intact.

Shall we live here?