The Point of Poetry

Expressing the Inexpressible

The poet, W. B. Yeats believed that time worked in a spiral. An apocalypse happened when the spiral widened itself out of existence:

‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;’

(The Second Coming)

This collapse spawns a new spiral. The debris of the old allows for new life to spring up, like a baby fern coiling out of a green, tightness, fed by the decay of the forest floor.

I like this idea very much. It bears out much of my experience on a micro level, of lives lived within a single span. An obvious example is the comparison between my knackered, 51 year-old self and the bendy teenager I once was.

Having said that, I think it’s more fractal than that, because it’s certainly quite psychedelic to experience.

It’s not like my teenage self has entirely gone and someone new has sprung up in her place. It’s more like carrying a skinful of ghosts. My body is a haunted house of lives lived, opportunities taken and abandoned, things done and undone, memories and regrets, roles I played, responsibilities I picked up and put down. People I thought I had to be, people I was when there was a need that now no longer exists and people I want to be that I’m still travelling towards. No wonder it’s noisy in here.

It’s also a good argument for why my skin is considerably less elastic these days. I find it much harder to snap back, but then I’m carrying much, much more.

It’s all (mostly) good when there is a dominant me in the driving seat. What I find difficult is when that self is in the throes of being deposed, or when I have to call up one of my ghosts to take control for a while. Worse is when more than one of me is required to navigate. I can barely tell left from right as it is.

I’m musing on this after a relentless few days of parenting a teenager who is heading towards technical manhood. I say technical because my weary self knows that what feels like adulting at that age is largely still mucking about with poster paints in Early Years. Yes, you’ve remembered to put an apron on, which is very grown up of you, but you have still managed to trail paint through the entire house and not clean it up of your own accord.

It has been very painty, recently - and the clear up was delegated to me (us, to be fair, but this is my newsletter).

To say that this has caused a restlessness of ghosts would be an understatement. In my case:-

There is the parent I want to be - loving and calm, no nonsense but clement where it’s judicious.

There is the parent I don’t want to be - on the front page of the Daily Mail looking tragic but clueless.

There is the person who wishes I hadn’t bothered to go into the parenting line and had just embraced life with an Instagrammable cat and an inordinate amount of free time/income.

There is the teenage me, who is clamouring away at the back knowing exactly how shitty being a teenager is for so many reasons, bartering for leniency. You are almost an adult but not enough to count, you are excited by life but have few means to experience it. You want to move out, but you have no money and no idea how to wash your own pants. Your hormones are holding you hostage and you are adamant that nobody in the entire history of ever knows what it is like to be you and/or the ways of your pain. It is, in almost every way, shitty.

There is the me that is absolutely raging that this bullshit is still even a thing and that after umpteen years at the coalface of parenting, I am obliged to put my big girl pants on, swallow the need to burn everything down and find patience from a sorely depleted stash.

There is the heartbroken me that is going through a lot of; ‘I love you but I don’t particularly like you right now,’ feelings and wishing I was a better person and feeling more heartbroken that I am not.

There is the terrified me that is haunted by past events and the feeling that if I fuck this up it could lead to bad things, which will lead to worse things and eventually the worst thing and that it will be my fault, because I knew better but didn’t do better.

There is the me that sees the pain behind the acting out and wants to fix it, but knows that is not possible, because the bitterest lesson learned is that we can only fix ourselves and hold the space for others. That’s the me that sits on their hands a lot and grinds her teeth into stumps in her sleep.

There’s the me that CBA for this and wants to fuck it all off and go back to bed, because it’s all so weary making, but knows that that’s the quickest way to the front page of the Daily Mail. This me is very resentful, because it leads to the next me.

There’s the me that is up for a medal and probably a posting to some troubled foreign office as an ace diplomat who, like Mo Mowlam, unites war torn countries in a firm but fair way and takes no nonsense, but does it with love in her heart, forgiveness on her lips and maintains a sense of humour throughout. This is also the me that has terrible migraines and hides in the toilet to do silent screaming.

That doesn’t even cover the me that has to clean the toilet, remember to take the cat to the vet, check my work rota, look out for my other children, spend time with my friends, love my husband and move house. Those are still in play.

It is no wonder that when dealing with the consequences of this painty few days, I have, from time to time, looked pensive and stared off into the distance. It’s not because I am wise and thoughtful. I am not doing it for dramatic effect. I’m doing it because it’s so bloody noisy in here I can’t hear myself think. I’m wondering how long the centre will hold.