Lamb
Memory and artefacts
The oven ticks as it cools.
Rosemary, mainly.
Something else underneath that he used to be able to name.
Murano glassware on the shelf.
She’d picked them out.
She liked having Italian things in the house.
She said it was the only way to live.
Children’s feet in the next room.
In and out of time with the music.
Maybe dancing.
Maybe playing.
In motion
With no desire to stop.
He’s bent over the worktop.
Pawing at a piece of paper
that’s been folded and unfolded
so many times
the folds have started to tear open.
Small star-like holes
where there were once words.
The envelope sits worn,
limp against the copper inlay.
It smells like a wallet.
Years of being handled and carried.
He reads it one more time.
“Hey,
Look, I haven’t written in a long time but there’s a lot to say and it’s become very clear that we didn’t have enough time together to say everything we needed to…”
“I know everything we did, everything we tried, it was for the best. And if you’re reading this, I guess it didn’t work out, and if I know you as well as I think I do, you’re blaming yourself, well that’s just selfish. Because this is nothing to do with you or how you think you could’ve done better. It’s about me :)”
His fingers pick at the handscrawled smiley face like old scar tissue from childhood.
“Most importantly, before we start.
Do you miss me?”
“Bit mean, I know. But I had to make sure. I wonder where you are, you know where I am and that seems a little unfair. Is it sunny? I know you can’t reply, and I’m actually not sure if that’s a good question for a letter. Or maybe it is, at least your answer will change every time! But I hope it’s always yes!”
She’d underlined sunny twice.
He used to read that as playful.
Now he understands that maybe she just wanted to be back in the light.
“Are you eating well? Don’t lie… you better be cooking instead of ordering in food. You know home cooked food is better for you.”
The oven clicks behind him.
“Remember if you’re stuck, you can always go to Piccolinos, they love us there and it’s better food than anything from those apps”
Piccolinos.
He’d gone back once.
About a year after.
Same table by the window.
Same menu.
The waiter had started to say something
and then stopped himself.
The kindness of that.
A swallowed question.
It was worse than if he’d said it.
He paid for the water and left.
One of the children calls out.
He lifts his head.
Waits -
The shouting turns to laughter.
He goes back to the page.
“Isn’t it weird, that I’m writing this. In all those years I never wrote you a letter, I guess you should’ve written me more. Now here I am, trying to fit in everything I want to say to you, and all I can remember to say is that you should be cooking.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not. I don’t know.”
His fingers always remember the texture here
Where the pen had pressed harder.
He feels the indent
through the back of the page.
The ink is different after.
Bluer.
Thinner.
As if she’d put it down
and come back later.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is I love you. And I hope when you’re reading this, you still love me too.”
The first time he read that line
it broke him open.
at some point,
it stopped doing that.
The light has moved since he sat down.
The drapes lift.
Spring air over the smell of what he’s made.
He holds the letter up.
The small stars
where the folds have worn through
let the afternoon in.
He no longer remembers which words
used to live in the gaps.
The dull crunch of tyres
curving through gravel
cuts through the music
and the pitter-patter.
He folds it one more time.
Pushes it back into its envelope.
One final fold across.
Back into his pocket.
The children run into the kitchen.
“Mommy’s here!“
Heading into a research block focussed on memory.
I feel like it’s always a good thing to explore.
Art has always played with perception, subjectivity and emotion.
Its utility often being that it can alter those things, maybe its effect on how we remember our past is where its magic lies.
Got some work to do beforehand
Busy week
more to come
Love you loads
R